Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  Diane held out a small hope that Amanda was just casting seeds for the pecking. She had been completely silent as Amanda’s story continued, and each new detail divulged was a small arrow piercing Diane’s heart. It was not a pain she felt for herself, nor for Matthew Duncan, but for her daughter. Had Rebecca married a murderer?

  “The sheriff just needs to go out and arrest that scoundrel,” said Bethany. “For the first time I can recall, I don’t even feel safe walking home now—knowing a killer is hiding in our town somewhere.”

  Amanda looked over at the quiet Diane. “As to where he’s hiding, all I do know is,” Amanda said, continuing to stare at Diane, “the last I saw him, he was sitting in Ernie’s with Rebecca. What do you know about that, Diane?”

  Diane knew Amanda was begging for more seed. She could feel Amanda’s sharp beak waiting for a juicy morsel—anything to add to her supply. Diane looked around at the group—hungry eyes waiting, ears tuned and eager, beaks ready for the feast, anything. She remembered the wedding gift Rebecca had asked for—a promised silence. The fortunate wisdom of that simple request now seemed like a gift back to her. She would not betray her daughter.

  “I wouldn’t know a thing about it,” replied Diane, holding a steady gaze at Amanda for a moment, before looking down at her quilting. Her eyes were welling up with tears, and she could scarcely focus on the stitching, as her hands were trembling.

  “Well, have you heard from Rebecca lately?” asked Bethany. “My god, I hope she’s all right!”

  How could Diane say anything more and not say too much? Yet, what did she really know about Matthew Duncan? She continued to attempt her stitching, impossible as it was through blurry moist eyes. Without looking up, as casually as possible she said, “I did speak with her very late last night, and she seemed fine. I think she did mention she’d spent some time earlier in the evening with Matthew, but that was all.” Her heart was aching. She wanted to immediately run out of the shop and find her daughter.

  Diane glanced up quickly, lest anyone should see her watery eyes, and saw that Amanda was not satisfied with the answer and the mere morsel cast before her. Amanda was staring at her, beak at the ready. Diane remained silent.

  “You know,” said Amanda, “my husband commented to me earlier that he thought Rebecca looked particularly radiant at work today.”

  Amanda paused, waiting for a response, and though Diane knew she was being intentionally jabbed and would do well to keep quiet, it was too mighty a strike from Amanda’s sharpened beak for Diane to let rest. She quickly found the strength to clear her eyes and look up at the group. The hens were silent—waiting—watching. This was too delicious and unexpected a meal for them to do anything other than wait in anxious anticipation, tasting the seeds almost before they fell.

  “Today happens to be Rebecca’s day off,” said Diane. “I think you must be referring to another of her radiant days.”

  The eyes volleyed back to Amanda.

  “Oh, I assure you, she was at work today,” said Amanda quickly. “Paul had to call in all the extra staff because of the crisis. I was out there myself, as Chelsea and I took Paul lunch. I understand it was Rebecca herself who gave part of a tour of the Home to the emergency management officials visiting from the state. They apparently were all quite impressed with the very glowing and radiant Rebecca.”

  This was unexpected by Diane. Her mind was turning and twisting. Think! Quickly! She watched the hens as they watched her; their eyes, ears, and beaks primed to peck the next morsel.

  “Now, Amanda,” began Diane, “I must tell you…I think whether Matthew Duncan had Old Carl’s cane or not, or if you saw him naked in the river, as of right now there hasn’t really been a crime committed, so far as any of us know. And it doesn’t seem like you minded taking lots of mental notes about what Matthew’s naked body looked like. Also, as far as we all know, Old Blind Carl is quite fine and well somewhere. Finally, in regards to Rebecca looking especially beautiful today—whatever the reason—good for her. May any of us be so fortunate! I would love to have a day that someone thought I looked especially lovely. Now…I think it’s time I leave.”

  And without waiting for any sort of response, Diane, with her heart pounding, packed up her things and left her lifelong friends at Irma’s Quilt & Sew, heading up Main Street toward her home. As she walked along the nearly empty and silent street, from a tree somewhere close by came the song of a bird:

  Tweeta…tweet…tweet…tweetatweet.

  Diane felt an odd rush of comfort from the bird’s song, and without warning, the image of her husband passed briefly through her mind, like some gently caressing late-summer breeze, melancholic, yet somehow strong and joyful. A slight smile came to her as she thought, and so much the lovelier is your song than theirs.

  Then her last words in Irma’s came flooding back. She knew she had succeeded in saying both too much, yet not enough. Where the words had come from, and where as well the strength to fight back the tears, she wasn’t quite certain, but she sensed that the source and the words were somehow more authentic than anything she had ever heard or said in Irma’s. She knew things would be slow to heal with Amanda; she also knew her own desire to taste the seeds they had all pecked at and shared over the many years, would be forever lessened. For the moment, however, her daughter was the foremost thing on Diane D’Arcy’s mind.

  Forty-Five

  The Six O’clock News

  The CDEM group and the Cottonwood emergency committee reconvened inside the Cottonwood town hall, as a slice of late- afternoon sun filtered through a large window in the room. The sunlight highlighted a million sparkling dust particles, hanging like tiny stars in a swirling dusty galaxy over the table around which the group gathered. Most members of the group seemed droopy-eyed and sluggish, with many sipping on coffee to give them a late-afternoon buzz. The only noticeably absent person from the meeting was, once again, Sheriff John O’Neil.

  “I think he’s probably still busy looking for our missing person,” replied Mayor Gilmore to Gwendolyn’s query about the whereabouts of the sheriff. She was ready to start and wanted everyone in attendance.

  “I really expected everyone to be here for this wrap-up,” she replied. “I thought I made that more than clear this morning. We all need to be on the same page, and he’s a big part of that.”

  “Well, he still has his official police duties to perform. The security of our town is always his top priority. Perhaps you should get started, and maybe he’ll be joining the meeting later.”

  Gwendolyn gave a sour look to the mayor; she knew it was sour and relished her skill in producing it. “I just want to let you know, Mayor, your sheriff is now on my shit list. This is the second time that he’s been late for one of my meetings. When someone gets on my shit list—they seldom get off.”

  As Gwendolyn focused her gaze on the mayor, he quickly leaned over to Marlene Anders who was seated on the other side of him. Loud enough so that Gwendolyn could hear, the mayor said, “Marlene, do you have any idea what time the sheriff might be back?”

  Marlene noticed Gwendolyn looking her way and picked up the intent of the mayor’s higher than necessary volume question. “Well,” Marlene replied, also loud enough so that Gwendolyn could hear, “I know he left to meet the search party at McCann Park after lunch, and they were going to search downriver. I would imagine he should be back pretty soon. He didn’t give an exact time though.”

  “What about a deputy?” interjected Gwendolyn. “Couldn’t there at least be some representative from Cottonwood’s law enforcement here?”

  “Um…I’m not sure what Sparky is up to,” replied the mayor, “but I’m sure the sheriff will be along shortly.”

  Gwendolyn shook her head, squeezed her lips together, and let out a sigh. She looked away from the mayor toward the rest of the group. “I think we can get started now,” said Gwendolyn loudly. The room quieted. “It’s been a very productive day, but we still have some items to discuss. It al
so appears that our friends from the media need me for an interview on their six o’clock news, so I’ll have to watch the time closely.

  “When we arrived this morning, we had no idea what types of real problems such an anomalous event like this might create. From what I’ve observed here today, it looks like the effects, so far, are much less severe than we anticipated. Of course, this is only the first full day, so what I’d like to focus on in this meeting is planning for the longer term and finalizing our plans for keeping life in Cottonwood as normal as possible. We want the smallest number of disruptions for the people here. We can all hope for a short-lived crisis, but we must be prepared for the worst, if this crisis should linger for an extended period.”

  For the better part of an hour, the group went into great detail on arrangements for transporting food, medicine, and other essential supplies into Cottonwood. Gwendolyn made a point to make certain the Home was properly supplied. That special attention found no disagreement from the Cottonwood attendees.

  Plans called for all-electric food trucks or vans to start delivery of supplies as early as Tuesday. Helicopters might also be used, but as potential effects on helicopters flying over or into the Dead Zone were yet unknown, their use for deliveries was only a secondary consideration. Electric cars would be supplied to the sheriff, Fire Chief Redmond, and the mayor. Several electric cars would also be supplied to the Home so that employees could carpool or be shuttled back and forth to town. Electric vans would be sent to pick up stranded motorists, with most of them staying at the Cottonwood Inn. The majority of the vehicles owned by the stranded motorists had already been towed to locations outside the Dead Zone, where they were waiting for their owners, fully functional once more. This was one of the biggest discoveries of the day—the Dead Zone seemed to have no long-term effects on vehicles, once they were removed from the area.

  At one point during the discussion of food supplies, William Dressler couldn’t help but mention the “miracle” fridge at Ernie’s. He seemed to think it would bring some lightheartedness into the meeting—considering there hadn’t been any known deaths or even serious injuries as a direct result of the crisis.

  “You know, Ms. Mercer,” began William, “rather than shipping all this food up here with electric trucks and so forth, perhaps we ought to just tap into whatever source Ernie’s Diner has found to resupply its shelves.”

  “What in the world are you talking about, Bill?” asked Gwendolyn with a wrinkled brow.

  “Didn’t you notice that cowbell clanging while we were eating? We spoke with the waiter at lunch and then even met the owner. Apparently, they have some kind of ‘miracle fridge’ that is able to restock itself with whatever food seems to be running in short supply. Every time that cowbell was rung at lunch today, something had just supposedly appeared in the miracle fridge back in the kitchen.”

  Without a hint of amusement, Gwendolyn only stared at him. She was annoyed that he’d taken even that little bit of her valuable meeting time, talking about something so seemingly frivolous.

  William quickly recovered from her stare. “I only mention this, of course, because it shows us that the psychological state of Cottonwood is still pretty healthy. People are taking this crisis in stride—even having fun with it.”

  It was a weak recovery, but the attempt seemed enough to placate Gwendolyn. “Thanks for that observation, Bill,” she said. “It has been duly noted. I would like to make it clear though, we wouldn’t want people making too much light of this crisis. To be cut off from the outside world is a serious matter. Things may be fine right now, but that could change quickly if there were a fire with no fire trucks or if the food really does start to run out.”

  William nodded, looked down at the table in front of him, and began fiddling with a pencil.

  The group broke up around five-thirty with Sheriff O’Neil never bothering to show up at all. The mayor escorted Gwendolyn and her team outside to their electric cars, and as she was getting in, Gwendolyn said privately to the mayor, “I expect you to tell Sheriff O’Neil of my extreme disappointment with his inability to show up for this closing meeting. This is most unprofessional on his part. He’d better have a very good reason for this—and do let him know he’s on my list.”

  The mayor smiled at her. “I’ll brief him,” was all he said.

  “Good,” said Gwendolyn. “Now I’ve got some television stations that need to talk to me about the situation here.”

  The mayor watched the trio of electric cars head north down Main Street and out of sight. He then returned to his office in the town hall building. He sat at his desk and opened the lower left drawer. From it, he pulled out a half-filled bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and a small glass. He poured a glass, took a sip, and turned to look out his window. Across the valley to the west, the sky was mostly clear, except for a few white puffy streaks of jet contrails highlighted against the blue sky. He thought for a moment of the Dead Zone and wondered if it extended upward into the sky, and if it did, how high might it go?

  After several more drinks, Mayor Gilmore took a remote control out of his center desk drawer and turned on a television across the room. A news program from a Grand Junction station was on. A young woman reporter was standing at a location the mayor recognized as being north of Cottonwood. Behind the reporter were some Colorado State Patrol cars straddling the highway.

  “What we know right now,” the reporter said, “is that state officials have just concluded their first official tour of the Cottonwood Dead Zone. Except for a local farmer’s electric truck and some electric tow trucks, their vehicles have been the only ones that we know of to enter or leave Cottonwood since this event began a little over a day ago.”

  The camera zoomed out to reveal Gwendolyn Mercer standing next to the reporter. The reporter continued: “And joining me right now is Ms. Gwendolyn Mercer, who is the western regional director for the Colorado Division of Emergency Management. Ms. Mercer, first of all, thanks for taking time to speak to us on what must be a very busy day for you. You just came from Cottonwood. Give us an update on the situation there….”

  Gwendolyn responded: “Well, yes, it has been a busy day, but so far the town is taking their transportation crisis in stride. We’ve had no major issues or problems, and the people of Cottonwood seem to be in good spirits. The issues we’ve been dealing with today include clearing all stranded vehicles from the roadways and developing plans for bringing in food and other supplies to the area, in the event that this crisis continues for a while. We also want to make certain that their public safety officials—the sheriff and fire departments—are able to respond to emergencies. We are working right now to get them some kind of electric vehicles for use by Cottonwood officials.”

  “And so far, what can you tell us about the cause of this? There’s obviously a lot of speculation floating around, but what can you tell us about the status of the efforts to figure out what has created this so-called Dead Zone?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” replied Gwendolyn. “Of course, this is a most unusual event. I can say that I’m convinced there is no federal or military involvement here. We’ve been in contact across a wide spectrum of all branches of government, and we’ve been assured, without hesitation, that this ‘Dead Zone’ has not been caused by any branch of the military. What I can tell you is that we’re having one of the state’s top engineers—a specialist in electrical and mechanical issues—come out to Cottonwood in the next day or so. He has an excellent track record for solving tough issues, and we’re confident he’ll quickly determine what’s happened here. The federal government has also offered assistance in looking into the cause of this anomaly, and we may take advantage of that as well, at some future time.”

  “Well, thank you for that update, Ms. Mercer, we’ll be checking—”

  The Mayor changed the channel to a different station and took another long swig of whiskey. He found a broadcast station from Denver. An older male reporter w
as standing at what appeared to be a location just a few feet away from where the reporter from Grand Junction had been standing with Gwendolyn.

  The reporter was saying, “We’re going to speak with a representative from CDEM in just a moment, but earlier I interviewed a citizen living in the Cottonwood Dead Zone area who happened to be driving a small electric farm utility truck right by us here at the roadblock. Here’s what he had to say….”

  The image on the television screen changed to an older man sitting in the driver’s seat of a small electric truck. Mayor Gilmore recognized the person—it was Amida Yamamoto.

  Amida said, “Sure, this has caused all of us to go through some adjustments in the way we conduct our daily lives, but I think change can be good. My sons and I now need to drive these trucks out to meet our customers, but this is not a problem for us. When I drove through town, I saw more people riding bikes than I think I have ever seen before. I can’t see how that is a bad thing. It’s not change that is bad, but sometimes how you respond to it.”

  From off camera, the reporter asked Amida, “Aren’t you worried about running out of food?”

  Amida laughed. “Young man, you are talking to a farmer. As long as we work hard and are good to the earth—we will eat. I am not worried about anything—what is there to worry about? We simply will learn how to adapt to new circumstances—no matter how long this event may last.”

  The scene on the television then changed back to the reporter who had been joined by Gwendolyn Mercer. The reporter said, “And now I’ve been joined by Gwendolyn Mercer, who is the regional director of CDEM. Ms. Mercer, I understand your team just finished with their tour of Cottonwood. What can you tell us about the situation right now in—”