Beautiful Dead 04 - Phoenix

by Eden Maguire

  ' Darina, before you go, I want to give you and your dad the latest news on Foxton,' Jardine said, real casual.

  Ignoring the factual error over the relationship between me and Jim, I hit the mental brakes and slammed into reverse on my decision to leave.

  'What do you mean? What happened?'

  'Hey, nothing exactly happened - not yet. But I'm letting people know that I drove out there with Sheriff Kors.'

  I tried hard to keep my voice steady. 'You did?'

  'You know how it is - they say a new broom sweeps clean, don't they? Danny is picking over recent big events in town, studying the deaths of the kids from El erton High. He's been listening to rumours about Foxton Ridge.'

  'Same old, same old,' I muttered. I was expecting Beautiful Dead wings in the air above my head any time now - Hunter's way of warning me to take extreme care. 'I guess you and Sheriff Kors came back empty-handed.'

  Jardine studied me closely. 'Kind of. For some reason we both felt a little shook up afterwards. It sure is pretty up there though.'

  ' I like the place,' I admitted. Jardine already knew I spent time on the ridge, so I wasn't giving anything away. So far, no wings - I must be doing

  OK.

  'Laura and I wish Darina didn't visit,' Jim butted in. 'It's too far out of town. And they say it's haunted.'

  'They? Who's they?' I laughed.

  'We didn't see any ghosts.' Jardine seemed to agree with me, thank God. 'It's kind of windy up there you get weird weather. And those stories mess with your head if you let them.'

  'Not with mine,' I insisted.

  'Wel , it's not just the rumours,' Jim went on like a dog at a bone. 'We worry there might be squatters undesirables, low-lifes.'

  I glared at him. Drop the topic!

  'No ghosts and no squatters either,' Jardine reported. 'We found campers down at the Government Bridge campground and a couple of hikers up by Angel Rock.'

  'Happy now?' I asked Jim.

  'But I agree with your dad - it's not a place I'd be comfortable for any kid of mine to visit,' the deputy sheriff added.

  Thanks, Henry!

  'It's too far off the beaten track, like you say, Jim. And, ghosts or no ghosts, it is kind of spooky. We didn't see any sign of civilization out there, but we thought we heard a door bang in the wind, maybe heard voices ... '

  'What did I tel you?' Jim crowed.

  'We could've sworm we heard them,' Jardine said, al the time keepin02 his eyes fixed on me. 'I'm thinking maybe Danny wil want to take another drive out there before too long.'

  I swal owed hard, said nothing. Hunter, are you listening to this?

  'What do you reckon, Darina? Should the sheriff pay a second visit?' 'I real y couldn't say.'

  'You never came across the voices, a door banging nothing like that?' 'Nothing.'

  'No campers, no hunters holed up in an old shack hidden in the val ey?' 'No.'

  Jardine nodded briefly then turned to Jim. 'You want my advice? I'd say keep Darina away from the place - leastways until Danny checks it out with

  the National Forest people.'

  'I hear you,' Jim said.

  Now I was out of there fast, heading for my car. These guys thought they had the right to restrict my movements. How old did they think I was, for Christ's sake!

  One bad thing can lead to a good. I would never have headed for the mal if I hadn't have wanted to avoid the conversation at home with Laura and Jim,

  which would go like this:

  Jim: Darina, take Henry Jardine's advice stay away from Foxton! Laura: You hear, Darina?

  Jim: Answer your mom when she asks you a question. Laura: Stay away from Foxton, please!

  Jim: Else we '11 take away your car keys; we'l ground you!

  Not so much a conversation, more a set of orders shrieked into my ear.

  So I cruised the parking lot at the mal to give them time to wind down after Jim's talk with Jardine. And that's when I got lucky and ran into Jacob

  Mil er a second time.

  I saw him from a distance, climbing into the back seat of an old black Chevy. He didn't notice me and the Chevy driver didn't give me more than a couple of seconds to identify the passenger sitting next to him in the front

  - a younger kid with light-brown hair. I only caught the profile, but it was definitely enough to recognize Zak Rohr.

  Of course I tailed them.

  It's not easy to stay incognito in a car as bright red and shiny as mine. P had to hang back and hope the Chevy driver didn't check his overhead mirror too many times as he left the parking lot and headed out of town towards Forest Lake. Luckily it was rush hour and there was plenty of

  traffic.

  We drove for ten minutes, stopping at lights, cruising past the KFCs,

  Cracker Barrels and Dunkin' Donuts lining the route. Then the Chevy turned off to the right into a district where old trailer homes were scattered amongst the pine trees and where broken trucks without wheels stood on piles of bricks and skinny dogs barked in dirt yards.

  Great neighbourhood, I thought, watching as the car I was tailing pul ed up outside a derelict trailer and the four occupants stepped out. I decided to park out of sight a hundred metres back then approach on foot through some trees.

  Up ahead I heard Taylor and Jacob tel ing Zak to relax and take it easy. 'What's bugging you, dude?' Taylor wanted to know. 'We've been here a hundred times. The place is a dump no one has lived here in a long time.'

  'Yeah, I know.' Zak seemed to hang back as the driver went ahead, carrying a blue sports bag into the trailer. From behind a tree I spotted Zak stil nervously checking things out.

  'Zak, you want a beer?' Jacob cal ed from inside.

  Buying and consumption of alcohol - not one of those kids was legal, except maybe the dark-haired driver, who looked twenty, maybe twentyone. And I worried what else might be in that bag.

  'Sure,' Zak replied, final y fol owing them inside.

  I crept closer, only stopping when the car driver came back out carrying a can and a white plastic chair. He set down the chair and sat, legs sprawled wide, taking long swigs at his beer, giving me plenty of time to take in his round, baby face, ful lips and stringy black hair.

  Soon Taylor emerged, carrying a smal plastic envelope. 'Hey, Nathan,

  what's the street value on this?'

  'Plenty.' Baby Face was quick to take the packet from Taylor and stash it away in his pocket. 'Listen, I only carry the stuff from point A to point B for

  my brother. I don't go into value.'

  'So how much does Oscar pay you?' Taylor sat on the trailer step, on1 64 to be shoved out of the way by Jacob, who threw an empty can down in the dirt and began to kick it around. Zak stayed inside - I could just make him out through the filthy window.

  'Plenty,' the driver, Nathan, said again.

  Nathan. Final y the name got through to me. Nathan. The Chevy driver was the kid at the gas station on the night ...

  So it's a common name, but my gut feeling was that I wasn't mistaken.

  And Oscar. You don't find too many Oscars in a town like El erton. The only one I knew was Oscar Thorne, the drugs dealer who'd been sitting at a table near me in the coffee shop at the mal when my best friend Summer

  walked into a hail of bul ets.

  The driver of the Chevy was Nathan Thorne, Oscar's younger brother. And the white powder in the packet stuffed into his shirt pocket was a Class

  A narcotic.

  I must have been careless. The tree I hid behind left colourful bits of me on view - my blue patterned shirt, flashes of silver jewel ery. Anyhow, Nathan Thorne suddenly spotted me. He stood up, tipping the chair against the trailer as I turned to run.

  I sprinted back through the trees, skirting around low thorn bushes, almost tripping, lunging forward, regaining my balance and running on.

  Behind me, Nathan yel ed at Jacob and Taylor to cut me off.

  I could see my car parked on the road, maybe twenty metres away.
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  Nathan was crashing through the undergrowth, gaining on me and I felt the

  way a deer must feel with hunters in pursuit heart pounding, lungs sucking in air, my whole system flooded with fear.

  Taylor and Jacob had fol owed orders and cut down onto the road,

  planning to reach my car before I did. It was neck and neck. Ten more steps, and then five - I arrived with seconds to spare, turned on the engine, sped away, making nought to sixty in four seconds flat. If Taylor and Jacob hadn't thrown themselves sideways, I would have driven right through them.

  I pointed my car for home and left them standing - Nathan, Jacob and Taylor by the side of the road, Zak watching from among the pine trees.

  66

  Henry Jardine takes his job seriously. He truly cares about the El erton community and the people he serves.

  That's the reason he was waiting for me at my house after he came off duty, long after it grew dark. He was out of uniform, having coffee with Laura and Jim in the kitchen. When I came in, he stood up to greet me and take me out onto the porch.

  'It's you I came to see,' Henry insisted, sitting on the swing and looking up at me.

  'Why, what did I do?'

  'Relax. You're not in any trouble. I just know there's an issue between you and your folks and it's been bothering me. I have a daughter your age, did you know?'

  'No.' Even though I was dead tired, I kept up my guard.

  'She's at school in Forest Lake, thank God.'

  'Why thank God?'

  He tapped the seat. 'Sit, Darina. I do thank Him every day that Anya isn't a student at El erton High. Parents here I can't even imagine the stress.'

  I sat down heavily then nodded.

  'And you kids. After Jonas, Arizona, Summer, Phoenix - you al must

  get to wondering who's next.'

  'You missed out Logan,' I reminded him. I don't often speak Logan's name because his dying and the way it happened hurts me almost as much

  as whenever I think about Phoenix.

  'Yeah, Logan Lavel e. Add him to the list,' Henry sighed. 'What I'm saying, Darina, is that it might look like your folks are taking a tough line over Foxton, but you can see why they do.'

  .

  Yeah, and I need another lecture.' I closed my eyes and set the swing in

  motion. 'I don't know why you're al so hung up on that place.'

  'Are we? Yes, I guess we are. Including you, Darina. Weren't you up

  there when Logan had his accident? Yes, you were the one who drove him to the hospital. No need to say anything if that upsets you. But last fal , I hear you were on the ridge the day Arizona Taylor's grandmother fel from her horse. And there have been other times too.'

  We swung slowly to and fro the chains creaked. ' So? I like it up there ss away from ... everything.'

  'And that's it? Because I wouldn't like to think you were getting sucked in by the rumours, that you go ghost-hunting in that wilderness.'

  'Please!' Suddenly my brain clicked into overdrive. I opened my eyes and slammed my foot onto the boards to stop the swing. 'If you real y want to know, I drive out to Foxton for a school history project. I'm researching

  the old cattle ranches of Shepherd County.'

  'Cattle ranches,' Jardine echoed, running a forefinger down his thick moustache.

  'Before the National Forest bought up the land and planted trees, this county made money on the back of cattle grazing.' Before I knew it, I was total y into my story, trying to convince Jardine that my interest in Foxton was legitimate.

  That's true,' he agreed. 'You wouldn't know this but I'm ancient enough to remember the last ranchers. They were already old-timers when I knew them in the nineteen sixties and seventies, with memories going back to the early nineteen hundreds. It was a tough life, bringing in steers from those mountains. The ranchers lived rough, rode al day, slept under the stars.'

  Satisfied with the way the conversation seemed to have drifted, I set my mind on quizzing Henry. ' So there were ranch houses in the val eys back

  then?'

  'Even as far out as Foxton Ridge. That's what I told Danny Kors the day I took him out there. Log cabins and shacks, probably gone now.

  Nature has a way of claiming back her territory, but maybe there are stil a few old barns hidden among the trees.'

  'Did you ever hear of a rancher out at Foxton by the name of Hunter Lee?' I asked.

  'Hunter Lee. You came across him in your research?'

  'In the old newspaper archive. There was a report of a murder.'

  'Sure, it was big news way back then. Hunter and Marie Lee. Peter Mentone shot Hunter Lee dead.'

  'I read about it. They hanged Mentone.'

  As things turned out, Jardine was a local-history nut himself. 'There was a baby girl born later that year. The belief was that she was Mentone's daughter, though Marie went to an early grave denying it.'

  Marie died?' I didn't even try to disguise the shock I felt. 67

  'When the little girl, Hester, was ten years old. Afterwards, Hester came to live here in town with her aunt, Marie's sister - a lady cal ed Alice Harper, as I recal .'

  'And?'

  'Alice Harper was a good woman. She raised Hester like she was her own, sent her to school then to col ege. Hester trained as a school teacher.'

  'Just like her mom,' I said.

  Jardine gave me one of his close, quizzing looks. 'You sure know your history,' he muttered. 'You're certain you never stumbled across any of those old ranch buildings out there by Angel Rock?'

  'I've been looking but I never saw any sign,' I swore.

  'When you do, remember to take photographs,' the deputy sheriff told me. 'Il ustrations for your history project,' he pointed out. 'A photograph is as good as a thousand words any day.'

  'You don't understand,' I told Laura early Friday morning. For two nights I hadn't slept and today I wasn't eating breakfast. Al I could focus on was finding Zak again, until Laura opened the mail and dropped the latest bombshel . 'No way am I leaving El erton.'

  'The house is sold,' she'd told me in a flat, final voice. There was a letter laid out on the table in front of her. 'This is from the realtor. Final y, we found a buyer, but we have to vacate before the end of the month.'

  'You and Jim can leave. I stay.'

  'That's not how it works. You're stil in school, you're my responsibility, remember.'

  'I don't want to leave town. You can't make me.' 'Darina ...'

  'You can't,' I told her, getting up from the table. We were six days from Phoenix's anniversary. This was the last thing I needed. 'I want to stay here!'

  What you want is not what you get. I ought to have learned that the day Phoenix died. The truth is, the more you want something, the more certain you are to lose it. It doesn't stop you wanting it anyway.

  Phoenix, stay with me, don't leave me here alone.

  Kim says it's how you deal with your loss that counts. 68

  I hold the lumpy black lava stone in my trembling palm.

  'Anger, 'Kim says. 'Deal with it. Who are you angry wwith?'

  'Everyone. Myself I'm angry with me. Phoenix wouldn 't have gotten into a fight if it hadn 't been for me. ' The stone is dark, rough, heavy.

  'Lay it on the table, Darina, 'she tel s me. 'Look at it long and hard. '

  Laura told me we were quitting El erton and I stormed out of the house. I was halfway down the drive when suddenly my wave of anger crested, broke and rippled onto the shore. I turned back. 'Mom, I'm sorry!' I sobbed.

  She stood waiting on the porch. She put her arms around me. 'Baby!' 'It hurts so much I wish I could die!'

  'Baby, baby, baby ...'

  Red-eyed and stil shaky, I drove over to the Rohrs' house. Too bad if Sharon was there.

  It turned out she wasn't, but Brandon was.

  'Hey, Darina, it's been too long.' He came out of the front door before I had a chance to knock.

  I knew right away that he wasn't about to let me in, that the a
tmosphere in the Rohr house was at an al -time low. 'That cut on your face - did you

  go to the hospital?'

  Brandon fingered the strips of dressing on his jaw then took my elbow and steered me back onto the sidewalk, where his Dyna stood gleaming in the morning sun. 'You want a ride?' he asked.

  No wasn't an option, so I slid onto the passenger seat behind him. Soon we were cruising through the streets, downhil past the old psychiatric hospital and the Baptist church on the road to Deer Creek. When I realized where we were headed, I got ready to deal with a thousand Phoenix memories. Phoenix sitting on a rock watching the clear water whirl and

  ripple. Phoenix with his arm around my shoulder, wading into the creek.

  Phoenix with the wind lifting his hair back from his face, staring up at the mountains.

  Brandon stopped right by the creek, overlooking a big smooth boulder in the middle of the stream - the exact spot where I'd waited for Phoenix the night he was kil ed. Brandon cut the engine and sat in silence, legs stil straddling his shiny silver-and-black machine. 69

  'Why are we here?' I asked.

  I'm waiting for Phoenix as the sun goes down. I wait a whole hour, playing a track from Summer's CD, wondering why didn't he at least take out his phone and cal . The sky turns red then grey then black. Logan shows up in his white Honda, says, 'There's a fight in town. A big one.

  Brandon's

  involved. So is Phoenix. '

  'It's almost a year,' Brandon said, stil staring at the clear water. 'Yeah.' Do I need you to tel me, do I real y?

  'Every day I wish I could turn back the clock.'

  I got off the bike and walked down to the water's edge. I remembered how we held the wake here, after the official funeral. Kids from El erton High decided to party, they said that's the way Phoenix would have wanted

  it - music in the open air, a celebration.

  It angered me. Nobody understood what Phoenix would have wanted except maybe me.

  After he died I'd seen him in school before I knew about the Beautiful Dead, then I saw Phoenix at his own funeral, smiling down on me in a halo of shimmering light. A glimpse and he was gone.

  Now Brandon joined me by the creek. For a long time after he said he wished he could turn back the clock he didn't say anything.