Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2)

by Miller, Jason Jack

  Alex tugged on the straps of her lifejacket, like it was still too loose, and said, “I slept better last night than I have in months. It feels like nobody will ever find me here.”

  I felt real bad for bringing her on the river with me and making her sleep in the back of the Jeep. She was used to her beach house and shopping trips to Pittsburgh with her mom. But there was no way I could take her back to the guide house and risk her getting tetanus or cooties or worse. And I didn’t know how else to protect her. We talked a lot last night and I got her to relax a little when I told her we could go back to West Virginia after Memorial Day, even if the thought of going home made me a little sick.

  Changing the subject, I said, “What were your plans for this summer?”

  “Well, I had an internship in Charleston for a wind energy lobby. But this semester wasn’t very kind to me. And besides, my dad thinks getting involved with anything that isn’t coal in West Virginia is a bad career move.” She didn’t look at me when she spoke. “I’m the first one in my family to go to college, so I guess I have to finish no matter what. My daddy ain’t going to be too happy if I don’t go back in the fall.”

  She caught her slipped ‘ain’t’ and shook her head for another go. “Isn’t going to be happy. Might have to miss the beach this year and everything. My dad and his brothers have a big house right in Nag’s Head and they have a bonfire every night and beer and all kinds of food like barbeque pork and blue crabs and biscuits. But my mom says that might not happen this year and I should try to get used to the idea that things need to blow over. Like it’s already cancelled, no matter what. So I’m trying to accept the idea that this spring, and now this summer, never happened. I hope fall can be a do-over. You going back?”

  I watched the rafts spin and bounce through Entrance, keeping an eye on boats stuck on rocks, hoping they’d be able to get their asses off by the time we got down there. This was usually where I’d put a pinch of Copenhagen in my lip. “Seems kind of pointless to pursue school, you know? Talk about do-overs. At this rate I’ll be twenty-five when I graduate.”

  I looked downstream for a long time. “I guess I should’ve been using this time to find out what really happened, or if it’s even possible to find out instead of hiding out up here like a rabbit. And, I guess if I do find there is somebody to blame, well, it’s my duty to retaliate.”

  She looked at me, her eyes reflecting the chicory-blue sky. “Sorry for bringing it up.”

  “Alex,” I said, “Billy Lewis. What if he did do it? Then I’m a fool for not reacting. And a damn coward.”

  “Listen to me. You’ve been able to stay here and go on with your life. Don’t let your mind run away with this. I loved Janie like a sister. She wouldn’t want this. She saw your lives getting better, not worse, you know?” She put her other hand on top of mine. “You have friends and a life here, right?”

  “Well, somebody has to do something. Morally? Like it’s ‘part of the code’ or some shit?” I felt trapped on the raft, which until now, I’d been enjoying.

  “Well, revenge backfires, so you’d better think about what you want to do.”

  Her words knocked a little wind out of me.

  “Just wait, okay? There will be a better time. I’ll have to talk to my daddy. Maybe he can help. If you want to file a civil suit he has guys who can advise you on how to proceed. But this redneck stuff never ends well. That family is crazy. My daddy said I was not to get close to a single one of them. He told me a story, from back when he was first dating my mom, that Charlie Lewis and his brothers drove to Florida for a wedding they hadn’t been invited to. He beat up the groom, then left. Drove down and back non-stop to prove a point, so you need to think before you do anything.”

  “That’s fine.” And I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but my mind still wasn’t super clear. After a long pause I said, “Just out of curiosity, how long were you thinking you’d need to hide out?”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Sorry. Alex…” I put my hand on her knee. “That didn’t come out how I meant it.”

  “It’s okay. But since you asked, I’m going to stay for as long as it’s not safe to go back.” She put her sunglasses on and stared at me. I couldn’t quite tell if she was angry or not, so I paddled.

  So many times I’d guided this stretch of whitewater, face to the sun without a care in the world. The soft rubber, heated in the afternoon light felt so good against the bare skin on my legs. Cloudless skies and a glassy calm reflected it all heavenward. Trees towered over their reflected twins, helping me feel like I was a part of something much larger.

  From a raft on this river my problems were distant. I rarely thought of them when I guided. I knew nothing of politics or current events when I paddled. Nothing of pop culture or gossip. I was an island adrift in a stream of calm, and outside forces couldn’t affect me. A universe, albeit a small one, existed between these two mountains.

  Experiencing the river through Alex made me love it that much more. She focused on the next few yards, always trying to be aware of rocks and waves, always listening for my next command. A drop over a small ledge knocked her over toward me. I steadied her. She tucked her sunglasses into her life jacket, her honey-blond hair relaxed on her brown shoulders. Her blue eyes scanned the banks, taking in the rocks and birds and laurel. I told her how Cucumber Falls was named for all the copperheads there because copperheads are supposed to smell like cucumber. She laughed as we spun into eddies and she squealed when frigid water splashed onto her arms and down her back. I smiled as she took in the chaotic bliss of my river.

  We kept our distance from the group, floating what was left of the Loop with ease. I taught her about J-strokes and the difference between waves and hydraulics. I told her stories about Duff and Smurf and Bo and Rich and Chaz, about my first time on the Cheat.

  In the long stretch of flat water that came between Railroad and Dimple, I thought, for the first time, it might be possible to accept what happened to Jane was an accident. I looked at Alex, and thought, maybe it would be okay to love her.

  But optimism, I knew, was ephemeral, like a long, slow drag from a joint. A little burn as I held it in my lungs, a little cough as I let it out. A few hours with your head buzzing, your hands unable to hold the strings down, your feet unable to take you away from the cold place that hurt so badly to remember, even if it hurt worse to forget.

  I figured anything I’d ever have with Alex would always exist in the shadow of Janie. So I inhaled, and tried to let in the green that would push the cold out.

  The green of these mountains in my lungs smelled like an old friend, one who wouldn’t tell lies to you. One who understood. One who knew pain didn’t go away just because you wanted it to. And when I exhaled, only the sweet scent of smoke, and a dry mouth, remained. But the scent was enough to rekindle the memory.

  Green in the hills above. Green in the water below Green in my lungs.

  A little green in Alex’s eyes when she smiles.

  Reflected in each was something different. In the water I saw faces and bones, my past written in fossiliferous hieroglyphs scattered among the rocks and hellbenders— the giant salamanders that have watched these mountains change for over three- hundred million years. They saw dinosaurs and mammoths come and go. I didn’t see myself outliving them either. In the green hills all around me I saw my present. I’d allowed these green hills to become my prison, my holding cell. I feared they would never let me leave. So I looked at Alex. In her, I saw a green glimmer of hope.

  Her green gave me a chance to move away from the black of revenge.

  So I closed my eyes and reclined on the raft and joked with Alex and let the river carry us down to Dimple. I let the river make my decision. It had been around a hell of a lot longer than me.

  “What’s this about?” Alex nudged me when she saw the rafts pulled into a big eddy on the left.

  Duff and Smurf tossed me their throw bags as we drifted toward them. Every i
nch of rope mattered here. We lined up to run Dimple Rock Rapid first. I sat up, clipped the ropes onto a D-ring with a carabiner. I checked the straps on my life jacket, and gestured for Alex to do the same. Even though I’d been down this river five hundred times, at least, my heart beat a little faster right about here on every single trip.

  “This is Dimple.” I pointed at the big rock sleeping in the shade on a submerged ledge just downstream and to the left. Sunlight rarely fell onto the rock. It was cool and dark all day long. “Some of the river washes around and some goes beneath it. This is the big one today. It is undercut and dangerous. Basically, there’s a room beneath the rock. A boat flips and you have to start counting heads to make sure they all pop up. This is the real thing, right here. Ropes, radios… No slacking or somebody’s going to get hurt. Just don’t stop paddling until I say, okay? But when I say stop you have to stop. That’s about it. Easy, right?”

  I dropped my paddle into the current, jammed my foot beneath the cross tube and leaned out over the river to pull the raft into position. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Duff pulling into the current behind me.

  As he passed, he said, “Just follow the bubbles, right?”

  Alex looked at me for some sort of affirmation.

  I said, “Should’ve waited until we were past the rock to tell you about the undercut and all that, huh? Let’s go easy forward.”

  She tensed up, holding her paddle like it was a battle axe. Like she was fighting zombies. Upstream, Smurf began his talk-up.

  “Relax, it’s all good. Give me a few strokes easy forward, okay? Three strokes easy.”

  The boat gained speed as the river narrowed. I leaned on the paddle, ruddering to point the nose of the raft toward Pinball, the big rock just upstream of Dimple. Hitting Pinball wasn’t a great idea either.

  “You’re going to stop now. Just stop.”

  I kept talking mostly just to hear myself. The whoosh of the pillow got louder. “Threading the needle, Alex. Nice and easy forward now.”

  Pinball got close fast, and she tensed up.

  “We’re fine. This is where I want to be. I need you to keep it nice and easy forward. Three more,” I said, nearly yelling.

  She started to lean toward me.

  “Two more then we’re going to dig it in.” I back-paddled to keep our angle, then gave a few quick forward strokes again.

  “One more, then…” I held my paddle just above the water.

  The front of the boat drifted right past Pinball and I hollered, “Go! Go! Go!” Dimple got huge—seemed to double in size as we hit the big aerated pillow of whitewater that formed in front of the rock. I reached into the river and took two big J-strokes. The back of the raft was so close to Dimple I could’ve reached over and smacked the rock with my paddle.

  I started back-paddling and, catching my breath, I said, “Easy, right?” She smiled and her shoulders dropped.

  I said, “Not yet, I need you to back-paddle. I have to go up on the rock and give hand signals. Getting the rest of the trip through is the tough part.”

  We hit the rocky shoreline, and after a quick scan for snakes, I pulled the boat onto the rocks. I handed Alex the bull rope and a throw bag. I said, “Give these to Isaiah and just hang out for a bit.”

  She shrugged, mostly because I hadn’t given her any other option. “Sure thing.”

  I took a few steps upstream before realizing this was kind of a ‘moment in the spotlight’ for me, so I said, “Or, you can come up and watch me?”

  I stuffed the throw bag into my life jacket and led Alex up the rocky shore to a ledge where she could sit. She put on her sunglasses and clasped her hands over her knees. She looked tiny sitting in all that rhododendron at the base of the cliff.

  As I climbed onto Dimple Rock, Smurf paddled into the current. I got situated as he eddied out behind Pinball. While I sat on Dimple, I ran my fingers over the cool sandstone. One of my first lessons as a guide came at this very spot. After flipping here trip after trip—with guests, with lunches, in rain or sunshine—I learned that no matter what I did, this rock would never move for me. So I got a hell of a lot better at going around it.

  To get to his video spot, Duff had to push his way through the throng of geek boaters crowded onto Vulture Rock, on the other side of the main flow of water. The geeks were usually from the city, either Pittsburgh or D.C. and guides kind of hated them. They had money and drove nicer cars and acted like they owned the river. Like the bars stayed open just for them. Like all the redneck locals were no different than black flies. Like Ohiopyle was their playground, even if they only paddled when it was eighty-five degrees and sunny.

  My job was to deny them any sort of entertainment. I looked over at Alex and smiled.

  She didn’t smile back. Instead, she said, “So there’s a room underneath the rock?”

  I nodded and that was it. Duff believed that the amount of time you spent looking at a rapid was directly proportional to your likelihood of flipping. And talking about a rapid, like Alex was doing, was even worse.

  She said, “Like, water goes beneath the rock?”

  I put my finger to my lips. “Shhhhh.” I pointed to draw her attention to the first

  raft, now entering the channel above Dimple.

  I blew my whistle to get their attention and took a deep breath.

  They quickly developed a right hand angle, just like Smurf told them to. I had them drift forward. All four faces in the raft watched intently, waiting for the ‘paddle hard’ command.

  “Not yet.” I shook my head and waved my hands.

  “Not yet.” I held up my pointer fingers.

  “Go! Go! Dig! Dig Dig!”

  Their well-synchronized strokes took them easily past Pinball and I relaxed a little. I looked at Alex and raised an eyebrow. “One down.”

  The second boat was already in the channel. A group of high school boys. I

  blew my whistle and waved my hand to get their attention. Then I gently gave the ‘paddle forward’ signal. High school boys were the best, usually. When they didn’t want to look stupid in front of the guides. They watched me and did exactly what I asked and my hand gestures were essentially a repeat of my last set of commands.

  “Right.” “Steady.” “Steady.” “Hold.” “Right.” “Hold.”

  I looked over at Duff and shrugged. Days like this didn’t sell videos.

  He made a ‘V’ with his fingers. “That’s only two.”

  Upstream the next raft careened into the channel. I blew my whistle to get their attention, but they hit the ledge on the river left side and spun. Duff stood up when the geeks on the rock behind him started to cheer.

  I blew into the whistle so hard my ears rang. I stomped my foot and yelled, but the family of four couldn’t get their shit together. From the back of the raft the dad yelled, but his two sons wouldn’t budge. Both looked a hell of a lot younger than the minimum age requirement—their life jackets looked gigantic. When I saw they weren’t going to make it I sat on the rock, preparing to put as much of my weight on the raft’s downstream tube as I could.

  In one gushing motion the raft hit Dimple and swamped. The upstream tube disappeared as the river swallowed the dad. The geeks on the rock applauded when I pulled the mom and smaller kid onto Dimple with me. Clinging to the center tube, the older brother floated downstream alone in a raft filled with knee-deep water. Smurf peeled out of the eddy and hustled toward the dad.

  Raucous applause from Vulture Rock alerted me to the presence of another boat already in the channel—another potential disaster. I waved my hands over my head, but the paddlers never once looked down stream at me.

  “What the fuck did you tell them, Smurf?” I blew into my whistle so hard I got lightheaded. I waved my arms, but they never once looked at me.

  The snowball effect was in full swing. I frantically kicked the boat away from Dimple, but the raft cart-wheeled and its paddlers disappeared below the rock. Smurf readied himse
lf in the eddy below Washover Rock. I waited to count heads.

  One by one they popped into the current below Dimple. Smurf coerced one, then two then three swimmers into the raft with the dad and his kid. The last swimmer bounced over a nasty ledge into some really shallow water. Isaiah hit her with the bull rope and pulled her to shore.

  The next two rafts came through just fine, and Duff’s voice returned to a normal speaking level. He had enough carnage to sell his three videos. Shaking my head, I turned and did another head count downstream. I couldn’t believe I was having a day like this with Alex sitting right there watching. She probably thought I was a joke. Upstream, the next boat entered the channel.

  Before the current could take it, a second raft pulled into the stream behind it. I blew my whistle and gave the second raft the sign to hold, but the first boat misinterpreted. They back-paddled, hit the second boat and spun sideways as they entered the channel.

  The four girls in the first boat yelled at the four guys in the raft behind them. Collectively, the eight of them did a great job of ignoring me. They splashed each other with their paddles while I jumped up and down and blew my whistle. My teeth hurt from clenching my jaw over the hard plastic.

  The current swept the two rafts right against the rocky ledge. They bumped and spun, clueless to the fact they should’ve been paddling. The geeks on Vulture Rock stood up, yelling and hooting. They shouted out commands to confuse the spinning rafters. “Back! No, forward!”

  I started to lose my composure—my hand signals were like sign language to a blind man. The girls in the first boat froze. The four guys finally got their shit together, but were powerless to maneuver around the raft in front of them. I scooted toward the edge of Dimple.

  The girls’ raft came at me like a mosquito to blood. I dropped onto my ass to stomp on the boat and shouted at the girls to lean into the rock. The two girls closest to me followed their instincts and jumped away.