The whistle sounded again. Suzy's warm-up time was over. Karena felt a tensing in her shoulders, a buildup of adrenaline in her body. She wanted to win.
She would win.
The announcer was instructing, "At the count of one, two, three, go, the competition will begin. Neither of you must cross the red line in the center of the log, and the winner will be victor of the best of three heats, each lasting three minutes."
Karena felt a familiar sick dread in her stomach as she deftly took her place on the right end of the log, with Suzy on the left. The balancing poles were withdrawn.
"One, two, three, go!"
The wood beneath her feet spun first forward, then back, then steadied momentarily. Suzy was barely twenty, and although the girl looked plump and a little ungainly, Karena had great respect for her agility on a log.
Now there was no need for Karena to feign isolation from the crowd. The spectators were invisible, lost in the intensity of her concentration. The sick nervousness faded and energy coursed through her. Now there was only the spinning log, the complex dance her feet were performing without conscious instruction, and Suzy, cleverly trying to dump her into the pool. Unless Karena dumped Suzy first...
"Why are they jumping around on those dumb old logs like that? I think they look silly."
Liz's voice barely penetrated his concentration as Logan leaned forward. The action in the burling pool held his fascinated attention. The woman in the red shorts, this Karena Carlson, was enough to hold any man's attention.
"Why, Uncle Logan?"
Without taking his eyes off the action, Logan said irritably, "The ability to balance and move from log to log used to be important when the loggers had to move the logs in lakes and rivers without the help of the type of machinery we have today. It's an art form, Lizzie."
That probably wasn't the absolute and exact truth, but certainly those red shorts and the woman wearing them would have to be considered an art form, he concluded judiciously.
Logan let out a warning shout as Karena narrowly avoided a spill, and then he gave a rousing cheer as she caught Suzy with an unexpected sudden roll, sending her slipping into the water.
One of three.
"Good going, Minnesota," Logan roared, but Karena didn't even hear him.
So far, so good, she assured herself as she stepped neatly off the log for a moment while Suzy shook the water out of her hair and dramatically wrung out the absurd green skirt she was wearing. Suzy always played to the crowd, but once they were back on the log she was all business.
Forward, back, balance. Fast... faster. Karena's arms moved in a graceful ballet, her slender body tilted forward and back, her legs flexed this way, then that; she stumbled slightly, recovered, took control.
Logan groaned, elbows forward on his knees, a few drops of water cooling on his forehead, eyes riveted on the action.
Karena tried for a tricky, difficult reversal, a powerful forward motion with reckless abandon, and suddenly Suzy slipped backward off the log and splashed, arms flailing, into the shallow water. Disgust with herself was evident in the girl's body language as she waded to the edge and climbed out, holding out a dripping hand to congratulate Karena on her win.
Karena grasped the extended hand, half suspecting what would come next, and the crowd roared and clapped with appreciation as the mischievous Suzy yanked Karena toward her, enveloped her in a sopping bear hug, and spattered drops of water over them both by shaking her hair like a playful puppy.
Suzy's antics were irresistible to the crowd, and Karena felt the shrinking inside her stomach as all eyes centered on the tableau. She forced a grin and wink at Suzy, now bowing in every direction as if she were the victor instead of the vanquished, and then Karena jogged toward the tents at the back of the open-air arena set aside for the competitors. She slipped inside, feeling like a rabbit who'd found his burrow while being pursued by a pack of hounds.
Empty, thank God. Letting her pent-up breath out in a huge sigh, she tipped her head back and shut her eyes in relief. Her next heat wouldn't begin for a few minutes. Here, despite the steamy airlessness of the tent, she could relax for a moment and blot out the frenzied activity of the festival.
Her brief shorts and singlet were sopping wet from Suzy's bear hug and she felt damply muggy and suddenly exhausted.
Slumping down on a bench, she closed her eyes, envying Suzy her poise, wishing she were back by the lake at home.
Alexander asked solicitously, "Want me to get you a coffee, Uncle Logan?"
Logan dragged his gaze away from the closed tent flap where Karena had disappeared and said, "Yeah, that would be great." He dug change out of his jeans pocket, automatically adding enough for two large cherry Cokes. He understood Alexander's tactful methods very well.
"I'll come and help you carry," Liz decided. "I have to dry my hair off. That stupid water splashed all over me and it smells bad."
Logan was left to stretch out his long legs until they nearly touched the fence, luxuriating in the sun beating down on the back of his neck like a soothing massage, the humming of the crowd around him and the vivid mental picture of Karena Carlson.
Now all he had to do was figure out a way to meet her.
Karena was fantasizing escape as she rested inside the tent. She imagined checking out of the shabby motel, driving northwest on Route 71 past the village of Northome to her turnoff and taking the bumpy gravel road three miles through the forest to the clearing on the shore of the small lake where her cabin waited. But the fantasy was interrupted by music from the midway, laughter just behind the tent, a girl's voice raised in delighted excitement.
Damnation. Why had she let Danny talk her into coming to Bemidji for this competition in the first place?
She smiled ruefully at that. She knew why. She even knew exactly how he'd managed it.
Danny's methods of persuasion were simple and direct. He simply went on and on about what he wanted, not whining—she could have dealt with that—but impossibly reasonable, and endless.
Days, weeks, at every opportunity since Christmas, when he'd spied the advertisement for the World of Nature wildlife encyclopedia in the newspaper.
"That's what I want for my birthday," he'd stated.
"They're far too expensive," Karena had said dismissively.
"Not if we win logger sports, Mom. We could afford them easy," he'd insisted.
Last January, and this was July.
Six months full of pleading, reminding, cajoling. She'd agreed more to shut him up than anything, and wouldn't experts in child management have a field day with that?
Danny had all the finesse of an earthmover, she mused, and he was just as hard to stop once he got rolling.
"They're offering big money prizes this year, Mom, and you and I could both win easy. You know we could, Mom. I've got fast feet, you said so yourself, and the other kids my age who compete in logrolling and ax throwing haven't had two champs like you and Gabe on their case all the time. Right?" Big, respectful, admiring blue eyes watching her calculatingly. He was good, no doubt about it.
"Spare me the soft soap, Danny, I don't do competition anymore. It isn't as if we desperately need the money for food or dental bills."
She might as well have saved her breath.
"But we do need the money. I need those books more than ever, now we got Mort. It's only for four days, then we could buy the books and there'd be enough left over for you to get something you want, too," he'd pleaded. "Say we'll go, Ma, okay? I need those books. It isn't as if I can watch nature shows on TV like all the other kids at school, right?"
TV was a luxury they couldn’t afford, along with the cell phones and I pads many of the kids at school had. Libraries were still free, Karena reminded Danny whenever the subject came up. But he didn’t nag for electronic devices. Weird kid that he was, he lusted after the set of encyclopedia.
Morning, noon and night, with a ridiculously expensive set of books luring him like a beacon, and a single parent with guilt complexes he'd learned to push like buttons.
And here they were. Here she was. Danny had won his final competition an hour before and gone off to celebrate with a ride on the Ferris wheel.
Karena heard the announcement for her next heat and shook her head. If she won this phase, and the finals in the ax throwing at the evening show tonight, plus the final heats tomorrow night, Danny would have his books.
She stepped outside, wanting to cringe at the impact of people, noise and odors. Instead, she forced her shoulders back, her head held high, and walked over to the pool, heart pounding all over again as the short, grizzled announcer began his spiel once more.
"Sara Wise, from Newfoundland, Canada, wearing black shorts, here on my left, and on my right, our native Minnesota contender and the winner of the last heat, Karena Carlson, wearing red. Sara will warm up first."
Sara Wise was at least six feet tall, and brawny. She stepped confidently out on the log, almost capsizing it, and gave it a few desultory whirls this way and that with her size eleven cleats before nimbly springing back to dry land. The lackadaisical way she moved and her very size seemed to trumpet the confidence she exuded. She definitely didn't plan on getting wet, and she towered intimidatingly over Karena.
Logan had watched Karena from the instant she exited the tent, and now he stared at her competitor in disbelief.
Shouldn't there be a weight or a height handicap in an event like this, for cripes' sake? That Sara was an amazon.
"Here's your coffee, Uncle Logan. Alexander put two sugars in it. I told him you only took one sugar and one cream, but he wouldn't listen. Uncle Logan?" His niece's fussy voice finally penetrated Logan's preoccupation.
"Oh, hi, Liz. Thanks."
He took the Styrofoam cup without taking his eyes off Karena Carlson's form. He couldn't see her eyes from where he was sitting, and it annoyed him vaguely.
Was she frightened?
What color were her eyes, anyhow? They ought to be cornflower blue, he decided at last, noting her proud carriage, the way her high breasts and narrow waist and hips were perfectly aligned.
And those runner's legs. Long, shapely, powerful. A primeval surge of appreciative desire made him shift uncomfortably. She was deliciously lovely, this Karena Carlson, this... lumberjack. Surely not a lumberjack, he corrected. What would a woman who competed in these events be called, anyhow? A lumberjill? He grinned at his own feeble humor.
"Uncle Logan, you're spilling on me." Liz's aggrieved voice commanded his attention, and he mopped apologetically at her jeans with a Kleenex.
"Gosh, I'm sorry, Lizzie. It didn't burn you, did it?"
"No, but that's only because Alexander took forever in the bathroom, and so your coffee got cold. Is it okay to drink?"
He, who normally abhorred cold coffee, nodded absently and gulped it, his eyes riveted once again on the figure in red shorts now taking her turn on the precarious log in the pool.
Poor kid, Logan thought protectively. She hasn't got a chance against that giant.
"One, two, three, go!"
Two sets of female legs began a cautious, intense and highly skilled exhibition of dexterity. Barely a minute into the competition, however, Karena slipped backward, lost her footing and fell full length into the pool.
Logan jerked up, half standing, sinking back down as he realized how shallow the water was. She was already hoisting herself up the side and out, obviously unhurt but extremely wet.
The crowd roared apd a group of exuberant spectators, obviously supporting the Canadian entry, clapped and shouted their approval of Sara Wise. Logan twisted around and shot the insensitive clods a scowling grimace, turning back to the pond in time to see a soaked Karena clamber out, brief shorts and singlet now clinging intriguingly.
"Best of two heats out of three, first heat to Sara Wise," the announcer blared, and Logan swallowed, stifling an insane impulse to whip off his checked cotton shirt, step over the narrow barrier and wrap it protectively around the blond woman. But she was already stepping back onto that infernal log with her massive opponent, and at the announcer's signal, Karena instantly rolled the log forward as hard and as fast as she could, then gave it an immense spin back, and in an instant, Sara Wise landed in the pool on her back, her bulk sending sheets of water cascading over Logan and the twins.
"Yea, well done," Logan roared, oblivious to the dousing and entirely forgetting the inch of coffee still in his cup when he clapped his hands. The liquid shot up and landed on his own pants this time, and Liz gave him an exasperated, reproachful lecture as she searched for more Kleenex.
Then, not wanting to believe it was happening, Logan distinctly heard a young voice directly behind him holler exuberantly, "Hurray, way to go, Mom. Once more, Mom, you can do it."
For an instant, Logan prayed fervently that the encouragement was directed at someone else, anyone other than Karena. But there was no mistaking the identity of "Mom" as Karena turned toward the stands for the first time and acknowledged the words with a flashing white smile and a wave, and Logan felt disappointment roll over him like sudden, sick fever.