by E. C. Marsh
I remembered how Tom and I had talked about Sam and Marty, how we had wondered what they talked about or if they even talked to each other. What did Sam see in Marty? How could such a bright, outgoing fella be married a narcissistic airhead?
My feet were beyond sore, they felt numb and I told myself, that once we all were back in our homes, I would not take another step and eventually I would never again wear another pair of cheap, flimsy canvas shoes. Period .
Suddenly Sam jumped into the road, frantically waving his arms. I almost ran into him, my mind took some time to recognize what he was doing, while my feet kept on beating a rhythm into the pavement. But there was Sam, in the middle of the road, waving his arms and jumping up and down . I finally heard the vehicle approaching, glad Sam had pretty good hearing. It was an old, banged up, scratched-up, dull brownish - orange pick-up truck, the driver a man of undeterminably age, most of his wrinkled face hidden by the visor of his cap. He pulled over next to Sam and yelled out of the passenger window.
“Mornin! Y’all need help?”
“Yes!” We both shouted in unison. “Can we get a lift?”
He just waved us into the cab, pushed the passenger door open and we hopped in.
Sam sat in the middle and once I slammed the door shut and hung my arm out of the open window I actually had plenty of room. The old man extended his right hand to Sam.
“The name’s Elmer Stubblefield, just call me Ben. You folks not from around here, are you?”
Sam and I shook hands with Elmer, called Ben.
“No, not really, my Grandma used to live over near Hooper’s Ferry, ‘til she passed away a couple of years ago.”
“Is that right? What’s your Grandma’s name?”
“Alma Louise Evans, she had a little farm, couple of miles from the old ferry, by the old Buckner place.”
“Is that right?”
The old man pushed his cap back revealing a pair of sparkling blue eyes and a head full of thick snow white hair.
“You must be the little rascal that used to go squirrel hunting on my place all the time. Shot out a couple of windows in the process.”
Sam turned and looked at him closer, a look of recognition on his face.
“Hey, how about that. Isn’t that something?”
The old man shifted and the truck slowly started to move.
“And who’s that pretty young lady there with you? The wife?”
I had to laugh. “No,” I said. “ No, I’m just a friend.”
That was greeted with a raised eyebrow and a noncommittal, “Oh, I see.”
Sam had tensed up. I could only imagine the emotions churning in him.
“No, Mr. Stubblefield,” he said quietly. “A bunch of us went floating on the river and there’s been an accident, my wife died in that accident yesterday. Chris’s husband and the rest of the group are still on the river, we walked out to get help.”
There was a moment of silence, I could only see portions of the old man’s face, but he suddenly looked tired.
“Accident? What happened, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind.” Sam’s voice calm, too calm. “I really can’t explain it. We had this trip pretty well planned. Marty got sick the first night out. I kinda think it was a combination of too much sun, too much heat and some new medication she been taking. We got into some rough water. Didn’t realize how much the river had dropped while we were planning this outing. Couple of our canoes collided. Marty fell in and was too sick to keep herself above water. We got to her in time and at first she seemed to be ok, but then she just died on me. Real strange. Real strange.”
We continued on in silence, I certainly didn’t know what to say.
“Yep,” the old man finally said as we continued to roll slowly down the road. “I can remember when my Emily died. It was real hard to keep going after her passing. And you don’t have any idea what happened?”
I wished he would step on the gas, speed up or something, anything. I did not want to go through a lengthy conversation about something I could not comprehend let alone explain. I just wanted to get this trip over with. I wanted to be back at home, with Tom, with Allen and feel safe and clean again.
Sam did not seem to be nearly as troubled as I was by the conversation.
“I don’t rightly know what actually happened, Mr. Stubblefield. We started out on that trip and everything was fine, but by the first evening she was feeling pretty lousy. She had been on some medications and we’ve been thinking that she may have had some kind of a reaction to that medication, but I’m not so sure. She just kept getting sicker and sicker and then she just died. Right out there!”
“And she was fine before you all left?”
“Yes sir, sure was, everything was ok, until that first afternoon actually. She just suddenly got real sick and she kept on getting sicker, no matter what we tried. Of course we did not have a lot to work with. We never expected anything like that to happen.”
“And you have no idea what could have caused her death?”
“No, sir. I sure don’t. Marty was healthy, she was a real health nut. Sure, I have my quirks, but she was real serious about it. Always taking vitamins, and eating low fat food and going to exercise classes. All that stuff. Then she just got sick on me. First she just had a headache. She thought that she might have had too much sun. You know how that is. When you haven’t been outside much and suddenly you sit in a boat on a river in the bright sun all day, you can easily get too much of it. But she took a couple of Aspirin and that didn’t help at all. Then she started to run a real high fever, I think she may have even had seizures from the fever. We gave her some more Aspirin, but it didn’t help much. She just died.”
There was a moment of silence. I shifted around in the seat and looked out of the back window into the truck bed. There was a little, black calf in the back of Mr. Stubblefield’s truck. It was just laying there on some straw. I couldn’t help but stare at it. When I first looked out the back window, I had thought the little thing was sleeping, but then I looked a little closer and saw that it’s chest wasn’t moving, it wasn’t breathing. It’s black fur was dull and dirty and it’s nose all dried up looking.
“You all have kids?” I heard Mr. Stubblefield ask of Sam.
Sam just nodded. “Yes, sir two, boy and a girl.”
“Ain’t gonna be easy raisin’ them alone.”
Sam just nodded.
“Mr. Stubblefield,” I interrupted, in a way hoping to rescue Sam from this obviously painful talk. “What happened to this little calf?”
“Well now, that’s real strange.”
He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. I was beginning to wonder if his truck ever made it over 30mph, but as slow as he spoke, it would be just natural for him to drive slowly as well.
“I went out yesterday, you know, just to check on my animals. Have a couple of little calves.” He paused and inhaled.
“I had brought most of my cattle down to the river for the summer. When I got here yesterday, I thought it just was kinda odd that, I didn’t see any of them. So I went looking. I found that little one right away. It was still alive then, but pretty sick already. I stayed here for the night. Got me a little shelter out here. Then I found my other cows too. They were sick too and now pretty much dead. I’m taking this one in to the vet’s maybe the vet can figure out what killed them.”
He finished his cigarette and pitched the butt gracefully out of the window.
“But that’s not the only weird thing. The cows that were on a pasture closest to Joe Bennett’s land, they died first. Ol’Joe had leased his pastureland in that area to the Federal Government this year. I don’t know why he did that, being how he feels about paying his taxes. Maybe they gave him a pretty penny, Joe likes money. But them cows, they died first. When I first found them they was all bloated, but then they just dried up, kinda like old bread. You know what I’m talking about? I saw that. I was there on that pasture when they died, one
after another. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that them there cows were a bunch of old ones. But they were young, healthy heifers,” he paused to light another cigarette.
“Yep, I figure I have just lost about 33 head of cattle. $25000.- to $30 000.- all lost in one night.”
I looked at Sam, surely he was beginning to see the connection between what had happened with the cattle and Marty and all the wildlife down by the river. Or was it just my imagination in overdrive? But Sam was quiet, lost in thought, staring out of the window.
“Mr. Stubblefield,” I said. “Mr. Stubblefield, when we walked up from the river last night, we stumbled onto some soldiers from the base. We listened to them and they didn’t know we were there. They were talking about some secret testing the government did on this side of the river. They said that the Army had leased some land from a farmer on this side and then conducted some testing.”
“Is that so?”
I couldn’t figure out if he had even understood what I was saying.
“That farmer would have been ol’Joe Bennett. What kind of testing?”
“Well, those guys were not real specific, they were drunk or something. They said, it involved some satellite and some sort of radiation aimed at a specific plot of farmland, supposed to make the crops grow faster, you know mature quicker. Something like that. Right Sam?”
But Sam didn’t respond. He just sat there. So I poked him in the ribs, startled he looked over his shoulder at me.
“Sam, would it be possible that this secret testing killed both the cattle and Marty? Come on, you were there too last night when those men were talking?”
“I was just thinking about that myself. It’s pretty outrageous for the government to conduct testing of this sort in a populated area such as this. But then take a look at some of the other equally outrageous stuff our government has done in recent years. Look at the Gulf War Vets that have strange health problems that even an idiot can link directly to war, except the government.
I have been thinking about what those solders said last night, yes, I see the connection. You bet. But I also know that we will never be able to prove anything. And if we did, would it bring Marty back? Would it bring your herd back? No. I am so angry, I’m ready to take on the government, hell I’m ready to take on anyone at this point. If I had known that they wanted to do testing here, we would have never floated the damn river. I dragged you guys out here because I knew that it was quiet and remote and I thought safe. Now Marty is dead and I have no idea how the others are.”
The old man had pulled over into a narrow, almost overgrown gravel path.
“You hold on a minute here!” he said. “I got a few more cows out there I want to look at real quick.”
He climbed out of the cab and lifted up the gate in front of us, pushed it open and walked through. I was curious and despite my blistered feet I followed him. He stopped in the middle of a grassy meadow that gently sloped away from us and lit another cigarette.
“See down there?” he pointed down the slope. “ If you keep going in that direction, you run right into that river of yours. I got some more pasture land all around here and I like to keep my cattle here for the summer, let them roam. Then come fall, we round them up and bring them back closer to the house, so I have a little easier time feeding them in the winter. We are a little ways away from where you guys ran into them soldiers. Lets see how my cows are doing out here.”
We stood a while looking around and then I saw movement in the brush and the trees bordering the meadow. Slowly several huge black cows moved toward us. Now that I knew what I was looking for I could see more of them in the grass under some trees, their huge jaws in constant motion. Mr. Stubblefield, silently watched them approach and walked closer. I was amazed at the size of the creatures. But then I’ve never been around farm animals, so anything would have amazed me. He rubbed a couple of noses and seemed to know several by name. Finally he turned back
“Well, all seems to be ok out here. But I sorta expected that. We’re a bit down river after all. Let’s get you into town and get some help to your friends.”
We were back on the road in no time and I was glad to see that the old man could coax more than 30 mph out of his truck. I leaned against Sam’s shoulder, the little dead calf in the back of the truck looked back at me, I closed my eyes and wondered how Tom was doing.
Chapter 24
Tom sat for a long time staring in the direction Chris and Sam had taken when they left.
Suddenly, he did not feel so sure that their decision to split up had been a good one. What if something happened? He wouldn't be able to protect her. Would he ever see her and Allen again? He never thought of himself, or what could happen to him. He knew Chris could handle raising Allen by herself. Don't even think this way, he told himself.
He walked over to check on Ralph and Sandy; glad Sam had helped him load Marty's body into one of the canoes.
The three of them stayed close to each other and close to the fire, although none could explain why. The night seemed endless and increasingly noisy, and Tom recalled his earlier conversation with Chris. What if she was right? What if, for some unexplainable reason, the world around them had changed? He tossed and turned in an attempt to get comfortable, but sleep never came.
Damn the what-ifs, he thought. With the slightest ray of light appearing in the sky, he gave up and went to tend to the fire. He quickly had water boiling, and the three of them ate what little was left and drank the last of the coffee. Then they doused the fire and gathered their belongings. They decided it would be best if Sandy took the canoe with Marty's body and additional gear as ballast, while Tom would ferry Ralph downriver. His greater skill at handling the canoe would provide a much smoother ride for Ralph. Comfort, after all, would not be an issue for Marty. Just as sunlight appeared on the water, they pushed off.
“Pace yourself,” Tom kept telling Sandy. “Stay close and pace yourself. It's going to be a long, hot day.”
He was right. When the sunshine hit, the temperature climbed rapidly. Before too long, they were both sweating profusely. There wasn't much of a current anymore; so much of their forward motion came from paddling. They missed their partners. More often than they liked, they entered water so shallow Tom had to get out and wade, towing the canoe behind him.
Shortly after ten o'clock, they stopped for a moment in a section of the river that was particularly wide and shallow. Tom had been dragging the canoe behind him for what seemed like miles and, finally, even Sandy had to get out and pull. They stopped and just sat on a rock in the middle of the river. Then they heard a mechanical thudd-thudd-thudd-thudd.
“A boat?” Sandy turned to Tom. He shook his head.
“Nope, I don't think so. It sounds more like a helicopter.”
“What do we do?”
“Absolutely nothing. Ralph, just keep that shirt over your lap and lay back. Close your eyes and pretend to sleep. Sandy, you just be your usual, obnoxious self. We'll play it by ear. We're just friends out for a day of frolic in the sun.”
“You think it could be the army looking for us?”
“Could be. It's too soon to expect any help from Chris and Sam.”
They could hear the helicopter approaching before they could see it and, as expected, it was dark and obviously of military origin. It hovered a little distance from them, then a figure jumped out into the shallow water and waded toward them.
The figure was dressed in plain, dark green coveralls, and wore an oversized helmet with mirrored visor. Based on the way the figure moved, Tom decided it had to be a man. He still would have preferred to see a face.
“Good Morning.”
That sounded friendly, Tom decided.
“Mornin',” he said. “What's up, you all have engine trouble?”
The two men laughed.
“No. Actually, we are doing a kind of survey of the folks using this river for recreation. Just want to ask you a couple of questions, if you don
't mind.”
“If we don't mind?” This was vintage Sandy, at her finest. Tom only hoped that he could still call her off in time.
“If we don't mind? Well, if that isn't something! We get out here on the river to get away from all the hassles of everyday life, especially from you fucking survey takers. You rank right up there with used car salesmen and lawyers. Do you have nothing better to do with your pitiful lives than to bother people who are trying to relax? Why didn't you interrupt us at dinner last night? That's what guys like you to do best. Well, sugarbritches, we ain't interested in your damn survey and we do not care to answer your questions, and what we do or why we like to use this river for recreation, it ain't none of your business. So get back into that ugly green thing there and buzz off.”
She did have to take a break to breathe, but there was no mistaking it: Sandy was hot and Tom enjoyed the role of the silent observer.