The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux Read Free Book Online Page A

switches doesn’t mean we have to do things any differently. But I do think we need to clean up some.”
    Jules looked out a sawdusty window. “I thought that myself when I come on a few weeks ago. But it rains ever afternoon and the weeds grow up faster than you can spare a man to cut ’em. The stumps won’t burn, and we killed an ox trying to pull up a little one in the middle of a road.”
    “The last manager, how did he make out here?”
    Jules put his boots up on a desk, crackling its loose veneer. “From what I hear he weighed down the incoming order forms with full jiggers. Did what selling he could over the phone there, going through that child at Poachum like we got to do. He counted the lumber when he could see it.” Jules shifted his wad. “Worst thing he done is hire up a bunch of jarhead white trash and single Negroes as big as bulls from those east Texas mills.” He spat expertly into an enameled cuspidor by his desk. “They just like oxes. I moved here to get away from such as that.”
    Randolph looked out to where a stray mule stood next to a house, its head in a window chewing on the curtain. “We can’t run the place with schoolteachers. I’ll just do the same paperwork as the last manager. You keep after the men as you’ve been doing, and I’ll watch the mechanics of the place. What kind of engineers do we have?”
    “Just good enough to keep from gettin’ blowed up. You got to check on ’em come Monday, see they ain’t workin’ with the alcohol flu.” Jules gestured over toward the boiler house. “The German’s the chief engineer, and he’s fair, but when he gets blue he sure likes that sauce.”
    “How’s the fights?” Randolph asked, looking out the window at a rising rain cloud.
    Jules stared down at the dried mud under his desk. “We got a graveyard with thirty bodies in it.”
    “Good Lord. Who put the most of them there?”
    The other man pinched his nose, put his boots down, and sniffed. “Is it true your old man bought this mill because he found out your brother was working here?”
    Randolph sat down at a rolltop desk and tried a drawer, but it was swollen shut. “That’s right. Have you seen him today?”
    “He’s making rounds.”
    “Someone in town told me he’s had a brush with some Italians? We heard about it up North, too.”
    Jules leaned over the spittoon for a moment, but held in. “Don’t fool with me.”
    Randolph looked away. “All right, then.”
    “I hope the hell you’ve come down here to help him.”
    The mill manager gave him a look. “Isn’t that what family does?”
    Jules thought a moment. “Good family.”
    “Tell me about the Italians.”
    Jules shrugged. “A bad batch of Sicilians. The saloon’s in their pocket, on a piece of property the last owners let ’em have. They own the thing, so you can’t just run ’em off. Some time ago they wanted to put in two more card games, more slots, a couple new whores, and he’s been bucking ’em.”
    “That’s understandable.”
    Two floors below the office the band saw began to shriek as though binding in a log, and Jules stood up, stretching his arms. “The damned place just causes us trouble. The married men lose their pay and go home and beat on their women. Some of the kids around here look like sticks they eat so poor. The young bucks, they lose their scrip and start poundin’ hell out of each other.” Jules opened the door, listening to the engineer yell something in German down in the plant. “But you might tell your brother to ease off a bit. Those boys are from Chicago.”
    Randolph laughed. “This is a little saloon back in the swamps.”
    Jules turned and looked at him. “Mr. Randolph, one thing I know. To a Sicilian, nothing’s a local problem.” He spat into the hallway. “They’re just about like the federal government.”
    The mill manager watched him leave, guessing he was wrong. Looking out at the tree line where the land rolled down into black swamp water,