The old man adjusted his gloves.
“All right.”
He positioned the burl carefully.
The band saw came alive.
The deep mechanical hum filled the building.
Nobody laughed over that sound.
The blade descended into the rough exterior.
Sawdust sprayed.
The cut moved slowly because the burl was dense, irregular, and awkward to support.
The boy watched without blinking.
Halfway through, one of the lumber buyers lost interest and started talking about a maple shipment from New Hampshire.
The bearded buyer remained.
Mostly because he wanted to see the boy’s face when the burl turned out to be exactly what it looked like.
Worthless.
The blade finished.
The old sawyer shut the machine down.
Everything slowed.
The metal wheel spun to silence.
Then the sawyer placed both hands on the two halves.
“Ready?”
The boy nodded.
The old man pulled them apart.
Nobody spoke.
The inside did not resemble the outside.
The exposed maple seemed almost alive.
Dense ripples ran across the entire face of the cut.
Not ordinary curl.
Not random spalting.
Deep, three-dimensional quilted figure rolled through the wood in overlapping waves, each one catching the overhead light differently. Cream-colored maple shifted into honey, pale amber, and faint reddish-brown mineral lines. The grain appeared to fold inward and rise again like water disturbed by wind.
The old sawyer stopped breathing for a second.
The bearded buyer’s smile disappeared.
One of the men behind him whispered:
“No way.”
The sawyer leaned closer.
He touched nothing.
“Quilted.”
The buyer stepped forward.
“Move.”
The sawyer held out one arm.
“No.”
The buyer stopped.
The old sawyer studied the face.
Then looked at the other half.
The figure continued.
Nearly full depth.
Not surface compression.
Not a small decorative pocket.
Real figure.
Rare figure.
Instrument-grade in places if the rest of the wood remained sound.
The buyer swallowed.
“What size is that thing?”
The sawyer ignored him.
Then something rolled out from a natural hollow near the center of the burl.
Metal hit steel.
Clink.
Everyone looked down.
A small brass tube lay on the cutting table.
About four inches long.
Capped at both ends.
Darkened by age.
The boy’s breath caught.
The sawyer looked at him.
“You know what that is?”
The boy shook his head.
The bearded buyer reached forward.
The sawyer slapped his hand away.
“Nobody touches it.”
The buyer stared.
“What the hell?”
“It came out of the kid’s burl.”