Down by the River

by Robyn Carr

  “I don’t know,” he said, pulling on his pants. “I’m going to drive into town, to the clinic, to make sure she hasn’t had trouble along the way.”

  Since 911 had not yet come to the valley, Jim dialed the police department. He got the answering machine, which gave him a pager number and cell phone number. He opted for the latter, dialing while he pulled on boots.

  “Yeah, June,” Tom said, obviously responding to the number on his cell phone’s caller ID.

  “It’s Jim. June went to the clinic to meet a patient but the patient just called here saying she can’t get to the clinic. Something about a river? And there’s no answer there. So I’m going. What about this river?”

  “Holy shit,” Tom said.

  “That can’t be good.”

  “The river behind the café. The Windle. We’ve been watching it since fall. It hasn’t flooded in twenty years, but—”

  “I’ll meet you at the clinic.”

  “Don’t cross any low areas covered with water. Flash flooding is a danger.”

  “Could June have been caught in a flash flood?” Jim asked fearfully.

  “It’s doubtful. She knows better. See you in a few.”

  Jim woke his sister and brother-in-law and told them why he was leaving. Though they were worried as well, they couldn’t really go with him. There were the kids, asleep upstairs, and even with his big truck, it was a tight squeeze. Plus, he wasn’t about to wait for anyone to get dressed.

  He was almost out the door when he did an unexpected thing. He went back to the bedroom, tossed off his jacket and pulled his guns and double shoulder holster from the bottom of the trunk at the foot of the bed. Just about everyone in Grace Valley had guns, but not guns like these. It crossed his mind to get out his bulletproof vest, but he didn’t want to take the time. On second thought, he pulled the vest from the trunk and took it with him. This was not the kind of vest a street cop wore, but what a SWAT officer might wear, weighing in the neighborhood of forty pounds. This was a vest that could stop a rifle shot. He didn’t know why he had this feeling, but he never argued with instinct.

  Annie, in robe and slippers, saw him march from the bedroom to the door, wearing guns and carrying the vest. “Jim! What is it? What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know, Annie. But I don’t want to be unprepared. I’ll call you when I find June.”

  June didn’t know how long she’d been out, but she suspected not long. She felt a throbbing in her chin and at the back of her head. Something had hit her, then her head had hit the wall. She looked at her watch—2:00 a.m. She thought that was just a few minutes from when she’d arrived at the clinic, but wasn’t sure. She stayed very still, very quite, listening.

  Yes, she remembered. She had heard some rustling. Shuffling. She had known there was someone in the clinic and had gone into the hall when bam! That was that.

  Now all was quiet. But there was no way she wanted to get slugged again. More important, she wanted to be sure the baby was okay. It appeared she hadn’t fallen on her stomach, but rather had slid down the wall and landed on her butt. It was once a tiny, bony butt, but now there was sufficient padding. She ran her hands in circular fashion around her swollen tummy and smiled at the sensation of kicking and wriggling. There was really no reason to fear for the health and safety of the baby. She would call her dad and Jim, be checked for concussion, but it appeared all was normal.

  With the exception of the Windle.

  She listened again. When she was sure there was no one about, she crawled into her office and got carefully to her feet. The phone was making that angry off-the-hook sound. She put it back in the cradle and it instantly rang. She picked it up. “June Hudson.”

  “Where have you been?” Jim demanded. She could hear the sound of his truck in the background and knew he was driving.

  “Here. Someone broke in and slugged me. Knocked me out.”

  “What?” he yelled into the phone.

  “I’m okay. Are you coming? Because the river is flooding and I have to call Tom. And my dad. And—”

  “Who slugged you?” he demanded hotly.

  It was the first time she had heard anger in his voice since she’d met him. He was enraged. She hadn’t thought before telling him. She should have realized, the way he felt about her, about the baby…

  “Who? Who?”

  “Oh, Jim, I don’t know. Someone was in here. Broke in. I didn’t realize it. I never saw him…I assume it was a ‘him.’ But I’m all right. And I’ll call my dad and have him check me for a concussion, but I don’t think I have one. Jim…the baby’s moving. It’s all right. Just come.”

  “I’m coming,” he said, sounding calmer.

  Then she made her calls, getting her dad out of bed, learning that Tom was already on his way, and sounding the alarm. The river is up, she told them. We’re coming, they said.

  She went to find an ice pack for her head, and when she turned on the lights she saw that the clinic had been ransacked. Someone looking for money or drugs or both, she reasoned. Holding an ice pack to the back of her head, she went to the lavatory in the reception area. The linen cupboard was still closed, still locked. She smiled to herself. That was where they hid the small amount of narcotics and cash they kept in the office. Every morning before patients arrived, they took the strong boxes out and left the toilet paper, facial tissues and tampons in the little closet. Every night they put the strong boxes back and locked it up. Who would look for drugs and cash in the patients’ bathroom?

  She heard the whoop-whoop of the police car outside. She was afraid to look, afraid to see how high the water was.

  Eighteen

  Grace Valley was an amazingly beautiful place. It had rich soil, majestic mountains covered with tall, lush trees and miles of gorgeous ocean coastline. It was like heaven—as long as it didn’t flood or burn. While the unseasonably warm temperature melted the mountain snow, the rains came. And came, and came, and came.

  When June went to the front door of the clinic and stepped outside, she saw that the water was up to the back door of the café. Deputy Lee Stafford was parked right in front of the clinic with his spotlight shining on the water. It resembled a lake, but there was that rushing sound. Back where the actual river flowed, where Sam and others liked to drop an occasional line, it was surging like white-water rapids. The water on the lawn and parking lot was its overflow.

  Lee would be calling all the agencies—police, fire, flood control, parks and rec, forestry, fish and game, California Highway Patrol, County Sheriff.

  She went back inside and, still holding an ice pack on the back of her head, called George and Sam and Burt Crandall—all of whom had their businesses on Valley Drive. Then she called Judge, Bud Burnham, Robbie Gilmore, Daniel Culley and, after a slight hesitation, Chris and Nancy. “Nancy, the river’s up. It looks like it’s reached the café and church already. Your house is high up and should be all right, but please send Chris. We’re going to need help here.”

  “June, where are you?”

  “I’m at the clinic. Please send him. I should make more calls.”

  “Right away. And you be careful.”

  The hanging up of the phone and the opening of the back door seemed to come simultaneously. She knew from the heaviness of the footfalls that it was Jim, not Elmer. He seemed to fill the frame of the door to her office. She nearly gasped aloud as she noted the vest and guns. “What are you made up for?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. For whoever popped you. Let me see,” he said, lifting her chin. “You’re getting a little purple.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not what hurts. I hit the back of my head on the wall. I have a goose egg,” she said, pressing the ice against it again. His hand covered her stomach. “The baby seems fine,” she said. She covered his hand with hers. “See? He moves all around. He’s never still.”

  “Like Mo.” He pulled her close and hugged her. “Stop scaring me, June.”

  In all her years o
f taking care of the town she knew that people cared about her. Cared deeply. And worried over her, too. And of course there was Elmer and Myrna, always checking to be sure she was all right. Tom and the boys looked out for her, too. But she had never had anything like this.

  She put her arms around his neck, pressed herself into his hard vest. She rubbed her cheek against his rough one. There was no mistaking it—he loved her devotedly. With everything he had. As she loved him.

  She pulled away a little. “Are you going to shoot many people tonight?” she asked.

  “Do you have a cabinet or drawer that locks?”

  “They should be safe in my lower desk drawer. And there will be lots of people around, trust me. Have you seen the river?”

  “I didn’t even look. Where’s your truck?”

  “Right outside,” she said.

  “Right outside where?”

  “Right outside the back—”

  He was shaking his head.

  “Oh, man, he stole my truck. It has lots of stuff in it. First aid stuff, oxygen, blankets… Oh, brother!”

  Elmer came in the back door and went straight to her office. The first thing that filled his eyes was Jim, armed. “Now, that looks the part of a fed.”

  “A what?” Jim asked.

  “Oh, stop it. Everyone knows you’re a fed. No one minds that you don’t want to admit it, but give me a break. We know how you met June, sneaking around, getting her pregnant, right before that pot raid in the mountains.”

  Jim’s eyebrows shot up. Then his mouth twisted in a cynical line and he glanced at June. She shrugged. “What can I say? Welcome to your town. And go ahead, try to have a private life.”

  Elmer looked June up and down while shrugging out of his jacket. “So. You fell, you say?”

  “Not exactly, Dad. I came here to meet Katie Granger, who was having an asthma attack. I heard someone shuffling around in here and when I went into the hall, bam! I got slugged in the jaw. Here,” she said, lifting her chin.

  He touched the chin. “You lose consciousness?”

  “Briefly. Minutes. Maybe seconds. I hit the back of my head on the wall. When I woke, I was sitting up, leaning against the wall. I didn’t hit my stomach, I don’t think. It feels fine and the baby is active.”

  His fingers went around to the back of her head. “Nice goose egg,” he said.

  “Is that a medical term?” Jim asked.

  “Let’s look at your eyes,” he said, leading the way to an examining room. “You feel okay? Headache? Nausea? Dizziness?” Then, when he saw that cupboards had been emptied all over the floor, he said, “Damn hoodlums.”

  “My goose egg throbs. I’ve been keeping ice on it. Dad, did you see the river?”

  “Yeah. We’re in serious trouble, I think. Jump up here,” he said, indicating an examining table.

  “I left my truck running with the headlights facing the café and the lake behind it. Whoever hit me took it. Minus one more truck. I seem to be losing about two a year.”

  “Expensive trend. Squeeze my fingers. Push against my hand,” he instructed as he proceeded to give her a simple neurological test. “You’re good. And I’m sure the baby’s fine, but I’ll defer to John. He may want to do a routine ultrasound just because you lost consciousness.”

  “We need to reach John and tell him the river’s up and the clinic may be in jeopardy….”

  Jim wandered out of the examination room, sensing both that they were nearly done and that he should divest himself of his guns and armor. He went back to June’s office, where they would be locked up and from there he heard the sounds of vehicles. Large vehicles. He looked outside and saw headlights bouncing around the street and buildings.

  He called Annie to tell her that June was fine, but that there was a problem with the river being too high and they would probably be at the clinic a lot longer. He didn’t want to worry his sister; he wasn’t sure he even knew what to worry about.

  They came throughout the night, first the townsfolk and farmers. They brought whatever they had, from shovels to plows. Flatbed trucks were stacked with burlap bags and piled with sand. Standard Roberts brought all the sand and clay he could spare from his nursery. Then came the forestry and fish and game departments, their trucks stacked with emergency flood equipment. And, as dawn approached, the National Guard came from Fort Bragg.

  June refused to leave the town as long as she felt all right, though she couldn’t do much to help. It didn’t take Jim long to leave her side and join the others in sandbagging right in back of the café. Once there were flatbed trucks and floodlights, George and his sons took a few large panes of glass out of the front of the café and began moving heavy equipment out—stoves, coolers, grills, pans, dishes, glassware—everything they could get out before it was too late. It was all driven the short distance to Sam’s garage and kept there.

  From her place on the clinic’s front steps June could see her friends and neighbors at work alongside flood control personnel. She knew just about every truck, van and car parked along Valley Drive. Upriver, in the foothills, there were more crews trying to stave off and divert the flooding. And down-river the highway department was busily putting up barricades on patches of road that were underwater.

  She saw Ricky Rios bring Frank Craven and two of his younger brothers to town, followed shortly by Lincoln Toopeek with four young Toopeeks. Hal Wassich had mobilized his entire family, and Mike Dickson and his father-in-law arrived with a Bobcat backhoe on a trailer.

  The Highway Department brought truck after truck of sand, dumping it as close to the water as possible without risking that it could get swept up in the stream and washed away before being bagged.

  The next thing June saw brought a hiccup of emotion to her breast. Coming toward her, with a hood over her head, was her new best friend. Smiling. Her eyes alive and mischievous. “Boy, what some people will do to get out of sandbagging,” she teased.

  “Nancy! How long have you been here?”

  “As soon as I woke Chris I realized that, if we could just get the boys to Judge and Birdie’s, I could help. Birdie’s not going to be out here, but—” she looked over her shoulder “—Judge wouldn’t be kept away.”

  June reached out for her. “Oh, God, I’m glad you’re here! How far down is the river flooded?”

  “They’re saying all the way down to where 482 crosses Valley. The café and church are in some danger, but unfortunately they’re evacuating a lot of houses along the riverside. And you know the houses as well as I do—not very substantial ones. They could be lost before morning.”

  “Where are they taking the people they evacuate?”

  “To the high school. And look,” Nancy said, indicating the church. “They’re pulling out the pews…and everything that isn’t nailed down. The basement is underwater already. Listen, I have to get back to work, but I told Jim to bring the big coffeepot from the café over here and get it cranked up. Okay?”

  “Sure. Good idea.”

  Nancy gave her a quick hug. “You sure you feel okay?” she asked. “Should you be sitting?”

  “I feel fine. The baby’s finally quieted down for a while.”

  “Maybe you should go to the back and lie down, see if you can catch a snooze.”

  “With all this going on?” June asked. “Don’t worry. I’m used to not sleeping. And I imagine I’ll be getting even more used to it when the little one arrives.”

  Soon John and Susan appeared, carrying the sleeping Sydney to one of the recovery room beds. Because of their presence, June was forced to lie down for fifteen minutes out of every hour to give her swollen ankles some relief. John and Susan didn’t dare shovel or bag sand—John couldn’t afford to risk injury to his hands, and Susan, it seemed, had a touch of pregnancy and was forced into the rest position with June once in a while. But fortunately, for the sake of the passage of time, there was lots of cleaning up to do around the clinic, which was still a mess from its ransacking. In the early hours o
f the morning Jessie arrived to help put away supplies and files that had been scattered.

  Dawn came and so did the people, from neighboring towns and rural areas surrounding Grace Valley. Army engineers supervised the sandbagging and dam building, but no matter how hard they worked, the river kept rising. The Red Cross came from Garberville with a couple of lunch wagons they parked at the end of the street. They gave coffee, water and sandwiches to anyone who wandered over. Then came the high school and even the junior high students, ready to work to keep the river from taking over the town.

  Annie called and begged that June have someone come for them; they were four able bodies and couldn’t stand being stuck at home, doing nothing. “Pack up some leftovers, make some sandwiches, empty out the fridge if you have to. The Red Cross has brought food, but if we can feed ourselves here in the clinic, it would help. Dress warmly and as waterproof as possible. My front hall closet has some rain gear. My bedroom closet is full of jeans and sweatshirts I can’t get into, and boots that might work for you and Tracy…and even Mo if his feet haven’t gotten too big yet. And bring every plastic trash bag I have. I’ll give you an hour to do all that, okay? Oh, and would you please feed Sadie so you can bring her, too? I don’t want to leave her another whole day.”

  June took Jim’s truck with the double cab. Annie had made an impressive run through June’s kitchen and put together a picnic that would bring big healthy smiles to the faces of the clinic staff. Then June watched Jim’s family walk across the street to the new bank of the river. Jim paused and leaned on his shovel, watching them come. From where she stood she could see the sentimental look on his face. He opened his arms to hug them, each one, before passing them on to a job.

  Throughout the day they worked while June watched helplessly from the clinic. If it weren’t for the few minor injuries brought to her attention, she would have felt even more useless. At midafternoon Tom Toopeek came to the clinic. “We found your truck, June. It was Conrad Davis who broke in here, I guess. Conrad who hit you.”