The Other Oregon

by Steve Anderson

  No sound. No response. Greg stood, his jeans making a faint whooshing sound. Donny held a finger to his mouth, shushing Greg.

  Inching along, Donny moved to the edge of the open stairway. He pulled his pistol. He crab-crawled on all fours, craning his neck to see. Still no sound.

  Donny turned and smiled at Greg. Then, Donny stood. He started down the stairs, taking careful steps. Greg watched Donny descend until only Donny’s hat was visible.

  Donny’s hat froze in place as if hovering.

  Greg whispered, “Donny?”

  Donny backed up a step, and another, reaching the top of the stairs.

  “Stop! Lower the weapon!” A shout. The voice was Torres.

  Donny lowered his pistol.

  “Now drop it!” shouted another voice.

  “Drop the weapon!”

  Donny pivoted. He charged back up the stairs and through the room.

  He aimed the pistol at Greg’s head.

  A rush of footsteps sounded, closer, coming up the stairs. The sound stopped. They occupied the stairs now, crouching on them for cover.

  Donny aimed at Greg’s heart.

  “Toss it down!” Torres shouted from the stairs. “If you don’t, we’re coming up.”

  Donny, his eyes locked on Greg’s, tossed the gun across the floor. It clattered down the stairs.

  “Okay, okay,” Greg told him, “but now, you have to listen—”

  Donny charged to the open window.

  Men charged up the stairs in a thunder, aiming weapons—Torres, FBI men, cops.

  Donny lunged out the window, looking out. He scrambled outside.

  Torres and agents rushed the window. Greg got there first. Three men aimed on Greg.

  “Not him!” Torres shouted.

  Greg and Torres and others crowded the window, looking out and down.

  Donny was hustling down the fire escape, grasping at the iron structure. He slipped on the wet metal and almost fell. The ironwork creaked and shifted.

  Donny kept going. The fire escape bolts loosened from the wall, sending down plaster.

  Donny held on, riding it out. He was halfway down.

  Donny slowed. He glared up at Greg, at Torres. The fire escape shifted again. To steady himself, Donny lowered down to one knee.

  The ironwork was loosening free near the window. Greg reached out to hold onto it. Something made him do it. He grasped and pulled and his muscles burned, his knuckles wanting to break through his skin. “Help me!” he shouted at Torres.

  Torres leaned out, grabbed on.

  Someone was holding Greg’s legs to keep him in place, but the iron was pulling his arms from their sockets. The pain surged up his neck, down his back.

  Donny saw them helping. He hustled onward, downward.

  The fire escape buckled and creaked.

  Greg’s hands bled, the blood making his hands slip. He let go. Torres let go with a gasp.

  Donny raced down, slipping and falling, the ironwork lunging, swaying, shifting. It separated from the wall. He rode it on down, flailing on slippery metal as the ironwork collapsed into itself. It crushed Donny inside as it plummeted down.

  It crashed to the ground.

  Greg kept staring, unable to move, his hands still clawed as if grasping the iron. Raw, red. The man holding his legs tried to pull him in, but Greg shook him off.

  Down below, Donny lay trapped like an insect in a web, his limbs at odd angles. He appeared to be looking straight up at Greg, but he was not seeing. Blood spread out from his wounds.

  Eventually, Torres and others appeared below, surrounding the wreckage. Sirens sounded in the distance.

  Someone kept a hand on Greg’s shoulder, but he stayed at the window. He couldn’t help thinking, what he saw now reminded him of the way the security guard lay on the concrete that night so long ago. Blood dripped from Greg’s hands, running off the tips of his fingers, and it would splash into nothing, somewhere down there with Donny.

  44

  Greg wasn’t sure why he tried to save Donny, in the end. Was it something like actual compassion, or were his instincts simply kicking in, exploiting an opportunity to show the cops he was the good guy? He might never know.

  They were keeping him at Good Samaritan Hospital. He had his own room on a floor across the street from the main building—a floor he suspected most people didn’t know about. They treated his hands and bandaged them, but other than that, it was like being made to wait in a hotel room. An FBI woman asked him questions about his time in Pineburg, but most of her probing seemed designed simply to assign him to various times and places as if she was completing a puzzle. He told her: He was there at the Callum House and he saw Donny kill Wayne, right at the very moment he was trying to persuade Donny to turn himself in, to tell the FBI all that he knew, to assist their investigation of the Double Cross. Wayne had come out of nowhere. Donny had hit Greg out of shock, fear. Greg pursued him to Portland anyway, partly to protect Leeann in case Donny came after her. It was stupid of him to do it on his own, but he thought he could still save Donny. These were more answers than the woman needed, but why not get it all out? It was good practice.

  Greg got the papers, TV, a tablet to use. The media was developing its own angle, he saw: The ludicrous attempt on the Pineburg Dam had less to do with a secessionist militia, dam removal, and environmental policy than a long-festering power struggle between one Wayne Carver and the reclusive Charles Adler aka Donny Wilkie. Their feud led Donny Wilkie to kill Wayne Carver and flee to Portland where he died attempting to escape. No stories mentioned Greg. The FBI had been monitoring the movement called the Double Cross and was making arrests, it was reported. Teams from the FBI and other agencies raided an unnamed militia “headquarters”—which had to be the Rooster Lair—along with remote barns. They found weapons and explosives. What had once been a minor rural nuisance but protected by free speech could now be seen as a dangerous homegrown terrorist movement prosecutable under multiple charges of conspiracy. Felony battery charges were also mentioned, but details weren’t released. FBI Field Agent Rich Torres got a brief mention for his efforts.

  Greg kept asking the FBI assigned to him about Leeann and Emily and Gunnar. The FBI woman eventually assured him that the two women were safe, and that he could speak with them soon. Gunnar was staying with a friend, in Pineburg, and was doing as well as could be expected.

  On the third morning in the hospital, they transported Greg—in an unmarked car, without cuffs or cages—to a room in the Federal Building downtown. It was many floors up, a stark space with no windows but no shackle mounts or two-way mirror either. A more discreet briefing room than an interrogation chamber. He sat at the gray Formica-topped table, was left alone.

  After a few minutes’ wait, Rich Torres came in and sat across from him, Torres wearing casual slacks and a pullover. He glanced at Greg’s bandaged hands but didn’t ask him how they were; Torres would know that already, of course. Greg said nothing. He had thought of asking for a lawyer, but he wasn’t sure why he would need one just yet, so he held off.

  Torres stared at him a moment, but like he was counting to five. Then he sighed. “How you holding up?”

  “I’ll live.”

  Torres asked Greg questions that allowed him to repeat the events he had told the FBI woman in the hospital. Then Torres asked him again. And a third time, until it became mechanical for Greg and without discrepancy. Once that was over, Torres gave himself another five-count pause and added a question:

  “Was Gunnar there?”

  “No. I did not see him.”

  “Nowhere in the house that you knew of?”

  “Not that I knew of. I guess he could have been watching somehow. It’s possible.”

  Torres gave Greg a long, hard look. “Okay,” was all he said, and he left.

  After about ten minutes, Torres came back in and sat down. He was looser, leaning back, legs spread.

  “We’re putting all this on Donny,” he said. “Th
at includes Wayne Carver’s death.”

  “The papers had it right for once,” Greg said. “It’s just like I told you.”

  He straightened, expecting a tirade from Torres despite his casual face. Casual could be a ploy.

  “Well, you could thank me,” Torres said finally.

  Torres’ comment confirmed to Greg that no one was listening in. Greg didn’t thank him. He had planned to say nothing more, but he could not help himself.

  “This must all be such a big disappointment to you,” he said. “I am. They are. You wanted them to try something bigger. That’s what I thought and still think. I don’t blame you. It’s what you do. I just wanted to be clear.”

  Torres held out his hands. “What did you want me to do?”

  Greg had no answer for that. He just shrugged.

  “How did you locate Donny and me? Did Leeann call you?”

  Torres shook his head. “Officially, I can’t tell you. But it wasn’t Gunnar either.”

  “I never thought he would,” Greg said.

  They had a staring contest for a few moments, just like when they’d met that first time in Lone Fir Cemetery.

  Torres reached into his jacket, Greg flinched. Torres pulled Greg’s phone out and set it on the table. It was still wrapped in the plastic bag but looser and any dirt wiped off. He slid it across to Greg.

  Greg stared at it a moment. He didn’t even want to know how they’d found it. “What about Karen Callum?” he said.

  “There’s nothing to connect her. She owns a ranch, a load of property, and a big chunk of a public utility. She buys up the land. That’s what she does. Daddy’s little girl. The laws don’t question it, not until something goes broke.”

  “Like the water supply for example?”

  Torres shrugged. “Tell it to about ten other agencies. That’s not our turf. I’m just one guy.”

  Greg reached for his phone, unwrapped it, pocketed it, and left the plastic on the table. He stood. What else could he say? The world marched on, no matter what he did. Only Cascadia could change that. Someday it might. He would probably be an old man by then if not dead.

  “Well? That mean I can go?”

  “There is something else,” Torres said. “There was a murder—a security guard was killed. Near Mt. Hood. Years ago.”

  Greg, standing over the table, kept his feet planted. “Uh … I guess I’m not following.”

  “It’s been on the wires. Got picked up all over, just briefly, but still. It’s a cold case. Reporters like that.”

  Greg’s heart thudded from the strain, and only Torres really knew if it showed. “I don’t read the Oregonian much anymore,” Greg said.

  “In any case, it happened about the time you knew Donny. Did you know they picked up Donny for it? It was a couple years after the fact. County detectives were following up, had time on their hands, I guess. His truck had been spotted at the scene. He denied it, of course. Said he had been snowboarding all on his own. Learning how. They couldn’t peg it on him, and they never got another lead.”

  Greg was still standing over the table, over Torres. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You know anything about that?”

  Greg made his head shake. “I know that he used to snowboard a lot. We hit the mountain a couple times. I was more of a skier though. We would’ve taken my car. I wasn’t the type who wanted to be seen in a pickup, not back then.”

  Torres sneered. “Too cool for school, that it?” he said.

  “I told you. I told you in Pineburg. I went my own way. He went another.”

  Two weeks later, Greg, his eye blued but swollen no more, packed his last load onto the cargo bike and trailer he had borrowed from a friend so he could finish moving. He had scored his own apartment just north of East Burnside, only ten minutes away. Torres had arranged for him to receive a retainer, which let him put the first month’s on the apartment and pay off some bills. For his part, Greg had signed a waiver and confidentiality agreement that prevented him from writing about his direct involvement in Pineburg and afterward: He had technically become an informant after all. He didn’t intend to write about it in any case, so why mess things up?

  He had gotten lucky. Donny had his chance to pin the security guard murder on him long ago, yet Donny had not. He never told Greg he had been picked up and questioned years ago. Maybe it was even the real reason he had bolted for Mexico in the first place. He had saved Greg’s ass more than Greg ever knew. His luck was a bitter pill. Donny probably never would have revealed their secret, not even today. But Greg had not been able to trust that. As for Torres, he was possibly the only other person in the world who knew about it—if he wanted to. Torres might have even leaked the cold case story, for all Greg knew, just to see how he and Donny would react. Well, the man got his wish.

  Greg had saved every bungee cord he had ever owned, and now he used every one of them to secure the last boxes. He was outside Emily’s apartment, taking his time, certain she would come out.

  Emily skipped out and down the steps and stopped before him, feet together, grinning. She held up a tee shirt that read Republic of Cascadia. They laughed.

  “I admit it: I never wore it,” she said.

  “That’s okay. Keep it. Make a pillow out of it.”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Stay in touch. You will, right?”

  “I will.”

  Greg pedaled off on his borrowed ride, finding the bike lane on SE Seventh and giving it all he had for the little hill that would kick him up to Sandy Boulevard. Wishing he had his own bike back. At least he knew his bike was safe. He had talked to Gunnar, who was keeping his bike for him and had taken to riding it around Pineburg. Gunnar was still staying at Tam’s, which was a modest bungalow on the poor side of town, near streets of worn motor homes and clapboard shacks. Tam was going to put Gunnar and a couple other kids to work painting her house; Gunnar got to be their foreman, they joked.

  Gunnar had told Greg: After Donny fled, the FBI came by Tam’s to ask if Gunnar had seen Donny, but Gunnar and Tam said no. The FBI people had only stayed for five minutes. “It was like they were just running errands or whatever,” the way Gunnar put it, with things to check off. They had offered him care and support, but Gunnar said he liked it at Tam’s. He told Greg about Tam’s daughter Melanie, about what had happened to her: Wayne had tried to love her but “didn’t know how,” as Tam put it. Wayne had beaten Melanie up so bad that one of her eyes might not ever look right again without surgery, though it worked well enough to get her into the Air Force. She also probably wouldn’t have gotten the heck out of Pineburg if Wayne hadn’t slapped her around so much, so there was that. That was one big reason why Wayne could never have become police chief and certainly not mayor of anything, ever.

  Greg imagined that Gunnar had cried a few times in the past couple weeks, possibly in Tam’s arms. He hoped he had. He had told Gunnar he would drive back out and get his bike, and Gunnar was welcome to come along back to Portland. Greg could put him up. Gunnar said he’d think about it. Meanwhile, Karen Callum had told him he could always have his room at the Callum house for as long as he wanted, but Gunnar thought that would be more awkward than ever, especially since Karen’s longtime friend Brenda had moved in. The two were nice enough to him, but they were always off doing their own thing. Besides, Tam had told him he could stay as long as he liked. “Maybe when I’m done painting her house,” Gunnar said.

  And Gunnar and Greg had promised to call each other every week.

  Two weeks later, a town-hall type event was held in Pineburg about Pineburg Dam. All the players were there—state, federal, all the agencies and the interested groups, including Karen Callum and her team of lawyers and experts, a true delegation just as Torres said. Even a few TV crews. It went off without a hitch, successfully resolving many tricky water issues for the near future, and got little more press coverage than Wayne Carver’s angry speech from a fallow field. The biggest
breakthrough came when Karen Callum announced her intention, as main owner of Callum Utility Company, to relinquish the relicensing process and agree to the dam’s removal. A solid deal had been struck, it was reported, and one that worked for all.

  45

  One year later: Greg was walking near his East Burnside apartment with Gunnar, who was pushing along the bicycle Greg had scored for him. Gunnar had been in Portland for almost nine months. His hair was longer. He wore jeans and a hoodie. He had a studio in Greg’s building after living with Greg for two months, and he was working as a prep cook at a brewpub. He said he was thinking about going to Community College. He was going to see how well his mom did with it.

  “I’m starving,” Gunnar said.

  “Good deal, buddy. We’re doing that Pho place you like.”

  Leeann Holt stood in their path, farther down the sidewalk. She had on a jacket and skirt and cute hat that made her look younger. Emily had given her some clothes and helped her find new outfits. Leeann had her own place, too—renting Greg’s room from Emily.

  Greg and Gunnar walked up to her. “I thought you were going to meet us at the Pho place?” Greg said to her.

  Leeann was holding back a grin, standing on tiptoes. “I couldn’t wait,” she said.

  “Why? What?” Gunnar said.

  “I passed all my classes. Every last one.”

  Gunnar grinned. Leeann grabbed him and hugged him.

  That evening, Greg was typing on his laptop, working on the introduction for the draft of his new book. The words onscreen read:

  “The schism between city and country will never be a black-and-white issue. If someone tells you it is, don’t ever believe them. They might be trying to hoodwink you for their own ends. Starting over as Cascadia comes with baggage loaded down with past burdens. These must be dealt with for the new society to survive and prosper. Cascadia may never succeed if the urban and rural rupture is allowed to fester, to bleed. There are ways to stanch the wound, but the compromises required will demand real grit …”

  His trip to find Donny Wilkie had made him realize that he had never included the more far-flung and opposite rural regions of Oregon in his vision for Cascadia simply because they did not fit. He wouldn’t have known how to fit them in. Their puzzle pieces were a shape all their own. His wasn’t a conscious decision but rather the result of subliminal process of elimination. We tell ourselves what we want to hear. As for the Pineburg area, it was on the border of that unknown, unwanted puzzle. Time would only tell if it would join Cascadia or choose an abyss. In his new book, he offered hard choices. Those regions in Southern and Eastern Oregon so unlike the bioregion of Cascadia could be left to join their own breakaway state, whether it was a new Jefferson State or something worse—a homeland that made a guy like Wayne Carver feel right at home. Whatever is was, it would always border Cascadia and could never be ignored in the future.