Part 2
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The hair on the back of my
neck stood straight up as the voice of the Old Man hit my ears.
“Hey! Where do you think
you’re going sonny?”
I had made it three
quarters of the way across the field when he appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
I was scanning the surroundings as I rode, keenly aware of any sign of life. He
must have walked out of the old barn next to the windmill; his movements
disguised by the wind blowing through the tall basin rye grass and old apple
trees that grew in the lower part of the field.
In a moment he was in front
of me. My heart pounded out of my chest as he blocked the entrance to the gate
that would have put me in the clear. He had a pitchfork in one hand and an old
six-gun strapped to his side. I was caught. The situation I found
myself in was not great for a 12-year-old kid. It doesn’t get any more
frightening than this.
He looked me up and down
for a minute, not saying a word. My heart continued to race as adrenalin pumped
through my veins. The look on his face was threatening and angry, this was not
going as I had planned at all.
“You’re little Anders, Lars
Hansen's kid aint cha”? His sudden calm demeanor and softening
facial expression took me aback. He suddenly didn’t seem nearly as scary as
everyone had always told me he was.
“Yes sir”, I mumbled quickly,
barely getting the words out through the lump in my throat.
Then he said something
unexpected that caught me off guard.
"You know, it's been 6
years to the day since that big redwood tree took your Poppa out."
The words hit me like a
splash of cold water. I guess the Old Man wasn't much for being subtle. I
missed my Dad terribly and had not thought about the day the logging crew
foreman came knocking at the door for years.
When the big company took
over the mill Dad lost his job to mechanization and had to go back out into the
woods to fall trees to support the family. It was hard, dangerous work and one
day, a tree barber chaired on him and he couldn’t get out of the way fast
enough. It took two D8's and a loader to move the logs and recover the body out
from under the 7ft diameter redwood.
Then the Old man started
slowly speaking again, deep in thought, his eyes looking vacantly into the
west.
"Your
dad.......... he was a damn good man, the best.” His voice trailed off choking
slightly with emotion.
Then he regained his
composure and said, "How’s your Mom? You know she is the best cook
in the valley by far, her apple pie is amazing! I can see you aren’t going
hungry boy!”
I was put at ease now by
the way he talked. I was probably too little to remember him, but something
about him seemed familiar. Some things started to come back now. I had faint
memories of early mornings hearing my Dad and the Old Man talking quietly on
the front porch, arranging gear and food for a day on the river. I could hear
the familiar rumble of the ancient Willys jeep the Old man drove idling in the
driveway with his pram on the trailer behind it. The memory faded and I
answered him.
“Oh, she’s good, she’s
working three jobs sometimes, you know trying to keep the farm and all.”
“Your Dad and I, we used to
work together at the mill before it changed hands to the Big Guys. We also
spent a good bit of time on the Big River fishing over the years. Once you and
your sisters were born we never did fish much anymore, he was always working.”
Then he looked me in the
eye and said “I thought you were that blasted Talbot kid, he spooked my
mare into the wire fence awhile back and she and her colt ran off. It took me
all day to find them again. I was going to let him have it, you know scare the
hell out of him”
He looked at me again and
raising an eyebrow and grinning a grin he said. “Hey kid, you ever shot a
45 before?”
I was tempted to stay and
shoot the big iron but my responsible side told me no.
" I gotta go Mister,
my Mom's gonna kill me if I don't do my chores before dark. Then I have
homework to do."
"Chores and school are
important and you should get home to do that. You respect your Mom son and do
what she says, she needs your help now that you are the man of the
house."
Then the mischievous
grin came back. As he was patting the old single action Army Colt he said
"But, if you want to shoot this thing, you come around the house tomorrow
right after school. I got some other stuff I want to show you that you might
like."
“OK Mister”, I
said quickly not thinking to ask his name, and then I jumped on my bike and
headed for home as fast as my pedals would go.
The whole way I home I thought about
what had happened. The Old Man actually seemed kind of nice. He didn’t shoot me
with rock salt so that was a positive development. The painful memories of the
day my Dad was killed swirled around in my head, brought to the surface from
the Old Mans remarks. Why did he have to be so harsh? Why did he have to bring
that day up?
I went straight to
the woodpile when I got home and started bringing in wood for the night. My sisters were cleaning up the house,
doing their own chores, and getting dinner ready as they always did, since Mom
never got home till after 6PM.
Kari, my older
sister by 3 years was at the stove when I walked by to stock the wood box.
“ Where have YOU
been mister?” “You haven’t been
messing around at the creek again have you?” “You know Mom wants you to come
straight home after school”
“What’s this the
third degree?” “What’s it to ya, you’re not the boss of me!“ I snapped angrily as I flipped a split
piece of madrone into the wood box with a thud.
“Wow, what’s got
you in such a huff?” She said with a loud voice.
The whole
encounter with the Old Man had me of out of sorts for sure. Without hesitation
I told her of my encounter with the Old Man. She listened intently as I
described where I was and what the Old Man looked like.
“That’s Walt McLeod,
Dad and he worked at the mill together, they used to fish and hunt all the time
before Dad died. He has been sort of a recluse since then and when he lost his
wife a couple years ago he sort of went off the deep end, some people say he’s
plum crazy now!”
“I know he told me
he and Dad were friends, he didn’t seem crazy to me, I thought he seemed a bit
lonely really. He said today was the day 6 years ago the tree came down on Dad,
is that true?”
She went over to
the wall calendar and looked at the date. I went over and looked with her. Mom
had drawn a small heart on the bottom corner of the calendar, it was her
reminder of the day and we both knew why it was there. It confirmed what the
Old Man had told me.
We both stood in
silence, as we looked at that little heart there on the calendar, both of us
lost in the emotion of the moment.
I looked at my
sister, “Kari, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I was just kind of upset thinking
about Dad and how much I missed him since he’s been gone. I just got mad. It’s
hard without him.
“It’s OK Anders, it’s
hard for all of us, I don’t know if it will ever be any easier”
Just then Mom
rolled into the front drive. She was still driving the Ford truck that was Dad’s
pride and joy. The tires crunched on the gravel as the old truck ground to a
stop along the side of the house. The door slammed and in a moment she was up
the steps and in the door, dropping her bags and collapsing in the big chair in
the front room. She was exhausted.
I ran over and
gave her a big hug, climbing up in the chair with her and burying my head in
her overcoat. The smell of her perfume calmed me instantly. She didn’t even
speak she just closed her eyes and hugged me back for a long time.
Then finally she
said “Hey honey, how was school today, and more importantly, did you do all of
your chores when you got home?”
“Well Mom, it’s
kinda like this” I started out sheepishly.
“I did get the
wood in for the night and……
Kari burst into
the front room and blurted out “
He was messing around at the creek again and he got caught cutting through Old
Man McLeod’s property, about got himself shot!”
“ What a tattle
tale, I can’t believe you!” I said jumping out of the chair and running to
confront her.
“Well its true”
she said with her hand on her hip.
Mom interjected
opening her eyes for the first time and said, “What were you doing on Walt’s
place Anders?” “ That man is not
right in the head”
She continued,
“Ever since Fran died he’s been kind of unpredictable. He tends to hit the
bottle a little too much at times. I’m not sure you should be hanging around
with him”
“ He’s not so bad
Mom, I didn’t know he was friends with Dad.”
I then filled her in on the conversation
we had, and how he said that today was the anniversary of Dad’s death.
“We looked at the
calendar and saw you had written a small heart under today’s date,” I said
“Yes, I put one
there every year. It helps me to remember the great man that he was.”
She continued, “
You know he loved you all so much.”
“I miss him Mom.” I
said trying not to cry.
“So do I honey, so
do I,” She said.
“He told me to
come over tomorrow and shoot the gun after school, can I go Mom?”
Mrs. Hansen sat in
the chair lost in thought. Deep down she knew that Walter was still a good man
and that he was just in a rough patch right now. She had lost touch with him
after the accident and in fact had not spoken to him at all since then. He had
taken the more recent loss of his own wife hard and sort of pulled back from
all his friends. She remembered all the times he and his wife had come over to
the house, sat down for Sunday dinner after church when the kids were still
little. She recalled the great friendship that he and Lars had. Maybe he could
use a little friendship from Anders right now…..
“I need to call
him and talk to him first” She said after thinking it over.
“Well Call him Mom
call Him!” I said excitedly
She went over to
the phone and picked it up, scanning a phone list taped to the wall she went
down the list with her finger, stopping at Walters name. Her fingers worked the
rotary dial until all the numbers were in. She grabbed the phone and with the
long cord dragging behind she went around the corner into the study and closed
the door behind her.
I wanted to follow
but knew I should not try to listen in. I strained my ears and leaned toward
the door.
I heard her say, “
Hello Walter, it’s been a long time”
And then my sister
grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the door and said
“Don’t be an
eavesdropper, if Mom wanted you to hear she would have stayed in the
room”.
It seemed like
forever but finally after 10 minutes or so Mom came out of the room. She had
been crying for sure.
“Are you OK Mom,”
I asked trying to be of some comfort.
“Yes, I’m fine”
She said wiping a tear from her eye.
“That call just
brought up a lot of old memories about your Dad”
“ I had forgotten just
how much a part of the family Walter and Fran used to be”
“We both have a
lot in common you know Anders, we have both lost our spouses and it was so good
to speak to him again”
“You can go over
there after school as long as you get home for chores, and let’s be clear,
there will be no shooting of that pistol!”
“OK Mom”
We sat down for
dinner and I wolfed my stew down in a few minutes, knowing full well I had
chores and schoolwork left. My little sister Astrid cleared the plates and did
the dishes then went back out to the barn where she was tending to a new litter
of puppies that had just been born. She was the animal lover of the family and
she was actually starting to do a lot of the farm animal feeding and such. For a nine year old she was pretty
tough and she had a good bit of Tomboy in her.
I raced through my
chores and got to my schoolwork. I hated math with a passion and it was always
the subject that threw me for a loop. I struggled with some figures and finally
finished my assignment. Tomorrow could not come fast enough. It was good that
Mom had called him, if she trusted him then so could I. The mystery of the Old
Man and what I would encounter at the big log house at the end of the lane were
the last thoughts before I drifted off to sleep.
I rode to school
the long way, riding by the front of the drive that led down the lane to the
Old Mans house. I knew his name now but he was still the Old Man to me. I strained my eyes to see anything
interesting down the lane. It was overgrown with rhododendron, oak, maple and
madrone. Towering redwoods lined the lane and it looked like a tunnel through
the dense foliage. His house was the only house on the road and was completely
invisible behind 30 years of neglected trees and shrubs that were once a well
manicured front yard. The Old Man
wasn’t much for yard work anymore it seemed.
School was boring
as usual, I could barely focus and my teacher again noted it as I filed out of
the class. I hopped on my bike slinging my backpack over my shoulder as I
mounted the seat. I rode straight to the long lane and looked down again to the
end where I knew the house sat. After taking it all in I started down the one
lane road. As I drew within a quarter mile of the house the most amazing smells
started to hit my nostrils. Alder smoke from a smoker was first to attack my
senses. He must have some early
fall Chinook going in the smoker already I thought. Then fir smoke from the
wood stove hit my nostrils. The pungent earthy smell of hundreds of years of
decaying forest duff rose up through the air. The afternoon sun broke through the clouds creating a misty
fog that wisped upward from the ground as it heated after the fresh rain. This
ground cloud chased me down the road, curling behind my bike as I rode toward
the house.
As I rounded the
bend in the road that led to the long driveway to the house, a big black lab
rose from the driveway entrance and growled half menacingly. He barked once
then looked at me.
“Hey boy, watcha
doing” I said as confidently as I could.
He cocked his head
to the side and then shook off the rain that had collected on his coat as he
was sleeping.
He slowly and
cautiously came over and I put my hand out for him to smell. He smelled it and decided I was not a
major threat to the property and he started toward the house. I followed and soon he was jogging
slowly beside my bike as I rode.
The smell from the
smoker was intense now and my mouth was watering for whatever was in there. As I got closer I could see the house
better. The house was made of log and was fairly large. Various out buildings,
shops and barns emerged from the overgrown yard as I drew closer. The big lab
lead me to a large covered but open carport attached to a shop.
I could hear noises coming from behind the open hood of a Willy’s Jeep. As I walked around
to the front of the rig he hadn’t even seen me yet. The Old Man was almost
entirely inside the engine compartment frantically wrestling with a fuel line
that was leaking gas all over
“@##%$% fuel
line! Don’t do this to me now when
I’m so close!”
“Hey mister” I
said quietly
He turned toward
me and raised his head, obviously startled and cracked his head on the open
hood of the jeep, which sent him into another cascade of curse words, several I
had not yet heard.
“Don’t ever sneak
up on a guy like that for crying out loud Kid!”
“You about gave me
a heart clutcher!!!” he exclaimed as he rubbed the back of his head with his
one free hand.
“Well don’t just
stand there looking dumb, go into the work bench and grab me a pair of vise
grips and be quick about it, I got a situation here!”
I turned and
hurried into the workshop and looked around for a pair of vise grips. Lucky I
knew what they were as I could see this was no time for tool identification
questions. The shop and bench were cluttered with tools of every kind and
shape. Hand chisels and planers crosscut and rip saws, wrenches and paintbrushes.
There were welders and band saws, sanders and table saws strewn out across the
floor and sawdust was everywhere.
I located the vise grips and was about to head back out to the Old Man
when an old photo caught my eye. It was a picture of my Dad and Walt down at
the Big River standing in Walt’s pram. Walt was quite a bit younger and I
barely recognized my Dad he looked so young. Walt was holding an enormous
salmon that looked to be close to 50 lbs. Both of them had what looked like fly
rods not the gear rods that most people used in the Big River. I stared at the
picture wondering what it must have been like to land that fish on a fly
rod. I must have lingered too long
because the Old Man started yelling.
“What’s going on
in there, did you get lost?”
“Move kid move,
this line aint gonna clamp itself!“
I ran back out to
the carport and handed him the vise grips, which he used to quickly clamp the
ruptured line stopping the gas from leaking.
“Thanks kid,
that’ll hold it until I get the right size line on there” he said as he crawled
out from under the hood, still rubbing his head.
“I’m done for the
day, I have no interest in fighting this old girl any more today,” he said,
obviously beaten.
“It’s a neat old
Jeep Mister McLeod” I said admiring the rugged tires and pickup bed still
littered with old beer cans and bark from wood cutting.
“Call me Walt
would ya, no need for the formalities here kid.” “Or should I call ya Anders?”
“Anders is fine
Walt” It felt funny calling him Walt maybe I would get used to it.
“Your Dad and I
spent many a day in this thing over the years. I can’t tell ya how many deer
and elk have been in that bed. Lots of salmon, steelhead, ducks and geese have
been piled in there as well. Its a game getter, that’s much is sure. Been
trying to get it working again the last few years but it needs a lot of work”
“ It was sure good
talking to your Ma yesterday” He said
“She really seems
to like you Walt, she told me how you used to all be pretty good friends when
we were little, how come you never came around anymore after my Dad died?” I
asked, thinking I may be probing a little too much.
He got real quiet
and didn’t answer me instead he walked into the shop and told me to follow him.
Through the maze of shop tools, duck decoys, and half finished projects we
went. Endless shelves and cabinets full of canned vegetables and smoked fish
lined the back wall. He went into the very rear of the shop and there was an
interior door that led into a finished room.
I was not at all
prepared for what I was about to see. I entered the room and felt immediately
comfortable. A large wood stove was cranking in the corner, the wall lined with
elk and deer mounts from successful hunts. Across the ceiling and on the left side wall and mounted on
various racks were fly rods, probably two or three- dozen all with reels and
line on them. Meticulously
arranged according to length and size starting from trout rods all the way to
salmon. Paintings of outdoor river
and woods scenes adorned the wall and there were framed pictures everywhere. Three
Leather chairs and a huge leather couch draped with a Pendleton wool blanket
sat arranged around the stove, a huge coffee table made of redwood burl sat in
the middle. A desk was set up in the far corner, a tying vice with feathers,
fur, materials and various spools of thread lay strewn about across the
surface. A wooden gun case with glass front stood on the far wall loaded with
lever action and bolt action rifles of every caliber and make. I saw at least
three Winchester model 94 30-30’s.
Next to that in a special felt lined glass top case were a good dozen
wheel guns and auto loaders of various calibers.
The smell of
Hoppes #9 permeated the air near the table where an M1911 45 laid, field
stripped and partially cleaned. That smell mixed with the wood smoke and fine
leather was wonderful to the senses.
The Old Man went
to a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of some kind of whiskey and poured
three fingers into a tin coffee cup and took a long swig.
“There’s pop in
that refrigerator back there kid, go grab yourself a Coke if you want” he said
taking another drink from the cup
“You have a refrigerator
in here?” “That’s neat!”
I went to the
refrigerator and opened it. Inside were several cases of Rainier beer and a
half dozen of bottles of Coke. I grabbed one and closed the door, using the
mounted opener on the side of the fridge to pop the cap off. Oh man, this is
the best garage ever I thought as I took a drink on the chilled Coke.
The Old Man had
settled into one of the big leather chairs and had his feet up on the table. He
pulled a pipe out of his vest pocket and packed it tight with tobacco. Grabbing
a Diamond strike anywhere match off the side table, he flicked it along the
underside of the pipe and it flamed to life. He drew on the pipe long and hard until it was well lit. He
puffed contentedly as he fiddled with a fly reel that had been lying on the
table. He was pulling old backing
off the reel and the growl of the gear and pawl working in tandem had a certain
draw to it.
Grrrrrrrrrr…..
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr ……….Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! He was pulling line off in long smooth
strokes, smoke rolling out of his pipe that was still clenched between his
teeth.
“Hey Kid, have you
ever seen a Hardy Perfect before?”
