Klara spoke curly to him in German and disappeared into the kitchen, Mary following. Fritzi lowered himself painfully, awkwardly into a wingbacked chair. “It looks like Severtson’s camp will get burned out.”
Macurdy thought of those magnificent trees, that awesome volume of timber. Fritzi talked briefly of other fires he’d known or heard about, then Klara called them to supper. The food was plain but good, like his mother’s, Macurdy thought. Now that Fritzi was home, Mary left the talking to him. Macurdy wondered if it was the custom in Germany that the man of the house did the talking to male guests. When they’d finished eating, Fritzi got down to business.
“One question I got to ask. I should have asked when we talked in my office. Do you get drunk sometimes?”
“No sir. Never.”
“Good. Earl asked Lars this morning, and Lars said he didn’t think so. At least you never went to town.”
Briefly they talked about the deputy job, and Macurdy agreed to take it. As soon as Fritzi heard from Washington County, hopefully the next day, the hearing could be held. After that he’d begin his training, on probation. Meanwhile he was to find a place to live, and move in. One of Fritzi’s sisters-in-law was looking for a boarder.
Fritzi closed the conversation then: “I’m sorry, but I got to take my pills and go to bed. I hurt like hell. Be at my office at one.” They got up from the table, and the last thing anyone said to Macurdy, except goodbye, came from Klara. No one interpreted for him, but Mary blushed brightly.
Walking back to his room in the Nehtaka Hotel, he wondered what the old woman had said. Something about him, he was sure. Whatever it was, he had something to think about, something that shook him, because he was strongly attracted to Mary Preuss. She wasn’t beautiful like Varia, or sexy like Melody, but there it was as close to love at first sight, he admitted to himself, as he was likely to experience. And it troubled him, worried him, because so far he’d had no luck with love. Oractually he had, up to a point. Varia had been a wonderful wife, for the weeks they’d been together, but he’d lost her. And Melody had loved him passionately, until she’d drowned.
And there was his life expectancy to consider. And Mary’s age: Fritzi had mentioned her high school graduation as having been that spring; she was as young as she looked. But in a dozen or so years she’d probably look older than he would.
Maybe, he told himself, he was making a mistake, staying in Nehtaka. Maybe he should go somewhere else. But he knew he wouldn’t. He’d stay and see what developed.
6
A Strange Courtship
Depositions by Fritzi, Axel, and several of the jacks who’d witnessed the death of Patsy Hannigan, all supported Macurdy’s testimony. Not that there’d been any doubt, but now the law was satisfied. No charges were filed against him, and for a few days he was a local celebrity. It would have been talked about more, had it not been for the giant Cedar River Fire, busily devouring some quarter million acres of prime timber.
The last embers had hardly cooled before salvage logging began, with crews at first living in tent camps. Macurdy didn’t envy them. On Saturdays they came to town telling of work clothes hopelessly blackened from charred bark, and of clouds of ash that rose each time a tree was felled. It was, they swore, the worst kind of logging in the world, even worse than logging blowdown.
Meanwhile Macurdy was discovering there was more to learn than he’d anticipated. Each day he went with, or stayed in the office with Fritzi or one of his deputies, learning by watching and doing. And each day he spent at least a couple of hours reading manuals and other books, while from time to time, Fritzi grilled him, the questions mostly beginning: “What do you do if… ?”
He hardly had time to think about Mary, let alone talk with her, until, in his third week on the county payroll, he went with Deputy Lute Halvoy in the paddy wagon to the Moose Hall, where a brawl was reported. He’d never seen anything like it. In the lot next door, a dozen or so loggers were punching, grappling, and rolling around grunting and swearing on the ground, while twice that many were cheering them on. Halvoy blew his whistle, but no one paid any attention at all, so he drew his nightstick and waded in, Macurdy a stride behind and to one side, whacking men on arms, shoulders, backs, to get their attention.