The Skidder on the County Road

Opal

It was Opal Wendt. Opal lives a mile past the mill on the river road. She is sixty-nine years old, a widow, and she spent twenty-two summers flagging traffic for the county highway crew.

She still keeps her old red flag and a red bucket of road flares in the trunk of her car, because, as she puts it, you never know.

She climbed out in a purple rain jacket with the hood back, her short gray hair already getting wet, and she took one look at the situation the way she must have looked at a thousand torn-up road jobs.

“You do your work, honey,” she said to me. “I’ve got the road.”

And she took the red bucket in one hand, tucked the flag under her arm, and walked out onto the shoulder like it was 1985.

I have never in my life been so glad to see anybody.

She stopped the northbound first, then the southbound. She stood right at the edge of the road where both lines of cars could see her, bucket in one hand, the other held out flat. The cars stopped. Nobody argued with Opal. Nobody ever has.

A few people got out of their cars to see what was going on. A man in coveralls from the creamery.

A young mother with a baby on her hip. Two boys in a pickup with hunting jackets on, who stood by their tailgate with their hands in their pockets.

Nobody said anything. They just watched.

The First Pull

I climbed back up into the skidder and sat down. I put my hand on the winch lever and looked back over my shoulder at our truck.

Ivan was in the cab. I could see his face through the windshield, pale, with that paper towel still on his eyebrow. He had it in low, foot on the brake.

I raised my hand. He raised his. I eased the lever back.

The drum turned. The cable came up out of the mud, dripping, and drew tight as a fence wire across the shoulder. I felt the skidder settle back onto the blade and the grapple, and I heard the whole machine take the weight.

The truck groaned. I mean groaned, a long deep sound from somewhere in the frame. Ivan let off the brake and gave it fuel, just enough to turn the drives.

It moved a foot. The cab came up maybe an inch toward level.

Then it stopped. The drives were spinning in the clay. The winch was holding, but it wasn’t gaining. I felt the skidder want to slide and I let off before it did.

Ivan leaned his head out the window. Rain was running down his face.

“Again, Til,” he said.

The Second Pull

I climbed down and looked at everything. The cable, the chain, the blade, the grapple. The bank behind the grapple had torn a little. I lifted it, moved the skidder back two feet onto firmer gravel, and set it down again in a new bite.

Opal didn’t turn around. She just said, loud enough for me to hear over her shoulder, “Take your time. These folks aren’t going anywhere.”

One of the boys by the pickup laughed a little at that, then caught himself.

I climbed back up. I raised my hand. Ivan raised his.

I eased the lever back again. This time I went slower. I let the cable take the strain a little at a time, and I watched the truck, not the winch. When I saw the cab start to come up, I called to Ivan to give it fuel.

It came. Two feet, maybe a little more. The cab came up toward level. The logs settled back against the stakes with a sound like a door shutting.

Then the drives found mud again, and it stopped. I let off. My whole arm was shaking. I sat there for a second with my hand on my knee and looked at the woods.

That’s when I noticed the light changing.