Ride the Lucky

by Kendric Neal

  As he walked towards it, though, something caught his eye. It was something familiar—cloth of the same color he'd seen earlier. Paper banners, pieces of hand-dyed, hand-woven cloth, photos, candles…someone had erected a shrine on a stump not far from the captive tree and as he got closer, he was sure it was the same sort of shrine he'd seen on the road. Same boy, same picture. Incense and talismans. A stick figure made of twigs, the boy's soul in representation, he supposed. He wondered how they got out here, how they'd found it. Who was he kidding? Not “they”, “she”. He knew she'd been here, he knew it was the reason Coll had reacted the way he had. Had he told her which stump it was or had she just known? The breeze blew through it and the cloth, the paper, the images fluttered in the sudden forest wind. The real question, Neely thought, was why did they leave it? Why did these lumber guys leave it as is, as he was certain they hadn't touched a thing. They were the kind of men who, after the old lady and the forest rangers left, would go over and piss on the whole lot or have their own little bonfire. Why had they left it exactly as she'd left it?

  Neely's thoughts were interrupted by a twig snap to his side. It was loud, alarming, and unexpected… The men were halfway up the hill contending with their own emergency. Neely scanned the woods and knew he wasn't alone. The wind had done something, that sudden strong gust had done more than wake up the shrine to the dead, it had awoken something else in those woods. He had a sense of a lurking presence and was sure he'd spotted the old woman in the woods, but that was crazy, that was crazy. He was alone. He had a momentary memory of the boy again, a profile in the car seen by dashboard lights, the arm waving its final goodbye, only it wasn't in profile this time. He heard a crack again, only this time it was louder, clearer, more ominous… The tree, above his head, swayed unnaturally with the gust. It wasn't moving elastically like the other trees, it was moving like a pivot, a crazy dancing totem rocking off its base. The last crack had had a dark undertone to it—like in second grade when Trey Smith slipped a Ticonderoga No. 2 between his knuckles and slammed his hand down on the table so hard it broke the pencil into three knuckle-length pieces, winning lunch money for a week off little Neely who was stupid enough to bet him. Could have broken his knuckles just as easily, but that was Trey Smith's advantage. He didn't care.

  The drums, deep in the forest, hammered out a distant beat as she cackled and hid behind another tree. A stick-figure walked among the trees, deeper, in the shadows, skirting Neely's peripheral vision. He could only see a silhouette, not a person, a skeleton. One arm wrapped around a tree. Not waving…that was a follow-through, that was the end of an arc, it was the boy…a tomahawk singing through the trees. Neely ducked and it hit the tree square. That “thwack” he knew, he'd heard it before. It resonated, deep and bass-toned now. All the prayer flags fluttered violently, maybe that was what he'd heard. But the breeze was gusting from within the dark forest—impossible, breezes don't come from inside of dense forests.

  He watched it happen in slow motion.

  The last gust freed it. It briefly strained against its moorings, then began its heavenly descent. Neely watched with grim fascination—it was impossible not to be carried away with the vision of something that massive moving freely, softly through the air, beginning its silent downward arc, five centuries of stored gravity expended in a few brief seconds. It increased speed as it fell, achieving an agonized, whispering velocity, and Neely thanked God he wasn't in its path as he wasn't sure how far he would have been able to run seeing its massive shadow swallow him whole.

  He ducked behind the stump with the shrine as the top section of the tree roared down to its collision with the ground. Neely was thrown six feet in the air by the ground's shuddering response and landed painfully on his ass.

  The tree bounced once and the top slammed down in the middle of the construction shack as the thin metal accordioned like a cheap toy from the fair. Neely thought it looked like someone squeezing a Twinkie in his fist, everything inside blowing out both ends as the center compressed to nothing but sheet metal. It was no more than a pile of plastic and tin a second later and the massive tree hadn't even gotten started yet. Its bottom end had gotten caught up in the cables meant to hold it in place. As it had fallen over, the arrested momentum caused the bottom end to arc upward like a seesaw now and tear free of its moorings too. The bottom continued going upwards as the top planted itself in the parking area just beyond where the office had been and the whole thing pole-vaulted again toward the hill where the men where.

  By now they too were watching the scene unfold with undisguised horror. They had not imagined it would continue its journey end-over-end, it seemed to defy the laws of physics, and these men had been cutting trees for a lot of years, they knew what trees would do, real trees, normal trees, not trees like this, trees older than humanity, evil ancient trees that lusted for mens' blood. The bottom came speeding down against the hilltop, missing them by a wide margin but snagging the lower half of their cable pulley system and yanking it from its supports like a loose thread. The cable snapped and yanked the crane at the top. The thing went over with its operator still inside and began to tumble down the hill as the log it had been ferrying got swept up in the gathering storm. Coll moved uphill while the other two moved down, just narrowly avoiding the cabled tree as it bounced heavily off the stump roots and charged down the mountainside. The cable sang through the air as the tumbling crane picked up speed. Neely's last view of Coll was as he stopped on a rise and turned back to see what was coming. He wavered slightly and fell to his knees. Only it wasn't his knees. The cable had sung past him, whipcracking Coll in two like a knife through butter. He looked astonished, Neely thought. He looked surprised, his brain working even as it happened, having time to contemplate it, having time to feel himself falling because it's awfully hard to stand up straight when your legs aren't there anymore.

  The crane tumbled down the mountain face, pieces flying off it, the whirling hunk of metal slowly being reduced to a rounded piece of junk as each bouncing contact compacted it further, the operator still trapped somewhere inside. The other two men lost their race to the bottom as the cabled log passed them. They weren't destined for the same reprieve Neely got, he knew. It wasn't bouncing off of anything, the ground was too soft. Instead it was taking out everything in its way, like two boys pulling a jumprope over an anthill. It wiped out all impediments, removed impurities, it leveled what was left and those two men were just sticks among the others cut down like grass. It cleared them as easily as it cleared everything else, not stopping until it reached the parking area at the bottom of the hill where it plowed through the five mud-splattered pick-up trucks and the heavy equipment it found parked there. It didn't stop until it rolled past the remains of the shed—it didn't stop until it met an object more powerful than itself. It rolled into the trunk that had once been the old-growth tree, that had been around for the Mayans, that had been there since the buffalo, since Columbus, since the pilgrims and the founding fathers, since the Revolution and the Civil War, since Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller, since Roosevelt and Truman and Eisenhower, JFK and MLK and LBJ… The OG stopped it in its tracks. The mess heaved up, looked over the top, gave up the attempt, and settled down in a pile of mud and dust, four feet from where Neely stood, eyes closed, expecting the worst. It stopped at the stump. It honored the shrine. The mess settled at his feet like a mud-splattered dog. The others were dead, their trucks flattened, the trailer history, this lumber operation disbanded, dismissed, and dispersed. The gods had struck back and Neely had come through without a scratch. The tree had seen him, the tree had been merciful, the tree had let him go.

  CHAPTER 9

  This phone call was going from bad to worse. He didn't seem to have any way to tell Hope to back off on this, to stop acting like Judge Judy and just give him some damn space. Hell, the cops were more sympathetic. “I don't understand, why would you even go there?” she said for at least the fourth time.

  “I told y
ou. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “Closure. You wanted closure.”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted to see where the tree came from that almost killed you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize that's nutty, right?”

  “You didn't live it, Hope. You're not the one with the nightmares.”

  That seemed to shut her up, which was all he was praying for at the moment. “Four men were killed…” she said in a whisper. Neely figured that was it, it was her fear talking. That fact seemed unreal and that Neely was at the center of it seemed to scare her so much it set off an anger response.

  “Everyone's now saying what that foreman said, it was just plain stupid to leave a tree half-cut like that. Now there's going to be lawsuits in every direction.”

  “But why are the cops coming back to talk to you?”

  “Because I was there, Hope. I'm the only witness.”

  “They don't think you did it?”

  “Did what?! Knock a 50,000 lb. tree over? No, that doesn't seem to be on their minds.”

  “What did they say when you told them why you were there?”

  “Well, that's the funny thing, darling. They believed me. They believed a guy who nearly lost it to an illegally-harvested tree might want to go have a word with the guys who illegally harvested it. They saw it as something a guy might have a problem with.”

  “Then they think you had a motive.”

  “Sure, to take a punch at the asshole foreman. They don't seem to think I turned into Paul Bunyan out there and started chopping one down with my mighty ax. No.”

  “I just don't know why you couldn't tell me.”

  “Tell you what? You don't want to hear it, all you ever say is it wasn't my fault. You just want everything back to normal.”

  “That's not fair.”

  “No, it's not. You ever think I might be having PTSD?”

  “I told you to see someone.”

  “What about you? What about talking to my wife instead of a professional?”

  “You're upset.”

  “You're damn right I'm upset!”

  “Maybe I should have them give you something—”

  “I don't WANT them to GIVE ME SOMETHING! God, don't you understand?! It's not going away! I'm having trouble, Hope! I'm having trouble!”

  Hope was silent, shocked at his outburst. Neely knew he was dredging up anger about a lot of things now, but her reaction had really pissed him off. He was under more strain than she had any idea of and he couldn't share it with her. He was alone on this. She could at least avoid adding to it. “I'm sorry,” she said, finally. He knew it was hard for her. He was sorry too, but couldn't bring himself to say it. His vision of them ever getting through this was dimming and that wasn't a thought he was ready for. He wished he could tell her everything, it seemed like the only way to ease his burden, but that was out of the question. If telling her meant losing her, he wasn't going to do it.

  “I'm sorry too,” he finally forced out. He was, at last. He was sorry he'd set the wheels in motion that had led to this. Maybe a guy should never do a thing he couldn't talk to his wife about, maybe that was cutting off the only avenue of escape he had open to him. He'd have to think about that later, though. As soon as he stopped reeling from the accident, he'd have to deal with what he'd seen and felt up there. Up to now, he'd convinced himself the old woman had just stood in for his guilty conscience, but now he had to contend with the fact that maybe the old bitch was real. He couldn't tell the cops that, he couldn't even tell Hope, but that was no accident on the hill. He knew why the tree came down, he knew what caused it, or should he say who—this wasn't his idle imaginings anymore, this was real. The old woman did it. The old woman cursed him and this was the result. They'd killed her boy and she'd conjured up her old-world Naccahaw voodoo and sicced it on all of them. When that tree started coming for him, he knew there'd be nothing to hide behind. Next time he wouldn't be so lucky.

  It was well on six hours before the authorities were done with him, and even then they said they'd be back. He had to give them every contact number, address and email he could be reached at before they would let him go, but at last they had tired themselves of asking the same questions again and again. They had grilled him intermittently, trading off, taking shots, gut-punching, mind-gaming and good-copping/bad-copping him until his mouth was dry, his voice was hoarse and he was on the verge of confessing to plotting 9/11 and kidnapping Jon Benet. They acted like they didn't like letting him go, like maybe it was a favor they'd regret, though he suspected they just treated everybody that way and it was no accident it was almost Happy Hour.

  He was delivered stern admonishments not to leave the area and to keep his cell phone charged and he finally “Yessuh”'ed his way to his car. As soon as was alone, he put his head down on the steering wheel and gasped for breath. He didn't cry, that might have been a relief in lieu of what he was feeling, he just let it all wash over him. He'd never felt so strung out in his life, he had to admit to being completely out of his element now. The downside, he figured, of being a practical man was when something impractical happened, he was just a babe in the woods. He'd been a churchgoer his whole life, but had it ever really taken? The whole idea of a charitable God watching over him always seemed to Neely a lot like that “You're the lucky winner!” pop-up—just another dose of the ole Too Good To Be True. That was always the sign of a con, wasn't it? Wasn't that how he viewed his faith? A quiet con with coffee and cake afterwards?

  Here he was, though, wanting to pray and unable to find the mechanism. He was in the deep, dark woods now and this was just the time he wanted to know he'd done his spiritual homework and had a deity on hand to help him find his way. If he were in a movie, it'd be Gandalf or Dumbledore or Obi Wan. Ah, but those didn't exist, did they? It was just Neely now, Neely and the old woman, and that was another problem wasn't it? Gandalf couldn't help him, and neither could Dumbledore or Obi Wan, because they helped people who were good. The old woman had already called on the spirits and they helped her, not Neely, they had helped her because she was good, her cause was just, and the people she meant to curse were bad.

  Neely felt ten years older by the time he rolled up to the house. It was a good thing Hope stepped outside to greet him, as he was so disturbed and distracted from the day he would have driven into the garage without thinking and the Humvee may have a lot of admirable qualities, but the ability to fit into a suburban garage isn't one of them. She looked at the car, still covered with a blanket of thick mud, some of which was already dropping in dried chunks on the driveway, and said nothing. Neely walked in like he was headed to the gallows and Hope, God bless her, held a martini shaker and glass out for him. “I'm sorry,” she said.

  He didn't respond. Her words deflated it. It was about the only and best thing she could say, and Hope had a knack for saying only and best things when he most needed them. Neely had seen her at her worst before, she had certainly seen him at his, but it was this that always saved them. They both saw the truth eventually and neither was above admitting it once their defenses had played out. He took the drink and wrapped an arm around her. He sat down heavily, knowing that something had been said to Jess and Cullen. The silence coming off of them was so heavy it was stultifying, but Neely preferred it to the questions. He knew that protecting them was useless now, they would have pried the truth out of him and he would have given it. Hope and Neely were strong-willed parents with a powerful desire to protect their kids, but they were no match for two curious, sharp-minded teenagers for whom “just let it go” was still an abstract concept. They knew. They knew good ole Dad had witnessed the horrific deaths of four fellow human beings and badly needed a drink or two in his favorite chair to deal with it. Their good ole Dad was getting used to witnessing other people's deaths apparently, as lately he'd made a habit of it. What do you do when good ole Dad seemed to be in tryouts to be Death's valet? Certainly Your Evilness, let me
hold your cloak for you while you squash this guy. Jess and Cullen settled on an oppressive silence that was somehow getting louder in Neely's ears. He reckoned a second martini might mute it, but before he had a chance to act, Hope appeared and poured it for him. He smiled at her drunkenly, sleepily exhausted. They'd checked him for signs of shock at the scene, but told him it sometimes hit later and to watch for it. He knew that's what she was doing now as her gaze lingered on his. He was in shock, he didn't know if she knew it, but the shock he was in may not have been the WebMD kind. An old medicine woman would know, or a voodoo priestess or maybe a revival tent preacher. The docs, the nurses, Hope, though—not a clue. Uncharted territory. Heart of Darkness.

  She warmed up a plate for him. He ate out of habit, mainly so she'd stop looking at him like a can of charcoal starter sitting too close to the tiki torch. Flank steak and mashed potatoes, roast cauliflower with Parmesan and garlic. It all tasted like cardboard to him, but he put a passable dent in it. He wanted to assuage her, all of them, he wanted to step up and soothe his family, to put them at ease. That was his job, after all, but it took so much energy to keep the act going he finally went outside and sat on the back porch in the dark. It was past 11 when he went back in and found Hope in bed, sleeping soundly. He climbed in beside her. He wasn't sleepy, it was just time to sleep. That sort of reasoning didn't often work so he found himself picking up his cell phone and scrolling through it. The usual stuff from coworkers, word hadn't spread yet. He pulled up his stock account, half-hoping for bad news to seal in the bad day. Sorry to disappoint. He was up over $12,000.