Death Pans Out

by Ashna Graves

  Rather than ending, the lane made a right turn to run parallel to Billie Creek Road, and as soon as she rounded the corner she saw the large blocky shape of the truck box. The engine wasn’t running and the headlights were off. The back end was toward her, and one half of the double doors hung open to reveal a dense black interior. No longer moving, barely breathing, she listened to silence. Before reading her uncle’s note, she would have assumed that whatever was going on here did not concern her beyond plain curiosity. Now she felt driven to find out what the truck was doing in the canyon at night, and whether it could have had anything to do with his disappearance.

  The driver, it seemed, had gone elsewhere, no doubt to take care of whatever business it was that brought him here. Neva crept closer to the open cargo door, and stopped again to listen and test the air with her nose. It carried a musty smell, like a shut-up attic in an old house. A few more steps would take her to the door, though the interior of the truck box was so black she would have to feel with her hands to find out what, if anything, was in there.

  A stone rolled on the hillside nearby, followed by the soft crunching of gravel.

  Neva darted across the road and slipped over the bank, easing one leg after the other onto a rock about three feet down. Hunched out of sight below the roadbed, she listened and waited. Just enough air moved through the trees to make it impossible to tell whether there was also a stealthy movement of a different sort. After several long minutes, she half stood and peered toward the wooded hillside beyond the truck. A light flickered, vanished, flickered again. It was moving down the hillside, and soon a figure emerged from the trees.

  She ducked below the bank, shrinking into a tight squat on the rock with her head on her knees and her eyes shut. Footsteps circled to the back of the truck, easy and confident, without stealth. Metal clicked against metal, there was a rummaging sound, and then came a thin whistling of the sort triggered by dull or routine jobs.

  It was a normal, even friendly, sound in the dark. Neva raised her head. The random notes formed into a tune, something familiar, something ceremonious…Here Comes the Bride? No, no, it was something she’d heard more recently, in the last few years—Pomp and Circumstance! She had looked it up after Ethan’s graduation. A march by Elgar, surprisingly, first played at a U.S. graduation ceremony in 1905—light flared and she drew in a breath, then pressed her hand over her mouth and stared. She had stood up again, intrigued by the whistling, and now watched in fascination as though looking at a big screen in the dark. The truck box was full of light, and silhouetted against it was the featureless shape of a man bent forward over what appeared to be a carpet roll. He dragged the roll toward him until it was half out of the truck, then grasped it by the middle.

  A sudden image of her uncle filled Neva’s mind. She saw him standing just as she was doing, watching a strange midnight ritual, and then, and then? Vanishing from the known world. Wrapped up in a carpet and stashed in a hole?

  She sank to her heels.

  “Who’s there?”

  Neva’s foot slipped off the edge of the rock, sending smaller rocks rolling down the bank. Light stabbed overhead. She leaped down the slope, throwing up her hands to protect her face as her feet slithered and stumbled. There were trees all around. Branches caught at her hair and clothing but she did not slow down. Directly ahead was the main road, a pale line striped by dark trunks. She burst into the open, stumbled, caught her balance, and began to run. Within seconds a powerful beam of light cut the darkness to her right, and then her own shadow sprang out ahead, and again she heard a shout. The light bounced crazily as footsteps pounded the road behind her.

  Neva tore through the night, her elbows and knees pumping. She had never been a runner but now she felt a strange new lightness. The breasts that used to bounce and weigh her down were gone, and the weeks of hiking had left the rest of her equally streamlined and hardened. Unhampered by extra flesh, her arms and legs bare, she sped up the road like a trained racer.

  Up the road? She was running the wrong direction!

  Shocked, she slowed down, but sprang ahead instantly as the light beam caught her again. She was headed up the creek toward Billie Mountain. There was no shelter, no protection, no savior ahead. There was only the empty road.

  She ran along the edge, away from the ruts and potholes, feeling the shape of the canyon change as she climbed. Her mind was clear, her perspective oddly removed as though part of her floated overhead watching. Her best hope, this watching intelligence said, was that she was fit enough to outlast her pursuer, to keep out of reach until he had to stop, and then to make her way back to the cabin through the woods.

  Rounding a bend, she slowed down to ease her breath, but footsteps pounded close behind and she spurted ahead again. Soon they would reach the high point of the canyon where the road curved to head back down. She couldn’t run downhill in the dark, she’d trip and fall.

  Her breath was raking now, and a rock had got into her left shoe.

  The road turned to cross the creek and without forethought, as though driven by some external force, she pivoted sharp right and jumped into black space, aiming for the trail. Her feet sank into powdery dust. Relief swept through her, but the next instant her leg struck something hard with a violent blow. As her body catapulted forward, she flung up her arms to protect her head, crashed through branches, and fell.

  For a long time she lay without moving, conscious but dazed. She thought she heard the thud of footfalls, and possibly voices. Was there more than one devil out here? Curled into a ball with her arms around her knees, she waited, her senses taking in information from the night. Trickling water, wet earth, leaves, a stone pressing into her hip, an owl, cold.

  She had no idea whether ten minutes passed or two hours, but when she was ready to sit up, she moved slowly, expecting broken bones. Her left eye recognized stars, though the right eye was stuck shut, evidently with blood from a cut on her forehead. Tree shapes stood black against the sky. At her back was a high bank. She must have landed at the very edge of the trail, tripped against a rock or branch, and been hurled into the creek channel.

  Scooting forward on her bottom, she shifted into a kneeling position, bent over the stream, and scooped icy water over her eye until it opened. Her fingers found the cut, which didn’t seem serious. It could wait for cleaning until she found soap and warm water. Slowly she stood up, wiggled her shoulders, lifted her right foot, her left foot, tried a few steps. Everything worked as it should, and no broken ends of bones stuck out anywhere that she could feel. Her head and leg hurt in a dull, throbbing way that felt like a warning of worse to come.

  The inclination to return to her cabin and bed was so powerful that she started walking downstream, but stopped after a few steps and said aloud, “No, Neva. You can’t.” Her pursuer couldn’t know her identity but it would take no brain at all to figure out that she had come from nearby. The only safe place to go was Gran’s cabin but it seemed a thousand miles away. Nonetheless, she turned in that direction and began to plod uphill. She could rest there, eat the canned food Darla kept stocked, and when she was ready, walk out to the main road and get herself to Elkhorn.

  ***

  The cabin was no more than five or six miles distant, but a high, narrow ridge lay between the two creek canyons, and once she had struggled to the top her legs were so weak that going down the other side was even slower. She arrived at the cabin in late afternoon, thirsty, exhausted, her head throbbing. She fumbled for the key, dropped it, and almost fell over when she bent to pick it up. Never had a room appeared more beautiful or homelike as she stepped inside with the low sun shining in around her. Half a can of cold ravioli was all she could get down before crawling into bed with mental apologies to Gran for not cleaning up her cuts and scrapes first. Sleep came instantly, but after a while she woke up, and for the rest of the night she drifted in and out of awareness, her thoughts stumbling among the events of the past week. The only clear fact was that something st
range and terrible was going on at Billie Creek and had been for years. This strong land that had given her back her own strength was being used for something secret and dreadful. The night truck was at the center of it. The truck was hauling something away from the creek that must be kept secret. Gold, it must be gold…but it could not be gold. Mining makes a terrific noise and mess, and no such operation was underway in the upper canyon.

  But maybe it was not newly mined gold. Maybe an old stash had been uncovered. Her uncle’s stash? But no stash would require more than fifteen years to haul away, and if the hauling had been going on in her uncle’s lifetime as well, it could not have been his gold. A precious mineral other than gold? Andy Sylvester had said there was copper ore in the canyon, but this would not require a secretive operation, and he’d claimed it wasn’t worth the cost of mining. On the other hand, could Sylvester be trusted? The urgency of his demands that she leave Billie Creek had made no sense from the beginning. It would make very good sense if he were involved in something that had to be kept secret…But maybe she was thinking in the wrong direction altogether. Maybe something was being brought to the creek rather than taken away. The truck had been parked roughly below the Calypso Mine. Maybe smugglers were storing illegal goods in the tunnel, though no one would go to such lengths unless it was highly profitable, and she could think of nothing that would be worth it except, maybe, toxic waste. It wouldn’t be the first time a contractor had dumped poison chemicals or radioactive material in a ditch or old well to avoid the bother and expense of proper disposal.

  Neva shook her head on the pillow and flinched away from the touch of a wool blanket against the cut above her eye. It did not make sense. There was no dangerous industry in Elkhorn County, and to haul waste a great distance would save no money or time. The whole idea was ludicrous.

  Well, then, how about a drug operation? Methamphetamine manufacture was a big problem in Oregon, but this was exactly why it would make no sense to hide such activities in a remote and foul-smelling tunnel. All you needed was a kitchen.

  Just after dawn, Neva got up purely from habit, but soon returned to bed and continued to doze until late afternoon. When at last she felt ready to be moving around, she stood out on the porch in her underwear and looked at the view that had seemed so perfect when she visited with Darla. It was still beautiful to her eyes, but not to her heart, and the sense of loss, of having been robbed of something more precious even than her uncle’s papers, raised tears in her eyes. She hadn’t cried from fear or from the cuts and bruises, and these tears didn’t last. Before they were heavy enough to fall they were stopped by anger. She would not allow anyone to ruin her love for this high desert world, no matter what they were up to, and she would not allow fear into her life. She had to pull herself together, walk out to the road, and get help, either from Darla or Father Bernard, for she certainly would not go to the sheriff, not on her own.

  Washing was the first order of business. She found a bucket under the sink, dipped water from the creek, and filled the kettle. Before building a fire in the stove she considered the likelihood that her pursuer would still be looking, and decided that it was extremely unlikely, and he certainly would not be searching Jump Creek Canyon. While the water heated, she found soap, rags, towel and washbasin, and was soon set up for a warm sponge bath on the porch. Gently, she scrubbed away the blood crusted above her eye, on her left shin where she had been struck by whatever tripped her, and on various minor scratches and scrapes. Nothing was serious, though her forehead was puffy and bruised, and her shin would be purple and yellow for many days.

  Dry and clean, she searched for something to wear instead of the shorts and tank top, which were stiff with dried mud, the shorts ripped up one leg. In a cupboard that served for a closet, she found a rain jacket, two flannel shirts, a soft print dress and a bulky blue sweater. First she tried a shirt but it wasn’t long enough to be of use without pants. With a second silent apology to Gran as well as Darla this time, she slipped the dress over her head. The thin old cloth was light on her skin, and mildly scented with jasmine or rose despite hanging unworn for fifteen years. Darla, she was certain, would never put on such a garment, and must have kept it in memory of her grandmother. Buttoned up the front, with her braided leather belt around the baggy middle, it hung to just below her knees. The sweater smelled faintly of wood smoke. She draped it around her shoulders despite the warmth of the evening, and soon was sitting on the porch with sweet tea, feeling fully human again.

  Had she overreacted? Had she startled her pursuer in the middle of an innocent, legitimate activity? She had turned up without warning in the night where anyone would expect to be alone, and might have been chased simply because she ran. But it wouldn’t do. Even without her uncle’s note she would have rejected this explanation. In any case, the next step was up to someone else. Her sole concern was to get to Angus or Elkhorn, tell the tale, and let others sort out what to do, if anything.

  It was full dark when she returned inside, locked the door, drew the curtains, lit the lamp and heated stew. Glutinous and heavy, the stew tasted more like can than beef, but she dug out every scrap of it, and topped the meal off with half a stale chocolate bar. As she ate, she examined the cabin. Darla had kept it in perfect condition, and most important, she had managed to foil the packrats, which would have made short work of the two shelves of books in decorative editions and the tidy dish towels folded and ready for use by the sink. There were few knick-knacks about, and no photographs, though three faded watercolors of flowers hung near the door. They were by Gran’s daughter who had died, she recalled as she studied them to see whether she could recognize the plants. One was blue penstemon, one a lily of some sort, and the other a yellow blossom she didn’t know.

  Below the clothes closet was a drawer that stuck at first pull. The next tug opened it enough to reveal stacked composition notebooks, the kind with pebbled covers that Neva had used years ago in school. On the third try the drawer jerked open all the way. She picked up the top notebook, opened it at random and read: “June 18, Tuesday. Burtie brought a bouquet of the dark blue flowers I’ve always known as Oregon lupine but he said it’s not a lupine at all. Well, live and learn.”

  Without moving from her spot on the floor, Neva turned to the beginning and read the entire notebook, then opened another, and a third. She looked up with unseeing eyes, stunned and disbelieving, and yet it was most certainly true—these were journals kept by Darla’s grandmother, and they were full of references to her uncle.

  Simply but literately written, the diaries detailed Gran’s daily life at the cabin, which had not been as solitary as Neva had understood from Darla’s account. In addition to frequent references to animals, plants, weather and her own thoughts, Gran described many visits from family members, and her good friend and neighbor Burtie. Uncle Matthew, it appeared, had been expected at the cabin on specific days for lunch, which generally also involved a walk and a great deal of conversation that was summarized in the diaries.

  It was like getting her stolen papers back many times over. Why had Darla not told her about the journals? Was it possible that she’d never read them?

  Neva transferred a stack of the notebooks to the table by the chair and settled in to read, her own situation forgotten. The script was firm and clear, and she read until the lamp ran out of kerosene. As she lay again in the soft, old bed, she felt deep gratitude toward the woman who had lived for so many years in this cabin, who had been fond of her uncle and had prepared this extraordinary gift for a younger woman she would never know, an outsider who shared her love for the rocks, flowers, birds and wide sky. What a pleasure it would have been to join her uncle and Gran for lunch and a walk. To think that she might never have discovered the journals…She could almost feel grateful toward the night truck driver for sending her here. The ludicrous thought made her smile.

  In the morning, Neva felt strong enough to leave the cabin but she wasn’t ready to leave the journals. She contin
ued to read, the stick figure that had been her uncle growing more solid and real in her mind. Every hour or so she made herself put down the notebooks and walk, never going far from the cabin but moving her body vigorously, stretching and bending. She would leave in the morning at first light, and carry only water, a lone stick of jerky she’d found in a coffee can, the rest of the chocolate bar, toilet paper and matches. And, as soon as possible, she would come back for the journals and have them copied in Elkhorn.

  Having failed to find more kerosene, she settled on the porch to read after a dinner of canned chili, skimming fast to beat the fading light. She was on the final journal now, and the entry she had been bracing herself to read came sooner than expected. It was about halfway through the notebook: “Burtie was here for lunch. I could see he was upset which really shows on him because it hardly ever happens. I made corn bread and potato soup, which he likes particularly. He was so quiet, I kept bothering him with questions until he left early, saying he had found something he couldn’t figure out and he would tell me about it when he did. Now I’m as curious as the proverbial cat—I hope he hurries up!”

  Skimming the neat paragraphs, Neva hurried on through half a dozen brief entries about the weather and what was blooming in the meadow, followed by a gap of several blank pages and then: “I haven’t written in this book for weeks. I’ve been too sad to think or know what to write. We have lost Burtie. Just like that. Gone. Some people say he went away because he was tired of mining, but I don’t believe it. He would have said goodbye. It happened when Orson was in town overnight. He came home to the mine and Burtie wasn’t there and he hasn’t been seen anywhere. Orson’s as close-mouthed as ever. He won’t tell me anything. When I asked if he knew what Burtie was so bothered about, he got upset and told me I was imagining things, just like a woman. ‘Just like my sister, Enid,’ he said. ‘Everything set her off when we were kids. Burtie didn’t like fuss.’