Two-Legged Mules
Occasionally a young buck timber faller, having worked hard while pounding wedges to lift and tip a big redwood tree his way, and having bellowed out his final warning to anyone who might be nearby on the canyonside, whether by hollering/yodeling, “SIDE-AAH-HEE-ILLL!” or “YUP DEE HEE-YI-IILLLL!” (nobody ever hollered, “Tim-Burr”), at the last second out at the end of his lay he’d catch sight of a Cat bulldozer crawling up the mountain like a yellow jacket. And instantly the young buck had to decide: do I wait for the machine to pass out of my way, or should I let her rip and have some fun?
So the young buck lets her rip and the top of his tree comes down like a giant flyswatter. As the tree top shatters in the pulverized dirt of the skid trail just uphill from the Cat, it sends up a billowing white cloud of dust that envelopes the tractor and covers it, the front-side of the catskinner, his felt Fedora hat, water jug and feed bucket with a thick coating of talcum powder.
The young buck leaps aboard his stump and stretches his neck in the direction of the commotion he’s caused. As the cloud of dust clears he sees the catskinner, an elderly fellah with a big potbelly and splayed suspenders, standing atop his stalled tractor track and — him knowing full well that young buck timber fallers ain’t above missing a lay by a few degrees to one way or the other — he’s violently shaking his fist and furiously spitting and hissing like a barn cat with its tail stuck in the door.
And the young buck lets the old man blow off steam until he’s out of steam and then, as the panting old man pauses to catch his breath and to gather in his head more epitaphs to hurl, the young buck hollers back at him, “Calm down, you old mule. I didn’t hit yaw.”
Or maybe some fellahs on the rigging crew are gathered for lunch next to the creek and, way up on the canyonside and looking not much bigger than a tick on a dog, there’s an elderly timber faller swinging his ax-head into his set of wedges stuck in the back-cut of his tree. He’s whacking his wedges like piano keys while futilely trying to lift his six-foot-thick, two hundred and fifty-foot tall downhill-leaning redwood tree up the hill and into its lay. And, because the old man had underestimated the strength of the tree’s downhill lean, all through lunch the fellahs eating lunch next to the creek hear him up there relentlessly pounding his wedges, his sweat stinging his eyes, his body weakening, the palms of his hands bruising and swelling and the loud cracks made by his ax-head striking home echoing up and down the canyon like gunshots.
Suddenly booms a thunderous explosion of shattering
wood; an ear-splitting, gut-grabbing bang that doesn’t sound like a bomb going off but something rising from the bowels of the earth. Instantly everybody’s eyes are glued to the scene as the big tree topples backward over the tops of the wedges and begins its long fall toward the creek. Simultaneously the old-timer, potbelly, bowed legs, bent back and all, runs for his life with the grace of a scampering deer.
After the tree impacts the forest floor and ends its slide down the canyonside and the commotion of swinging trees, tumbling rocks, falling limbs and dust dies down, a dog-faced catskinner in the lunch crowd deadpans to the others gathered around,
“I knew that old mule wouldn’t let that liddle-biddy pecker pole whip him.”
Among big tree redwood lumberjacks, being called a mule wasn’t an insult but a compliment. Mules were stronger, more surefooted and courageous than horses, and they’ve always played a big part in logging the redwoods. When diesel power replaced the four-legged kind of mule, that left the two-legged kind and, even today, up along California’s North Coast, holed up in the nooks and crannies about as far away as they can get from a main road, you’ll still find them. You’ll find two-legged mules complete with suspenders and felt Fedora hats.
Top image: Timber fallers at rest in the Boonville Lodge (c. 1985) Left to Right: John Strauss, Herman Richardson, "Cap" Samella and Ricky Adams. Photo compliments of Amy Bloyd.
Second image: Future A.V. fire chief Colin Wilson horsing around on the Wheeler Ranch. C. 1980
Third image: Cartoon by Andrea Jacobson