Reversal Print

This is the story of a man who never belonged anywhere whose backyard is the world, whose ways of life are the dreams of escape for those who want action but never find it. The man John Steele, adventurer.

When you look into a mirror, you see yourself exactly as you are, at least you think you do. But the image in the mirror is different. It's backwards. Your right hand is a left in the image and so on.

Confusing? Well, the image came to life for me as a killer. In a story I like to call reversal print. The easiest way I know to find adventure is to accept commissions, which is another way of saying you'll do anything legal for somebody, for a fee.

So when I got this assignment to go to number five camp up in the northwest, it smelled of trouble from the start. What I know about a sawmill and logging operation you could ride on the back of a postage stamp.

But the boss said go, and the job's a job. The Freeman's number five sawmill was up in the Red Rock Mountains at the other end of nowhere, and it took me a day and a half on a jerky lumber train to make it.

I didn't have to worry about missing my stuff because it was the end of the line. We made it. All around the track were piles of lumber drying out, and the forest looked like there had been a war going on.

That's what a sawmill does, I found out. They go after big stuff and crush the small growth, getting it out. When I swung down from the train, I saw there was a store and a bar on the other side of the tracks.