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about to shoot him. Now he was in town for the winter. After the fire, Lars
Severtson had promoted him to choker setter. It paid better than whistle punk,
but setting chokers on a burn was the dirtiest job in the world. Usually he
had to lie down in the ashes and dirt, to poke the cable knob under the logs,
while to hook them up, he often had to lie on their charred bark.
So finally he'd quit-his father hadn't been happy about that-and come home to
help out in his family's restaurant. He doubted he'd log again. With so much
burned timber to salvage, it'd either be more of the same, or he'd have to go
somewhere else.
In fact," he said, "I'm thinking about going back to the old country. Things
were really bad there for a while-a lot worse than here-but they've gotten a
lot better recently. My cousin Karl's been writing me about it; a guy named
Hitler got elected chancellor, and he's putting everyone to work. He's better
thanRooseveltany day." Hansi paused. "Roosevelt's a Jew, you know. His real
name is Rosenfeld.
"My old man really blew up when I told him what I might do. He says Hitler
will ruinGermany-that he'll start another war. Geez! Hitler's not crazy; he
doesn't want a war! I tried to reason with dad, but it's like arguing with a
brick wall. He got wounded four different times in the List war, you know"
Hansi's expression turned thoughtful. "I never thought I'd want to go back,
but now--maybe I'll give it a try. I can do it. I put more than enough money
away working for the Severtsons."
He changed the subject. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, because you're
marrying her, but I had a crush on Mary since the eighth grade. In high
school, a couple times, I asked her to go out with me, but she never would.
She never went out with anyone. People thought she might end up in a convent,
but I guess all she needed was to meet the right man."
The door opened, jingling the bell, and Hansi got up. "Sorry I talked your
arm off," he said. "Congratulations on getting engaged." Then he went to the
counter to wait on the new customer.
Helmi Dambridge had come to Nehtaka fromFinlandat age five. By age seventeen
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she was an exceptional beauty who had scandalized her family and their
Lutheran pastor, and titillated the rest of Nehtaka. The young men of the
community found her particularly interesting, but she was interested only in
those with "prospects."
Her first marriage was to the handsome young owner-skipper of a sealing ship,
who arrived back from an expedition to theAleutiansto discover her gone. She
was living with a sawmill owner inLongview, a man equally handsome and with
even more money, who didn't sail away and leave her for months on end. Her
husband promptly filed for divorce, and when the decree was final, his rival
married her. But now, with a legal claim to her fidelity, he too became
jealous, on one occasion to the point of blackening her eyes and loosening
some teeth; she thanked him by plunging a letter opener into his abdomen.
Her lawyer provided more than legal services, and afterward they married.
Twenty-five years older than she, he was totally devoted to her, while she had
learned something from her first marriages. It helped, of course, that he had
a very lucrative practice. Unfortunately he developed a heart condition, and
at age thirty-six she found herself single again, a widow.
Still beautiful, accomplished in the bedroom arts, and with many friends
inPortlandsociety, the condition was temporary. She soon married Andrew
Dambridge, a fifty-year-oldbon vivant who had coveted her for years. Dambridge
had built a considerable fortune through activities in railroads, lumber, and
real estate. He'd also developed a reputation as a ladies' man, but with Helmi
in his bed, his philandering dwindled almost to nothing. After a few years,
problems of heth reduced both his business and bedroom activities, and he died
of an aortic aneurism on their ninth anniversary.
Most of his fortune he had willed to the children of his first marriage, but
he'd established a very considerable trust fund for his second wife. He was
not, however, a man who liked to lose possessions, so the trust fund carried
the provision that if she married again, she'd lose it. She had no intention
of losing it.
She'd continued her life inPortland's upper crust until the Great Depression
eroded her trust fund rather severely. In the spring of 1931, she sold
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