West of Here (45 page)

By late afternoon the party had crested the ridge, and they spread out to disperse their weight across the narrow passage, which was little more than a catwalk. The vista was humbling. To the northwest loomed Olympus, with its broad face and, to the east, in a string of tattered clouds, the steep studded range whose peaks bore the names Mather, Haywood, Reese, and Runnells. Before them, up a gentle rise to the southwest hung an outcrop from which point, according to Mather’s calculations, they might catch a glimpse of the Quinault watershed at last.

When they reached the lookout and peered down over the broad green river valley spread out thousands of feet below them, Mather’s look of triumph shortly gave way to bewilderment.

“What is it?” said Haywood.

Mather gazed down at the river in stony silence, taking hold of his long hair with both hands, as the color drained from his face.

Haywood, too, stared down at the river, looking for the source of Mather’s discomfiture.

“It runs north,” Mather intoned.

Haywood felt the blood drain from his face in the moment of recognition. “Then it … ?”

“Yes.”

“No,” said Haywood. “Good God, no.”

“What?” demanded Cunningham. “What is it?”

“It’s the Elwha,” said Mather.

OCTOBER
1890

The Reverend Sheldon was even paler than usual in black, his jowls tucked into his white collar. He stood with his robed stomach pressed firmly against the pulpit, a Bible open before him. The chapel was cleaved crosswise in half by a swathe of early morning sunlight slanting through the window.

But the new day was lost on Ethan, numb and bewildered in the front pew, with Eva beside him like a perfect stranger, her hands folded in her lap. All the days of Ethan’s life seemed lost.

When Reverend Sheldon spoke, he delivered his message in uncharacteristically soft tones.

“The chosen are called unto to him even before they’ve come to be. And so this child was chosen by him, bathed in the blood of Jesus Christ.”

The words washed over Eva. Engrossed by the sunlight, teeming with dust as it angled through the window beyond the pulpit, she permitted her thoughts to bask momentarily in the light of a different window, in a different room, on a different morning, so long ago, it seemed. Chicago. The sun-drenched kitchen late in spring. Their first morning in the lake flat, the window ajar, with the gentlest of breezes blowing in off the water. A bounty of biscuits and eggs. An afternoon to look forward to, a notebook to be filled. Ethan sitting across from her at the table in his new brown suit, poring over the financials in which he had no stake, only a prayer. There was hope at that table. Still shades of youth. Optimism. And possibly even something as durable as love. Two years out of fashion, and in desperate need of mending, only the suit survived. The suit Ethan wore to meet her father. The suit he wore to dinner when she rebuked his marriage proposal — twice. The suit he wore on the train west. The same suit
in which Ethan had arrived at Morse Dock, a little worse for wear, his silver-eyed gaze leveled squarely on the future. And now he was wearing it to his daughter’s funeral.

“Saith the Lord God: that my Kingdom belongs to the children. And today he calls this child into his Kingdom.”

OCTOBER
1890

Eva was among the first to file out of the little church after the service. Wrapping her black shawl about herself against the autumnal chill, she did not linger but set out alone down the muddy path toward the colony. She neither turned nor slowed her pace when she heard Ethan’s squishy footsteps hurrying to catch her. He was impervious to defeat. Nothing, it seemed, could deter his will, or break his spirit. These thoughts embittered Eva as she hastened her own pace, squinting into sunlight. But when Ethan overtook her and stood in her path, breathing heavily, she could see plainly that she was mistaken, that his silver eyes were brimming with doubt. And for an instant, she yearned for his embrace.

“Don’t blame yourself for this,” he said.

Eva stiffened at the words, and her yearning took flight along with all warmth from her body. Wrapping the shawl still tighter about herself, she said nothing as she pushed her way past him. Immediately, he fell into step beside her, as she knew he would.

“Stay,” he said.

She ignored him and kept walking.

Ethan stepped in front of her once more, and set his hands upon her narrow shoulders. “Eva, darling, listen to me: I love you.”

“Impossible,” she said, breaking free and pushing past him.

Again, he fell into stride with her, worrying his gloveless hands one inside the other for warmth. “We can start again. From the ground up, Eva. We can still build the life we set out to build.”

Eva stopped and looked him in the eye. There was bitterness in the lines of her face. “You talk about life as though it were some kind of construction project, Ethan — like your dam, something that will adhere to your designs. Well, mine amounts to just the opposite — mine
is a demolition. Don’t you see, Ethan? While destiny bends to your will at every turn, it hammers me to dust. If there’s any hope for me, it lies in the fact that there’s nothing left of me.”

Ethan took her firmly by the elbow and turned her so that she was facing him. When she tried to elude his grasp, he gripped her harder. “Was it my will that the woman I loved would not have me? Was it my will to see my dreams commandeered by the very men I sought to overcome? Was it my destiny to outlive my daughter?”

“Perhaps not. But your destiny is still here, Ethan,” she said flatly. “Mine never was.” This time Eva managed to break free of his clutches. This time, when she pushed past him, Ethan did not follow her but stood on the muddy path and watched her go for the last time, her black-clad figure bathed in sunlight.

OCTOBER
1890

Pulling her knees up under the wool blanket and clutching them tightly against her, Eva was only vaguely aware of the clacking rails beneath her, hardly mindful of her forehead pressed against the icy glass. Gazing dully out the window, she wished only that her eyelids were heavy as the boundless prairie unfolded, somewhat less than golden in the predawn.

For eleven months she would mark her days in Chicago in the shadow of her father’s wealth, and she would not write a word. In a year’s time, she would settle in a cottage of her own, midway between Fort Wayne and Chicago and begin to write again, looking west out her office window in the hours approaching dusk.

In June of 1894, the news of Ethan’s marriage would reach her, and Port Bonita would seem like another lifetime. Two months later, Eva would receive the news of the dam’s completion and, seven months after that, the news of Ethan’s son, Eben Allen Thornburgh.

But rattling east into the sunrise, Eva’s thoughts were somewhere outside of time. She felt her past curling like smoke into the distance and knew, even before the light of day washed out the gray dawn, that night would surely come again, and perhaps on its heels, a new dawn would follow.

AUGUST
2006

“Sure, I remember him,” said Krig, handing Timmon’s mug shot back to Franklin.

Franklin looked around for somewhere to set his Styrofoam coffee cup. Damn cubicle was too crowded.

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Gotta be three weeks,” said Krig. “At least.”

“You fire him?”

“Walked out.”

Franklin nodded, as if he saw how it was. “What kind of worker would you characterize Tillman as?”

“Decent. As far as I could tell from a couple of weeks.”

Franklin scratched out a note in his tiny spiral notepad. “Talk to him at all during that time?”

“Sure, we had a few beers one night at the Bushwhacker. Or I did. Tillman wasn’t drinking.”

“Bushwhacker, huh?”

“Yeah. Actually, didn’t I see
you
in there one night? I know I did — you had a green shirt on. You were with Hillary Burch.”

“Could’ve been.”

“Yeah, okay, I thought you looked familiar. Not like P.B.’s crawlin’ with black dudes, right? How is Hillary? I haven’t talked to her since —” Sensing Franklin’s impatience, Krig yielded.

“What did you and Tillman talk about?”

“Hell, I don’t remember. Guy stuff, I guess.”

“He seemed depressed to you?”

“Quiet, maybe.”

“You say he wasn’t drinking?”

“Nope. Not a drop.”

Frankled scribbled a note. “He didn’t mention any plans for the future, anything like that?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Did he say
anything
?”

Krig shrugged. “Said he hated basketball.”

“Yeah? What else?”

“Said he liked camping.”

“Hmph. Said that to me too. Any idea where he was staying?”

“The Wharf Rat.”

“Wharf Rat?”

“The Wharf Side. Down on 101. Right by KFC, across from the Dollar Store. Why, what’d he do?”

“He mention any family or friends in town?”

“Nah,” said Krig, swiveling and plopping his feet down on a disheveled foot-high stack of invoices and manila folders. “Wait, yeah. Don Gasper.”

“Gasper, you say?”

“Yeah. Two-guard back in the day. Couldn’t create shit off the dribble.”

Franklin took down Gasper’s name. “What did he say about this Gasper?”

“Just said Gasper told him P.B. was a kick-ass town.”

“Know where he lives?”

“Still in the clink, last I heard. Tried to rob his grandmother. He left his wallet and an empty ice-cream bowl on the kitchen counter is how I heard it. Gasper always was dumb as a stump. What did Tillman do, anyway?”

“Skipped town, most likely.”

“No, I mean what did he do originally?”

“That’d be confidential, son, sorry.” Franklin finally set the coffee cup down at the foot of his chair. “Well, thanks for the coffee.” He stood to leave. “That’s some shiner you got there.”

Krig smiled. “Yeah. You should see the other guy.”

Standing to leave, Franklin kicked his coffee cup and it toppled over, emptying its contents on the mottled carpet.

“No worries,” said Krig.

SURVEYING THE WHARF RAT
lobby, Franklin felt a pang of sorrow for Tillman. Hard to resolve pep talks with this dump. No wonder he skipped.

“I don’t interview them,” the Dragon Lady said, tapping her ash. “I just rent them rooms. As long as they don’t steal my coat hangers or burn holes in my carpet, I don’t ask questions.”

“How long was he here?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Could you check your records, then? When did he check in? What kind of hours did he keep? Did he have any company?”

The Dragon Lady gave Franklin a long snake-eyed look, exhaling through her nose. “Maybe two weeks,” she croaked. “Normal hours. No company. Who did you say you were?”

“His parole officer.”

“Does that mean you’re a cop?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you want with him?”

“I want to help him.”

The Dragon Lady drew from her cigarette until the cherry crackled. She gave Franklin a long hard look, trying to get a read on him. “Hmph. Well, he seemed okay to me. Kind of quiet. Didn’t steal any hangers.”

“Paid up?”

She exhaled a cloud of smoke in Franklin’s face. “In full.”

“Did he happen to mention any plans for the future?”

“What do I look like, his grandmother? Beats the heck out of me. Looked to me like he was going hiking.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Could barely see him underneath all those packs and gadgets.”

A hopeful thought flitted suddenly into Franklin’s mind. What if Tillman hadn’t skipped at all? What if he’d just gone hiking and got in trouble, got lost or injured? He could still be out there somewhere.

“We done here?” the Dragon Lady wanted to know. “I got a motel to run.”

“We’re done. Thanks for the cooperation.” Franklin turned and crossed the cramped little lobby in three strides.

“What’d he do, anyway?” the Dragon Lady called after him.

Franklin paused in the threshold and looked back over his shoulder. “It’s like you said. He took a hike.”

SUPPOSING — THAT
is, if he ever tracked him down — Franklin was able to land Tillman a better job than gutting fish. Something where the kid could use his brain. Supposing Franklin could pull a few bureaucratic strings, and the state could stake Tillman to two months in a decent apartment. Not some halfway house. Something he could call a home. Supposing Tillman got a break. Supposing he was given some tools to carve out a life. That’s correctional, giving a guy a shot. But first, he had to find him. These were Franklin’s thoughts as he guided the Taurus west of town and up River Road to the ranger station.

“Nothing here in the way of permits for Tillman,” said the bearded clerk, scanning the list a second time. “Nothing at Sol Duc either. You try Dosewallips?”

“Not yet,” said Franklin. “Too far. See, he ain’t —
er,
he
don’t
got —
ahem
— he
doesn’t own
a car. Far as I know.”

In spite of the beard, Franklin was beginning to suspect the clerk might be a woman. The voice. The bearing. The posture. The suggestion of two flattened lumps beneath her khaki shirt. Alex was the name on the tag. This town was getting weirder every year.

“Friend of yours?” she said.

“I’m his parole officer.”

A light of recognition showed suddenly on the clerk’s face. “Hold on a sec.” She waddled over to the counter opposite and snatched a clipboard. “This the guy you’re looking for?”

Franklin thumbed the sketch. It was Tillman, all right: Caucasian male, approximately six foot six, replete with the distinguishing tattoo (whatever it was) peeking over the shirt collar. The sketch artist had gotten the eyes all wrong, though. The eyes in the sketch were flat, lifeless; they made the guy in the sketch look dumb and mean. Why did that bother Franklin?