Foreman Rusk's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Rusk drove back to town with the ruined blade rattling in the truck bed and sap still dark on his boots. He did not stop at the boarding house. He went straight to the timber office and let himself in with the key the company had cut for him. The stove was cold. He set the work order flat on the desk under the lamp and pulled the boundary ledger down from the shelf above the filing cabinet. It was heavy. He knew the weight of honest paper. This one felt right in his hands, and that was the first thing that bothered him. he opened the ledger to the grove pages and ran his finger down the parcel numbers. The old deed line ran clean along the north edge of the swamp. Then, four pages later, the same parcel appeared again with a fresh boundary drawn thirty yards deeper into the trees. The ink was newer. The court seal over it was newer still, pressed crooked, as if someone had stamped in a hurry. He counted the trees listed on the second entry. Twenty heartwood, added by hand, each with its own inked number. He laid his work order beside the page. The numbers matched exactly. Rusk sat down. He thought about the girl at the oldest trunk, and about six men who were counting on Friday's pay. The contract was not a mistake. Someone had scraped the old line off, drawn a new one, added the twenty trees, and covered the change with a stamp that would hold in any court that did not look twice. His name was on the order as contractor. If the fraud came out, it would come out on him first. If it did not come out, he would fell trees the company did not legally own, and the girl would know, and whoever she answered to would know, and they would come for the crew before the loggers up north ever finished their push. He tore a blank page from the back of the ledger and copied both boundary entries onto it in his own hand, then folded the copy into his coat. He put the ledger back on the shelf exactly as he had found it. He locked the office behind him. On the step he stopped and made the decision that closed the night: he would not tell the crew yet, and he would not cut another marked tree. Friday's pay would come from the edge timber or it would not come at all. Monday he would ride to the county clerk with the copy in his pocket and find out whose hand had drawn the new line. The contract was still on his desk. It was no longer the thing he was working for.