I shut the chain saw down and wiped my forehead with my sleeve.

“You’re gonna go deaf,” he said. “Where’s your ear protection?”

“I left them around here someplace. Just can’t find them.”

He shook his head at that, then walked right past me to the stacks of logs. Like many Bay Mills Ojibwa, you had to look twice to see the Indian in him. There was a little extra width to his high cheekbones, and a certain calmness in his eyes when he looked at you. You always got the feeling he was thinking carefully about what to say before he said it.

“White pine,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Where’d it come from?”

“Place down near Traverse City.”

“I thought I saw a truck going by,” he said. “That was what, Wednesday?”

“He was supposed to be here Monday.”

“Couple of these logs I wouldn’t use on a doghouse,” he said. “Like this one right here.”

“I know. I was gonna put that one aside.”

He slipped his hands under the log and lifted it. He was maybe three inches shorter than me, and thirty pounds lighter, but I wouldn’t have wanted to fight the man, on the ice or off. He carried the log a few steps and tossed it in the brush.

“That’ll be your waste pile,” he said. “I see another one right down here.”

“You don’t have to do that, Vinnie. I know which ones are bad.”

He went over to the cabin, knelt down, and ran his hand along one of the logs. “You know which ones are bad,” he said, “and yet this one right here seems to be part of your wall already.”

“When did you become the county inspector?” I said. “I didn’t see it in the newspaper.”

He let that one go. “Can I ask why you’re doing this by yourself?”

“My father did it by himself.”

“Did he start building in October?”

“I know I’m not going to finish it,” I said. “I just had to start. I couldn’t wait until spring.”