by Ash Davidson
“Coffee’s ready,” she called out.
He went in, took a sip, winced out of habit, tooth in his dresser drawer, still in its envelope. She worried a hangnail.
“It’ll be fine,” she told him, as though to convince herself.
Driving in, his hands were so sweaty he had to wipe them down the legs of his denims. A half hour early, he found the lot empty, crummy dark, mill silent, empty as an airplane hangar except for the ancient head saw—useless without the old-growth it was invented for. His head weighed twenty pounds. He leaned back.
A gunshot startled him awake. He hunched behind the wheel, squinting in the predawn. A second shot—no, only Pete yanking the handle of his jerry-rigged door and slamming it again to get it to latch. Rich scooped up his hard hat, grabbed his lunch pail and thermos, conked his skull on the rim of the door, hungover with sleep.
“Hey, Gundersen,” Lew called. “Sure you still work here?”
Rich swung his McCulloch out, didn’t raise his eyes again until he was halfway down the aisle of the crummy, talk going quiet. He slid in behind Pete and tried to breathe normally.
Mist poured over the ridges. His head lolled. Felt like he’d only closed his eyes for a second when the crummy jolted to a stop. Rich dropped down the steps, a creek thundering from a culvert.
“Circle up,” Don said.
Most guys had the paunchy look of emerging from hibernation, winter spent bellied up at the Only, a few leaner and sun-beat from crabbing.
“We’ll cut the track in first,” Don said, pointing downhill: the lower grove, Rich realized with a surge of recognition, massacred timber crisscrossing the slope.
“Is it stable?”
“We’ll find out,” Don said.
“Did the plans go through?”
“How about we let Merle worry about that?” Don looked straight at Rich. “Anybody here doesn’t want to work, town’s that way.”
“Pretty damn steep, Porter,” Lew objected.
“You got a better idea?”
Lew’s eyes tracked to Rich and back. “I don’t want to end up at the bottom of a slide.”
“Cats are waiting,” Don said.
Lew shook his head, followed the others, until it was just Rich left.
“Look, I’ll tell Merle the brush isn’t bad, but if he says ‘spray,’ there’s not a hell of a lot I can do,” Don said.
“Appreciate it.” Rich nodded. Blackberry shoots were already sprouting up between the downed timber, hungry for sun. Of course Merle would have it sprayed.
“Won’t be anything left to hold this hill once we’re done,” Don said. “I was you, I’d get my cut out this season, before the rest of this slides out and takes the roads with it.”
He was right. Most of this side would end up in the creek, trapping Rich’s timber on 24-7 Ridge for good. He’d need to act fast.
Eugene climbed up into the cab of a D8, trying to get her going with the exaggerated frustration of a kid tugging a stubborn cow by a rope. The engine caught. Eugene grinned, shouting over the noise.
“Let’s cut some damn roads!”
The road began as a nub, carving down through the wrecked timber of Lower Damnation Grove, skirting giant logs that lay broken where they’d hit, here a three-hundred-footer busted to toothpicks, here a trio of old monsters twenty feet in diameter that had knocked each other over like dominos. All day, Rich tracked the road’s progress, watching the Cats carve hairpins into the hillside, switchbacks rolling down the steep grade toward the creek like a long, soft rug. In less than a week, they would reach the bottom, the very edge of Rich’s property, a road he’d dreamed of all his life appearing suddenly at his feet.
At the end of the day, Eugene hung an arm out his truck window in the mill lot.
“Have a beer with us, Rich.”
“I’m good.”
“Wasn’t a question, Gundersen.”
March 23 COLLEEN
She brought Chub home from school to find the phone ringing furiously, threatening to jump off the kitchen wall, the way only Enid could make it ring.
“Can you come get us?” Enid asked.
By the time Colleen got to Fort Eugene, Enid was waiting out front with Marla and the baby. A dead raccoon lay draped across the lid of the trash can, small hand hanging down, almost human. Enid climbed in the backseat with Chub, leaving Marla up front.
“Where are the kids?” Colleen asked.
“He took them to the store.”
Marla looked out the window. Colleen felt the taut thread of anger tied between them and wondered what fight they’d had that Marla was being dragged along, made to sit up front where Enid could see her. They passed the mill. Colleen stopped at the T.
“Where are we going?” Colleen asked.
“Samoa,” Enid said.
“Samoa?” Colleen heard her own voice reverberating inside a rusty can, traveling a string sixteen years long. She’d forgotten how a word could change the taste of the air. “I thought—”
“It’s not for me.”
Colleen looked to Marla—her baggy coat concealing her shape. “Does Eugene—”
“Don’t talk to me about Eugene,” Enid snapped.
Trees blurred past. South of Arcata, Colleen turned west and they crossed to Samoa, a strip of land a few streets wide latched to the coast by a rusting bridge. June Millhauser’s white house stood exactly as Colleen remembered it: a covered porch, a swing, a chainsaw bear holding a burnt-wood sign: WIPE YOUR PAWS. It looked like the house of a spinster piano teacher, which, as far as Colleen knew, was what June Millhauser still was.
Colleen set the parking brake, sound stitching the two moments together: Colleen at the wheel of their mother’s Mercury, Enid waiting to go in. Enid hadn’t told Eugene then either. Colleen looked at Marla, wondered if she knew they were sitting in the exact spot where her own life might have ended. Enid got out, brought the baby around to Colleen, followed Marla up the steps. Marla’s lashes were caked with mascara, but underneath she was still a scared little girl. Colleen’s heart ached for her, for the second heart beating inside her. Don’t, she pleaded silently. Marla, honey, no!
“What’s wrong?” Chub asked, watching Enid knock, then step aside.
“Marla has a tummy-ache,” Colleen said, hitching Alsea up on her hip.
“Is there a doctor in there?”
“Let’s go see if we can see any whales, Grahamcracker.”
They walked one street over and stood at the water’s edge. Chub scanned the horizon with his binoculars.
“See any?” she asked, shivering.
When they returned, Enid was pacing on the porch. Alsea had fallen asleep, a warm weight on Colleen’s chest. Chub boosted himself up onto the swing. The porch ceiling was painted light blue, as though, even on a rainy day, it was clear skies under the overhang.
Their teenage selves still sat in the driveway, idling in their mother’s Mercury. Colleen had been terrified—it was illegal then. She’d let the car run, Enid unmoving. Finally, June Millhauser had come out onto the porch. They’d seen her in the supermarket with Mom once. Enid, five or six, had stared: June Millhauser’s left eye white-blue, the other a dark brown that absorbed light.
Why are her eyes different colors?
I don’t know, Mom had said, exasperated by Enid and her whys.
But why?
Because she’s the angel maker.
What’s an angel maker? Enid had asked.
Their mother had sighed. She takes care of babies nobody wants.
Then suddenly, they were teenagers, staring up at June Millhauser’s house a decade later.
Let’s go, Enid had said finally. As if she’d needed to see the house to decide.
Colleen wondered if Enid remembered this—her childhood curiosity, the shakiness in her voice at fifteen, pregnant and scared—if she’d paged back through the album of her life while she’d been waiting here on the porch. The sea smell wafted in with the gull calls. Colleen
followed Enid down to the far corner of the porch. She should have gone in with Marla. She was her mother.
“Eugene doesn’t know?” Colleen whispered.
“He thinks that dumbbell will marry her.”
“Would he?”
“That’s not the point. I’m not letting her ruin her life.” Enid folded her arms, scuffed the porch boards with her toe. “Eugene’ll be so pissed. His little Sanderson grandbaby, flushed down the commode.” Enid laughed, a heartsick laugh.
“Where’d you get it?” Colleen had seen the crisp bills June Millhauser had pinched from the envelope before letting Marla in.
“Merle. Where else does money come from around here?” Enid inhaled. “He’s sending that kid back up north. That’s the last she’ll see of him.”
Colleen rocked Alsea to calm her own restlessness.
Enid touched the baby’s head. “Eugene drove me down. For that X-ray the nurse wanted.”
The front door opened. Colleen hurried Chub off the swing. Enid tried to help, but Marla shrugged her off, raccoon eyed, fierce with pain. June Millhauser appeared in the doorway, her hair gray, her blue eye larger than her brown one, giving her the appearance of squinting. She shut the door. Colleen heard the first swelling chords of the piano.
In the closeness of the pickup’s cab, Colleen smelled a musky iron sweetness. Marla squirmed. Colleen waited with her in the parking lot while Enid ran into the pharmacy. Chub lay down in the backseat.
“A hot water bottle will help,” Colleen said.
“It hurts,” Marla whimpered.
“I know, honey.” Colleen would never, never end a child’s life, but she knew what it felt like to have a dead one scraped out: how raw, how empty.
She took Marla’s hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d held it. This gangly teenager, once so small and happy, bouncing on Colleen’s knees at the kitchen table, giddyup. Where had that little girl gone?
“I’m sorry, Aunt Colleen,” Marla said.
“Why are you sorry?”
“For making you drive us.” Tears spilled down Marla’s cheeks.
“Oh, honey,” Colleen said. “Don’t you worry.”
Marla started to sob quietly. “I wish I could have”—she hiccupped—“given it to you.”
“Don’t worry about me, sweetie.” Colleen wiped Marla’s eyes. “You just worry about getting better, okay?”
Marla nodded. “You’re lucky.” She sucked snot in her nose. “Uncle Rich loves you. Like really loves you. Not just saying it. He’s always looking over, watching to make sure you’re happy.”
“You’ll find someone like that someday,” Colleen said. “You will. Just wait.”
“No, I won’t.” Marla buried her face in her hands. “Nobody’s going to want me now.”
“Shh. That’s not true.” Colleen rubbed Marla’s shoulder. “I used to think that too, before I met your uncle Rich.”
“Did you ever—?” Marla grimaced, squeezed her knees together, and dug her palms into her thighs until the cramp passed.
“No,” Colleen said. “I’ve never had a baby inside me I didn’t want with all my heart. But that’s different, sweetheart. I’m a lot older than you. Your time will come.”
“How do you know?” Marla asked.
“I just do,” Colleen said. “I’ve known you your whole life. Since you were a little bump in your mama’s belly. You’re smart, and sweet, and so, so beautiful.” Colleen brushed aside the thatch of white-blond hair fallen into Marla’s eyes. “You can have any life you want. If you want healthy babies, you’ll have them,” Colleen promised, tears welling in her own eyes, willing it to be true. “Later, when you’re older. Okay?”
Marla dropped her chin to her chest and nodded. Enid emerged from the pharmacy. Marla hugged herself, blew air up into her eyes. Enid pulled open the truck door and climbed in with a bag of painkillers and three flavors of gum for Chub, who sat up.
“No eating it,” Enid said. “Or you’ll end up with a great big lump in your stomach and we’ll have to take you to the doctor next.”
* * *
By the time Colleen pulled into Fort Eugene, it was dusk. The cab smelled artificially of watermelon. Chub dropped out of the truck.
“Five minutes,” she called after him.
Marla climbed down gingerly.
“Enid?” Colleen asked. Enid got out, pretending not to hear. “Enid.”
“What?” Enid flared her nostrils, clearing Alsea’s hair off her forehead with one finger. “She’s missing half, okay? They showed us. She might have trouble learning things, we’ll have to wait and see, but she can”—Enid’s voice cracked—“she can live fine with half.”
“Half of what?” Colleen asked.
Enid cupped her hand over the baby’s head.
“Oh my God.” Colleen covered her mouth.
“I told you so, right? Say it. Go ahead.”
“Why didn’t you—”
“Why didn’t I what?” Enid demanded. “What do you want me to do? We’re just a dot on the map in the middle of nowhere. Even if it was the sprays. They don’t spray, they don’t log, and then where would we be, any of us?” Enid sucked air in her nose. “You should have seen Eugene. He blew a gasket, yelled at the lady and everything. Made them redo the X-ray.” Enid shook her head. “When we got home, he just laid his head in my lap and cried. Like a little kid. He is like having a seventh kid, sometimes. But he’s doing his best. He’s trying to take care of us the best way he knows how. I know you don’t think much of him.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t lie. I know he has his faults. But he loves his kids.”
Colleen looked down at her hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve had other things on my mind lately. In case you hadn’t noticed.” Enid rattled the bag of painkillers. Colleen saw tears glistening in her sister’s eyes, but Enid refused to let them fall. “No use crying about it,” Enid said. “Won’t change it. Anyway, I ask you for enough as it is. Thanks for the ride.”
“Wait—”
“What?” Enid asked. “She’s here, isn’t she?” She bounced Alsea in her arm. “She’s alive. What do I have to complain about, compared to—”
“Enid, you’re my sister. We’re all we have, remember?”
A tear rolled down from the corner of Enid’s eye. She smiled, shook her head. “You have Rich. I’m not all you have. I haven’t been for a long time.”
The front door slammed and Chub raced toward the truck.
“Drive fast,” Enid said. “Take lots of chances.”
Chub climbed in, breathless, Enid trudging through the fog, mounting the trailer house’s cinder-block stairs slowly, one heavy step at a time.
* * *
Rich was in the kitchen, crouched in the far corner, setting up a wooden stand.
“What is that?” Chub asked.
Rich took hold of the glass bottle and rose with a grunt, tipping it into the dispenser, five gallons of water gurgling. He held a mug under the spout, showing Chub how to press down on the spigot. Rich handed him the mug.
“How’s that taste?” Rich asked.
“Good,” Chub said, stepping up to refill it.
Rich set a palm on Chub’s head. “Leave the empties out front and the delivery truck’ll swap them out next week,” he told Colleen.
She nodded.
He scuffed his boot against the linoleum.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Nah. I should have done better.” He cleared his throat. “I should have listened.”
March 25 RICH
Lark stood waiting out front in a denim shirt faded to white, red suspenders, and a bolo tie, scratching the hog with his saw cane. Rich pulled up beside him. Lark gave the hog a goodbye whack and limped around to the passenger door.
“Where’s the party?” Rich asked.
Lark patted his pockets as they trundled down the rutted drive.
“Forget some
thing?”
“Nope.” Lark rubbed a spot on his chest like it pained him. “They didn’t tar and feather you, I see.”
“Not yet,” Rich acknowledged. He’d felt the strain the first day, but once they’d gotten into a rhythm, work was work.
“What are you so happy about?” Lark asked.
“Road’s about done.” Rich couldn’t keep from grinning. “You can spit across from the bottom of it.”
“No shit?”
Sun streaked through the timber. Rich pulled off at the post office, left the truck running. He opened the box, dragged his pinkie under the flap of the mortgage bill and checked the amount, slid it back in carefully, like the numbers might get jumbled. Evangeline set his stamp and envelope on the counter, change jangling in his pocket, the sound of his savings dwindling. When he went back out, Merle had one arm braced above Lark’s window.
“Don’t know about that, Corny,” Merle said with the air of humoring an old man.
“Pays to think down the road,” Lark answered, bristling at the name, Virgil alive in it.
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we, now?” Merle waited for Rich to slide back behind the wheel, then patted the truck, giving it permission to move out. “Keep an eye on this guy, Rich.”
Rich let the clutch out.
“Should have slacked the mainline on that sonofabitch when I had the chance.” Lark spat out the window. “It true Eugene got his ass kicked by that Sanderson kid?” Lark asked, once they were on the road.
“How’d you hear about that already?” Rich asked.
Lark shrugged.
“It’s his daughter,” Rich said. Eugene had gotten himself two black eyes. Would have bit a chunk out of the kid’s ear cartilage if Lew hadn’t gotten between them yesterday.
“Merle sent him back up north?” Lark guessed.
“Came and picked him up himself.”
“Girl got in trouble, Sanderson always could make one of their own disappear.”
“Family business,” Rich said.