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  Carter's jaw tightened, but he kept his voice pitched low. Nate could admire that sort of self-restraint, in another sort of man. "I'm here to get things from your perspective. I want to see what you all think about the conflict between the loggers and the environmentalist groups, to see things from your point of view. That's all."

  "Because you're so interested in hearing what we think? Is that it?"

  "Partially."

  "And the other part?"

  "There are lots of parts." Carter shrugged eloquently, and Nate figured he might have been saying any one of a thousand different things.

  "Well, you just keep all of your parts out of my way. I'm not gonna put up with any shit from you. First excuse you give me to kick you out of here, you're gone."

  Carter's gaze was steady. "I got that."

  "Good." Nate winced as he realized that if Carter made sure that Jackson found out he was being a hard-ass, it could come back to haunt him.

  He left the kitchen but paused in the doorway to the big room with his back to Carter. "We go up to the side around eight. If you want to see it today, be ready. And Carter?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Stay the fuck out of my way. I don't like you, either."

  * * * * *

  Carter stood there and listened to the sound of the big man walking down the hallway, making noise despite his stocking feet. Carter snickered quietly. Stalking in his stocking feet. God, he was such a literary geek it wasn't even funny.

  "Stay out of my way. I don't like you," he said softly, trying to imitate Tavaras' voice. What a tight-ass.

  He went back to his computer and tried to get a little more work done, but he was too tired to concentrate properly. It was after one. Maybe by now either Jeff had stopped snoring or he was exhausted enough that it wouldn't matter. Time to go to bed.

  Carter staggered back to the room and collapsed as quietly as he could onto the narrow bed. He had to shift around half a dozen times before he could find a position that wasn't too uncomfortable. He'd just have to hope that he'd get used to the bed. Either that or he could sleep on the floor, maybe. He wasn't convinced that would be less comfortable. Maybe if he put the mattress onto the floor and got rid of the frame...

  3.

  Carter woke to the touch of someone's hand on his shoulder, and a low voice saying "Carter? You getting up?"

  He groaned and stretched, his muscles complaining loudly about his cruel mistreatment in forcing them to sleep on such a truly shitty bed. "Yeah, I'm up." He opened his eyes.

  Jeff looked uncertain. "Did I keep you up? I know I snore, the guys never stop ragging on me about it..."

  "The bed kept me up," said Carter, since that wasn't a lie. "How do you sleep on these things and manage to still get up to work in the mornings?"

  "You get used to it, I guess. We're leaving in ten minutes... Nate said not to wake you, that if you didn't get up on your own it was your loss, but that didn't seem fair, so I..."

  Carter sat up quickly and looked around for his thick sweater. "No, thanks. Thanks. I'm glad you woke me." Damn, he'd have to skip a shower -- he wouldn't have time for both shower and something to eat, and at this point food seemed like the more important factor.

  Jeff disappeared to let him dress, which was totally unnecessary since he was just going to pull on his shoes and the sweater. Carter went quickly to the kitchen with a folder under one arm, drank a glass of juice, and grabbed a packet of pop-tarts. He should have brought some of his own food; it was completely ridiculous that he hadn't even thought of it. He wondered if there was a health food store or anything like it within a reasonable drive. Maybe he could ask one of the men later on.

  Everyone seemed to be headed out the front door, so he followed.

  "You'd better ride with us in the crummy," Jeff offered, pointing to a dilapidated vehicle that looked like it might have been a school bus at one time. "The road's not in great shape -- it'd be hard on your car." He glanced over at Carter's little forest-green Saturn.

  "Okay." Carter was reluctant to get stuck up there -- wherever 'there' was -- for the entire day, but maybe he could walk back down if he ran out of stuff to do. He definitely had the impression that Tavaras didn't want him talking to the guys while they were on site -- side -- so all that really left for him to do was explore the area a little bit, and watch them work. He didn't imagine there could be all that much to it. They cut down trees. How hard could it be?

  The bus made a lot of noise as it made its way further into the forest, and Carter tried not to think about how much pollution it was probably contributing to the world in general. In fact, while he was here and playing his "I'm just here for the interview" role, he'd probably best try not to think about stuff like that at all. It just got him wound up, and then chances were good he'd come out and say something before he even thought about it.

  Fifteen minutes later he'd figured out he was probably stuck on side for the day, considering they were still bumping along. At the speed they were driving -- not that he was any judge, but it might have been 25 or 30 miles per hour -- it would take him an awfully long time to walk back. It would be doable, though, if he were desperate enough to get away. He also thought that maybe it wouldn't screw up his car too much to bring it up here, although it would get really filthy, if the condition of the bus was any indication.

  Don, who was driving, pulled the bus to a stop and shut it off. Everyone piled out. Carter waited until everyone else was gone and then got off the bus slowly, taking his time. To his admittedly virginal eyes, the place looked like a war zone: trees lying on their sides -- some in piles, some strewn randomly, an assortment of large vehicles including a bulldozer, along with a collection of something that looked kind of like a big pulley system -- wheels on blocks with heavy lines running from one to another. A big SUV was parked in front of the bus.

  "Whose is that?" he asked Jeff, who was loitering nearby as if he'd taken on Carter as his personal responsibility. Carter wondered if Tavaras had ordered Jeff to keep him out of trouble.

  "Nate's," Jeff said.

  That figured. Carter deliberately veered his mind away from the issue of how much gas SUVs guzzled, telling himself firmly that at least the guy was using it in the manner the things were intended. It wasn't like Nate lived in the city. Although for all Carter knew, maybe Tavaras did live in the city when he wasn't up here. The bunkhouse was clearly a temporary place. It even surprised him that they'd bothered to build it, considering a job logging here might last a year or two at most. Maybe the building had already been there and they'd just decided to use it.

  "Is there somewhere I can sit and watch, where I won't be in the way?" he asked as he started to follow Jeff across the side.

  Jeff stopped to consider this. "Yeah, good point. Huh. I mean, up near the crummy and Nate's car would be good, but you might not get to see much. What do you want to watch, exactly?"

  "Everything. It doesn't matter. What do you think might be most interesting to someone who's never seen this sort of thing before?"

  "Well..." Jeff said slowly. "Until a few months ago I'd never seen it. Do you want to watch the falling? Bucking's boring to watch -- that's what I do -- it's even boring to do, so I can't imagine you'd want to watch it. Rigging's interesting, but it's all spread out in the brush. It's not easy to see unless you're right on top of it, and Nate'd kill the whole crew if we let you go messing around out there." Jeff sighed. "Guess you'd better go ask him."

  Carter looked around. At least a few of the men had apparently disappeared already, and he hadn't even seen Tavaras yet. "Any idea where he is?"

  "Up there on the landing." Jeff pointed a few hundred yards away to where a large pile of logs and some equipment was sitting.

  "Okay. Thanks."

  "No problem." Jeff shoved a hat onto his head and walked off in the opposite direction.

  Taking a deep breath, Carter went over until he was within reasonable talking distance of Tavaras and then stopped and just watched him
. The guy was probably over six feet tall -- he had at least a couple of inches on Carter, anyway -- and had to outweigh him by more than 30 pounds. Nate was like a big solid carving, like one of those Native American statues carved out of wood that sat out in front of tourist traps and tried to lure people in to spend money on little teepees made of sticks and broadcloth and rock candy in every fake rainbow color.

  "What do you want?" Tavaras said suddenly, and Carter twitched. He hadn't realized he'd been staring.

  "Sorry. Jeff said I should come ask you where I can hang out."

  Tavaras sighed heavily and turned his attention back to the logs he was inspecting. "Yeah, fuck if anybody around here can make a decision without asking me."

  Carter felt a flare of anger. "Please. You don't want anyone making their own decisions -- if he'd told me where to go, you'd have told him it was wrong."

  "You don't know me."

  "I know people like you." Carter gestured toward Nate, even though the guy wasn't looking in his direction.

  "Don't group me in with some bunch of people that got nothing to do with me." Tavaras kicked a log with his boot, and Carter wasn't convinced that it wasn't at least partly as a stress reliever. "And didn't I tell you to stay the fuck out of my way?"

  "You also told me I could come up here today," Carter said, seething. "Goddamn it, Tavaras, you are the..."

  "Gabriel," the other man broke in smoothly.

  "Excuse me?"

  "My name," said Tavaras slowly, "is Nate. If you don't want me calling you by the name you don't favor, then do me the same courtesy and don't call me by my last name like I'm some study in a history book."

  Carter was taken aback. "Oh." He paused for a long moment. "You never told me your name," he pointed out finally.

  "Huh." Nate turned to look at him. "Must be because of that stellar first impression you made, showing up in my bunkhouse without a phone call."

  Dark eyes bored into his own, making Carter want to squirm. "Look," he said. "You didn't ask for me to come; you don't want me here. I can respect that. But I'm here, and the more cooperation I get, the quicker I can get my job done and get out of your hair. Do you think maybe we could start over again, try this from a different angle?"

  Nate stared at Carter some more, and then shook his head and turned away. "This angle's the only one I've got. Not gonna change for anyone, especially not you."

  Over his shoulder, without looking at Carter, Nate added, "Go tell James I told you you could watch him set chokers. Just listen to what he tells you, and don't get in his way."

  "Okay." Carter hesitated, but it really seemed like the guy was making an effort. He wasn't sure why, but... "Thanks."

  Nate didn't respond, just kept walking around looking at the piled up logs and giving one a kick every once in a while.

  Carter walked around, looked at everything, and then went and spent some time watching James work. Apparently "setting chokers" meant fastening wires around already-felled logs. The logs were dragged up to the landing by Flash, who used a tractor-looking thing called a skidder.

  Carter tried to ask James questions about the work, what he liked about it, how he felt about it, and James seemed to make an actual effort to answer him. But the job was physically strenuous and Carter was kept busy just trying to stay out of James and Flash's ways. After a couple of hours he was ready to admit that this wasn't the way to go if he wanted to learn the kinds of things he did. He'd have to talk to the guys at night, or something.

  "Thanks, James," he called over the sound of the skidder as Flash drove up to get another log. "I'm gonna go back and take some notes, sit on the bus..."

  James waved a hand at him but didn't respond, busy hooking the choker on the log to the line on the skidder, so Carter turned and headed back out of the brush. He'd been keeping his eyes open but he certainly hadn't seen a lot of animals, not that that was surprising considering all of the noise the equipment made, not to mention the sound of the falling trees.

  He heard a shout and someone gave him a hard shove, and then there was a crash and the ground shook like there was an earthquake. Carter slammed into the dirt and smacked his head on something, hard enough to see stars.

  * * * * *

  Nate was heading down to ask Keith about the block that seemed to be missing when he caught sight of James waving a hand out of the corner of his eye. James was busy hooking a log to the skidder, so he didn't notice when Carter turned and headed back out of the brush, walking directly into the path of Don's felling area.

  The whine of the chainsaw was followed by the cracking sound of a tree about to fall. Nate broke into a run, shouted, and half-tackled Carter, pushing him out of the way of the falling log. Nate hit the dirt hard and rolled as the tree came smashing down within feet of them, the ground shaking violently.

  Within seconds he was up. Carter was still lying on the ground, looking half-dazed. Nate grabbed Carter by the front of his shirt, dragged him to his feet, and shook him. Hard.

  "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

  "What -- ?"

  Nate let go of Carter abruptly and he staggered but managed to keep his feet under him. Nate saw his eyes go to the tree lying on the ground next to him that hadn't been there moments before, and then Carter turned even whiter, if that was possible, and leaned against the trunk.

  "You've got to be the stupidest fuck I've ever seen," Nate snarled, imagining what could have happened if this idiot had gotten himself killed on Nate's side. The insurance premiums, the investigations -- it could have ruined him. Regardless of what Jackson said, Nate never should have allowed this guy to come. He should have refused. He should have threatened to quit. That would have shown Jackson.

  "I didn't..." Carter started.

  "Didn't what? Think? This isn't a playground, Carter. You can't just go traipsing around wherever it strikes your fancy."

  Carter had both hands in his long curling hair. He looked like a fucking hippie. One hand came back around in front of his face and Nate could see a smear of blood.

  "You hurt?"

  "I... yeah, I think so."

  "Good." Nate turned on his heel and headed in the opposite direction, ignoring the looks of his crew. "James, get Jeff to drive Carter back down to the bunkhouse, and make sure to tell him to haul his ass right back here afterwards. The rest of you get back to work. Didn't we lose enough time yesterday?"

  He didn't look to see that his orders were being carried out, although he did see Jeff heading back toward where Carter was.

  After he'd gotten the block issue straightened out with Keith, Nate went back up to the landing and spent a few minutes cursing Jackson, Carter, and anyone else he'd ever had a beef with. Sometimes it just felt like the whole world was conspiring against him.

  He had a sudden picture in his mind of getting back to the bunkhouse that night and finding Carter dead. Christ, what a pain in the ass that would be. Again with the insurance, the investigations into the safety of his crew. Fuck. As much as he hated to admit it, he'd better get down there and check Carter out, make sure the guy wasn't gonna drop dead and screw up Nate's nice little life that he'd managed to build for himself.

  He passed Jeff coming back up in the crummy on his way down. At least the kid had enough sense to listen to orders. Nate tried not to think about the fact that, in reality, Carter wasn't his to order around. It didn't matter. His side, his crew, his rules. If Carter wasn't able to follow them, he was gone. It was as simple as that.

  Nate stomped into the bunkhouse and slammed the door behind him. That felt so good that he turned around and gave the door a savage kick with his boot. Then one more, for good measure.

  "Are you trying to pretend that's me?" Carter's voice from behind him sounded slightly strained but like he thought he was pretty funny.

  Nate shook his head to dismiss the question and didn't answer. He turned; Carter had a wad of something held to his head and a glass of water in his other hand.

  "You s
till bleeding?"

  "I can't tell. I have too much hair." Carter shrugged his shoulders and smiled a little bit. Who'd have thought that getting whacked on the head would give the guy a sense of humor?

  Nate pushed past him and into the big room. "Come on," he said over his shoulder. "Lemme look at it."

  Carter followed him; somewhat reluctantly, he thought.

  "Sit down."

  Carter sat. Apparently getting whacked on the head brought out his obedient side, too. Nate would have to remember that. If the guy stayed, which Nate reminded himself was not in the cards.

  Nate pried Carter's fingers away from the wad of paper towels and grimaced at the blood. There wasn't a lot, especially for a head wound, but it was sticky, starting to congeal. "You don't have anything communicable I should know about, do you?"