Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

  “Hang on a sec,” Merle said. “Rich?”

  Rich stuck his head through. Merle waved him in, receiver pressed against the front of his shirt. “Gail’s busting my balls. That school’s not keeping her busy enough.” He slid the phone back up to his ear, pinning it between his chin and shoulder, freeing both hands to rustle through drawers.

  “No, I hear you just fine.”

  The room was cramped, paneled in redwood. Even the desk was small. Typewriter, red Sanderson mug of pens, a picture of Merle and Arlette, hair dyed the same purple-brown, kneeling on either side of a fresh-shot five-pointer: a Christmas-card shot. Merle rolled his eyes at Rich and leaned back in his chair, scratching his belly through his polyester shirt.

  “I can’t fire those guys, Gail, they don’t work for me. Why don’t you give the county a call?”

  Merle sighed. The glow of the desk lamp caught dark circles under his eyes. A painted crosscut saw was mounted on the wall behind him: a lumberjack swinging an ax, white pennants of smoke blowing from the mill stacks, logs in the pond, all framed by timbered ridges, a red banner—WELCOME TO SANDERSON COUNTRY. The saw’s teeth were thick. Bought new, just to have it painted.

  “Well, now, I don’t know.” Merle opened another drawer, shuffled some papers, dropped his cheaters down onto the tip of his nose, leaned back. “I don’t see what-all I can do about that.” He waggled his head.

  Rich swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth, resisting the urge to pull at his collar, top snap already undone, exposing a white triangle of undershirt. He smelled the rankness of his own body—sweat, gasoline. Sawdust sprinkled down on the carpet from a fold in his sleeve.

  Merle switched the phone to his other ear.

  “Well, listen, county’s one thing, but if it’s Forest Service, I’ve got no more sway than you. You know how those piss firs are—have to fill out three forms just to talk to somebody on the phone. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. Okay. You have a good one, now.” Merle dropped the phone back into its cradle. “Jesus H. Christ. That woman don’t give up.”

  Rich looked down at his hands rolling the bill of his cap into a tight tube. Gail was no picnic, but she was still Don’s wife.

  “One of the piss firs’ tank trucks went by her and Don’s place.” Merle rooted around in the drawer. “Would she rather they let the brush go wild? You’d need a chainsaw just to get out of your driveway. Well, she goes running out, yelling about those damn bees of hers—bees are sensitive. Hell, that stuff is special-engineered—only kills weeds. And what’s she doing keeping bees so close to the damn road if she’s so touchy about them?” He pinned something to the side of the drawer. “Anyway, you know Gail, can’t keep her damn mouth shut. Before you know, guy turns the spray on her.” Merle chuckled at the thought. “Just hoses her. This was months ago. April. And she’s still mad as a damn hornet. Got a hell of a nosebleed, I guess. Wants the guy fired. You ever try getting a piss fir fired? Quicker to let them die off. How does Porter put up with that woman? No wonder he’s got a belly full of ulcers.”

  Merle being Merle, pretending to confide, tricking you into letting your guard down.

  “Where the hell’d I put that thing?” He slammed the drawer shut. “Ah well, there’s this.” He slid a Polaroid of his speedboat across the desk, THE ARLETTE stenciled on the hull, Merle’s vinyl-sided two-story in the background. “She’s for sale. You interested?”

  Rich remembered watching that house go up on the Requa headland, looking down on the sandbar where the mouth of the river dumped into the ocean, lording over the whole coast.

  “Hell of a smooth rider,” Merle said.

  The boat looked small compared to the house. It was that big yellow house that had set Merle strutting around like a prize cock, Arlette coordinating his shirts to match her outfits so everybody could see they were living high on the hog on their buyout money. Virgil had held on, kept the company in the family even when it meant tightening his own belt, but Merle had sold out first chance he got, happy to spend his time playing fishing guide, toting San Francisco bigwigs around on the river. But it’d been years since they’d produced enough board feet for corporate to visit. Every big pumpkin they felled was a step closer to Sanderson closing shop for good.

  “She’s a real looker.” Rich pushed the photo back.

  “Yeah, she is,” Merle agreed with a tinge of regret. Maybe Arlette had finally walked out on him. There’d been rumors for years. Whores in Eureka. A married woman over the Oregon line. “What can I do you for, Rich?” Merle asked.

  Rich rolled the bill of his cap tight, let it spring free, cleared his throat.

  “So long as it’s got nothing to do with any damn bees.”

  Rich’s palms were sweating. He eyed the little anthill of sawdust, resisted the urge to tamp it down.

  “I, uh—” He cleared his throat again. “Was wondering what the roads’ll look like, going into the grove?” Rich swallowed, saliva immediately refilling his mouth.

  “Into Damnation?” Merle leaned back, folded his arms behind his head, and narrowed his eyes. He was going to ask, Why? The pits of his shirt were sweat stained. He got a whiff of himself, dropped his arms.

  “You know what? Forget it.” Rich pressed his palms onto his knees, ready to stand. “It’s Friday.”

  “I got the surveys here somewhere,” Merle said, rolling over to the file cabinet and pulling out a few cardboard tubes. “It’s one of these.” He examined them. “Here.” He set a tube on the desk. “Knock yourself out.”

  Rich pried the end off, hands clumsy with Merle watching, extracted the rolled-up map and spread it out over his knees.

  “Pretty close to the 24-7, isn’t it?” Merle asked.

  “Yeah.” Rich looked up.

  “I watch out for my people, Rich, you know that.” Merle leaned back, smug. “Hell of a steep job. It was anybody else, I’d say they were crazier than a shithouse rat.”

  Rich swallowed. “Colleen doesn’t know.”

  “Won’t hear it from me.”

  Rich nodded. “Appreciate that.”

  “Take your time.” Merle picked up the speedboat photo, sighed, pushed back in his chair, and wheezed up the hall.

  Rich bent over the map, memorizing the harvest zone so he could walk through it in his head later, carving out where he knew skid roads would have to deviate from what was here on paper. The cut ran all the way to the bottom of the lower grove, to the foot of 24-7 Ridge. Rich’s heart soared—as soon as they got back in, they’d bring the roads to his doorstep, his timber good as sold.

  Merle came back, dropped heavily into his chair, and tossed a stack of flyers on his desk, edges leafing up in the breeze of their fall.

  “Well, what’s the verdict? Mitch dicking me around?”

  Rich let the map snap back into its curl. “Looks good to me.”

  “Yeah? Mitch wasn’t too sure about going all the way down into that lower section. I told him there’s a guy across the creek has some timber he might sell us.” Merle winked. “How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds pretty good.” Rich swallowed. “I wanted to ask, you know, about milling it.”

  “You mill it here. We’ll cut you a fair deal. Listen, we need you on the grove, Rich, but after that, you decide to go your own way.” Merle shrugged. “Nobody’ll blame you.”

  “How soon you think we’ll get back in there?” Rich asked.

  Merle leaned backward. Rich had gotten too friendly, like they were in this thing together, no longer boss and employee. “We’ll see what the board says Monday,” Merle said.

  Rich knew Merle was taking Don down to the forestry board meeting with him, to tell the workingman’s story. If they got the green light and got back into Damnation by first week of October, that’d give them six weeks to cut roads in and start harvesting before the rains turned the ground too unstable to work. Rich’s mind raced, running the numbers again—he could hold on, as long as he got his cut out by summer.

  “That
skull wasn’t up there before,” Rich said. “Somebody would have noticed it.”

  Merle narrowed his eyes again, nodded. Rich tried rerolling the map to fit it back into the tube, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Keep it. I got another copy around here somewhere.”

  Rich stood. “Thanks.”

  “Here, take one of these.” Merle held out a flyer. “Take that boy of yours out, do some real fishing.”

  Rich smiled, accepting it.

  “He start school?”

  “Couple weeks ago.”

  Merle nodded, eyed the middle distance. He and Arlette had never had kids.

  “Hey,” Merle asked. “How’s Porter?”

  Don was stretched like a two-pound line hooked to a twenty-pound fish running his own crew plus the one Bill Henderson had left behind, a two-man job on a one-man salary, and Merle knew it.

  “Holding up,” Rich said.

  “Good. Don’t be a stranger now.”

  Merle opened the folder on his desk, as though Rich were already gone. Rich ducked out, pulled his cap on, rolling the flyer and the map into a tight tube, loping up the hall. He hitched the stack of newspapers under one arm. Marsha followed him out.

  “Hope I didn’t keep you,” Rich said.

  “You’re okay,” Marsha said. By her tone, he had.

  The dead bolt slid closed behind him. In the old days, guys winked and nudged over Marsha’s locking the doors, staying until Merle finished up. Hard to imagine now, heavy like she was, Merle with his teased-up cloud of hair.

  The lot was empty except for Rich’s truck, Marsha’s Dodge, and Merle’s gold Cadillac. Rich popped the clutch just as Eugene fishtailed in, spraying gravel straight up to the front office, almost onto the stoop. He threw his door open, engine still running, and leapt up the steps. He yanked the knob, then banged on the door itself, cupping his hands to the glass panel to peer in.

  “Mar-sha!”

  The girls were packed in the cab, Wyatt huddled in the bed with his back to the window, looking grim. Rich pulled up behind them.

  “You okay, tough guy?” Rich called out his window.

  Wyatt nodded, jaw set, like the indignity of riding in back had welded it shut.

  “Hi, Uncle Rich!” Agnes yelled, crawling across the seat. Her lazy eye stared off the other direction. She pulled Eugene’s door closed, waved through the glass.

  Rich held up a hand. He had forty bucks in his wallet. Colleen didn’t mind loaning them money, and Enid was her sister, so Rich tried not to have an opinion.

  “Marsha, sweetheart, come on, I’m begging you!” Eugene pounded on the door. “Sugar, please. I got the girls with me. We got a shopping list.” He fumbled in his pocket, slapped a piece of paper to the glass. “Don’t make me beg in front of my kids.” He yanked the handle, rattling it. “Marsha!” He dropped to his knees. “Marsha. Sugar, I’m on my knees.” The catch in his voice sounded real.

  “Damn it, Eugene,” Rich grumbled, jamming the truck into neutral to get at his wallet in his back pocket.

  Marsha appeared in the doorway.

  “Thank you!” Eugene called. “Thank you, beautiful. Last time, I swear.” He hopped up, flashing Rich a grin—Women are so easy.

  Marsha opened the door, arms crossed over her chest with the surly attitude of a jailer, or a wife taking back a wayward drunk against her better judgment. Eugene said something and she laughed, stood aside to let him in.

  FALL 1977

  October 15 RICH

  Rich stared into the metal cubby. Thin like it was, hard to believe how this first envelope weighed on him. Squint-eyed Geraldine pushed a stamp across the post-office counter.

  “I thought you were up to no good,” the old woman said. “Most of them are.” She lifted her chin at the wall of mailboxes behind him. “Magazines.” She flared her nostrils, a burden to know everybody’s business, and disappeared into the back, a cuckoo retreating into a clock.

  Rich tucked the check inside the flap, licked the stamp, and slid the envelope through the slot. He scanned the bulletin board for log splitters for sale. Knew he was getting old when he couldn’t split an honest cord of burnwood without paying for it later. The door swung open.

  “Rich.” Merle nodded.

  He stood a full foot shorter than Rich and the white roots of his hair made his face look even redder, though he’d worked indoors his whole life. Ran in the family, Virgil’s hair white by forty. A real sonofabitch, but at least Virgil had worked as hard as he’d worked you.

  “Not like the old days, is it?” Merle asked, pulling down a public-comment-period notice. “ ‘National Environmental Policy Act,’ ” he read, then crumpled it into a ball. “You missed a hell of a show, Rich. What a goddamn circus.” Rich hadn’t seen Merle since before the forestry board meeting. “Environmental impact. What a crock of shit. This is people’s lives we’re talking about.”

  Rich sucked his cheek, tasted rot. For years the board had handed Merle whatever he’d asked for on a platter, but the state had shaken things up, booted some of the timbermen off.

  “They’re shitting all over the American dream.” Merle shook his head. “Where the hell are they getting the skulls from? It’s like a goddamn Easter-egg hunt. I know Doc Peine dug up a mess of them, but shit. He never went around burying them where they don’t belong.”

  “They found another one?” Rich asked.

  “You didn’t hear? State bagged it a hundred yards from the first. Should have seen those longhairs parading around outside that meeting, bullhorn and everything. Unrolled this big banner: ‘Cathedral without a roof.’ Cathedral. Funny thing for a bunch of atheists to care about. If Eugene wasn’t keeping an eye on Deer Rib for us, there’d be sand in those gas tanks, I guarantee. Between the poachers and the monkey-wrenchers, turn your head for one minute and they run you out of business.” Merle tacked his speedboat flyer where the comment notice had been.

  “So what now?” Rich asked. Don had been tight-lipped, but three weeks had gone by and they were still stuck on Deer Rib.

  “Now we wait. The board has ninety days to review our appeal. Water this, fish that. All that horseshit about silt. Hell, salmon’ll swim through wet concrete if it means a chance to spawn. What the hell ever happened to private property rights in this country?” Merle stepped back from the board to admire his boat. “She’s a beaut, Rich. I’d cut you a hell of a deal.”

  “Can’t barely swim.”

  “Boat like that, wouldn’t have to.” Merle gave the boat a wistful look. “We need somebody to keep an eye on the grove, scare off those tree huggers before they plant a whole goddamn graveyard. You want to pick up a couple Saturday hours behind your place?”

  “Eugene needs them worse,” Rich said. “New baby and all.”

  “I said scare ’em, not kill ’em.” Merle hiked up his slacks. The door swung shut behind him, leaving Rich alone. Ninety days. The rains would be here in less, which meant the grove was out of reach until spring, Rich’s timber stuck on the other side of it.

  * * *

  “Can you start the grill?” Colleen asked when he got home, handing him a pack of hot dogs.

  Chub slashed at the high grass with a stick, dropping into a crouch as soon as Rich came out.

  “Chub?”

  Scout sauntered over, his chain slithering.

  “Scout, you seen Chub?”

  “Boo!” Chub jumped out.

  Rich staggered back. Eugene’s truck labored up the driveway. Eugene and the kids came through the house and out the back door. Colleen brought out beers.

  “Thanks, sugar. I married the wrong sister.” Eugene winked.

  “I heard that,” Enid yelled from the kitchen, unbuttoning her blouse to nurse, no more private about her tits than a milk cow.

  “You believe this shit?” Eugene pulled the rolled-up paper from his back pocket.

  DAMNATION GROVE HARVEST STALLS, AGAIN. Rich held the paper at a distance to sharpen the print.
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  The discovery of a second human skull comes less than two months after remains found nearby halted logging operations to allow state archaeologists—Rich skimmed ahead.

  The 90-day pause follows months of protest amid concerns that harvesting virgin old-growth redwood on the private parcel could result in silt runoff that would contaminate creeks, raise water temperatures, and endanger a coho salmon run on Damnation Creek.

  Eugene rearranged the hot dogs, sucked heat off his thumb. “These are done.” They went in. “What are you doing for money this winter?” Eugene asked.

  Rich shrugged.

  “You want to try crabbing with me? Lew’s brother has his own boat,” Eugene said.

  “No thanks.”

  “I told him I’d drown him in the kitchen sink, save him the trouble,” Enid cut in.

  “We get into that grove money”—Eugene pointed his hot dog at Rich—“I’m buying a motorcycle.”

  “A washer-dryer,” Enid corrected him. “You buy a motorcycle, I’ll run you over with it.”

  “Bark’s worse than her bite.” Eugene winked at Rich, knocking the ketchup bottle against his palm. “She’s crazy about me.”

  Enid raised an eyebrow. “Jury’s still out on that one.”

  Colleen worried a hangnail.

  “Aren’t you going to eat something?” Rich asked her.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  October 16 COLLEEN

  She was late. How late? Rich would want to know. Yes, Chub starting school had been hard. She’d forgotten how empty the days could feel. Yes, Melody’s baby had weighed on her. Yes, she’d lost her period before. There could be half a dozen reasons. Her breasts weren’t sore. But yesterday, when they’d gotten ready to eat, she’d thought of Daniel’s fingers playing up and down her ribs and felt sick. She’d gone out and dry-heaved behind the rhododendrons. She hadn’t thrown up, but live through something nine times, you recognize it the tenth.