Stony River

by Ciarra Montanna

  Totally dejected, she wriggled through the window far enough to extract the keys, and began her trek toward distant civilization. But she hadn’t gone very far when she saw a vehicle coming toward her. To her utter joy and astonishment, it was Trick. Trick, too, had a big smile across his red-whiskered face, as if the sun of good fortune had burst full upon his path.

  “Hey, Sevana, what’s up?” He came bounding out of his truck.

  “I got on the wrong road, and now I’m afraid my truck has a flat tire and it’s blocking the way,” she said forlornly.

  Trick took one look ahead and grinned. “Ah, the famous Billy Goat Mile. Like our roads?”

  “This one’s absolutely terrible!” she gave vent to her frustration. “There should be a sign posted at the beginning, cautioning motorists that they are about to get themselves in a lot of trouble and not to even think about taking that road.”

  “That’d be a pretty long sign.” Trick was still grinning. “And not necessarily true. I’ve driven it before and didn’t get into trouble.”

  “But you could have,” she argued. “Anybody can see it’s not safe, with part of it fallen away like that, and all those sharp rocks.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit—it’s one of our worst. And it slides no matter how many times they fix it. But it’s part of our mountain life, and we do so like it here, don’t we, Sevana?” He said it as one for whom the romance of the backcountry had worn off a long time ago—providing it ever existed. But Sevana swallowed her protests then, because she did like it there. Whatever came with living in those heavenly looking, wickedly steep mountains, she would just have to learn to accept it.

  Despite the intellectual deficiencies attributed him by Fenn, Trick knew exactly what to do in that situation. He backed and parked his pickup out of the way, then tossed off a few of the bigger rocks and drove her limping truck through the slide to a place wide enough to change the tire. After putting on the spare, he fearlessly turned the truck around, inch by calculated inch.

  “Trick, you are a godsend,” Sevana said fervently when he slid out to let her take the wheel again. “I would never have had the courage to turn around there.”

  “’Twasn’t nothing,” he said unimpressively, aiming a stream of tobacco juice at the open air above the drop. “Once I had to do a sixteen-point turnaround. This was only eight.”

  “How did you happen to be on this road just when I needed you?” she wanted to know.

  “They’re sending me across the drainage to get a better view of the fire.”

  “I didn’t see you at fire camp last night.”

  “I’ve been at spike camp. You mean I missed you? Drat it all.” He smacked his forehead remorsefully, then looked inspired. “Say, want to keep company with me today while I play lookout? I won’t have much to do.”

  “I’d like to,” she assured her benefactor. “But I’ve got to get to Cragmont and have Fenn’s tire fixed before he finds out. In fact, would you please never, ever, mention to him that I took his truck through the Billy Goat Mile?”

  “If you’ll go to a movie in Nelson with me,” Trick said promptly, further discrediting Fenn’s estimate of his mental alacrity.

  “Of course I will,” said Sevana graciously, for what else could she say to the one who had saved her very skin? She stuck out her hand. “Trick, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”

  “It’s not often I get to rescue a beautiful woods-goddess.” He held her hand for longer than necessary. “I’ll be around for you after the fires are out.” The way he said it gave the impression he was thinking of collecting her for something more significant than a two-hour movie.

  Sevana didn’t want to drive through the slide again, but Trick moved a few more rocks and told her to just go slow, she’d be all right. He would do it for her, except she needed to gain confidence for next time when he wasn’t there. So she held her breath and did it on logic alone, even though her side of the truck was hanging so far out in space she could look clear down to the bottom of the canyon. On safe ground again, she stopped and waved jubilantly to Trick, who stood to see her safely through.

  The owner of the Cragmont mechanic shop was able to help her right away. He recognized the truck, so she had to explain her relationship to Fenn. Hearing this, the mechanic smoothed his slicked-back hair with interest. “I heard you were living out there. How’s it going?”

  Here it was again. Sevana had to swallow down her resentment at being the subject of the town’s gossip. “Very well, thank you,” she said, a trifle stiffly.

  “Really?” He probed her with his deep-set stare. “Well, that’s good. Some folks seemed to think you’d be back here looking for a ride out of town within a week…but looks like you proved them wrong.” He gave the impression he’d been strictly on the side against such erroneous judgment, which Sevana highly doubted was the case. But when she remembered how she had almost lived up to their expectations, she knew she couldn’t hold it against any of them.

  While she waited outside for him to do the work, Fenn’s former girlfriend surprised her by coming across the street in jeans and a bright floral shirt. She looked very pretty but cautious as she nervously moistened her lips. “Say—Sevana?”

  “Oh, hi—”

  “Melanie.” She flipped back her glinting length of rich red-gold hair and glanced toward the truck. “Is Fenn—?”

  “No, he’s out fighting fire.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I heard it was pretty bad.” Her laugh had a tremulous edge. “Well, tell him I said hi.”

  “I will. Say—Melanie, if you’d like to come out for a visit sometime…”

  Her long, brown lashes fluttered over green eyes. “Oh, thank you. But I really don’t think it’d be a good idea. You know—” her hand flitted out helplessly, “the way things turned out…it was my fault. I didn’t realize the way I felt until it was—too late.”

  She began to walk away, but from the distance now between them she turned and called back in a more confident way than before: “Tell him I climbed Eaglehead Dome.” There was a jaunty curve to her mouth, as though she couldn’t resist the pride of wanting him to know. “Solo.”

  “You’re a rock climber?” Sevana wanted to make sure she understood her.

  “Yes. It was my first solo climb. And it was such a kick.” Her face had come alive. “It was Fenn who encouraged me to get into it to start with. I took him on a couple of climbs. He’s a natural.” Her exuberance faded, and she fell awkwardly silent.

  “I’ll tell him, Melanie,” Sevana promised, sorry for the distress the other girl was obviously feeling. “And congratulations on your climb.”

  “Thanks, Sevana.” She walked away, carrying herself with the quick energy of a vivacious personality. Sevana liked her. She should try to persuade Fenn to look her up—not that she had any sisterly power over him. But she could drop a few hints.

  The tire was soon repaired, the mechanic paid and fervently blessed, and Sevana was on her way home, thanking the stars above that Fenn would never have to find out she had grounded his truck.

  Past the narrows, all pressure gone from the day, she adopted a sightseeing mode and stopped in a turnout to walk back and look at the Devil’s Ladder. With the river at low levels, the rapids ran in clear sheets over the stair-step slabs of rock—still impressive, but lacking their noisy thunder. Driving further up the canyon, she spied the warden’s truck parked at a bend and pulled over beside it. Mr. Radnor was down on a little sand beach, releasing the otters into a pool.

  When she went down to meet him, there was only one otter left to be set free. She looked into the cage and the bright-eyed animal looked back. “At least he was humane,” Randall remarked, in acceptance of her presence there. He toted the last cage to the water, and the otter took a smooth plunge to join the other three already swimming and diving in the river. “They were fed and treated well. I might go easier on him because of it.”

  A
fter the cages were empty, Randall’s tense manner relaxed as much as it ever did. Watching the otters play in their new freedom, he said analytically: “I can’t fault that trapper for laziness. After he was spotted, he must have decided to move his operation across the river. I’ll admit I spent most of my time looking on the accessible side. Of course I didn’t have any concrete proof such a person existed. And quite frankly, I didn’t think anyone would be ambitious enough to scale these mountainsides and walk miles of untrailed riverbank. He was pretty smart, and he might have gotten away with it. It was only the trap you found that led me to seriously believe he was working the other side.”

  “What about that camp you found up Alder Creek? Was it part of the operation?”

  “That was a false lead. I caught up with the fellow, questioned him. He was a hydrology student collecting stream data for his thesis, and didn’t have a car. One of his buddies dropped him off.”

  Sevana smiled. “I can see why he had you fooled.”

  “Yes; I didn’t tell him he’d been under suspicion.” Randall, too, gave a smile that fought his stern aspect. He had gotten used to her, so he could meet her eyes without veering away. “In this job you have to suspect; you have to be watching all the time, trying to put things together.”

  Sevana wondered if that was his way of apologizing for the insinuations he’d dropped about her brother. She decided not to bear a grudge. After all, she had concocted her own mistruths about Fenn. With embarrassment she recalled the scene she’d made when she found that marten fur.

  “Well, I’ve got paperwork to do.” He was on the move again, aware of time passing while his feet were standing unproductively in one spot. He shook her hand formally. “Thank you again, Sevana. I’ll be in touch about the reward.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m putting you down as the informant.”

  Her eyes widened. “But you’re the one who found the poacher.”

  “It was your discovery of the trap that led me to look in the right place. They’re not going to give me a reward, Sevana—understand? It’s my job.”

  She nodded a bit uncertainly. “In that case…could you use Fenn’s name instead of mine?”

  He was in a hurry, and yet he must be sure of the facts—if one was not careful to be accurate, it resulted in more time wasted in the long run. “Fenn said you were the one who found it,” he said patiently.

  “Yes, but he was the one who identified it and made the call. And—I’d like Fenn to get the money.”

  “Well, yes…I can arrange that.” He appeared to think it an odd request, but he wasn’t the type to pry into personal matters. He jotted a note in his book lest he forget the item with so many other details to attend to.

  Sevana drove home euphoric because the very thing she’d wished for had come about: she had helped Fenn a step closer to paying off his debt.

  But Fenn wasn’t there to learn of his good fortune—nor had he returned when a week had gone by. Sevana found it very hard to wait and wonder without any word from him. Her only consolation was that she could ride Trapper when and wherever she liked—and that she did, pursuing a lively course, for there was much she wanted to see. At any time she could be found resident in the high pasture, or galloping along the river road, or dreaming by the slow-moving river. Wherever she went she found beauty—beauty that often startled her with its intensity. Minute by minute she discovered new pictures, if only it could have been possible to paint so many and so fleeting the scenes that met her eyes. And in her heart was a feeling so deep and sharp it cut like pain—as if she’d been asleep all her seventeen years, and only now was life breaking in on her with all its color and light, dazzling her with it.

  The more time she spent outdoors, the more at ease she felt there—at ease, and something else. In the absolute serenity of the cedar grove, she was convinced she was not merely imagining an invisible energy behind those mighty monoliths. Ancient forces were present that were bigger than her, stronger than her. Within that solemn shrine, she could believe more definitely in a power greater than anything else—whether it was God or the primeval spirits of the giant trees or some other force, something mystical stood back of that timeless quiet.

  The only time the solitude was still her enemy was after dark. Due to the friendly nature of the timid elk she startled occasionally on the trail, the less timid deer who wandered frequently through the yard, and the coyote she’d caught standing at the edge of the homestead looking so much like a lost little dog that she set out pancakes for it (to the delight of the ravens who promptly made off with them), she had stopped packing the gun she’d paid such a price to earn. That, and because toting the unwieldy piece detracted so much from her enjoyment of walking. Maybe most of all, it was just that she had grown so used to the place, it no longer seemed a strange and frightening environment. But alone in the house at night, she kept the gun by her bedside.

  But even then, she was no longer afraid as she once had been, when she’d lain awake far into the night waiting for something to break the silence. The silence now seemed too strong, too hypnotic, to be broken by anything. She came to count on it—even to need it. The peaceful land, the constantly flowing river, the sun and moon taking their set turns in the sky—there was nothing to disturb her. So when someone knocked on the door one evening just before dark, her only joyous thought was that Fenn was safely home, and she ran down to unlock the door, throwing it open. It was someone she didn’t know.

  In her nightshirt she stared at the man, unable to think what to do. Right off he started talking. Said Fenn owed him some money and he wanted it now. Said he was supposed to be paid in town last week and Fenn hadn’t shown up.

  She felt relieved. It was a simple thing. She told him Fenn had been gone for almost two weeks fighting fire.

  The man said he didn’t care where he was, he wanted the two hundred—now—tonight.

  She frowned, uneasy because he hadn’t gone away. She asked what the money was for.

  For whatever she wanted to think. Now where was it?

  Sevana knew where Fenn kept his money. If Fenn really did owe the man, that was one thing. But what if she gave his money to someone who turned out to be a robber?

  She made a quick decision. “I’ll get it for you. Wait here.” She went upstairs and got her own money from her father. At least Fenn couldn’t yell for giving away his. She also put on her jeans and a work coat of Fenn’s hanging there, and into the baggy pocket she slipped the revolver. Then she went down to face the stranger again. He had come into the house and was eyeing the muzzleloader on the wall. He was stocky for his diminutive height, his thin hair pulled back in such a tight ponytail that it gave a slant to his close-set eyes. She handed him the bills and he counted them.

  “All here.” He put it in his wallet. Now that he had his cash, his attention shifted to her. “You his sister?”

  She nodded, hoping he would say he was a friend of Fenn’s. He didn’t.

  “I heard about you. Loggers at the Whiskyjack talking about the prettiest little girl to ever come up the river. I hear they didn’t have much luck with you though. Maybe with big brother gone, it’d be easier.”

  “You’ve got the money, now please go.” Her voice came out clearer and sharper than she expected.

  “I think Fenn owes me a little back-interest on this money, don’t you?” He was coming toward her.

  “Get out.” She took out the gun and cocked it a little blindly—but as it clicked obligingly into position, she pointed it at him with both hands.

  The man looked at her seriously. “I’m leaving. You don’t have to get so riled up.”

  “If you come around again I’ll shoot you on the spot.” The words sounded so foreign to her ears she couldn’t believe she was saying them.

  He vanished into the night. Afraid he would come back unless she proved she wasn’t bluffing, she fired once, carefully, toward the treetops. The man took off in his truck like he believed her
.

  After he was gone, she put the gun on the table and wrapped her arms around her quivering middle. She, who hated violence of any kind—who had once walked out of a crime drama a group of her friends had gone to with some boys from the other school—she had pulled a gun on a man. She hadn’t known what fear could make her capable of.

  The weather turned cooler, there was some rain. And one night coming back from the chores at the barn, she thought she heard the low rumble of a motor and the faraway slam of a car door. She stopped still, listening hard. The motor died away. Instead of going inside, she continued to stand peering into the twilight—thinking of Fenn, but also the man who’d come for the money. Nothing stirred. Then out of the shadows came trudging a husky figure she instantly recognized, his cumbersome gear slung over his back. With a glad cry she ran and threw herself against his bulky form. “Oh Fenn, you’re home!”

  “Gad, Sevana, what’s the meaning of this?” he demanded roughly. He cast her aside and strode on to the house, leaving her to catch up on her own.

  In the house she was amazed at his appearance. His face was so dirty that the whites of his eyes stood out in freakish contrast, and his clothes were the same brown color. His hair was matted close to his head, and he smelled overpoweringly of smoke. He dropped the pack by the door and collapsed on the nearest chair.

  “How was it? Why were you gone so long?” she asked, hurrying to get him some food.

  “Fire kept getting away from us,” he said, unlacing his bootstrings mechanically. “On the line three days before they brought in a crew to help us. Don’t know what we would have done if it hadn’t rained.” He pulled off a boot and let it drop to the floor with a thud. “How’s my truck?”