Iron Buddhas 18

 -18-

JANA TURNS up at Steffi's shoulder just as the moonlight starts coming back. "Y'wanna come over? We'll give you a place to sleep. Just a rug and a cowhide, but nice, you'll see."
    Steffi's up for that; so much party, she's bone tired. "Let's go."
    They don't need to feel around with their feet; it's after midnight with a full moon and their eyes have been fully adjusted for hours. Steffi sees silvered maples and silvery fir trees with silver-fingered sword ferns at their feet. From the openings she sees silver-lined mountains; they cross a tiny log bridge over a singing silver brook. The last clearing opens before them; there's a canvas tipi, eighteen feet tall, and it's bright orange, like a smoky sunrise. It's lit from within by no more than a bit of flame, yet illumines the clearing.
    Jana lifts aside the flap. "C'mon in."
    As Steffi's dilated eyes iris down in the interior's brightness, she finds she's facing, across a small firepit, a small woman sitting cross-legged. She looks a lot like Jana, but younger and rounder, and she's holding a sleeping baby. The younger woman speaks. "Threw some twigs on, so you could find your way home."
    "Lots of light out there," replies Jana. "Miryam, this is Stephanie."
    "Hiya.Heard lots about you. Settle in."
    Heard lots? Steffi knows, with her stiff body, she's not going to manage the cross-legged thing, so she kneels, sitting on her heels Japanese fashion, to Miryam's left. 
    Jana drops into place  on Miryam's right, cross-legged, easy as you please, and reaches for the baby. "Miryam's my sister," she says to Steffi, "Visiting from Columbia." 
    Miryam grins at Steffi's moment of hesitation. "Not the country, the college."
    "University," says Jana, checking the baby's diaper.
    "College to me. I'm testing out of everything I can, and plan to be out of there as soon as possible. I have one year down. One to go."
    "It will take you two," says Jana, looking in disgust at the slumbering infant's bottom. "There are only so many credits you can challenge. Want to hand over that pail?"
    Steffi casts about, not seeing anything at first in the stark and flickering shadows. It's a squarish plastic cat litter bucket, half filled with dried moss. She reaches it to Miryam, who hands it around the firepit to Jana. 
    Jana puts the bucket down and looks at Steffi. "Put about three pine cones on the fire so I don't stick Aaron, 'k? They're behind you." She grins, then puts two big diaper pins in her mouth.
    Steffi does so, admiring the procedure. Ponderosa pine cones. Seasoned and lightweight. They must be gathered specifically for this purpose, as she's seen none of the trees around here.
    In the bright light from the cones, Jana changes Aaron's moss. The baby cranks up, and Steffi feels a tightening in her middle -- she's sensitive to any noise she can't control. Half ready to bolt, she concentrates on Jana's hands. Line the diaper with moss, fold the outside edges in, almost meeting in the middle, fold the leading edge about half way to the middle, place Aaron with his bottom lined up with the fold, pull the front and back corners together and hold with one hand, take pin from mouth with the other, swipe it on your hair, stick it through the diaper, just missing Aaron, repeat on other side, done.
    Steffi's fascinated in spite of Aaron's goings on, which surprises her. "Wow."
    Jana smiles, but Miryam laughs outright, then covers her mouth with her hand, glancing at Jana from the corner of her eye. She sees she's not in trouble and returns her bright gaze to Steffi. "New at this?" 
    "Kinda. I've only seen the paper ones."
    "Well, we like cloth. When he's big enough to run around, he'll get bottomless pants until he's got himself under control. Our washer is the river, and the sun, when it's around, is the dryer. Otherwise we hang everything in here."
    Steffi knows some of this; there were kids, known as Hoebabies, in the work camps, but she's missed out on a lot of details by holing herself up in the Ritz. "What was that with your hair?"
    "Mm? Oh, it oils the pin, makes it a lot safer for the kid 'cuz it just slides right through the cotton."
    Aaron is really squalling now, so Jana ups her tee and offers him a breast. He roots, panicked and shivery, for a long moment, then latches on, gurgling and smacking.
    Miryam uncrosses her legs and pulls her knees up to her chin. She pokes at the embers with a twig, and they all watch as sparks rise, circle once or twice at the apex of the tipi, then find their way out through the smoke-hole. There are stars. "There's corn on the cob and potatoes under the fire, in aluminum foil," says Miryam to Steffi. "Have some for breakfast."
    "Thanks."
    "You still look a little puzzled."
    "Me?"
    "Sure. My big sister's married, he's the guy that met you all at the landing."
    "Oh."
    Jana smiles again, but says nothing. It's kind of a sad-looking smile.
    Miryam glances at Jana again, checking, and goes on. "They're kind of in a strain, so, like, they've got separate -- umm -- "
    "Domiciles," says Jana, looking into the fire.
    " -- domiciles, for now."
    Steffi actually knows what this is like. Should she tell them? Nahhh. Not yet, anyway.
    Jana lies down and pulls a woolen blanket over herself and little Aaron, whose noises are diminishing. Miryam rises on her knees and reaches for a rolled cowskin. "Here. Nice big Holstein, pretty soft really. You can sleep under it hair side up or down, suit yourself. Use a couple of my sweatshirts over there for a pillow."
    The carpeted floor is amazingly comfy. There's a dip right where Steffi's hip wants to go, and whatever is underneath -- sand from the river? -- yields better than expected. She's out before she finishes punching up her "pillow."

:::

Rolling over, Steffi pulls the cow-robe down from her closed eyes and wishes she hadn't. A whole lot of morning gets into a tipi, and all of it seems bent on giving her a headache.
    No one's around. She's up, embarrassed to realize she's slept in her clothes, shoes and all, as a guest. Reflexively, she runs for the bushes for her monring business, then gets halfway out of the clearing when she remembers the corn and potatoes. Heading back to the sun-bright, steaming tipi. she roots through the ashes and finds the two packets left for her, still hot. 
    Outside, nothing seems to be doing, neither activity nor voices. Steffi, finding the air chill so near the river, moves to a steaming stump, soaking up sun and carbohydrates.
    She's brushing away potato flakes when Janna, with Aaron on a cradleboard, appears along the trail from the main house. "You're up! Go for a walk?"
    "Umm," says Steffi, wiping the back of her hand with her sleeve. She folds the foil pieces and pockets them for later re-use, then follows Aaron, who looks stolidly back at her from his mother's shoulders.
    They're on another trail, one that leads deeper into the canyon. At first, little sunlight reaches the ground, most of it blocked by green and glistening cliffs. Here there are maiden-hair ferns, late trilliums still in bloom, false-Solomon's seal, and even wild ginger.
    Jana walks on, touching the trunks of the Douglas firs as she passes. Aaron, jouncing along, grows heavy-lidded and nods. Steffi shares the feeling. She's missing her morning coffee.
    They come to a place more brightly lit, and Steffi realizes the canyon has opened up a bit. No, a lot. It's a hidden valley. Stone Creek must rise back in here somewhere. If so, it must be small; she hears no water. The trees are smaller here, like a precommercial thinning unit -- yet the ground is nearly flat, and looks as if, cleared, it might be decent farm land. She's reminded of the loblolly pine plantations of South Georgia. 
    Jana leaves the trail, which is faint now in any case, and, holding aside a hazel branch for Steffi, leads the way to a rising slope on which sits a strange sight: a house, many roomed, many-gabled, with windows of every shape looking in every direction. 
    It's a beautiful thing, and utterly ruined. Cedar shakes have fallen from the walls and roof, and already young alders are growing through in half a dozen places.
    "W-what?" Steffi stammers.
    "This was our house. This was Stone Creek. We had the horses here, we had our gardens. It's where we all came after the Sixties, to start over. And we almost did -- our Eden."
    "It's -- it's a wonderful place. So why did you move down by the river?"
    Jana turns to face Steffi. "There's a property line. We didn't know. Our eighty acres stops about three hundred feet back. Timberlands came by and said to get out. We got out."
    "Oh." Steffi looks at the house again. There are alder leaves on the nearest windowsill . Inside. "Wow, so that's why the houses are right by the river."
    "Yeah. We know we're taking a chance. Here in the Coast Range, the peak flow can be one hundred thousand times the minimum. But we'll just have to go with it. That's why the cable car is up so high."
    A distant crow caws, somehow reminding Steffi of brownies.
    Jana listens to the crow too, and comments. "That was an agreement. Crow says, "everything changes." You make plans, they fall through. Then you meet a guy, you get a baby. But that's not bad. I was a good tree planter, but I dunno if I could do it now. I mean, my sister'll go back to school, but everyone would watch the kid, my man would pitch in -- he's all right, I just can't stand being in the same house with him. But it's like, if I went back to it I'd be going back to it -- backwards is what it would be. Aaron is forwards. My tipi and the next house -- my own house -- forwards."
     Steffi can see that. Her body is getting harder to move in the mornings after a day's planting, or fire, or especially the saw work. She's all ears.
    Jana starts toward the trail without looking back at the house. "And, you, you think you're gonna plant forever?"
    Mind-reader.
    "Well, umm, I thought maybe another year, then see what happens?"
    Jana does that smile again. "Uh-huh. So, I heard -- you were married? You got divorced?"
    Deep breath. Out with it.
    "Three divorces. No Mr. Right." Too many jerks. Think Mr. and Mrs. is a one way ticket.
    Jana stops in her tracks, swings around, and grins. "Oh, that's -- that's great."
    Steffi knits up her brows. "It is?"
    "Yeah, it means you believe in the institution."
    "And that's great because ... "
    "Oh, time will tell. Have you seen all the houses yet?"
    Where did all that come from?
    Jana bends down to the ground, tilting the snoozing Aaron skyward. "Oh, good. Look here."
    "What?"
   "This was my herb bed. There's still plenty of apple mint." Jana pulls up a handful, with dirt. "Here, take some. We'll pot it up back home -- two pots. Some for you, and we'll take some over to Rod's."
    
    

(To be continued)

Iron Buddhas 17

 - 17 - 

 THE FIRE crew is offered some trailing work between fires. Before you can light off a unit, you've got to cut a line down to mineral soil all the way round it. Nice work if you can make it pay.
     The Greenwooders do it this way: first, there's the cutter, with an old saw chain with the rakers taken off flat and teeth sharpened with a triangle or flat file. Next, the "swamper" spots trail for the cutter, throws fresh slash to left and right of the trail, brings gas and oil and water and tools on demand. Then, depending on terrain difficulty, come six to ten men and women with shovels, Pulaskis, and big heavy "hazel" hoes.
     Steffi has become One With Her Saw and often works point, waving the spinning steel at brush, logs, and the occasional snag.
     Ron, a guy she hasn't really met before, half Yankee and half devil, with a sardonic beard and a grin to match, is her swamper. What he lacks in height he more than makes up in smarts and a wiry physicality she admires. When the Stihl is thirsty or feeling dull, he's always right there; leading quietly from behind, he makes sure the crew does moderately well. Even at the going rate, which is not big money.
     It's a tough unit, part rock face, above a precipice that's all rock face, with a tiny highway and a smidgen of red roof -- Rosie's restaurant -- far below.
     Steffi leans into her work. After about an hour of hazel brush and sword ferns, punctuated by tree roots that have to be dug out and cut, she comes to a sizeable log. She only has her eighteen inch bar; it will take four cuts to get through it, and her chain's already dull.
     "Break!" She yells to Ron. He passes it back along the line, and the crew sits down in the shade, puffing and blowing.
     Ron passes the triangle file to Steffi and she parks the saw on the log and hews steel.
     "Where'd you learn to do that?" he asks.
     "Hoedags. Thinning on the Face crew."
     "How long have you been there?"
     "Three years. Same as here."
     "I know; you live up in the quarry." He smiles.
     What does that smile mean? The guy's mysterious, always a step ahead, never shows all his cards. She's irritated but doesn't want to show it. "Where .. umm ... so where do you live?"
    "Stone Creek; you know where that is, half of the original Face crew lives there. I built a little house and I run a string of horses."
     "Pack horses? No kidding!"
     "Sure; this isn't Alaska, but it's still kind of wild around here. Now and then somebody needs my services."
     "Wow." Steffi is not fond of horses; in fact, she afraid of them. In a recurring dream she's this guy, an Indiana volunteer that gets his left arm shot in the Cornfield at Antietam Creek, then moves to the Illinois plains, builds a sod hut for a wife and two kids, and then is killed by the panicked plow horses when a lightning storm passes over. Being cut in half by an iron moldboard plow will wake you up, sweating, every time.
    She knows it wasn't their fault, but she breaks out in hives around horses anyway. She realizes she's struggling to forgive Ron for liking the damned things.
     The saw is ready. Steffi hands back the file and cranks up.
     The first cuts are made from below, angled outward at the bottom. Then the second pair of cuts will be made from above, narrowed at the top, so that the section of log, four feet long, can drop out, which it won't do with parallel cuts.
     She's almost done with the cuts from below, when half of the section, which had split beneath the bark without telling anybody, falls off on her.
     It's about a hundred and fifty pounds of wood, and it pins her arm against the Stihl's muffler.
    Steffi screams.
    Antietam looms behind her eyes. She's just fired her first and last shot of the war and knelt behind the rail fence to ram in another Minié ball; from nowhere a Texan in brown wool pops up, scowls, and aims his musket in her general direction. His shot goes high and shatters her arm forever.
     Ron springs into action, heaving up the chunk by one end and sending it flying over Steffi's head and down the mountain.
     Steffi shuts off the saw and sits there, stunned.
     "Let's have a look at that," says Ron. He unbuttons her steaming flannel sleeve, rolls it up, and there on her forearm is a perfect mirror impression of a chainsaw muffler, cooked into place.
     Carlo, who has come down with the others, hops up on the log and surveys the damage. "Cheeses, Steffi."
     "We should get you down to the clinic," says Ron.
     "I'm all right," says Steffi.
     "You think so now, but that's gonna be at least second degree and maybe some third."
     But she insists. She greases the burn with some Bag Balm she carries in a little film can -- her entire medical kit -- and ties a bandanna around her arm. She stands up on shaking legs, tentatively picks up the saw, then yanks the crank rope, her streaming face turned away from the others.
     Ron's body language shows he does not approve, but he returns to swamping for her.
     The next time Steffi runs out of gas, she's been furiously sawing well ahead of Ron's efforts, and it takes him a couple of minutes to catch up at her call.
     "I hate to tell you this," he says, handing her the bleach bottle of sawgas, "But you've just cut your way through half an acre of poison oak." He sits down on a handy stump.
     Steffi looks down at the saw chips clinging to her chaps, clothing, and bandage. Takes off a glove and shakes out some.
     "Oh, well, huh." 
    "You know this is by the hour, right?"
    "Uh."
     "What's with you, anyway? Always on, you never let up on yourself."
     Steffi thinks this over. One Life To Live? Go For The Gusto? Many other Hoedags are the same way. The Greenwooders, like Ron, are no slouches, they do savor adventure, but they kick back more. Lots more; it's a talent. Must be the landowner thing.
     "My dad, I think."
     "Ooh, psych one-oh-one. Love that stuff."
     "Knock it off. He, I think, I mean I know, he, he, wanted a boy. And they got just me, and I was 'just' a girl. File, please."
     He hands it over and puts his bearded chin in his hands. "I'm all ears."
     "Well -- they were always on my case. And any little thing, crit, crit, crit. Pain, especially."
     Steffi pushes the chain four links forward with the file and rasps down the teeth and rakers. "Y'know, one time I ran away -- kinda -- into a swamp less than half a mile from home. Middle of winter. Left a note saying I was fine, not far away, would be back on Saturday. And I built myself a wigwam and covered it with leaves, and sat by a fire for five days. Had to melt ice from the creek to get water. Loved it."
     "And you came home on Saturday."
     "Mm-hmm. And, y'know, for once they didn't have a single bad thing to say to me. Just, like, 'good morning, want some pancakes?'"
     "You'd outstripped their standards somehow."
     "Yeah. Like, if I out-guyed that guy in their heads, they'd quit bugging the girl in front of 'em."
     "But now you're here, three thousand miles away. You could maybe give that script a rest."
     "Oh."
     "Oh, she says." 
    There's that sardonic smile again. But she's sure now it's not disapproval -- not of the deep things.
     Her arm is really throbbing now. "Umm, this -- " she points at the bandanna -- "I think I'd better go sit in the crummy."
     "Ah-h-h, you're learning. I like this idea a lot. How about you give Carlito your saw and chaps and we'll finish up here for you?"
     "Yeah -- umm, yeah."

::: 

Arm in a sling, Steffi goes to a lunar eclipse party at Stone Creek. She's not up to steering Little Bird, so she catches a ride with the Omega farmers. Stone Creek is up a tiny canyon, with rock faces on either side, sheer. It's a wild-looking sort of place, and access across Greenwood Creek is via a sort of homemade cable car.
    People are milling around on a landing in the twilight, and a bearded gent is instructing them, in groups of four, how to get into and sit in the galvanized steel tub; they'll be shoved down the wire rope about sixty feet, or halfway across the rapids, then haul themselves the rest of the way by hand on the overhead cable.
    "Everybody grab the cable and pull twelve inches over and over; that's all. The brake will keep you from rolling back. You go trying to shove yourselves two feet at a time, the last person in the car will lose a finger; got it?"
     Heads nod in semi-comprehension.
    Steffi, being walking wounded, is handed into the car, with a guy in front of her and another, a red-bearded fellow in a hand-knit wool cap, behind her. The host shoves them out over the river, pulley wheels squealing. At the low point in the cable, they're stopped by gravity and swing sickeningly side-to-side. Suddenly the water seems a long way down, and there's a chill on the river air. The guys start doing that hand-over-hand thing, and of course there's a ping behind Steffi and the guy in the back starts cursing. Eventually another Stony Creek resident appears from the gloom on the opposite landing with a long stick like a shepherd's crook, who hooks the car into its cradle and latches it in place, smiling.
    "Welcome to Stony Creek. You in the back, how are ya?"
    "Hurt," says Red Beard.
    "Takes practice. Everybody hop out; go on up to the house in the first clearing; they'll take care of you. Stick to the trail; it gets dark between here and there."
    He's not kidding. Fortunately, the trail, a narrow one that has never known a car or truck, has been worn deep by boots and horseshoes for a number of years. Steffi finds her way by feel; if there's a slope under either foot she's too far left or right. Doesn't anybody around here have a flashlight?
    The house, a cedar-shake affair that reminds Steffi of White Star, is lit, but with a dim orange glow that says "kerosene" to her. So this side of the river, there's no power, no cars, no phones either, most likely. Night is falling, but Steffi can see that there are several "roads" leading away from the clearing. The thresholds of these are like hobbit-holes; a circle of green leads to a tunnel through the alders, with a single brown track for a roadbed. The thought strikes her that this must be what it was like in the Middle Ages.
    Inside the house, there's a lamp on every table, and by the light of the lamp, people are having their hands bandaged. It's like a war zone, and the worst case, the guy that had sat behind Steffi, is getting the web of his left hand stitched by a striking, slim woman in long black hair. He's got a handkerchief, rolled up, clamped between his jaws. Raven Hair smiles at him; he relaxes a little, and she deftly puts in a last loop, pulls it tight, and snips with a tiny pair of nail scissors. Wounded Hand flexes his fingers a bit, winces, and smiles wanly at his hostess.
    The man who'd addressed the crowd across Greenwood Creek steps in, surveys the scene, and shakes his head. "You all told me you got it, and look at you."
    Heads hang in shame around the room.
    "Oh, well ... party time!" He hefts a six-pack of Rainier. "Eclipse at eleven-thirty. Bonfire's being lit now."
    A mild cheer rises from the crowd. Booted feet shuffle across the rough-hewn floor.
    Steffi is offered a brownie. "Uhh, thanks but no thanks."
    The woman making the offer turns out to be She Who Fixed Mr. Red Beard. "Oh, Hi, I'm Jana. I used to plant with Face Crew, up to '74, so we haven't met. I think I heard something about brownies ... "
    "I'll never live that down."
    "You shouldn't worry; people who don't have good stories about them are the ones who should worry."
    "You have stories?"
    "Yeah ... lots." Jana smiles, pats Steffi on the shoulder and moves off, working the room.
    Steffi's next offered a small aluminum tumbler poured from a bottle with a bearded gent in a heavy fur coat on the label. "Uhh, thanks but no thanks." She's learned where her minefields are.
    Someone opens a Rainier and hands it to her. "Thanks." Steffi wanders outside, sipping at the weak beer, to see that flames are rising from a heap of brushwood in the near distance. She joins the crowd.
    There are a lot of Star crew members here, though she doesn't see Dan or Carlo. Ron pops up by her side. "How's the arm?"
    "Oh ... hi. Umm, it's better than it looks. Doctor said give it a rest though. So I, I didn't have to pinch a finger coming across."
    "Smart move."
    "Uh?"
    "Funning you." He sips at his own beer, an Olympia, then looks at the can and purses his lips. "Cheapskates. So, how's the poison oak?"
    "Some around my neck, some around my wrists. Not much; this stuff is wimpy compared to what we had back East."
    "I remember it. Did you know, the wounded lay in hot sun for days after Gettysburg, in the lushest poison ivy anyone had ever seen?"
    Steffi hides behind her beer can. "Ack, please! No Civil War just now."
    "Oh ... sure." He creases his forehead.
    An impromptu band has formed, four guitars and a tambourine. Voices are roaring out "Midnight Special." Steffi taps her foot on the gravel. She'd join in, but she doesn't know if this man sings, and doesn't want him to feel excluded.
    One of the Stars is circulating through the crowd, a tall guy with a Van Dyke beard and recessed eyes. "It's starting, folks -- look at the moon!"
    The song tapers off. Sure enough, the silver is fading from the long, trampled grass round the fire, and most illumination that remains is from the bonfire's embers and glow of half a dozen cigarettes and joints.
    "The Red Dragon is eating the moon!" cries Jana.
    "Nahh, it's the Sacred Dog," says Red Beard, waving a glowing roach with his bandaged hand.
    "Huh," says the tall Star crewmember. He crouches, puts his long hands on his knees, tips back his head, and ululates. His shadow is haloed in deep red.
    Forty-seven voices lift in a long, exuberant howl of greeting to the wounded moon.




(To be continued)