So Cold the River

by Michael Koryta

  There was a brief silence, and then Kellen said, “All those stories my great-grandfather told me about this place? All those crazy-sounding stories? Well, Everett Cage was a talker, I’ll admit that. He liked to captivate his audience. But, Eric? He also wasn’t a liar. He was an honest man, and I’m sure of one thing—whatever he said, well, he believed it. I guess I’ve always wondered how he could believe things like that.”

  It was quiet again, and then he said, “I’m starting to understand.”

  Josiah found himself watching the clouds. At first he’d taken to gazing out the window just because he wanted to be sure the old woman wasn’t up to something, that there was no way she could signal for help once those drapes were pulled back. But the window showed only a field and a view of the western sky. The clouds were massing, unsettled and swirling, layers seeming to shift from bottom to top and then back. The sky over the yard was pale gray, but out in the west it looked like a bruise, and the wind pushed hard at the house and whistled with occasional gusts. Something about the turbulent sky pleased him, made him smile, and he pulled his lips back and spat tobacco juice onto the window, watched it slide down the glass in a brown smear. Funny he couldn’t even remember putting a chaw in. Hadn’t ever taken to the habit, threw up when he sampled his first dip at fourteen and never went back to the stuff, but there it was.

  He waited until nearly nine before kneeling beside Anne McKinney and passing her his cell phone. Late enough that Shaw and the woman would be awake; early enough that they probably weren’t ready to check out. He had Danny watching in case they did, and the phone had been silent.

  “Time for your part in this,” he said. “It’s a most minor role, Mrs. McKinney, but critical nonetheless. In other words, it is a role that I cannot allow you to… what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Fuck up. That’s it. I cannot allow you to fuck this up.”

  She held his eyes and didn’t so much as blink. She was scared of him—she had to be—but she wasn’t allowing herself to show it, and there was a part of Josiah that admired that. Not a large enough part to tolerate it, though.

  “If you’re fixing to hurt people,” she said, “I won’t have a part in it.”

  “You don’t have the faintest idea what I’m fixing to do. Remember that. But here’s what I can tell you—this call doesn’t go through, people will begin to get hurt. And there’s only one person nearby for me to start with, too.”

  “You’d threaten a woman of my years. That’s the kind of man you—”

  “You ain’t got the first idea the kind of man I am. But I’ll give you a start: you picture the darkest soul you ever seen, and then, old woman, you add a little more black.”

  He hovered over her, the phone extended, his eyes locked on hers. “Now, all you got to do is make a phone call and say a handful of words, and say them right. That happens, I got a feeling I’ll find my way out of that front door of yours, and you’ll be sitting here watching your damn sky as you like. But if it doesn’t happen?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I’m a man of ambition. Not of patience.”

  She tried to keep her gaze steady but her mouth was trembling a bit, and when he pressed the phone into her wrinkled palm, he felt a fearful jolt travel through her.

  “You call that hotel,” he said. “You said he wanted that water? Well, tell him now’s the time to come get it. You’ll give it all to him, but he’s got to hurry up and get out here, because you’re going to be leaving town for a few days.”

  “He won’t believe that.”

  “Well, you best make him believe it. Because if he doesn’t? We’re going to have to find ourselves a whole new tactic. And with the mood I’ve found myself in, I don’t believe anyone would like to see what happens should I be required to get creative.”

  He slid the shotgun over and leaned it against the edge of the couch so the muzzle was looking her in the face.

  “Anne, you old bitch,” he said, “it’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t change the way I feel on that front.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll call. But whatever you think is going to happen, I can assure you it won’t work out as you’ve planned. Things never do.”

  “Don’t you worry about me. I’m a man who’s capable of adjusting.”

  She dialed, but he took the phone from her hand and put it to his ear to be certain she wasn’t calling anybody else. The voice that answered said, “West Baden Springs,” and Josiah, in a voice thick with easy charm, said, “I’m calling for a guest. Mr. Eric Shaw, please.”

  “One moment,” the woman answered, and Josiah passed the phone back to Anne McKinney. Then he dropped to one knee on the floor in front of the couch and rested his hand around the stock of the shotgun, curled one finger around the trigger guard.

  “Hello,” Anne said, and there was too much fluster in her voice. He shifted the gun as inspiration as she said, “I was, well, I was trying to reach Mr. Shaw.”

  “Oh,” she said. A pause during which Josiah could hear a female voice, and then Anne said, “Oh, yes. Well… a message? I, um—”

  Josiah gave an emphatic nod.

  “Yes, I’d like to leave a message. My name is Anne McKinney. I’ve only just met… oh, he mentioned me? Well, you see, he wanted something from me. Some old bottles of Pluto Water. And I want him to have them but I need him to come get them soon because I have to go out of town.”

  She was talking too fast, and Josiah moved the gun so the barrel was just inches from her chin.

  “That’s all. Just tell him to come see Anne McKinney if he can. He knows where I live. Please tell him. Thank you.”

  She shoved the phone away and Josiah took it and disconnected, regarding her with a sour expression. It hadn’t been the performance he’d needed. She was too shaky, too strange. He wanted to release some of the anger, but fear was already clear in her wrinkled old face and he didn’t have the energy for shouting, so he turned away instead and went to the window with gun in hand and looked out at those oncoming dark clouds.

  “She said he was gone?” He spoke with his back to her.

  “Yes. She told me she’d see that he got the message.”

  “Ain’t that just dandy news,” Josiah said, thinking that Danny was even more worthless than assumed, had let Shaw walk right out of that hotel. Son of a bitch. Wasn’t nobody could be counted on in this world except himself…

  He called Danny. Exploded on him before a word had been said, asking what in the hell he was doing up there, because Shaw was gone, damn it, and Danny hadn’t seen a thing because he was a useless piece of shit and—

  “I’m following him, Josiah! Give me a break, I’m following him.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you call and tell me that?”

  “He didn’t leave but five minutes ago! I’m just trying to keep up, see where’s he going.”

  Josiah reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose, took a breath. “Well, damn it, next time tell me when they start moving, then call back. Where are they going?”

  “Headed toward Paoli. The black kid picked him up in the Porsche. It was good work that I saw him go, since he didn’t take his own car.”

  “Just follow them,” Josiah said, in no mood to offer Danny praise. “Hang back far enough that they don’t notice you, but don’t you lose them neither.”

  “I’m doing best as I can but that black kid, he drives like—”

  “Just stay behind them and let me know where they end up.”

  They hadn’t made it more than a few miles out of town before Eric’s cell phone rang—Claire.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “That old lady called. She wants you to get her Pluto Water.”

  “Okay. I’ll call her back in a while. I don’t really have time to—”

  “She said she’s leaving for a few days, and if you want the bottles, you have to get them now. She sounded upset.”

  Leaving for a few days? It was odd that sh
e hadn’t mentioned it.

  “She say where she was going?”

  “Nope. Just that if you want the water, today’s the day to get it.”

  Damn it. He didn’t have time for a delay like this, but he also couldn’t afford to let the last supply of original Pluto Water he had access to close off. Not right now, not when his hands were shaking and his head was throbbing and even full bottles of the hotel water didn’t do a damn thing to help. By now Anne’s water might not help either, but it was better to have at least the chance of a net under your tightrope.

  “Hang on,” he said and then lowered the phone and said to Kellen, “Hey, are we going to pass by Anne McKinney’s on our way to this place?”

  “That’s the exact opposite direction. But we can turn around.”

  He didn’t want to turn around. He wanted to see the site of the old Granger cabin, and the sky was turning forbidding, more storms certainly on the way. But it was worth a delay if he could get his hands on a few more bottles…

  “I’ll go see her,” Eric told Claire. “I hate to slow down for it now, because I want to find this spot I told you about and it looks like rain.”

  “I had the TV on. They’re predicting bad storms all day.”

  “Great. I’d love to get caught out in the woods in those. But if she’s leaving—”

  “I could go get them,” Claire said.

  He hesitated. “No. We agreed that it was safest for you to stay—”

  “She’s an elderly woman, Eric. I think I can handle her.”

  “I don’t really like that idea.”

  “Well, I’d like to see one of these bottles, honestly.”

  He remembered the way she’d inquired about the bottle as soon as she got to the hotel, as if testing him, searching for tangible proof of his wild stories.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let me give you directions to the house.”

  50

  ANNE SAT ON THE COUCH with her hands folded in her lap and watched Josiah Bradford pace and mutter and thought that it was clear he was no longer in his own mind. He still managed lucid exchanges, but whenever he drifted away from the moment, his head was taking him far from this house. It was almost like watching Eric Shaw the other day. Like that but different, because with Eric it had been obvious that his mind was traveling somewhere else. With Josiah, it seemed something was paying him a visit. He was holding entire under-the-breath conversations, grumbling about a strong back and a valley that needed to be reminded of a few things, other bits and pieces that seemed just as nonsensical. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed by puffy, purple rings, the picture of exhaustion. She wondered if he was using the strange, terrible drug that did so much harm in this area, meth. She’d only read of it, had no sense of the symptoms, but surely something had invaded his body and mind.

  When he wasn’t whispering to himself, he was spitting tobacco juice into an empty fruit cocktail can he’d dug out of the kitchen. He’d carry on in a whisper for a while, staring out the window, and then he’d peel his lips back from his teeth and—ping—spit into the can. Over and over he did that, and while watching a man spit tobacco was far more loathsome than fascinating, she found herself enthralled by it. Because, as far as she could tell, there was no tobacco in his mouth.

  He’d never put any in his mouth, at least, and though she’d studied him hard, she could see no bulge in his cheek or lower lip. When he spoke, to her or to himself, he didn’t seem to be talking around anything either. Yet his supply of amber-colored spittle never seemed to run dry, and she could smell the tobacco, dusky and cloying, from where she sat.

  Bizarre. But at least he was distracted from her. Whatever he had planned for Eric Shaw couldn’t be good, though she didn’t know what she could do to prevent it, or if she even should try. Perhaps it was best to wait him out. Maybe he’d leave eventually, or maybe he’d burn himself out and fall asleep. If he did that, she could get to the R. L. Drake. He’d felt awful good about himself for cutting the phone line, but he hadn’t counted on her having a shortwave. All she needed was the opportunity, but getting down those steep stairs into the cellar wasn’t something she could do quickly. Quietly, maybe, but not quickly.

  At least she was still free to move. He’d carried a roll of duct tape inside with him and she’d expected from the start that he’d use it to bind her hands and, God forbid, seal her mouth. She had enough trouble taking calm breaths right now. Close off her mouth and she shuddered to think what it would be like. He never used it, though, never even tied her hands, as if he’d taken stock and determined her too old and feeble to do harm.

  A crazy man pacing the living room should have held her attention, but after a time she found it drifting from Josiah Bradford to the big picture window and the tumultuous clouds blowing in from the west.

  Today was going to be special. And not just because of the man with the gun who’d taken up residence in her home. No, today would have been special even without that. The air mass headed this way was unstable, and the ground wet and warm. That meant that as the day built and the heat rose with it, there’d be something called differential heating. A boring term, unless you understood what it did. Differential heating provided lift, allowing that moist, unstable air mass to take on an updraft. And once that started? Storms followed. Yes, they did.

  All the basics were in play already today, but the clouds were showing Anne that another variable looked ready to join: wind shear. Specifically, the vertical sort. The stronger that was, the longer the storm front had access to the updraft, and that meant trouble. The banks of dark clouds to the west had an obvious tilt to them, seemed to be leaning forward from the top, a look that indicated high wind shear. Most anyone would notice that tilt, but few would see the secondary motion—a mild, almost undetectable clockwise shifting of the cloud layers. At first she hadn’t been sure because she was distracted by Josiah’s carrying-on, but then she squinted and focused and saw that she was right. The clouds in the lowest level of the atmosphere were turning with those at the bottom of the upper level, and the direction was clockwise. That was called veering. That was not good.

  Veering was a form of rotation, and rotation was a hallmark of the supercell storm, the sort Anne had been watching for years. She wished she had the TV or the weather radio on. Ordinarily, she’d have not only reports from the surrounding area but readings on pressure and humidity. Now she was left with only the clouds. That was fine, though—they’d tell her plenty. They’d show her the storm’s development, and the trees in the yard would tell her the wind speed, and through those things alone she’d have a better sense of what was about to happen than most. Right now there were large limbs in motion on the trees and a clear whistling sound as the wind went through the branches and the power lines, which meant the speed was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, up a bit from early morning. The way that cloud front looked, it wasn’t going to end there.

  They passed cattle farms and a group of Amish men working beside a barn. The countryside here was rolling as if tossed by an unseen ocean, no flat fields as there were in Illinois and the northern half of Indiana. The terrain here was closer to what you’d find on the south side of the Ohio River, where Kentucky’s rolling bluegrass fields edged into foothills and then became mountains.

  Kellen was doing about seventy down the county road, and he jerked his head to the left and said, “That’s where your buddy was killed.”

  “This road?”

  “Next one down, I think. That’s where his van was set on fire. I drove past it yesterday on my way back into town. I was… curious.”

  Something about this knowledge made Eric uncomfortable. Not just considering the man’s death, but that it had occurred so close to where they were headed now. They were driving past low-lying fields and scattered homes and trailers, but in the distance the hills rose blanketed with centuries-old forests. They came into view of an old white church with a graveyard beside it, and Kellen hit the brakes hard. The Porsche skidd
ed on the barely wet surface and they slid past the turn, so Kellen had to throw it in reverse.

  “You always drive like this, then it’s a good thing your girlfriend is going to be a doctor,” Eric said. “You’re going to need one.”

  Kellen smiled, backing up to the church and then making a left turn. They’d gone just far enough for him to build up his speed again when a sign and a gravel drive appeared to their left and he had to hammer the brakes again. This time he made the turn on one try, bounced them along the gravel until it ended in a circular turnaround.

  “Now we got to walk.”

  “Where in the hell are we?”

  “Orangeville. Population around eleven, but double that if you count the cows. This spot is Wesley Chapel Gulf. We have to hike to get to it.”

  They got out of the car and stepped into the brush. There was a trail of sorts leading away from the gravel drive, and they followed that. Fields showed on the high side to their left, and on the low side to the right, the woods were dense and pieces of limestone jutted out of the earth. It was evident that the slope fell off abruptly just past the tree line, but through all the green thickets Eric couldn’t see what lay beyond. He was trying to fit the place in with what he’d seen in his visions but so far could not.

  They walked for about five minutes before the trail forked and Kellen, after a moment’s hesitation, went to the right, where the trail seemed to wind downward. They left the ridge and walked down into a sunken valley that was filled with waist-high grasses and reeds.

  “Looks like this floods sometimes,” Eric said.

  “When the gulf gets high enough.”

  They followed the trail as it wrapped through the bottoms. Down here between the heavily wooded ridges any sun would have been screened, and on a morning like this there was a shadow-shrouded dark that felt almost like twilight, the day coming to a close instead of a start. At length the trail opened out of the weeds and thickets and they were standing at the top of a sandy, tree-lined slope facing a pool of water that was bordered on the far edge by a jagged stone cliff rising a good eighty or ninety feet above the water. The pool was of a shade Eric had never seen before—a bizarre aquamarine blend of deep green with streaks of blue, water that seemed to belong in a jungle river somewhere. There was a roiling spot in the far corner where water met rock, and out beyond that the pool seemed to swirl. All around them the sound of rushing water could be heard, but nothing flowed from the pool.