Once upon a time in a rain-drenched coastal corner of the country, the trees grew wide and tall and walking through them was like visiting the cathedrals of Europe.
Once upon a time white canvas tents sprung up like mushrooms in the clearings, first small then large, and released from their depths a surge of men like spores into the forest.
Once upon a time the men warmed themselves over open fires and swung their axes and sawed their saws and danced across rivers on the corpses of felled giants.
Once upon a time a mill rose up and cast its shadow across the river, a violent and capricious god, taking limbs and eyes and first-born sons, without mercy, without reason.
Once upon a time no one cared that the single store in a hundred miles only accepted Company scrip, for the Company was as beneficent and eternal as Jesus on his throne.
Once upon a time the road was tamed with oil and the camp’s stick buildings were reinforced with brick, and the little river valley filled from end to end with modest houses and front porches and the chatter of women at mid-day.
Once upon a time the men gathered on Sunday afternoons in the diner and spoke of candidates and levies and local affairs and worldly affairs and other manly things like the price of lumber and steel, but kept to themselves the cost of love and medicine and their secret worries.
Once upon a time the Company was rich and the shareholders were happy and the town was prosperous and money flowed through the streets like opium through the veins.
Once upon a time, the saws all sawed, and the mill made money and everything worked exactly as it should.
Until one day something unexpected happened. A sawyer in his red wool flannel and his steel-toed boots went into the woods and was never seen again. He left no trail for his crewmates to follow, no body to bury, no death site for his grieving widow and squirmy soft children to wail and cry upon. Just vanished like mist on the ridge that burns off by mid-day.
No matter. The Company replaced him with other sawyers, young men with fire in their bellies, hunger in their hearts, and muscle in their backs. Men who came West from the dust-choked plains or the teeming cities cramped with bread lines and scabby unwashed masses.
“Come to the coast,” the Company said. “Let the rain wash you clean, where the only limits are your will and your arms and the steel of your spine.”
Then, more men began to disappear. The Company claimed they were dragged off by cougars, swallowed up by churning rapids, fallen into root-choked crevices, or simply wandered lost and freezing into the lonely night.
Nevermind they found no blood, no boots, no discarded washed up tools, no hard hats or even footprints. Nevermind the protests of their crewmates, their drinking buddies, their wives (if they had them), or their mothers back home. Nevermind that some of the disappeared were old and careful and craved their beds at night, had seen too much to be reckless or brave.
Nevermind all that so long as new bodies came to replace them. So long as new ears were too brash to listen. So long as new bellies burned too hot to heed the warnings.
The women went about their business the way that women do when their men refuse to listen. Whispers and chitter chatter percolated under kitchen roofs, store awnings and the rain-laden sky.
The saws kept sawing and the mill made money, but a crack had opened in the gears of the world and the men kept falling into it.
Until one day, something unexpected happened. A foreman took his wife and two young daughters to the woods. Packed a picnic on a clear summer day, a rare day of rest, and were never seen again. No shoes or dolls or forks or spoons, no basket or blanket left a trail to their demise. Four souls vanished like a late spring snow, melted by the kiss of dawn.
The women’s whispers boiled over into panic and the men were made to listen. No hungry bellies these, no brash and boastful reckless men. Children! A mother! A man of means had vanished in the woods.
A representative came from the company. A law man came from the county. A news man came from the city. They came with platitudes and promises and photographs. But their hands were empty when they came, and their hands were empty when they left.
No matter. A new foreman was appointed, and the saws kept sawing and the mill made money. But whispers spread to the cities and breadlines that the town was cursed. Soon the only men who went there were of a different kind. Older, grizzled. Instead of fire, their bellies held steel and their hearts were ice. This other kind of men did not wish to build or breed or set down roots. They only came to take and eat and cut and clear and leave again when the land was spoilt and barren. The saws kept sawing and the mill made money, but the woods did not discriminate. It took them just the same.
Until one day, something unexpected happened. The bells rang noon and the mothers made lunch, but no one came to eat. No men from the mill, no children from the school. The streets were heavy with their absence.
When the women went to look, the school was empty. The doors flung open, the little hats still on their hooks, the little books still splayed and open on the desks. When the women went to the mill, no thudding boots came out to greet them. No whistle marked the change of shifts. The timecards left unpunched and hanging in their tidy columns on the wall.
The women went to the post office and sent a wire to the county sheriff. It said “Come quick, all our children have gone missing. We’re going searching in the woods.”
They roused up the remaining men—the second shifters and the bar keeps, the rail men, bakers, and the grand-dads. They pounded on the mayor’s door, the councilmen and pastors, the doctor and the merchants, the grocer and the butcher and the rest.
The elder daughters clutched the newborns, wrapped them to their chests with cloth. The grandmas gathered up the hand lamps. The wives brought down their husbands’ guns. Then the roused up men were made to listen. Off they all marched, hot with worry, to find their loved ones in the woods.
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Six hours later the sheriff showed up with his posse in a line of big black cars. A Company man came with them, from his office in the city, with his big black notebook and his glasses and expensive shoes.
They looked in every window. They checked the town hall and the churches and the school and the mill. But they didn’t find a single living soul.
The town was empty. The woods were quiet. No wind or bird or squirrel moved between the branches. No shout or cry or call for help. No sigh or cough or footsteps in the gravel.
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Once upon a time the town was prosperous and money flowed through the streets like opium through the veins. Then something unexpected happened. The saws stopped sawing and the mill was shuttered and the streets stayed empty and the cathedral of the woods was silent.
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Amelia Valasek lives a quiet life in Idaho where she shares a home with her husband, 20 lbs of cat, 100 lbs of dog and a never ending supply of fur. She holds a Master of Arts in Technical Writing and Communication and her day job can loosely be described as “bureaucrat-librarian.” She has abandoned her social media accounts due to recurring dreams about her teeth falling out.
© 2024, Amelia Valasek
Halfway Down the Stairs 