Comes a Time for Burning Read Online Free PDF

down out of here. He can’t hear shit. That the doc from Port McKinney you got there?”
    “Yup.”
    “Well, if we got to cut Sonny’s arms away, maybe you could rig the doc up so he can come up and do it.
I
sure ain’t about to.”
    Bertram laughed. He stepped back, looking at the ground and shaking his head back and forth to take the kinks out of his neck.
    “What will he do?” Thomas asked.
    “Oh, Art will figure it out,” Bertram said easily. “Nothin’ we can tell him from down here. If it works, it works. That’s all. If it don’t, then old Sonny hangs there a while longer ‘til we figure out something that does.” He shrugged. “You see where that crown is hangin’ fast? That’s right over Sonny’s head. So that’s a complication. We don’t want that goin’ anywhere when the pressure comes off.”
    “And now?”
    Bertram looked up as if what was happening far above was of no particular concern. “They think the best thing is to get rid of that crown that’s hangin’ there. That’s puttin’ just hellacious force against the split. Too much to wedge against. But,” and Bertram wiped his face, “If Art cuts the crown too close to the spar, chances are good it could kick down and hit old Sonny, there. See, he’s right under it, damn near. That would put him on the unhappy side.”
    “This Art fellow…”
    “Art Mabry. He’s the best we got. Been in the timber a long time.”
    “Lemme up there, and I’ll get him,” Taylor Simpson said. Thomas glanced over at him, having forgotten the lad who had guided him to this spot. Simpson had moved the two horses to a stump a hundred yards away and then returned, standing now with his hands in his hip pockets, the grin still lighting his features. Now and then he spat a huge, well-directed stream of tobacco juice into the duff and mud at his feet.
    Bertram grunted something unintelligible and then ignored the boy.
    “We got plenty of wood here holdin’ the crown,” Art called down.
    “All right. It’s your call, Art.”
    Art worked his way around the trunk until he was directly above the trapped man. He reached out over his head and patted the crown’s trunk, then slapped it hard, as much effect as a slight breeze might have on the bedrock below them. Satisfied, he adjusted his climbing rope and then stamped each boot to reset his climbing spurs. For a moment he just rested there, then leaned back against the safety rope, his body almost horizontal. Sonny said something plaintive, and Art laughed good-naturedly.
    “If this don’t work, tell my ma I was a good boy,” Art called down.
    “If it don’t work, I’ll tell her that her boy was a clumsy son-of-a-bitch,” Bertram shouted, and more laughter drifted down.
    Art pulled up the small crosscut saw and then hung quietly for a moment, his full weight hard against his climbing belt. Thomas realized that, with the safety belt attached at the logger’s waist, the young man was holding himself with belly muscles that must have rivaled the steel core of the safety rope. The logger twisted so that he could look out along the crown’s length to the neighboring spruce tree where the limb wood was tangled. For another minute, he conversed with the third man, who appeared content to watch from the other side of the tree.
    With a deft flip of the wrist, he swung the saw up and around, sinking its teeth into the top of the crown’s bole at a spot nearly four feet out from the main spar. Even there, the crown’s trunk was close to two feet thick. No matter how gymnastic he might be, the position was awkward, and he worked quickly. Sawdust drifted out and away on the light breeze, its white mixing with the diamonds of rain to float down to the ground.
    Thomas watched through the glass, his breathing loud in his ears. It appeared that, where Art was sawing, the crown’s trunk would sag, hopelessly binding the saw, upper limbs still caught in the neighbor, but still firm on the spar. Of course,