They stood for a moment watching, and then Chip took her hand and led her to where men operated the machines that lifted the logs from the water as they came floating down and dropped them onto a conveyor belt that moved them up the slope to the mill. It was fascinating to watch the huge arm of the machine swing out and dip, the giant jaws closing about a log that measured several feet around, lift it dripping from the water, and lower it gently to the belt.
The mill itself was comprised of three large barnlike metal and wood buildings set well back and flanked by smaller structures. The screeching whine of the saws interspersed with a regular thud, like some heavy object being dropped, made talking impossible. They walked toward one of the smaller buildings. Actually, Chip walked and Margaret almost ran to keep up with him. The firm grasp he had on her hand allowed her to do nothing else. The smaller building must have been well insulated, because the second the door closed she was surrounded by blessed quiet.
The man seated with his feet propped up on the desk in front of him was perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties. His hair was thick and white, his skin tough and weathered, but he had a cheerful cast to his features and an easy grin. He unlocked his legs and allowed his tilting chair to crash back into an upright position when his gaze fell upon Margaret.
“Meet the boss, next to me, of course. Bill Wassal, Maggie Anderson.” Chip smiled a little as he watched Bill's reaction.
“You don't say? Maggie, huh? Nice knowing you, Maggie.” He got up and held out his hand. He wasn't much taller than Margaret, but his shoulders were wide and his chest deep.
“How do you do. I hope I'm not disturbing you.”
“No bother at all. Chip showing you around, is he?” He had taken her hand in his hamlike paw as gently as if he were handling eggs. He let her hand go, stepped back, grinned, and scratched his head. His twinkling eyes went from Margaret to Chip and back again. “Mighty goodlooking woman you got here, boy.”
“Yeah. She looks pretty good when she's cleaned up a bit.” Chip reached over and pushed Margaret's glasses up on her nose. “She'll do once I get her broken in to my way of doing things.”
Margaret's face flushed, and she groped for words.
“Stop teasing, boy. We've got her blushing.” Bill Wassal grinned unrepentantly.
“Speechless, love?” Amusement threaded through Chip's voice. “Never mind. You talk too much, sometimes anyway.”
“And so do you! Like now!”
He stood looking at her for a moment, and she glared up at him. In a purely unnecessary, nervous gesture she jabbed at the crosspiece of her glasses, pushing them higher up on her nose.
“What are we going to do about those glasses, sweetheart? Don't you have a pair that fit?”
Margaret's teeth snapped together, frustration burning within at the easy way he goaded her, knowing perfectly well it was safe to do so in front of the other man.
“If you don't like my looks, don't look at me,” she snapped.
“That's impossible, sweetheart. And stop fishing for compliments. You know I like the way you look.”
Margaret turned her back on him and addressed herself to Bill. “How long have you worked here, Mr. Wassal?” She could hear Chip chuckling behind her. She searched for a cutting remark to pierce his armor, but then decided it would be better to ignore him.
“Must be close to thirty-two years.”
Thirty-two years! Her head swiveled around, and she glanced at Chip. He smiled wryly.
“We both arrived about the same time.”
“Yeah, we did. I got here just in time to get in on the celebration. The crew stayed drunk for a week.” Bill leaned back against the desk and folded his arms across his chest. “I can remember the time when—”
“Whoa, Bill. Some of your remembered times are pretty long tales. Maggie would like to see what we do out here. Will you show her around while I catch up on a few things?” He flung an arm casually across Margaret's shoulders. “You'll be okay with Bill, honey.” With one large hand encompassing her shoulder, he drew her to him and kissed her, hard and quick. “Don't stay away too long. Come back here and I'll treat you to lunch at the canteen.” His smile was lazy, and there was a teasing glint in his blue eyes.
His soft chuckle set up vibrations in the pit of her stomach. Damn him! “I can hardly wait!” she sputtered.
“You're going to have to get over this habit of blushing when I kiss you, princess.” His voice dropped to a murmur in her ear. “Think of me while you're gone.”
Margaret moved away from him like someone in a fog, and she stood beside the door while Bill took his jacket from a hook on the wall behind his desk.
Think of me.
The deep purr of his voice echoed in her mind. She couldn't keep her eyes from glancing at him one more time. He was looking at her as intently as he had this morning when she'd felt that unspoken communication between them. She felt his warmth, his strength, winding around and through her as if there were a channel connecting them. Their eyes held, and for timeless seconds they were entirely alone in the world.
Chip pushed himself away from the desk where he'd been leaning and came to her. She was hardly aware that she had taken a step to meet him. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his shoulder when his hands gripped her upper arms.
“It's all right. There's nothing to be afraid of here,” he whispered in her ear.
Unmoving, hardly breathing, Margaret realized that he thought she was frightened of going with Bill. The thought hadn't entered her mind! She took a deep shuddering breath and lifted her face. She watched his eyes, which were dark with concern as he bent his head to drop a warm, feathery kiss on her mouth.
“If you'd rather I leave, why don't you say so?” Bill's gravelly voice came from behind Chip.
“That won't be necessary. I don't mind kissing my girl in front of you, Bill,” he declared with a teasing smile for Margaret. He opened the door. “Take care of my princess.”
His voice floated to Margaret through the noise of the mill. He was smiling at her. She searched his face for a trace of mockery and found none.
Just inside the door to one of the large buildings, Bill picked up two yellow hard hats, shoving one down onto his head and handing the other to Margaret. When she put it on, it slid down over her eyes. Bill held out his hand in silent communication, and she handed the hat back to him. He adjusted the straps on the inside, gave it back to her, and waited to see if it fit snugly.
He leaned toward her and shouted, “Stay close!”
Margaret followed his instructions, and a few minutes later she understood why when his arm shot out to keep her a safe distance away from the huge discs of metal ripping into the giant logs. She also understood why Chip had told her to wear her glasses instead of the contact lenses. The air was full of flying sawdust, and she made a mental note to ask Bill about that when they were able to talk.
Some of the men wore guards over their ears to deaden the noise, and a few wore goggles to keep the sawdust out of their eyes. Talking was difficult if not impossible inside the building, and Margaret was glad when they passed through to the outside and she could breathe fresh air again.
“I'd think all that sawdust in the air would be harmful to the men,” she said.
Bill looked surprised. “Chip keeps checking on that. It seems that sawdust is organic and not harmful. The real danger to the men is the lasting effect of the noise on their eardrums. We've issued ear guards, but few bother to wear them. Same with the goggles. We've spent thousands of dollars keeping those items available for the ones who'll use them.”
At the rear of the long shed lay railway tracks with stacks of raw cut lumber waiting to be shipped out. Railway cars were being loaded while an ancient engine sat idly on the tracks beyond.
“There's one of the few wood-burners left,” Bill said, indicating the engine.
“Why are you using such an old piece of outdated equipment?”
“Might be outdated for some, but it does the job for us.” Bill looked at her with obvious interest. “We've got the fuel, and we only run between here and Kalispell. We leave the cars loaded in the freight yard down there, and they're picked up and shipped out. That's why this company is solvent and a lot of others have gone under—'cause Chip's used his head for something other than a place to put his hat.”
“It's a larger operation than I thought,” Margaret murmured, hesitant about asking more questions.
“You bet. But this is only a part of it. You don't get the full picture 'til you follow it down from the camps.”
“How many camps do you have?”
“Four. But they move from year to year. Farthest one is about a hundred miles.”
“And all the logs float down the river?”
“Nope. Some are trucked in. Seen enough?”
“I guess so.”
Margaret walked beside him back to the small building. She would have liked to ask him if he'd known her father when he was young. If he had worked here for thirty-two years, he must have been here even before her father bought in. She wondered why her father had never talked about this part of his life.
Chip was sitting on the edge of the desk when they got back to the office. He was reading a report and glancing up at the large map that covered one wall. Like the one in the office in town, this map, too, was studded with pins, the heads of which were different colors. He glanced at Margaret and Bill and then back at the map.
“Seems like we've got some greenhorns roughing it out in section three. I hope to hell they've been instructed on fire prevention.”
“If they haven't, we'll know damn quick,” Bill said drily.
“Have camps one, two, or four reported in this morning?”
“Four called in. They'd spotted three backpackers. I've got a call in to the rangers to see if they have a permit to be in that wilderness area.”
“That's all we can do for now. It's been an unusually dry month, but we should get some rain soon.”
Margaret knew what he was saying. It was strange, she thought, how quickly one could gain a proprietary attitude. A couple of weeks ago the thought of a forest fire would have meant little to her. Now, they were
her
trees that were tinder-dry and needed the fall rains to wet them down.
“Can't you keep campers out of there when it's as dry as this?” she queried without thinking. She saw Chip's mouth pull into the familiar derisive line.
“We don't own the land, princess. We only have a contract to take out so many trees a year. The company has a plane that patrols the area regularly. That's about as much as we can do—except hope we finish the season without a serious fire.” He was watching her with an enigmatic expression. “Feel like some lunch?” He looked at the watch strapped to his wrist. “If we get over to the canteen now we'll beat the rush.”
“Why go over?” Bill asked. “They'll bring it here for you.”
“How about it?” Chip said. “Do you think your sensibilities can stand being leered at? The men up here have healthy appetites—in more ways than one.”
Margaret had the feeling he would have said more if Bill hadn't been listening. Her lips fluttered into a smile. “Why should I mind? I'll have the boss to protect me.”
The canteen turned out to be a long timber building with the distinctive smell of new wood and paint. Formica-topped tables and metal chairs were laid out in orderly rows, and a stainless-steel serving counter stretched across one end. Hot meals were already being served by men in flannel shirts with rolled up sleeves exposing bulging muscles. White canvas aprons covered work jeans.
Chip took a tray and silverwear from the end of the bar and moved it along the counter. He was greeted with familiar ease by everyone. “Hi, Chip”…“What you doin' up here, boss?”…“We got that meat pie today, Chip,” someone called from the kitchen.
“Why do ya think I'm here? I've been waiting all week for that!” he yelled to the unseen man in the kitchen.
“Give the kid an extra spoonful, Henry,” the voice called back. Everyone laughed. “His woman, too.”
Margaret had steeled herself to weather the frank stares and predictable comments without apparent discomfiture. She glanced at Chip's grin and then deliberately looked each man in the eye and smiled as they passed down the line.
The food had been prepared for hearty appetites: pans of the steaming meat pies, hot rolls, and fruit cobbler. Chip filled the tray without asking Margaret's preference and moved it down the bar to where large mugs sat beside a self-service coffee urn. She filled the mugs and followed him to a table at the end of the room.
“I'll never be able to eat all of this,” she said when he set the plates on the table.
“I know that. I'll finish it off for you. That's the best damn meat pie in the state.”
Margaret shook her head, watching him nod or wave at the men who were coming off their shift to eat. She was aware that she was the main topic of conversation and that every eye in the building was covertly watching her. She was also aware that Chip was awaiting her reaction, and she smiled at him after she swallowed her first forkful of the meat pie.
“Why do you have men cooks here and not women?”
“In the first place I try to give jobs to men who head families. Second, these men have years of experience cooking for crews. Any more questions?”
“Isn't that discrimination?”
“Against whom?”
“Women, of course.”
“Are you a women's libber?”
“No.” The denial came without hesitation, yet something inside her contracted as she said it. “I haven't really thought about it. Are you against women having equal rights?”
“If you mean am I against women working in the mill for pay equal to that of the men, yes. There's no way a woman could put in the kind of day a man puts in here. The work is too dangerous, the loads too heavy, and, what's more, they'd be too distracting.”
“You're a chauvinist!” she said, pointing.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“What about the women whose men have left them? Like Beth's mother?”
“There's no way Anthony/Thorn can provide for every person who lives in this district. We do the best we can. We have the best pension plan of any company our size in the northwest. I've had to battle old Ed and now your Justin to keep it that way.” He was getting angry; she could tell by the way his voice lowered.