Slocum 428 by Jake Logan

Author:Jake Logan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

15

Well into his day limbing freshly felled giant pine trees, Slocum had shucked his heavy wool coat and was considering doing the same for his heavy button-down shirt, when a shout stayed his axe’s rising swing.

“Ho there! Slocum!” Ned shouted from a standing position on a sledge pulled by two stout black horses he remembered from the stable back at camp.

Slocum paused, grateful for the rest. “What can I do for you, Ned?”

The man pulled his pipe from its customary spot clamped between his lips. “I tell you, Slocum. Me and the boys are getting mighty jittery.”

“About what?”

“Balzac and Titus just came back to camp.”

“Who are they?”

“If you met ’em, you’d never forget ’em. They’re Jigger’s pride and joy, his team of Belgians. We have other teams, but he babies those two something fierce. And we heard tell there’s a storm coming. Fixing to be a real whopper. Make that one we had just before you got here to look like kitten’s work.”

“Has anybody set out to find Jigger?” said Slocum. “Might be he’s holed up wounded alongside the road somewhere between here and town.”

“Yeah, yeah, I sent out Donny and Bert, but they came up short—empty-handed, so to speak.”

Slocum slammed his axe head into place. The blatant worry on Ned’s otherwise mellow face was undeniable. “I imagine you need someone with trail experience who can take a look-see, find out where in the heck ol’ Jigger might be.”

“That’s the long and short of it, yep. We need someone who can find his way in and out of these woods on snowshoe. If the storm shapes up to be half as bad as ol’ Fincherson’s game leg is telling him—and it’s never wrong—this one’s going to be a doozy. If Jigger’s hurt and stoved-up somewhere along the trail, we need to get to him before it hits.”

“I’ll gladly do all I can to help find Jigger, but Ned, if you need someone with snowshoe experience and who knows these woods, why are you sending me out? I’m the newest one here. And I have more saddle experience than snowshoe time.”

The man let out a snort of laughter. “Don’t let it bother you. You’ll be helping me. We’re going out together. Frenchy will be in charge of the boys. I’ve sent half of them back to camp to lay in more firewood, sent a few boys out to scare up some meat, and Frenchy’s cooking up a storm. Those skoocooms all but cleaned us out of food stores. And now that Jigger’s team come back only half-filled, as if someone had cherry-picked through it—we need all the food we can get.”

“Especially if there’s a storm coming.”

“Yep.”

Slocum was only too glad to get a respite from his work. He enjoyed the steady, mindless labor of lopping off branches, big and small, but after a few hours, it truly was numbing. His arms ached and he suspected, despite the full days the men seemed to be putting in, that he was working twice as hard as everyone else.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.