Chapter 6

Nate had gone down to help Mrs. Norris. Now she appeared, moving slowly, saying breathlessly, "I'd a sight sooner be unemployed up here than milling around seeing other folks' misery. My goodness, look at that view."

"And look at the shack!" Nate ordered.

Sheila whirled. Obligingly the sun had leveled for its evening dip into the Pacific to send a wash of red gold over the weather silvered boards of the small building.

"Why, it's beautiful," she cried, and looked at Jed.

"Not bad. We'll sling on an overhang as soon as we hoist boards from the old camp, and cut off the lash of the southwest storms. I'd better get down and give Danny a hand."

By the time they reached the building, the sun was down and the glamour had faded, yet the small protection it gave from the sudden chill was comforting.

Soon after relaying the jeep's contents up the hill, the three men had the little stove up and kindling and short wood ready.

Kerosene lanterns were filled and hung, and while Sheila and her mother worked over the little stove, the inexplicable flattened cartons proved their worth. They were nailed to the inner walls, each an additional blanket against the encroaching cold. Celloglass went over the windows, and the old tarp Sheila had bought in trade was spread on the floor.

Watching her mother work, Sheila wondered how many women could have produced a heartening supper in so short a time under such circumstances.

Almost before the stove was up she had potatoes washed, split and oiled for the oven. Narrow pans Sheila had bought for the small oven were filled with biscuits ready for last minute baking. Hamburger steaks were patted out, seasoned, and Sheila set to work with an old wooden bowl and chopper.

"Throw in a hand of raisins and the men will eat their slaw. One onion will do, and we can risk an apple."

Being the least "weathered," Sheila took her plate to a box behind the stove while the other four sat at her card table.

The three men left as soon as the second pot of coffee was drained. They'd set up a shelter of sorts, a cave of windfalls with a tarp overhead. A fire at the entrance would keep them comfortable; not that they weren't so "done in" they could sleep standing up on an iceberg, Nate contributed happily.

"Dad likes to work, doesn't he?" Sheila commented as she lay on her canvas cot. Her mother was in her small bed; the red eye of the stove danced between them.

She carried her thought through to a pink dawn, forgot it as she went outside to look out and found that her mountain and those around seemed floating in a rose-colored sea. Fog still covered the lowlands.

The men were already working. Looking at the white frost on the shack, she wondered how they could handle such cold boards. But when they came in they seemed filled with the zest of living and ate heartily.

"Dad," she asked when they had a moment alone, "do you know Mr. Carter's age?"

"Fifty in April."

"What? I thought he was in his early sixties."

"No oxygen in his lungs." And he strode off.

From below sounded the protest of a jeep starting on a cold morning, and the three men were off to gather boards for the Norris cabin.

Sheila looked around her. This was to be her claim, her twenty acres.

Slowly she walked around her small domain, six hundred feet more or less east and west along the cliff.

When she came to the shack, she found her mother, hatchet in hand, busily preparing wood for the stove. "It will give the men time to work on our place," she explained.

One by one Mrs. Norris scratched items off Sheila's list. Her father would have hinges in his "mess of odds and ends." He could cut a pole. Staining the old boards would be a waste of time; they were pretty as they were, all silvered. Only the roofing paper passed.

"Sheila, you've got to remember there's only so much cash money to see us through. Should we run out and your father be driven to hunt out of season, he could be caught and fined.

"This first year can be downright hard. Next summer, with a garden, and us taking advantage of wild berries and such, and Dad out working, we'll make out better. And we won't be owing anybody."

The Carters owed no one. Andy had told her the only purchase his parents had ever made on time was the cottage they'd bought during their early married years.

"Now you run along to where the shack stood and see if you can't find boards for shelves. Don't forget a long one for your clothes closet."

Sheila walked back down to a spot near where the original filer had placed his shelter within a few yards of the stream he would work. There were boards there, but all were imperfect.

Someone had used some for firewood, thrusting ends now charred. Others had been torn from the building and had ragged ends. Sheila almost turned away, thinking she would buy ready-cut shelving the next time she went to town. Then suddenly she saw them as so many loaves of bread, so many cans of coffee. Her father could saw off the useless parts.

"Good," said her mother after the third trip. "Now get my saw out of my suitcase and get busy. You'd better draw lines, and don't forget to angle your corners with the shack."

Sheila stood looking so bemused her mother said, "Well, for goodness sake, put your knee on this after you've laid it across this stump like so; then saw, like this."

Doggedly, sometimes angrily, Sheila sawed. Suddenly she caught the rhythm of the saw.

"Why that's fine, honey," Mrs. Norris exclaimed. "Took me a lot longer to learn. Now run back and see if you can find something for cleats for these to rest on. Could be we'll get them up before the boys come in."

Swiftly Sheila worked, measuring with a notched alder pole, then standing back to find the two east corners neatly filled with shelves from floor to low ceiling.

"Now, then, take that packing paper and crimp the edges for covering. You remember how."

The sun was well overhead when Sheila stood back and looked at her morning's work. Shelves with scalloped paper held a neat array of the purchases she'd brought up the previous evening.

They heard the men long before the jeep came into view.

The men appeared one by one, each carrying a gift as proudly as though he brought boxes of candy or beautiful bunches of flowers.

A large granite ware water pitcher. A bowl of a different color. Last and most important, Jed came carrying a window frame.

"So you won't feel you're in solitary confinement during bad weather," he told her.

They looked at the shelves and whistled.

"You'd be handy to have around a house," Danny said.

She would spend the next day making stained denim curtains for shelves, closet and window strips. There would be enough for a pad for the lounging chair as well.

"That's rainy weather work," her mother objected. "Tomorrow we'll help the boys. I wouldn't be surprised if you and I could put up a lot of siding while they're doing other things."

They did. It wasn't too unlike piecing a quilt, Sheila found; just pounding your thumb with a hammer instead of sticking your finger with a needle.

As her father had set up the big family range as soon as the red clay chimney was up, they had their midday meal in the new house: butter beans her mother had put to soak the night before, a can of Sheila's corned beef to give them flavor and color, and a coffee cake with oatmeal crumb topping her mother had whipped up.

There was a spectacular sunset that night. Out of the west came vast clouds. Purple ribbed with scarlet, they swept up, splashing the world below with their color until purple mountain vied with scarlet peak and all rode a sea of blue shadow.

The chill of approaching night sent Sheila scurrying up the hill to light the small stove and stand shivering until its welcome heat announced it was ready for work.

When the others came up in the dusk, a large pan of macaroni and cheese came from the oven, its bubbling top golden brown.

"Not bad," said Jed, and Sheila longed to turn the empty pan bottom side up on his handsome head. Andy would have appreciated what she had concocted for five out of practically nothing.

The rain came that night, a few tentative drops, then a gentle hiss. "I'll bet the boys are chanting, 'Glad we got the roof on,'" said Mrs. Norris sleepily.

The next day Sheila started on the noisiest ride of her life. Danny and she were dispatched to town for sinks, a new length of pipe, odds and ends, and the mail.

Behind them the empty trailer rattled and banged over the rough ground. "We'll talk in town, at lunch," shouted Danny.

They stopped at the post office first. On top of the small packet handed Sheila was a telegram. Puzzled, she opened it; Danny watched her anxiously.

"Disregard contents of first letter. Second follows. Love, Andy."

Now she sheafed swiftly through her mail for the first letter, opened it, read two lines and turned so white Danny put out a strong arm to steady her.