Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

  “Rich, I’ll tell you, they don’t make them like they used to.”

  A hard pit of dread lodged in Rich’s gut.

  “What do you think about the way we’re headed?” Merle asked.

  “How do you mean?” All these years of looking out for number one; had Merle’s conscience finally caught up to him? Once the big timber was gone, he’d be up shit creek with everybody else.

  “Well, how long you been with us?”

  Rich shifted, remembered the plastic. “A lot of years.”

  “How many is it now? Can’t fool me with that young wife of yours.”

  “Thirty-eight.”

  “A whole life.”

  A flush crept up the back of Rich’s neck. Could he lay him off right here, phony pinecones masking the stink of cat piss?

  “Cut the shit, Merle. If you’re shooting, shoot. Don’t make me dance.”

  Merle propped his sock feet on the burl coffee table. “That’s what I’ve always appreciated about you, Rich. You call ’em like you see ’em.”

  Rich rubbed his sweaty palms over his knees.

  “So. You worried about a little weed juice?” Merle asked.

  Rich shrugged. “Not my business.”

  “Damn right,” Merle agreed. “See, that’s the difference between guys like us and those damn longhairs. County, state, Forest Circus, that’s government land, that’s forestry, okay, but what Sanderson does on Sanderson land? That’s business. I’ll tell you though, Rich. Doesn’t matter how safe it is, approved by the EPA and all. Somebody convinces a woman those sprays are making her kids sick, it’s like trying to talk sense to a damn bear, am I wrong?”

  Rich tightened his jaw, but Merle was just winding up.

  “It’s gotten so you can’t trim your grass without a goddamn environmental impact statement. Sustained yield might have worked back in the old days, but what are we saving for now? Why not let everybody make some money and move on? Meanwhile, the damn poachers are cleaning us out up on Damnation like it’s burl season. Can’t win.”

  Rich shifted his weight, couch plastic sticking. Merle turned on the lamp, lighting white bristle on his cheeks.

  “Look, I’ll level with you, Rich. We got our hands full. These hippies get their way, every tree between here and the Oregon line will be a goddamn national landmark.”

  Rich scooped some pinecones from the bowl and tossed them in his hand.

  “Guys look up to you,” Merle said. “There’s not a guy left in Del Nort County can climb the way you can. But we both know that timber of yours isn’t worth a red cent without roads. We need to know you’re with us. No matter what.”

  Colleen must have let it slip to Enid—Eugene couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut.

  “There was a guy came out to the house a while ago,” Rich admitted. “Said the sprays were getting into our water—”

  “That asshole is selling his load of crap to any idiot who’ll listen. Petition, whole nine yards. Riling people up. Those skulls, that was just a cheap trick to buy time. It’s the spray angle they’re banking on. You and me both know that stuff don’t hurt a fly. Hell, they already turned half the timber around here into park. I’ll be damned if we let them take the grove too. We need this. You need this.” Merle leaned in. “They haven’t announced it yet, but February, the forestry board’s going to hold a hearing on those harvest plans—let everybody air their dirty laundry, and then decide if we get back in to harvest or not. You live the closest to Damnation. Your family is the only one drinking out of that spring. You stand up and explain your kid drinks that water and we could log from hell to breakfast, spray and all, and you’re not worried one iota. They’ll listen. Everybody knows you don’t talk out your ass. You don’t have to say much. Just”—Merle sat back—“call it like you see it.”

  Rich kept his eyes down. What would he tell Colleen? They owed thirty years on those lots.

  “What’s that 24-7 inholding, seven hundred acres?” Merle asked.

  “Seven twenty.”

  Merle whistled. “You must have one hell of a mortgage.” He tossed back the last of his coffee. “Thought you’d at least want to give it a shot.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Rich said.

  “Good.” Merle grunted, pushing up. At the door, he let Rich out. “Don’t think too long now, Rich.” The screen door snapped closed. “Your timber isn’t worth beans without a right-of-way. Who knows? Company might get choosy about who uses those roads, once we’re done with them. Be a shame to harvest that 24-7 for nothing.”

  Merle must have said something more—See you around, Rich. Don’t be a stranger, now—but it didn’t register. Rich dropped loose-legged down the porch steps, something cutting into his palm. He opened his fist: pinecones crushed to shards. He wanted to sit behind the wheel a minute, to let the tremble of rage settle. But even with the front door shut and the curtains closed, he sensed Merle watching. Don’t think too long.

  The dog stood under the deck, white-faced and bowlegged, barking its ghost bark.

  WINTER 1977–1978

  December 9 COLLEEN

  Colleen reached into the box for the charcoal nubs and set them beside the other pieces. For $29.99 plus shipping, she’d thought there would be more to it.

  “What is all that?” Rich asked, flipping through the rest of the mail.

  “A filter.” She held up the box, where a wholesome blonde displayed the fully assembled product—a ribbed plastic cylinder with a hose and spout. “It attaches to the faucet.”

  Rich grunted. Colleen pretended to study the pieces. It had seemed like a good idea in the catalog, but laid out on the table—rubber washers, baggies of rock, another of plain sand—she saw how foolish it was. Thirty dollars for sand. How could any of this junk fit together into something useful, much less the sleek contraption taunting her from the front of the box?

  Rich tossed the mail on the table. “When did Whitey say my caulks would be ready?”

  “Thursday.”

  She picked up a washer. Usually, if she puzzled over something mechanical, Rich would step in, the same way she’d bump him with her hip, once in a jokey way, a second time to show she meant it, until he shook dishwater off his hands.

  If I’d married a man who washed up, I’d let him, Enid said.

  But Rich didn’t seem to notice the filter. He’d been distracted for days, ever since he’d gone to see Merle.

  What did Merle want? she’d asked.

  Nothing much. Just politics.

  She forced the washer down into the hollow cylinder. It buckled, caught. She turned the cylinder upside down and whacked the bottom with her palm. Rich filled a glass, swirled the water around, eyeballed it, took a swig. She deposited the pieces in a defeated heap on the table, took the store loaf from the bread box.

  “Tuna?” she asked.

  “Got any of those pickles left?”

  “A few.”

  He dropped heavily into a chair, but instead of fiddling with the filter, he picked through the mail again, holding it at arm’s length, dropping it when she set the plate in front of him.

  “I promised Chub we’d get a Christmas tree,” she said when he’d nearly finished.

  The untouched pile of parts irked her. He could at least put this mess together without making her ask. She picked up his plate as though her mood could be rinsed of frustration and set to dry in the drain rack with it. He held the last of his sandwich protectively, like she might take that next.

  “I have to take care of a couple things.” He got up. “Did you say anything to your sister about that guy coming to see us?”

  “What guy?”

  He jutted his chin at the jumble of filter parts.

  “No,” she said, a little too quickly. Her heart fluttered. “Why?”

  He shook his head. “No reason.”

  “What’s happening with the grove?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rich said. “It’s hung up with the state. Merle s
ays there’ll be a hearing in February.”

  “Why do they have to wait all the way until then?”

  Rich shrugged. “Too wet to work anyway.” He pulled his slicker off the hook.

  “I’m going to get Chub,” she said.

  Rich nodded and went out. She watched him disappear up the hill, then opened the cupboard and took out a new jam jar, filled it, labeled it, and loaded it into a canvas bag with two others. She pulled on her boots and fished her keys from the burl bowl.

  Water washed down the windshield on the way to town. Just the short dash into the Beehive, cowbell clunking overhead, stuck her hair to her face.

  “It’s coming down,” Colleen said.

  “Like a cow pissing.” Dot dropped a bear claw into a white paper sack. “How’s Rich?”

  “Keeping busy. How about Lew?”

  “Oh, stir-crazy. He’s fine for the first few days, then he’s ready to get back to work. Can’t do much, with this rain.”

  “Seems like all it does is rain,” Colleen agreed.

  “Three hundred days a year.” Dot took Colleen’s money, scooped quarters from the register, and stared into her palm at them before handing them over. “I told Lew he should learn to knit.” Dot laughed. “I’d come home and find him all tied up in one big knot.”

  Colleen forced a smile, took the paper sack and folded the top down once, then again, sealing a sweet pocket of air inside.

  * * *

  The school lot was empty. A few miserable-looking kids crowded under the overhang, curtain of runoff pouring from the roof. Chub didn’t emerge. She ducked out.

  “He went on the bus,” a girl volunteered. “With Agnes.”

  Gail Porter stood at her desk behind the counter, holding a stack of papers. She raised an eyebrow, as though, no matter how many centerpieces Colleen helped assemble, she still held her responsible for Enid’s throwing clumps of wet paper towels against the ceiling of the girls’ bathroom.

  “Colleen,” she said sternly, eyebrow raised over her glasses.

  Gail, Colleen thought, though she felt eight years old, like she had a stomachache and was pleading to call home.

  “I think Chub might have taken the bus by mistake?” Colleen ventured.

  Gail Porter sighed, hefting the rotary phone onto the counter. Colleen pulled the numbers around, turned her back to muffle the ringing. Pick up. It clicked. Kids squealed in the background.

  “Enid?” Colleen asked. “Is Chub with you?”

  “What?” Enid yelled. “Hang on. Sorry. Cripes. This baby weighs a ton. Could you pick up some Cracker Jacks? I’ve been craving them all day.”

  “Is Chub there?”

  “You want to talk to him? Chub! Come talk to your mom! Damn it, Wy, what did—” The line went dead. Colleen returned the receiver to its cradle.

  “Enid’s got her hands full,” she said.

  “Lucky her.”

  Gail and Don had never had children. Around kids all day, not exactly the motherly type—but then again, Colleen’s mother hadn’t been either, it was just what you did. Something about the way Gail Porter busied herself with the attendance sheets made Colleen wonder. I’ve lost eight pregnancies. What does luck have to do with anything? Maybe Gail Porter would look up from her papers then.

  “Have a nice weekend,” Colleen said.

  “You too.”

  * * *

  The teenager working the gas station register barely glanced up when she came in—lanky, pimple faced, one of the Shaughnessy boys. Daniel pulled his VW bus into the bay, waiting his turn. She ducked into the station’s single aisle and picked up a box of Cracker Jacks, then another, building a barricade. Candied popcorn scuttled inside the boxes. She dumped an armload onto the counter.

  “Want a bag?” the Shaughnessy kid asked.

  Outside, a car pulled away and Daniel moved up to the pump, VW barnacled with mud. Her hair was damp and stringy. She fought the urge to tuck it behind her ears. She pushed out with the sack in her arms, a wash of cold air.

  “All out,” the attendant said to Daniel, holding the nozzle in one hand.

  Daniel argued.

  “I don’t have to sell you anything.” The attendant signaled the next car.

  Daniel looked back at it too. Colleen ducked her head and hurried to her truck.

  “Next customer!” the attendant yelled.

  She set the paper sack on the passenger seat. It tipped, spilling. She leaned into the footwell, fishing up boxes. Four dollars’ worth of crap. The last box was wedged between the passenger seat and the door.

  “Colleen!”

  She reared up, box in hand, hit her head, clamped her hand to the spot. Daniel had pulled up beside her.

  “Some people are getting together tonight at Helen and Carl’s,” he called out his open window. “Six o’clock.”

  She dropped down onto the gravel, box of Cracker Jacks rattling in her hand. She shifted, blocking his view of the bag.

  “You should come,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “You know there are court cases up in Oregon, over the spraying? It’s not like you’re making it up.”

  “Making what up?”

  “Colleen, come on. How many miscarriages have you had?”

  “It’s just bad luck.”

  “You don’t believe that.” He fixed her. “If I knew who else I should talk to—if we could show a pattern, prove—”

  Colleen shook her head slowly, like she could make him disappear.

  “Colleen. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” she snapped.

  “You know something isn’t right,” Daniel said. “What are you doing about it?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” She grabbed the bag of water samples off the seat and thrust it through his open passenger-side window. “This is all you wanted, isn’t it? Go ahead. Take them.”

  He fished out a jar. His face lit up with surprise.

  You’re going to get hurt, she thought. You might even get yourself killed.

  “If there’s something in it, I want to know,” she said. “I want to know.”

  Daniel nodded. She tossed the box of Cracker Jacks onto the seat and climbed in after it.

  “Take it easy on those things,” he said. “They’ll rot the teeth right out of your head.”

  * * *

  Runoff thundered from the culverts, mud thwacking the truck’s side panels. Enid’s front yard was soup, trash strewn around the overturned cans, bungee cord dangling. Raccoons.

  “Oh, thank God,” Enid said, nursing the baby on the couch, when Colleen came in, Chub and Wyatt wrestling on the rug.

  A fire roared in the woodstove. Colleen dropped the sack beside Enid and closed the damper. “This thing is going to melt,” she said.

  “You buy out the whole store?” Enid ripped open a box of Cracker Jacks and tapped out a few hard puffs.

  “I get the prize!” Wyatt yelled, popping up. The girls scrambled.

  “Do not!”

  “Yeah-huh. I called it!”

  “Go wash up,” Colleen commanded, lifting the sack. The kids tussled, not used to such edicts being enforced. “Go on.” They pushed down the hall.

  “If this rain doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to take them all out and drown them,” Enid said, picking through a handful to find the largest pieces, tapping candied popcorn into Colleen’s hand. Hard caramel coating screaked against Colleen’s teeth.

  “Want to make jerky?” Enid nodded toward the hunk of raw meat defrosting on the kitchen counter. “That deer was part horse.” They were short grocery money if she was making jerky.

  The kitchen was a wreck, linoleum sticking to Colleen’s socks, but it was calming to sit at the table slicing venison into strips, to feel the minutes passing. Colleen did her best to focus on slicing the meat thin, to ignore the timer in her brain. Some people are getting together. The kids tossed Cracker Jacks in the air, practiced catching them in their mouths.

&nbs
p; At dusk the rain let up, fog rolling in. A black truck pulled into the yard. Marla dashed out to it.

  “That boy’s too old for her,” Enid said. “No offense. Five years mean something when you’re fifteen.”

  Colleen adjusted Alsea’s sock. If she told her about Marla now, Enid would be furious.

  She waited until it was long dark—past seven, she guessed—to roust Chub. The yard smelled of cat urine. Chub pushed aside the grease-stained bear-claw bag so he could lie down. They trundled back up No Name Road, past the mill, a hulking black outline, a single pane of light in the back office—Merle in his counting house.

  It’s late. It’ll be over by now. Everybody’s gone home.

  The wet road snaked toward the glen.

  * * *

  She sat idling across from Carl and Helen’s, their windows ablaze. Chub mumbled when she covered him with her coat.

  “Shh. You stay right here, Grahamcracker. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She pushed open the gate and hurried up the walk. She hovered on the porch. Daniel’s voice seeped under the door, and then it opened. Carl stood there with a pack of cigarettes.

  Daniel interrupted himself. “Colleen.”

  Helen sat on the sofa. Robley, Elyse, Melody and Keith Larson, Beth Cooney and her husband, a woman Colleen didn’t recognize, holding a notepad. Melody Larson smiled weakly. Colleen hadn’t seen her since the funeral. Daniel stood up from his chair and gestured for Colleen to take it.

  “I can’t stay long.” She leaned against the wall instead. “Chub’s asleep in the truck.”

  “So what does that mean, en-do-creen?” Robley asked, turning back to Daniel.

  “An endocrine disrupter interferes with the body’s hormones,” Daniel explained. “Endocrine disrupters can cause cancer, developmental disorders, birth defects like cleft palates—”

  “Like, what ours had?” Robley paused. “All ours?”

  Daniel nodded. The woman with the notepad looked up. She was pretty: wavy blond hair and a sharp nose. Colleen crossed her arms to quash the sudden pang of jealousy.

  “Is there proof?” Keith Larson asked.