You first, I say.
He looks annoyed. You don’t trust me, he says.
He shouldn’t have mentioned trust, it shakes my trust.
I need to see how you do it, I say, explanatory.
Yessir, he says.
I watch his feet as he steps onto the first round stone between two channels of the river. Stretching a little he puts his other foot on the next stone so that he spans the second channel. This stone is big enough for both feet and he stands erect. The river pours thick and fast around him. His left foot reaches to the third stone, which will be the last before the solid ground on the other side. He slips.
It was too quick for me to know how it happened though I was watching his feet and saw no obvious errors. It looked simple and easy to do, I thought, and I couldn’t see and can’t understand what carelessness made him fall. The rock must have been more slippery than he realized. In the future (I know) I will often look back trying to remember more than I saw, which I can recount only like this. I saw the foot slip off the stone while the other was in the air. Then a flash of Oliver’s denim in open space off the edge dropping out of sight like a weight into the place I had only just identified as automatic death.
Leaving me suddenly alone. I stood there in the shock of it. An accident. For a moment I tried to reverse time and when I couldn’t I got a glimpse of chaos, thinking this is what we get for interfering. What who gets? Interfering with what?
I step toward the edge and grasp a sapling to look and see. He’s not visible, the water drops out of sight into a cloud of spray, which continues to roil as if nothing had changed. I have a moment’s suspicion lest this be a magic trick to enable him to creep up on me from behind. Stop that, I know what I saw.
My memory is half shuttered. I was looking at his feet. I was not watching his face. I did not see the look on his face when he slipped. But I would not have seen it even if I were looking because his back was turned. I’m glad I was watching his feet because that enabled me to see what happened, though I still don’t understand why it happened.
By moving into the bushes on the left I am finally able to see a patch of blue on one of the rocks where the water foams. Oliver’s blue, near where we started. There’s a blasphemous relief to see him there which I censor in awe of death. Then the possibility he might yet be alive, creating an obligation to first aid. I must go down and look.
I tear down the path, again bouncing like a stone, falling like the water, like Oliver himself though my descent has more control, while his was pure physics.
Thinking as I go. The oddity that he, who knew this place, should be so fatally careless at this particular moment. While I was there. The path on either side of the brim is well-traveled. Many people including Miller himself have crossed there. I would have thought the only danger was the psychology of the edge. You don’t fall off a subway platform into the path of an approaching train merely because you are standing there.
There’s elation in my downward speed, some wicked thought saying let him be dead, now we can get Judy’s child back. Along with new fears. I’ll have to persuade people that what I saw was true.
Interrupted glimpses on my way down of the blue denim on the rocks, each view larger than the last, a man sprawled on a boulder around which the water divides, his arms spread, one leg out, the other curled under him, his head back out of sight probably in the water. It’s at the bottom of the falls, just to the side of where the water hits, he dropped all the way from the top, and I am coming to collect the news that was given me there.
He’s on the other side of the stream from the path with no easy way to get across. Is that what I should do, I don’t really know. I need help, how do I get it? Run down to the compound, find someone. What do I say? How he went across first and slipped on the third stone and fell before I could look.
Someone is coming, stamping through the leaves from behind. It’s the cowboy man again, still carrying his rifle. Following wherever I go. Men with rifles: this was where the man with the yellow hair, hunting squirrels, sat when we started up, the boulder right there.
The man with the black hair looks across the stream. That Oliver? he says.
Yes.
What did you do to him?
He fell. He was crossing and fell. He was two-thirds of the way across and he fell.
He wouldn’t fall, he’s not that dumb.
I saw him, I was right there.
Yeah? Let’s take a look.
He pokes around and finds a way to get across. I try to follow. Stay back, he says. There’s no room.
He gets to the rock with Oliver’s body and bends over him, inspecting him. There’s some blood. I stand in a shallow spot where the water runs through my shoes and soaks my feet.
Is he alive?
Are you kidding?
He looks at the waterfall above.
Nobody just falls off that, he says. Someone pushed him.
No one pushed him.
You mean you didn’t, he says.
Of course I didn’t. He was taking me to see Miller.
Up there?
He said Miller was meditating up there.
That’s what he said?
That’s what he said.
The man with the black hair spends a long time examining Oliver. He studies his head, which I can’t see, and opens his shirt and looks at it. He looks at his shoulder and his arms. I can’t see what he is doing. Finally he comes back, and we return to the path. The man with the yellow hair, also carrying a rifle, has reappeared in the woods, standing back a little, watching. The man with black hair ignores him.
Come on, he says to me, I’ll get you a ride into town. Where you at, the Sleepy Wicker Motel?
You’re taking me there?
Ed Hansel will take you.
What about Oliver?
What about him?
Aren’t you going to report his death?
It was an accident, you said so yourself.
Will you report it?
I’ll do that, don’t worry about it. On Miller Farm, we take care of our own.
It should be reported to the police.
He raises his voice a little. If I was you I’d keep it to yourself, considering your proximity to the case and what I saw.
What did you see?
I saw what I saw.
I did nothing. I was nowhere near him.
Then don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. We’ll do the necessary legal work, which is none of your business.
I follow him across the compound, while the man with the yellow hair follows behind.
Get into the pickup truck. I remember my mission. My friend wants her baby back, I tell him.
Tell her to come and get her, the man says. Tell her to see Miller.
Up that path?
Hell, the man says with disgust. You tell her. Come tomorrow, come anytime. Come this afternoon.
This afternoon?
She’ll get her baby back, he snaps. Wait here for your ride.
Suddenly he pats me on the arm, confidential, soothing. Hey listen, he says. Call off your FBI man, okay?
When we get the baby back.
Right, when you get her back. Best not mention that accident if I was you. FBI would get confused. We’ll regard it as a accident if you leave us alone.
An old man comes and drives me into town, leaves me at the Sleepy Wicker Motel. I still shaky from the shock. What happen back there? he asks. Somebody died, I said. Who was it? Oliver Quinn, I said. The new feller? the man said. Accident? Fell down the waterfall, I said. That’s a shame, he said like it happened often. Then we don’t talk, as if there’s nothing more to say despite all the questions in my head.
10
Judy Field
He came back from Miller Farm, banging on my door, shocked out of breath.
Oliver’s dead, David said.
Oliver dead? What about Hazel? I said.
Hazel’s fine. You can have her anytime.
&n
bsp; I can have her, did you say I can have her back?
This afternoon.
He flopped into the chair. Shivering.
I waited a moment to ask. What happened?
An accident. Right in front of me. I saw him die.
What kind of accident?
He told me. That was the news, complete in seconds. The rest was talk. He described the accident and gave me the message about my baby, both things over and over. I couldn’t get my feelings around them, there was something I couldn’t imagine. I tried to liberate my joy from Oliver the enemy suddenly Oliver clumsy-foot, a harmless dead thing in the past. And God in whom I don’t believe intervening with such excess it was like I killed Oliver myself. The punishment was imagining a man in blue denim under the waterfall when I wanted to think about my baby. Take this for selfishness.
Repeat this: I can get my baby back this afternoon?
Anytime.
Well let’s go.
For the second time Davey drove me out Rib Rock Road. A man with a gun came out of the woods where the road starts down. I told him who I was and this time he let us through. In the compound a man came out of the big house. There he is, Davey said, and I saw what he meant about a horse-breaking cowboy. Cynical ruined movie face. Howdy, he said, like a cowboy. You want something?
I want my baby, I said.
Come with me. Your friend wait.
Hold on, David said. I won’t leave you. I nudged him not to screw things up.
See Miller first, the cowboy said. No need to mistrust. Miller is good. You’ll be grateful and full of happiness.
All right, take me to Miller.
I will not abandon you among these people, David said. The man was annoyed. Who do you think you are? he said. These is God-fearing folks, good people, don’t insult them.
Please just let me do this, I said to David.
I followed the man into the Victorian house. A woman led me into a room with a tall window. A man sat behind a desk in front of the window. I couldn’t see his face because the sunlight was too bright behind his head.
I’m Miller, he said. And you’re the baby’s mother.
They said you would give her back to me.
In a minute. Did you know your Oliver Quinn died this morning?
I heard about it.
Too bad, a tragedy and you his wife, he said. So would you do us a favor and stay overnight for his funeral tomorrow? Overnight at Miller Farm? I didn’t know what to say. I was scared.
Are you afraid of spending the night or is it a doubt about the funeral?
Can I be with my baby? I said.
Of course you can, Miller said. Please stay. It would be seemly, for the child’s father and the good women who have been taking care of her.
I thought about them. All right, I’ll stay, I said.
The cowboy took me back into the compound and I told David. He was furious. I knew he would be. I had to persuade him, urge him, finally insist on it. The cowboy said, Listen to the lady, man. You’re just the taxi driver. Go back to your motel and pick her up tomorrow afternoon.
I felt sorry for him, angry and humiliated, going back to the motel and the night, all by himself. When he was gone, the man said, Do you want to see your baby?
Do I want to see my baby? as if that could be a question. Like suddenly noticing the soft spring day, and even the cowboy’s dark glittering face was benign. He led me striding across the compound to a cottage under the trees, like Davey’s description. And there she was, where I hadn’t seen her before. My Hazy toddling around the cottage porch in clothes I never saw, but what do I care what she was wearing? The clothes were pretty and clean and there was a good sturdy woman sitting on the porch with a scarf around her head like a European peasant.
Thank you so very much, I said to the cowboy.
I’ll see you at the funeral, he said.
What funeral? Hazel, Hazy, I called, my Hazy baby, it’s Mommy, Mommy’s back.
She stopped to look at me. Holding a rubber mouse. Did not smile, just looked. She was trying to figure it out. A week had passed since Mommy disappeared. She was only a little over a year, not old enough to remember a week ago. She saw I was familiar. I represented something of great importance, maybe the most important thing in the world, but she couldn’t make the connection so who was I? It hurt.
She turned to the woman with the babushka, toddled to her saying something. Mama. She said Mama to the woman in the babushka.
It made me cry. I knelt down, held out my hands. Come to me Hazy I said, my voice failing.
The child stood by the woman’s knee, silent puzzled curious. I was afraid to look at the woman, the opposition I might see in her face. I was afraid to let her see the tears on me if she should take that as an advantage. I couldn’t look but I heard her voice speaking low to the child, That’s your Mama, Holiness.
That gave me such a thrill, such relief, the woman acknowledging, not denying me, that I turned to her, how grateful I was, let her see me crying, I needn’t be afraid now. Not only that, she called my child Holiness, recognizing her divinity and love. She was my friend and we were one, that woman whose name I assumed to be Maria and I.
Pick her up, the woman told me. She’ll remember you in a minute.
I picked her up, stood on the porch with my reticent shy baby who didn’t quite know what was going on. I hugged her to my cheek and shoulders and sobbed. Hazel, my sweet child.
I see what you mean, the woman said.
Hazel’s arms went around my neck, forgiving me. She wriggled now, wanting to get down. I put her on the floor, she grinned her baby grin, she wanted to show me something, a toy kangaroo she gave me out of the box. She reached for it back, she wanted to play, my baby’s way without the words she needs to tell me what’s in her mind.
I sat on the porch floor while the woman named Maria sat in her chair and watched. Grateful that this woman did not keep the child from me. Why had she done so before?
You should take better care of her, the woman said.
Oh?
You let that man get hold of her.
Oliver? He stole her.
The woman was not hostile, she had a sunny middle-aged face like a saint. You shouldn’t gave him the chance.
He tricked the baby sitter. Something inhibited me from admitting the baby sitter was my father.
You shouldn’t have a baby sitter, the woman said. How can you turn over such holiness to a baby sitter?
I have to work, I told her. I have no choice.
She’s my baby now, the woman said.
Watch out. I withheld my first words and spoke carefully. I appreciate the care you gave her. I can see it was good. I took a breath before the point: She was kidnapped from me and I have come to take her home.
Holiness is not the property of one person, Maria said. Nobody owns a child.
I know, but somebody has her care and somebody has her love.
The woman looked away. Others came around and spoke to me. What a lovely child. Sympathy for my loss, meaning Oliver. An old man named Ed Hansel. A woman called Miranda. I stayed the rest of the afternoon in Maria’s cottage with the women and my baby and at dinner time we went to eat in the building called the altered barn. A big room under a pitched roof with sky lights and windows making it light and airy. Long tables and more people than I thought the cottages could accommodate. All kinds, all ages including children, in work clothes, overalls, jeans, jackets, boots. I thought, These are fanatics, committed to an absurdity, but they didn’t look crazy, they looked like ordinary folk. Country folk, I thought, because I was in New Hampshire, though in truth I had no way of knowing that they weren’t city folk from Baltimore or wherever it was Miller came from.
I sat at the end of a table with Maria and my baby in a high chair. The room was full of animated conversation and the dinner was hearty. Afterwards we went back to Maria’s cottage. They set up a bed for me in the living room. They sat around and talked, ordinary talk. About the
weather change and the advantages of this place over Stump Island and about Oliver, who I realized was largely a stranger to most of them. They discussed his accident, how surprising that someone could simply slip and fall down the waterfall, and they wondered if there was an unseen motive. They asked me if I saw anything suicidal in Oliver, any hints lately of suicidal intent, and was his bringing the baby here the first act of some elaborate suicide gesture? The way they talked it seemed like no one quite understood that he had kidnapped my baby from me. I reminded them. He stole my baby, I said. He kidnapped her. Yes, Maria said. He should have asked your permission. He shouldn’t took her without your permission.
They turned out the lamps and we went to bed. I had my baby in bed with me, I had kept the milk up and could nurse her despite the interruption, I felt her warm and tickly snuffling and squeaking next to me in the dark. It seemed darker than any place I had ever been, though my eyes adjusted and I could see the window and the shapes of trees outside. I felt the New Hampshire wilderness all around me, carrying me, the forest and mountains, and the silence of the compound. I and my baby miles and miles from home. Finally I remembered David Leo sleeping grumbling and discontented in the motel seven miles away.
In the morning, we had breakfast in the altered barn and returned to our cottages. A little later the cowboy came back. Time for the funeral, he said.
I had forgotten about the funeral. This too took place in the altered barn. Maria kept my baby while I mourned Oliver. At the entrance a woman spoke to me. Goodbye to your lover?
He’s not my lover, I said.
No feeling between you? the woman said.
He was nothing but bad news, I told her.
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