"I wish," Al declared, "that I was eighteen 'stead of forty-nine. I'd be
able to work things out, too. But it's you doin' it. Everybody's got to
live the way they see fit."
Al picked up another board and began shaping it. Ted took his
pocketknife from his pocket.
"I'll help you, huh?"
"Reckon not." Al shook his head. "Sunday's your day off."
"Let me help. It wouldn't really be work to me."
"Nope. Even if I did want help, nobody but me can make my stretchin'
boards."
"Then I'll go get dinner."
"That's a smart idea."
With Tammie pacing beside him, Ted went into the house. Everything about
it was solid, strong, heart-warming. The front door was made of oak
boards an inch and a half thick, the windows were set ten inches back in
the log walls, the ample fireplace was of native stone. Obviously it was
the home of an outdoorsman. Two mounted bucks' heads stared from the
same wall, and of the five rugs on the living room floor, three were
bearskins and two were bobcats. Ted's and Al's rifles and shotguns hung
on a rack and there was a glass-enclosed case for fishing tackle.
But Al Harkness, child of the Mahela though he was, did not spurn modern
conveniences. Electric lights hung from the ceiling. Bottled gas
furnished fuel for the kitchen range and there was a hot water heater.
Al had an electric refrigerator, a large freezer and a tiled sink with
regulation hot and cold faucets.
Tammie, knowing they'd been out and would go no more, curled up on one
of the bearskin rugs. Ted took a chicken from the refrigerator and began
to stuff it with a dressing made of bread dough, giblets, apples and
seasoning. It was a task he'd done often, and his thoughts wandered.
Al, who'd never gone beyond the sixth grade, had a near-worshipful
regard for education and he'd insisted that his son be educated. After
graduating with honors from Lorton High, Ted himself realized that
college training would be valuable. But there were other factors
involved.
With no desire to become a trapper and woodsman like his father, Ted
wanted to stay in the Mahela. It was worthy and wonderful. Wilderness
would always be needed, and, deep inside him, Ted saw himself running a
grand lodge to which guests could come and partake of the benefits
Crestwood's clients certainly found. People who came back to the
wilderness always seemed to be coming back to the source of things and
finding spiritual values that lay only at the source.
Ted had taken a flunkey's job at Crestwood two days after he graduated.
It did not pay as much as he might have earned elsewhere, but it was
what he wanted and he saved as much as possible. Meanwhile, his dream
continued to grow. The couple of hundred dollars he had put aside was a
mere drop in the bucket compared to the--Ted had never even dared let
himself imagine how many--thousands he needed. But he knew he would find
a way and, above all, he wished that he could make his father know it,
too.
Ted lighted the oven, put his chicken in to roast and scrubbed potatoes
to be baked in their jackets. He mixed biscuit dough. Since neither he
nor Al cared for dessert, he didn't prepare any. But he did take a
package of carrots and peas from the freezer. He remembered whimsically
that, before they had the freezer, his father used to can dozens of
quarts of vegetables. Dreamily he went about setting the table. As he
did so, he noticed a man in an expensive car driving up the Lorton Road.
There was a squeal of brakes as he stopped suddenly and a shriek of
tires as he turned up the Harkness drive. He was a short man, and fat,
but his smile was nice, although his eyes were shrewd.
"Do you own this land?" he demanded.
Al and Ted told him that they owned it, whereupon the short, fat man
declared breathlessly that a diamond mine had just been discovered in
their back yard and that he, personally, would guarantee them a hundred
thousand dollars for the mining rights! He would give fifty thousand at
once, and it was all right with him if they built a great resort in
front, as long as they didn't interfere with his mine.
Ted grinned ruefully as his daydream faded and he went to call his
father to dinner.
* * * * *
The next morning, the rising sun was only halfway down Hawkbill when Ted
walked to his job at Crestwood. His heart lifted, as it always did when
he saw the place. He liked to imagine that he owned it.
Semi-luxurious Crestwood, the only resort in the Mahela, had
accommodations for sixty guests under normal conditions and perhaps
ninety if they were crowded in. It was well patronized in fishing
season, had a sprinkling of guests who wanted to do nothing save enjoy
the out of doors when there was neither hunting nor fishing, filled up
again when the small game season started and was packed in the deer
season for which the Mahela was famous. While deer hunting was on,
Thornton turned away twice as many guests as he could accommodate.
Afterwards, Crestwood was closed until fishing season opened again.
At the far end of a spacious clearing, set back against the beeches and
blending very well with the background, Crestwood's main lodge was a big
log building that contained a dining hall, a kitchen, a lounge, a game
room, an office for Thornton, quarters for the help and rooms for guests
who preferred to remain in the lodge. To one side were ten neat log
cabins that accommodated four guests each in normal times and six during
deer season. The utility rooms and outbuildings were behind the main
lodge and hidden by it and the wide driveway was of crushed stone.
"Hi, Ted!"
Ted turned to wait for middle-aged Nels Anderson, his co-flunkey at
Crestwood. Neither brilliant nor subtle, but always gentle, Nels had
been taught by a lifetime of hard knocks to appreciate the good things
that came his way, and, as far as Nels was concerned, the best thing
that had ever come his way was his job at Crestwood. Always a hewer of
wood and a drawer of water, the most Nels asked was to be paid with
reasonable regularity for his hewing and drawing. He smiled a slow
Scandinavian smile as Ted returned his greeting.
"Good morning, Nels. How are you feeling?"
"Goot. And you?"
"First rate. Shall we start earning our wages?"
"Yah. You go down? Or me?"
"I'll go. You catch the pipe."
They entered the lodge. Ted ducked into Crestwood's gloomy basement,
turned on the light and caught up a length of pipe. He and Nels were
running water to some of the upstairs rooms. He maneuvered the pipe
through an already drilled hole and waited for his companion to catch it
and stab it into an elbow.
Nothing happened and Ted sighed resignedly. Nels was one of those rare
people who know enough about many things to do a passable job. He could
run water pipes and wires, build a stone wall, shingle a roof, tend a
sick cow or horse, fell trees, construct a root cellar and do well any
of a few dozen more things that might need doing. But he was apt to get
sidetracked, in which event he needed a while to wake up. Obviously he
was sidetracked now. Then the door opened and Nels stood behind Ted.
"The boss, he wants to see you."
"What's he want?"
"He forgot to say."
"Well--"
"He say right now."
"Will you take this pipe?"
"Oh! Yah, I take it."
Nels took the pipe and Ted went back into the lobby. He knocked on the
office door, and Carl Thornton opened it.
"Come on in, Ted."
The boy stepped into the spacious office. The floor was covered with a
thick carpet. At one side was a mahogany desk upon which stood a
typewriter. Over it were hung bookshelves. There were four cushioned
chairs and a satiny davenport upon which the owner usually slept. In a
wall rack were Thornton's high-powered rifle and a belt full of his
distinctive, brass-jacketed, hand-loaded shells. Ted turned to face his
employer.
In his late thirties, Thornton was not slightly built. But there was
about him an air of slightness that was accentuated by his quick
movements. Thinning blond hair was artfully combed to hide a bald spot.
His eyes were pale blue, almost icy blue, behind gold-rimmed glasses.
The ghost of a smile haunted his lips. He had a flair for conversation
that always made it appear as though nothing anyone else could say was
nearly as important as what he had to offer.
"I've been watching your work, Ted, and I like it."
"Thanks, Mr. Thornton."
"There'll be a better job pretty soon; Crestwood's going to expand."