Sometimes a Great Notion

  Evenwrite hunched near the motor in chilled silence; at first he had been angry with Draeger, who had suggested paying Mr. Stamper this senseless social call; he then became furious with himself, not only for forgetting to check the tides but for insisting to Draeger that they go up in a rented boat instead of driving up and honking for Stamper to come across and get them at the garage. ("He might not come across to pick us up when we get there," he had told Draeger when the man had asked about driving to the Stamper house, "an' even if he does, the bastard might not take us back across"--knowing better, knowing Hank would have greatly enjoyed this sort of chance to be neighborly and helpful, would probably have been just nice as pie, the sonofabitch!)--and, finally, he had become absolutely enraged with Mama Olson for loaning him a poncho that was so frigging full of holes it practically drowned him and ruined his goddam pack of cigarettes. (But by god if you ever catch Floyd Evenwrite begging for anything, be it smokes, matches, or that plastic tarp he's sitting on and me soaked to the goddam skin!)

  Draeger sat barely visible in the twisting dark in the bow of the boat with his pipe bowl turned upside down against the rain, saying nothing to make the trip any more enjoyable. (In fact, the sonofabitch never has anything to say! other'n "Let's talk things over." And I'm getting tired of that.) How Draeger had risen to the top in the labor business was something Evenwrite found increasingly hard to comprehend. There seemed to be nothing to him but front. He hadn't done a goddam thing about the strike in the whole time he'd been in town, after being a week late to boot--just walked around nodding and grinning like a nincompoop. (Except--it's funny--except all the time he's taking notes in that little book.) He hadn't asked a thing about the minutes of the walkout meeting (but funny thing is you feel he's already got it wrote down) or about the morale of the members after a long strike, or the dwindling strike funds, or any of the stuff Evenwrite had been prepared to answer. (Like he thinks he knows so goddam much he don't have to stoop to ask question of dumb-asses like us!) One thing, though, that Evenwrite had to give him credit for (now he might think just because of some goddam college-degree friend in Washington or something that he can come around here expecting us to kiss his feet . . .) and that was the man's impressive and calm way of handling the members, (. . . but he'll see he's got another think coming). Also Floyd had to admire the way he kept them in line, the way he kept them aware that he was the man at the controls (I'll have to learn how to bring that off ) and that they were just the rank and file (that's only way to command any kind of respect and get any kind of discipline outa the bunch of knot-heads).

  So Evenwrite fumed and fretted, worshiped and hated all the silent trip up the river, and wished Draeger would say something so he could grunt just enough answer to show that Floyd Evenwrite didn't give a good goddam for him, he didn't care if he was president of the whole United States!

  The window lights of the house came into view. "Balls," Evenwrite said finally, without being asked, making the word a general, all-encompassing denouncement. He swallowed hard: he was cold, he wasn't looking forward to this meeting, and he was longing so for a cigarette that the smoke from Draeger's pipe was bringing tears to his eyes.

  They tied the launch to the marker at the dock and stepped out into a smothering dark that reminded him of the flashlight left lying in the front seat of his car. "Balls again," Evenwrite said, more softly. Draeger wondered if they shouldn't call to the house for a lantern but Evenwrite vetoed the idea: "You don't catch me asking for a lantern" and added in a terse whisper, "They probably wouldn't bring one out anyway."

  With the running lights of the boat extinguished, and the kitchen window cut off behind the thick vine hedge, the darkness was terrible. Each match they tried hissed out immediately, as though pinched by invisible wet fingers; they gave up all hope of light and began shuffling blind along the slippery, slopping planks, hearing the river inches away in the night. Evenwrite led the way inch by inch, feeling ahead with his feet, both arms extended well in front of him. They both remained perfectly silent, as though coerced by the shushing of the rain, until Evenwrite ran his forehead into a piling pole; it was so inconceivable to him that any innocent object of the night could get past his double straight-arm guard that he thought someone lying in ambush had clubbed him. "Dirty bastard!" he cried, throwing both arms about his mysterious assailant. Who was clothed in a garment of cold, wet slime and barnacle shells. "Oh!" he cried again a bit too loud, and from beneath the house came a black boiling of frenzied beasts, roaring down on him pitilessly. "Oh dear Lord," he whispered as the unseen pack bore down, rumbling the planks with a rhythm of galloping claws, baying, snarling and yipping. "Oh dear Jesus."

  He released the post, threw both arms instead around Draeger, and clung there in shameless terror. "Oh me, oh me, oh me!"

  With the beam of his flashlight Joe Ben found them clutched thus, swaying in the rain as the dogs surrounded them in a frenzy of delight and welcome. "Why, look here," Joe called good-naturedly. "Why, it's Floyd Evenwrite an' a date, I guess. Come on inside, fellows, where we got a nice fire goin'."

  Evenwrite blinked stupidly at the light, becoming more and more certain that his most pessimistic reservations about this excursion would undoubtedly be realized.

  "Sure!" Joe called once more. "Whatever you're doin' you can do better in the warm."

  Draeger untangled himself from Evenwrite's grip and smiled back at Joe. "Thank you, I believe we will." He accepted the invitation as pleasantly as it had been extended.

  In the living room Viv brought them hot coffee. The old man spiked the coffee with bourbon and offered them cigars. Joe's oldest girl dragged chairs up close to the stove for them, and Joe was so concerned that they might catch their death--"Out there froze, huggin' each other for a little warmth"--that he dragged out a great pile of blankets for them.

  Evenwrite refused everything and suffered the humiliation of this mocking hospitality in silence. Draeger suffered not at all; he took the spiked coffee and cigar, complimented Joe Ben on his lovely children and old Henry on the quality of his smokes, and humbly asked Viv if she would be so kind as to fix him a teaspoonful of soda in a half a glass of lukewarm water: "For a cantankerous stomach."

  When he finished the soda water Draeger asked if Hank Stamper might be bothered for a few moments--they had a proposition for him. Joe told him Hank was out on the bank, checking the foundation, right at present. "You boys care to wait here for him? He's liable to be a while out there--or you want to go out and discuss this proposition with him in the rain?"

  "Oh for heaven's sakes, Joe," Viv scolded. "It's miserable out there. He can come in for a while. I'll give him a call. . . ."

  Draeger held up his hand. "Please don't, Mrs. Stamper. We'll go out and talk with him." Evenwrite gaped, unable to believe he was hearing it. "I don't like to interrupt a man's work."

  "By godfrey, Draeger, what are you saving?"

  "Floyd . . ."

  "But, Christ, this stove here . . . an' you want to up and--"

  "Floyd."

  They went out, with Joe Ben behind them like an usher, waving the flashlight in a frenetic tempo to his soliloquizing about the sudden rain, the landslides, the rising river, and had Floyd been playing with dynamite of late? They wound a zigzagging plank walk and found Hank in a poncho and rain pants, dangling a lantern bail in his teeth while he lashed a timber firm against what appeared to be a railroad tie that had washed up recently and was being inculcated into the rest of the formless reinforcing. One side of his face was still bloated blue from the fight and a piece of adhesive dangled uselessly from one end over a cut on his chin. Evenwrite introduced Draeger, and Hank shook his hand. Evenwrite waited a few moments, expecting Draeger to state their business, but Draeger had stepped back from the light, and Floyd realized he was even gonna have to do the goddam asking! He swallowed hard and began. Hank took the lantern from his mouth while he listened.

  "Let me see if I got you right," he said when Evenwrite had
finished. "You want me to go in the house and call Wakonda Pacific and tell 'em no dice on the three million feet I cut for 'em, and to show your appreciation you boys'll help me peddle my logs someplace else?"

  "Or," Draeger offered, "we'll buy the operation from you outright."

  "Who? The union?"

  "And some of the citizens of the town."

  "Fancy that. But the thing is, Mr. Draeger--an' Floyd, you know this--I can't possibly do such a thing. It ain't all mine to sell. It belongs to a good many of us."

  Evenwrite started to answer but Draeger interrupted. "Hank, think of this." Draeger's voice was sterile, carrying neither veiled threat nor solicitous entreaty: Evenwrite noticed that Hank was watching the man closely. "A good many people in town are dependent on that mill reopening."

  "Yeah!" Evenwrite came back. "So like I started to say, I know you can't possibly not do such a thing, Hank, not and still call yourself a Christian. There is an entire town off there depending on you. An en-tire town, your home town, the fellows you grew up with, played ball with . . . an' their wives an' kids! Hank, I know you, boy; this is ol' Floyd, remember? I know you ain't one of the lard-butts in Frisco or LA, bloodsucking your fellow man. I know you can't allow that town of men, women, and children to go hungry all winter to line your pocket."

  Hank dropped his eyes, amused and a little embarrassed by Evenwrite's rhetoric. But he shook his head, smiling and shrugging. "They won't starve, Floyd. Some of 'em might miss a couple payments on their TV or--"

  "Goddam your soul, Stamper--!" Evenwrite pushed in between Draeger and Hank. "You can see what a bind we're in. And we ain't about to let you keep us eatin' dirt."

  "Floyd, I just don't know." Hank continued to shake his head, looking down at the dangling ends of wire where he'd been wrapping the timber. One of his fingers was bleeding slowly down his arm. "I don't see what I can do. I'm in a bind too. Our whole business, the whole shebang, is tied up in those booms up at our mill."

  "Hank, could you hold off and sell later?" Draeger asked. "Just until the strike was settled?" Truly an odd voice, Evenwrite had to admit, something about it pure and tasteless, like eating snow or drinking rainwater. . . .

  "No, Mr. Draeger, I couldn't; didn't Floyd here show you all that research he did? I'm over a barrel myself. The contract reads delivery by Thanksgiving; we get them logs down by Thanksgiving or the deal is void. We break terms and the price is throwed open. They could pay us what they please. Wouldn't even have to pay us at all if they wanted to be ornery about it--could just sue for fraud an' take the logs."

  "They couldn't take your booms! You know damn well--"

  "They might, Floyd."

  "No judge and jury would find for 'em!"

  "They might. You can't tell. And even if they didn't, what am I going to do with twenty acres of logs floating on the river? Our little craphouse mill couldn't handle a quarter of 'em, working night and day all winter . . . even it did we might not be able to market the lumber if we did get it cut."

  "You could market it." Floyd was sure.

  "How? The big companies got all the construction contracts already sewed up tight."

  "Hell, Hank, use your damned head." Evenwrite was charged with sudden enthusiasm. "You could sell to the outfits Wakonda Pacific was planning to sell to. You get it? Sure. Them outfits'll need buildin' material come spring, and man, look, there's where you clean up! You cut out WP and since they don't have the wood they can't meet their contract and you sell to the contractors for twice the profit! Hey boy, there we go." He turned to Draeger, smiling triumphantly. "What you think of that, Jonny? There's our answer. Hell, now, why didn't I think of that before? Why didn't I think of it?"

  Draeger chose to let the question pass, but Hank's face came up from examining his cut finger and he regarded Evenwrite's enthusiastic features with obvious amusement. "Probably, I'd say, Floyd, you didn't think of it for the same reason that you didn't just now think that if I let WP go back to work then they'll be able to supply their contracts themselves."

  "What?"

  "Look, Floyd. The reason you don't want me to sell to WP is so they'll go back to work and cut their own logs. Right? And mill their own lumber? To meet their own contracts?"

  "I don't see . . ." Evenwrite furrowed his brow and a rivulet of water shot down the furrow and off his nose.

  "It's like this, Floyd." Hank tried again, patiently. "I can't sell to contractors that WP failed to fill contracts for if you guys go back to work and--"

  "Oh man, don't you see, Floyd?" The material was too rich for Joe Ben to stay out of. He popped into the circle of light, his eyes blinking glee. "Don't you see? Oh yeah. See. If we break our contract so you get your contract then they can meet their contracts with the contractors that you are saying we can contract to if we--"

  "What? Wait a minute--"

  Hank was trying to keep his amusement from becoming even more obvious. "Joe Ben means, Floyd, that if we let you guys go back to work we're eliminating our market."

  "Yeah, Floyd, see? Oh, I admit it's deep. If we let you cut their lumber, then our lumber we aim to sell to them . . ." He took another breath and tried to start anew but gave way to a snorting explosion of laughter instead.

  "Screw all this," Floyd growled.

  ". . . or if we let you keep our lumber"--this was the sort of material that could keep Joe going for days--"from becoming their lumber so your lumber can become their lumber--"

  "Screw it." Floyd hunched his shoulders against the lantern light and clamped his jaw. "Just screw it, Joe Ben."

  "You can always sell lumber," Draeger said simply.

  "That's right!" Evenwrite saw an opportunity to regain lost ground. He took Hank by the arm. "That's why I say screw all this bull. You can always sell lumber."

  "Maybe . . ."

  "Goddam you now, Hank, be reasonable. . . ." He drew a deep breath in preparation for another assault on Hank's stubbornness, but Draeger cut in abruptly. "What are we to tell the people in town?"

  Hank turned from Evenwrite; something in the tone of Draeger's question stripped the situation of humor. "What are you gonna what?"

  "What are we to tell the people in town?" Draeger asked again.

  "Why, I don't care what you tell them. I don't see--"

  "Are you aware, Hank, that Wakonda Pacific is owned by a firm in San Francisco? Are you aware that last year a net of nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars left your community?"

  "I don't see what skin that is--"

  "These are your friends, Hank, your associates and neighbors. Floyd tells me that you served in Korea." Draeger's voice was placid . . . "Do you ever think that the same loyalty that your country expected of you overseas could be expected of you here at home? Loyalty to friends and neighbors when they are being threatened by a foreign foe? Loyalty to--?"

  "Loyalty, for the chrissake . . . loyalty?"

  "That's right, Hank. I think you know what I'm talking about." The soothing patience of the voice was almost mesmerizing, "I'm speaking of the basic loyalty, the true patriotism, the selfless, openhearted, humane concern that you always find welling up from someplace within you--a concern you might have almost forgotten--when you see a fellow human being in need of your help. . . ."

  "Listen . . . listen to me, Mister." Hank's voice was taut. He pushed past Evenwrite and held his lantern close to Draeger's neat-featured face. "I'm just as concerned as the next guy, just as loyal. If we was to get into it with Russia I'd fight for us right down to the wire. And if Oregon was to get into it with California I'd fight for Oregon. But if somebody--Biggy Newton or the Woodsworker's Union or anybody--gets into it with me, then I'm for me! When the chips are down, I'm my own patriot. I don't give a goddam the other guy is my own brother wavin' the American flag and singing the friggin' 'Star Spangled Banner'!"

  Draeger smiled sadly. "And what of self-sacrifice, the true test of any patriot? If you really believed what you say about yourself, Hank, you would be in for some p
retty shallow patriotism, some pretty selfish loyalty--"

  "Call it whatever you want, that's the way I intend to play it. You can tell my good friends and neighbors Hank Stamper is heartless as a stone if you want. You can tell them I care just as much about them as they did about me layin' on the barroom floor last night."

  The two men held each other's eyes. "We could tell them that," Draeger said, still smiling sadly at Hank, "but we both know it would be a lie."

  "Yeah, a lie!" Evenwrite burst out of his angry reverie. "Because, goddammit, you can always sell lumber!"

  "Christ Almighty, yes, Floyd!" Hank turned on Evenwrite, relieved in a way to have someone to shout at again. "Sure I can sell lumber. But wake up and die right! use your damn head! Look!" He grabbed the flashlight from the still laughing Joe Ben and shone it down at the surging river; the black water eddied about the beam of light as though it were a solid pole. "Look at that push down there! Look! After just one day of rain! You think I can wrestle those booms of mine through a winter of this? I'll tell you something, Floyd, old buddy, to make your trip worth while. Something to make your damn constipated heart burst out singing. We just might not make that deadline, you ever think of that? We still got another half-boom to fill out before we make our run. Another three weeks, and some of it the shittiest type logging in the world; we go up in the state park to finish off with. Steep logging, goddamn hand-logging! just like they did sixty or seventy years ago, because the State won't let us bring cats and donkeys in for fear we might skin up some of the goddamn mountain greenery. Three weeks of flooding and primitive logging, an' we're liable to fall short. But we're gonna work our asses at it, ain't we Joby? And you boys are welcome to stand there and talk about men, women, and children, friends and neighbors and loyalty and that crap till the cows come home, stand there and talk about how they are gonna lose their TV sets this winter, and how the poor folks got to eat . . . but goddammit I can tell you this, that if they eat it's gonna be for some reason other'n me, or Joe Ben or the rest, some reason other'n us playin' Santa Claus! Because I don't give a goddamn! for my friends and neighbors in town yonder; no more than they give a damn about me." He stopped. A cut on his lip had reopened, and he licked at it gingerly. For a second, in the circle of the lantern's saffron light, the men waited. No one looking at the others.