Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

  “Hey, Gundersen!” someone hollered. “Your mutt’s back.”

  Scout bounded into him, almost knocking Rich onto his ass. Muddy and collarless, Scout lapped up water, then threw himself to the ground, panting, grinning his dog grin.

  “You,” Rich scolded, scratching his hackles. In a minute, he would have to walk him down to the crummy, make him lie under the seat until they were done, guys bitching about how the whole bus smelled like wet dog again.

  Rich unfolded Colleen’s note. But it wasn’t a note, only a blank slip of paper.

  September 1 COLLEEN

  Rich worked through three eggs over easy without lifting his head. Something had been eating him, ever since his crew got sent over to Deer Rib. Smaller trees, smaller paychecks. Enid would know. Eugene told her everything.

  He mopped up the last of the yolk, drained his coffee. “That hit the spot.”

  He got his boots on, let her peck him on the cheek—Be careful—and ducked out into the rain.

  Every day of a marriage is a choice, the pastor had said at their wedding.

  She wedged the radio between the lamp and the wall, the sweet spot where the tinfoil-bulbed antenna managed to fish a tune from the air. She had one last satin rose to sew on. Four older sisters, a whole childhood of hand-me-downs; Alsea should start out with her own baptism gown. She was a good baby, no fuss. The kind of baby anyone would want.

  She pinched her ears to relieve the itch. If it was itching, it was healing. What was it Daniel had wanted to ask?

  She knotted the thread, snapped it clean, and held the gown up, satin catching window light. The red Wagoneer swung into the driveway, Enid laying on the horn.

  “We’re going to Bistrin’s,” Enid announced, barging into the house. “The girls need shoes. You coming?”

  “Chub’s sleeping.”

  “Chub?” Enid hollered. “Chu-ub!” And though Chub was normally unwakeable, crawling under the picnic table on the Fourth and sleeping through the fireworks, he wandered out from the hall in his pajamas, hair cowlicked. “There,” Enid said. “He’s up.”

  * * *

  Chub sat in the backseat, chattering with Agnes, Mavis, and Gertrude, the girls lively and pretty with their red-blond hair and milk-blue eyes, despite being named after women three generations too old. Chub adored them.

  “What did you do to your ears?” Enid asked, backing down the driveway.

  Colleen touched the earrings. “Rich gave them to me.”

  “Lemme see?”

  Colleen leaned across.

  “Hm,” Enid said. “What’d he do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know Eugene has screwed up when he brings me something. I wish he’d screw up big and buy me a washer-dryer.”

  “He didn’t do anything,” Colleen said, pinching the earrings. A log truck barreled past in the oncoming lane. Besides her wedding ring, Rich had never given her jewelry.

  “They look spendy,” Enid said. “Must have been something bad. And he bought you that crew cab. Think what he must have done then.”

  Colleen knew it was ungrateful, but the truth was she hated that truck. She’d been alone at the house the Friday before Easter, Chub spending the night at Enid’s. She should have called an ambulance as soon as she went out and found her old Ford wouldn’t start. Instead, Rich came home late and found her in the tub—it was too much blood to stay in bed—head canted back over the rim, a scene from a horror movie.

  When it was over, he’d gone straight out to the dealership and bought her the fanciest truck they had, though he despised Chevys with an intensity beyond the purely mechanical. She resented that truck every time she climbed into it—as if anything could make up for what she’d lost—but it was a family truck, a truck with seat belts, built for six. She clung to its promise: They would try again. They would keep trying.

  “I’ll make Eugene buy me a washer-dryer when he gets his first grove check,” Enid announced, pulling up in front of Bistrin’s, the store’s windows plastered with back-to-school sales. Stonewashed jeans $12.99.

  They went in, the girls heading straight for a display of fringed white cowboy boots.

  “Those are like Dad’s,” Chub said, pointing to a pair of yellow work boots. He sat down obediently to try them on. “They fit!”

  She felt the toes. “They’re too big.”

  “Please?” he begged.

  She checked the price.

  “He’ll grow into them,” Enid called. “Do they have them in five? Wyatt needs a pair.”

  Enid had left Wyatt home and Colleen was glad. Wily, mean, he was the kind of boy she hoped Chub wouldn’t befriend when he started school.

  “You can’t wear them until your feet get bigger,” Colleen told Chub. He nodded eagerly, like he would sit there and wait as long as it took his feet to grow.

  She bought him the too-big boots and two pairs of overalls—a size for now, and a size up.

  “These are going to be filthy by the end of the day,” Enid said, pulling the tags off three pairs of white boots so the girls could wear them out of the store. Outside, the kids hopped over cracks, sidewalk a novelty. She thought of Rich crossing the driveway this morning, one bootlace untied, in such a hurry to get out the door.

  “Is something going on?” Colleen asked.

  “What do you mean?” Enid asked.

  “Rich seems—I don’t know. Worried.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  Colleen crossed her arms. He doesn’t tell me anything. “Did they figure out where that skull came from?”

  Enid shrugged. “Not that I heard.”

  “Eugene hasn’t said anything?” Colleen pressed her.

  “Just that they’ll be back harvesting the grove by the end of the month,” Enid said. “That’s when I get my washer-dryer. You don’t know what it’s like, having six kids.”

  “No,” Colleen said, pinching her ears. “I don’t.”

  “Oh, come on. That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know,” Colleen said.

  RICH

  Lark’s driveway toilets gleamed, guarding the turnoff like two mismatched porcelain lions. Rich bounced along the rutted two-track, worry jostling in his chest. His whole life he’d been paid by the board foot, and though they’d heard day rate was coming, he wasn’t prepared. He parked, snagging the six-pack of Tab and the covered tin off the seat beside him. The slam of his truck door radiated up the taut cords of his back. Killer and Banjo sauntered over, tails wagging.

  “Where you been, String Bean?” Lark asked, leaning back in his porch chair, half-carved Sasquatch resting on his knee.

  “Deer Rib.”

  “Didn’t you clear the Rib a couple years back?”

  “The west side. They got us on the east now.”

  Rich set a boot on the bottom step. Just a tweak, low on the spine, but the pain sang down his left leg to the heel. Working was fine; it was sitting still that hurt.

  “How’s the shit business?” he asked, coming up the stairs.

  “Regular.”

  “Kel sent you some steak and onions.”

  “Onions.” Lark humphed, then narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here on a weekday? I told Marsha I don’t need nobody checking on me.”

  “Those signs ready?” Rich asked.

  “In the shop.” Lark tossed his head toward the rusty-roofed outbuilding. Firewood Lark hawked to campers for a buck a bundle was stacked under the eaves.

  Rich’s shin pulsed, decent bruise over bone, split knuckle, gash on his wrist that could use a stitch. Through the shop door, he spotted a sign lying tabletop on a sawhorse. A paintbrush soaked in a bucket.

  “They dry?” Rich asked.

  “Half hour.” Lark scratched his jaw.

  Every year, Rich drove Lark out to collect his road signs, staked at two-mile increments on either side of the Gold Bear Bridge, up and down the 101 from Crescent City to Orick.

  Rich spun the tin on his pal
m, meat warm through the aluminum. Lark sniffed. Ten bucks said he hadn’t had a hot meal all day.

  “Are you going to stand there like a damn undertaker?” Lark asked.

  Rich cleared a Polaroid camera off a seat and set the six-pack and the covered tin at his feet, keeping his back straight.

  “Who rammed a stick up your ass?”

  The flyer dropped an acorn, which rolled across the porch and came to rest against Killer’s back. The dog opened one eye, too lazy to investigate.

  “What’s the word on that skull?” Lark asked.

  Rich shrugged, sweat-damp folds of his shirt itching where they touched skin.

  “Heard the state bone collectors were out digging around. Those guys find so much as a damn fingernail clipping, they’ll pull the plug on the whole operation. Who tipped them anyway? Merle?”

  “Why the hell would he do that?” Rich asked.

  “Who knows,” Lark said. “Always playing some kind of angle.” Lark spat over the railing. “You hear Jim Mueller unloaded those forties?” he asked, though Rich hadn’t told a soul.

  No phone, two canes, old two-tone International that hadn’t budged in thirty-five years, and still Lark could tell you what was going on in the rooster comb of land between the Smith River at the north, clear south to the Eel, and as far east as the Trinity. As if news still traveled by river, and all he had to do was dip a finger in the Klamath to learn the latest.

  Rich toed the tin. “Steak’s getting cold.” The dogs lifted their heads. The hog caught a whiff, grunted, and waddled toward the porch, but Lark pretended not to have heard. “What’s the average life expectancy of a choker setter?” Rich asked.

  It had been Lark’s question to him, when Rich first asked about getting hired on at fifteen. Rich’s father’s best friend, Lark had sawed the branch that clubbed Rich’s father dead, a true widowmaker. No one’s fault but the wind’s, but still Lark carried it. He’d hauled a stone up from the river to the stump of that tree every day until he got hurt himself, a mountain of rocks marking all the days Rich had lived without his father.

  High-lead’s a ticket to dead, maimed, or crippled. Go to school, learn something, Lark had said when Rich had fumbled for an answer. At fifteen, Rich was taller than his teachers. He hated ducking through the classroom door, hated all those eyes. The second time he’d asked, he’d walked all the way out to the muddy side where Lark’s crew was working.

  What the hell are you doing? Lark had screamed over the saws—everybody ran McCullochs back in those days. You got a death wish? A rage that shriveled Rich’s voice in his throat.

  I want to work.

  You know the average life expectancy of a choker setter?

  Again, Rich had searched for an answer. If he beat Lark to his own punch line, maybe he’d let him stay, but Lark had timed it perfect, the old steam whistle letting loose, blasting a hole right through Rich’s heart.

  “Lunch whistle,” Lark said now, smiling at the memory, not looking up from his carving.

  Rich watched a Sasquatch’s bulky shoulders slowly emerge. Lark had carved a thousand of them over the years. After Rich’s dad got killed, Lark used to take Rich fishing, set him up on the porch to whittle while steelhead fried in a pan, hogs nosing through the guts, then down to the Beehive for sweet rolls to bring home to Rich’s mom. Lark’s own wife had washed away when a logjam busted loose upriver and sent a pulse surging through in the twenties. When Lark came home from his logging camp a week later, she was gone.

  He never got over it. That was before your dad knew him, Rich’s mom had said.

  Lark rarely mentioned his Karuk wife, except to say she came from upriver people, and always kept a toe in the water, that she would talk her own language at him when she was angry, and talked some Yurok too, that she could pull the fibers from a wild iris, roll them over her knee to make twine, and tie a gill net that trapped and held thirty-pound chinook half as tall as she was. Lark had made a grave for her, though there was no body to carry home. Rich had seen her headstone, not far from where his parents were buried, on the other side of the low rock wall that separated the white dead from the Indians.

  “Where’s your teeth?” Rich asked.

  “In there somewhere.”

  Rich ducked into the kitchen, scrounged a fork, steak already diced. When he came back out, Lark was prying the lid off the tin, rooting out steak. The aroma brought spit to Rich’s mouth.

  “Too old to cut my own meat?” Lark grouched, forking up a mouthful. The hog grunted, watching through the railing. “Merle, sit your fat ass down.” The hog lowered its rear. “Pigs are smart as hell.”

  Lark used to steal apples off the old Peine orchard to fatten the hogs, turn the meat sweet, but it had been years since he’d used the smokehouse. The old hog was a pet, though Lark wouldn’t admit it. Lark used to keep two or three, all named after whoever had pissed him off that year. For two decades after Lark fell, muck-coated Virgils had lounged, waiting to be slaughtered. There was no one Lark hated more. Lark was sure someone had severed the rope’s steel core enough to allow him to climb forty feet before it snapped, and if it wasn’t Virgil himself, it was J.P., who ran a junk shop crammed with used saw parts down in Eureka but made most of his money doing Virgil’s dirty work, though Lark could never prove it. Lark broke his back, his neck, both hips. And just about every other bone, except my funny bone, he liked to quip.

  “You cut thirty percent, let the rest grow, Chub’ll be harvesting long after you’re gone,” Lark said, like he’d been thinking about it. When Lark had first started talking about not cutting faster than it could grow back—sustained yield before there was a name for it—Virgil had ragged him.

  Somebody must be trimming your beard with a chainsaw, Corny. You’ve lost your damn mind.

  The real knock-down-drag-outs came later, Virgil calling him a communist, until finally Lark struck out on his own.

  “Wish Virgil had lived to see you pull it off, that sonofabitch,” Lark said. “Couldn’t stand that I quit. Had to make me pay.”

  “Could have been an accident,” Rich offered lamely. What was the use of dredging all that up again?

  “Yeah. Accident. Steel-cored rope snaps like a damn fish line. Like that time Olin Rowley stuck his hand in the band saw? Running saw for twenty years and lops his arm off like a banana? Accident. He was helping himself to burls up Fatal Creek.”

  Lark pushed the tin—now mostly onions—onto the upside-down crate beside him.

  “Are we taking these signs tonight or not?” Rich asked.

  The outhouse placard could have used a repaint too: 10¢ (HONOR SYSTEM). WE APPRECIATE YOUR GOOD AIM.

  “You got something better to do?” Lark asked.

  Rich rubbed his palms over his knees, denims damp. Another half hour, he’d be stiff as a corpse. The flyer rooted around Lark’s neck.

  “Get off.” Lark tossed his shoulder. The squirrel dropped to the floor, scuttling behind hunks of driftwood scattered across the porch as if deposited there by high tide.

  “Ah, hell,” Lark said. A dog’s ear for engines. “What’s that bitch want now?”

  Marsha’s Dodge puttered up the gulch to the drive-thru tree.

  “You’re blocking my customers,” Lark yelled. There was a circular drive for tourists to pull through the tree and get their picture taken under the sign nailed above the tunnel: SURVIVOR TREE. HEIGHT: 301 FEET. DIAMETER: 16.3 FEET. SINCE 200 A.D.

  “What customers?”

  Marsha’s Jack Russell spilled off her lap and raced over to yip at the hog, bouncing with the force of its own bark, all four feet off the ground. It zipped up the steps, on the flyer’s scent.

  “Get out of here, Gizmo, you little sonofabitch.” Lark kicked at him.

  “Hey, Rich,” Marsha said, balancing a store-bought sponge cake on top of a casserole. Heavy as a sow, but still the same lilt in her voice. “What happened to you?” She eyed the cuts where the branch had caught him, worrying when he sho
uld have been paying attention—how was he going to make the mortgage on day rate?

  Rich coughed. “Overdid it a little.”

  “Why don’t you put some clothes on?” she asked Lark. “It’s cold. I got more Tab in the truck.” She took the casserole inside.

  “Why don’t you bring me some damn beer?” Lark called after her.

  Rich heard her dropping empty cans into the trash, tidying up.

  “You been smoking in here?” Marsha asked, coming out.

  “I quit.” Lark sucked his cheek.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were out of soap?”

  “Forgot.”

  “Here’s your change.” Marsha held out an envelope, which made Rich remember Lark’s mail. He’d stopped at the box on the way in.

  “Keep it.” Lark waved her off.

  She dropped the envelope onto the crate, along with a pint of strawberries.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “Fruit.”

  Lark crossed his arms, like she’d insulted him.

  “See you Thursday. If you live that long. Gizmo!” The Jack Russell whizzed across the yard and leapt into the car.

  Once she was gone, Lark picked through the onions for meat he’d missed, pushed the tin away. “That hit the spot. Now. Reach up under that seat.”

  Rich turned as though another chair might have walked out onto the porch. Son of a—it was twisting that killed you.

  “That one you’re sitting on,” Lark said.

  Rich slid a hand underneath, stood, turned the chair over, pack of cigarettes duct-taped to the underside.

  Lark licked his lips. “Now we’re cooking with gas.”

  Rich dug out a smoke. Lark fumbled a match, drew deep, exhaled.

  “Quit, huh?” Rich asked.

  “Tried it once. Got so damn hungry for a cigarette, I ate one. Tasted like shit.” Lark took another pull. Mist hung over the river, gathering mass. “Merle really switching everybody to day pay?”

  Don had broken the official news today.

  “Starting Monday. Deer Rib’s mostly pecker poles,” Rich said. “We’d be paying Sanderson to work otherwise.” His first payment on the 24-7 was due in a month.