Where the River Ends

by Charles Martin

  THE MOON THREW our shadow on the beach as I carried Abbie to the cabin. I unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was clean, quiet and smelled of cedar. I fumbled for the light switch and clicked it on. The entire one-room cabin had been built from cedar. The room was broken up into two halves. The living side consisted of a four-poster bed pushed up against one wall, a dresser and a toilet, sink and mirror. Function ruled, because there was no form. On the other side, looking out over the river through a floor-to-ceiling window, sat an artist’s studio. Three easels, several rolls of canvas, dozens of paints, brushes, knives and countless odds and ends needed by any artist. Evidently, the guy was a neat freak because everything was lined up and organized. All the paint labels were turned up and arranged alphabetically. I changed the sheets and tucked Abbie in bed.

  I spent several hours picking through his paints and stacks of pencil sketches that had been filed in a plastic bucket in the corner. They were “snapshots” of birds, tree limbs, leaves, fish, whatever could be seen out the window of this studio. Fingering through the desk and drawers of supplies, I tried to remember when the last time was that I had painted…anything. It’d been over three years.

  I stared out the window and tried to remember seeing this section of the river from the water. As many times as I’d been down it, I only had vague memories of passing through here. I could remember the S-turn upriver and the ninety-degree after that, followed by another long straightaway that ran for nearly a half mile before a hard left. I also remembered the way the water flowed faster along the Georgia side, but I had little recollection of seeing Bob’s house or cabin tucked up in the trees. Which was good. If we needed a place to hide out, this would work.

  Below the cabin, a blackwater creek flowed into the river. Abbie’s forehead was wrinkled and a blue vein throbbed on her right temple. I pulled the covers up under her nose, grabbed a flashlight and stepped out onto the porch. I stared up at the moon, over at the creek and down inside myself. I didn’t like what I saw so I climbed down the stairs and started walking up the creek bed.

  While the moon had been bright a few hours ago, it was beaming now. The bank was narrow and the water deep. The water had been running out of here a long time and, given the depth and naked roots, probably fast, which indicated a spring. River guides were always looking for fresh water—clients liked everything from swimming in it to looking for buried pirate treasure, and we liked the taste of sweet cold water. I stepped in and the water accepted me, climbing to my waist. The flow pushed gently against me, pulling at my clothes. It snaked inland, cut through the bluff and into a covered area that looked like it was once a pond. Now dry, the bed of it was populated in twenty or so mature weeping willows and birch trees whose bark had peeled like paper and now dotted the pond floor. In the middle sat a building.

  I ducked under the arms of the willows, its long green bows draping along my back, and made my way up a log walkway to the building. The logs had been cut in half and laid sideways, like railroad ties, spaced a short step apart. I shined the light onto the old wooden structure. The wood had darkened with age but I could tell it was pecky cyprus and that given the width of the planks, some eighteen inches in width, it had been cut a long time ago. Pecky cyprus is made when an organism like a worm gets into the wood and screws with its DNA. It makes for a beautiful and, some would say, psychedelic design. I walked around it trying to figure out why anyone would build a cabin here. The roof was made of cedar shingles and covered in a green spongy moss. Given the fading in the wood and the horizontal watermarks, the building flooded at high water. Which might explain why it looked like it’d been empty for some time. It stood about a foot off the ground, elevated on pilings that had been driven into the sand. They were two feet in diameter, hand-hewn and squared using an adze and an axe. Huge unequal planks made up the siding. The building looked to be a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty years old. The windows were tall, and covered by shutters that were maybe three feet wide and six or seven feet tall. Hinged at the top, they opened at the bottom. I walked around the back, lighting the roofline and answering my question.

  Maybe even pirates need God.

  The front door hung on a huge rusted iron hinge that looked like it could have come off an old sailing vessel. A carved dowel had been wedged through an iron ring, making a crude latch. I knocked it loose with the flashlight and leaned against the door. Inside, a dozen or so benches with no backs sat in equals rows and faced forward. Standing and sitting room, the place might hold fifty people if they didn’t mind getting close. Everything was worn, dusty, tacked together with cobwebs and hadn’t been used in decades. Equidistant drill holes lined the walkway down the middle. I stood there dripping, wondering why somebody would mess up a perfectly good floor. The water fell off me, filled the cracks, then disappeared. Drain holes. They were large enough to let a lizard in but would keep out most snakes. On the back wall, above the window, somebody had carved intricate lettering into a single beam that supported the roof. The carvings had faded, but I ran my fingers through the grooves I could reach. “When you pass through the waters…” The passage continued but my arm was too short.

  35

  Her doctors said we needed to be “more aggressive,” so they scheduled her for accelerated treatments first thing Monday morning—giving us the weekend to ourselves. Mid-morning Friday she wrapped a blindfold around my head, led me to her car, drove four hours—talking nonstop about everything and nothing—then parked in a gravel lot, slid me down into a canoe and paddled for more than an hour while I leaned against the seat back, twiddled my thumbs and threatened to swamp the canoe. The sounds and smells—along with the taste of the water—told me, generally, where we were, but I didn’t know for sure until sundown, when she beached the canoe, sat me on the sand and whispered in my ear, “I want you to promise me something.”

  I didn’t need to open my eyes. I stretched my feet into the sand and felt the St. Marys River flowing gently through my toes. We’d spent the last night of our honeymoon here, camped beneath the cedars, the smoke from our campfire filtering up through the limbs and the smell of us painted on each other. Cedar Point is the southeasternmost point of real estate in the state of Georgia. Maybe an acre in size, the little finger of dry land rises up out of the marsh like an oversized pitcher’s mound. Surrounded by marsh, and hidden in palm trees, cedars, scrub oaks and wiregrass, the small island rests untouched and unknown—even to most of the locals. A few hundred yards west, or upriver, sat the historic town of St. Marys. Nearly a mile across the river sat the state of Florida. Off to our left, or southeast, maybe five miles, lay Fernandina Beach. Just north of it, and due east, sat Cumberland Island. Between the two stretched the Atlantic Ocean. It was the island of endless possibility.

  She was trying to be so strong. She popped the cork herself and poured my favorite wine, Writer’s Block, into two plastic Solo cups. “What’s that?”

  She touched her cup to mine. “Say, ‘I promise.’”

  “But I don’t know what I’m promising.”

  She sipped. “Say it.”

  “But—”

  “Say it.”

  I sipped. “I promise.”

  “That was heartfelt.”

  “Well, if you’d tell me what I’m promising, maybe I could put a little something behind it.”

  “But you promise?”

  I raised my hand in the air. “Yes, I promise.”

  She hesitated, staring at the water. In the distance, a dolphin’s dorsal fin broke the surface of the water, rolled over the top of it, then disappeared. A second later, several more rolled behind it. “If, for some reason, I ever get to the place where…where something’s happened, maybe I’m not me, and even worse, we’re not us…” I tried to stop her, but she can be pretty headstrong. She waved me off. “I want you to bring me here.” She placed her hand on the blindfold. “Right here.” The silence blanketed us. “No matter what.”

  She tugged on my arm. No more games
. I squinted against the sun. “I promise.”

  She lay back, her left foot resting atop her bent right knee—a character straight out of Tom Sawyer.

  She stared at the red polish chipping and peeling off her big toenail. “One more thing.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t we just go through this?”

  She stared up through the smoke-charred limbs swaying above us. “One of these days, you’ll come back and buy this place.”

  Even then she believed.

  “I’m not even sure this place is on the map. Any map.”

  “Then it won’t be too expensive. Now, say it.”

  I stared out across the water. “I promise.”

  Following the mullet, the dolphins passed within a few feet of shore, rolling and disappearing only to reappear a few feet downriver. One shot up into the air, spun, shimmered, then splashed and popped the water with its tail. Abbie screamed with delight, shook off her fear, took three steps and dove into the water where the dolphins circled her and one bumped her thigh with its body.

  36

  JUNE 8, MORNING

  It was dark and overcast when I woke. The sky threatened rain with an occasional drop that rippled the river. A bamboo fly rod leaned against one corner. I lay in the dim daylight. Abbie had thrown her right leg over mine and my left foot was asleep. Her leg was smooth, and warm. An hour after daylight, the Stearman engine cranked, rolled out of earshot, then zoomed back into it and overhead.

  The sound woke her. She responded by rolling into me. She had something on her mind because she wasted little time. She pointed into the corner. “Does it work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What size?”

  “Maybe a four weight. Could be a two. It’s pretty old.”

  “Flies?”

  “A few.”

  “Leader? Tippet?” She could be focused when she wanted.

  “Might be dry-rotted.”

  She stepped out of bed, slipped on her cutoff shorts and looped the top of her bikini over her neck. “Tie me.” I tied both ends, thinking there was a lot of slack left over.

  She shook her scarf loose of the knot and popped her bikini top like suspenders. “Didn’t used to be that much slack.”

  I faked a slow smile. “Nope.”

  She grabbed a straw hat off one shelf and then licked the end of the line, feeding it through the eyelet of the fly. Five minutes later, Abbie was wading into the river. “It’s cold.”

  “Rain does that.”

  Waist-deep, she peeled the line and stood, drying the fly. She waved it through the air like a lasso, then released it, letting it roll across the top of the water. She started a slow retrieve. Whenever she fished, she bit her bottom lip. If she fished all day, she’d rub it raw. The water swirled with a flash of bronze and red, followed by the quick sound of suction, and the fly disappeared. I closed my eyes and waited. The reel wound backward, the drag singing just a bit. Abbie howled and let the fish run. She lifted the rod tip and followed it to deeper water. Gently, she pulled it in and laid it on the beach. The perch, also known as red-breasted bream, lay flopping on the sand, its gills opening and closing like an accordion.

  I pulled out the fly, slipped the fish back in the water and held it while the river filtered through its gills. Spurred by cold water and oxygen, it jerked loose and shot toward the bottom. Abbie had moved on, slowly wading upriver, casting into a dark hole on the opposite bank.

  She fished through lunch.

  By three in the afternoon, I’d released forty-seven bream and eight smallmouth bass. Finally, she laid down the pole, sat down and dug her toes into the sand. Her face was flush so I handed her a cup of water and one of her lollipops. A bald eagle flew upriver and perched in a tree above us, some fifty feet away. White head and gold beak shining in the sun. It scanned the water, jumped off the limb, shot toward the water and sank its claws beneath the surface. Its huge wings slapped the water, cut the air and pulled it higher. He reached the treetops, circled and returned to his limb, where he began methodically tearing at the fish. Abbie closed her eyes and smiled. “That takes care of number six.”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s five down.”

  She lay back and closed her eyes. The finger-sized vein in her neck told me her heart was beating fast. “What’s next?”

  Bob buzzed the trees overhead, circling his runway before landing. Abbie clung to me—breathing deeply but not catching her breath. I helped her up the bank, laid her in bed and walked out onto the porch, where the rain was smacking the palmetto fronds with an irregular rhythm.

  BOB’S PLANE TOUCHED DOWN in the field. Minutes later, he, Rocket and Petey appeared on the riverbank. He climbed the stairs and found me sitting in the artist’s chair, staring at an empty canvas. It was dusty and I’d done a poor job of stretching it across the frame.

  He carried a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He set it on the ground and pulled out two bottles of red wine. He popped the cork on one and then pulled two Styrofoam cups out of the bag. He filled both and offered me one. I took it. He didn’t say anything, but stared downriver, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at Abbie lying in the bed just a few feet away.

  He gulped from the cup—taking half. “How is she?”

  “She fished through lunch, and now she’s sleeping it off. That much activity takes a toll on her.”

  “She catch any?”

  “Fifty-five.”

  He nodded approvingly. “The media is starting to whisper words like assisted suicide and mercy killing followed by questions to the senator if he’d consider unleashing the National Guard.” Another gulp. Cabernet dripped down the right side of his mouth.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Your story is filling all the networks. Actually”—he sat back and crossed his legs—“her story is. Yours is simply thrown in to give the viewer someone to hate. Pretty girl, riddled with cancer, lot of pain, taken from her home and family when she needs them most.”

  “I know how it looks.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “You sure?” I nodded but didn’t look at him. “I doubt it,” he said, “’cause if you did, you’d hightail it home.”

  “Perception is not reality.”

  “You don’t have to convince me, but you’re swimming up current.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He sloshed his glass at me. “More?”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat in the dark awhile. The only light was the red tip of his cigar. He placed it in his mouth, drew on it until his cheeks pressed against his teeth and the end turned a bright red.

  The river has an uncanny way of drowning out ambient noise. Anything outside two hundred feet off the river’s bank is quieted by the canopy. The exception to the rule is a clear night when the sound seems to bounce off the skyline and shoot like stars onto the river’s surface, where it floats upriver, carrying every second or third note. I bent my ear toward a noise I couldn’t place.

  “What’s that sound?”

  “Local carnival.”

  “What? You mean like with a Ferris wheel, people guessing body weights and somebody barking at the yak woman?”

  He chuckled. “Just a bunch of gypsies running from the law.”

  “We ought to fit right in.” I was quiet a minute. “You know if they got a carousel?”

  “Yeah. Don’t know how well I’d trust it. Kind of old.”

  “They got a head gypsy?”

  “If that’s what you want to call him.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not too well, but we’ve spoken.”

  “You think you could get us in…after hours?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  37

  Two years passed. Abbie’s health became tidal—it ebbed and flowed. A tug-of-war between chemo and cancer with her caught up in the middle. Some days she could get out of bed, maybe once a week I’d push her down the Battery in her chair, but for the
most part, she was bed-or couch-ridden and withering away in front of me.

  Somewhere in here, it struck me—the truth in all this. Normal cells have automatic self-destruct buttons that they punch after they’ve served their purpose. They live, do what they were made to do, then pull the cord. Suicide is expected. At the end of the day, cancer is nothing more than a cell or group of cells that refuse to die. And to make matters worse, cancer cells are not foreign. It’s not like they come from somewhere else. Our bodies make the very thing that kills us.

  I have a difficult time with the logic in all of this.

  It’s strange. I know my wife has cancer because they told me, but I’ve never actually seen it. Never touched it. I don’t have any real connection to it other than it’s killing my wife.

  Cancer hurts beyond the pain. It is a cycle of diagnosis, prognosis and scan. We live not paycheck to paycheck, but scan to scan. Every time we stand in the doctor’s office and hear the scan results, we think, It’s getting bigger and I can’t do a single thing about it.

  That may be the single worst feeling in the world.

  Any positive report is tempered by our experience, and the knowledge that no matter what the doctors do, we will always believe there are still cancer cells in her body. We feel as though we’re always just one scan away from hearing the word metastatic, which is often followed by, I’m going to miss you.

  Riddled with fear, sadness and stress, our imaginations run wild like they did when we were kids and the monsters camped out in the closets. What’s worse, we listen like Captain Hook, haunted by the ticking of the clock. Cancer-free moments are the exception, not the norm. We have progressed from beating it, to living with it…to just living. I have become more defensive in posture, building walls to insulate us from the bad news. Because there’s always more. Life and death are always on our mind. Idle thinking is no longer idle. I wanted so badly to think in future tense, to talk about summer movies, buy two tickets to the next Superbowl, plant a garden, put off something, schedule an appointment to get her teeth cleaned, plan a vacation, but then would find myself standing in the produce aisle and asking myself, Should I buy green bananas?