Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(229)

Ruark was well pleased with all of it. It was an accomplishment he took pride in. He dismissed the overseers, then others, then walked the flume back to the pond, carefully looking over the gates and bed as he went. Everything was in readiness.

The seesawing heehaw of a mule higher up the embankment drew Ruark’s attention. The first wagon driver had halted his load of logs on the road above the mill and made his way down afoot to be sure where they were to be dumped. The team he had left for the most part dozed in the shade, lazily swishing flies with their tails, except for Old Blue, the rear animal on the far side who brayed discontentedly, laying his ears alongside his head. Old Blue was his cantankerous old self even under Trahern’s ownership. The squire had bested Mister Dunbar’s offer, and Ruark chuckled as he wondered if Trahern was beginning to question his wisdom in purchasing the beast.

Ruark paused at the pond’s edge, gazing out over the mirror-smooth water. All noises were subdued, and there was a tenseness in the air, a sense of expectancy, that in another moment would be crushed beneath the din of activity. The gates were ready to be opened, the logs ready to be dumped. It only awaited his signal.

A splintering, snapping sound intruded upon the quiet, rising quickly in volume and rate. Ruark looked up at the wagon and to his horror saw the side stakes slowly folding beneath the weight of the logs. With a last final crack they gave way, spilling the load down the hillside. They gathered speed as they bounded toward him, thumping and jarring the ground on which he stood. There was no place to flee but the pond.

Ruark leaped high and stretched out. His body cleaved the air in a shallow arc, and he struck the smooth surface almost flat. As the water closed over his head, he bent and dove deep, clawing downward with all the strength he could muster. The butt of a log plunged past him, so close he could see tiny bubbles clinging to its coarse bark. Then its buoyancy checked the descent, and it was gone. Rocks brushed his belly painfully, and he bumped into the slope on the far side. Rolling once, he could see the unsettled, frothy turbulence high above. Another log almost touched the bottom before it shot upward to leap clear into the air like a hooked fish, then fell back to crash and bob upon the surface.

Ruark’s lungs burned and were near to bursting. He kicked off the bottom and headed for a clear area above, broaching like the log. Falling back to tread water, he gasped precious air into his lungs. Shouts and angry curses came from the shore where he had stood, and as he struggled to clear his eyes, he saw the foreman and the driver backed by a crowd who anxiously scanned the water for some sign of him. Clinging to a nearby log, Ruark waved his arm and heard the answering shout. He rested a moment and then began to swim slowly back toward them.

“I never meant to inspect the pond quite so thoroughly as that,” he gasped as he crawled up on the shore.

“The damned fool left his logs unchained when he came down,” the foreman raged.

“Like hell I did!” the driver declared. “Do ya take me fer a bloody boob? I checked ‘em good an’ they was chained.”

“No harm’s been done.” Ruark took the foreman’s offered hand and hauled himself to his feet. The sound which had preceded that of the dumping logs did not lend to his peace of mind. “But I’ve a mind to look at that wagon.”

He led the way up the slope. The chains were held in place by a pin through a link and a bracket on the wagon’s bed so that the pin could be tapped out and the load dumped. Wooden posts on each side further restrained the logs, but these now lay on the ground with the pins and the small sledgehammer each driver carried. Someone had deliberately knocked the pins out after removing the posts. The partial track of a booted foot was marked into a soft spot of earth, and Ruark could only surmise that Old Blue had had something to bellow about after all. As the men around him wore the flat soles of sandals or work shoes, there was no doubt in his mind that another man had been here. Ruark followed the trail some distance along the road and around a curve protected by thick brush and trees. Here he found another impression of a booted heel along with the masks of a horse’s hooves. He frowned in silence, realizing someone had meant to kill him.

Ruark glanced up as Ralston’s small carriage came briskly around the bend. The thin man halted beside the workmen who had gathered around Ruark. He climbed down from the high seat with a triumphant sneer on his face.

“Hah! Dawdling again, I see. Squire Trahern may yet be convinced that sterner measures are needed to extract worthwhile labor from slaves.”

The man’s boots were meticulously clean, or Ruark might have accused him then and there.