by Pam Webber
“I know. He stopped by the house after the flood. He wanted to thank me again for helping with the Danes thing and for letting him know you and Win might be in trouble.”
“He told me.”
“Did he tell you the rest of it?”
Nettie shook her head.
“He also said if he weren’t around, he’d want you to be with someone like me—but in the meantime, I’d do well to remember he was around.”
Nettie sputtered the water she’d just sipped.
“He has it you know.”
“Has what?”
“Grit. Remember the movie we saw this summer, the one about finding a man with grit?”
Nettie nodded.
“You asked if you could find someone with grit if you didn’t have it?”
“I remember.”
“Andy has it. So do you.”
The waitress set their milkshakes on the counter.
“What it took for you and Win to build those dreamcatchers and help Nibi save those boys took courage. What it took for you to stay alive and for Andy to find and rescue you that night required a lot more.’
“Faith and luck.”
“Yes, and grit. It’s what makes the two of you different.”
“Thanks, I think.”
Ethan laughed. “Different in a good way.”
The waitress returned with their cheeseburgers and French fries.
“When are you and Cal leaving?”
“We fly out of Dulles tomorrow.”
“So soon?”
“Mom and Dad want a few days with us before school starts.”
“I’m happy for you but sad you’re leaving.”
“Me too.”
“Will you be back next summer?”
“Too early to say.”
They both made a grab for the check as the waitress laid it on the counter. Nettie won. “I want to buy your lunch.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what friends do. Next time, you buy.”
“Friends also write.”
“I have your address, and you have mine. Win and Cal are writing to each other too.”
Ethan took a big bite of his burger, catching a glob of ketchup as it escaped the bottom of the bun. “Who knows, we might just get the two of you out to California.” With that, he leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, leaving smeared ketchup in his wake.
“Dammit, Ethan.”
He laughed as his sticky hands went up in the air. “Just saying.”
Chapter 19
Nettie had never seen the inside of a jail, but the starkness of the outside wasn’t misleading. The waiting room’s flat green walls, metal folding chairs, and uncovered fluorescent lights were just as unwelcoming. Two squat windows near the ceiling were so small, she wondered why they’d bothered to put them in at all, much less cover them with bars. Andy sat to her right, her parents to her left. As a state policeman, her father didn’t want her here. Her mother knew she had to be.
A balding guard came through the heavy metal door, his gun holster snug under his plump belly. He nodded as her father stood. “Gene.”
“Max.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be with her.” He motioned to Nettie. “You can come back now.”
Andy walked her to the door, then squeezed her hand. “You’ve got this.”
She followed the guard down a long, painted-gray cinder-block-and-concrete hall with few doors and no windows. Their footsteps created an unbalanced echo that led and followed but could not leave. The tunnel to nowhere unsettled Nettie worse than the rows of cells she’d imagined.
“Wait here, please.” The guard unlocked a narrow door that melded into a room the same color as the hall. Through a skinny vertical window, she watched another guard escort Danes to a small table. A day-old shadow and wrinkled beige scrubs had replaced his usual clean-shaven, crisp appearance. Wrists cuffed and ankles chained, he teetered, then slumped into the chair.
Nettie’s jitters dissolved on sight, replaced by indignation, as her guard guided her to the opposite end of the table, staying between her and Danes until she was seated. Both guards went to stand by their doors.
Danes’s gaze had locked on Nettie the moment she’d entered the room. “I heard what happened in the flood. How are you?”
“That depends. Which one of you is asking?”
“What?”
“You heard me. The good guy or the bad guy?”
Danes smirked. “Still haven’t lost that smart mouth, have you?”
Nettie leaned back, crossed her arms, and waited.
“The better one. Maybe. Anymore, I can’t separate the two.”
“Can’t or don’t want to? Seems to me you’re pretty good at using one to serve the other.”
Danes’s gray eyes sparked. “So much for forgiveness.”
“Are you asking or telling?”
“Same difference.”
“Even you don’t believe that.”
“Who are you to tell me what I believe and what I don’t?”
Nettie sat straight. “Because you’re the one who told me evil doesn’t ask—it tells.”
“You think I’m lying? That I don’t want to be forgiven?”
“I think your dark side is looking for company, and you’ll not get that from me. If your good side is asking, that’s another matter.”
“Why are you here?”
“Why did you want me to come?”
“I didn’t.”
“Pastor Williams doesn’t lie. You do.”
The inside guard chuckled.
Danes stared at the man until he looked away. “I thought I wanted to see you. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“Again, which one wanted to see me: the teacher or the rapist?”
“Will you stop? You can’t see one without the other.”
“Not true. You can’t know one without the other, but you don’t have to live both. That’s a choice.”
“You think I chose to be like this?” Danes’s voice rose to the point of raspiness.
“Yes. You knew what you were doing. You knew it was wrong and did nothing to stop it.”
Danes rubbed his neck.
Nettie steadied herself, preparing to ask the questions that wouldn’t leave her alone. “All summer, you were setting me up, weren’t you? From the first day we met. You planned it, didn’t you?”
Danes turned away.
“The least you can do is look at me.”
Danes met her gaze and locked his jaws.
“You planned it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His voice lowered. “Planning is part of the excitement.”
“While we were working together, this is what you were thinking about?”
“Not all the time.”
“Just when you were drinking.”
“Drinking made it easier.”
“How was it all supposed to end? An affair? Rape? Something worse?”
Danes stuttered, before finding words. “I’m not a murderer. It was just about sex. That’s all. It’s always about sex.”
“So, if you hadn’t been fired, or if Ethan and the others hadn’t shown up when they did, what would you have done with me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do. What did you do with the others when you were finished with them?”
The last bit of color drained from Danes’s face. “Guard, I’m done.”
“No, you’re not,” Nettie said. “Answer me.”
Danes turned from one guard to the other. Neither moved.
“You left them, right? Isn’t that how it works? You got what your twisted brain and body wanted, then just left them to pick up the pieces, to try and put their lives back together.”
Danes stood. Both guards stepped forward. “Sit down,” one said.
He hesitated, then eased onto the edge of his chair.
“How does your Christian side reconcile what you did
to them? What you tried to do to me?”
Red-faced, Danes slammed his palms on the table. “The same way any sinner does. Convince yourself that next time will be different. And the next time. And the next.”
“Then do something about it.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“Then try something else. I have a friend who’s a nurse. She said there are professionals who help people like you. Pastor Williams said the same thing. You just have to be willing to own what you did and accept the help.”
“So, now you’re an expert?”
“No. You’re the one who said evil seldom survives the light of day.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is. Unless you’re just blowing smoke about wanting to change.”
“Do you see where I am? It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Really? You’re going to wallow in self-pity after what you’ve done? Give me a break. Yes, your twisted double life is over. But if you mean what you say, here’s your chance.”
“For what? There are no second chances in a place like this.”
“That depends on which direction you’re looking. Regardless of your motives, you helped me find my way through some tough questions about faith. Maybe it’s because you’ve seen things from both sides. Who knows? Get yourself righted, and maybe you can help someone else, even in a place like this.”
Danes swallowed as if it hurt.
Nettie stood, her chair protesting its slide along the concrete floor. Her guard moved quickly to the table, but she slipped past him to look Danes in the eye. “Back in the summer, you said my job was to forgive, forget, and move on. I forgive you. Both of you. And after today, I refuse to let your darkness steal one more minute of my life.”
The guard tried to leverage Nettie away from the table, but she leaned closer to Danes instead. “It’s your job too. Forgive it, fix it, and move on. Your good side has a lifeline. Don’t waste it.”
With his hand tight on her elbow, the guard steered her toward the exit as Mr. Danes stood and called out. “Nettie, wait.”
Shaking free, Nettie turned back.
“Have a good life.”
October colors blanketed the Amherst side of the mountain as Nettie, Andy, and Win drove toward the top of the mountain. They hadn’t been back to Rockfish Valley since the flood. Not only had Nettie not been ready, but Sheriff Tanner wasn’t allowing anyone in except road construction crews and officials still looking for remains. Once a rudimentary new road system was in place, he’d given them permission to return on this peaceful Sunday afternoon.
Nettie braced herself as they crested Walton’s Pass and descended into the valley. She’d heard the biblical storm had caused more than two thousand years’ worth of erosion in one night. Anticipating darkness and destruction, she found a colorful view instead. Ringing the top third of the mountains were the expected jagged gray scars, but mixed among them were islands of green, red, yellow, and orange leaves. Even the area around Lookout Point seemed to be returning to life. The mountain’s midsection had the same bursts of color but still hosted countless dislodged boulders, some the size of houses, and downed trees traumatically stripped of limbs and bark.
“At least things are growing again,” Win said. “Nibi would like that.”
Andy whistled and stopped the car. “Would you look at that?”
For as far as they could see, the valley floor resembled an earthen bowl, scraped clean except for buttes of dirt three stories tall, fifty feet wide, and spiked with trees and debris. Zigzagging across the Tye, the buttes went upriver until they were little more than specks. Burial mounds. Nibi and more than thirty others were still missing.
Lines of yellow bulldozers, earthmovers, and other construction equipment snaked around a dozen work trailers tagged with VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION and US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS signs.
Andy drove cautiously down the compacted gravel road, then crossed a clattering temporary metal bridge. He stopped on the edge of a wide strip of scraped-flat land that had once been Oak’s Landing. “Let’s walk.”
With little to absorb the sound, the car doors closed with serial thuds. The earthy scent of sunbaked soil seemed almost pleasant compared to the stench Nettie remembered. Nearby, the lazy waters of the Tye glinted against a dramatically reshaped shoreline, the river’s long, lazy turn now straight. Long patches of groundcover intermixed with straw protected newly graded banks. The lush great oaks, picturesque park, and lazy river walk were gone. The once thriving train station had disappeared without a trace, except for a small section of tracks still dangling on the side of the mountain. Upriver, the memory of the pulp mill sat on a stripped-bare knoll. As in the days preceding the flood, nothing moved, not even the normally incessant bugs.
Win turned with slow steps. “This used to be Main Street. Mrs. Loving’s Candy Store should be right here, Huffman’s General Store there, the Post Office over there, and Carter’s Drugstore around the corner. It’s as if the town and its people never existed.” The memory of Wade and Skip’s bicycle chain clanged as they made their way along the invisible street.
Win ran ahead as they approached the hill at the edge of town. “Oh my gosh. Look. It’s still there.”
Andy helped Nettie gimp along faster on her recovering right leg.
There, in its original position, sat the preaching stone. It didn’t take much to understand how it had survived. Now that the topsoil had washed away, an isthmus-like connection between the preaching stone and the granite mantel anchoring the foundation of the church was visible, extending into the heart of the mountain.
Win ran her hands over the top of the stone as if it were sacred. “I’m so grateful it’s still here.” She opened a small pouch and sprinkled tobacco over the stone. “For Nibi and all those who came before.”
Nettie pulled a similar pouch from her pocket and drizzled sweet-smelling sage from one end of the stone to the other. “And this is in honor of the Monacans’ new medicine woman.”
Surprise and doubt lowered Win’s voice to a whisper. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“You’ll figure it out, one step at a time.”
Leaving a wobbling path of footprints in the reconstructed hillside, they climbed to the stone shell of the church. A few reinforced trusses and a small remaining section of roof kept the cracked steeple and tilted cross upright.
Nettie sat on the stone threshold to rest her leg. “It’s a miracle this place is still standing.”
Andy eased down beside her. “A miracle of inspired design. It sits on a hill, and the windows and doors were kept open, which allowed the floodwaters to flow through. Are they going to rebuild?”
“Some of the surviving church members want to, but it may depend on whether the town decides to rebuild.” Win drifted along the perimeter of the gutted sanctuary, skimming her hand across the stone wall.
Andy gathered river pebbles off the floor and rolled them in his hand “Two towns and seven villages got washed away. There might not be enough people left to do it.”
“They’re rebuilding the road. That’s a good sign.”
Win stopped at what was left of the stone altar, then motioned to Nettie and Andy. “Come look.”
Scratched on the center stone in a perfect ring were six words: FAITH. WISDOM. COURAGE. HOPE. STRENGTH. COMMITMENT. The same qualities Nibi had said they’d need to develop if they were going to be able to build the dreamcatchers—and survive.
In the center of the ring was a slightly tilted cross with a partially hidden inscription.
Nettie brushed off the dried dirt. “He marks the horizon on the face of the waters as a boundary between light and darkness. Job 26:10.” She stepped back. “That’s incredible.”
Win traced the letters. “All the times I’ve been in this church, I never knew this was here.”
“Nibi knew. I bet that’s why she told us to come here.”
“If this is any
indication, they’ll rebuild, and they’ll do it around this stone.”
When they reached Indian Mission Road, Nettie and Win stopped for a breather.
“Leg okay? Still think you can handle the hike up the mountain?”
“I think so. It feels stable.”
They’d arranged to meet Chief Brannon at the schoolhouse. Unlike last time, the door stood open.
“Good morning, girls. Welcome.” The chief unstacked the last of a dozen boxes scattered around the room.
“Good morning, sir.”
The smell in the room had changed from the sharpness of the forest to a familiar amenity of herbs and dried flowers.
As they moved farther inside, Win’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Nibi’s kitchen surrounded them. Her table and chairs stood in the middle of the room, topped with her mortar and pestle, teapot, cup, colorful baskets and jars, and palm-size otter-skin bags full of this and that. In the far corner sat her inside and outside rocking chairs. Her favorite shawl draped the back of one; her leather apron dangled from the corner of the other. Weathered wind chimes hung from rafters all around the room.
Nettie stayed one step behind as Win slowly wove from box to box, trembling as more remnants of Nibi’s world were revealed. Chief Brannon waited patiently. When Win had opened and closed the last box, he spoke. “Nibi knew from the beginning she wasn’t going to survive the darkness. She wanted you to have these things.”
Motioning them to sit, the chief handed them each a paper bag. Inside were beautiful hand-sewn moccasins, the stitches small, tight, and close. Beading made of colorful river glass adorned the top and sides. The leather had been rubbed until it felt buttery soft. “Nibi said she promised to make these for you two earlier in the summer.” Reaching into his jacket, he laid Nibi’s leather journal on the table in front of Win. Full of medicinal recipes, the journal had been passed down through generations.
“Nibi said most of the answers you’ll need are in here. What you don’t find, we’ll figure out together.”
Win wiped her eyes. “Isn’t this just like her? Always a dozen steps ahead. Trying to make it easier for everyone else.”
“That was her way, her legacy, as well as that of generations of medicine women who preceded her.”