Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb - Lexi George Page 0,94

door—the closed door.

Houston handed Sassy and Taryn bright yellow hard hats that said Peterson Lumber on them.

“Put these on,” he said. “OSHA says.”

Waving good-bye to Lucy, Sassy and Taryn left with Houston to begin their tour. As soon as Sassy stepped outside, she was blasted with noise and smells. Wham. Her headache and nausea returned full force.

Houston struck out across the yard and Taryn followed, her long legs allowing her to keep up. Sassy lowered her head and plunged after them, though the noise and smells of the lumber yard pulsed around her in sickening waves.

Houston stopped outside the main shed. “Peterson Lumber has forty-eight employees.” There was pride in his voice. “We got sawyers, edger-men, spotters, trimmermen, lumber graders, chain pullers, to name a few. Every man jack of ’em got sawdust and wood sap in their veins.” He pointed to one of the Caterpillars Sassy had observed upon their arrival. “The debarked logs are moved from the log deck to the live deck with a log loader.”

He indicated a column of smoke coming from the boiler. “The stripped bark is sent to a boiler that produces steam used later in the drying process. After the logs are debarked and placed on the live deck they move to either the pony rig band saw or the head rig band saw, depending on size. Pony rig’s for smaller logs. Head rig’s for the big ones. Wasted wood is wasted money. Our sawyers make sure there’s as little left over as possible. After the logs are cut, they go into what we call the infeed conveyer.”

He motioned at the noisy main building. “Let’s go inside where you can see the saws at work.”

He led Sassy and Taryn up a narrow flight of metal stairs and into the mill. The din inside was a physical thing, and the smell of fractured wood coated Sassy’s mouth, nose, and sinuses until she thought she would choke. Men in goggles and hard hats stood at the end of a huge contraption. A log screamed as it was fed into the blades.

“That’s our big band saw,” Houston yelled in Sassy’s ear. “We call her Fran. Call her something else when she’s acting up that I won’t repeat. Lately, that’s been a lot. She’s forty-three feet long and eleven inches wide. All bitch and no boobs—that’s our Fran. Keeps our sawfile on his toes.”

Sassy nodded, clinging to the metal safety railing for dear life. She was woozy and sick, and she longed to run screaming from the building.

“The logs go into the band mill,” he continued, unaware of Sassy’s discomfort. “The center piece is called a cant. The cant goes on down the belt and is put through an edger. The edgerman adjusts the saws as the cant enters the edger to get the maximum value out of the lumber. The sideboards on the cants fall off for processing. See?”

Sassy swallowed the taste of wood and forced her gaze off the railing’s chipped green paint and onto the drama below. The debarked logs trundled down the conveyer and into the cruel teeth of the saws. Her knuckles whitened. Death, she was looking at death. This was a charnel house where once-vibrant living trees were sliced to bits.

“From the edger, the boards go to a trim saw,” Houston said. “That’s where your spotters come in. The spotters move lumber away from the edger to keep things moving smoothly. The trimmer-man decides what length to cut the boards.” He waved his hand. “The bits and pieces left over drop through the grates to the outside slasher conveyor. From the trim saw, boards go to the grading table, where the graders grade it and mark it, check it for moisture and classify for drying. It’s then sorted and put into holders. The boards then go to the stacker line where these little pieces of wood called ‘stickers’ are stuck between the layers.”

“What is the purpose of these stickers?” Taryn asked.

Though she did not raise her voice, her words could easily be heard above the racket.

“They help with the air flow,” Houston said. “So the lumber dries better.”

To Sassy’s profound relief, Houston turned and went back down the stairs. Sassy stumbled after him, eager to put the horror of the saws behind her.

Taryn caught up with her at the foot of the stairs. “Sassy, what troubles you? You look as though you have eaten a barrel of green apples.”

Sassy clutched Taryn’s arm. “Oh, Taryn.” Sassy’s mouth trembled and she blinked back