!Woodsmen
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by Anna @ 2016
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Chapter 6: Stuck
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The winter I turned thirty, Mike took an offering of
bloody venison steaks to Floyd's place on the
river. I don't know what they talked about. I'd
given up on inventing men and loving them. It was
good enough to get a ride to town with one hand have
him come home to me in the little place we'd
scratched out of the woods up in the national
forest. Mike got the property with his disability
payout.
Whatever he and Floyd talked about, Mike returned to
our tarpaper and plywood cabin built up against the
side of the RV we'd moved out there in. He went
about grabbing things. I saw it was too many things.
He wouldn't answer my questions. I was helpless as a
breeze against a cliff. Snow started to fall. I
watched the taillights on Mike's little Nissan truck
disappear down the hill.
Pickle whined and pawed at my back, her nail
catching in my sweater. Damn you, I said, slumping
from my kneeling pose on the ratty couch. I had to
get her untangled. At least I still have you, I
said. Leaving in that damn truck is what Mike and I
do. The snow was like the cobwebs I felt I was
wrapped in since daddy died and I quit trying to
love people.
Pickle barked once, sharp. I got her rope toy, but
she wouldn't be distracted. I stood, put my back to
the window, pulled on Mike's orange jacket and hat,
sat and put my rain boots on, shoved a log in the
stove, opened the door. Pickle tumbled out. I
trudged after her.
I could see the pitifulness of the life we had made,
the pawprints of Pickle, the thin blanket of snow on
the half-finished shed, the old Tercel that won't
start, the cardboard box the generator came in, the
spindly pines that sprung up like weeds in the
clearing we made but didn't maintain.
Out in the night woods, Pickle yelped horribly and I
ran, fear waking my heart and making it fast.
Pickle! I yelled, hearing my voice, Pickle! C'mere
girl!
There wasn't another sound from her. Instead there
was Shirley Chester's son, grown up, standing by my
dog, looking mournful. I hadn't a word for my mouth.
I wanted Mike, but he had left. So I put words
together.
You Shirley Chester's boy.
He looked at my face. Yes maam he said.
Turn loose my dog I said.
I would like to he said.
I stepped a foot closer and saw the old timbers and
boards, wooden ruins half-buried in dirt, the
predicament Pickle and us were in.
I found this spot, Shirley Chester's boy said, and I
thought I might dig it up. It might be something
good. That your dog?
Yes, I said, kneeling by Pickle. Her jaw was pinned
by a timber that spanned the little ditch and rested
on another half-buried in earth.
He's got himself in a situation, Shirley Chester's
son said.
I kissed Pickle on the neck, breathed in her dog-
smell damp from the snow that was collecting on her
fur, tried to ignore for that second the sharp metal
smell of her blood. I looked up. Don't you shoot
her, I said. And don't you leave.
It's hard to run fast on snow on leaves with your
condensed breath in your face and the cold damp in
your nose and chest but I was not fixing to lose
Mike and Pickle both in one night. I was not.
There was a crosscut saw hung on the wall of the
snow-covered half built shed. I felt it rasp my
fingers, waved to the right and brushed the glass
chimney of the hurricane lamp. At its base one of
Mike's lighters still sat.
I sparked and raised flame, saw there was a finger
of coal oil still in the lamp, lifted the chimney,
turned up the wick, lit it, turned it down, replaced
the chimney, and looked at what was left: a truck
jack with a wrench for a handle, a twenty pound
hammer and a wedge, a few old ax handles, a cat's
paw nail puller, a claw hammer, a manila envelope
with papers in it, one sawhorse, lots of shadows.
I marched in circles collecting things and setting
them down. Then I sat on the insulation we were
going to put in the walls and ceiling of our shack
before Pickle and rain ruined it and rested my head
in my palms.
I can't sit here like my dad, I said. I fix things
even if one of them things has to be me.
When I got back to my pinned dog, Shirley Chester's
son sat by the timber smoking a Winston. He put it
out when he saw me with kit and lantern come down
the hill to free my dog.
He let me lead but he didn't slack. I set the wedge
and he tamped it in with the ten pound hammer. I
cradled pickle's head but it was still caught and
maybe she was dead. I set the next wedge and he
tamped it in. That didn't lift the timber enough to
free her either. I hitched the comealong to a medium
sized birch and he looped the cable over the timber,
around between the wedges. The flame on the
hurricane lamp blew low and stood again, wrenching
the shadows. I cranked on the comealong, took off
Mike's jacket and cranked some more.
Shirley Chester's son blocked up the timber with ax
handles. When they were all in he held up his hand
and I trudged through the snow to sit with my dog.
If her snout had been intact I wouldn't have
hesitated to yank it loose, but bone was clearly
broken and I didn't want to do more damage.
I wiped her blood on my jeans and shoved the heavy
hydraulic jack at the gap. It was still too narrow,
and the jack was too heavy for me. Shirley Chester's
son breathed visible breath on his cupped hands,
tapped a Winston from his pack, lit it, and watched
me in the moving shadows cast by the lamp. I looked
in the shadows of the satchel.
I didn't have a mallet. I broke the handles of two
wood chisels with the five pound hammer, but I got
the truck jack in, cranked the wrench handle, and
was confronted with my dog's crushed face, lamplight
shadows and black blood. I held Pickle to my chest
while Shirley Chester's son packed up all the tools
except the ax handles jammed between the timbers. He
put Mike's jacket back over my shoulders and
mumbled, Gotta get to work.
I looked up at him, his face lit ridiculously from
the lamp, and I was furious. Where is it you work
this time of night? I asked like he was mine and not
Shirley Chester's.
Furnace is busted in mom's church, he said. Glad you
got your dog loose.
Then it was just me and Pickle, who was alive,
breathing in snoring bubbling gasps through her
shattered face and I thought Thank you God for
freeing my dog.
