A Tale of the Far North in which a young camp cook faces up to a rampaging logger known as the Bull of the Woods who doesn't like the young cook's beans and sets out to destroy him. In the end the camp cook unleashes his secret weapon in a desperate attempt to run his enemy out of camp.
A camp cook, if he can make good biscuits and beans, is an important man. Most camp workers, though they love to ride the cook, appreciate and follow the ancient advice of old loggers: don't make the cook mad.
I was a camp cook one time in logging country, up in the North Woods, outside of Fairbanks. I was just a young cook and you can believe I didn't fix anything fancy for those loggers, just a bunch of good solid food to cram down their gullets. And you'd better believe whatever it was it had to have gravy on it.
Cooks who can't make good gravy don't last long up in the woods. Guys'll hound a shoemaker like that out of camp and he'll be lucky to have time to pack his duds.
There were about forty of these loggers in camp, and let me tell you they liked their beans. I fixed navy beans every day. Nothing fancy, just cooked "em with bacon grease, chunks of ham and seasoned with onions, thyme, bay leaf, garlic. I always used chicken soup base instead of plain water to boil those beans. Sometimes I added tomato sauce - not always.
And another thing - I never served those beans on the first day I cooked them - I always kept the them overnight before I served them. Then when I heated them up on the second day, that"'s when the liquid thickened up and the beans released their flavor. You couldn't beat those beans.
The loggers ate on a long wooden table in the cookshack. I had my kitchen off to one side in another room. Every meal I'd haul out three big bowls of navy beans and set them on the table. Didn't matter what else we had, I'd put out those beans. Even at breakfast.
After I'd been cooking there about a month the loggers were all getting fat and sassy and things were going along pretty good. Of course there were the usual gripes about how terrible the food was and how the gravy wasn't fit for the hogs-a cook expects that-but I noticed that they cleaned their plates and stole biscuits from the man next to them.
Young and inexperienced as I was, I was in solid with the crew because of those beans and because I knew how to make biscuits and gravy. A cook can go far on just those three things alone. You can practically build a career on them.
Then the trouble started. Bad Sam Malone came to camp. A big, tough ham-fisted brawler. I saw right off he had his mind set to become the bull of the woods, king of the hill. Mostly his plan involved that blasted cook, me. His gripes were different. He was out for blood-mine.
“Hey Cookie!” he yelled one night when I came out with my bean pots. “I been here a week and I'll be danged if I ever wanta see another bean. Ya got that? Don't put your blasted beans anywhere near me or you're gonna be wearin' em. I hate beans!”
Now here was a problem. My standing in camp was at stake. I knew I couldn't give in or I'd be driven out of camp. Beans were the foundation of my life as a camp cook.
Next morning I fixed a big gang of biscuits and country gravy, platters of fried eggs, sunny side up and crispy the way they liked them, piles of fried potatoes with onion, smoking hot ham steaks with the bones in. I even had blueberry pancakes and jam I mean I had a spread. I was proud of myself.
Then I brought out the beans and set a big bowl right next to Bad Sam Malone's muscular right arm. I had to do it. I couldn't let him buffalo me, you see, or he'd never let up. It would destroy me.
Every head at the table turned with interest to see how Bad Sam was going to handle this assault on his delicate sensibilities. He glared at the pot. He placed his paws against the scarred wooden table and pushed himself back with a roar.
“What's this?” he cried, jumping to his feet. He was nearly speechless at this challenge to his supremacy in the camp. “Beans!”, he hollered. “I told you I diidn't want no beans!”
