Chapter 2 - Craig
Vibrations traveled up my arms and down my back as my chainsaw chewed through a tree—water and wood chips sprayed out in its wake. Tremors traveled from the mud through the soles of my shoes to my feet—helping me keep track of the heavy machinery moving through the site.
The sound changed subtly, and the feel of the wood popping shifted.
I eased off the chainsaw and checked the angle and depth of my backcut. I ensured my wedges were where I wanted them, then I looked around and confirmed that there was nobody unexpectedly walking through the fall path.
I blew my whistle to let my fellow fallers know that my tree was about to come down, then started my chainsaw again.
It didn’t take much to finish the cut. I killed the motor and moved aside as soon as the tree started to tip, and kept my eye on it as it cleared the surrounding trees and crashed to the ground.
A bird flew from a neighboring tree, but no stray branches came down. Still, my eyes were sharp as I studied the canopy. Was there anything that had been dislodged and about to fall?
“Hey, Craig?” crackled the site foreman—Michael— through my headset.
I reached over and thumbed the button for my mic. “‘Sup, boss?”
“Come on down to the shack when you’re finished bucking that tree.”
“Everything ok?”
“HR wants your paperwork before the end of the day.”
The words were like a punch to the gut, but part of me had known to expect it. “Understood. I’ll head down soon.”
I glanced up at the canopy again, but with as much a sense of loss as it was a safety check. I’d spent nearly half my life on logging sites, having started as a groundie right out of high school and progressing to faller quickly.
The trees were a second home.
Satisfied that a widowmaker wasn’t going to come down on my head, I moved in and started limbing the tree. Branches fell away—most to stay on the forest floor, though I marked a few larger ones as potentially sellable.
I spent more time bucking than I normally would. It wasn’t like it mattered anymore.
Soon, the logs were ready for the skidders—and I had no more reason to procrastinate.
I glanced around as I did an inventory in my head. Did I have everything I’d brought up?
Satisfied that I wasn’t leaving anything for my teammates to deal with, I started down the hill. My boots sank into the soft soil as I walked, and my ears were sharp for signals from the other fallers until I reached the designated exit path.
I took a moment to fully experience it: the din of chainsaws and reversing alarms from the heavy equipment, the fragrances of moist soil and freshly-cut timber, the taste of my sweat on my lips, the cool breeze on my skin… and the sight of the forest surrounding me.
I was going to miss it.
The walk was lonely. Any other day, I’d be surrounded by my fellow fallers, discussing the day and talking shit. I’d expected to have that walk to say goodbye… even though they all knew I was leaving.
Hell, we’d had a party the evening before where the guys and I had shared stories over too many beers before they’d given me some token presents.
But it wasn’t the same as the last walk I’d been looking forward to.
I moved aside for a skidder heading up, then continued down to the landing.
Deep tire tracks crisscrossed the site. A truck waited, the driver standing beside it smoking a cigarette, while several others were being loaded.
I waited for a different truck to exit the landing, then crossed to the shack.
The inside of the small portable building smelled of wet and sweat, with tracks of dried mud near the door. An overhead fan tried to circulate fresh air—a soft tick with every rotation—but never managed to dissipate the scents of a busy worksite.
“Ah, Craig, there you are,” said Michael.
“Took my time on the way down.”
His normally stern features softened slightly. “Can’t say I blame ya.”
“HR really couldn’t let me finish out my last day?” I huffed.
He shook his head. “Preaching to the choir, man. But you know how the suits are.”
I let out a long breath. “Yeah… I know…”
He nodded. “Go ahead and do your equipment maintenance. Let me know when you’re ready to turn in your company gear.”
“Got it.”
I headed back out to my truck. I cleaned my chainsaw and secured it in its hard case. Then I started separating my gear from the company’s. The hard hat was mine, a brand I preferred, though the one provided for me was in my cargo box. The radio headset was theirs.
Soon, I had a pile of things I needed to turn in. I carried it back to the shack, where Michael had a stack of papers ready.
“Go through this while I check your gear,” he said, handing me the papers.
My mind wandered as I read through the standard exit forms. I initialed and signed where indicated, and finished just as Michael sat on the other side of his cluttered desk.
“Company-issued gear looks good,” he stated.
I nodded. “Good.”
He leaned back in his squeaky desk chair and let out a sigh. “Now, because you’re leaving for health reasons…” He huffed. “I gotta make sure you’re not injured.”
I snorted. “Suits…”
“Yeah… well… It’s my ass if I don’t ask.”
“Shoot.”
“Well… did you injure yourself today?”
I laughed and looked at my limbs. “Don’t think so. Still got my arms and legs.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Be serious.”
I rolled my shoulders and felt the now-familiar twinge, then squeezed my hands a few times to get blood moving to my fingers properly again. “Nothing’s worse than the doctor’s note already mentioned.”
He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Did you do anything stupid that might turn into an injury in a few days? Trip over a branch? Kickback from the saw?”
I shook my head. “Nothing that I can think of.”
He nodded. “You know I’ll have to have you sign off on that. Think real hard, cause you won’t be able to claim it once I get your signature.”
I considered the question again and tried to recall anything that seemed minor, but was maybe a bigger deal than I thought. I shook my head again. “I think we’re good.”
Another scribble, then he turned the paper to me and pointed with a pen. “Sign and date here.”
I skimmed his chicken scratch, but didn’t expect him to lie about nonexistent injuries since he was exceptional about documenting real ones. I scribbled my signature, added the date, then handed it back.
He nodded and added it to the stack of paperwork. Then he glanced up at the clock. “That was it. I’m noting that your end time for today was two forty-seven PM.”
I swallowed. “Ok.”
He stood and extended his hand. I mirrored the motion, and we shared a handshake.
“It was good working with ya, Craig,” he said, trying to hide any emotion with added gruffness to his tone. “Sorry to see ya leave. Take care of yourself.”
“Thanks, Michael. I’m going to miss it.”
“It’s a shame…”
I nodded. Neither of us needed him to finish his thought.
I made sure I hadn’t dropped anything, then headed toward the door. I’d just pulled it open when I turned back. “Hey, Mike?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me a call if you need an extra hand during wildfire season.”
He sighed. “You know I can’t do that, man. Not without your doctor’s clearance.”
The words were a punch to the gut; the final nail in my career’s coffin. They needed every hand they could get in bad wildfire years, but I wouldn’t be able to help unless my injuries magically healed themselves.
Even good intentions couldn’t clear the hurdle of bureaucratic red tape.
I swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah… I guess I forgot that.”
“You know I’d take you in a heartbeat if I could.”
I turned to the open door. “I know.”
Heavy silence hung between us.
“They’ll have your final paycheck at the office on Monday.”
“Ok…” I blew out a breath. “See ya around, Mike.”
“Take care, Craig.”
I stepped down from the shack and strode across the landing to my truck. I got in, took a minute, then reached over and turned on my CB. The speaker crackled as vehicles along the logging road called out their locations.
I mentally mapped out who was where. There were two empty logging trucks on the way up, and a loaded one headed down. I turned and saw another truck—fondly dubbed Big Red—almost ready to go, and decided to follow it out.
The engine noise changed as the transmission engaged and the diesel engine was under load.
“Loaded, at landing, heading down,” came a male voice over the CB.
I waited for him to pass, then thumbed the mic on my set. “Personal pickup, at landing, heading down. I’m going to tuck in behind you, Big Red.”
“Copy that.”
The drive down was something I did so often that I was on autopilot. I gave myself plenty of distance behind Big Red and called out my location every mile as was standard.
The trees were like faces I saw every day: there was the old one that leaned slightly away from the road, then the sapling growing tall and spindly from a crevasse.
A cluster near one of the pull-off areas looked like an old family portrait with two taller trees in the back and three shorter ones in front.
There was the one that was shaped so much like an iconic Christmas tree that it had been decorated during the holidays, and the gnarly one that seemed to grow from the side of a boulder.
“Private pickup, at bottom, turning onto main road,” I announced when I reached the stop sign.
“Copy,” replied one of the logging truck drivers, then, “Take care of yourself, Craig.”
“Empty, headed up, mile seven. See you around, Craig.”
I sniffled, turned the corner, and immediately pulled to the side of the road as truck-after-truck—man-after-man—said their farewells over the CB.
Everybody had known that I was leaving, and why.
“This is Big Red,” the driver called from somewhere down the highway. “We’ll miss you, Craig.”
I wiped a tear, shook my head, and thumbed on my mic. “Thanks for the sendoff, guys. I’ll see ya around.”
The only reply was silence, but it felt right.
It was the way of things. Every man on the mountain knew we were all on borrowed time.
Eventually, our bodies would bend under the strain, and that was if we were lucky.
I wasn’t the first to leave because I couldn’t do it anymore, and I wouldn’t be the last. I’d just decided to leave before I was permanently disabled from it.
I pulled onto the road and turned onto the frontage road a couple miles later. Finally, I took the ramp onto the highway headed to Mount Sable.
My career in logging had officially ended.
∞∞∞
“Hey! There he is!” called my buddy, Spencer, from where he and several other friends sat at a round table.
I waved, made my way through the crowded bar, and dropped onto an empty chair.
Another friend, Aaron, reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “How ya doin?”
I shrugged. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
“When do you start your new job?” asked one of the omegas in the group—Joey.
“Wednesday.”
“And you’ll be working at the mill?” asked the other omega—Robbie.
“I’ll take whatever lager you have on tap,” I said as a waitress approached, eyes trained on me and clearly angling to take my drink order.
She nodded. “You’ve got it.”
I turned back to Robbie as she walked away. “Yeah. The mill had an opening, and they snapped me up.”
“You’re not worried about vibrations from the machines?” the final member of our group—Nate—asked.
I shook my head. “They’ve decided to, mostly, put me on the counter for now, then doing site quotes in the fall. I’ll be trained on the machinery so I can jump in as needed, but they’re aware of my injuries and are going to try to keep me away from anything that could make them worse.”
“You should have just come to work for me,” Aaron laughed.
I scrunched my nose. “And sit behind a desk all day? No thanks.”
Everybody laughed.
“I hear ya,” Nate said, getting his laughter under control. “They’ll never get me behind a desk.”
“It’s not that bad,” Aaron argued. “Besides, who do your bosses call when there’s a problem?”
I snorted. “Usually, one of us—to see if we can fix it before they have to call in insurance.”
Everybody except Aaron roared with laughter.
“Ya’ll are a bunch of assholes,” Aaron grumbled.
“Sorry, Aaron,” Joey chuckled. “He’s right. We love ya, but nobody wants to have to call you about official business.”
“Well, just remember who saves your asses when things go sideways,” Aaron grumbled.
We all laughed again.
The waitress set my lager in front of me.
“Thank you,” I said, acknowledging her before she flitted to the next table. Then I turned my attention back to my friends.
“So,” Robbie asked. “You gonna clean up before going to your new job?”
I blinked and looked at my hands, which already seemed devoid of the dirt that usually ringed my fingernails. “I showered!”
He snickered. “Not that. I meant things like a haircut. It’s ok, but might be a bit messy if you’ll be doing sales.”
I chuckled and ran a hand through my brown hair. It felt a bit long, but not too bad. “Do you really think people coming in to buy wood are expecting suits and a full face of makeup? That shit would be torn up the moment I tried to load a few planks into a pickup.”
He grinned. “It would be something to see you in a suit, let alone makeup. But you could probably do with a shave and a trim.”
“He’s right,” Aaron agreed. “You might be selling wood, but it’s a customer-facing role. Appearances matter in ways you don’t expect.”
“Alright, alright,” I chuckled. “I’ll go to the barber on Monday.”
“Good,” Aaron said with a nod. “Now, we’re all still on for Sunday night, right?”
I grinned. “I put in a steak order with the butcher.”
“I’ve got the herb garlic butter already chilling in the fridge, and I’m making my cheesecake tomorrow,” Joey added.
“I’ve got the salad fixins!” Spencer laughed
“I’m prepping the twice-baked spuds tomorrow,” Robbie replied.
“And I’m on drinks,” Nate stated. “Let me know if you want anything other than the normal.”
Aaron nodded. “I’ve got fresh charcoal and some hickory chips to throw in there.”
“And you’ve got the comfy seats and huge screen,” Spencer laughed. “Don’t forget that.”
“Are we watching a game or movies this weekend?” Joey asked.
“Figured we’d see what’s on,” Aaron replied with a shrug. “Now, any of you bringing dates I don’t know about?”
The rest of us burst into laughter.
Aaron chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”
“To the single life,” Nate declared, holding up his beer bottle.
“To the single life,” we all echoed as we clinked our drinks.