Riding The Whirlwind Read online

Paul had been working for Ryder two months and he felt tough enough to eat nails and spit horse shoes as the hoot owlers gathered in front of the shack at 3 am one morning to hear their new assignment from Bill Ryder. He came out with his coffee his usual grouchy self.

  “Ok men, listen up, we have the contract to do Elk Mountain, the steepest son of a gun you will ever want to meet. Its near straight up in places so it’s going to be risky on this run.

  “I’ve had the fallers in there four days already, and already there is a man in the rocking chair who got in the way of his own tree.”

  “I want you to work careful out there, you hear me? I don’t want to lose any more crew. It’s going to be hot out there so have the water close by you at all times. You won’t be penalized for calling a time out if it’s really the case, but as usual I want no slacking. We have to yard those logs out of there or we don’t get paid. That’s just how it is.”

  The rigging slinger held up his hand, “Yeah Carl, this ain’t school fer crisake, speak up man.” Bill Ryder looked as if he had been eating lemons.

  “Has the cables been changed on the yarder? Those old cables are gettin’ frayed boss.”

  “No they ain’t been changed Carl and you know it, what you men don’t know and I didn’t want to say anything, is that Ryder Logging is near busted what with the new government regulations and everything else you can think off, this job on Elk Mountain is going to make or break us.”

  “Boys, we can’t pay for new cable till we get that job done…that’s just how it is so we’re going to have to rough it through with the equipment we have and hope nothing breaks down.”

  “I sold off three of the trucks to get us through, Steve Halleran’s outfit shut down yesterday…I didn’t want to tell you boys, but the figures don’t look good.”

  The men looked around soberly at one another, then turned toward the pick-ups parked a few feet away.

  “Good luck out there boys.” Bill Ryder turned and slammed the door on the trail so hard the whole trailer shook.

  The men were quiet all the way out to Elk Mountain, each of them wondering what they would do for a living if Ryder shut it’s logging operations down.

  When they got to the landing the old yarder was there and they stood for a minute and looked at the steep mountain side which looked formidable in the early morning light. The mountain side looked so steep to Paul that if he stepped off the landing he would slide all the way to the bottom of the mountain.

  “OK boys.” The crew leader looked at each one of them, “Its going to be a hot and hard day down there, so I want you men to look sharp and work careful, if you feel like you are getting too hot, call a break. Lets go.”

  Paul stepped off the side of the hill as he heard the yarder operator hit the starter on the diesel engine of the yarder.

  By the time he got down to the first tangle of logs the yarder operators horn tooted three times signaling the yarder was ready.

  The first day on the mountain Paul worked, sweated and swore at the tangles of logs and bushes.

  A couple times he thought he would pass out, but he knew he was not the one that was going to call a break. With his clothing soaked through he kept on working.

  On the way back to the yard at the end of the day the exhausted men looked with hollow eyes at nothing as they rode the back of the pick-ups down the mountain.

  It was dark when Paul cranked the engine of his old ford and drove home.

  The next day the men were still tired when they stepped off the landing to work through some of the most grueling hours any of them had ever put in for Ryder or any other logging concern.

  “You ain’t going to beat me bitch.” Paul said to the side of the mountain as he drug the cable over to the first tree and set the choker.

  “That’s one hell of a tree squirt!” Carl called over, then cranked his chain saw to limb another tree.

  Paul didn’t hear the warning when the yarder cable snapped and slammed across his hard hat and shoulder. Everything went dim and gray, then black.