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IV

Just as Lou finished bringing his fork to his lips, an ear-splitting crash sounded from the far side of the mess hall. Several baritone whoops and hollers filled the air, cheering on the accident and clumsiness of the kitchen staff.

As soon as the mocking applause died down, Bill nudged Lou next to him, "What is that now, five days in a row?"

Lou murmured his agreement. "Yes. The first happened the day Henry disappeared," he said nonchalantly.

Alfred looked up from the funnies section he was reading. "Have you heard anything from the foreman about him?" he asked, taking interest in the mention of their missing colleague.

"He called off the search yesterday," Lou said between mouthfuls. "Said if he's lost, he'd be a goner by now."

"Damnit!" spat Bill as he slammed his fist on the wooden table. The sound was mostly drowned out by the chatter of the rest of the men in the hall. Only the group sitting in line next to them gave a quick glance of acknowledgement at Bill's outburst. "What if he found water? There's that stream just a few miles east!"

"I mentioned that possibility too," Lou said. "He said something about Henry walking his ass out on his own if he did that."

"That callous son of a bitch!" grumbled Alfred from behind his paper.

"He also mentioned reassigning us now that our lead is gone," added Lou, "He's still interested in that clearing Henry found."

"So, he wants us to go from preparing one road to clearing a completely new one?" asked Bill.

"No, he was talking about breaking us up and putting us into other teams."

Both Alfred and Bill groaned audibly.

"I hope none of us end up on Team Six," added Bill. "A fox attacked them the other day, and yesterday they sawed into a beehive! That team is cursed, I tell you!"

That would be the worst outcome for all of them now that Henry was gone, Lou thought grimly. �Henry had been the best boss he had while working his career, and he was a good friend. He would have to pour one out for him at the next weekend party.

"I don't know why they have such bad luck; they are hard workers," said Lou as he took a drink from his glass of milk. "Pete and I go way back, and he's never had to deal with anything like this."

Before the conversation could continue further, it was abruptly ended by the foreman striding into the hall and marching up to the kitchen staff. It was impossible to hear what he was saying to them, but his wild gesticulations told Lou everything he needed to know: He was mad at them for dropping food yet again.

"I'd be mad too if I had to pay for all the food they were wasting," said Bill who was also watching the scene unfold.

"It's not like he's paying for it out of his own pocket," said Alfred. "What does he care?"

Lou watched the foreman swing his hands around in a 'no more!' gesture, but as he finished the motion, his hands shot up to his face and he let out a loud sneeze that could be heard above the rest of the noisy hall. The foreman tried to resume his tirade but was caught again with another explosive sneeze. He continued to sneeze until he was weak at the knees, and then hurriedly tried to retreat back to his office while the rest of the kitchen staff shooed him away from the chafing food on the counter.

"He's probably grumpy his allergies are making him this miserable," said Bill, making light of what they had seen.

"He keeps saying that budgets are being slashed," remarked Lou.

"Hmm?" asked Bill.

Placing his fork on his plate, Lou explained, "Alfred said he's not paying for it, but he is worried about finances." He picked up his mug and took a few gulps from it. "What I don't get, is we never see these budget cuts. More and more expensive equipment keeps showing up with requisitions. It's like someone at the mill doesn't care about cost overruns."

With a heavy clatter, Sam dropped his overfilled plate in the empty space next to Alfred and climbed over the bench to sit down with the team.

"You look like you're eating for two!" teased Bill from across the table.

Sam nodded in agreement but quickly shrugged it off as a joke. "I'd rather have too much with how far my cabin is," he said quietly.

"How is it having a cabin all to yourself down there?" asked Alfred as he bent down the newspaper page to see Sam next to him.

"It's been quite nice. Quiet," Sam said as he picked at some creamed corn with his fork. He seemed to be ignoring the large stack of rolls and chicken he had piled up on his platter.

"Lonely?" inquired Lou.

"Actually, not really!" said Sam excitedly. For a moment, it seemed to Lou that Sam was about to come out of his shell, but before Sam said another word, he returned to his normally morose demeanor. "I- I really like the quiet," he finished.

"Don't get too comfortable," said Lou. "The foreman is talking reassignments, and that means you'll be bunking with your new crew."

"Oh..." said Sam solemnly. "I guess that means I won't need to walk so far for dinner."

"Be sure the place is cleaned up," Bill said. "The foreman likely will be stopping by to collect Henry's personal effects."

Sam almost choked on the roll hanging from his mouth. "They are giving up!?" he said, shocked.

Lou nodded, frowning. "No one has found any trace of him besides his axe. The foreman doesn't want to delay work any longer."

Sam noticeably lost interest in his food at this news. Lou watched as he struggled to swallow his mouthful of food. He made a small choking sound as he tried to say something, but his ashen face said it all for him. Still, he managed to squeak out a quiet, "Damn," before hastily taking a swig of his beverage.

"Bill, Lou, finish your meals. I need to see you in my office." The foreman suddenly appeared behind Sam, holding a handkerchief to his face. Lou hadn't noticed him approaching while he had been distracted by Sam. He quickly tapped two fingers on his brow in acknowledgement, mostly to hide being startled by the request. Bill simply nodded at the foreman before watching him turn around and disappear to the back rooms.

"Well, it's been nice knowing you," said Alfred once the foreman was out of earshot. "We're getting reassigned for sure."

---

The sound of three sharp knocks from Bill's knuckles filled the poorly lit hallway outside the foreman's office. Taking his hand away from the door, Bill folded his arms across his chest and turned to Lou.

"I thought we were invited to walk right in," he commented.

Lou took his hand out of his pocket and rubbed at a tickle on his nose. "Me too. He must have gotten busy while wait�"

He was stopped from finishing his thought by the foreman opening the door. The harassed foreman momentarily looked at the two of them before throwing the door wide and stepping back to let the two lumberjacks in. Without saying a word of welcome, he circled to the far side of the free-standing table as the other men stepped through the threshold. Suddenly, he let out a deafening sneeze, clutching a crumpled handkerchief in his left hand.

"Do you know if he had any next of kin?" the foreman asked nonchalantly as he bent over some pages he was filling out on top of the table map. His eyes were puffy from his allergies, but he wasn't about to allow them to interfere with business.

Lou was about to answer that he didn't know, but Bill piped up first. "He said something about a distant uncle in Kansas, but that's all he mentioned to me." Shrugging, Lou confirmed with a shake of his head.

"Hrm, very well," grumbled the foreman. "Less paperwork for me to fill out, and hunting for other family will give the boys at HQ something to do."

The three men stood in silence for a few moments while the foreman scribbled something on the page in front of him. After he reached the end of the document, he finally looked up. "Now that's out of the way, I'm afraid I have some more bad news for you two," he said flatly as he stuffed the handkerchief into his pants pocket.

Lou felt his heart sink and next to him, Bill shifted his weight nervously, his arms still folded at his chest.

"As you know, now that Henry is gone, your team is missing a lead," the foreman started.

Here it comes, thought Lou to himself. Their team was going to be dissolved, and he would be stuck working with Team Six for the rest of the project.

"Bill, as Henry's second, I'm moving you to Team Six."

Lou could feel the irritation radiating from Bill next to him, but Bill kept quiet and didn't object. They both knew this was coming.

"Team Six has been having a lot of injuries and accidents, and I need you to be Pete's second to keep them on task and out of danger."

"Yes sir," said Bill in acknowledgement. Bill being stuck with Team Six wouldn't be the worst thing if he stayed on as a backup lead.

"Lou, I'm promoting you to lead on Team Nine. Alfred and Sam will report to you."

Lou couldn't believe it! Normally, Bill should have gotten lead over their team in Henry's absence. "Thank you, sir!" blurted out Lou, barely able to contain himself after the shockingly good news. But that was what struck him as odd, "Sir, you said you had bad news for both of us?"

"I'm reassigning you to the northward road construction," said the foreman. "Henry's southward project wasn't getting us anywhere. At the very least, I can have your team work on developing better routes back to HQ."

"Isn't that a bit much for a team of three to work on?" asked Lou, hoping he didn't come across as ungrateful.

"We have some new recruits arriving in a day or so," replied the foreman, seemingly unbothered by Lou's question. "I'm expecting you to whip them into shape promptly. No coddling them like Henry did with Sam." The foreman grumbled something under his breath to himself. Lou thought he caught a few words about disliking their roommate situation.

"Sir, if I may ask," started Bill. "The clearing Henry found, are we going to do anything about it? I'd be happy to take Team Six-"

"I am completely unimpressed with your findings," interrupted the foreman. "I was with the search parties in the daylight. There was nothing special about that section of the forest. We continue with our plans on the north side." He slapped the map in front of him for emphasis.

"Yes sir," said Bill dejectedly. He couldn't entirely hide his disappointment with the foreman's decision to not expand on Henry's find.

Before either Bill or Lou could voice any objections, the foreman said, "You may return to your cabins now. That is all."

The two men politely left the foreman's office and shut the wooden door behind them. Just as they walked back into the mess hall, Bill fumed, "I can't believe he's ignoring the clearing Henry found! He died finding that spot for us. The least he could do is try it!"

"Don't say that," said Lou. He looked over the nearly empty mess hall. The kitchen staff was putting away the food behind the counter, and a few more were wiping down tables. Off at the far end of their table, Sam was still finishing his meal. "We don't know he's dead."

"Alright, I suppose he could have been whisked away on a magical journey where he's spending all day in the sun and dancing with the pixies," Bill shot back sarcastically.

Lou almost smirked at the mental image Bill had created, but it was too hard to smile and make light of their missing friend. Pulling open the front door, he graciously waved Bill through first.

"I'm just saying, let's not give up hope so quickly," replied Lou. "I'm not the pessimist the foreman is."

"Easy for you to say after you got a promotion," mumbled Bill irritably as they started down the gravel road toward their cabins.

"Hey!" Lou said sternly. "That was uncalled for. I didn't ask for the promotion!"

"Sorry," said Bill and he kicked at a large loose stone guiltily.

"You were due for that promotion too. I don't know what got into the foreman to think you needed to be reassigned."

"The stress has been getting to all of us," admitted Bill. "Did you see how he was filling out a requisition form with what we told him about Henry's kin?"

"No?" asked Lou.

"It's like he's trying to do too many things at once, and now I'm getting the brunt of his mistakes," said Bill. "And if he can't fill out the paperwork right, then the whole operation will fail from his mismanagement. I swear, I could be a better foreman that he is at this point."

"Damn," said Lou. "I should have insisted on a raise. He's probably going to lose track of the promotion in the middle of screwing everything else up."

The two men stopped in front of one of the cabins they were passing. "Go see him first thing tomorrow then," said Bill. "For now, it's time to get some rest." He then waved to Lou and marched up to his cabin door.

Lou's cabin was still a few doors away, so he continued down the line alone with his thoughts. Bill really should have gotten the promotion and the raise that went along with it, but Bill also had been more and more prone to emotional outbursts, especially after Henry had disappeared. The foreman would jump on any excuse he could if he thought Bill wasn't ready for a leadership role. Maybe that's why Bill had been passed over and he had received the role instead.

Among the sounds of gravel crunching under his boots, Lou heard a stirring of leaves next to him. Spinning around, he was surprised to see a fox striding along the far edge of the road, shadowing his every movement. Now that he had stopped, the fox looked up at Lou, sitting down on its haunches and fixing its slitted golden eyes up at him.

There was at least twenty feet between the two of them, but the determined gaze the fox was giving him put him at unease. It looked like it was expecting something from him.

"Shoo!" called out Lou. If there was a fox skulking around the cabins, it likely would be up to no good.

The fox didn't move an inch. Instead, it twitched one of its ears, listening to the evening sounds of the forest behind it.

He couldn't be sure, but he thought that the fox looked a lot like the one that had been barking and yipping at them when they retrieved the Jeep down south. Something about the darker streaks in its facial fur patterns seemed familiar. If it was the same one, wild animals that showed no fear of humans were always trouble.

"Get out of here!" roared Lou at the fox, kicking the gravel road and sending the large stones scattering toward it.

The fox didn't immediately budge, but suddenly, it spun its head to its right, opening its fangs wide and plastering its ears back. It then thrust its jaws forward, like it was trying to snap at a small fly next to it that Lou couldn't see, all before leaping into the brush with its fluffy white-tipped tail flowing like a flag behind it.

Lou stared at the spot where the fox had disappeared, trying to see if the animal was still watching him from cover. It didn't appear again, so he turned around and continued to his cabin.

Stepping up onto the porch, he turned the knob and entered, almost immediately wishing he hadn't. Alfred had returned before him and decided to engross himself with the centerfold of the girly magazine while sitting in his bed.

"Jesus, Alfred, can't you do that when I'm not around?" chided Lou.

"I was doing it with you not around!" growled Alfred irritably. "She's been on my mind all day."

Lou rolled his eyes and walked over to his side of the cabin, avoiding tripping over the supply crate being used as a table for the lamp in the middle of the room. At least Alfred was keeping it under his covers while he sat in bed, but that didn't put Lou's mind at rest with him so nearby.

"So how did it go with the foreman," asked Alfred as he folded up his shameful tome and tossed it back under his bunk.

"Bill got demoted, I got promoted, and we're working a new location tomorrow." Lou unbuttoned his overalls and stripped to his boxers and undershirt.

"Poor Bill," said Alfred. "Do you think the foreman is mad at him for letting Henry go off on his own?"

"He never said so," replied Lou. "He wants him to help with the disaster that Team Six has become." He pulled out his long pajamas from under his bed and climbed into them. "So, yes. Maybe," he agreed thoughtfully as he climbed into bed.

---

Despite the irritating behavior of Alfred to cap off the night, Lou slept quite well and woke the next morning feeling refreshed. Both of the men left the cabin together and made their way back to the mess hall for a quick breakfast before starting their shift.

Sam eventually joined them at their table before their meal was done, and after updating him on the promotion situation, Lou explained that their new job site was no longer going to be the southward road, but to start a new one north.

"Did he tell you where we will be starting this new road?" asked Alfred before popping the last bite of his buttered muffin into his mouth.

"I... uh... No, actually," stammered Lou. He had been so absorbed with the fact that he had been promoted that he hadn't considered anything further.

"Maybe Bill will know," suggested Sam as he crammed a long strip of bacon into his mouth.

"I don't think so," said Lou. "Bill isn't on our team anymore. No one is going to tell him anything about our work."

"That makes sense," said Sam as he chewed. He looked embarrassed for suggesting it.

"You two finish breakfast. I'll talk to the foreman for more info. He's got to have some topographical maps for where he wants us to start."

Sam and Alfred nodded through their chewing, and then Alfred said, "We'll meet you in front of the depot."

Quickly finishing his plate, Lou climbed over the bench seat and made his way for the back office. Even before he turned the final corner in the hallway, he could hear the foreman engaged in conversation with other crew members, followed by yet another of the foreman's trademark explosive sneezes.

Bill and Pete were standing outside the foreman's office with the door open while the foreman stood in the threshold, hurriedly wiping and rubbing at this nose with his handkerchief.

"�So help me, if there's another injury or accident on your team, you're both fired," said the foreman in an agitated tone. "Bill is going to keep you in check, and I expect you to follow through, Bill. Don't let a single team member out of your sight!"

The foreman's gaze drifted to Lou standing behind the two others. "What do you want?"

Both Bill and Pete turned to look at Lou now that he had the foreman's attention. Cutting straight to the point, Lou started, "Sir, I need�" but the foreman interrupted him before he could finish.

"Never mind, let me finish with these two," the foreman growled. "Do we understand each other?"

Both Bill and Pete nodded. "Get out there now. I'm not paying you to complain."

Clearly dejected, Bill and Pete shuffled past Lou. With a curt nod, they recited each other's names in salutation.

"Lou," "Pete."

"Lou," "Bill."

Once the others were gone, Lou stepped up closer to the office door. "Sir, I don't have any pla-"

From the back corner of the office, the radio blared out, "HQ to Basecamp, *BZZZT* to Basecamp. Do you copy?"

Exasperated, the foreman rolled his eyes and said firmly, "I don't care what you need, just get out there and start working, damnit!"

The foreman quickly shut the door, leaving Lou standing in the dark hallway, stunned. From beyond the door, he could hear the foreman replying to the radio, only to be chewed out by someone on the other end. Quietly, Lou stepped away from the office and back out to the mess hall to meet his crew.

---

It took a few moments to reach the vehicle depot from the longhouse on foot, but as promised, Sam and Alfred were waiting for him there, both already loaded up with their equipment for the day.

"Change of plans," called Lou to his team as he approached them. "We're working down south today."

Neither protested, and so Lou fueled up and signed out the vehicle as he had seen Henry do on many mornings like this. Jumping behind the steering wheel, Lou started the engine and turned the wheel toward the road they had spent the last six months clearing and preparing.

Like Henry, Lou was getting frustrated with the lack of progress the team had on the road, but the foreman dismissing him without a plan was one frustration too many. He could spend the whole day being useless up near the longhouse, or he could be useless down south and maybe get something helpful done. It would be hard running with a three-man team, but with the tow ropes Alfred grabbed and a plan for pulling down the trees, he felt like the three of them could clear a hundred feet today.

He also felt a little bad not telling his crew how the meeting had gone with the foreman, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. If he told them he was winging it on his first day as their new lead, they could end up in trouble with him if the foreman got upset. Still, if the foreman wanted him to work up north, he wasn't going to start hacking at the trees to call it a road. There needed to be more surveys of the area for that!

"Shame the foreman didn't let us start working here," Alfred said as they passed the spot where they found Henry's Jeep.

Lou slowed the vehicle as they passed the section of trees Alfred was looking at. Before they had entirely passed, he had stopped completely.

"You said it was a large clearing in there?" Lou asked Alfred.

"At least big enough for a truck to turn around in," Alfred replied. "And it would only get larger the more we clear it."

"Ok, I'm calling it," said Lou after a moment of thinking. "Each of us takes one tree. We'll use it as a test for the tow ropes. Handsaws only. I don't want anyone up north hearing what we're doing."

"Why not?" asked Sam from the back seat.

Lou almost physically winced. He had let the cat out of the bag accidentally. It was better they still not know the extent of his little rebellion today. Quickly, he spun a yarn. "The foreman didn't think it was worth our time, so I don't want to call attention to us being out of place. We should be far enough south to use the chainsaws once we start working on the road."

The three men climbed out of the vehicle and began collecting their gear. After a short period of time gauging the three front trees with Henry's mark and the leverage they would need to apply to the ropes, Alfred and Sam began sawing out a wedge of each of their trunks. Lou took the tow ropes, and using the neighboring trees as a pulley system, he stretched their lengths between the trees and the winch on the jeep.

Once the trees were sawed, Lou engaged the winch and watched as it tugged and pulled until the trees started to break. With a loud groan and then a crack, the first tree began to topple.

"Timber!" shouted Alfred as the first log fell into the woods, perfectly away from them and the road. Beaming, he turned to Lou, "That worked even better than I expected!"

Smiling, Lou nodded before strapping the next tree up for removal. All three trees went down without any trouble whatsoever. After all the trouble they had in recent months, it felt like the curse was finally lifted.

Using the Jeep further, the three men pulled the trees out from the edge of the forest and stripped the branches, lining the logs parallel with the road. Lou realized he would need a convincing story for why he had left three trees felled in the middle of the road project they had been removed from, but he figured he could get a collection crew to show up without the foreman knowing anything.

Elated from their success, Lou gathered his men into the Jeep and drove them to the end of the road. Even without Henry or Bill, he knew they were going to make some real progress today.

---

The dinner triangle was late that night. Alfred and Lou had taken to playing a low-stakes game of poker atop their supply crate while waiting for the ringing announcement of dinner being ready.

"About time," grumbled Alfred as he tossed his cards down on the table, implicitly folding the hand. Rising to his feet, he made for the exit, quickly hitching up his suspenders as he strode over to open the door. "You coming?" he asked, turning back to his cabinmate.

Lou was caught looking at his hand, frustrated by the bad timing of the dinner chime. He was holding a full house, which was the best hand he had drawn in the last seven. Defeated by circumstance, he slapped his cards on top of the rest in frustration and stood up.

"Yeah," he said. He really wanted to finish the round, but beating the rest of the lumberjacks to the food was more important than beating Alfred at cards. The next couple of minutes could extend into an extra ten if he had to wait in line. Together, they left the cabin and rushed to the longhouse as fast as their weary bodies would let them.

"What is this crap?" scoffed Alfred as he cautiously spooned some very odd-looking scrambled eggs onto his platter. "Where's the dinner food?"

One of the kitchen staff was behind the counter to overhear him. "Sorry, sonny. It's leftover breakfast for everyone tonight."

"How did it get so... rubbery?" asked Lou, now taking his turn spooning the dubious food onto his own platter.

"It's that newfangled contraption they sent us," remarked the man. "Nothing is working right! They told us it was the cooking range of the future, but it's useless when we need it. Give me a good old stovetop any day!"

Lou wasn't interested in being drawn into a conversation about cooking, so he gave a wry smile and worked his way down the line, following Alfred's intuition and skipping over a few of the suspect options they were presented.

"Those English muffins look like they were left out all day to dry," muttered Alfred back at Lou. Lou had to drop the tongs he was serving himself with, realizing Alfred was right. They weren't toasted golden brown at all and the butter had congealed on top.

By the time Lou had reached the end of the line, he had an unappealing pile of food on his platter that wasn't as large as his appetite. Cursing his selection, he looked back behind him to check if there was anything else he wanted to double up on, but the queue of lumberjacks behind him made it clear he wasn't going to get the dinner he wanted tonight. Defeated, he moseyed across the room to the end of the table where his team normally sat.

Poking and prodding a lukewarm yellow wad of eggs with his fork, he was just about to tempt fate and put it in his mouth when Bill dropped his platter next to him.

"What an abomination that was," he grumbled aloud as he lifted his leg over the bench seat. "How did your first day as lead go?" Bill said, sitting down and rolling a flimsy English muffin into a bite-sized wad before cramming it into his mouth.

Bill's question was a lot more interesting than the eggs on his fork, so Lou put his fork down on his platter. "I had to wing it a bit," replied Lou. For a moment, he was about to go into more detail about the foreman not giving him coordinates to start on, but thought better of it. Bill was trustworthy, but he didn't want to chance eavesdroppers overhearing him vent about the boss. "How about you? I figured you'd be sitting with your new team," he asked, trying to shift the topic off of himself.

"Pfffsh," Bill scoffed, spraying just the tiniest bits of food from his lips. "It was nice working with Pete, but his whole team is scared shitless. No one wants to take an axe or a saw to anything!"

"So you all stood around all day?" asked Lou. Suddenly, his own act of insubordination seemed trivial to Bill's. At least he cleared a bunch of trees with his team.

"I didn't, no," answered Bill. "I was chopping my entire shift, but I only managed to fell four trees on my own. All of Team Six stood there watching, as if waiting for something bad to happen to me." He lifted his beverage to his lips and took a sip to clear his mouth better. "Nothing did, mind you. They are all a bunch of pansies, worried about nothing!"

Lou shrugged. "At least no one got hurt today," he said, trying to spin an optimistic angle to Bill's story.

"Not really," mumbled Bill as he put a forkful of eggs into his mouth. "One of the team rolled his ankle when he gave in and tried helping me."

Lou went wide-eyed upon hearing of yet another injury. "I think you were right, they are cursed!" He was half-joking, but the constant incidents with that team was beggaring belief.

Alfred arrived at the table in time to overhear the question. Dropping his platter to the table he said, "This whole forest is cursed, Lou."

It was an easy statement to drop flippantly, but Lou thought their day had gone well. "Didn't you pull down seven trees on your own today? That has to be a record for us."

"Aye, but that was before your bad poker hands and then the kitchen's refrigerators dying," Alfred prodded a gray sausage suspiciously. "My night is ruined."

"I had a straight before you quit!" challenged Lou, embellishing the truth a bit.

"Bullshit, you had two pair again," called Alfred.

Bill interjected, "Is that why they are feeding us this tripe? The food spoiled?"

Excessively chewing the sausage link, "That's what the kitchen staff said. They had to throw out over fifty pounds of meat today."

"What a shame," Bill said. "We saw to never waste any food in my household."

"Same with mine," added Lou. "So we're getting rubbery leftovers tomorrow too?" he asked.

"Naw," Alfred said dismissively. "They are expecting a supply bus to arrive some time after dinner. Too late to feed us tonight, but they will have everything fixed up by tomorrow." He started to chew on a bit of eggs he had shoveled into his mouth. "That old guy behind the counter will go on talking forever if you let him, eh?"

Lou nodded at the remark, having barely escaped the kitchen staff's jabbering. Daring to take another bite of food, he found it edible if he considered the alternative of eating rotten food.

"Pass the salt," Lou asked Alfred, who still looked unwilling to eat the food he had served himself.

Before Alfred could react, Sam showed up to the table and sat down. Unlike the three of them, he had heaped more barely-warm scrambled eggs and biscuits onto his platter than the rest of them combined. In fact, by Lou's estimation, there was enough there to feed six people.

"Save some for the rest of us," laughed Bill upon seeing the mountain of food on Sam's plate.

Sam sheepishly smiled. "They told me to take as much as I could."

"And they didn't yell at you when you built a mountain on your plate?!" asked Alfred, incredulously. "Are you going to eat all that?"

Shaking his head to the first question, Sam replied to the second, "I can make a midnight snack out of it."

"You're not supposed to take food to your cabin, Sam," chided Alfred. He looked at Lou, expecting him to interject as their team lead.

Lou shrugged his shoulders. "If he wants to deal with pests, it's his cabin for now." He lifted a freshly salted clump of eggs to his mouth. Later, he would talk to Sam about what's appropriate cabin etiquette. Someone eventually would be posted in his cabin, and he had better keep it clean enough for them. Until then, he didn't feel like making a fight out of it at the dinner table. At least the leftover food wouldn't go into the trash.

"You would throw a fit if I brought food back to our cabin!" Alfred remarked in frustration.

"That's because I have to live with you," retorted Lou. Peering over the pile of eggs at Sam, he added, "Sam, don't make a mess of your cabin. It's only a matter of time before someone else moves in."

Sam wasn't eating. Instead, he was portioning piles of eggs into a series of napkins and tying them into neat little packages. Looking up from his project, he made eye contact with Lou and nodded in agreement before returning to his work.

Lou shook his head in dismissal and took another bite of his eggs. The salt barely helped.

Dinner finished for the team. Sam spent most of it creating his napkin snacks while Lou and Bill discussed the latest in the war news. Alfred looked distracted after a while and excused himself early, clearly not interested in the remainder of the food on his plate. Sam added Alfred's leftovers to the pile of napkins before finally digging into the remains on his own plate, leaving several napkins' worth of food to eat for his dinner.

The mess hall began to empty out early as most of the other teams had little interest in eating the stale leftovers. Sam had to quickly snatch his pile of napkins away to safety from the team sitting next to him as two of the men's conversation turned into a challenge to an arm-wrestling match. It was an amusing distraction for Lou and Bill, but after a winner was declared, Bill excused himself to go catch up with the rest of Team Six before the night was over. Realizing that Sam wasn't much good for conversation, Lou bid him goodnight and walked out the front door only a few minutes later.

The night air was heavy, as if it intended to rain overnight. Lou took in a deep, cleansing breath through his nose, enjoying the tranquility of the approaching dusk. There was no urgency to return to his cabin just yet. If he knew Alfred, he would be enjoying his alone time with that magazine again, and he didn't need to walk in on him a second time. Instead, he stepped down off the porch and crunched his boots on the gravel that littered the ground. His attention had been grabbed by slight commotion that could be heard around the side of the building.

A brown, repurposed military bus was parked alongside the longhouse. Lou could see a handful of kitchen staff, clad in their white aprons, unloading boxes and crates from the vehicle and taking them in through the kitchen side door. Behind the staff, he also saw a line of young men he had never seen before. Some were holding bedrolls and duffle bags; the others were still collecting their belongings from the bus.

Lou stopped, watching the scene unfold. It was a few moments before realization dawned on him. He was seeing the new food shipment arrive, as well as the new recruits the foreman had mentioned. They sure picked a crummy day to show up, considering the dinner everyone had been fed. Maybe tomorrow, with the kitchen being resupplied, they would have a better breakfast ahead of them. He shook his head dismissively and started to turn back to the door he had left, but a flutter of motion in the brush caught his attention. Staring at him from across the gravel road was a fox, its golden eyes fixed on him intently.

Having seen the animal just last night, Lou wasn't surprised to see it skulking around again, but what was odd was the fleshy pink blob it held in its mouth. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out the object, and just as he did, the fox broke eye contact and disappeared back into the brush, its white-tipped tail trailing behind it before disappearing entirely.

Somehow, Lou realized, it had gotten into the chicken. Looking back toward the busy kitchen staff, he saw a trash bin that had been knocked over and its contents spilt onto the ground.

"Damn animals making a mess," he grumbled and started to walk toward the trash bin, hoping to do everyone a favor and pick it up a bit. Foxes getting into the trash was one thing, but if the open containers started to attract something larger, like bears, someone was certain to get hurt. They were in the untamed wilderness, after all.

He bent over and scooped up a bit of the spilled and spoiled food with the lid, forcing several sloppy chunks of uncooked chicken meat back inside. Righting the upset bin, he locked the top to prevent any more wildlife from finding their way inside. Satisfied with the quick job, he wiped his hands down on his overalls and walked back to the front of the building.

Rounding the corner, Lou caught Sam leaving through the doors, his arms wrapped around the little napkin doggy bags of leftovers he spent half of dinner making. "Are you really going to eat all that tonight, Sam?" Lou asked seriously.

Sam hadn't been paying attention, and almost dropped the food in surprise at the question. Collecting himself, he stammered out a quick affirmative, before trying to walk past Lou.

"Sam," said Lou, "you know the problems we've had with food in the cabins. The new trainees just arrived and it's likely you won't be alone anymore."

Hurriedly, Sam interjected, "I'm not lonely."

"Regardless," Lou continued, "you better have a clean way to dispose of what you don't eat. There's plenty of trash bins here�"

"Ok, ok, I got it," Sam interrupted. He seemed anxious to get back to his cabin. "I'll make sure it gets eaten."

Before Lou could say anything more, Sam pressed past him and made his way down the road toward his cabin, dropping one of his napkin sacks of scrambled eggs into the gravel.

Watching Sam leave, Lou sighed and then bent down to grab the abandoned food. Sam was always a bit mousy, but leaving the food he was diligently hoarding was bizarre. Maybe tomorrow, he would walk the extra distance to check up on him. No telling if he had already wrecked the cabin being by himself.

Napkin bundle in hand, he marched over to the side of the building once more, intent on throwing it into the trash. As he approached the bins, he saw the new recruits finishing their unloading and being led inside by the foreman. Lou smiled in friendly acknowledgment, hoping silently that none were slated to be bunking with Sam before he got a chance to inspect the cabin.

Sealing the trash can, the engine of the bus next to him roared to life as it began its departure. Lou looked up at the brown bus and waved to the driver as he began to pull away, which in turn briefly dazzled him from the headlights scanning over his face. He blinked away the spots in his eyes before finding his jaw almost dropping to the ground.

Ahead of him, behind where the bus had been parked was one last recruit. It was a face he hadn't seen in years, a long-lost friend from his years in school. His friend saw him standing there too, waving back at him.

"Redford!" Exclaimed Lou excitedly.