SWAINS LOCK (The River Trilogy, book 1)

by Edward A. Stabler

  “It’s architectural sculpture, Miles,” Kelsey said. “And thanks for taking the morning off to help. Teresa is a talented artist – even when we were in high school she was talented – ask Des. And you can come to the open house at the Collaborative next week to see what she can do with this stuff.” Kelsey ducked and shaded her eyes to peer in through the open tailgate window. The back seat was folded over, buried beneath the stones and beams. “Des, do you think all three of us can fit in the front seat?”

  “Sure. If Miles sits in the middle and keeps the beams from swinging into me, and you can scrunch against the door on the passenger side…”

  Miles was happy with this arrangement for the short ride to the ferry. It meant that his back would be pressed against Kelsey’s hips and torso while he twisted to keep both arms on the beams. And his eyes could rest on the swell of Des’s breasts beneath her peasant blouse. The blouse’s ties hung lightly against her chest, framed by the emerging curves. To avoid staring, he shifted his attention to the barely-visible blond hairs on her tanned forearms as she turned the wheel. Then to the purple-tinted granny glasses he’d grown attached to last semester, and her streaked auburn hair, pulled back into a loose single braid.

  He held the beams away from the steering column so Des could shift into gear. Gravel crunched beneath the tires and small plumes of dust flared in their wake as the station wagon pulled away from the Leesburg nursery lot and turned toward Whites Ferry. The wagon accelerated slowly, undulating a little under the load. Des clicked on the radio and a gentle reggae rhythm filled the air.

  and I will find you

  across a river of time,

  and I will hold you

  until you know you are mine.

  The morning sun was already high overhead, and Miles felt his back grow warm pressing Kelsey’s bare left arm. Prickles of sweat formed beneath the curls of dark brown hair hanging against his neck and his t-shirt stuck to the skin between his shoulder blades. He slid the air-conditioning knob to the right and felt the hot air from the vents turn cool. The open windows funneled a crosswind into the car. Strands of Kelsey’s hair flicked against his ear and shoulders.

  “Hey, Des,” Kelsey said. “Do you remember that guy we met at the Taj Mahal show last month? Dave? The weather guy?”

  “Yeah. Hmmm. Maybe.”

  “He called me a couple of nights ago. I guess he has tickets for the Stones at RFK Stadium and can score a few more, but he and two friends need a place to crash that night. He seems cool enough, but I’ll be gone for the 4th. You interested?”

  Des squinted behind her purple shades. “Let’s see. My folks will be at the beach. We could stay at their place and throw sleeping bags on the deck. Dave’s a weather guy, so he should be smart enough to come inside if it rains. Are we in, Miles?”

  Miles remembered a speech from his foreman about getting to the job site on time. “I need to be in Rockville by seven-thirty the next morning,” he said, “but it’s the Stones. Let’s tumble some dice, baby.”

  “Kelsey, I guess we’re in. Tell him we want field tickets.”

  “Sure,” Kelsey said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll tell him you need to see every tongue thrust.”

  Des extended her tongue, curled it toward her chin, then pulled it in and pouted. Miles smirked but couldn’t suppress a smile – the gesture was so typical of Des. The tide of reggae ebbed and a DJ began blabbering, so Des twisted the volume down. When the forecast came on she turned it back up.

  “After making landfall in the Florida panhandle yesterday as a category-one hurricane, Agnes has now been downgraded to a tropical depression and is centered over Georgia. Meteorologists expect the storm to continue tracking to the northeast through the Carolinas today and tomorrow, possibly regaining hurricane strength if it moves back over water off North Carolina and turns northward again. Even if Agnes doesn’t regain hurricane strength, we can expect heavy rain in the D.C. area, beginning mid-day tomorrow, through tomorrow night, and into Thursday. Depending on the path Agnes takes, areas to the north and west of Washington, D.C. could see up to 12 inches of rain.”

  “Yecch,” Des said. “I’m glad we’re doing this today, since tomorrow looks ugly.”

  “We can stash the beams in Teresa’s shed. It’s OK if the stones get wet,” Kelsey said.

  “Hey, if it rains hard enough, I get the day off,” Miles said. His smile melted away. “But that means work on Saturday.”

  “Bummer, man,” Des said.

  She swung the station wagon into a right turn from Route 15 onto Whites Ferry Road. Miles tightened his arms around the beams to keep them from sliding toward Des, and he felt the loaded chassis sway as the car completed its turn.

  Aside from its paved surface, Whites Ferry Road hadn’t changed much since its construction in the aftermath of the Civil War. It ran straight for a half-mile between a copse on the left and unplowed fields on the right, then turned into the woods along a hillside and descended to the Potomac River. Des guided the wagon along the old road, then eased it to a stop behind the last car in line.

  The smell of green leaves and vines filled the air and Miles inhaled deeply. This was his first trip to Whites Ferry, so he turned to look out Kelsey’s window at the brown flowing water of the Potomac. Five hundred yards away, on the cleared bank across the river, stood the small store and the ferry operator’s house that comprised Whites Ferry, Maryland. A taut loop of steel cable was stretched across the river at the waterline and anchored by concrete counterweights at each shore. Steel wheels attached to the upstream side of the ferry traveled inside this cable loop as the ferry trudged back and forth across the river. The cable kept the boat from being pushed downstream by the current during its traverse.

  The ferry was churning toward them, a featureless gray barge with chipped and rusted metal railings on the sides and swinging gates at each end. The pilothouse and engines looked like a little tugboat grafted onto the middle of the ferry’s downstream side. Miles counted eleven cars in rows three-wide, all pointed toward the concrete boat ramp that formed the dock on the Virginia shore. “Hey, we lucked out,” Des said. “We’ll make it on the next trip.”

  Miles surveyed the cars in front of them that formed an arc down to the boat ramp; they were tenth in line. The ferry pilot eased the throttle and the boat decelerated. He stubbed out a cigarette and threw the throttle into reverse, then neutral, and the ferry stopped as its bow nudged the boat ramp. The pilot threaded through cars to the bow, flipped a metal loading ramp down onto the concrete with a bang, swung the gate open, and shuffled down the metal ramp. He pointed to the cars in an ordered sequence and they filed off, heading up the boat ramp and past the waiting cars on Whites Ferry Road.

  Des joined the procession of cars driving down the hill and onto the ferry, which departed for Maryland less than a minute after the gate closed behind them. With the car’s engine still running and its air-conditioner blowing, Miles didn’t immediately realize that they’d begun moving. It was only when the view through the windshield evolved that he looked out Des’s window and saw the folds and eddies in the brown water and the scattered armada of sticks and debris pushing downstream with the current.

  “River law!” Des sang out, eyebrows rising behind her purple shades.

  “What is river law?” Miles said, drawing his focus back inside the car.

  Kelsey smiled resignedly. “There is none. River law is no law. We’re not in Virginia or Maryland, so the rules don’t apply. That’s always been our theory, anyway.”

  “Kelsey, can you find my pipe under your seat? It’s in a shoebox.”

  Miles slid his legs aside while Kelsey bent at the waist and foraged under the front seat. Reaching deeper she touched cardboard and pulled the box forward. It snagged on a tangle of unused seat belts. “Jeez, Des. Hang on a second,” she said, unsnarling the belts.

  Miles admired the taut curve of Kelsey’s back beneath the wrinkles of her lavender linen shirt as she twisted the shoebox
out. She flipped the top off the box and rummaged around, then pulled out a plastic disposable lighter and a wooden box. It was smaller than a pack of cigarettes and the color of ash wood, smooth and polished from handling, with a symbol that looked something like the combination of a scythe and an arrow etched on its face. A retractable lid on one of the shorter ends gave access to the contents of the box.

  “Hey, a dugout! Very elegant.”

  “Thanks,” Des said. “I found it at a flea market in Arlington a few weeks ago.”

  Kelsey slid the wooden lid partly off one end of the dugout, and the tail end of a small ceramic pipe popped out. She retracted the lid further to reveal a second compartment. The smaller shaft held the pipe and the larger compartment the marijuana. “Where from?” she said.

  “Jamaican,” Des said. “Timmy gave me an ounce last week. Let’s spark one up.”

  Kelsey removed the pipe, tilted and tapped the dugout, and pressed the shallow pipe bowl into the side of the stash compartment to fill it. She withdrew the loaded pipe and closed the lid over both compartments with her thumb. Des looked to the right, where a pickup truck and another car had followed them on board to complete their row, screening them from the pilothouse. The driver of the pickup truck had tilted his seat back and closed his eyes. There were no cars in the final row behind them. “Better roll up your window a bit,” she said, rolling her own window to an inch or two from the top. “We don’t want to look like a chimney.”

  Kelsey leaned forward to drop below the windows, then flicked the lighter and played it over the pipe bowl, drawing steadily. The flame drew down toward the bottom of the bowl as an encircling orange glow rose toward the surface. When the glow subsided, she exhaled and passed the ensemble to Miles.

  He tapped the pipe against his boot to empty it, then ducked down to refill it for a long hit. A bud caught fire and he nodded in approval, exhaling with a cough as he passed the pipe to Des. “That’s good shit,” he croaked. Des dropped down and Miles popped up, eyeing their perimeter. No one was watching. A small cloud of smoke was forming in the car and drifting toward the tops of the windows and the open tailgate window. He looked out over the water upstream. They were halfway across the river.

  Des surfaced, gave him a conspiratorial look, and handed him the dugout, pipe, and lighter again. He forwarded them to Kelsey but she pressed them back, and in the exchange the pipe fell to the floor and skidded under the seat. Miles rocked forward into a crouch and twisted to reach for it, and his back pushed the beams closer to the steering column. “Got it,” he said, thrusting his arm further under the seat and grasping the pipe. And instantly the car lurched, then started rolling backward.

  “Shit, we’re in reverse!” Des said.

  “Shift back!” Miles said, but the gearshift arm was pinned against the beams. He reached around them and tried to pull them away from the steering column as Des leaned into them from the driver’s side.

  “Hit the brakes!” Kelsey said.

  Des stomped her foot onto the pedal and the car accelerated backward. “Shit!” she yelled. She shifted her foot, stomped again, and missed both pedals as the wagon crashed into the gate behind them. The gate held for a split-second before the gate-post sheared in two at a rusty spot near its base. Carrying the snapped-off post with it, the gate swung wide over the water. The wagon’s rear wheels powered clear of the ferry and its undercarriage dropped quickly to the deck. Momentum kept the front wheels turning for another foot before the wagon stopped for an instant, its fulcrum defined. The paving stones prevailed, and the wagon’s tail fell with a powerful splash into the churning water behind the ferry. A wave coursed over the tailgate and into the car. The ferry’s transom scraped forward along the wagon’s undercarriage, hit and spun the front tires, gave a parting smack to the underside of the front bumper, and then left the wagon half-submerged in its swirling wake. The car’s front end tilted skyward as its tail sunk quickly under the weight of the stones. Water surged up to and over the dashboard.

  “Windows!” Miles yelled, reaching past Kelsey to claw at the passenger door. Kelsey groped through the chest-high water until she found the handle, then spun the window open. The river poured in, knocking her back toward Miles. Her left temple struck the edge of a floating beam, and Miles saw a stream of blood flow across her cheekbone. Only a sliver of air remained between the car’s ceiling and the rising tide. Heart pounding, Miles tilted his head to capture a breath from the vanishing air pocket as water shot to the ceiling. It tasted like smoke. A counter-wave from his left pushed the beams into his ribs and he felt an arm against his lower leg, then a biting pain in his ankle. Underwater now, he twisted blindly toward the window and spread his arms. His right hand brushed Kelsey and found the frame of the submerged window. He opened his eyes and saw brown water, his own pale arm, the window frame, and Kelsey’s legs receding. Past the windshield, he saw the front end of the wagon drop below the surface.

  He gripped the edges of the frame with both hands and pulled his head through the window. When his shoulders reached the opening he looked up to see light refracting through water, and he realized the wagon was sinking tail-first toward the bottom of the river. Fuck! He tried to pull himself past the frame but something held his ankle. He kicked with both legs and his chest began to burn. He could move his left foot a few inches, but whatever held his ankle would not let go. The water grew colder and darker.

  He let himself float for a second and felt the chilled water flow past his chest and forehead as he stared upward at the receding light and the pressure mounted in his ears. His upper arms flexed violently against the window frame as his legs flailed. Three seconds. Four. Five. Rest. Can’t rest. Lungs burning. Motherfucker! He pulled his head back into the car and twisted toward his ankle, which felt like it was trapped somewhere under the front seat. All of the beams were askew now, floating randomly inside the falling wagon. Two of them were wedged against the underside of the dash, and he drove his shoulder into them as he groped downward to find what was holding his leg. Rest for an instant. Reach around the beams! No use. He twisted back to grab the window frame, then yanked fiercely against the vise that gripped his leg. Once. Again. Again! Goddammit! Lungs on fire. Exploding now. Hold. One. Two… release. The fire subsided as he exhaled a shower of bubbles. Don’t blow through your straw, Miles. He almost giggled when he realized he’d accidentally drawn a small stream of water into his mouth. He swallowed it, then instinctively took a full breath, and the river filled his lungs. I’m dying. The dugout floated across his field of vision, a strange symbol on its face. One last trickle of bubbles, then a crushing pain he could not expel. Waiting for the bus and Carlin said cry me a river. The tension on his ankle slackened momentarily as the wagon’s tail found the ancient riverbed. I said unchain my heart. His irises relaxed and his fingers unfolded toward the fading light.

  Chapter 4

  Candles

  Sunday, October 22, 1995

  Vin examined the bottles on the medicine rack in the pantry. “Doxycycline. Ivermectin. Diazepam.” Then “Gentamicin. Nicky Hayes, DVM. Spray affected area twice per day for 7-10 days. 04/19/96.” He shook the bottle to feel its contents slosh around – over half full. Must be part of Nicky’s stash from her residency at Tufts. He took the bottle back to the foyer.

  Kelsey had stepped further into the room during his absence, and she smiled weakly at his approach. From a discreet distance she’d been studying the photo of Lee and K. Elgin on the table top. “That looks like an old shot of Great Falls,” she said. “Could I take a closer look?”

  Her voice sounded thinner, almost strained. “Sure,” Vin said, handing it to her. “I found it behind some planks in an old wall.” He felt a transient annoyance that he’d left it lying face up on the table. Why does that bother me, he wondered. Was he already feeling attached to Lee and the girl? Or was it because he knew nothing about this woman standing in his house?

  “This is interesting,” Kelsey said, her normal voice
returning. “I’m a photographer and I’ve taken lots of pictures of the Falls. You can tell that this wasn’t shot from the observation deck on the Maryland side. It has a slightly different vantage point.” Vin stepped around to her shoulder as she centered the photograph and focused intently. “This must have been taken from the end of the old path across Olmsted Island.”

  “We just moved here, and we haven’t been out to Great Falls yet,” he admitted. “We’ve started biking the towpath on Saturday afternoons, so maybe next weekend...” He gently took the photo from her and returned it to the table, feeling strangely relieved that she hadn’t flipped it over to read the names on the back.

  “You should take the walkway out to the observation deck,” she said. “It’s spectacular.”

  Trying to redirect the conversation, he held out the Gentamicin. “I think this is what Nicky wanted me to give you.” As she scanned the label, he processed her previous words. “Are you a professional photographer?”

  She glanced up and nodded, then told him that most of her work involved events like weddings, graduations, and Bar Mitzvahs. When Vin said he and Nicky were getting married in the D.C. area next fall and needed a photographer, she asked if they’d chosen a date. He shook his head; both the date and place were still up in the air. But they wanted to be married outdoors, at a venue where they could hold both the wedding and the reception. Kelsey told him popular venues were booked a year in advance, and photographers were quickly slotted into those dates. She already had a few weddings booked for next fall.

  “Right,” he said glumly, realizing how much remained unplanned. “Do you have a card?” She had one in the car, so he walked her out to the driveway and watched her retrieve her purse from a charcoal-gray Audi with dark tinted glass. She fished out a business-card holder and handed him a card, telling him to schedule a visit to her studio. He waved as she drove off, then looked at the card in his hand. The address was a listing on River Road, like practically every other business in the small suburb of Potomac… maybe in the same strip mall as the hardware store he’d visited today. In the corner, he read “Kelsey Ainge, Partner.” The studio name was printed in white reversed on forest green. “Thomas, Ainge Photography.” He read the tagline below it twice to make sure he’d read it correctly. It said “Today Made Timeless.”