My Near-Death Adventures (99% True!) Read online

  “What will it take to get through your thick skull?” Granny mutters as she lets go of my ear, and I untwist myself to standing.

  Geri leans against her broom, puzzling over my feet. “What on earth are you sporting on those clodhoppers of yours?”

  I squinch my eyes at her. Like she doesn’t know. “Well.” I chew over whether to call her bluff, and then decide not to give her the satisfaction. “If you must know, all but one of my socks is missing, so I’m using someone else’s sock until mine turn up.” I glare at her. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

  “Why would I?” Geri scoffs. “You look ridiculous. You’ve got your pants tucked into one nice red sock, and the other leg is jammed into one of Granny’s stockings. And why didn’t you borrow one of the shanty boys’ socks if you couldn’t find yours? Or Daddy’s?”

  Credit 20.2

  “Granny didn’t think it was a good idea when they only have a couple pairs and need them for work. Plus, have you smelled those socks?” I wave my hand in front of my nose for emphasis. I feel a little self-conscious, because Granny’s stocking is very obviously an old lady’s stocking—it’s long and black and thin as hosiery, and with my pants tucked in, it looks doubly ridiculous. And very unmanly.

  “Do you think anyone else will notice?” I ask Geri.

  “Oh, not at all.” She laughs sarcastically. I give her a smirk in return and vamoose out of the cook shanty to dump the ashes and get away from these women.

  As soon as I open the door, the entire mood changes. The thumping sounds coming from the bunkhouse lure me in like I’m a cat chasing a feather. I’m pulled toward the rickety shack, which seems to be jumping up and down with the sound of harmonica music, but just as I reach the door, it swings open and I’m face to face with Cager. He startles when he sees me, and he raises an eyebrow when he notices Granny’s stocking. But then he winks, places a finger to his lips, and holds the door open for me.

  Smells drift out so strongly they could be solid. I fight through them to slide against the wall closest to the exit with the hope that no one sees me. As much as it hurts, I have to take a breath, and as soon as I do, I realize breathing is highly overrated. This place smells like a cow died in here after eating some of Mrs. Cavanaugh’s vinegar pie and kissing a wet skunk.

  Once my eyes adjust to the smoky haze coming off the fire, the sizzle of Ole Oleson’s chewing tobacco landing on the stove, and the unsteady shiver of the kerosene lamps hanging from the rafters, I almost forget the smell. George Frankovich sits on the seat that runs along the wall, darning his red socks while four men play cards in the corner.

  Credit 20.3

  One of the sawyers, Quill Mercer, whistles while he sharpens his ax on the grindstone. He nods when he sees me. Last night after dinner he told me all about his wife and little boy and the farm he hopes to get going in the spring, now that cleared land is so cheap. “I’ll be home soon,” he said, carving a notch in the wall outside the cook shanty. Lots of notches fill that wall.

  Credit 20.4

  “That’s how many days we’ve been here,” Quill told me. “Sometimes I don’t know if it’s better to keep count or better to forget.”

  “Do you want to go home?” I asked. “Do you miss them?”

  Quill scratched the top of his head with the tip of his knife and then started whittling a twig. “I never wanted to leave,” he said.

  “Then why did you?” I asked.

  “Because”—he looked up at me, the moonlight and his breath sending shivers in the air between us—“real men provide for their families.” He paused. “But they always return.”

  I think that when I have a family, I’ll never leave them. That way there’s no chance I might not return.

  Quill handed me a bird he whittled out of the twig and told me he once had a baby girl he always called Birdie. Then he spit on the ground, tugged on his beard, rested his hand on my head for a brief moment, and headed to the bunkhouse.

  I feel the bird in my pocket as I watch flecks of light bounce off the fresh metal. Quill spins the grindstone and I’m hypnotized, watching it go round and round to the beat of Mac MacDonald’s harmonica and the stomping of feet.

  Credit 20.5

  Stinky Pete grabs Pepper Steffel and hurls him around in a weird sort of jig. I can’t help tapping my feet a little, the tune is so catchy. Larch Dougall lies in bed, covered with blankets, his toque still on his head. He’s reading his Bible and murmuring to himself. Lester Finch lies next to him. He looks like he’s trying to sleep, but good luck with that. I say a little prayer of thanks, since it’s Sunday and all, that I don’t have to share my bunk with anyone, let alone Lester Finch. He is known to be a little gassy. Plus, I’m pretty sure he is fake sleeping.

  “Ain’t that the truth!” Stinky Pete hollers over the din. “Not nobody going to sleep with this racket going on!” Then he grabs my elbow and swings me, and suddenly I’m in the middle of a circle of tangy-smelling men, all of them hooting and hollering to beat the band.

  This is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.

  I am a whiz at the dancing, I don’t mind saying, but I’m pretty much dead when Slim Heil starts tuning his fiddle, so I plop on the nearest bunk to listen. Someone drags Truman Sharpe to his feet and makes him sing the “Lumberjack’s Alphabet,” which is so much better than the alphabet I learned in school.

  A is for ax, which we swing to and fro.

  B is for boys that handle them so.

  C is for cant hooks, the logs we make spin.

  D is for danger that we’re always in.

  Then Slim slows the tempo right down. All the shanty boys start singing, quiet at first, a sad song about death and river drives.

  They had not rolled off many logs when the boss to them did say,

  “I’d have you be on your guard, brave boys. That jam will soon give way.”

  But scarce the warning had he spoke when the jam did break and go,

  And it carried away these six brave youths and their foreman, young Monroe.

  When the rest of the shanty boys these sad tidings came to hear,

  To search for their dead comrades to the river they did steer.

  One of these a headless body found, to their sad grief and woe,

  Lay cut and mangled on the beach the head of young Monroe.

  I might have drifted off for a moment, thinking about the river drive and poor Monroe’s head. The river drive must be on everyone’s mind now that the sun is up earlier in the morning and the roof occasionally lands a drip of melted snow on your tongue or, if your aim is bad, smack-dab in your eye. And even though the song is sad, I can tell the shanty boys who will be staying for the river drive are champing at the bit to prove their skills and take charge of the river.

  I have a hazy dream of being on top of a twirling, birling log in the middle of the water, twisting and jumping, and Lydia Mae with her bouncy curls cheering from the shore. But I soon realize it’s actually a nightmare. Granny stands in front of me, one hand on her hip, the other sticking a finger in Stinky Pete’s face, and the twirling I feel is Granny pulling me off the bunk. Her words glide through my foggy head until I can make sense of them. The room was so noisy before, but now it’s like the funeral parlor after Great-Aunt Sophie died. Except quieter.

  Granny grabs me by the ear and marches me through the door like I’m a horse being led to the glue factory. I glance back at fifty sorry-looking lumberjacks appearing as ashamed as I felt when I “borrowed” Mrs. Cavanaugh’s pink underdrawers from the clothesline last summer and gave them to Conrad McAllister to wear on his head.

  “What on earth were you thinking?” Granny jerks me out of my daydream. “There’s not enough hot water in the world to clean the cooties off you now. Are you aware what filth lies in that den of iniquity? I wouldn’t be surprised if your very soul needs the blessing of three priests and a Baptist preacher.” Her blathering goes on until I find myself in a vat of hot water up
to my neck, covering my privates with a towel.

  Credit 20.6

  “Hold still!” Geri commands as she works kerosene all over my scalp “just in case.” Granny is boiling my clothes on the stove. Also just in case.

  I would like my mama. Just in case.

  “She has dinner to take care of and much on her mind,” Granny says.

  Geri yaps on about the history of lice. How they might cause diseases. “It’s possible you now have typhus. I would keep an eye out for a rash and fever, maybe a cough.”

  “Oh, come on!” I can’t help exclaiming. I am certainly not falling for this a third time.

  Geri stops scrubbing. “Seriously, Stan. That bunkhouse is a breeding ground for germs. I’m not kidding.”

  I look at Granny to save me, but she just shakes her head and shrugs, and Geri starts in on my scalp again.

  Suddenly I feel itchy.

  “It’s not entirely impossible you won’t up and die.”

  Geri is so much fun.

  I don’t think I’ll be spending any more time in the bunkhouse, but it sure was nice while it lasted.

  My head spins, and not from the smell of the kerosene. When we passed through the kitchen, I noticed crotchety Mr. Crutchley talking to Mama. Why is that man still here making Mama look as if she’s spent the afternoon at a picnic, causing her to laugh like a schoolgirl, and leaving me alone with Granny and Geri?

  Now Geri’s talking cooties again. I hope against hope none show up in my bed, since Granny left the bedbug poison back in town, and I don’t want her to clean our bunk with salt pork grease like she did when we first got here.

  I do love bacon. I just don’t want to sleep in it.

  I dunk my head and stay underwater because it’s the only place that’s quiet.

  Geri pulls me up by my hair and inspects me while I work at keeping all my unmentionable parts covered. “I’m pretty sure you have effluvia.”

  Credit 20.7

  I know my little trip to the bunkhouse has cheated death, so I catch my breath, tilt my head, and look her straight in the eyes. “What is that? And how long do I have to live?”

  Geri forces my head down toward the water so she can scrub the back of my neck.

  “I honestly don’t know. I just like saying that word. Effluvia. Effluvia.”

  She has a point.

  Effluvia.

  Credit 20.8

  After a couple months in a logging camp, things fall into a routine. I get up before the sun and chop some firewood with my baby-sized hatchet, fire up the stove, and help with serving breakfast to all the shanty boys. Then I eat all the rest of the bacon, some flapjacks, and a doughnut before Granny scolds me for being a bottomless pit. Then I try to hide where Granny can’t find me.

  Right now Geri and I are in the van with Uncle Henry, playing dominoes away from Granny and her evil mathematical ways.

  I’m winning. Maybe not technically, but I have a strategy.

  I am a whiz at the games, I don’t mind saying.

  “Chickie five.”

  “What? Again?” Of course I have no fives. “Pass.”

  And that’s when I see Mr. Archibald Crutchley coming in, carrying a crate in front of him like he doesn’t want to get his overcoat dirty. He’s been at camp so often in the last few weeks, it’s like he works here.

  “He does work here, Stan,” Geri remarks. “He works for Mr. Weston overseeing all of his camps. How can you not know this?”

  “Here’s the tobacco you needed, Henry. And something else—maybe it’s medicine?” Mr. Crutchley hands the crate to Uncle Henry, dusts imaginary dirt from his coat, and smooths his mustache.

  Credit 21.1

  “Yep. The boys have been going through both. Don’t get paid if they miss any work.”

  Mr. Crutchley shakes his fancy city coat and sweeps his hat from his head like he’s going to stay awhile.

  “Well, hello, kids.” He smiles at us and pops a peppermint into his mouth, offering one to each of us.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Uncle Henry says.

  “Thank you, Mr. Crutchley,” Geri says sweetly, drawing a smile from the man. Obviously he’s easily fooled.

  “Stan?”

  I grab one but glare at him and don’t say thanks.

  “What is your problem?” Geri hisses at me.

  “I know things, missy,” I hiss back at her.

  Uncle Henry and Mr. Crutchley lean over the ledger, nodding and scratching their heads and pointing at the little scribbles marking the pages. Their backs are to us and they may have forgotten we’re even here.

  “Chickie threes,” Geri says. “I win.” Winner always has to put the game away, which sometimes makes it better to lose.

  “It’s never better to lose,” Geri reminds me.

  Credit 21.2

  Before I can come up with a smart response, I hear my mama’s name being tossed around like a hoop with a stick.

  “So, you think Alice is ready?” Mr. Crutchley stares intently at Uncle Henry.

  “Well, when they first arrived a couple months ago, I would have said no, but now I think there’s a good possibility she might be open to the idea.”

  “So you think there’s a chance?” Mr. Crutchley’s cheeks are pink, which isn’t very manly.

  I lean toward them, straining to hear what they’re saying.

  “Well, it’s nice if Alice is sweet on you, but Cora’s the one you have to worry about. If she likes you, you’re set. If she doesn’t, well, you’re out of luck. She chose Alice’s first husband.” Uncle Henry nods thoughtfully.

  “Wasn’t he a no-good skunk?” Mr. Crutchley purses his lips.

  I am just about to defend my poor, defenseless father when Geri whispers in my ear. “Granny is not choosing my husband,” she says, her hair a tangle of cinnamon curls and her apron covered in spots of blood, which would scare me if I didn’t know her history of mutilating raw chickens.

  I pity any man Geri calls her husband.

  Credit 21.3

  “Well, to be perfectly fair, the guy was a charmer. He had Cora completely fooled, and she’s been trying to fix that mistake ever since. That’s why she’s doubly interested in Alice’s next husband—it’s a chance for her to save face.”

  If I were Granny, I would not save that face. I would definitely get a new one.

  “I would be a very beneficial match for young Alice,” Mr. Crutchley says, twirling the end of his mustache.

  “You know she’s divorced, right?” Uncle Henry says quietly. “Arthur stopped sending any money and sent her divorce papers back in late December, so it’s all pretty recent.”

  I slap my hand over my mouth. That was what was in the envelope? Divorce papers? My sweet Mama is divorced?

  Geri pretends to be busy putting the dominoes away, and I drop my eyes as if I’m helping her. The minute a grown-up knows you’re listening, they start talking about things like the weather or their great-aunt’s gout.

  Mr. Crutchley gives a serious nod. “I know divorce tarnishes a lady, but I might just be willing to overlook this for a woman as fine as Alice. Is she still hung up on her ex-husband?” He’s fishing for information, even though he looks like he’s more interested in his fingernail.

  “That husband of hers was a no-good lout. Land sakes, it’s common knowledge divorce is a black mark on a woman’s name, but we never saw hide nor hair of the cussed fool in the last eleven years.” I have rarely heard Uncle Henry curse, so I know he is a bit worked up, and this is the most information I’ve ever gathered on my father. I strain to hear as Uncle Henry’s voice lowers.

  “He did manage to send money from time to time, I will give him that.” Uncle Henry picks his teeth. “Alice finally told him he could use any excuse he wanted as long as he granted her a divorce, so Arthur claimed she deserted him.”

  Divorced? Deserted? I didn’t know anything about a divorce, and I certainly don’t want anyone to think my sweet mama is a deserter! I bolt for the door. Rig
ht now I feel like my brain is mushy water swimming between my ears, and the air around me is so thick I have to push my way through it. As soon as I get outside, I bend over gasping like I can’t catch my breath. I have a father who’s lost and a mother who is a deserter. What does that make me? Lost in the desert?

  “You okay? Is it your asthma?” Geri asks, her face next to mine.

  Credit 21.4

  I’m afraid to say anything in case she diagnoses me with immediate death.

  “Are you okay?” she repeats.

  I try to catch my breath. Maybe I do have asthma. “As okay as anyone can be who has had to endure the pain and suffering I’ve been subjected to! I just found out Mama is divorced! And I had to listen to other people call her a deserter!” I wail.

  Geri rolls her eyes and stands up. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, when is the last time you even saw that so-called father of yours?”

  Never. I shake my head and take the bacon Geri shoves in my face, like bacon can solve anything.

  I take a bite. Bacon can solve pretty much anything.

  “This is 1895!” Geri says. “Sure, women have a ways to go to ensure their equal rights, but your mama’s divorce certainly does not stop her from being an important member of society. Or, for that matter, a darn good mother.”

  Geri shakes her finger in my face. Part of me wants to bite it. The other part of me knows she’s right.

  “Of course I’m right.”

  “But she deserted him!” I wail. I breathe deeply and stand up to look at Geri. Her eyes are slits, and she looks at me like I’m plumb crazy. “What is a deserter?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” she replies. “Technically, it’s someone who abandons his responsibilities. Like a soldier in the War of Rebellion who up and leaves the army for no good reason. Often those deserters got shot.”

  “My mama is going to get shot?” I nearly fall over from shock.