The Last Annual Slugfest

by Susan Dunlap

  I jumped on his back.

  He came down hard on the floor, the wind knocked out of him, his face in the glass. My boots hit his mid-back. I grabbed his hands and pulled them behind him. Gasping for breath, he drew them apart. His feet flailed. I yanked on his arms, jerking them back from the shoulder sockets. He let out a yelp of pain. I lifted up off him and slammed my bottom down on his ribs. He gasped. His arms went slack. I pulled the rope around his wrists and yanked it tight, then hauled his arms up, pushing his face back down into the glass. Once more, I lifted off him and came down hard. When he gasped, I flung the rope around his bent legs, made one more loop around his feet and, getting up off him, pulled his feet toward his hands.

  “ ‘And Leil protecting Curr!’ That’s what Edwina said, wasn’t it?”

  But Curry Cunningham, Edwina’s nephew, didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER 25

  CURRY CUNNINGHAM GOT HIS wind back. He pulled and kicked against the rope. I braced my feet into his back and hung on to both ends of the rope. It cut into my hands. Curry flailed with the strength of panic. The rope slipped. Where was the sheriff? Grabbing tighter on the rope, I yanked Curry’s head up and let it slam down against the floor. I hadn’t even had a chance to pull the gag out of Leila Katz’s mouth. I wasn’t even positive she was breathing.

  Those tugboats outside the jetty! The men already out of their transports along the road! They had had plenty of time to assess the trees, get out their chain saws, and start to work. They could be making the wedge-shaped undercuts in the bases of the trees right now. Once those cuts were in, it would be too late to save the trees. Where was the sheriff? Minutes were precious. Harry Bramwell had left the motel an hour ago. The sheriff had to be on his way by now.

  Curry kicked. This time I didn’t wait. I lifted his head and slammed it down again. “I can do this as long as you can,” I said. “It’s your chin.”

  There was blood on his cheek and chin where they’d hit the broken glass. But those slightly bulging eyes that he had inherited from his aunt Edwina didn’t look acquiescent. He was biding his time. He didn’t know the sheriff was on his way. Rather than expecting the sheriff, he assumed his workmen would be driving in any minute to finish removing the side of the fish ranch building. He figured that it wouldn’t be long till the first of the logging trucks pulled in and backed into the building, right up to the double doors. He figured one of those tugboats would be docking at the jetty any minute, ready to carry his cargo out to the waiting Japanese ship.

  The sheriff would only know what I had told Harry. He wouldn’t suspect this plan. I needed to call him before it was too late. But I couldn’t let go of the rope. I glanced at Leila Katz. She still lay unmoving. Could I pull Curry across the building to the office and the phone? Leaving one foot braced against his back, I stood.

  The sheriff’s siren seared the air.

  Curry started, then flailed with newfound force. I dropped, my knees in his back. He groaned.

  “It’s too late,” I said.

  He didn’t move.

  I glared down at him, thinking of Edwina as she lay on the floor in the Steelhead Lodge kitchen, surrounded by her own vomit. “Death—even the awful way Edwina died—wasn’t much worse than what you had planned for her, was it?”

  He grunted.

  “You never intended to fell your own trees back in the hills like you told me. That wasn’t what all those logging trucks were for, and those cargo boats. It was the Nine Warriors you planned to cut down, wasn’t it?”

  His grunt sounded strangely like a chuckle.

  “Edwina was worried about kids carving their initials in them; that’s what her ordinance dealt with. But your plan was to send her to Sacramento with the treaty, to let the experts there expose the fake, and then to let Edwina, shocked and humiliated, drive home along River Road and find nine stumps.”

  Now he did chuckle.

  I recalled that one time I had seen Edwina look peaceful, as she sat staring up into the huge redwood behind her shop. I yanked the rope up one more time, and let Curry’s grin smash down into the glass.

  Sheriff Wescott ran in. The ambulance men were right behind. One bent down and removed Leila’s gag. She groaned. A deputy took charge of Curry. Wescott surveyed the broken glass, the rope. “Vejay, what the—”

  “He killed Edwina. He kidnapped Leila. And he’s got men cutting down all Nine Warriors right now.”

  Wescott’s tanned face turned red. He yanked Curry to his knees. “That right?”

  Curry kept silent, but he couldn’t hide a smile of triumph. It was enough for the sheriff. “Read him his rights,” he said to the deputy. Then he ran out.

  It was a moment before I followed. I tried to run, but I was too exhausted. By the time I reached his car, he had the radio mike in hand and was saying, “Make it fast. Ten-four.” He started the engine.

  “I’m coming,” I said.

  I expected him to argue. He hesitated, then opened the back door. I was barely in when the car raced out of the complex, over the bridge, and inland on River Road. He didn’t speak. He kept his eyes on the road. The siren squealed above. I couldn’t tell how fast he was driving, but it was way faster than I had ever taken these sharp curves. The tires slid on the slick surface. I braced my feet against the front seat. The radio crackled as the dispatcher sent cars to Guerneville, to Henderson, all along River Road and North Bank Road to the sites of the Nine Warriors. Wescott slowed behind a camper, pulled out around it, and cut back in, nearly taking off its fender. He pressed harder on the gas, came abreast of St. Agnes’s, and slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop behind the last logging truck. He was out of the car before it had settled. I shoved open my door and ran past the trucks to the nearest of the two Warriors here.

  The drag cables were already stretched in lines between the nearest logging truck and the tree. A group of plaid-shirted men stood beneath it. And in its base was a deep gash—the undercut. The huge tree looked ready to crash down.

  Wescott stared, his face flushed with fury. “Sheriff’s department,” he yelled. “Back off from the tree. Get those men away from the other one. Now! Move it!”

  “Hey, man, we’ve got a contract,” one of the loggers said.

  “Illegal. There’s an ordinance protecting these trees.” He looked back at the undercut and asked softly, “Can this redwood be saved?”

  No one answered. From the looks that passed between the men it was clear that “saving” was not a term they associated with redwoods.

  A car pulled up and two deputies got out. Sheriff Wescott walked over, and I could see him explaining and sending one of them to the far tree, the other to take charge of this one. He took a last look at the gouge in the trunk, let his eyes climb the full length of the tree to where the branches pierced the fog and disappeared. He stood. Then he turned and walked back to his car.

  He sat on the seat, his feet in the dirt outside. The wind blew in off the Pacific, but he seemed impervious to its cold damp touch. Without looking at me, he said, “Once this area was a rain forest so thick that even the Indians lived only on the edges. When I was a boy, there were so many trees on the riverbanks you could barely see the houses. The redwoods stood like pillars; they looked like they were lifting the hillside up to the clouds.” He swallowed hard. “Every year something is destroyed. The river is filled with sewage, the salmon are killed, assholes set fires …” More softly, he said, “The redwoods are the Russian River area. They give us distance from each other. They remind us we’re a part of nature, swept by the same current as the river. Every year more are gone.”

  I was stunned by the depth of his feeling. I stood still, unwilling to intrude. Perhaps he would regret revealing his anguish in front of me. He sat, staring into the dirt. I hesitated, then put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t shake it off. Neither of us spoke.

  Then he motioned me to the back of the car, turned, and started the engine. With that, he became all business, asking me about
Curry Cunningham and Edwina, and Leila. He drove carefully now, occasionally interrupting me to answer the dispatcher or to call in another order. By the time we reached the fish ranch, his questions had tailed off.

  A deputy was keeping two workmen at a distance from the end of the building. They were insisting they needed to get it off and out of the way by eight A.M. Beyond the jetty, those nine tugboats were treading water.

  Sheriff Wescott told a deputy to take me back to the station in Guerneville to make my official statement, then headed inside the green pre-fab building.

  Wescott had never admitted that I was right in my suspicions. It didn’t need saying. But after the deputy took my statement, during the time it took to have it typed, have me check it, and retype the corrections, he did stop by the station and tell me that, faced with Leila Katz’s accusations and the rest of the evidence against him, Curry Cunningham had confessed. He answered my questions with a patience that came close to blotting out the memory of his patronizing tone Friday night. And he called the café and had them send an order of eggs, chorizo, and kraut, and a pot of real coffee, with real cream.

  CHAPTER 26

  BY THE TIME I had finally finished with my official statement—and my breakfast—it was nearly noon. I walked out to the sheriff’s department lobby.

  Joey Gummo was at the desk. “Vejay,” he called.

  I turned. Somehow I didn’t connect Joey Gummo with use of my first name. He beckoned me over.

  “Rosa called;” he said. “She wants you to come by the house.”

  I nodded.

  “Vejay,” he said again, uncomfortably. “You know when I tried to keep you from talking to Rosa last night? Well, I was only trying to protect her.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “It was nothing personal.”

  “I know.”

  “The sheriff, he doesn’t dislike you. You just get his dander up.”

  A rather revolting description. “I know.”

  Now Joey grinned. It was an unfitting use of his small, pointy features. “Listen, Vejay, I can make it up to you.”

  How he could do that was one thing I didn’t know.

  “You work for PG and E, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “For that guy Bobbs?”

  “Right. As a matter of fact, I have to face him tomorrow morning. I had a Missed Meter Friday. First, thing tomorrow, he’ll want me in his office telling him what I’ve done about it.”

  Joey’s grin broadened. “No, he won’t. Tomorrow morning he’ll be making a delivery here. He’ll be making a delivery every day till Wednesday.”

  I remembered Mr. Bobbs had been at the sheriff’s department Saturday when I’d seen him in the parking lot. He had never told me what he was doing there.

  “What’s he delivering?”

  “Well, you know he got sick at the Slugfest.”

  “Yes.”

  “He said that it couldn’t have been caused by …” Joey groped for the right word.

  “Squeamishness?”

  “Right, squeamishness. He said it must have been food poisoning. So, well, we are public servants. We had to be sure.”

  “So?” I wondered how long Joey could drag this out.

  “He’s bringing us samples, urine and shit—a paper cup and a bottle. I thought you’d want to be the first to know.”

  All the tension of the weekend welled up and exploded. I roared. My whole body shook. I braced my hands on the counter. “Thanks, Joey,” I said when I could talk again. “We’re more than even.”

  “He’s supposed to get here by noon. I chewed him out yesterday for being so late. If you hang around, you can see him carting his sack in.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. Despite my amusement, the last thing I wanted to do was to be a visible witness to Mr. Bobbs’s latest embarrassment. There was enough rancor between us already.

  Before I could turn to leave, I heard the outside door opening behind me. I didn’t move, hoping to blend into the background. But the footsteps came right up behind me. A hand touched my shoulder, and when I turned around, Harry Bramwell gave me a great hug.

  His beard scraped against the edges of the cuts on my cheek, but it didn’t matter. I just let him hold me. And then I let him drive me home, and make himself coffee while I took a hot shower, washed and dried my hair, put on makeup and clean clothes—a dress!—and presented myself back in the living room.

  “My God!” he said. “If I’d realized you could look that good, I would have made sure I got to the Slugfest.”

  “Why didn’t you?” It seemed so long ago now, I had almost forgotten my disappointment. “I gave you good directions. I wanted you to be there.”

  “I was going to come. I was looking forward to seeing it, and you. But after I talked to Edwina Henderson and I realized she would be humiliated in front of all those people she knew, and the television cameras, I just couldn’t bring myself to view that.”

  “Nice man,” I said.

  He patted the couch next to him. “Sit down. We’ll talk about how nice I am.”

  I smiled. “Later, at length. But now we have to get to Rosa’s.”

  “Couldn’t we skip it?”

  “No, this is one occasion we really can’t.”

  He stood up. “Like I kept saying to you last night, I don’t really understand, but I guess we’ll go there. But while we’re on the way, maybe you can explain all those things I didn’t understand. Like why did Curry Cunningham kill Edwina?”

  I put on my jacket—it was wonderful to leave my slicker on the hook—and we started down the fifty-two steps that led in a Z to the street.

  “If you don’t brace a few of these, you’re going to break your neck, you know,” he said.

  “I’ll add that to my list. It’ll come somewhere between reshingling the roof and replacing the bathroom window.”

  The blue Volvo was at the bottom. I climbed into the passenger seat. “Straight ahead,” I said when he had started the car. “Okay. Curry Cunningham. Curry, or Curr, as Edwina called him, was her nephew. He came here to visit one summer and had an affair with Leila Katz, his cousin. Incest was definitely ‘unsuitable for a Henderson.’ And Edwina never forgave him; she never let either of them forget it. She controlled the family money, such as it was, so there was no fancy college for Curry, no possibility of a stake to open his own business. Edwina had enough influence with local judges, politicians, and merchants so that it would be easier for them to say no to something—or someone—she didn’t want than to go to bat for a complete stranger. Why should they take on Edwina when they could avoid it? They saw enough of her petitions and campaigns as it was.

  “If Curry had decided to stay back East, Edwina’s ability to thwart him would have been limited. But he must have been telling the truth when he said he loved this area and made a point of moving back here.”

  Harry looked out his window at the Henderson Tobacconist’s and the redwood that still stood behind, its great branches dwarfing the old shop. He glanced past me at the high sidewalk that had an extra step up from the street, and at the café, now Sunday-lunchtime crowded. Then he turned his gaze straight ahead on North Bank Road to the end of the small commercial block where town proper stopped and the laurels and redwoods and eucalyptus trees reached in from either side of the road, covering it as if it were a minor and transient alteration of their domain. “I can see why he wouldn’t let one old woman deny him all this.”

  I nodded. “Curry’s problem was that he was too much like his aunt. He went after her with the same singlemindedness that Edwina devoted to her causes and her vendettas. He told me he had The Paper delivered to him out of town. With that, he could keep up on Edwina’s various campaigns. The Paper reported the historical society meetings and doubtless Edwina’s other activities. So Curry was aware of her fascination with the area and the Pomos, and her certainty that there must have been a Pomo rancheria near here. She gave her Pomo talk every year. Who knows how man
y times he’d read reports of it?

  “Curry told me he joined Crestwood so he could get back to this area. His wife, Megumi—Meg—was Edwina’s niece. Edwina didn’t consider her a niece by marriage. Leila told me that once a person married into the Henderson family, Edwina accepted them as a full-fledged niece or nephew or whatever. So Edwina’s niece, Meg, created the treaty. Meg is an artist. Her field is eastern religious art.”

  “Where the emphasis is on reproducing a copy as close to the original as possible. Aha!”

  “Exactly. Meg told Edwina she had access to the treaty. She and Curry had lived near Baltimore, within easy commuting distance to Washington, D.C., and the Senate’s secret files. She traveled back East to study the collections at the museums. But Edwina didn’t know the purpose of her trips; she only knew what Meg and Curry told her—that Meg was doing consulting work connected with the job she had had back East, and it required her flying back to Washington. So, to Edwina, it was quite possible that Meg had come across the treaty.”

  “Still, for Edwina to believe her—”

  “Oh, but you see that’s the beauty of it. Edwina was captured because of her own biases. She believed Meg because Meg is Japanese, and by now, you know Edwina’s predilection for Indians and Asians. She would never have trusted Curry or Leila, but Meg, well, that was different.”

  “And Meg’s gone now?”

  “She and her son are in Japan. Curry told me she was there studying. He also said that her being Japanese had opened the doors for him to make his planned shipment of timber.”

  “While you were in with the sheriff, there must have been ten calls about fights and guys from out of town. Sounds like Curry’s lumberjacks are pretty pissed off.”

  “I’ll bet.” I laughed. “Crestwood Industries isn’t going to be any too pleased either, when they get the bills for all these loggers working on overtime and the tugboats and the logging trucks. And they’ll have to pay a fine for the trees he destroyed—not an enormous one, since they were all on private property. But if Curry’s plan to corner the Japanese lumber market had succeeded, it would have been more than worth all the expense and bad publicity here. He had an in because of his wife. And he told me yesterday that what a businessman needed in dealing with the Japanese was to make the right gesture. He mentioned the example of the Japanese gardener cutting all the blooms off a plant to leave the one perfect one undiminished by clutter. Curry’s gesture was to send them nine huge, matching redwoods—the Nine Warriors.” I started to tell him the history of those trees, but he stopped me.