Deep River Burning

by Donelle Dreese

  “How did you do that?” Helena asked.

  “It’s magic,” he smiled.

  “How much money did you get?” Denver asked.

  “Fifty smackaroos, ladies. The burgers are on me.”

  “Josh, you’re unbelievable,” Denver said. “What did that guy say to you as he walked away?”

  “He said, ‘You’re an asshole.’” Josh paused. “He might be right.”

  “What if you would have lost?” Denver asked.

  “I never lose, not at pool, anyway. Everything else I lose, sooner or later,” he said as he glanced up at Denver.

  “What’s it like, Josh?” Helena asked.

  “What is what like?”

  “What’s it like to be that good at something?” Josh thought for a moment and then pointed to a man sitting by himself drinking a beer.

  “Do you see that guy over there by the restrooms? He’s waiting for a drug delivery. They always sit at the table by the restrooms. Within the next ten minutes or so, another guy will come in and sit down with him. They’ll pretend to be friends and talk about sports. After a few minutes of small talk, an envelope and money will be exchanged. They will both leave a few minutes after the exchange, but not together. When I play pool, I feel like the guy delivering the envelope. I’m the guy making money off of someone else’s gambling addiction.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Josh,” Helena said. “You have a real talent. You should play in tournaments. You could win trophies.”

  “Well, if I do, I will be sure to dedicate my first trophy to you.”

  Helena leaned forward and kissed Josh on the cheek to show her approval.

  Not all evenings at the pool hall ended with such enjoyment. Occasionally a fight broke out, usually related to the mine fire, and as the winter progressed into spring, the bowling lanes grew increasingly quiet. The lights were on, and the pins were set, but no one came to play. The smoke in the pool hall cleared and by March, it was a busy day if a few people came to play pool, often alone. By April, news circulated around town that Miller Lanes would soon close.

  The coming of spring brought with it the first anniversary of the mine fire, and the decision made by Ted Oakley to resign as chairperson of the town council. He had not made a formal announcement at that time but was waiting for the appropriate opportunity hoping that spring would lighten the mood in Adena and ease the bitterness that came with winter.

  With the summer months approaching, many people planned to follow the voluntary evacuation proceedings and leave Adena, and Denver thought about being one of them, but she wanted to finish college. She wanted to stay with her parents to help them move when it was time. Her mother was already heartbroken about losing friends and relatives to the evacuation, and she didn’t want to compound her mother’s sadness.

  Denver wanted an escape. She didn’t want to think about coal anymore, and she didn’t want to be part of the growing tension at home between her mother and father. They had always tried to hide their disagreements and problems from Denver, which only made matters worse for her because it meant days of silence. It meant endless hours of people living in the same house and behaving like strangers. She wished they would simply air out their grievances in a kind of domestic thunderstorm and then return to normal, refreshed by the rain. But their anger was like a long, dry cold spell. Quiet and punishing. She only guessed that they disagreed about the relocation efforts because they seemed to take opposing sides on almost anything. She barely wanted to admit to herself that this was something she loved about her parents, the way they usually found a way to meet in the middle.

  She decided to follow in the footsteps of her friend Josh and go camping for a few days by herself. She used to wonder why he always wanted to go alone. Wasn’t he lonely? Wasn’t he afraid? When she asked him about it, he replied by saying, “There is more to be afraid of sleeping in a house than sleeping in the forest, and there is too much going on in the woods to be lonely.”

  She borrowed Josh’s pack, pocket knife, and compass, and he gave her a crude sketch of a map of the forest surrounding Adena. She left early on a Friday morning. Josh drove her to the river where she boarded a small boat tied at the dock that belonged to her father. The river was beautiful. Whenever she was away from the river, if only for a short time, she missed the sight of it.

  The landscape changed very quickly and brightened as she traveled north of Adena. There was no history of mining there or coal dust lining the roads. She loved Desert Ring Island, and she was familiar with some of the territory, so she planned to spend her first night there, on familiar ground.

  As she paddled across the river, she felt herself come alive again with every swish of the oar against the clear current, and the fear and worry slowly unraveled from her body like a ribbon dismantling until it ended in a faint and floating sigh. Although it was still very early, she found a place to set up camp and studied the grounds so she would know the area well after dark. She walked most of the day, breathing in the sweet moist air. She only stopped to eat lunch and dinner, and when she did, she sat and watched the world unfold around her for as long as she wanted.

  There was no rush, no disquiet in her mind. Her senses absorbed the soft prowling of goodness that surrounded her, and she tasted the food that passed through her lips more fully than she ever had before. The trees reminded her of the ocean inhaling toward the shore and exhaling, the breath falling again in the sound of a soft whisper as it went back out to sea. She remembered Pilner’s cabin and decided not to go in that direction. The burdens continued to slip from her like a loose scarf and she wanted no reminders of her frightening experience at his cabin. Her mind returned to Josh. She wanted him there with her. He was not her boyfriend. In fact, they had moved apart like slow moving ships. Everyone thought they were very close, but from the shore, ships often look that way, as if they are very near to one another on the horizon line, when in fact, they are miles apart.

  As dusk approached, she built a fire from tree branches and boiled a small pot of water for dried soup. The flicker of the fire on the water in the distance grew brighter as darkness set in. She listened for hours for other boats coming across the river. She was too young to be so suspicious. She wanted to believe that the rite of passage into full adulthood did not have to entail such disillusionment and fear.

  She discovered that there are thoughts that go through one’s mind in a night forest where you become nearly blind. Other senses become sharp. You hear farther, smell more acutely, but also feel more intensely. Your sense of reality can become blaring headlights in a space where there is only a small flashlight between you and the multitude of glowing eyes that wonder what you are. She knew where she was that night in the forest, and that clarity made her realize she was absolutely lost.

  She got very little sleep that night. It took time to adjust to the night sounds. Like the moans of an old house, the sounds seem haunted until you get used to them and identify what they are. A little squirrel can make more noise at three o’clock in the morning than a freight train moving through town during a funeral mass. The crunching of the leaves as the animal steps echo within the canopy of trees, reverberate through the air like a candy wrapper unfolding in a library.

  She fell asleep for a while. She had just allowed her body to slip into the slight grooves in the ground beneath when she awoke suddenly to another sound. This noise came from the water. She thought a deer was getting a drink of water, or some geese were washing themselves. But she knew this sound. The rhythmic trickle of a long wooden oar gently swirling, making small whirlpools on the current. She fully awoke then. She didn’t move. She heard a small boat being pulled over the stones on the narrow shore. The scrape echoed over the water and back again. The footsteps beat mildly up the small hill where the trees that protected her began to thicken. In the soft glow of a half moon, she saw a figure,
standing at the edge of the forest, looking about, perhaps allowing the eyes to adjust to the darkening woods. She began to breathe again with her hand on her heart that pounded like a thousand frantic drums. “Joshua?” she called out. His head turned.

  “Denver? Where are you?”

  “To your left,” she replied. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know,” he responded. “I couldn’t stay away. I was worried about you.” He took a few small pieces of wood that were scattered about and threw them into the smoldering embers that steamed in the cool night air. The embers were still very hot and the wood caught fire, which illuminated a small circle of the night into a warm glow. He peered around with a look on his face that Denver had not seen before. He was totally at ease. He looked satisfied, peaceful, yet fully awake and alert. She sat motionless, studying him. It wasn’t just the surroundings that suited him so well, but also the night. He wore it well, like the troubles of life only came with the daylight, and this was his time of reprieve.

  “Well, you know I can take care of myself, Josh.”

  “Yes, I do know that, but the first night can be difficult.”

  “I suppose so,” she agreed.

  After a slight pause as the night wind blew lightly on their faces, Josh looked down at the leaves on the ground, and they both listened to the distant sound of tree frogs that echoed across the moonlit face of the Susquehanna. Sweetly and instinctively, Josh curled up next to her, and they slept the remainder of the night unafraid for each other and unafraid for themselves.

  They slept until late in the morning. Josh helped gather her things and put them back in the pack. She never knew he could be so well organized. There was a perfect space available for every bag, spoon, sock, and Kleenex laid out in a methodical arrangement in accordance to when or how often it was projected that she would need them.

  After helping her pack, Josh left to go back to Adena while Denver embarked on a small voyage around Desert Ring Island in search of the Susquehanna’s west bank. The island was fairly large, but it didn’t take long to get around it by boat. The air bore an eerie silence between the island and the west bank. The waterway was narrow allowing for the call of the crows to echo back and forth between the dense trees. Narrow passageways in life are fine for brief journeys but claustrophobic for long term.

  She pulled her boat up to the bank and walked for several hours on deer trails into the lush sea green world that held an abundance of wonder in all its wrappings. She couldn’t help thinking that she was surrounded by the essence of life, vibrating existence in its fullest expression, and how curious it is that humans have worked centuries to get as far away from it as possible. In the distance, she heard a light tapping noise that she thought was a woodpecker. As she moved closer to the sound, she knew that it was coming from another source, and her curiosity kept her following its tap.

  She walked tenderly through the trees and peered around a large evergreen tree that unveiled an old man sitting on a log working with a piece of wood. She did not expect to see anyone there. He looked like he was carving a wooden sculpture of some sort with a small but very capable pocket knife. He was a thin man with rough working hands, worn clothes, and a pony tail. He looked homeless, like a refugee. She wondered if he was a criminal. He didn’t take his eyes off the wood the entire time she watched him, but she could see the wrinkles on his face, which were long and deep. They reminded her of the sunken tracks on her grandmother’s face. She died very ill and since then, Denver had always associated wrinkles with illness. It’s no wonder there is a great fear of getting old. Acquiring wisdom in life means wearing the struggle of one’s journey on the face like a surrender flag. We should be proud of those wrinkles, Denver thought to herself. Physically, we are not like the river rocks that polish smooth over time.

  As the old man’s knife pointed into the wood to create a small hole in his sculpture, Denver felt a needle of pain shoot into her left arm. She involuntarily cried out a sound of surprise mixed with displeasure as she swatted away a fully grown wasp and its stinger. The old man’s glassy blue eyes quickly arose from their object of preoccupation and Denver returned his gaze with a look of part fear, part embarrassment that she was caught as his voyeur. She swallowed hard and looked at him intensely, waiting for a reaction from him. He didn’t seem moved or affected by her presence at all.

  “Why didn’t you just say hello?” he asked in a calm yet rough voice that had either spent a lifetime speaking too many words or was rusty from not speaking enough.

  “Well, I . . . just . . .”

  “Come. Let me see you.”

  She came out from behind the tree and slowly walked closer to him. She didn’t know if she was in danger or not, but she knew she could outrun him if she had to.

  “What is your name?” he asked still concentrating on his sculpting.

  “Denver Oakley.”

  “What brings you to this part of the world, Denver Oakley? There are many places you could be, but you are here in the middle of the woods watching how an old man spends his afternoon.”

  “I’m hunting rock samples for my college geology class,” she lied, feeling ashamed.

  “Are you from Adena?”

  “Why, yes, yes I am. I’m from near there, anyway.”

  He paused for a moment before saying, “Perhaps you are here for another reason then.”

  “Who are you?” she asked changing the subject.

  “Some people call me Pilner.”

  “Pilner? The Pilner that ostracized himself from society and now is supposedly either crazy, dead, or a ghost?”

  “I guess somebody has the story wrong. I’m certainly not dead, which means I also can’t be a ghost. And maybe I am crazy, though I’m not sure what that means. I will live longer than they will. They who kill themselves with their greed. They are empty like the tunnels beneath Adena that heave and collapse as we speak.”

  “So, you know about the mine fire?”

  “I do.”

  They looked at each other intently for a moment.

  “Is that your cabin, over on Desert Ring Island?”

  “It was until it was discovered by a group of men who were looking for a secret place to do things they didn’t want anyone to know about.”

  “Do you live out here alone?” she asked quietly.

  “I live out here, but I am not alone.” He paused for a moment and then said, “What is it that you want to ask?”

  “What makes you think I want to ask you something?”

  Pilner didn’t answer. Denver looked away into the swaying trees and wondered if Josh had ever run into this man.

  “I’ve seen too much suffering in your world,” he continued. “What is best for everyone is sacrificed for the personal gain of a few. There is abuse of children and old people, desperation and addiction. All these things I have left behind of my own free will.”

  “You are very brave.”

  “I am just an old man who made a choice.”

  Denver’s eyes narrowed as she thought about her own choices.

  “There was a young man with you. Where is he?” Pilner asked.

  “He was here a little while ago, but I wanted some time by myself . . . to sort through some things. At least there is no fire here,” she said, thinking to herself that running into the embodiment of the famed Mr. Pilner is nothing short of delightful serendipity, as if she had stumbled across a great secret thing. “How long have you lived out here, by yourself?” Denver sat down on a thick branch of a maple tree that must have fallen during a recent storm. The wood where the branch had cracked away from the tree looked clean and smelled fresh.

  “Since I was a young man. I was much more able-bodied then, but I still manage.”

  “What do you know about the mine fire?”

&nb
sp; “I know more than most of the people in Adena will ever know,” he said looking up from his wood carving.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was there. I was a bootlegger. Way back when no one had money. Hell back then, who wasn’t a bootlegger? The coal companies take the land, take all the coal, put you out of work, and then have nothing to say when they send you back to a cold house and nothin’ in your pockets but dirt. Adena would be nothing without the bootleggers. Some people considered them the heroes. They kept a lot of the coal and the money in the town. Then these big company men shipped the coal out to people who never heard of Adena. That’s how I got into it. We were just all trying to survive, and it felt better to do it on our own than being a slave to a company that didn’t care whether or not you had a pot to piss in.”

  “Didn’t the bootleg coal industry also ship the coal to other places?” Denver asked.

  “During its time, yes. There was enough coal to spread around then. The men took care of their families and neighbors first and then loaded the rest into trucks. Oh, the company coal dealers didn’t like it, but the bootleggers felt that they had just as much right to the coal as anyone else. I didn’t sleep much when I was young, and I used to walk the highway at night, and all night long the trucks would go back and forth. Full trucks leaving, empty trucks coming back in. What I want to know is, who gave just a few fat men the rights to all the coal? At one time it wasn’t so bad when there was leftover coal in the culm dumps. They broke it up and cleaned it off to make it look all shiny with the old processing. Before the machines, good coal was tossed away, and the people would pick the shiny coal out from the other rocks in the dumps. But the men still had their jobs then. When the mass processing began, the bootlegging became a way of life for half the town. Even the Catholic priests and police took the coal. Officials in coal towns were elected by bootleggers.”