Once Upon a River

by Bonnie Jo Campbell

  A man steered his aluminum motorboat around her. She tossed side to side in his wake, and then she twirled. She had not swum since long before she’d left home, and she had forgotten the freedom she’d once known in letting the river take her where it would. She passed a half dozen sandpipers on a sandbar, and then watched a green heron slinking through poison ivy vines along the water’s edge. She knew she should pull over to the side of the river and take charge of her situation, but then she saw a tree that resembled Paul with his arms upraised. Another tree had her father’s brooding face. Her mother’s willowy, suntanned arms momentarily appeared as reflections of branches, but the water was swift there, providing no place to rest. She did not want to go back to Murrayville, but she could not go back to her cabin. She climbed onto the boat’s back seat beside her rifle and curled there and thought about how nice it was to float, to let the river guide her, and how nice it had been to lie with Michael last night in his big bed.

  The next she was aware, she was no longer moving. The air had grown cooler, and she seemed to be tilted to the starboard side on the back seat of the boat. Above her was a rickety dock with one pole missing, but it was not the marijuana house in Murrayville as she had thought for one confused moment. Her prow was stuck in a sandbar beside a burned-out cabin she’d seen on trips downstream with Brian. The sun was sinking, but not more than half an hour had passed since she’d closed her eyes. At first she thought she was hallucinating when she saw a great blue heron standing before her, not four feet away, on the middle seat of the boat. Margo moved not a muscle, tried not to blink. She studied the clear, savage banded eye, the dagger of a beak, and wondered if this animal was going to attack her. Drops of water beaded on the bird’s spiky crest. She remained perfectly still as the heron stepped off the seat onto the wet floor of the boat, coming even closer, as though Margo might be prey. She had watched herons spear fish in tangled underwater roots and feed their chicks in the tops of trees, but she had never dared hope she would be close enough to touch one. Margo followed the bird’s gaze and realized it wasn’t really looking at her; it was stalking something in the shallow water in the bottom of the boat, a gold shimmer, a little fish, perhaps. Suddenly the dagger beak dipped and snatched the bright object. It was a gold-colored .22-caliber long-rifle cartridge. The bird looked into Margo’s eyes and began to take flight. As it spread its wings, its feathers brushed Margo’s knees, and, as if realizing its folly, it dropped the cartridge onto Margo’s hip. Margo held her breath as the bird rose and flew upstream. She studied the cartridge and wondered if it was some kind of message.

  She sat up and let herself imagine the flush of wings again, the swoosh of air; she thought about Michael in his bed, the night wind through the window, his warm skin brushing hers. She would follow the heron back upstream. She wasn’t certain how far down she had floated, but if it was three miles, it would take that many hours to return to where she’d started. To lessen the effect of the current, she hugged the edge of the river as closely as she could without scraping bottom with her oars. She faced backward, toward a fiery orange sunset, and as the color faded, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She rowed steadily past the unlit wooden cottages and shacks, alongside the ancient trees. A whip-poor-will’s haunting cry raised the hair on her arms. A nighthawk made a crazy flutter and followed her for a while. A big hoot owl appeared silhouetted in a tree. Muskrats and other night hunters slid into the water, rose alongside her boat, and then slipped below the surface again as she made her way upstream. When a quarter moon appeared, Margo pulled herself into a snag to rest. Her arm muscles burned, and her hands were roughed up from the oar handles. She felt the night pulling at her boat, luring her into the dark, easy current. She pushed off again.

  The river curved and narrowed slightly, and she recognized a familiar irrigation pump and boathouses on the north bank. She held the brightest stars in her sights until they disappeared behind trees.

  But once she neared the cabin, she saw the Playbuoy was still there. When she reached Michael’s oil-barrel float, she misjudged the distance from shore and stepped out into thigh-deep water. She tied the boat under the gangplank, between the float and shore, where it would be less noticeable. The noise must have woken Michael or King. A light came on in the bedroom, and King soon jogged out into the yard, over the planks, and onto the float. Margo petted her and held the Marlin out of the water.

  She saw the kitchen light go on, and she dragged herself to shore.

  Michael opened the kitchen door before she knocked. “Margaret!” he said.

  “Can I have some matches?” It was all she could bring herself to say, not knowing if Michael’s dinner invitation was still open. Margo should have checked for Danielle’s car in the driveway before coming to the door.

  “Margaret, come in,” Michael said. She saw the clock behind him. It was ten-thirty. “It’s cold out there. Feels like fall.”

  “Is Danielle here?” Margo clenched her teeth. King stood beside her.

  “Nope. I’m all by myself.”

  “I brought King back. She came out to find me.”

  Michael looked at Margo. “Do you want to talk about whatever’s going on?”

  Margo hunched her shoulders to stop her shivering. “That island with the willows upstream,” she said. “I’ll row you up there if you want. Tomorrow.”

  “Come in, and let’s talk about it,” Michael said. He leaned against the doorframe. “Tell me about that man at the cabin.”

  “Do you like great blue herons?” Margo asked. She felt drunk, dizzy.

  “Who doesn’t like them?” Michael said.

  “There’s herons on Willow Island. A campment of herons, living in the trees.” She put one hand against the doorframe. “Dozens of them. One came so close that it brushed my leg with its wing.”

  “I don’t suppose you know the story about Leda and the swan?”

  Margo thought of the word. “Heronry,” she said. “The herons are in a heronry.”

  “I like cranes, too. Not as common in these parts, of course. The females are reclusive. Now it’s time to come inside and dry off.” He tugged at her wrist, but stopped when she resisted. He took her hand. “If you seriously don’t want to come in, I’ll just give you some gas for your boat, okay? And I’ve got a box of matches you can have.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You know, I miss my dad. And my ma. She doesn’t want me to visit her.”

  “Come inside, Margaret. We can talk about it.”

  “I mean . . . I miss them so much.” She couldn’t imagine Michael or anyone understanding how even losing Brian had been difficult.

  Michael nodded. He held both of her hands gently. “Cleo’s going to get cold out there waiting for you. We’ll let her have two names, like you. She can be King Cleo. Come in, and I’ll make you an omelet. By tomorrow afternoon you’ll be thanking me for it.”

  Before she stepped through the doorway, Margo looked behind her, across the river, toward the dark little cabin. She would row across tomorrow, after Paul was gone, to get her belongings—hopefully her pack would still be under the bed. King followed her inside, where it was warm and safe.

  PART

  II

  • Chapter Eleven •

  Margo brought in the mail from the box. It was April, and she had been staying with Michael since late September. The danger of freezing and flooding had passed, and yesterday they had launched the oil-barrel float. Margo had walked the gangplank onto it no fewer than twenty times today, enjoying the way it tipped beneath her weight. The arrival of a letter addressed to Margaret Louise Crane made her hopeful it would be from her mother, to whom she had written and sent Michael’s address. She had received a Christmas card from Luanne saying once again that now would not be a good time to visit, but that she would write again soon. It contained a twenty-dollar bill. This envelope, however, was from the Secretary of State and contained the Michigan ID card she’d applied for three weeks earlier. She would use the
card to get her hunting and fishing licenses.

  When Michael got home that evening, he went into the house as usual. Then he came out the back door and approached Margo, who was skinning a bullhead catfish near the upstream edge of his property. Out of squeamishness and a dislike of mess, he usually avoided watching her prepare the fish and game she caught.

  “Your ID says you were born in 1963.” He seemed to choke on his words. “I saw it sitting on the table.”

  “So?”

  “You just turned seventeen in November, after you moved in with me. Jesus, Margaret.”

  The tail of the bullhead curled away from the tree. The fish arched its half-skinned body, kept pushing against the nail that held its head to the tree. On this pleasant afternoon, Margo had forgotten about how her age could matter.

  “For Christ’s sake, Margaret, can’t you hit it on the head or something?”

  “What?”

  “Do you really want to skin something alive?” Michael said. “The damned fish. It’s in pain. Can’t you kill it first?”

  “My grandpa taught me—”

  “He taught you to skin a creature alive?”

  “Told me, I mean . . . fish don’t feel pain.”

  “Jesus, Margo, look at that thing writhe—if that’s not pain, I don’t know what is.”

  Margo picked up her knife and slashed through the bullhead’s spinal cord. Its body fell to the ground.

  “I’m sorry I said it like that,” Michael said. “I’ve just never seen one struggle that way. Really, it’s okay.”

  “I do hit them on the head, but sometimes they wake up.”

  He was holding her ID between his thumb and finger. “You even take a beautiful driver’s license photo. God, Margaret.”

  She stood quietly, headless fish in one hand, knife in the other. Silence had so far been her best response when Michael was upset.

  “You told me you were turning nineteen when we met. You were sixteen. I slept with a sixteen-year-old girl. And now I’m with a

  seventeen-year-old girl. Stop looking at me that way. It’s maddening when you stare.”

  Margo looked beyond him, at the river.

  “What is the age of consent in this state? I didn’t think I would ever need to know.”

  Margo watched him cross the lawn and disappear into the house. When Michael was upset, he didn’t usually stay that way for long. She didn’t know if this time would be different or what that might mean. She finished skinning the fish, stinging her hand only once.

  The winter had dragged on too long, and now that spring was here, hundreds of daffodils bloomed alongside Michael’s house. Thirty-some miles downstream, Joanna had planted hundreds of daffodils around the Murray house and yard, ones she called jonquils and narcissus and paper flowers, some etched with orange, so that every April the Murray place looked like a fairyland. Occasionally Margo thought of shooting their blossom heads off with .22 shotshells, but it was only to see the petals spray like fireworks, to create a different kind of beauty. Shotshell was what Annie Oakley used to explode glass balls in the air at exhibitions.

  Margo was enjoying living with Michael, but after all these months she still had not dared unpack. She washed her clothes in his machine and stuffed them back into her army bag. She felt restless whenever she spent too much time indoors, but knew she would have a hard time living without Michael’s household comforts again, without furnace heat, hot water, and store-bought food. She had reshaped her life around Michael’s routines and his sensible habits so thoroughly that she could go for hours without thinking about her daddy or her old life, or even about Brian or Paul, despite the cabin being right across the way. Michael worked patiently on his projects in the evenings with her assistance, finishing the floors and installing the baseboards in room after room, striving to master the skills he needed to make his house perfect. The thought that he might finish the remodeling made her uneasy—she feared that when the house was to his liking he might turn his attention to improving her. Fortunately, he was nowhere near finishing the boat, so that could occupy him awhile.

  Margo had been learning more about Annie Oakley ever since Michael brought her a copy of Annie Oakley: Life and Legend. It said that Annie had been born Phoebe Ann Mosey and changed her name as an adult. After her father’s death, the girl’s mother sent thirteen-year-old Phoebe away to live with a couple who had no children. They worked her hard, beat her, and didn’t feed her enough. She called them the Wolves. As soon as she could escape from the attic where they locked her, she ran home to her mother’s. Only then did she take the old family rifle off the mantel and start hunting, as a way to earn her keep.

  Twenty minutes later when Michael returned, he was still agitated. Margo wiped her hands on her jeans.

  “The age of consent is seventeen in this state,” Michael said. “But seventeen. It’s so young. Should we go talk to your relations in Murrayville? Maybe it’s time we track down your mother. What the hell is the matter with her, anyhow?”

  Margo shook her head. She wasn’t desperate enough to go where she wasn’t wanted.

  “Will you swim with me when it gets warmer?” she asked in a quiet voice. She wanted to change the subject.

  “I’m not much of a swimmer. Maybe we should get married,” he said. He looked into her face.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why? For all the normal reasons. Love. I love you, Margaret Louise,” Michael said, “and maybe I’m a little afraid that if I don’t marry you, what we’re doing is wrong.”

  “Would I have to go to church?” she asked. “Or school?”

  Every Sunday Michael tried to get her to come with him to his hippie church. She had gone once, had listened to the minister. The man meant well, she could tell, but he was as dull as a schoolteacher. She had enjoyed the guitar music, but she didn’t like the way people wanted to shake her hand and talk afterward. She didn’t dislike people, she told Michael, but at church there were too many all at once. He said it was okay that she didn’t go, but he was disappointed she didn’t want to be part of his community. He was also disappointed that she didn’t show any interest in school. He thought Margo needed to set personal goals, that it was not enough to live a beautiful life on the river, fishing, shooting, and collecting berries, nuts, and mushrooms.

  “You wouldn’t have to do anything you didn’t want to do. Okay, forget I asked.” He moved away from her. Then he said, “This wasn’t the right way to ask you. Or the right time, when I’m all riled up.”

  Margo looked off downstream. People said Joanna and Cal had a solid marriage, and Margo was sure Joanna would say she was glad she had married Cal. Her own ma and pa were a different story.

  “But if I did ask you, what would you say?” Michael knelt in the grass and took her hand, which was still sticky with fish guts. “This is a little better. Will you marry me?”

  She looked down at him. He was still wearing his creased work pants. He had taken off his tie in the house, but his white shirt was still buttoned up to the neck.

  Since she had been living with Michael, she talked more, said things even when she wasn’t certain she should, about her father and mother and some of the Murrays, but she hadn’t told him about Cal or Paul or Brian.

  Usually Michael seemed happy to listen to her. Their life together was easy. They made love most nights, with no worry about getting pregnant. Despite the way she knew and loved Michael, marriage had never occurred to her.

  “Why are you looking at me so strangely?” Michael asked. “Don’t people get married where you come from?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay what?”

  “I’ll marry you.”

  “The answer is yes or no,” Michael said and grinned. “Okay is a little less enthusiastic than I was hoping for.”

  “Okay, yes.”

  “Are you sure? I shouldn’t have asked this way. And I don’t even have a ring, Margaret. A man can’t propose without a ring.”
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br />   “Annie Oakley married Frank Butler when she was seventeen,” Margo said. “He was twenty-eight. Same as us. They spent the rest of their lives together. With dogs.”

  “No kids?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right, then, if it’s good enough for Annie Oakley, it’s good enough for us. Now, what can we use for a ring around here?”

  From what she had read, Margo knew there was some uncertainty about Annie Oakley’s real age. The Wild West Show had an interest in making her seem as young as possible. She also knew that Annie longed to have children, but was unable to.

  Michael said, “God, a few minutes ago I was miserable with guilt, and now I’m the happiest person I know.”

  He plucked a single dandelion, one of a few that had bloomed so far, and he asked to borrow her fish knife. He cut a slit in the dandelion stem near the flower’s head, looped the bottom of the stem through it, and pulled it tight around her finger, so her hand had a big yellow flower on top.

  “We used to make these!” Margo said, delighted. “My aunt Joanna showed me how.”

  “Do you want a church wedding?” He clasped her hand. “I guess I know the answer to that. We’ll have riverside wedding.”

  She was feeling overwhelmed. She kept looking at the dandelion on her hand.

  “We’ll keep it small, just us and a few friends and family. Maybe your mom will show her face.”

  They kissed at the river’s edge with the quaking aspen fluttering its new silvery leaves above them. The breeze picked up coolness from the thawed ground and blew it past them into the warm air.

  “Should we wait until you’re eighteen? Until the end of November? That’s seven months from now.”

  She nodded. Michael sat down cross-legged in the grass and tugged her down beside him. “I’m sorry about the way I yelled at you earlier,” he said, and took both her hands in his. “I freak out sometimes.”