Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

  She scrubbed scalded milk off the pot, as though she could scrape her irritation away with it.

  “Go get your binoculars,” she told Chub. “Let’s give your cocoa time to cool.”

  “Where are you going?” Rich asked, ducking out of the bathroom, towel around his waist.

  “To look for whales.”

  “Now?” His hair, wet, was almost as dark as his beard.

  “We’ll be back,” Colleen said.

  She squeezed Chub’s hand.

  I. Love. You.

  How. Much?

  Thiiis. Much.

  They crossed the road to the steep, rocky path hairpinning down to Diving Board Rock. She stood beside Chub while he surveyed the waves.

  “See any?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Wind whipped her hair. She raised her arms, sleeves flapping, chop crashing below. She revved her engine, tilted her wings, chasing Chub back up the path home.

  “Ready?” Rich asked when they came in.

  Chub barreled into him. “Ready!”

  Rich groaned, jaw pink. He smelled of soap and aftershave. He eyed Colleen, shy, a look from before Chub, before they were married even, when he’d done something he’d hoped would please her—stuck a few rhododendron blossoms in an empty Coke bottle, snuck a spring-loaded wooden frog he’d carved beneath an upside-down mug, shaved off his winter beard.

  * * *

  The community center’s lot was crammed, deep enough into the no-work rainy season that nobody could afford to turn up his nose at a free fish fry.

  “You made it,” Dot said, tearing three blue tickets off the wheel.

  Colleen steered Chub toward Enid and the kids’ table near the end of the buffet line. A burst of laughter erupted from the knot of men playing darts with Eugene. He tossed back a shot.

  “Idle hands,” Enid said.

  “Doesn’t he work tomorrow?” Colleen helped Chub out of his coat.

  Enid rolled her eyes. “Try telling him that.”

  Colleen took Chub through the line, sat heavily. Chub nibbled breading off his fish sticks. A dial went down on the room’s volume. Colleen turned and saw Helen at the ticket table with Luke, Carl a step behind, cap pulled low.

  “Some people,” Enid said.

  Colleen bristled. “They’ve suffered enough.”

  “I’d say they got off pretty easy,” Enid replied. “She’s still got her job. Merle could have called the crab plant. Plenty of people have lost their shirts over a lot less.”

  Chub spotted Luke and started to slide off the bench.

  “Finish eating first, please,” Colleen said.

  Rich tucked in beside her.

  “Merle was looking for you,” Enid said. Rich gave a little nod but didn’t lift his eyes. Colleen watched Helen and Carl go through the buffet line and choose an empty table in the corner.

  “I’m done.” Chub pushed away his plate. “Now can I?”

  Colleen watched him scurry past his cousins and tumble into Luke, their thumbs already warring.

  “Imagine trying to make money off something like that.” Enid snorted.

  “I don’t think it’s about money,” Colleen said.

  “ ’Course it’s about money. They want Sanderson to pay them off because of that baby.”

  Rich stubbed a fry into a puddle of tartar sauce.

  “They should leave,” Enid said.

  “Where are they supposed to go?” Colleen demanded.

  Enid and Rich exchanged a look.

  “Rich!” Eugene hollered.

  “Don’t let him bet anything,” Enid said.

  “I’m more worried about getting a dart in the eye.”

  “Gundersen!” Eugene bellowed. “Come on, you old geezer.”

  “He knows how to get me,” Rich said.

  “ ’Least you didn’t marry him,” Enid answered.

  Rich pinched a toothpick from his front pocket and got up. Across the room, Helen was gathering her purse, stacking plates. Colleen looked around for an excuse to stand. Enid laid a hand over hers.

  “I have to pee,” Colleen said, surprised how easily the lie came.

  “You can wait one minute.”

  Colleen looked down at Enid’s hand.

  “Hey, chickenshit!” The cluster of dart players parted and old red-faced Yancy stood in the center, swaying drunk, yelling at his son, Carl helping Helen into her coat. “Where you going?”

  Helen took Carl’s arm.

  “She got a leash around your neck?” Yancy demanded.

  Colleen saw Carl bite the inside of his bottom lip. In high school, Helen said he’d drawn blood to keep from talking back.

  “What’s the matter? That fucking squaw cut your balls off and serve them to you for breakfast? No wonder that baby came out empty-headed.”

  “Carl, let’s go,” Helen said, taking Luke by the hand, as though the man following them were just some old drunkard, not Luke’s grandfather, a man so hate-filled he’d shown up at Carl’s wedding simply to spit in Helen’s face.

  “Yeah, Carl. Let your little wifey tell you what to do.” Old Yancy staggered after them, knocking over cups.

  “Yancy, lay off.” Lew stepped in front of him, belly out, like the tired bus-driving logger he was, jokeless for the first time Colleen could remember.

  “Mama?” Chub asked, his chin wrinkling.

  “Christ.” Enid released Colleen’s hand and thrust a napkin at her. “She’s okay,” Enid assured Chub. “She’s been picking her nose, that’s all.”

  Colleen licked her lip. Salt. Tinfoil.

  “That’s what happens when you stick your finger up where it doesn’t belong,” Enid said. “Remember that.”

  February 20 RICH

  Whitey set Rich’s caulk boots on the counter. They sat half an inch higher with the new spikes.

  “What’s the damage?” Rich asked.

  “Twelve, plus this.” Whitey lifted the roll of chain onto the counter.

  Rich thumbed through his wallet.

  Whitey jutted his chin at the caulks. “Was about ready to put them in the case.”

  “Had to wait on that slide to get cleared again.”

  “How’s she look?”

  Rich shrugged. “Wouldn’t pull over long enough to piss.”

  “Law says I can sell a dead man’s boots.”

  “Still got a few lives left in me.”

  Whitey snorted, punched numbers into the register.

  “Looks like they’re going to get it,” Whitey said.

  “Get what?” Rich asked.

  “Park expansion. Down south, Redwood Creek.” Whitey blinked behind his thick glasses.

  “Better there than here,” Rich said.

  The door whooshed open.

  “Charge him double.” Eugene stomped his boots, flicked rain off his collar. “He’s got his own racket now, didn’t you hear?”

  Whitey pushed the drawer closed; it dinged.

  Eugene came to the counter, hefted the roll of chain, groaned. “You planning a clear-cut?”

  “You need something?” Rich asked.

  “Nah. Saw your horse,” Eugene said. “Come on, let me buy you a beer.”

  Whitey butted through the saloon doors, leaving them alone.

  “Little early to start drinking,” Rich said.

  “Since when’s a beer drinking?”

  Eugene tailed him over to the Widowmaker, Rich fighting the urge to peel off, lose him.

  The Widowmaker was dim, windowless. Randy drew their beers. A lot of years since Rich was last in here. He’d watched the tsunami from the roof back in ’64, wave lifting the dock, splitting it like a graham cracker, fishing boats bobbing: plastic toys in a bath.

  “Where’s Mabel?” Eugene asked.

  “Hairdresser,” Randy said. Never one to waste a word. Pushing eighty, but kept himself in shape.

  Eugene drained half his beer and sighed, satisfied. Rich fingered his glass, took a pull, cold shootin
g up the root. The TV murmured, Randy leaning on the bar watching it, rubbing absent circles into the old lacquered burl.

  “You ready?” Eugene asked.

  “For what?” Rich asked.

  “Next week. Those sonsabitches want to put us out on our asses, they’re going to have to look us in the eye first. You thought about what you’re going to say?”

  Rich shrugged.

  “Better get a handle on Colleen. Remind her who she’s married to.” Eugene slid his beer off the paper coaster.

  “You don’t have to worry about Colleen.”

  “I don’t.” Eugene downed his beer, set the empty glass on the bar. “Randy, you got a pen?”

  Randy pulled one from his front pocket.

  “Buddy of mine seen her talking with this guy. Said they looked pretty cozy.” Eugene scribbled Dolores’s son’s name—Daniel Bywater—and a phone number onto the coaster. “I’d tell the asshole to stay the hell away from my wife. Show him an old lion can still roar.” Eugene pulled his cap down, pushed out the door.

  Rich slid a thumb up the side of his beer. He’d let that guy into the house, seen right away there was history there. The back-room door swung open and Merle came out with the park super—clean-cut, upright, almost military in his government tan-and-greens—the congressman, and a few guys Rich recognized from the state forestry board.

  Merle gave Rich a stiff nod, as he might any stranger. “See you, Randy,” he said, and followed the other men out.

  “What’s that about?” Rich asked once they were gone.

  Randy shrugged, retrieving Eugene’s empty. Rich paid for both and nodded for Randy to take his half-full glass too, pushed off his stool.

  “You want this?” Randy called after him, holding up the coaster.

  Rich looked around at the empty booths—how many paydays had he spent in here, alone, before Colleen?—bar air stale with the dust of all those memories.

  “Nope,” he said, and ducked out into the rain.

  February 25 RICH

  Rich swung into the service station, needle bouncing off empty. The attendant stood at the pump in the first bay, filling a black truck, speedboat loaded onto a flatbed.

  Rich pulled up behind it, waiting his turn. A smack on his door and there was Merle at his window. Rich rolled it down.

  “You putting in?” Rich asked.

  “Sold her. Tooth snatcher Astrid married up in Coos Bay. Bought the trailer too. But no hitch on his Mercedes.” Merle snorted. “Like selling my damn daughter.” The pump clicked and the attendant smacked the gas compartment shut. “Eugene talk to you about next week?”

  Rich nodded.

  “Good. I knew we could count on you, Rich.”

  Pete pulled in, idled, waiting for a pump. Merle looked over his shoulder, a ripple of distaste passing over his face, as though, after all these years, he was still jealous of Pete. It was Pete who’d ridden shotgun with Virgil, headed up to check out some new piece of machinery. Pete who could take an engine apart and put it back together in the time it took the salesman to run through his pitch.

  “What’s the guy’s name?” Rich asked, lifting his chin at the boat.

  “Langley.” Merle made his way back to the truck, heavy torso thrust forward like a toad walking upright, the name jangling like a key on the ring of Rich’s memory. The boat lurched as Merle pulled away. Rich rolled up to the pump.

  “Fill her,” he told the attendant, and headed in to settle up.

  “He after you about that hearing?” Pete asked when Rich came back out. “Going at it ass-backwards. It’s the women he should be talking to.” Pete looked past Rich, over his shoulder. “Woman’ll lift a car if her kid’s under it.”

  “You think there’s something to these sprays?” Rich asked.

  “I don’t got kids,” Pete said. “But if I did, they wouldn’t be drinking out of no creek.”

  February 26 COLLEEN

  Colleen dug at the cornflake cemented to Enid’s kitchen table. The raccoons had gotten into the trash again, rib cage of a roast chicken strewn across the yard.

  “You ready for tomorrow?” Enid asked.

  “I wish everybody would stop talking about it,” Colleen said. She knew Rich was worried about the hearing too.

  “You’ve got a dog in this fight now, don’t pretend like you don’t. I don’t know much, but I know Rich didn’t buy seven hundred acres flat out.”

  “How long has Eugene been poaching burls out of Damnation Grove?” Colleen shot back. Enid ran water over the dishes, as though she might wash them. “Enid.”

  Enid clattered plates. “What?”

  “You have to make him stop.”

  “I can’t make him do anything,” Enid said.

  “It’s not worth it. It might seem like it is, but it’s not. It’s not right.”

  “How would you know?” Enid snapped. “When have you ever done anything wrong?”

  “Enid—”

  “You think Marla didn’t tell me she saw you with him?”

  Colleen’s heart skipped, blood beating in her cheeks.

  “With who?” She asked, fighting to contain her panic.

  Enid crossed her arms.

  Colleen’s lungs tightened. “Does Eugene know?”

  “Now, why would I tell Eugene? You know secrets just burn a hole in his pocket.” Enid watched Colleen squirm. “You only get one life, huh?”

  Colleen looked down at her hands, tugged at her wedding band. “It’s not like that. I wasn’t—it didn’t—”

  “Look, it’s none of my business, Colleen. You live your life, me and Eugene, we’ll live ours, okay? Just don’t act like you’re better than us.”

  “I’m not—” Colleen pushed a long breath out her nose. “You’re not going to tell Rich?”

  “If I was, I would have done it already,” Enid said.

  Colleen swallowed. “Thank you.”

  Enid shrugged. “You’re my sister.”

  February 27 CHUB

  His mom’s cold hand tugged him through the chanting signs. It was crowded inside too, rain rolling off slickers, cold air gusting in every time someone pushed through the doors, dads flipping their coat collars, moms lowering newspapers tented over their heads cautiously, like it might still be raining inside.

  Uncle Eugene shrugged off the chill. “Fill a glass faster than you could pour one out there.” He lifted the bill of his cap, then tugged it back down. His coat cuffs were frayed, like a cat had chewed them. “Hell of a turnout.”

  Chub’s dad stood extra straight, like he didn’t want to wrinkle the shirt his mom had ironed while he’d hunched in front of the mirror, trimming his mustache. Chub tugged at his dad’s pant leg and his dad lifted him up.

  “There’s Merle.” Uncle Eugene tapped a paper against his dad’s front and shouldered away.

  His dad unfolded the paper, scowled—he needed his cheaters—and tucked it into his front pocket. The doors opened—cold air, shouting.

  “When is this thing going to start?” Aunt Enid asked, leaning to wipe something off Agnes’s chin. Chub bounced his leg, but his dad didn’t let him down.

  Doors opened to a big room filled with folding chairs. They found seats. His mom pulled him into her lap. Up front, men sat behind a long table. Mr. Sanderson and his wife sat in the front row, wearing matching yellow outfits.

  “Quiet down.” A man read from a paper. “The goal today is to hear public comment on proposed Timber Harvest Plan 6817-1977 for Upper Damnation Grove, a six-hundred-forty-acre private inholding to which Sanderson Timber Company holds title, and Timber Harvest Plan 6818-1977 for Lower Damnation Grove, a six-hundred-forty-acre private inholding to which Sanderson Timber Company holds title, both located in Del Norte County.”

  “ ‘Nortay,’ ” someone mocked him from the row behind them. “It’s Del Nort. E’s silent, asshole.”

  People lined up behind a microphone. Some shouted, some read slowly from papers. A man and a woman with long wa
vy gray hair took turns leaning in, telling a magical story.

  “Imagine,” the man said. “Two hundred years ago.”

  “This whole coast was covered in old-growth redwood groves,” the woman continued, waving her hand through the air. “Murrelets nested in the treetops. Tailed frogs and spotted salamanders lived along the creeks. Every year the salmon returned to spawn.”

  “We’ve destroyed ninety percent of that old-growth,” the man cut in. “We’ve chopped down the trees and sprayed the forest with chemicals.”

  “And all that’s left,” the woman explained, “is a tiny fraction, land private citizens banded together to buy and protect, land that became state parks. Damnation Grove is one of the last pockets of untouched primordial forest left in this part of California. It has giants three hundred and fifty feet tall, taller than the Statue of Liberty, grand as anything you’ll find in the national park. But now”—she paused—“the greedy hands of industry are sharpening their saws, preparing to sacrifice these ancient living beings on the altar of capitalism.”

  “Trees a thousand years old,” the man said. “They were here when Rome fell. When Columbus landed in America. They’ve weathered fires and floods and tsunamis.”

  “And they’re still here,” the woman marveled. “Noble. Strong. And we, all of us here today, we have the chance to save them.”

  “We might not agree on much,” the man said. “But I think we agree we can’t stop gravity. Water runs downhill. Look what happened in the lower section, where the biggest trees were, after it was vandalized—”

  People grumbled. In the seat next to him, Chub’s dad lifted one foot off the ground, then the other, as though freeing them from sucking mud.

  “That’s right,” the man continued. “A mudslide, all those gravel beds where the silver salmon have spawned since time immemorial—washed away. There won’t be another run this year, or next, or the year after that. If you tear up the rest of this grove, more silt will run off into the creeks. Frogs won’t be able to live, salmon eggs will suffocate, murrelets will circle and circle, searching for a place to nest.”