After I hung up the phone I walked outside. I thought maybe another greasy breakfast might help. I didn't even make it off the steps of the hotel. The sun was just too bright. I sat down on the steps until someone looked like they might want to talk to me. Then I went back to bed. I woke up around noon. This time I managed to get something to eat. I had a burrito and three glasses of orange juice at Julio's. It definitely improved my outlook.
The company I work for, Larix Forestry, has their offices down off Argyll Road at about 90th street. I took the bus as close as I could and walked the rest of the way. Virginia was in the front office. She was the office manager for Larix. She had run camps for Steve, the owner of Larix, in the early days. She broke her knee playing hockey about six years ago. Field work was no longer an option for her. She was about forty, but looked much older, a result of spending most of her summers outside and most of her winters on an ice rink.
"Kent! Joe told me I might see you," she said. "Did you bring me any paperwork?"
"I've got some WCB forms." I dug around in my bag.
"What about tallies? Did Brendan send any tallies with you?"
"Well, no," I said. "Brendan didn't know if I'd be coming here or not. When we left camp it was just to go to the hospital."
"Always bring tallies," Virginia told me. "How am I supposed to bill anybody if I don't know what we've planted? It's not hard. You go to town; you take the tallies with you. That Brendan has a brain made of cheese."
"Sorry," I said. "Do you want these?" I offered the WCB forms.
"Yeah, I'll take care of them. Don't worry." She stood up, reached across the desk and took the papers. She glanced at them and dropped them in the empty "in" tray on the desk. "So, any news from the camp?" she asked. "Any big pounders out there? Any gossip? Is Cassie sleeping with anyone yet?"
"Cassie? I thought she was with Gord."
"No longer. Don't you even know what's going on in your own camp?" She walked through to the lunchroom and opened the fridge. "Beer?" she asked.
"Sure," I said.
She opened three bottles and handed one to me. "Follow me," she said. She pushed open the swing door to the warehouse in back. "Gord!" she yelled.
Gord pushed himself out from under the truck he was working on. "What?" he said.
"You still going out with Cassie?" Virginia asked.
"We were never going out," he said. "Just friends, that's all."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You still going out?"
"Well, no. Broke it off at the start of the season," he reached up and grabbed the beer that Virginia offered.
"See," she said to me. "Told you. So, who's she with now?"
I looked at Gordon. I felt a bit odd talking about Cassie in front of him. He took a swig of his beer. "She's not going out with anyone," I said.
"And you?" asked Virginia. "You still going out with Lucy?"
"Well, yeah," I said.
"For now, anyways," she said. She laughed and punched me in the arm.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. I've just never known Lucy to stay single, that's all," she said.
"She's not single. She's with me," I said.
"The hell she is! You're here. She's in camp," she said. "Face it, until you're back in camp, you're both single."
"Whatever," I said.
Gordon stood up. He wiped his hands on a rag. The three of us walked into the sun on the back lot.
"So what else is going on in camp? Any gossip I don't know about?" asked Virginia.
"I never have any gossip you don't know about," I said. "I don't think it's possible to have gossip you don't know about. You are the source of all gossip."
She laughed. "That may be," she said. The phone rang and she went back in to the office.
"You need any help with anything while I'm here?" I asked Gord.
"Could do. I've got a gas tank I want to put in one of the buses today. I'd appreciate a hand with that."
"No problem," I said.
After we finished our beers I spent the afternoon helping Gord around the warehouse. We agreed I would come in the next day as well. Virginia had some paperwork I could help her with.
Gord gave me a ride back to the hotel. "Do you want to join me for dinner," he asked as we got in the truck.
"No thanks, I'm tired. I think I'll have a nap and grab something a bit later," I said.
There was a note waiting for me when I picked up my key at the desk. It said, "Call Tony." I looked at the phone on the wall and then stuffed the note in my pocket. Tony could wait until after I'd had a bit of a rest.
Brendan shut the quad off. It was good and stuck. The right side was much higher than the left. He swung his left leg over to the high side of the quad and stepped down off the peg into the mud. He sank into it over his ankles.
There were three boxes of trees on the back of the quad. Brendan stayed on the high side of the quad. He removed two of the bungee cords, leaving one to hold the boxes in place. He loosened that cord and carefully pulled one of the boxes out from under it. The others stayed where they were. He balanced the box of trees he'd pulled out on the seat of the quad and hooked the bungee back in place with one hand. The boxes were rectangular. They were about two feet long, about a foot wide, and about 16 inches tall.
Each contained 270 trees and weighed about 30 to 40 pounds. Brendan swung the box up onto his right shoulder and squelched his way out of the mud on to the firmer ground beside the trail. He put the box down with one end on a log to keep the bottom from getting completely soaked. He retrieved the other two boxes and put them beside the first box. He covered the three boxes with a small tarp to keep the rain off them.
He stood and looked at the quad. Definitely stuck. He walked around to the low side and felt in the mud with his feet for somewhere firm to stand. He pulled the handlebars to the right and started the quad up. The mud was too thick to kick the quad into gear with his foot so he reached down into the mud and yanked the gear lever into first with his hand. He braced his left shoulder under the handlebar and reached across to the thumb throttle with his right hand. He straightened his legs and tried to lift the quad as he gave it some gas. Nothing happened at first, but he kept pushing and the quad moved ahead a few inches. It was too far for him to have decent leverage from where he stood. He stumbled further into the mud. It was over his boots now. He repeated the manoeuvre. The next time he did this the quad got some real purchase and surged forward. He kept the gas on and let the quad pull him out of the mud. He ran awkwardly beside it and managed to get his left foot on the peg. He swung his right knee up on to the seat and rode the quad off the main trial onto a patch of the cutline that hadn't been trashed yet.
He shut the engine off and stepped onto the ground. He wiped the mud off his hands on a patch of moss just inside the treeline. He looked at the trail. There was a big pit where the quad had been stuck. The ruts were filling up with water from the rain. He was going to need to find a new route around this mess.
He loaded the trees back on the quad. He chucked the log they had been sitting on into the patch of mud where the quad got stuck. He laid all the branches he could find perpendicular to the cutline on the mud nearest the treeline. He stomped them in place with his boots. Then he got back on the quad and continued on to the next block.
He drove through the block to the last cache that had been set up. It was empty. He threw back the tarp and put the boxes of trees he'd brought underneath it. He got back on the quad and drove back out to the road. He drove fast to keep up momentum on the muddy trail. When he got to the patch where he'd got stuck before he slowed down and drove carefully over the branches he laid down earlier.
Back at the main cache, he loaded up the quad again and drove back into the block. He crept over the branches in the mud patch again. Despite the modest road-building he'd done, the quad almost got stuck again. There were planters waiting at the other two caches in the block this time. He split his load between them and raced back out to the road.
This time Brendan thought he might as well carry some speed over the muddy patch. It worked pretty well. A few of the branches got shaken loose. He heard a couple of them bang into the undercarriage of the quad, but didn't think much about it.
The cutline was about two kilometres long. Brendan was about 100 metres from the road when the quad stopped. He tried to start it again but nothing happened. The starter sounded jammed. He tried it a couple more times but nothing happened. He got off the quad and peered underneath it. It was covered in mud and grass. He cleaned it off and found the trouble. One of the sticks had pierced the oil cooler.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he said to himself. He pulled the stick loose and threw it as far as he could into the forest. He pulled his radio out of his inside pocket. It was wrapped in a plastic breadbag against the rain. He keyed the mike.
"Joe? Brendan here," he said.
There was a pause and then his radio crackled into life. "Yeah?" said Joe's voice.
"I'm over at the entrance to block 31 and I've got a problem," Brendan said. "I think I've killed my quad."
"Not, 'killed', killed?" said Joe.
"Pretty much," said Brendan. "I took a stick through the oil cooler. I think the engine is seized."
"Well that sucks," said Joe. "Are they set up in there at least?"
"Well, everyone is bagged up, but the caches are all empty. How's your block?"
"Busy. I don't think I can be over there for at least an hour," Joe said.
"All right. No worries. I'll meet you in camp. I'll give Gord a call and let him know what happened. I'm not sure what he'll be able to do about it though."
"Roger. See you at camp," said Joe. "Over."
"Ciao," said Brendan.
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