Ash Falls

by Warren Read

“How can you be so sure? Looks like whoever it was just wanted to tear shit up. Stereo’s still here. Anything gone from back there?”

  “No.” Hank took the broom from behind the refrigerator. Roxanne came into the kitchen balancing a tower of broken glass in her hands. He slid the bin from the lower cabinet and held it as she dumped them the shards the trash.

  “Nothing’s missing? Not a single thing?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he said.

  She took the broom from him and began to sweep the dry ingredients from the floor. She snapped the dustpan from the handle and passed it off to Hank.

  “I’m not trying to be a bitch,” she said, “but it feels an awful lot like you’re bullshitting me.”

  He squatted to the floor and held the pan against the mound of powder. She stared down at him, her lower teeth glistening down at him, her eyes narrowed accusingly. She pressed the broomstick to her shoulder. One edge of her mouth drew up in a fishhook.

  Hank slid the pan to the powder, and she swept it in. He dumped it into the bin, went to the living room, and took up some books from the floor.

  “You know,” he said, “it wasn’t as salacious as it sounds.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The word?”

  “I know what Salacious means,” she said. “What are you saying wasn’t salacious?”

  “The deal with Bobbie. The nurse. I mean, there was a thing, if you have to know.” He handed her a few paperbacks. “I wouldn’t say it was a big thing, but I guess we were careless, and it turned into a lot bigger thing than it should have. She’s a good woman. She didn’t deserve all the crap that came down afterward. Nobody did. Hell, not even that shithead nephew of mine deserved to have that happen to him.”

  Roxanne gathered the cushions from the floor, laying them in place on the sofa. She didn’t say anything. She kept her back to him, positioning the seat cushions, fluffing the pillows and placing them gently at the edges. She picked up the woolen blanket from behind the sofa and spread it evenly over the back.

  “I guess I just keep waiting for things to just move on,” Hank said. “But maybe that’s not even possible. Maybe there’ll always be a big, goddamned black cloud over this mountain. It doesn’t matter whether Ernie Luntz is loose or not.”

  “There’s no gate keeping you or anyone else up here. All you got to do is get in your truck and drive. People walk around this town like a bunch of trapped animals, but the only ones trapping them are themselves.”

  “That’s a mighty deep statement.”

  “Seems pretty obvious to me.”

  She stayed with him for a while longer before she let him take her home, until his house was put together well enough that the edges seemed smooth again. Hank kept up the conversation, steered the talk toward Roxanne’s high school days, who her teachers were, what things she remembered from his class, until he could finally see the young girl in the third row, with the acne and braided hair and the sharp tongue that made him consider retirement twenty years before it was even possible. This once seventeen year-old girl, all grown up now and smarter than he’d expected, but still awkward and perhaps a little self-conscious, and certainly still too young to be standing in the kitchen of a dealer of marijuana, smoking cigarettes and playing at psychology.

  Lyla and Tin

  In Lyla’s memory, Henry Kelleher Sr. was a man who wore a frown more often than not, his mouth curled down hard at the edges, the brow constantly gouged with worry ruts. He was protective of his solitude, and Lyla liked to hide in the shadows to watch him in the pre-dawn lamp-lit kitchen as he simmered his pot of coffee over the wood stove, whispering the old Irish folk songs, The Cliffs of Doneen and Lark in the Morn. In those moments, she could often catch the faint lift of a smile.

  He told Lyla and Hank stories of his own childhood in St. Paul, tales of schoolyard scuffles and ice fishing and of litters of kittens that seemed to appear in different corners of the house each time he told it. One night, when he had drunk too much whiskey, he told them of the frigid winter morning when he found his grandmother dead, slumped over in her own porch rocker. She was dressed only in a flannel nightgown and wool socks, and dusted from top to bottom with the thinnest layer of snow.

  “You need to have plans,” he said to them. “You don’t want to end up alone, no one around to be there when you most need help.”

  “I got plans,” Lyla told him, since she did. She had a clear idea to run away from Ash Falls the first chance she got. The world, she decided, was waiting for her.

  He turned to Lyla. “I don’t mean plans to go up and cook in the logging camps, either. So help me, if I ever catch you so much as breathing the same air as one of those lumbermen, it’ll be the last breath you take.”

  “I’m not cooking for anyone,” she said. “I’m gonna go to France and make dresses, and eat in restaurants.”

  Hank laughed at her, and their father furrowed his brow at her and shook his head. “Don’t mistake dreams for plans, Lyla,” he said. “Dreams are what happen when your eyes are closed. You’d be smart to keep yours open.”

  It was almost 9:00 a.m. when Lyla pulled into The Sleep Inn parking lot with Marcelle seated beside her. There had been a hard rain the night before, some fir branches thrown down onto lawns and such. But the sun was out now, and the pavement had enough of a gleam in it that Lyla swatted down her visor.

  “I might not be there when you get home,” she said. “It’d be a good time for you to run a load of laundry.”

  Marcelle nodded and tugged at her dirty coat sleeves.

  Lyla said, “I noticed Eugene’s been wearing the same jeans the last three days.”

  “I know,” Marcelle said, “He does that even when he’s got clean ones.” She didn’t look at Lyla when she said this, but she thanked her for the ride then got out and walked quickstep to the motel office. The girl was getting bigger in the behind, Lyla observed. And everywhere else. There were men out there who liked that kind of thing. Maybe Marcelle would be better off with one of them.

  The wet roadway hissed beneath her as she gunned the engine, gliding over River Road like she was floating downstream. As she approached Tin’s gate she caught sight of movement on the inside of the fence, a streak of blue-gray that flashed along the chain link then disappeared into the underbrush. Another escapee, Lyla told herself. Tin was usually careful with the cages, but every now and then one didn’t get latched right, and a pair of minks would break free and run for the hills. Most times he reclaimed them eventually; he had traps for situations like that. Still, it wasn’t unusual to see a stray pop up in the surrounding woods, or worse, a stripe of fur on the pavement along River Road, the remnants of one that had managed to dig out and run straight under the wheels of a passing car.

  She descended the hill slowly, easing through the potholes and instinctively ducking as the low cedar boughs feathered over the car roof. Coming out into the familiar clearing, she brought the car to a stop just outside the first mink shed. Tin poked his head out and showed his gums in a broad grin. The grading cart was parked just outside the door.

  “There you are,” he called out. He held a thermos up in greeting, as if he might offer to share. “How’s life this morning?”

  “Oh, you know.” She did up the front of her jacket. Actually, it was Jonas’ jacket, a canvas thing that weighed heavy on her but it kept the warm in. “Just life.” There was never a story to tell Tin that was any different than the one she’d told him before, and the thought of repeating any of it for him exhausted her. “Just life.”

  She took hold of the cart handle and pulled it into the shed behind her. Tin asked how Jonas was, and she said he was fine, and then he brought up the fur auction that was in a couple months’ time. It’d be in Seattle again, as always, but he talked about it like it was brand new.

  “There’s gonna be folks there from all over the state, some from Idaho and Oregon, too,” he said. “Last year a group of Chinese came with a shitload of b
lack pelts. Drove the price way down for those poor sonsabitches that brought the same. I been talking to Bill Gallagher up in Deming and the guys at Coolie Farms down in Chehalis. Figure we’ll get together and sell as one block, just in case them yellow bastards show up this year with what we got.”

  Lyla did her best to look like she was following him with interest, nodding at the right moments. But there was work to do, and more than anything she really just wanted to get going and be done with it.

  They started at the northernmost cage. Tin took his handling gloves from his coat pocket and slid them on, like gauntlets. Snapping open the cage door, he reached in and took hold of a fat mink. It squalled and squirmed in his hands, kicking its legs until he laid it down on the curved tabletop and pressed his palm onto the back of its head.

  Mink grading, deciding which creatures would live to breed another season and which were destined to be skinned, was a process Lyla was plenty used to, but not one she ever cared for. She harbored no particular feelings toward the minks. How could she? They were nasty things, angry and vicious. And when it came to their smell, they were far worse than skunks. As far as she was concerned the only purpose for their existence was to line the collar of a coat, or lie draped over the shoulders of the type of woman Lyla would never know. Minks were no different than cows or chickens, things bred and fed by humans in order to fulfill their desires.

  “I saw one up by the gate,” she said as she slid her fingers along the mink’s back.

  “Yeah, I lost a pair a while ago,” he said. “I got the male, but the female, she’s a stubborn one.”

  “Sounds more smart than stubborn,” she said.

  “So smart she don’t know what’s best for her. Either way, it don’t make no difference. If I don’t catch her, something will.”

  The inevitability was certain, one way or the other. Still, there were times when Lyla would look directly into the face of one of them, and it would stare back at her with its stony eyes, and the sensation would grab her in the gut. The connection and the feeling that came with it were always unexpected. And in those moments Lyla found that she wished she could just disappear from the spot. Like in one of those science fiction movies, where one could just vanish into vapor and then—just like that—rematerialize somewhere else.

  The fact was Tin needed her, pure and simple. She had always been good at mink grading, skilled at finding the subtle colors in the fur, the density of the undercoat, and spotting the smallest of imperfections—scars, a kidney spot, the tiniest cuts. She’d always lent her eyes when she was called upon, and now her uncle’s own eyes were failing him, and he couldn’t do this part at all without her. That kind of need was a glove over a cold hand, a wool blanket, different from the way Eugene or Jonas or even Marcelle needed her. Most of the time they were like children banging spoons on empty dinner plates.

  “You seen your brother lately?” Tin asked her.

  Lyla ran her fingers along the sides of the mink. “He was down getting his truck fixed. He got a haircut. I drove him home.”

  “I’m gonna give him a call here soon, to come lend a hand with the pelting. I suspect he’s doing all right.”

  “He seems fine.” Lyla wouldn’t bring up the fight with Eugene. It wasn’t important and besides, it wasn’t really a fight. Tin always took Hank’s side of things, anyway. “I think that nurse still has her hooks in him, though,” she said. “Maybe not intentionally, but his head’s still wrapped around her. I can tell.”

  Tin released the male back into the cage and latched it closed, then went right to the next one and pulled out a female. She tried to turn back on him, but he had a good hold of her, and he pressed her down over the curve of the table, holding her head with his palm. “She’s a nice enough gal, from what I can tell. Nice looking.”

  Lyla stopped. “When did you ever meet her?”

  “I seen her around plenty,” he said. “Before. I only just met her the other day, though. Her boy cleans cages for me after school.”

  Bobbie Luntz’s son was working every day for Tin, yet when Eugene was that boy’s age, Tin wouldn’t give more than piecemeal work. Lyla raked her fingers over the mink’s back. The undercoat was thick and lush and completely unblemished, just as the male’s had been. She’d been with a good mate; they’d been easy with each other. She pinched around the sides and nodded approval, and Tin slipped it back into the cage, and tied a tag onto the mesh.

  “Is that Patrick?” she asked. “Stripe of bleach down his head?” She twirled her finger over her bangs.

  “That’s him.” He reached into the next cage and pulled out the female, and laid her on the cart.

  Lyla combed through the fur. This one was pretty small. “Marcelle told me they used to be close.” She laughed, quietly. “I guess they had a falling out the minute she set her sights on Eugene.” She stopped at a spot behind the mink’s ear. “There’s a cut here,” she said, rubbing her finger in a circle. A scab the size of a water drop showed through. “Can you see it?”

  Tin leaned in close, to where Lyla held her finger. “Goddamn it,” he said. He put the mink back in her cage, took his pen and marked the tag and tied it to the mesh. He stopped and looked over to Lyla. His mouth was drawn into itself, the lower lip hugging his gums, his eyes almost glowering at her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  He turned and crossed to the other side of the shed, taking the cart with him. “The kid’s been through a lot, Lyla,” he said. “Don’t come down on him.”

  Lyla held her tongue. Because of Ernie Luntz, everyone in that town had been through a lot, some more than others. Hank. Eugene. And what about Ricky Cordero’s family? She couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have felt like when that phone call came for them, the voice on the other end telling them their son had been beaten to death. Half the town right there, and not a single person had stepped up to do a thing to stop it.

  They pushed through the remaining cages amid small talk. Tin made mention of a coyote he’d shot on the property and the many dogs he and her father had as a boy. Dogs that stole chickens and dogs that chased cars, and dogs that crawled under the house to die. By the time they got through the last of the minks it was past one. The sun was breaking through the clouds overhead, and the honking of southbound geese echoed in the far distance.

  “You hungry?” Tin offered. “I got a pot of stew on the stove.”

  “You know I’m never hungry after grading.”

  She followed him back to his office, an old travel trailer that had been in one place or another on that property for as long as Lyla could remember. When he swung open the door, the smell of beef and onions wafted out, a welcome change in spite of her lack of appetite.

  The place was mostly tidy; Tin wasn’t one to just leave things lying around whenever he was finished with them. Lyla stepped up to the sink and washed her hands in the tap, and took the sponge from the basin and wiped down the counter of the crumbs and spots of coffee and gravy and who knows what else. Tin sat down at the small table, pulled the calendar down from the wall and took a pair of Coke bottle glasses from his pocket.

  “Busy week ahead of me, that’s for sure,” he said.

  Lyla sat down across from him, took the stack of papers and envelopes from the edge of the table and thumbed through them. There were notices and junk mail, and bills both recent and overdue. She set the pink ones aside.

  “You need to get on these, Uncle Tin,” she said.

  “I will.”

  “I mean it,” she said. “Before you know it, you’ll have no power and no phone.”

  He kept his eyes to the calendar, running his fingers from one side of the page to the other. His jaw moved back and forth as if he was chewing gum, as if she hadn’t said a thing to him.

  “Never mind,” she sighed, “I’ll do it.” She tucked the stack into her coat pocket and reached up into the overhead cabinet for his check ledger.

  The river tumbled blue green, beyond t
he lichen-spotted sheds, continuing south to where it bent around the old maple whose muscled branch still reached out over the swimming hole. Tin’s land stretched on fifty yards or so past the tree, and it was another quarter mile before the rapids would get too rough for a person to wade safely along the shore. Lyla remembered watching Tin and her father and mother in that trailer, playing cards and laughing over beers late into the summer evenings while she and Hank dropped from the maple branch into the cold, blue water and ran up and down the riverbed, heaving rocks into the current.

  Tin signed the blank check for Lyla and thanked her for taking the trouble, and she said it was no trouble, since she had to sit down and write out her own bills anyway.

  “You need to stay on this though,” she said, waving the check at him. One by one, the men in this family seemed to be bound and determined to avoid responsibility, and since there were no women beside them to manage these details, she was stuck doing it. “If you want me to take this over for you, I will. But you need to tell me.”

  Tin nodded and pinned the calendar back up on the wall, then got up and turned the propane burner on beneath the stew pot. Standing with his back to her, leaning into the stove, he was so much smaller than she remembered, his seat invisible in the sagging trousers, cuffs bunched over his shoes like he was a child dressed in his daddy’s clothes.

  “Are you coming for Thanksgiving this year?” she asked.

  “Naw,” he said, stirring the pot. “They’re doing a thing at The Elks Club.”

  They were always doing a thing at The Elks Club. Lyla was fairly sure Tin never went to any of them. She had extended the invitation to him again, and she would do the same for Hank, just like she had every other year. And like every other year, neither of them would show. Always, with other plans.

  She gave him a pat on his back, his spine like carved wood under his shirt. “I’ll tell Jonas and Eugene you said hi,” she said. She smiled and Tin looked back at her, grinned, and tapped his finger to his head. It was a thing the two of them shared, the gentle reminder that he hadn’t asked about them at all, but that the intention was somewhere inside there, tangled up in a hundred other things more important at the moment. Lyla opened the door and took the steps down to the dirt. Tin held back at the door.