get too far ahead of yourself, Fritz,” said Karl.
As he began to lift the next post from the pile, Fritz leaped to help.
“It’s all right,” said Karl. “I got it.”
Fritz disregarded Karl and managed to get the butt end off the ground. The quiver of his exertion expressed itself down the whole length of the log.
“Steady, boy,” Karl said.
That only made the log wobble so much that Karl could feel it working out of his own grasp.
“Just let me know if you’re going to have to drop it, Fritz,” he said, using all his will to keep up his end for fear that if he lost it, the weight would crush his brother’s hands.
Without warning Fritz simply let go. This broke Karl’s grip, and the heavy log crashed against his shin.
“Almighty!” he cried as he went down.
The pain did not come immediately, but when it did, it radiated from the spot of the blow upward and downward until it hurt as much as a part of him could.
As he held his shin between his hands, the feeling began to center itself where he could test it. When he realized that the wound was more likely a bruise than a break, the question of Fritz began to intrude into his selfish pain.
He was nowhere to be seen from the ground where Karl lay curled.Karl straightened his leg against the hurt, rolled off his hip, and pushed himself upward to a sitting position. It was only then that he saw the retreating form. Fritz’s impulse to flee was as much a part of his nature as a rabbit’s.
Karl leaned on an arm opposite the injury and pushed up against the burden of the earth. When he got upright he listed, but he was able to stand.
“Fritz!” he called out, waving his arms. “It’s all right.”
Fritz turned, but trouble was trouble, and it never went away. So you had to. Just that simple, said the rabbit.
Karl’s leg ached something fierce. It gave him sharp notice whenever he put too much weight on it. But still he found that if he stood correctly, canted away from the weak side so he could take the burden on his good leg, he could still lift. It did test his back, but no more than hay bales in tight quarters in the loft. He used the tool to brace himself as he leaned over, then used the pole itself for balance as he slid it.
Getting the fence post upright proved to be another matter. He pushed his bad leg as far as he could, but still the angle was wrong. The log would not slide into place. It began to wobble, and he had to throw it from him. At this point he really could have used his brother’s help. But that was an idle thought. He tried again and again until he succeeded. Eventually he was able to master how to work hurt so he could keep going until the posts turned the empty land sacred.
There had been jeopardy, but he had gotten through it. Danger was always present, whether in building a fence or running the sharp-bladed implements in the fields. It was there even in pleasure, climbing a tall lookout tree near the crick or touching a girl at the dance who you could tell wanted to come back around to be touched again. It was the way of the world to put obstacles in the path between a man and the things he wanted or was obliged to do. Otherwise, Karl supposed, a soul would never be measured. Maybe this then was the reason God made moccasin snakes and swimming holes and gypsy women and little brothers.
3
WHEN KARL LIMPED INTO THE HOUSE, he did not mention Fritz’s role in his injury. He had just lost his balance, he said.
“That is the cause of all human misery,” Karl’s father observed.
Karl could think of quite a few other causes—starting with severe fathers—but he stood silently, wondering what punishment his father would mete out to him for a job well done.
His father began to pace.
“Success in agriculture today takes more than a knee for the weather,” he said.
Was this a test? It was not his knee that he had hurt.
“Your mother and I have decided.” His father stopped and straightened himself at every joint, as if he were lifting whatever it was he was trying to say. Then he finally spoke again. “It is time you were exposed to the world.”
Karl’s mind leaped up. Chicago. Grain and livestock pouring in from all over the plains. He could hear the animals’ frightened cries, see throngs of people as numberless as the Bible’s multitudes.
“You will be going to the North Woods to work with your uncle,” his father said.
It was as if Karl had been tackled and brought to earth.
“Why send me so far?” he complained. “What do I need to know of the forest?”
“He is my brother,” his father said.
KARL WENT BY TRAIN, switching lines he forgot how many times, until he found himself in a freezing boxcar with a dozen ruffians who, to his dismay, all got out at the same bleak rail crossing he did. From there they were taken by open oxcart mile upon bumpy mile until they reached a scar in the forest that turned out to be the camp of Schum-peter Logging Co.
“Looking for something?” said the enormous oxcart driver, his words clotted by an accent that was not German but more German than French.
“I’m to meet Mr. John Schumpeter,” Karl said. “I’m to be working for him.”
“Everybody does that,” said the ox man.
“I’m to be his clerk,” Karl said.
“Be you a saw clerk or a wagon clerk?” said the ox man.
“Ledger clerk,” said Karl, who could only guess at the penalty for a smart mouth. “I’m to learn the business from him.”
“You’ll learn a lot more than that here,” said the ox man. Then his thick finger pointed toward the other side of the camp. “A person can usually find Mr. Schumpeter over to that big old pile of logs they call the office. But usually you don’t go there unless he asks you to, and then you’d usually just as rather not. By the way, Mr. Ledger Clerk, be sure to wipe those boots off afore you enter. Mr. Schumpeter lives in that office of his, and he likes to keep it as neat as Astor Street. You know where that is, don’t you?”
“No,” said Karl.
“And you never will neither.”
With that the ox man turned away, and Karl struck out across the muddy yard. The first log structure he reached smelled like a kitchen. He poked his head inside, barely able to make out anything except for the glow of coals in a fireplace under a hanging cauldron straight out of the Brothers Grimm.
“I’m looking for Mr. Schumpeter,” said Karl.
“I look like him to you?”
“I’ve never laid eyes on him,” said Karl.
He put the wind in his face again and slogged toward a cabin that looked a cut or two nicer than the rest. He knocked tentatively on the jamb of the open door.
“Hello?” he said.
From inside came the scrape of a chair, then heavy footsteps on wooden planking. When the figure appeared in the rectangle of light from the doorway, it was . . . his father!
The shock lasted only an instant. Then he noticed the age lines, the rounder jaw.
“I’m Emil’s son,” Karl said.
“I was worried that he had decided not to let you come after all,” said Uncle John, reaching out his hand. “He went this way and that way for months after I suggested it.”
Uncle John wore heavy work clothes. But you could tell he was not a man of common labor. His grip would not have held