Horse logging is the hardest job McCay has ever done—and he’s labored his entire life. His fingers are short, almost as thick as they are long, like his body. He doesn’t stand much more than 5’7" in his logging boots, but he’s stout as a fir trunk. "You never see a fat horse logger," he likes to boast. But secretly he worries about getting old and soft. If work defines a man, then what is a man without work? He remembers an old draft horse his dad owned. They had plenty of young horses at the time, so they turned the old horse out to pasture. But every day the horse didn’t work, it got weaker and smaller. So they brought it out of retirement, and day by day, the muscles and the strength returned. The horse worked until it was 25, when they finally had to put it down. McCay is like that horse. So he comes to the woods when he can, hikes up the hill, turns around, hikes down. Again and again, all morning, until his face is red and his clothes damp with sweat under his rubber rain gear. At noon, he sits in the cab of his pickup with Dave, peels an orange, drinks pineapple juice, and eats something wrapped in a Jenny Craig package.

"This is your first chance to get run over, so you better pay attention," says McCay, either to Dave or to the team, or maybe both. It’s after lunch, and they’ve left McCay’s team resting in the gooseneck trailer and hitched Dave’s team, hiked back up the hill and choked a thick log that rests on the crest of a knoll. McCay hands the lines to Dave. Dave looks at him as if to say, "Aw, really, you mean it?" McCay nods.

Dave clucks to the horses. The team tugs. The log’s end inches over the knoll, and as more of it pokes over the edge, it begins to slowly tilt. Then, all at once, it takes a dive, tumbling over the chains and twisting them. Dave scrambles to catch his footing, and slips. He leaps, snatching the lines as they squirt through the palms of his rubber gloves. The log jerks the horses with it, until it splashes into one of the large puddles.

"Thought you’d bought the farm," says McCay, peering over the knoll. "Thought that big black would get an education if he didn’t get outta the way," he adds. Doesn’t want Dave to feel too bad. It happens. A two-ton log seems pretty hard to move if it’s on flat ground, but set one on top of a hill, push it over, watch it go crashing through the brush. So he explains to Dave how the horses, if placed uphill act as anchors. But if they’re caught downhill, the log, with enough momentum, will bowl them over. If it crushes their legs, the horses will have to be destroyed. They’d lose not just the cost of the horses, but the investment of training. And more, they’d lose the partnership that develops between a team and driver. "You don’t just go out and get another team," says McCay. "You might buy ten before you find one that equals the team you had. It’s not like replacing a chainsaw."

Dave stares at the ground, curses under his breath, and throws his rubber gloves on a stump.

But even McCay, having horse logged with his dad since the age of 13, can get into trouble. It’s the same problem: a log rolling down the hill, picking up speed. He jerks the lines, trying to turn the team uphill. The big horse, spooked and confused, smacks into the smaller one, tangling the harness and causing both horses to flip.

Now it’s McCay’s turn to curse. He’s pissed at the big horse for panicking, and mad that the big log is now lodged in a bog at the base of the draw. Getting the log back uphill to the road will be a hell of a job. Hard on the horses. Just plain hard.

He slaps the reins. The horses strain against the tugs. The collars dig into their shoulders. Sweat drips from their necks. The mud slurps as the log begins to move. "Yaw!" McCay yells. The team jerks with all its strength, sucking the log from the bog.

McCay knows he can’t stop—has to keep the log moving or it will begin to roll back downhill. He’s yelling at the horses, and they, too, know the urgency.

Another slap and holler, and the horses scramble up the hill, back onto the road. He halts the team to hook onto a second log. Then, as he starts the horses down the final slope to the landing, he hops aboard the two logs, straddling them with a spiked boot on each, feet spread wide. Hanging onto the driving lines, he balances like a water skier, riding the logs down the slope, mud churning in his wake.

Dave looks on and shakes his head. Then he grins like a little kid, eyes wide, amazed at the forces of gravity and the power of the horses and the skill of McCay.