The Lighthouse Road(48)

In the root cellar Thea collected the morning's fare: the oats, the buttermilk, the bacon. There were bushels of sprouted potatoes and overripe onions and twenty pumpkins ready to be made into pie. She gathered fifty pounds of potatoes and five pounds of oleo. She had baked the bread the night before, and she removed twenty loaves from the wooden breadbox. She thought if the men were anything like herself, the warm weather on the heels of such cold would induce their greatest appetites.



Indeed, when the men arrived after reveille, they found their seats quickly and ate with gusto. Each was served a rasher of bacon, four slices of bread and oleo, boiled and salted potatoes, a heap of steaming oats, and coffee to wash it down. Fifteen minutes after taking their places at the tables they rose and marched out of the mess hall, their mittens and hats in their hands, their coats and shirt collars unbuttoned. Under a dull sun they climbed aboard the empty hauling sleds and lit their pipes or cigars. Thea went to the door and watched as the horses pulled onto the ice road. She could see the runners plowing through the soft snow. Lodden followed the sleigh to the first bend before reversing his enormous stride and backing toward camp.



She had only finished her tea when the supply sleigh arrived, hauled by two horses worse for the season. The same company that owned the mill owned the timber and two camps— the Burnt Wood River Camp and another in the Cloquet Valley— and the sleigh ran a regular loop between the two, stopping at the commissary in Duluth to reload with each pass. Twice each week the same drivers dropped the stores, both the usual fare and, on Fridays, what passed for Sunday dinner. Oftenest this was herring but on that day it was one hundred pounds of pork chops, a cask of fresh apples, and three gunnysacks of butter nut squash. Thea pinched two of the apples while the brothers Meltmen unloaded the sleigh.



While they worked, Thea took the apples from her apron pocket and fed one to each of the horses.





She was paring the squash on a bench outside the mess hall, the warm sun still hazy above the clouds, when she saw Joshua Smith steer his fine hickory sleigh around the last bend on the ice road. He sat on a seat of crushed purple velvet and wore a mink coat and beaver skin hat. His boots were Anishinabe-style moccasins, covered in beadwork and quills and lined with sheep's wool. His mittens hung from the cuffs of his sleeves.



"Good afternoon," he said, then pulled his watch from its pocket and corrected himself. "I should say good morning. Is Trond about?"



Thea understood he was asking for the foreman and shrugged to suggest she did not know.



"Have you got coffee in there?" He pointed at the mess-hall door.



She understood this query, too, and nodded and hurried in. At the stove Thea poured coffee and offered him a cup.



"I thank you," he said and took a long drink.



She noticed that one of his front teeth was dead.



"I've heard rumors of women working the Burnt Wood Camp." He took another drink. "But I didn't believe it." He looked at her directly, his dead tooth dividing an impish smile. "A man could sure use a bowl of that stew boiling up yonder."



Thea looked down.



He smiled his dead-tooth smile. He said, "You've got a thing for quiet, eh? Where are you from, darling?" He cocked his head as if to take stock. " Those cheeks and blond locks, I suppose you ain't from Africa." He laughed at his joke. "Norway," he ventured, "Norge?"



Her eyes widened and she replied in Norwegian, "I am from Norway." And then, recalling her English lesson upon leaving Hammerfest, she continued in English, "I am new in America."



To her surprise and relief he responded in Norwegian, introducing himself as the watch salesman Joshua Smith, down from Duluth. He informed her that Trond expected him and repeated his request for a bowl of stew. She moved slowly to the pot on the stove and fetched the stew, deciding as she crossed the hall that despite his dead tooth, Smith was handsome in a way none of the jacks was. His handlebar mustache exaggerated a rakish smile and those eyes of his were wide and devilish enough to cast spells.



He ate standing, loosening the buttons on his shirt. She was used to the jacks and their absence of manners and Smith cut a marked contrast. He dabbed the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief after each bite, there was no slurping, no licking the bowl once the meat and vegetables were eaten. He did not belch when he set the bowl on the tabletop. Without asking, he took a tin cup and went to the cistern and dipped a cup of water. When he finished drinking he used the ladle hanging from the lip and dipped himself another. With every movement he became more at ease in the room.