Chapter 13
As the story unfolded, Sheila realized why her remarks had been a whiplash to Jed's pride.
Nate had been working at a mill owned by Jed's father at the time of the accident Sheila remembered.
"Jim Justine had come out to talk to Nate. Nate, attuned to mill sounds, heard the break of a cable and threw himself in front of Justine, took the whiplash. You've seen the scar.
"Justine was knocked out, was unconscious for days, and Jed's new stepmother took over, ran the mill and laid down the law. Nate Norris wasn't included. She even stopped his pay check, held up compensation. That's why we had such a scrimpy time, why we had to accept charity before the affair was settled.
"The mill had a small independent union, with not enough strength to force things through. They'd never needed to with Justine around. When he was out of the hospital, his wife, with the doctor backing her, took him on a long cruise.
"When the compensation check came through we bought a nice little cottage."
"I remember." Sheila's eyes were shining at the remembrance.
"But when Nate was pronounced fit to go back to work, Justine's mill wouldn't have him back. He'd been quietly adjudged criminally careless.
"He really wasn't fit to work. He found two small jobs, one at a time, and collapsed on them. Finally, we lost the cottage and the furniture and headed south."
"And Justine?"
"He didn't know what had happened for quite a while. He was told Nate had taken his compensation check and gone to 'shoot the wad.' Finally one of Nate's friends told him the truth. He checked back, confirmed it and went into such a rage at his wife, he had a stroke."
"And his wife took over again," said Sheila.
There was more. Later, at the cannery, Sheila would find herself stopping, hands full of papers, to look out across the bay to the ocean, thinking of the next years for both families.
Jim Justine's children had been sent to school and camp, but Jed hadn't remained at camp the last year.
Fourteen at the time and large, and knowing woods and woodsmen, he had run away, finally coming to his home country. He hadn't found it difficult to slip in for secret visits to his father. Mrs. Justine, indifferent to her husband's welfare, allowed the male nurse much leeway.
Somehow Justine had told his son of Nate, how Nate had saved his life, taken the cable cut for him and then been made to suffer. And he had left a legacy to his son: to seek out Nate Norris and make up to him for the injustice done by the Justines.
Now the Norrises accepted not in payment of a debt past due, but to relieve Jed and because they liked and understood him.
"Mother," Sheila asked on another morning, "why couldn't I have been told before?"
"You wear your feelings on the outside," Mrs. Norris said. "You'd have been so mealy mouthed, Jed would have thought he was building up more indebtedness to his father's memory."
"Then he's dead?"
"Oh, yes, he died that year. I imagine, soon after Jed learned the story. There was quite a battle over the estate, but Mrs. Justine convinced the court she had the children's interests at heart, and Jed was helpless."
They'd heard about it from different loggers and mill workers who had drifted south as mills closed down. Each Justine child had left home the moment he was of age. Jed had done his service stretch and returned to work to help the other two finish school. The sister had married.
"And Mrs. Justine?"
"She shut down the mills before she lost too much. We understand she is clinging to her money as tightly as her arthritic hands will allow."
Sheila could now understand why in Jed's eyes, Nate could do no wrong. Hadn't Nate Norris offered his own life to save Jim Justine?
The experience might also account for Jed's distrust of women.
There wasn't a thing she could do about Jed's feeling of indebtedness toward her father, nor did she want to. Jed was happy around Nate; most people were.
But he shouldn't go through life hating all women because of one of them. Now, what could she do to cure him? The very next time she saw Jed, she had a ridiculous desire to take his head in her hands and gently smooth back his hair.
"Do you have to stand there looking like a sick calf?" roared Jed.
"Had I known that you was standing there, I wouldn't have just looked sick."
"Here we go again," muttered Nate happily, shifting his pipe to a better talking angle. "Sheila, you're standing under a four by four, and the way Jed feels right now, you may be lying under it soon."
Sheila wheeled and headed off into the dusk. She had food at the shack. She'd choke if she had to sit across the table from that unmannerly oaf.
She had the fire started when something thumped at the door. Jed's boot. His hands were occupied with two platters.
"You're more darned trouble," he grumbled as he came in. "Your mother lit all over me. Said I had to bring these up and apologize."
"Don't let me stop you," she said sweetly.
He managed to set the platters safely on the table. But when he wheeled to barge out he caught his foot in the folding chair and went right along with it, while Sheila stood vainly trying to control her hysteria.
"Jed, honestly I don't know what to do. About that chair, I mean. This shack just isn't big enough for the two of you, for it and Andy either."
"You mean he took a header over this, too?"
"Not exactly a header." She choked. "And he had a much worse time getting up. Oh, look, Mother sent dinner for both of us. Now do let's sign a half-hour peace pact. I'm starved. I didn't have any lunch."
"Why?" he demanded sternly. "If you must know, I spent all of my money and wouldn't ask Mother for the makings."
"How did you spend it?" Out of the tissue paper in which she had hidden them came a flock of ceramic wild geese, each piece half a goose so they would fly close to the wall.
"And me without a wall for them to fly on," she wailed softly. "But I couldn't resist them. Go on, say it!"
"Welcome back to the human race," he began, then broke off to laugh. "If that isn't Nate Norris all over. Sheila, that's the first sensible thing I've ever seen you do."
Sensible? Why, Andy would have had a fit if he'd seen her throw her money away for nothing at all; money she needed for food, too.
She looked so bewildered, he pushed past her, pulled down frying pans and began reheating the cooling food.
"Where's the coffeepot?" he asked.
"On the stove without any water in it," she cried, and tried to squeeze past to the rescue.
"That figures," he said happily. "Know what? If I have time I'm going to close in that front porch of yours and give you a wall so you'll have wild geese flying the year around."
She opened her mouth, then closed it firmly. Why spoil the evening by telling him she wouldn't be there to watch them? The geese, too, would be going to a city apartment to remind her of her childhood when vast flocks flew over on Thanksgiving, singing their dirge for those brought down by hunters' guns.
"Can you build fireplaces, too? Jed, do you know how many times you have to whack a stick to make it fit into that little stove?"
"I'll bet I'll be able to by next fall. Where's the milk? Hey, this is sour; I'd better build you a cooler."
Danny came up with their dessert, approaching the shack warily. Hearing only the murmur of voices, he tapped and came in, sighing with relief.
"Thinking of closing in the porch," Jed told him. "Need a place to put that damned folding chair. It threw me again."
"Good. I know where we can get some big window frames if we act quick. Store being torn down. Couple of them still had the glass in this morning."
From there on, Sheila was only a listener, but she listened happily and even forgave Jed for walking out with Danny and forgetting to say good night until he heard Danny saying it.
"Oh, yeah, good night," was his contribution.
"Now that's togetherness," said Sheila, and ducked a pebble he threw at her. At least he laughed; that was a step in the right direction.
"You look happy," Mrs. Norris remarked the next morning when Sheila stopped to ask for a sandwich to carry with her.
"Pay day," Sheila explained, "and I have things to do. I wasn't brought up to enjoy loafing."
She was happy. As she skirted the woods to the point where Mr. Carter would pick her up, she noticed the emerald green of moss on a stump, the flush of pink on the alders lining the creek. In no time she would be finding her first trillium and would know spring wasn't teasing, but really on her way.
She spent part of the morning at the second-hand store, then rode out to the cannery on the store's truck and shushed her employer's cries of dismay. She'd bought paint. By Monday the files and desks would gleam.
"You're not working over the weekend?" exclaimed one.
"I am, too, and on my own. Please let me. It's fun, like playing house. You see, this is my office."
Sheila went into town to cash her paycheck, and since it was her first one, she decided to save most of it. She wanted to make every penny count. She would be having her evening meals with her parents; she needed only food for lunches and a thermos bottle.
She felt good with her hard-earned money. But her thoughts were soon colored darkly when she began thinking about Andy all of a sudden. He had been writing letters to her lately, blaming her indirectly for his parents' woes.
She was able to put Andy out of her mind a few days later when excitement swept through the Norris household. Nate had found a little gold. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make the venture worthwhile.
But after the family had a short celebration, Sheila thought it was time for her to have another talk with her mother. She wanted to talk about Andy and try to straighten some things out.
Sheila started out telling her mother about all the hard work she had been doing lately, while Andy reaped the benefits without doing anything at all.
"I keep blaming Andy for everything that has happened," Sheila said.
"It is easier to blame the other fellow, isn't it?" said Mrs. Norris.
"But I-" sputtered Sheila.
"You allowed Andy to talk you into taking a claim for both of you, knowing he knew nothing of conditions up here. Then when he wrote he was sending his father up to file for both of them, you made no effort to stop him, though you had no illusions about what he might find.
"Daughter, the sin of omission is nearly as bad as the one of commission. You are not helping anyone when you allow him to take advantage of you in any way.
"If you and Andy are to have a happy life, you are going to have to forget he was ever your employer; stop believing everything he says is the gospel truth. A good marriage is based upon balance; it isn't one-sided."
Sheila took her mother's words to heart. And throughout the next few days she thought about their conversation constantly, trying her best to sort things out.
Her father was spending more and more time down at the assay office and things seemed to be looking up, as far as the gold was concerned. And then Sheila got another letter from Andy. He told her that after his mother had read the latest assay report, she had decided to put the house up for sale. Andy told her he was going to buy the house, furniture and everything, because he was going to be working at a new office nearby. He concluded the letter telling her to begin bringing her things down, because their wedding couldn't be far off now.
Reading those words, Sheila figured she had no choice. She knew that she should be happy, but somehow she just felt an empty feeling in her belly. But she did as Andy instructed her to do, nonetheless.
When she left, no one was there to see her off. She felt just as bad leaving as she had when she had originally left the city to come up there. But she couldn't figure out why.
Driving swiftly, Gertie seemed to be a whole new car. But then she hit a steep grade and things were back to normal. The temperature needle began rising again. She began anxiously watching the traffic. The needle kept rising. Nervously, she scanned the radio dial and found a song that had been one of Jed's favorites. She listened to it and tried to take her mind off the rapidly overheating car. But it was too late. Just like that, a cloud of smoke began trailing out the back.
She pulled over to the side of the road, got out and leaned against the car, and began sobbing. Cars zoomed by her, heedless to her plight.
Then a truck pulled up behind her, screeching to a halt. But Sheila was so distraught, she hardly noticed.
"Trouble?" a voice asked.
Sheila looked up through tear-blurred eyes. Blinking a few times and trying to regain her composure, she cried out suddenly. "Jed! How did you get here? Oh, Jed!"
Without thinking, she turned toward him and fell into his arms. He held her tightly while she sobbed against his chest.
"Oh, Jed. I can't believe you're here. But what about Caroline?"
"I decided I was just wasting my time with a girl like that. She just wasn't my type, I'm sorry to say. Now tell me what's wrong. I never thought a silly old car boiling over would upset you like this."
"Jed ... Jed," she murmured. "I can't marry him. I just can't."
"You're talking about Andy, I presume."
"Oh, Jed, don't tease me."
"Well, you're just finding out you can't marry him, eh? Nate knew that months ago. That's why he maneuvered you into the hills. He thought once you got back into your own country, you'd find yourself and get a new perspective on things."
Sheila looked up at him wide-eyed. Suddenly everything seemed to make sense. Yes, her father had known all along that Andy wasn't the right man for her. But he was understanding enough to allow Sheila to come to her senses on her own. And now it all seemed so crystal clear. How could she have been such a fool? she asked herself.
And then she moved closer to Jed, slipping easily into his arms. They kissed for a very long time, ignoring the occasional car or truck that drove past, slowing down to take a closer look at the two lovers.
As she wrapped her arms around him tightly, she felt like she had come home after a long and arduous journey. And from the way Jed kissed her, she could tell he felt the same way.