Mink River: A Novel (36 page)

23.

Everyone is gone now from the football field and most of the tables are folded up and the grill is cold and the parking lot is empty except for one truck: Department of Public Works. You can just make out the DPW logo if you squint a bit—the heron, the salmonberry flower, the serpentine blue river winding through both. Behind the truck Cedar methodically packs small white sandwich boxes into larger boxes and then stacks the larger boxes in the truck. Each small box contains sliced grilled beef and a handful of salmonberries and a bag of potato chips. Each large box contains ten small boxes. There are ten large boxes. When all the large boxes are loaded into the truck Cedar starts loading large white jugs into the truck. Each jug contains ale from the barrels of ale that Stella brought from the pub. There are ten jugs. When the jugs are all packed Cedar takes one last walk around the perimeter of the field, checking for lost jackets and children, purses, smoldering embers, sleeping teenagers, live wires, confused older citizens, litter, shoes, whatever. Then he quarters the field and quarters it again, covering every square yard with his feet or his eyes, and when he is satisfied that matters are being left as shipshape as possible after such a civic bacchanal he climbs into his truck and begins his deliveries. He leaves one box at the doctor’s house. He leaves two boxes at the adult center. He leaves three boxes at the homeless shelter. He leaves four boxes at the union hall where he knows full well the old loggers and sailors and fishermen and millworkers congregate too proud to visit the homeless shelter. He leaves seven jugs of ale at the union hall also, lining them up on the broad wooden railing of the hall so the first guy there in the morning will see them and be delighted. He drives up into the hills and leaves one jug of ale on Declan’s porch. Driving back down he notices that the stars have faded. He leaves one jug of ale on Owen and Nora’s porch. He notices that the night has changed from black to blue. In his truck he sits for a moment and looks at the last jug of ale. Your village priest, now, he’d sure enjoy that, he thinks, and he starts up the truck and swings toward the church but on the way he passes the old hotel and he grins and turns his truck toward the old cemetery by the beach where the old nun is buried and so as the first tender tentative tendrilled sunlight peers over the hills to the east there’s Cedar on his knees by the old nun’s grave carefully pouring the ale into her grass where it fizzes and foams for a moment and then disappears into the moist welcoming earth.

24.

Suddenly Cedar is very tired. He drives home. Home is a small house by the river. On the spot where he was fished from the river long ago. The house is round and made of cedar. Logs he found fallen in the woods. Hauled with a horse. Planed and notched and pitched. A house as round as an owl. All around it in green rows and colorful circles are plants from apples to zinnias. To the north, facing the river, a wooden chair for watching the river. To the east, attached to the house like a cheerful glassy goiter, a tiny greenhouse. To the west, a tiny yard fenced by cropped blackberry bushes in which grow a hundred potted saplings of trees from alder to willow. To the south, a tiny gazebo greenroofed with grapevines. In the gazebo three chairs. In the house three chairs. Windows everywhere of every shape and size. In the door a circular window the size of a face. Drawings and paintings everywhere covering every inch that is not window. No books whatsoever. On the mantel over the fireplace an osprey skeleton. No rugs nor carpets. In the kitchen three coffee cups. No music nor musical instruments. In the mudroom three sets of boots: hip, knee, hiking. No clutter whatsoever. In the cabinet three plates. No mirrors anywhere. In the bedroom three framed and mounted photographs. On the desk three paintbrushes in three sizes. One photograph is of Maple Head and her family on the beach late in the day late in summer, everyone disheveled and grinning. In the bureau three pairs of socks. The second photograph is of Cedar and Worried Man seated beaming at the rickety table in front of the Department of Public Works. In the desk three small machines: camera, binoculars, pistol. The third photograph is of a young soldier, broad of chest and brief of height, smoking a cigarette, shirtless, dusty, smiling, his helmet tipped back, standing by a campfire, legs splayed, utterly relaxed, rifle casually teetered on his shoulder, insouciant and childish, handsome and frightened, ancient and doomed.

25.

Michael the cop gets in the car and the guy with the gun slips into the back seat. Michael feels the cold barrel of the pistol at the base of his skull.

Start the car, says the guy.

Michael starts the car.

Drive slowly along the river road.

Where are we going?

Don’t talk.

The dispatcher will call me.

Answer her normally. Don’t do anything stupid. Figure it out.

Michael drives along the river road. His headlights pick out deer, raccoons, possum, once a coyote, green eyes gleaming like flashlights. He doesn’t say anything and the guy doesn’t say anything. The fir and cedar and alder and cottonwood trees make a dark tunnel through which the police car passes humming.

The guy takes the gun barrel off Michael’s neck but Michael can still feel the guy leaning against his seat.

The dispatcher calls with a complaint of kids drinking on the beach and Michael says he will check it out. The dispatcher calls back a minute later to say don’t bother because the kids went away.

Okay, Lizzie, says Michael.

Pause.

Where are you, Mike? says the dispatcher. You near the beach?

The guy in the back seat puts the gun barrel to Michael’s neck again.

Just cruising, Lizzie.

Pause.

Could you get to the beach, Mike? Maybe check out those kids?

The guy pokes the gun barrel hard into Michael’s neck.

I think I better just keep cruising, Liz. Maybe Jimmy can cover that for me, okay?

Pause.

If you say so, Mike, says the dispatcher.

Thanks.

Say hey to Sara.

I will, Liz.

And Mike—congratulations on the baby.

Thanks.

Bet it’s a girl.

Bet it’s a boy, says Michael.

The guy in the back seat pokes the gun barrel hard in Michael’s neck again.

I better go, Lizzie, says Michael carefully. See you tomorrow.

You coming by here to file your report?

I’ll get to that tomorrow, okay?

You tell me if I can help when the baby comes, Mike.

I’ll do that. Gotta go now, Lizzie.

Okay. Night.

Night.

Where the river road intersects the road into town the guy scrunches down in the back seat for a minute but as soon as they are back into the tunnel of trees along the river the gun barrel is back against Michael’s neck, colder than ever. The road begins to rise a little as they start up into the hills. The river is louder.

I have to piss, says Michael.

No, says the guy. Keep moving.

Not much gas left, says Michael.

You got enough.

Sun’s coming up.

Quit talking. Quit fucking talking. I know cops. I know cop games. This is a game. No more talking, Mike, huh? You got a baby coming, Mike? You keep talking, you don’t see the baby. Understand? Pretty simple. Don’t play fucking games with me. I know all this stuff. You think you’re the law. You think you can tell everybody what to do. You’re not the law. I’m the law. I’m the law now. And I say drive. Got that, Mike? Answer me, Mike. Fucking answer me.

Yes, says Michael, and the car hums along under the brooding trees.

26.

The dispatcher’s name is not Liz. The dispatcher’s name is Ellen. She thinks fast. When Michael called her Liz the first time she grabbed a pencil and wrote down every word he said after that. She wrote the words so hard on her note pad that the page below bore the shadows of the words. When Michael’s radio disconnects she immediately calls the other patrol car. Tonight the other car is a rookie named Jimmy. He doesn’t answer. She runs down the hall of the police station as fast as she can go shouting for help. The night officer is a burly man named Roger. He is at the main desk. He comes flying out from behind the main desk in about a tenth of a second. Ellen tells him what happened. Roger checks the call list to see where Mike has been tonight. Ellen’s hands shake. They run back to her phone board and she calls the other car again. This time Jimmy answers. She hands the phone to Roger. Her voice shakes. Jimmy starts explaining where he’s been but Roger cuts him off sharp and tells him to cruise loose and find Mike.

We don’t know where he is but we suspect he is not in control of the vehicle. We suspect an armed kidnapper. We’re not sure if Michael is driver or passenger. Approach with caution. Don’t be a hero. If you see him call me. Do not attempt to apprehend. Am I clear? Do not attempt to apprehend. Meanwhile I’ll get as many cars out there as I can. Okay?

Jimmy says okay.

I did the best I could, says Ellen. I tried to keep him on the phone as long as I could so he could give me a code word or something. I could tell something was wrong. Not just the name. His voice was too careful. I could tell. I could
tell
. I did the best I could.

You did great, Ellen, says Roger, looking down at her over the tops of his spectacles. You did great.

For some reason he sees her like he has never seen her before, a brave small round woman in her middle years who takes an immense quiet pride in her work and does it well. All those hours alone at night by the phone talking to voices in the dark, he thinks. All those nights. You did great, Ellen, he says again, and reaches for the phone to call cars from nearby towns as he can but his hands are shaking now too and she picks up the phone and dials for him.

27.

Declan shoves off just before dawn and when the sun reaches the
Plover
he and the man with hours to live are two miles at sea. The man is strapped into his wheelchair in the stern and the wheelchair is strapped down also. Declan keeps a loose hand on the wheel. The man turns his head this way and that, looking and looking. Declan points out a pair of sea lions also going west. The man can’t stop smiling even with the wet morning air whipping through him like he is made of paper. Declan points out whales, kelp forests, jaegers chasing gulls, a place where the top of an undersea mountain is only ten feet from the surface. The man asks a million questions. Declan gets the fishing gear ready. The man asks can he fish a little. Declan says how we gonna do that if you can’t hardly use your hands? The man says maybe you can tie a line to my chair and when the chair shakes I’ll yell. What if you get yanked overboard, says Declan. Then at least I can say I caught a fish once in my life, says the man, grinning. All right then, says Declan, and he sets a line. They fish for halibut for a while. A fish gets on his line and the man tries to yell but he can’t hardly use his voice anymore either but Declan is watching him sharp from the bow and he gets to the stern right quick and hauls up a gleaming furious thing maybe a yard long wriggling and wrestling like a child in church. That’s a chinook salmon, says Declan. What a stunning creature, says the man quietly. I’ll clean and ice him for ya, says Declan. I don’t think that will be necessary, Declan, to be honest, says the man, and Declan says o yeh, right, so he works the salmon off the hook and gets ready to throw it back but then turns and hands it to the man who holds it reverently grinning for a moment, all that wild silvery rubbery energy in his shaking hands, and then he hands it back to Declan who drops it back in the water. The fish holds there by the boat for a split second, stunned, and then with a flick and a shiver it vanishes into the green depths faster than you can blink.

28.

My garden faces south, as you see, says the doctor to Stella. They are sitting on his deck eating pears and drinking coffee. I calculate that the southern exposure is worth about twenty minutes of extra light over the course of the growing season here, which sometimes seems to be about twenty minutes long.

Stella grins.

Mostly it’s garlic but there are some peculiar visitors there many of which have arrived on their own, says the doctor.

Windblow, says Stella.

I beg your pardon? says the doctor.

Windblow, that’s when seeds drift in on the wind. A lot of plants issue seeds light enough to ride the wind.

The doctor leans back in his chair, delighted at the word.

You are a botanist, I see, he says.

O, I love plants, says Stella. That’s what I’d really like to do, be a gardener. I used to want to run an orchard or a tree farm but I ended up with the bar.

You still want to run a tree farm?

I’d like to try. I’m not getting any younger. But I’d have to sell the bar for a profit and find a piece of land. Has to be just the right land too, with good drainage and southern exposure.

How much land would you need? asks the doctor.

Couple acres at least. I’d plant lots of fruit trees. Pears and plums and cherries. And I’d plant spruce too. It grows fast and I could sell them for Christmas trees. And grape vines. I always thought grapes would grow here but no one’s ever tried. You have to plant them on the lee side of the hills and you’d need gravelly soil but there are some places here you could do it. I’ve seen some land I’d plant in vines. Some of that O Donnell land would be good vineyard, I bet.