Kickdown

by Rebecca Clarren

  Mr. Batjer hasn’t stopped talking. He smiles and nods his head up and down as if he were prodding them forward with his forehead. “We’d want to get all your neighbors who own their gas involved. It could be a huge class action, and if we won, you’d help people all over the country whose new neighbors are gas wells.”

  “Well now, that sounds all right.” Ray looks at Susan, his face a question.

  “It does, actually.” Jackie feels her jaw relax. She smiles at Mr. Batjer and notices a picture on the bookshelf behind him of a younger him, his arms around two people who can only be his parents. The gray-haired man wears the same sort of wide-brimmed hat her dad liked. “It’d be nice to think we could make a difference.”

  Susan touches her hand and Jackie gives it a squeeze. They look at each other and smile.

  “If it’s a class action, we don’t pay for that, right?” Susan asks.

  “That’s right. If we take on the case, and if we win, you won’t pay a thing. You just need to put up the value of your land as collateral while we’re in process.”

  “Wait. What?” Jackie’s hands grasp the chair. “If we lose, you get our land?”

  “It’d be to cover my expenses, but I won’t take on the case unless I think we can win.”

  Jackie, Ray, and Susan all sit quietly, stunned.

  “I’m on your side here, folks.” Mr. Batjer’s face darkens; he nods at their dismay. “It’s the law that’s not.”

  In the truck on the long drive home, past the new mall and the old mall, past the airport and the massage parlors, past the canyon carved by the Colorado, Ray sits between Susan and Jackie, passing out the BLTs he made in their kitchen that morning. They share a thermos of coffee. Jackie drives.

  “I’m going to say it,” Ray says with a mouth full of bacon. “It’s stupid to risk losing your land in order to save it.”

  “I agree.” Jackie eases off the gas. “It’s a stay of execution at best. It saves nothing.”

  “So we do nothing?” Susan leans forward to look at them both, her forehead pinched in the middle. Her favorite blue dress with the butterflies now stained with mayo.

  The weight of not knowing settles over the car. Jackie looks at her sister and at Ray and she can see the wrinkles that will come, that slump of their spines, how their bodies will betray them.

  “Camila would know what to do,” Susan says thoughtfully. She leans her forehead against the window.

  “At least she’d have a very strong opinion,” says Ray, and Jackie smiles, grateful to Ray for knowing what to say, glad to have him with them. It has been an unexpected pleasure to have him around for the past two weeks. He is always the first to the kitchen in the morning, making coffee, frying eggs. He has a way of taking care of them, like with the BLTs, without making a big deal about it.

  They pass several mile markers before Ray breaks the silence. “You ladies are smart. You just need some time to think on it.”

  Jackie looks out the bug-streaked windshield and cringes. The brave thing is to ask the question that needs asking. She makes herself speak. “Do you think Dad would be disappointed? That I’m leaving?”

  “It’s normal that you want to finish medical school. It’s good to know what you want.” Susan shrugs as if to push off Jackie’s guilt, which is nice, which only makes Jackie feel worse.

  “Maybe we should let Batjer try. What do we have to lose?”

  Ray coughs and looks at Susan, a question pulling his eyebrows toward his hat. She meets his gaze and looks quickly away.

  “Speak your mind, Ray, please,” says Jackie.

  “I know it’s not my decision to make of course, but I don’t think you should rush on this. It’s one thing to sell your land. It’s another thing to lose it.”

  “I’m not planning to lose anything anymore. Not as far as I can help it.” Susan in profile, her hair wild at the sides, looks just like their mom, the sort of person with agenda and sass.

  It’s quiet again for a while and when Jackie does speak, it’s forced, too loud in the cramped cab.

  “I’ll come back in the fall to help with market. I won’t be that far away.”

  “Sure. I know,” says Susan, which isn’t what Jackie needs to hear.

  Ray coughs. “I’ve been meaning to ask you two a thing and I guess this might be a good time.” He pauses again for what seems to Jackie around five minutes. “I was wondering if you might consider bringing me on as a partner in the ranch.”

  “What about the creek?” says Jackie. “The whole place could be worthless.”

  “Not to me. It’s not ever gonna be nothing to me.”

  “No,” says Susan, her eyes bright. “Me neither.”

  “I can get on with a place that’s been through a hard time,” says Ray.

  The sisters look at each other and their smiles sink into their faces, the same smile. “What do you think, Susie?” Jackie keeps her eyes on the road. “It’s your call.”

  “Let’s give it a try.”

  The canyon wall outside looms over them, the sand-colored rocks perched high on the lip, threatening to slide. The clouds, bloated with moisture, are too high to do anything. The rain falls against the blue, dissipated before it ever has a chance to reach them here.

  In mid-June, Jackie drives west on the highway; she is intentionally alone. At a one-lane ranch exit not far from Silt, she heads north, into the rolling flat lands of peach orchards and wide swaths of alfalfa, an area still free of gas development, until she comes to Clear Creek. From the back of the truck, she grabs the old fishing gear and wades back upstream. In the two months since she and Tim came here to fish, the promise of spring snowmelt has been replaced by the reality of a sullen summer day. The river is low and the wind is sluggish. It suits her mood.

  Earlier that afternoon, she had emailed her research proposal to her attending. In another two weeks, she’ll resume rotations at the hospital in Denver. If her proposal is good enough to impress her attending, if she gets the research rotation she wants, she can remain competitive for residency. Even if she doesn’t, she’ll finish. She’ll have a place to go on from. To worry too much about possible failures is useless, but Jackie can’t quite let it go. What will happen when she’s gone, it badgers her.

  She reels in. She casts. Her body orients itself to her raised arms with only a mild ache; her ribs are healed, spared, ready for the doing to come. Ten o’clock, two o’clock, her pole hits the empty sky.

  She casts again and her line snags an overhanging branch and when she tugs, it holds taut. With the nail clippers hanging from the vest pocket, just where her dad had hung them, she clips the line, releases it to the trees. The plastic fly box falls from the lower front pocket and bounces open against a rock. She crouches into the water to pick it up.

  The flies her dad made or bought are lined up in rows, hooked to Styrofoam. Their beaded heads catch the low light and glow. She unhooks the back of one with green thread and holds it in her palm. Her dad would’ve touched this. He would’ve known its name and its proper use. She holds it to her nose and smells. She throws it into the river, watches it leave her. This isn’t something her dad would have ever done. This isn’t something her dad would ever have understood. She throws another fly away.

  When you’re dead, you’re dead. There are no angels. There is no grand order to the universe. This is what she’s always thought. Today she wonders if she has been wrong. She feels him here with her, as if he were right beside her. In the snap of her line and the feel of the creek moving past her shins, in the smell of fresh pine and motor oil and sweat, in the cottonwoods and the piñon on the hills above, in hard work and quiet and sarcasm, in everything he ever taught her to love, she can sense his presence. She hopes that maybe, in this same way, he can feel her too.

  “Giving the fish a break, Dunbar?” Tim’s voice startles her. She slips into the stream, splashing. In his expensive waders, his rod in his hand, he stands on the bank smiling his landman smile.

&n
bsp; She stands up, water dripping down her legs. The vest is too wide, but she wraps it close to her chest. “I didn’t expect to see anyone here.”

  “I saw your rig at the turnout.” He shrugs shyly. “I drive by here a lot. Hoping I might find you.”

  “You know where I live. You could always run into me up there.”

  “I figured you’d run me off.” A flash of red colors his face to the roots of his hair. He looks small, uncertain, more like the teenager she once knew.

  “I might’ve. Susan would’ve for sure.”

  He frowns and takes off his hat. He holds the wide brim in his hands and squints at it.

  “I’ve thought about your creek. I was thinking you might try to ask for a settlement. The company gave some people in Wyoming six figures a few weeks ago. There was benzene in their creek too. They set it up where the company can’t pull any gas as long as there’s high levels in the creek. You might try. Could work.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad to know that. I’ll have to talk it over with Susan and Ray.”

  “I’ve only ever wanted to help you.”

  Jackie considers this carefully. One of her dad’s flies floats in a nearby eddy, stuck there, aswirl to itself. She puts her hand in her pocket around the plastic fly box. She watches Tim on the bank in the way she has come to watch the clouds and the fish that rise beyond her line. The edges of his clothing and his rod seem to flatten into the background, into the river and the trees. The sun slips behind the mountains and the wind brings the cool down from the high lakes. The low light catches beads of sweat on his forehead.

  “It’s all right, Tim. No one died. I’m OK. It seems like you are too.”

  “Well, that’s true, isn’t it?” Tim smiles, relieved. He walks slowly toward her place in the river. “I quit my job. I want you to know that.”

  “What will you do for work?”

  “I’ve been talking to a mountain bike company about doing sales for them.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “As long as I can get outside most days, it’ll be OK.”

  “I’m glad for you.”

  “I heard you’re going back to school. The mountain bike company is headquartered in Denver. Could I look you up some time?”

  “I don’t know, Tim. I don’t know how I feel about that.” She shrugs. “We could fish a little bit if you want?”

  “Sure. That sounds nice.”

  They fish in silence until the sunset bleeds into the cottonwoods, until the last rays of light slide across the valley and seep into the ground, turning the river silver. On the walk back to the turnout, Jackie carries two browns in her creel. The leaves make a canopy of blue shadow against the dirt path and she can taste the salt of her own sweat.

  “You’re a hell of a good fisherman,” Tim says, glancing sideways.

  The weight of the browns at her back is a kind of ballast.

  “Thanks. My dad taught me.”

  42

  THEY RISE IN THE dark. The smoke in the air, from the forest fires down-valley, makes the moon a red claw, as if the devil had branded the sky. Ray makes breakfast while Jackie and Susan water and feed the cows for the last time of the season. After everyone has fed, Jackie loads the salt blocks into the back of the ATV. The cattle call softly to one another. They know what is coming.

  Ray carries a rucksack from the house, filled with snacks and extra clothes and water for the long day ahead. Susan tacks up the horses they borrowed from Amick. Light eats away the shadow blanketing the forested mountainside. It’s to those lush fields and dusky pine that they are going. The cattle will be safe there on the federal range, away from the creek and the gas wells. They will fatten. They will be one less thing that Jackie is leaving for Susan and Ray to handle. Jackie leans against the work corral, her arm resting against the middle rail, and feels the summer slide off her back.

  Susan walks over and puts a foot on the bottom rail beside her sister. They watch the cows for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of their hooves against the dirt.

  “I want you to have this.” Susan takes off the watch from her wrist and hands it to Jackie.

  “No way. I can’t take that. Dad gave it to you.”

  “You know you want it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then just shut up and take it already.”

  Jackie laughs and puts it on her left wrist. She holds it up to her ear; she studies the hands. “I’ll take good care of it.” She touches her sister’s sleeve.

  “I still miss him so much.” Susan looks out toward the mountains. “I don’t need a watch to remind me of that.”

  “I keep thinking of things I want to tell him before I remember that he’s gone.”

  “I do that too. All the time.” Susan looks at Jackie and smiles. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “You can always call me if you need anything.” Jackie speaks quietly. “I’ll come right away.”

  “I’ll count on that.” Susan takes off her ball cap and squints into the sun.

  “I hope we don’t have to sell,” Jackie says.

  “Yeah.” Susan looks at Ray, riding over on the ATV. “Me too.”

  Ray shuts off the motor and sidles up beside them, leaning against the fence.

  “All right.” Ray grins. “You ladies about ready? I give us a few hours and we’ll be up with the cool breeze.”

  “Just don’t rush them,” says Susan. “Remember it’s best if they think it’s their idea. We’ll be there soon enough.”

  “All right, boss. You all about ready to think it’s a good idea to get up on those horses?”

  “You bet. Let’s go.”

  Ray opens the gate, letting Blanca, the lead cow, head out on the well-worn trail to the south. Chicken takes a flank, Ray another on the ATV, and Susan and Jackie work a semicircle behind the herd. The sun settles on their backs and they move slowly into the hills, facing the long day ahead together.

  Acknowledgments

  THOUGH KICKDOWN IS A WORK OF fiction, many events that occur in the book are based on stories I heard while reporting on the rural West for various national magazines about natural gas development, among them High Country News, Mother Jones, Salon.com, Orion, and Fortune. Thank you to all the editors who sent me out into the field and thank you to all the good people who invited me into their homes, their patrol cars, their drill rigs, who let me walk fence line on their ranches and visit well sites and man camps. I am indebted to all of you who trusted me with your stories.

  This book could not have been written without the support of Karen Fisher, Sterling Clarren, Sandy Clarren, Chris Dennis, Lee van der Voo, and Amy Rude. Thank you to my agent Lisa Bankoff for her tenacity and to Lilly Golden, my editor at Skyhorse, who truly has a golden pen. I also owe a great big thank you to Lance Astrella, Lisa Bracken, Jim and Sue at the Johnny Creek Ranch, Jon Clarren, Stevan Allred, Joanna Rose, all past members of the Eastside Literary Guild, Carter Sickels, Jason Maurer, Toby Van Fleet, Laura Veirs, Carolina Pfister, Alexa Weinstein, Shelby Brakken, and Marc Cozza. To the many friends who patiently encouraged my efforts and answered all of my questions about everything from splenectomy to mountain biking, and to our babysitters, Emma Frantz, Meg Gibson, and Kristen Billous in particular, who made it possible for me to steal away and write. Thank you to the Alicia Patterson Foundation for the gift of enough money to spend a year researching the impacts of oil and gas development on rural places. Thanks to Craig Childs for the usage of his wonderful line on page 28 about the Colorado River.

  A few of the excellent books I consulted in the course of writing Kickdown are Exit Wounds by Jim Lommasson, David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, and Darkness Visible by William Styron.

  Finally, thank you to Jude and Lou, who have had to share their mom with this book from day one, and to my darling Greg, upon whom everything depends and thrives.

  About the Author

  AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST REBECCA CLARREN has been writing about the rural West for
twenty years. Her journalism, for which she has won the Hillman Prize and an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, has appeared in such magazines as Mother Jones, High Country News, The Nation, and Salon.com. Kickdown, her first novel, was shortlisted for the PEN/Bellwether Prize. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two young sons.