Page 10 of Not Looking
I mentally mapped out who was where. There were two empty logging trucks on the way up, and a loaded one headed down. I turned and saw another truck—fondly dubbed Big Red—almost ready to go, and decided to follow it out.
The engine noise changed as the transmission engaged and the diesel engine was under load.
“Loaded, at landing, heading down,” came a male voice over the CB.
I waited for him to pass, then thumbed the mic on my set. “Personal pickup, at landing, heading down. I’m going to tuck in behind you, Big Red.”
“Copy that.”
The drive down was something I did so often that I was on autopilot. I gave myself plenty of distance behind Big Red and called out my location every mile as was standard.
The trees were like faces I saw every day: there was the old one that leaned slightly away from the road, then the saplinggrowing tall and spindly from a crevasse. A cluster near one of the pull-off areas looked like an old family portrait with two taller trees in the back and three shorter ones in front. There was the one that was shaped so much like an iconic Christmas tree that it had been decorated during the holidays, and the gnarly one that seemed to grow from the side of a boulder.
“Private pickup, at bottom, turning onto main road,” I announced when I reached the stop sign.
“Copy,” replied one of the logging truck drivers, then, “Take care of yourself, Craig.”
“Empty, headed up, mile seven. See you around, Craig.”
I sniffled, turned the corner, and immediately pulled to the side of the road as truck-after-truck—man-after-man—said their farewells over the CB.
Everybody had known that I was leaving, and why.
“This is Big Red,” the driver called from somewhere down the highway. “We’ll miss you, Craig.”
I wiped a tear, shook my head, and thumbed on my mic. “Thanks for the sendoff, guys. I’ll see ya around.”
The only reply was silence, but it felt right. It was the way of things. Every man on the mountain knew we were all on borrowed time. Eventually, our bodies would bend under the strain, and that was if we were lucky. I wasn’t the first to leave because I couldn’t do it anymore, and I wouldn’t be the last. I’d just decided to leave before I was permanently disabled from it.
I pulled onto the road and turned onto the frontage road a couple miles later. Finally, I took the ramp onto the highway headed to Mount Sable.
My career in logging had officially ended.
∞∞∞
“Hey! There he is!” called my buddy, Spencer, from where he and several other friends sat at a round table.
I waved, made my way through the crowded bar, and dropped onto an empty chair.
Another friend, Aaron, reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “How ya doin?”
I shrugged. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
“When do you start your new job?” asked one of the omegas in the group—Joey.
“Wednesday.”
“And you’ll be working at the mill?” asked the other omega—Robbie.
“I’ll take whatever lager you have on tap,” I said as a waitress approached, eyes trained on me and clearly angling to take my drink order.
She nodded. “You’ve got it.”
I turned back to Robbie as she walked away. “Yeah. The mill had an opening, and they snapped me up.”
“You’re not worried about vibrations from the machines?” the final member of our group—Nate—asked.
I shook my head. “They’ve decided to, mostly, put me on the counter for now, then doing site quotes in the fall. I’ll be trained on the machinery so I can jump in as needed, but they’reaware of my injuries and are going to try to keep me away from anything that could make them worse.”
