like Roger Silbert to recognize the savings that the WM3500 represented. The new system was more precise, yielding more lumber in less time. But it required half as many men to operate as the old circle rigs.
It was good news for the company and bad news for log hands and off bearers like Andy, who'd made their living with cant hooks and heavy lifting. It wasn't good for Deerpark, either.
Matt shut down the rig when he saw Rachel Owens come into the mill. She dressed like everyone else, in jeans and a flannel shirt, but she made it look stylish. She worked in the front office handling sales, but Matt knew she could do any job on the line as well as any of the men. Her father had been a logger.
Rachel approached his chair. “I was watching you cut. It looks like fun.'
'Come on up and try it,' he said.
'Only if I can sit on your lap.'
He immediately blushed and looked around to see if anyone had heard her. She laughed at his embarrassment.
'Relax, Matt, nobody is paying any attention,' she said. “Besides, it's not like there's a law against flirting.'
But the truth was her remark was less flirtation than an honest expression of her desire.
They'd been seeing each other casually, going to movies and having dinner downriver in King City, for a few weeks now, but their romance hadn't advanced beyond some passionate kisses in the cab of his truck.
Something was holding him back and she knew exactly what it was-the simple gold wedding band that he still wore.
At first, the ring made him even sexier to Rachel. It demonstrated that he was a man of passion and deep emotion. But now she wanted to wrestle the ring off of his hand and throw it in the river.
The ring made Matt feel like he was cheating on his wife every time Rachel kissed him. He'd never said that to Rachel, of course, but it was obvious the way he tensed up whenever she touched him.
She thought it was time for him to get on with his life and, more urgently, get it on with her.
'What brings you down here?' he asked.
'You, of course. I'm looking forward to Saturday. Were you able to get us reservations at the lodge?'
He nodded. “It seems like everybody in Oregon had the same bright idea to go skiing this weekend, but I managed to get the last two rooms.'
She'd call and cancel one of them as soon as she got back in the office. She had big plans for the weekend. “That's great. Deerpark is the last place we're going to want to be this weekend.'
'Why is that?'
'Management is real impressed with the yields they're getting from this rig. They're going to retire the Fricks and order three more WM3500s.'
'How many men are they going to let go?'
'Fifty, maybe more,' she said. “It'll be in stages as the new rigs come in. But I'm sure your job is safe.'
'I wasn't thinking about mine.'
'Andy isn't your responsibility. He's barely even responsible for himself.'
'That's why he needs me. When are they making the announcement?'
'Silbert is breaking the news to everybody today at lunch.'
That gave Matt a whole hour to worry about how Andy would take it.
February 20, 2011
When the emergency operator answered, Lyle was struck dumb. He didn't know what to say. He certainly couldn't tell her the truth, or they wouldn't send anyone, except maybe a couple of cops to take Lyle in for a psych evaluation.
'I'm Lyle Whittaker, a coroner at the Clarion County morgue. I've got a man here suffering from extreme hypothermia and in need of immediate medical attention.'
'Did you say the morgue?'
'Yeah, and this is where he'll stay if you don't send the paramedics right away.'
So the operator, Roxi Witt, made the call and sent the paramedics.
But even as Roxi did it, something nagged at the back of her mind…
She was at the end of her eight-hour shift. No calls had come in about anybody being found nearly frozen.
The only incident she'd heard about was yesterday, a little girl who'd found the frozen body of a skier who'd been buried by the avalanche.
That had happened three months ago.
But this certainly wasn't a crank. The readout on her computer screen confirmed the call was coming from the county morgue and that an assistant coroner named Lyle Whittaker was scheduled to be on call that morning.
So, after careful consideration, Roxi looked around to make sure no one was watching her, opened her purse, and found the tiny scrap of paper that she'd been saving for years, just waiting for the right moment to come along.
And if this wasn't it, nothing ever would be.
She took out her cell phone and called the National Enquirer tip line to claim her five hundred bucks.
Lyle wheeled Matthew Cahill into the hallway, where it was warmer, and covered him with every sheet he could find to help him generate some body heat.
The paramedics arrived within a few minutes and immediately hooked Matt up to an EKG, which, to Lyle's astonishment, showed a weak heartbeat, in the low twenties. Critical condition for a living person but not bad for a dead man.
They put Matt on oxygen, started an IV, and were about to wheel him out to the ambulance, when one of the paramedics repeated the question that Lyle couldn't avoid answering any longer.
'How long was this guy frozen?'
Lyle handed the paramedic a copy of the forest ranger's report, the morgue log, and a bag containing Matthew Cahill's personal effects, which included his wallet, his watch, and a wedding band.
'Three months,' he said and dashed off.
The paramedic was sure that he'd heard wrong, that the coroner had actually said three minutes, but he was in too much of a hurry to get the patient to the hospital to chase after Lyle to confirm the obvious.
CHAPTER FIVE
November 18, 2010
Roger Silbert gathered the employees in the yard, climbed up on the back of a flatbed truck, and addressed them with a bullhorn. He was thin, smelled of breath mints, and talked too fast. Today he wore a B. Barer and Sons cap to show that he was one of the guys despite his jacket, tie, and gold cufflinks.
There wasn't a man in the crowd who owned a pair of cufflinks or would buy a shirt that didn't have buttons that could do the job.
Matt stood beside Andy at the front of the crowd. Rachel stood on the periphery with the rest of the staffers from the front office building. The Barers were conspicuously absent, vacationing in Palm Springs for three weeks, as they did every winter.
Silbert began by reminding them of the bad economy, the sharp drop in new home construction nationwide, the influx of cheap lumber from other countries, and all the other ills that afflicted their industry, as if they didn't already know all about them, as if those worries weren't already keeping them up nights, or causing them to kick their dogs, or spend their weekends drunk, or put off going to their doctors for fear of what that hard bump under the skin, or that chronic pain, or that bleeding from the ass might turn out to be and what it might cost.
'We've had to take a hard look at how we do business and embrace new technologies that lower costs, conserve energy, produce greater yields, increase efficiency, and offer more operational flexibility,' Silbert said.
Andy turned to Matt. “How many guys you got working on that new rig you've been playing with?'
