"TIMBER"
CHAPTER I
A white Florida moon hung low over the river, flanked, for Luke Taylor and his son John, by a yellow pine and a moss-bearded oak. The night was mild and young John was dressed in summer clothing, but Luke sat drawn into his mink-lined overcoat, as if the outlook from the wide verandah of his winter home were of the bleak north instead of the edge of the tropics. His withered hands lay on the arm of the wicker chair and his cold eyes stared straight before him.
"So you think I owe you that, do you?"
John shifted uneasily and ran a big white hand through his light hair.
"You see, father, if I'm to have an even start with other men of my—sort, it's necessary."
Luke grunted skeptically.
"Of course I could start out now and find a job, go to work for some of my friends who are no better equipped to hold an advantage over me than I am over them, but who've been—who've had fathers who helped them."
"You mean it's work you don't want?" Luke asked, still watching the river.
"Of course not; I'm not afraid of work, but I don't want to put in the best years of my life grubbing when I might be building."
"A flying start—that's what you want, eh?"
Luke's blue eyes swung to his son and studied the young face.
"That's it."
"Hum, a flyin' start! And I suppose that's what all you young bucks 're looking for now. You don't want to grub out a foundation; you want that done for you."
The old man drew a long breath.
"We never thought of them things," he said with a hint of bitterness. "The start I got—an' I was younger than you are now—was standin' to my waist in the Saginaw, with th' river gone mad with ice an' logs. That wa'n't much like a flyin' start. It was hard toil, until th' water warmed an' the last log was in the boom. Then it was a summer in th' mills and when the snow came, back to th' woods again. Five—Six? Devil himself knows how many years, we didn't count years then; not lads my age. There was time a-plenty. Harmon put me to head th' drive; then I was woods boss, an' later he made me walkin' boss for five camps. Come next fall he took my savin's, and what they bought give me my chance to buy pine of my own—Pine!" He spoke the word as if it should be capitalized. He sighed.
"From then on it was a fight against debt an' rivers an' men. I'd learned about men an' rivers when I was dryin' my socks around some other man's stove. I had to learn about debt myself, an' that was all. I did learn, an' I made money, I did things that even old Harmon was afraid to do. I took what other men thought was chances an' made big on 'em; but they wasn't chances. I knew that, because I knew about men an' rivers, an' debt—finally."
"You surely—," began John.
"Wait! It aint just the amblin' of an old man. I'm goin' some place. For a long time you've been fixin' for this. I know," nodding fiercely. "I've watched an' waited to see when you'd screw up your nerve."
John stirred uneasily, but his father proceeded.
"An' what did all that work an' knowledge mean? It meant a fortune!" Within the house a man with sleek black hair spoke quietly into a desk telephone, and Luke jerked his head toward him. "Rowe, there, can tell you how much it is. I don't even pay attention to that, now. I used to keep my own books, used to be proud to figure that fortune—no longer!"
He shook his head and the old mouth set grimly.
"I'd give it all, every dollar, every cent; give my credit to the last dime to be back there again with an' ice-cold river huggin' my legs an' a peavy in my hand, gettin' my start, learnin' about men an' timber an' wonderin' about debt. I read the other day about a doctor that makes men young. Paper talk! But if it was true, if he could make me young again, I'd want to leave all I've made with the old shell and go back to th' beginning once more with nothin' but my hands." He eyed his old palms, protruding from the sleeves of the overcoat. "Only—steady hands."
Luke again looked at the moon, now edging toward the pine trees.
"But there's nothin' to go back to, nothin' I care about! Th' Pine that made me dream dreams when I was drivin' the Saginaw 's gone. No Michigan White Pine left which was the only White Pine worth th' name! Western—yes; mixed stands; it ain't the real old quality; not th' cork." He shook his head. "An' such as that!" a contemptuous gesture toward the plume into which the moon drifted, "counterfeit pine!" He breathed audibly through his open mouth and turned to glare at his son who sat motionless.
"Counterfeit! So's my life! They tell me it was th' weeks in cold water that drives me down here when the geese comes over Detroit, an' keeps me here until the ice is out of the Great Lakes. They tell me it's th' cold of Michigan rivers that's in my bones now. It ain't! I know what it is!" He wriggled deeper into his fur coat, muttering inarticulately.
"It's somethin' else that's gone, boy. It's the Pine! You young bucks ain't what we were. There's nothin' to make your blood jump like a White Pine forest did mine! If I could lose every penny even now, old as I am, but could walk through a stand of real Michigan timber again, I wouldn't be cold. Them days, I could sink my axe to th' eye every blow; with a saw gang, I could finish my fifteen thousand a day, an' th' days were short, too. There was somethin' in that, which you bucks can't know. Pine! Pine, standin' there, straight an' true, trees thick as hair on a dog, waitin' for good men to come an' get it!"
He seemed to shrink in size as his voice fell.
"Gad! It warms me to think about goin' into Pine again! Not to make money!" with a sudden cry. "To cut! To drive! To saw it! To see a forest all about you when th' snow flies, an' to know that when winter breaks up there'll be sections with nothin' left but tops an' stumps on 'em; to know that it's your hands an' your men's hands that'll do it! There's power in that, boy, because logs build homes an' homes build nations!
"Some flap-doodle old women are callin' us destroyers and devastators! What was timber for? They use it, don't they, while they yell about what we've done! They sob about th' next generation, but why th' hell should we care about what's comin'? Didn't Michigan Pine build th' corn belt? An' where'd this country be without its grain lands now? Didn't Michigan Pine build cities that make the country wealthy? Hump! What's th' next generation to me? Every generation has its work to do. Anyhow look at yourself! Bah! you want to commence to learn some business from th' top down. You want to put on th' cornice before you've got the foundation in, because you don't want th' rough work. You're the kind that these old women are worrying over. I tell you, boy, you an' your like don't deserve worry from anybody, even from an old woman in pants."
"That's unfair!" John half rose as he said it, and color rushed into his face.
"This has been corked up in me too long now!" His son settled back. "Unfair, am I? If you think that's unfair, wait till I get through! You come to me for what you call a start, an' what my daddy would call a finish. You, with your six feet, your hunderd-eighty pounds of youth, your strong back an' good eye, an' a better education than any of us ever had; you who're fitted for harder work than any of us, an' now you don't want to muss up your hands!"
"You don't consider one thing, sir," John cried. "You blame me for not doing the way your generation did, and you don't stop to think that this is no longer your generation."
"I don't, eh? I don't consider that? You don't consider then, young man, that I'm not only tryin' to give you hell but to include your whole generation, if you're a sample of it. Listen to me!" wriggling erect again. "I come up on a Pennsylvania farm with never enough to wear, an' sometimes not enough to eat. I worked from th' time I can remember. When I went to school it was because there was no work to do. You come up in a house that when it was built was th' finest in all Detroit. You had more clothes in your first ten years than I'd had before you were born. What was spent on your grub in one month would've kept my brothers an' sisters a year, an' I've lost track how many of us there was. You never did a tap for yourself from th' time your mother turned you over to a nurse girl until you went to college, an' then you lived in a club with a nigger to look after you. You've gone through all the schools there are, an' what I spent on you would've educated my school district."
He tapped the arm of his chair with a trembling hand. "When you got out of college, I sort of thought maybe you'd start in an' help th' old man out, you bein' th' only child," a mild disappointment in the tone. "Anyhow, I thought—But you didn't. I had to have somebody, so I hired Rowe. He knows how to work; not like I did, not with an axe of course, but with his head. Work's all pretty much the same. He's a good boy, but sometimes it grinds me to think I have to turn my affairs over to some other man's son to run. You're as strong as I ever was; you know about things that I never heard of," voice rising—"But I'm through! I'm goin' on th' back trail again. Now—you talk!" and from his tone it was certain that he added in his own thoughts, "If you dare!"
Young John dared. He rose slowly, and stood looking down at his father, feet spread, hands in pockets of his smart coat.
"That's the hardest ride I've ever taken," he said. "It wasn't very pleasant, I wouldn't have stood it this way if I thought you understood. You don't."
Luke grunted. "If I had been a young man in your generation, I'd have started as you did, because that was the way all men began. It was backs and brains that made money then. It isn't that way now."
"What makes money, then?"
"Money." Luke eyed his son who waited a moment before going on: "Money makes money. The man with money makes money. The man who starts without it now is under as much of a handicap as you would have been if your back had been weak. Your father gave you your back to start with. The fathers of sons today give them money to make a beginning. I don't consider, then, when I ask you to set me up, that I am asking any more than you expected in your time. A different sort of favor, but it's no greater."
The old man snuggled down into his chair.
"Well?"
"That's—that's all, sir."
One withered hand tapped the chair arm testily.
"If I give you money, how do I know you have got sense enough to use it to make more? What've you ever done?"
John shifted one foot slowly.
"Well I was a captain in—"
"Don't make me laugh; I've got a stitch in my side. Captain in the Quartermaster Corps, eh? An' what else?"
"There hasn't been time for much else."
"Time! Good God, boy, you've been out of th' army most a year! What've you done with that year? Tame women? Yes. Hump! From where I sit you seem to be a pretty capable Turk, or maybe it's my money they want—like you want it. Do you list that with your references? Your luck with these flossy young petticoats?" The boy flushed so deeply that it was evident even in the dim light. "An' this little wisp of goldenrod, she seems to have run th' others out. I s'pose you think I owe her something."
"I owe Marcia something. That much is true."
"Our women used to put up with hardships, shoulder to shoulder."
"Our women don't do that, they are a different breed."
Inside, a telephone bell whirred.
"Yes, a different breed. You said it there; different. Like you bucks are different." Luke nodded sagely; his mouth was shut, letting his loose cheeks sag over the corners. "You want it in a hurry; all that matters is the reward. The race don't mean anything."
A sudden resentment rang in that tone. John stirred uneasily. He did not speak, nor did the old man's lips relax. The telephone called again, then steps on the rug, and Philip Rowe crossed the room hurriedly. They heard his voice.
"Yes, this is Mr. Taylor's residence—No—This is Mr. Taylor's secretary speaking."
"Secretary!" snorted Luke.
"Give me the message please,—all ready—"
And from Luke: "Bookkeeper! Bookkeeper! They've all got their notions."
The French doors were open and John Taylor did not care to continue his discussion under the ears of the sleek Rowe who was writing hurriedly on a pad. When he was through he stood up and read what he had written, stroking his small mustache thoughtfully. Luke roused and strained to look over his shoulder.
"For me, Rowe?"
"Yes, Mr. Taylor. A telegram from McLellan. I will frame an answer."
He had stepped outside, the paper in his hand. His voice was slow, even and assured.
"What was it?"
"About the Blueberry hardwood."
"Oh!" Luke sat back, rubbing his nose with a knuckle. "He's looked it up?"
"Yes, sir. There are about three hundred thousand feet left."
"Three hunderd thousand!" He looked at Rowe with a decided glitter of rage. The secretary returned the stare and shook his head slowly. After a moment Luke's gaze wandered as he again rubbed his sharp nose with a thin knuckle. It came to rest on his son's face, enigmatic, speculative. His lips worked.
"Three hunderd thousand of hardwood logs," he mumbled, "an' the price of lumber gone hog-wild—eh!"
He settled back and his hands, palms up, lay relaxed on the chair arms. A queer smile played around his mouth and the wrath died in his eyes.
"Boy, a man's never so apt to be wrong as when he's too sure," he began. Rowe started to withdraw, but Luke's gesture stayed him. "I don't want to be wrong on this.—John an' me, Rowe, have been talkin' business. He's decided it's time he does something to make his—fortune," dryly. "We've had a little argument, which didn't get us much of anywhere. John calculates I owe him somethin', and mebby I do—after hearing what he's had to say to me tonight." There was a streak of grit in the tone, as though he repressed some strong impulse. "He wants a start, a flyin' start—somethin' he can turn over quick, an' not have to monkey along at hard work and spend the years I did—" He licked his lips and, before his disconcerting manner, John stirred uneasily.
"John's got a better education than I ever had. He's more sure of himself than I was at his age. He thinks I don't understand him, an' mebby I don't." He wheezed an odd laugh and rubbed his nose briskly. "Ah-he! There's nothin' so likely to upset a man as bein' too sure.
"Son," sobering and stirring in his chair, "logs are worth money today. Three hundred thousand of hardwood's worth what I'd have called a lot of money. How'd that suit you, if I give you this three hundred thousand for your start—so's you wouldn't have to grub along, so's you'd have it plumb easy compared to what I had?"
The secretary's head made a slight forward movement, as in surprise, but Luke's face betrayed nothing, except a grim settling of the mouth; Rowe then looked at John and the boy thought a smirk crossed his lips.
"You can make out the papers, Rowe, an' throw in that forty," said the old man. "You can do it tomorrow, can't you?"
"Yes, sir, the first thing in the morning."
Silence for a moment; Rowe walked away, and as he crossed the room inside his head rocked back, as though, perhaps, he laughed to himself.
Young Taylor watched him go and then turned to his father.
"Logs?" he asked, rather bewildered. "Why, I don't know saw-logs from—"
"From bumble-bees," Luke finished for him with anger in his voice—and a smile in his eyes. "But, mebby your fortune's there, in them logs, boy. I'd 'a jumped at a gift like that—You've heard about logs all your life; likely you know more about logs than you do anything else—Well, there's your chance. Take it or leave it.—Course, think it over; think it over. There ain't any rush as far as I can judge by th' way you put in your time—Now run along, I got all stirred up, talkin' about Michigan Pine. Think it over, I'd say it was a handsome start—"
For a moment their gazes met, and apprehension ran through the younger man, for he did not like the sort of smile that clung to his father's eyes; did not like the forbidding set of his mouth.
"Very well, sir; I will think it over," he said, trying to cram his reply with dignity, and walked inside.
John stood before a mirror in the library, studying his own reflection. He did not like this, it struck at his conceit; it was distasteful, but there had been something else in his father's manner beside subtle derision—a challenge, perhaps. He sat down to think it over.