The Dark Country

by Dennis Etchison

  "Oh my God," whispered the stewardess hoarsely, "we've been—"

  "I know," he said, strangely calm, "I know," with tears of blood I tell you I know.

  The tray, ice and drink went flying, and then they were falling, everything falling inward and children, pillows, oxygen masks, bottles, the envelope he still clutched stupidly in his hand, the whole thing, the plane and the entire world were falling, falling and would not, could not be stopped.

  3.

  It was dusk as he drove into the delta, and the river, washed over with the memory of the dying red eye of the sun, seemed to be reflecting a gradual darkening of the world.

  He wound down the windows of the rented car, cranking back the wind wings so that he could feel the air. The smell of seed crops and of the rich, silted undergrowth of the banks blew around him, bathing him in the special dark parturience of the Sacramento Valley.

  He had been away too long.

  And soon he would be back, away for a time from the

  practices of the city, which he had come to think of more and more lately as the art of doing natural things in an unnatural way—something he was afraid he had learned all too well. But now, very soon, he would be back on the houseboat; for a while, at least. He did not know how long.

  He would anchor somewhere near The Meadows. He would tie up to that same tree in the deep, still water, near the striped bass hole, hearing the lowing of cattle from behind the clutch of wild blackberry bushes on shore. . . .

  And this time, he dared himself, he might not go back at all. Not, at least, for a long, long time.

  He drove past the weathered, century-old mansions left from the gold days, past the dirt roads marked only by rural mailboxes, past the fanning rows of shadowy, pungent trees, past the collapsing wooden walkways of the abandoned settlement towns, past the broad landmark barn and the whitewash message fading on its doors, one he had never understood:

  HIARA PERU RESH.

  He geared down and took the last, unpaved mile in a growing rush of anticipation. Rocks and eucalyptus pods rained up under the car, the wheel jerking in his hands, the shocks and the leaf springs groaning and creaking.

  Then he saw a curl of smoke beyond the next grove and caught the warm smell of catfish frying over open coals. And he knew, at last, that he was nearing the inlet, the diner and the dock.

  He braked in the gravel and walked down the path to the riverbank. He heard the lapping of the tide and the low, heavy knocking of hulls against splintered pilings. Finally he saw the long pier, the planks glistening, the light and dark prows of cabin cruisers rocking in their berths, the dinghies tied up to battered cleats, their slack, frayed ropes swollen where they dipped into the water, the buoys bobbing slowly, the running lights of a smaller, rented houseboat chugging away around the bend, toward Wimpy's Landing.

  The boards moved underfoot as he counted the steps, head down, and he smiled, reminding himself that it would take a

  few hours to regain his sea legs. He reached the spot, a few yards from the end of the docking area, where he knew the Shelley Ann would be waiting.

  He tried to remember how long it had been. Since the spring. Yes, that was right, Memorial Day weekend. Sometimes friends rode him about paying for the year-round space—why, when he used her only a few times each year? Even Shelley had begun talking that way in the last few weeks. Cut your losses on that albatross! She had actually said that. But at times like this, coming to her after so many months, he forgot it all. It felt like coming home. It always did.

  He looked up.

  The space was empty.

  His eyes darted around the landing, but she was nowhere that he could see.

  Unless—of course. She had been moved. That was it. But why? His boat had never been assigned any other stall for as long as he had owned her. Something had happened, then. But there had been no long distance call, no word in the mail; Old John would not be one to hide anything as serious as an accident. Would he?

  He took a few steps, his hands in his back pockets, scanning the river in both directions.

  He could just make out the diner/office/tackle shop through the trees. A dim light was burning behind the peeling wooden panes.

  Yes. Old John would know. Old John would be able to tell him the story, whatever it was.

  Which was the trouble. Knowing him, it would take an hour, two. A beer, three beers, maybe even dinner. The lonely old man would not let him go with a simple explanation, of that he was sure.

  And now he found he could think only of the Shelley Ann. He had waited and he had planned and he had come all this way, and at the moment nothing else seemed to matter. He needed to feel her swaying under him, rocking him. Now, right now.

  Then. Everything. Would be. All right. He stepped off the end to the bank, peering under the covered section of the landing, even though he knew that his boat

  would have been too large to clear the drooping canvas overhang.

  He crouched at the edge, feeling suddenly very alone. The river smelled like dead stars. He watched the water purl gently around the floats and echo back and forth over the fine sand. A few small bubbles rode the surface, and a thin patina of oil shone with mirror-like luminescence under the dimming sky, reflecting a dark, swirling rainbow.

  No stars were visible yet. In fact, the sky above the trees grew more steely as he watched.

  He looked again at the water. He fingered a chip of gravel and tossed it. It made a plunking sound and settled quickly, and as it disappeared he found that he was straining to follow it with his eyes all the way down to the bottom.

  He reached into his coat for a cigarette. His hands were still cold, and growing colder.

  He felt the cigarette case and drew it out, along with something else.

  He pushed a cigarette into his lips and stared at the envelope. It had no name and address on it. He couldn't remember—

  He opened it, slipped out a neatly folded sheet of bond paper, unfolded it.

  The leaves of the trees near him rustled, and then a light breeze strafed the water, tipping it with silver.

  Still crouching, he fired up the lighter, lit the cigarette and squinted, trying to make out the words. It was written in careful longhand, a letter or—no. Something else.

  He read the title.

  The paper began to make a tapping sound. He held out his hand. Rain had started to fall, a light rain that danced on the river and left it glittering. As he blinked down at the paper, more drops hit the page. The ink began to run, blurring before his eyes.

  The lighter became too hot to hold. He snapped it shut and stood. He heard the rain talking in the trees, on the canvas tarpaulin, on the struts of the rotting pier.

  His legs were cramped. He made a staggering step forward. His shoes sloshed the water. He stepped still further, led by the swinging arc of his cigarette tip in the darkness, until the rain found the cigarette and extinguished it.

  He dropped it and moved forward, ankle-deep in the river. Is she really there? he thought.

  Then he waded out into the low tide, the rain striking around him with a sound like musical notes, the melting paper still gripped in his hand, trailing the water.

  4.

  Dazed, he glanced around the bedroom.

  The receiver was in his hand. By now the plastic had become quite warm against his palm. He stared at it for a moment, men returned it to his ear.

  He heard recorded music.

  Click.

  "Thank-you-for-waiting-good-afternoon-Pacific-Southwest-Airlines-may-I-help-you?''

  There was something he wanted to tell her. He had been trying hard to remember, but—

  His eyes continued to roam the lower half of the room. Then he spotted the keys, the car keys, wedged between the bottom edge of the door and the pile of the carpet, as though they had been flung or kicked there with great force.

  It started to come back to him. Shelley had done it. She had thrown the key ring with all her strength, a while
ago. Yes. That had happened.

  He raised his head at last, rubbed his neck.

  And saw her, there on the other side of the bed.

  She lay with eyes closed, hands at her sides, fingers clutching the bedspread.

  He didn't want to disturb her. He modulated his voice, cupping the mouthpiece with his hand.

  He told the maddeningly cheerful voice on the phone—it reminded him of a Nichiren Shoshu recruiter who had buttonholed him on the street once—to cancel one reservation. His wife was not ready, would not be ready on time.

  Yes. Only one. That's right. Thank you.

  He hung up.

  He lifted the phone and replaced it on the nightstand. On the bed, where the phone had been, was an envelope. He picked it up. It was empty.

  There was a sheet of paper on the floor, where Shelley had crumpled and thrown it. That was right, wasn't it?

  He smoothed it out on his knee.

  It was written in a very careful, painstaking longhand, much more legible than his own. He started to read it.

  At the end of the first stanza he paused.

  Yes, it was something Shelley had found—no, she had had it all along, saved (hidden?) in her drawer in the nightstand. She had taken it out earlier this morning, or perhaps it had been last night, and had shown it to him, and one of them had become angry and crumpled it onto the floor. That was how it had started.

  He read it again, this time to the end.

  (1)

  brown hair

  curling smile

  shadowed eyes

  the line of your lips . . .

  hair tangled

  over me

  (2)

  warm skin

  tender breasts

  your mouth and

  sweet throat . . .

  hair moist

  under me

  (3)

  there will be more

  my eyes tell your eyes

  than love of touch

  face lost in my face . . .

  do you know what lives

  between our breathing palms?

  (4)

  twisted hair seashell ear soft sounds

  stopped by my chest . . .

  dark eyes sleep

  while I speak to your heart

  He turned to his wife.

  It was true; she was beautiful. Whoever had written those words had loved her. He studied her intently until he began to feel an odd sense of dislocation, as if he were seeing her for the first time.

  He looked again at the paper.

  At the bottom of the page, following the last stanza, there was a name. It was his own.

  And in the corner, a date: almost fifteen years ago.

  Quietly, almost imperceptibly, he began to cry.

  For so much had changed over the years, much more than handwriting. He did not love her now, not in any traditional sense; instead, he thought, there was merely a sense of loving that seemed to exist somewhere between her and his mind.

  As he sat there, he forced his eyes to trace the lines of her body, her face: the shrug of her shoulders, the sweep of her long, slender neck, the surprisingly full jaw and yet the almost weak point of the chin, the slight lips, the sad curve at the corners of her mouth, the smooth, even shade of her skin, the narrow nose, the nearly parallel lines that formed the sides of her small face, the close-set eyes, the thin and almond-shaped lids and delicately sketched lashes, the worried cast of her forehead and the baby-fine wisps at the hairline, the soft down that grew near her temples, the fuller curls that filled out a nimbus around her head, the hair bunched behind her neck, the ends hard and stiff now where the dried brown web had trickled out, just a spot at first but soon spreading onto the pillow after he had lain her down so gently. He had not meant it. He had not meant anything like it. He did not even remember what he had meant, and that was the truth. He had tried to tell her that, practically at the moment it had happened, but then it was too late. And it was too late now. It would always be too late.

  He lowered his head.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was looking at the paper. At the top of the page, perfectly centered, was the title. It said:

  YOU CAN GO NOW.

  TODAY'S SPECIAL

  "How about some nice bottom round steak?" asked Avratin the butcher. "Is today's special."

  "No round steak."

  "Ah. Well, Mrs. Teola—"

  "Taylor."

  "—Mrs. Taylor.'' Avratin the butcher tapped the trays behind the open glass, then thumbed back another display of cuts. "I got some nice, nice clods, can cut for Swiss steak if—"

  "No Swiss steak."

  Avratin started to sigh, pinched off his nose with his thick curving forefinger, which was getting cold. "Excuse me. I know what you want. For you, some nice, nice, very nice pot—"

  "No pot roast, neither."

  His hands began describing in the air. "Some lovely chuck, some darling rump, a little—" He squeezed the air. "—Tender, juicy flank steak, eh?" He saw her turn away, the gray bun at the back of her neck beginning to wag. "Some brisket for boiling!" He heard his wife's heavy heels in the sawdust and at that slapped his forehead with both hands—/ give up— for her to see.

  "My, you're looking very well today," Avratin's wife cooed.

  Muttering, Avratin slid the last tray back in place, grumbling to himself, sifting the red chunks of beef tenderloin through his fingers, which were now quite cold; the meat plopped back onto the paper liner and he slammed the glass, knocking the parsley loose from the top of the ground round.

  "Yeah, you should hope you don't see my sister, Rose."

  "Oh, Ro-sie. And how is her operation?"

  "Don't ask."

  "Well, Mrs. Teo—"

  "Taylor. Taylor! My husband puts Teola in the book, nobody calls him." The gray bun wagged in growing impatience. "But now he's Manny Taylor. Manny Taylor! I want you tell me, would you call from the yellow pages a man with the name Manny Taylor?"

  "Well," began Avratin's wife, standing closer to her husband, "what's good for your mister's business—"

  "We should all live so long, I promise you. My God, my God." She shook her bun and hunched toward the door.

  Avratin's wife cleared her throat. "Today special, we have some very nice fish, Mrs. Taylor," she called sweetly and waited for the woman to turn back under the creaking overhead fan.

  "You got nothing I want," said the woman finally, only half-turning, shifting her brown carry-all to her other hand.

  "Why, Mrs. Taylor," sang Avratin's wife. "You've been our faithful customer for thirteen years. Those years, they mean only that you should come to this? You're taking your business elsewhere now? God forbid that Lou and I should forget our friends so easy."

  "You should talk, dearies. You should talk!" This she said directly to Avratin, sizing him up in his white apron as if he were an imposter. "You get Luttfisk back, then maybe we talk meat. That Luttfisk, he knows meat!" And she shuffled out the door.

  A moment later, to no one in particular, to the passing cars, to the old man at the curb with the white beard and the stiff black hat, Avratin's wife called, "My Lou, he was owning this shop before that Luttfisk was starting in the business! Don't you forget that!"

  But Avratin was shaking his head, reaching around to untie the strings, throwing his apron on the hook.

  "Louie?"

  He headed across the empty store to the back.

  "Ask me why I'm closing an hour early. But ask me! Go ahead! You ask me about business, and I'll tell you. Business . . . is . . . lousy!"

  Avratin's wife threw up her hands, imploring the ceiling fan to do something, anything.

  In the tiny bedroom, by a single small lamp with the crisp, yellowed cellophane still clinging to the shade, with the sound turned down on the Johnny Carson Show, Avratin and his wife were having an argument.

  "... Twenty years in the retail meat business and you knife me in the back. Twenty years putting bread on
your plate, only to have you—"

  "Listen to this! He's too proud, too proud to admit a mistake. . . ."

  "—Twist, twisting the knife!"

  Reproach, recrimination, guilt, counter-accusation, self-deprecation. The old pattern.

  And only to come to this: that at the end, the finish, before grumbling into bed, during the sermonette, Avratin raised his hurt face to the water-stained ceiling one last time to declare, before the gods and whatever other audience might be listening:

  "All right, I take care of it, I take care of everything. No matter that Luttfisk tries to rob me, his own partner. I get a man can take care of the job. I promise you, the problem be fixed, once-for-all!"

  At the Century-Cudahy Storage and Packing Co., the White Collar Butcher was a very important man. No one at the plant could say exactly why, though it had to do with the fact that he was the best butcher in the county, that he had the finest set of tools anyone had ever laid eyes on, and the obvious quiet pride he took in his work. It had to do with the way he picked his own shifts, coming in unpredictably and always with the attitude of a man who has already been at work for several hours. It had to do with the air of authority he carried with him into the walk-in, the indefinable look of knowing something that he would never tell on his thin, expressionless lips, his smooth, ageless face, his small steel-blue eyes that were perpetually set

  on a place somewhere beyond the carcasses and the warehouse.

  Alone at night, the White Collar Butcher stood motionless before the freezer, his eyes on the temperature gauge. But they were not focused there. Then, slowly, surely, he turned his back on the hook beam scales and stood over his meat block. He moved his hand from the evenly beveled edges to the guard at the right of the block. His hand was heavy, a special tool itself, quite perfectly balanced, smooth and pink and tapered ideally to the handles which he now allowed his fingers to play over lightly: the meat saw, the cleaver, the steak knife, the boning knife, below them the small scale, the aluminum trays, the spool of twine and, to the left, the blackboard. Then, with smooth, automatic, practiced moves he took down his tools one by one and washed them, wiped them and rubbed the handles, proceeded to sharpen them on the slow grinding wheel and then the whetstone, touched up the edges with the steel and wrapped them individually in soft, protective leather.