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"I"--pursed my mouth--"don't know much about pandas"or where I heard about the zoo. Maybe he was talking in his sleep?"
"Who?"
"The Indian."
Memory can fade like a foggy cloud bank. But somewhere in the haze, I could see the dark island where I shared a bunk house with an Indian--two beds under a tin roof, barely room to turn around, the incessant smell of wool socks hanging on an oil heater. With his dark hair and complexion, slightly pock-marked from the elements, he looked like an Indian, for sure. Lots of Indians worked in the woods. I think his name was Butch. We set chokers together, dancing over logs, ducking under rigging, trying to dodge the mainline. All those months, I don't think we spoke two words; at least, at first.
"Maybe you are the Indian."
"I'm no Indian!" I shouted. "I got blue eyes!"
"Hey, Blues Bro." My bunk mate turned. "You're talking in your sleep, again."
"Bullshit," I sat up. "You woke me up!"
"Restless leg syndrome, on your lips," Butch groaned. "Federales on your scent again?"
"Maybe its your socks on the heater! I wouldn't exactly call them air fresheners!"
"White men couldn't catch fresh air if they had a basket"--he groaned--"Me, however, I'm Athabaskan. Full-blooded."
Communication wasn't necessarily a cultural divide. Mostly, we were just too exhausted at the end of the day. Nothing to do but drop in bed and sleep. Or hike the trail to watch bears feed in the creek. Sometimes we took a float plane to town to drink in the bars. We fancied bear scat on our boots to be an aphrodisiac for back-woodsy barmaids. Such are the delusions and perks of the Far North. Thorne Bay, however, was mostly about work.
Toward the end of one bug-bitten day, sparks fell from the faller's chainsaw and started a fire on the side we were logging. "Fire in the hole!" the hook tender shouted. We labored until dark, chopping ditches with our ho-dads, to slow the flames, while a helicopter dropped water above. Afterward, we spent a miserable night in the woods, shivering in hickory shirts, keeping a smoke-eyed watch.
There is nothing romantic about fire-fighting--breathing cinders and blinking tears, most the time. Huddled against a stump, I offered a dip from my can of chew. A brotherly buzz to take the edge off.
When he returned the tin of Copenhagen, something fell on the ground--a crumpled note.
"What's that?" I unfolded a newspaper photo--of a zookeeper and turkey.
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