Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

  “Where’s Chub?” he asked.

  “Out back.”

  He went down the hall to their bedroom. She followed.

  “Where were you today?” she asked.

  “Don and me went down to Eureka to talk to a guy.” He lowered himself onto the carpet, unbuttoning his shirt, lying facedown on the floor beside their bed.

  After a moment, she peeled off her socks and stepped up onto the dips of his lower back. He groaned. The ribbing of his undershirt bunched under her toes.

  “Sanderson’s going to put out a contract,” Rich explained, his voice compressed by her weight. “To haul out what’s already down in the lower grove. I think me and some of the guys could bid it out. Found a gyppo trucker today who will haul it on commission. We could rent the equipment, clear out what’s salvageable in a couple weeks.”

  “But I thought the park owned it now?”

  “The land, but not the trees already down in Lower Damnation. That’s why Merle wanted it in the paper—he wanted a record. It’s ‘downed tree property.’ The company has the right to harvest it, but it’ll be cheaper for them to contract it out.”

  Colleen balanced between Rich’s shoulder blades, pivoted.

  “How can the government just take it?” Colleen asked.

  “Same way they made the park. The big dogs—Louisiana-Pacific, Arcata Redwood—they took the payout then, they’ll take it again, just like Sanderson.”

  If Damnation Grove was park now, they’d leave it alone, never spray it again. She stopped, balancing all her weight on one foot. “Will they still let you use those roads to haul your 24-7 timber out?” she asked.

  He let out a deep breath. “I’m trying to find that out.”

  She stepped off, sat on the bed. Rich rolled over onto his back.

  “How am I ever going to pay that loan off?” he asked. He sat up. The flab at his stomach folded over in a soft roll, his arms so pale and vulnerable compared to the callused mitts of his empty hands. “I never should have bought it—” He shook his head. “I should have known. I should have thought—”

  “Hey,” Colleen said. He lifted his eyes. “The past isn’t a knot you can untie. Remember?”

  May 25 RICH

  Chains clanked, snapped tight, and the rented yarder’s booms began to turn. Easy, now. The mainline creaked, dragging the last salvage logs out of Lower Damnation, up to the landing below No Name Road.

  Rich threw his head back to gauge the hour. He, Lew, Don, and Pete had gotten together and won the contract Sanderson put out. They might have been an old-dog crew, but with Eugene and Quentin setting chokers they’d still gotten the downed timber bucked and yarded in under five weeks. Monday they’d rent the grappler and start loading logs onto the gyppo trucks that would deliver them to the mill in Eureka. If all went right, they’d walk away with fifteen grand apiece. That would hold Rich over while he figured out what the hell to do next. He’d skipped the May mortgage payment completely. He’d been avoiding stopping by the post office to check for the late notice, envelopes piling up in the cubby of his mind. He’d never dodged a debt in his life.

  Snowmelt thundered from the culvert. Don hung out of the yarder’s cab, looking downhill. Rich heard the scraps of an argument, spotted a pair of guys grappling in the creek. He loped down muddy skids gashed knee-deep. Lew and Quentin stood watching from the creek bank, Eugene hip-deep in the current, knee in the hump of a back, forcing a man under. A rucksack, some smashed jars, and a lone boot were scattered along the opposite bank. Eugene must have grabbed him by the leg and dragged him in.

  “You like that?” Eugene jerked Dolores’s son up by the hair; the man’s arms windmilled as he choked for air. “More?” Eugene dunked him again. “How’s that water taste? Clean enough for you?” Eugene yanked him up, the guy gasping so deep Rich felt it in his own chest. “Still thirsty?” Eugene forced him back under. The man thrashed, one arm twisted behind his back, Eugene turning his head to avoid getting splashed.

  Quentin cast an uneasy glance up the hill, like Don might appear and put a stop to it. But Don had stayed up by the landing.

  “Eugene,” Quentin called. “Cut it out, man. Let him go.”

  Eugene hauled the guy up.

  “What’s the matter?” Eugene shook him. “Had enough? I thought you Yuroks were supposed to be good swimmers. You got so much of that damn salmon in you.”

  The man coughed, vomiting creek water.

  “Let him go,” Quentin commanded.

  Eugene forced the guy’s head under again until he bucked. Quentin unsnapped his shirt and whipped it off.

  “You’re gonna drown him?” Rich called across to Eugene. Make him come to you.

  “You got a better idea? Hell, Rich, you’re the one that should be doing this.” Eugene yanked the man up by the hair, then shoved him back under.

  Quentin started down the bank. Lew stuck out an elbow to block his path.

  “Eugene,” Lew yelled. “Knock it off.”

  “He’s going to drown him,” Quentin said.

  “Relax,” Lew said. “He’ll tire himself out here in a minute.”

  Quentin pushed past Lew and plunged in, fighting the current.

  “Eugene,” Rich called.

  Eugene looked at Quentin, skinny, but a head taller than he was, and dragged the guy over to Rich instead. Eugene cuffed him one last time in the face and spat into the current. “All yours,” he said.

  Quentin waded over and hoisted the man up onto the bank, since he didn’t look to have the strength to do it himself. Blood ran down from his eyebrow, one foot bare. Water sluiced down his body, sticking his clothes to his skin.

  Eugene climbed out after them. Rich stuck an arm out to fend him off.

  “What, you’re protecting him now?” Eugene asked. “For all you know he screwed your wife. Screwed with her head, that’s for sure.” Eugene wiped his forehead on his arm and lunged. Quentin jabbed him in the gut. Eugene grunted, jackknifed at the waist. He straightened up, eyes glinting, and, this time, Rich swung. Eugene stumbled, then lurched forward with a roar. Rich hit him again, and stood over Eugene, panting.

  Dolores’s son coughed. What the hell was his name? Rich had worked so hard to push it from his mind. Now it hovered just out of reach.

  “Let’s go,” Rich said and started up the hill.

  After a moment, the man followed. Quentin fell in behind them.

  A strange calm came over Rich as he hiked up. His knuckles ached, blood thickening to fill the split skin. When they got to the road, Rich slid in behind the wheel. Dolores’s son exchanged a few words with Quentin, then climbed into the cab.

  “You stay here,” Rich told Quentin when he tried to follow. “The two of us have some talking to do.”

  The man nodded to show it was okay, pulled the passenger door shut, leaned his head back, and shut his eyes.

  Rich put the truck in gear, the pair of them bouncing over ruts, leaving Quentin behind. The guy shivered, lips bled of color, bruises on his face already swelling, darkening. He stank of puke and urine. Must have pissed himself. Rich turned the blower on.

  “You okay?” Rich asked.

  “Yeah,” the man croaked.

  When they got to the mill, Rich stopped the truck, pulled a dry shirt from under his seat, and tossed it at him.

  The man caught it, turned it over in his hands. He peeled off his soaked shirt, hissing air through his teeth as he bent his arms out of it and threaded them through the too-long sleeves of Rich’s spare, snapping it up. Colleen might have married this man, and Rich would still be living off boiled hot dogs and chocolate bars, hanging on in the Widowmaker until last call.

  “Colleen said you were fair.”

  Rich ran his tongue along his bottom gums. “She told me,” he said.

  The man froze.

  Rich kneaded the wheel, sore knuckles throbbing. “The first one she lost, I thought—it’s just bad luck.” He shook his head. “But watching it happen again, watchi
ng her—just over and over—not being able to protect her.” Rich sucked in a breath. “The last one, I put my hand on that little tiny baby—I thought: Take me. Take me. I swear to God, I meant it.” Rich looked off out the window. He cleared his throat, collected himself, eyed the rearview. “When she told me about—you know…” he trailed off. “I thought: I’m going to kill that bastard.” He nodded, remembering the feeling, the metallic taste of his own anger. He swallowed. “Colleen’s everything I have.”

  “Look—I never meant—” The man jogged his right leg, knee bobbing, as though he might grab for the door release and haul ass. “I know—I shouldn’t have—”

  “You listened to her when I wouldn’t…” He reached for the man’s name again but couldn’t recall it. “I’m not proud of that.”

  They rode in silence, truck pitching over ruts like a boat on rough surf until they reached the pullout where the man had stashed his van. Rich watched him climb out, hobbling on his bare foot. Rich tossed him the balled-up shirt Eugene had torn nearly in half.

  “He’ll lick his wounds, and then he’ll come looking for you,” Rich warned. Eugene’s rage at Merle was still simmering, but here was a man he could blame—if he hadn’t stirred the pot, forced Merle’s hand, maybe none of them would be a few days away from unemployed, on the razor edge of broke.

  The man turned his head slightly, listening, an engine in the distance. They waited, until the noise faded off in another direction. “I’m headed out in a week anyway,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t wait a week, if I was you.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I don’t.” Rich shook his head. “But Colleen does. She thinks you’ll get to the bottom of all this—” Daniel—the name suddenly came back to him, a coin that had been spinning on edge in his mind for an hour finally falling flat. “She needs to believe that.”

  Daniel nodded and limped off toward his van.

  COLLEEN

  She loaded the lemon bars into a Tupperware and grabbed her keys. No Name Road’s ruts were troughed with rainwater. She rounded the bend where Rich and the guys were working, pickups pulled off on either side, flattening brush. Lew’s green Ford with the toolbox in back, Eugene’s Chevy so rusted it was hard to tell where the bronze ended and the white side stripes began. She didn’t see Rich’s truck. She pulled over, got out.

  She heard voices downhill, the diesel purr of the rented yarder. Eugene climbed up onto the road in front of her.

  “Where’s Rich?” she asked.

  Eugene smirked, a shiner darkening his swollen eye. “Your boyfriend came to visit. Rich took him for a little ride.” Eugene crossed to his truck.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Could have fooled me, hot buns.” Eugene pulled open his passenger door. In the footwell sat a human skull. He waited, letting her get a good look, turned a finger in his ear, inspected a chunk of earwax.

  “All Merle wanted was to buy a little time to talk the park into buying out the grove. Worth more on the stump than Sanderson ever would have made cutting it, meanwhile he’s raking it in selling off those burls. That sonofabitch screwed me too, screwed us all, but damn if he didn’t screw Rich a little bit extra, just for the fun of it. Shit, one little article in the paper, and they were showing up to protest. They did the work for him. I didn’t even get to use this third one.”

  Eugene hooked two fingers through the skull’s eyeholes. Colleen dropped the Tupperware, backing up.

  “Rich?” she yelled.

  “Relax.” Eugene pitched the skull back into the truck and picked the container up, popped the lid off, and scooped out a lemon bar.

  “Rich? Rich?!”

  “I told you, he took him for a ride,” Eugene said through a mouthful.

  “Where?” Colleen asked.

  Eugene tossed his head in the direction of Deer Rib. “Dead end. Where he belongs.”

  “You belong in jail.”

  Eugene snorted, selected another lemon bar. “It’s a good thing we’re family.”

  “You’re not my family.”

  CHUB

  Chub balanced his lunch box on the brick wall, but his mom didn’t come. He was the last one. He cupped his hands around his eyes and looked through the window into his empty classroom. Luke’s desk sat abandoned in the front row, two more empty desks where Jake and Jason Gershaw, who were twins but not identical, had sat until their dad got a job in Oregon, and one more behind that, where a quiet girl named Talia who never talked, although she knew how, sat, but she hadn’t come to school yesterday and today her name tag was gone.

  He went back and sat on the wall.

  “What are you still doing here?” Mrs. Porter asked, coming out with her purse.

  The car felt big and cold without Luke. The ocean appeared and disappeared alongside the road. At home, the driveway was empty. It was cold in the house, creaky and strange. He’d never been alone in it.

  “Hello?” Mrs. Porter called in the door. She found a pad and paper and wrote a note.

  They went back outside. His dad’s truck turned up the driveway.

  “Well,” Mrs. Porter said, crossing her arms. “Somebody took his sweet time.”

  COLLEEN

  She floored the gas, tires spinning, digging herself deeper. She elbowed out, cursing Eugene—no way had Rich taken this road. She wedged branches under the tires, tried again, until finally the truck lurched backward. She stomped the gas, afraid to lose momentum, reversing back to No Name Road.

  She drove to the school—almost six o’clock—and found Miles Jorgensen mopping the floor in the cafeteria.

  “Gail took him,” Miles Jorgensen said, looking down at her muddy boots.

  When she got home, Rich’s truck was parked out front. Chub came running around the side of the house, barreling into her. She heard a pause in the ax’s clatter, Rich stopping to catch his breath, and followed Chub around back.

  “Gail brought him,” Rich said, splitting a round in two. He set the halves upright.

  “I got stuck.” She felt a tug of shame—how stupid she’d been, to listen to Eugene.

  “You want to take that guy the rest of those jars, you better do it now,” Rich said, splitting the halves into quarters. “Eugene tried to drown him.” Rich brought the ax down again. “If he’s smart, he’ll get out of town.”

  Colleen watched him set the quarters upright and split them into kindling. She’d made no attempt to hide the jars, but that Rich would think of them touched her.

  She hurried in the back door, tracking mud, filled a last jar and labeled it, loaded it into a bag with a dozen others. When she came back out, Rich was around front, hosing the mud off her truck. He turned the nozzle off, watched her open her door and climb in.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  * * *

  The truck nosed down into the weeds, then shot up into Daniel’s uncle’s clearing, haze of smoke rising out of the dugout canoe that had emerged from the log she’d seen last time. Daniel’s van was parked near the house. She tucked her keys up into the visor and climbed out, meadow thick with smoke. She coughed and the door to the house opened. Daniel came out, hauling a duffel bag.

  His face was bruised and puffy, a wide gash in his eyebrow. He spotted her and cast a glance sidelong, his uncle detaching himself from the side of a shed, where Colleen hadn’t noticed him. The old man leaned into the canoe, raking embers.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked when Daniel got close.

  “Curing it. Fire brings the sap out. That’s what makes it waterproof.” Daniel hoisted the duffel into the van.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Sampled about a gallon of creek water.” He coughed, stowed the duffel behind the driver’s seat, pulled out a rolled-up flannel, and handed it to her—one of the extras she stored in Rich’s pickup, so he wouldn’t have to ride home in wet clothes.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  He tossed his head north. “M
y funding’s up. I’ve got a year’s worth of data to write up.”

  She held out the bag of jars. He snugged them in beside the duffel.

  “It’s a long process, to convince the EPA,” he said.

  Colleen nodded. The cut in his eyebrow was deep and would scar. It would change the look of his face. He coughed again, a wet, chesty cough.

  “Danny!” The screen door whapped, and an old woman shuffled out, carrying a grocery bag.

  “Ma, leave it. I’ll get it,” Daniel called, but the woman kept coming, stopping only when she rounded the front of the van and stood ten feet away, her eyes on Daniel, paper sack wider than she was. Dolores Bywater’s face was gaunt, hollowed out by sickness, her turban hat set back on her head so that Colleen could make out several inches of bald scalp. “Ma, I’m coming back in.” Daniel took the sack from her arms.

  Once, after Daniel had been thrown against a locker and sent to the office for fighting, Colleen had sat waiting for Enid outside the principal’s closed door, flinching with each smack of the paddle, when Dolores Bywater had blown in like a gust of furious wind. She’d streaked past Gail Porter’s desk, straight into the principal’s office. The principal, a short, pudgy, balding man, barely had time to look up, Enid bent over the desk, before Mrs. Bywater snatched the paddle from his hand.

  If you ever hit my son again—she’d said, then turned on her heel, taking the paddle with her, Colleen’s own heart welling with relief.

  It seemed impossible that this was the same woman: frail, emaciated, surveying the contents of the van.

  “I’ll be in in a minute, Ma,” Daniel promised. She turned and shuffled back to the house.

  Colleen and Daniel stood for a moment in silence.

  “I asked her to come with me. There are good doctors in Canada.” Daniel swallowed. “She won’t leave. She says it took her too long to get back here the first time.” A pained look passed over Daniel’s face. “It’s just—what if it’s the last time—?” Daniel pushed air out his nose. “She says if I need to go, go; it’s okay to wander, as long as we always come home. She says she’s sick of me waiting around for her to die.”