He understood that he was not at the meeting because he could never say there what he felt so deeply here, and to listen to lesser or silly testimonials might agitate him. There was that, and one thing more. The new woman in town. Whoa. She wrecked him. He hoped her voice was a high-pitched squeak, or that she only spoke in expletives, or was as dumb as a dump truck, or as sharply stony as the boulder divers avoided when leaping into the stream below. Anything, in fact, that would rescue him when eventually they met.
He wanted to talk to her soon. That much he knew. His brother was an inadvertent spokesman on his behalf and he couldn’t let that continue under any circumstance, and the way his dad was teasing and sounding him out earlier, he better not let him be his next spokesman either.
Cowboy up, he chided himself. Talk to the girl.
Gazing downstream, he knew why he was such a mess. Or knew several factors. He hadn’t responded to anyone since his last relationship, its end an acrimonious affair. After that he felt demoralized, inordinately self-protective, alert, absurdly discriminating. He devalued his own judgement but primarily he was afraid to fall in love again. Whenever he was sent out on an emergency call he hoped that the victim was male, for if not, he became automatically critical, as if he must analyze the woman and detail her idiosyncrasies and frailties, map the dents in her character and discern the ridges and smudges on her personality before any meaningful conversation could take place. As if he was in training for his next emotional encounter, whenever and with whomever that might be. The fear of being hurt by itself did not stymie him, but the fear of falling so profoundly under a lunar sway that he could neither think straight nor act in any competent manner or distinguish what was up or down petrified him. Because he knew what could come of it when the relationship went bad. He was less afraid of women, he understood that much about himself, than he was rattled by the depth of his capacity to tumble helplessly, irredeemably, into love, and then feel stuck, even when he wanted out of it, with only himself to blame.
In going to the bridge, he needed to make sure that on this critical night it stood safe from vandals or malevolent folks with their strong opinions, but he also wanted this, to commune with the old structure and the old river amid the old hills where he communed with his mother upon her death, and where, through several critical periods in his life, he communed with the stars above, seeking his way through life just as the river steadily bore a channel through these ancient hills.
Ryan took a deep breath.
His boyhood dream was to work on the Gatineau. Drive logs downstream. Dangerous work. Good work. A labour that was no longer available. As the river flowed, so did that history, and his own—all of it churning together, and while he could not recover the old days Ryan wondered if he could permit romance to seep through his bloodstream again. He knew he was getting way, way, way ahead of himself, but he couldn’t help it. The river and the first stars were answering back, and he was able to comprehend a simple but difficult thing, that sooner or later it would not be possible to avoid falling rampantly for someone. That part was inevitable. He was prone. If nothing else, this woman called Tara already showed him that the door was now open. He’d be unable to close it. Whether with her, and his senses hoped it would be so, or with another, the door was as wide open as the sky. He was a goner. He knew that now. The view from the bridge indicated that this was so.
■ ■ ■
Sage wisdom arrived from sundry directions, unexpectedly at times, Tara noted. But then, right after someone spoke wisely, another debater’s idiotic remarks inevitably fell into step. So many who spoke seemed unable to differentiate between diehard opinion and thoughtfulness. In turn, idiocy bequeathed honourable yet mediocre thinkers with both the courage and the incentive to enter the fray, a group soon emboldened by its strength in numbers. The mediocre and then the merely garrulous spoke one after the other, until finally another sage voice piped up and altered the course of the proceedings. Then nutcases stormed the ramparts, and the cycle was faithfully reborn.
“If I wanted to be objective,” she prefaced to Mrs. McCracken.
“Now, dear, you don’t want to do any such thing.”
“You have no clue what I’m about to say.”
“Just choose a side, dear. Mine.”
“You haven’t spoken yet.”
“I pick my spots.”
In the way that the old lady held her head, chin up, eyes alert and calm, and in the way that she maintained an authoritative disposition, back straight, one wrist comfortably, delicately placed on top of the other in her lap, Tara presumed that her new pal was probably right.
They heard from those who either elegantly or falteringly spoke with an unerring passion about the environment. The gist being that trucks and logs ultimately were bad, therefore highways and bridges were bad, therefore the status quo was fine, and so the old bridge ought to be maintained as the only point of crossing in the immediate area. They summoned air pollution, noise pollution, and the dangers of high-speed traffic to convincingly support their positions, and suggested that the money saved might be better served to acquire parkland. “The faster they can move trees, the more they’ll cut, and before you know it they’ll clear-cut the entire forest.” Members of the concerned ad hoc committee at the head table nodded and jotted discreet notes.
Those on the side of the conservationists cringed, while loggers chuckled, when a cute girl with short legs out of proportion to her frame, who wore cut flowers in her hair and across her wardrobe, screeched, “I can’t stand it when I see a logging truck on the road! Someday I promise you”—her right hand struck like a cleaver through the air—“one of those loads will land on a Volkswagen! Then what? With babies inside!”
“Why is it always a Volkswagen?” a logger inquired from the back.
“Child killer!” she bellowed back at him. “You wait and see!”
“Don’t worry, lady,” came another’s retort, “we keep our loads tied tighter than you are.”
She misinterpreted his meaning. “I’m not drunk!” That didn’t occur to anyone until that moment, but now no one was sure.
Those who supported tourism read prepared statements that were quietly rational and compelling. The industry was thriving. Inns, restaurants, and shops were doing a banner business, the steam locomotive came up to Wakefield for a reason and the old covered bridge, “photographed a thousand times a day during the summer and quite a lot in the winter,” was a big part of creating their overall prosperity.
When called upon, logging executives ran down the numbers to impress the committee, and copious notes were taken.
Tara had no difficulty singling out those known as tree huggers, for many were at the game the night before and their haberdashery was proudly flamboyant. They supported every spokesperson for tourism and the academic ecologists, while adding wry notes of their own. “Our choices should follow the will of nature,” declared a man identified as Gordon Skotcher. He wore proper trousers and a suit jacket, minus a shirt. “Our choices ought to favour people over machines, a living, breathing forest over clear-cut timber.”
The tree huggers not only applauded, they cheered.
“What about jobs?” a provincial bureaucrat asked from the head table.
The speaker stared at him awhile, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before the standing microphone he gripped to steady himself. The question seemed to confound him. Finally, he answered, “You’re asking me? I haven’t worked in fourteen years!” Which earned the ribald hoots of the populace, loggers and tree huggers alike.
“The panel recognizes Mr. Willis Howard,” the old mayor announced, and Willis stood and moistened his lips before moving over to the microphone. He considered himself the lynchpin in the shopkeepers’ drive for recognition of their economic contribution to this community. More so than any other, he resented the loggers’ claim to fiscal prominence.
Yet a voice boomed out before he uttered a word. “Hang on there, chief. My hand was up long before his.”
“I’m sorry if that’s the case, Denny,” the old mayor said, “but I have recognized—”
“Sure you recognize him, Anton. Who doesn’t? I’ve known him my whole life. He has a shop on Main Street so he’s in favour of the bridge. What else did you expect? If a tourist takes a snapshot, he finds a way to make a dime.”
Tara found it curious that the only two men she’d met in town were now jostling in an argument, although Willis was hanging back, apparently confident that the mayor would uphold his status as the next speaker.
“Denny, you’ll be permitted to have your say, but I didn’t spot your hand in time.”
“You’re listening to everyone who wants to keep the bridge.” Denny did not require the use of the microphone, content to loudly press his position while standing at his seat in the midst of the other loggers. He didn’t mention that his side deliberately chose to sit on their hands this deep into the proceedings, and knew that his accusation wasn’t fair. Years ago, Mrs. McCracken taught him to pick his spot in any public debate, and so he did. Her edict, When you speak is equally as important as what you say, was one lesson well learned from her. “But the loggers need to have their say, Mayor, straight from the horse’s arse.”
“We’re getting to everyone in due course—”
“That’s okay, Anton,” Willis Howard conceded, too intimidated to speak over Denny’s objections. He’d let him talk his mouth off and be more comfortable speaking afterwards. “Denny can say whatever’s on his mind.”
His tone suggested that he didn’t expect much.
“As you wish, Willis. Thank you for your gracious concession. The committee recognizes Mr. Denny O’Farrell.”
The loggers gave him a round of applause, as though this constituted a victory in itself. Because he’d agitated to be heard, the room was paying him particular mind now, and Tara wondered if he planned it that way. Supplanting Willis Howard might grant him a more sympathetic reception.
Brilliant, if that was true.
In any case, expectations were raised, including her own.
“This will be interesting,” Mrs. McCracken proffered, confirming her own intuitive sense.
Denny edged his way past the knees of his fellow workers, choosing at this point to command the microphone. Determination affected his stride, and when he stood before the gathering he put his hands on his hips and paused to scan the meeting. The room went stone quiet—even Tara Cogshill felt a tickle in her throat, as if a cough now might be an unwarranted, unacceptable intrusion. She was impressed by his immediate command of the room.
“You’ve heard from my bosses, the company executives, from their accountants and their lawyers, and even though I sincerely believe that I agree with them, I’m not sure I understood a frigging word they said.”
The room erupted in laughter, and Tara was intrigued now. This man could be a successful politician, the way he brought an entire gathering into his sway with just a few words. She leaned into Mrs. McCracken and whispered, “Some logger.”
The older woman whispered back, “My nemesis.”
Tara raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Sitting over here,” Denny went on, “I see the big shots at the table agreeing with the tree huggers and the innkeepers, with the shopkeepers and the folks who mean well but don’t know diddly, you’re bobbing your heads—”
“We consider everyone’s standpoint fairly, Denny,” former mayor St. Aubin avowed.
“Maybe that’s so, Anton, maybe it’s not. You don’t make the decisions anymore, so how do we know?” A point was contested that he won for his side. Tara judged that if this logger was her opposing counsel in court, she’d be alert. “You’re listening to the tourism industry’s viewpoint, to tree hugger experts, to townspeople, some of whom only want to hear the sound of their own voices through an amplifier, it gives them a thrill.”
A minor clamour of objection arose, countered by the murmur of those who agreed with him.
“I don’t mean to insult anybody. Well, tree huggers, maybe, I don’t mind insulting them.” Even that group enjoyed his mirth. “But seriously, people. Come on! We used to drive logs down the river. My dad, who’s here tonight, did it his whole life. The conservation experts warned us to stop because the river was dying. Fine, they made their point. Nobody wants a dead river. Not even the orneriest son-of-a-bitch logger you can find. We don’t want that. So instead we truck the logs out now because we just happen to believe they won’t fly out of the woods on their own. But trucks—need—roads! When a road comes to a river, it needs a proper bridge. That pretty bridge that we have now was not intended for big rigs or tons of traffic. Not when it was young and not now that it’s an antique. I know why you’re so gung ho to agree with the people who have spoken here tonight.”
The face on the old mayor was reddening. “This is a fact-finding mission, Denny. I’ll have to insist on that. Nobody up here, and I know that I can speak for everyone, nobody has made up his or her mind yet. It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing.”
“You can’t say that, Anton, because you don’t know for sure.”
Tara glanced around the room, noticing how people were responding to the back and forth, their nods at one another. Denny, you’re winning points, she deduced.
“Some people never want anything to change,” he trumpeted. “Is the government any different? We know the answer to that one. A bridge costs money and you don’t want to spend it even when it’s our own money. You’ve got other priorities. Other ways for elected officials—whose skinny asses aren’t here tonight, you’ll notice—to win votes and keep their precious jobs awhile. But I’m telling you, the modern world is on our side. On the loggers’ side. Maybe not the fairy-tale world of the tree huggers, peace and love and shit like that.”
“Fuck you, too, Denny!” Skootch shouted out.
“Oh, go smoke a joint!” Denny called back, which, Tara noted again, won the approbation of a major portion of the assembly. “I believe in that stuff myself. Sure I do. Peace, love, nothing wrong with that. But the point is, we loggers pay the bills around here, with our sweat and our trucks and with the trees we cut down and transport. We support this town, not the guys making a mint at the inns—who take their cash south in the winter—and not the tree huggers, that’s for damn sure. Nobody is saying tear down the old bridge. But build a new one. Get off your ass, stick your hand in your deep government pockets, you’ll find some cash down there if you feel around and stop playing with yourself, then build us that new bridge.”
The truckers were rowdy in their praise as Denny seated himself. Applause from many townspeople, who filled the back rows and lined the rear and side walls, who brandished no particular axe to grind and perhaps were open to being persuaded, went beyond token politeness. Clapping, Tara chipped in as well, only to be scolded by Mrs. McCracken to keep it short.
“That’ll be enough of that,” the old lady commanded.
“I’m done, I’m done. But he did well, you must admit.”
“I haven’t spoken yet.”
“I know. You pick your spots.”
Mrs. McCracken leaned into her. “This is the spot I pick.”
She stood up. Willis Howard was making his way back to the microphone to be formally introduced by the meeting’s chairman, but that proved no impediment to Mrs. McCracken. Willis, a nervous Nelly when it came to public speaking, took a breath, smiled, cleared his throat unnecessarily, and double-checked his notes, a delay that cost him the opportunity to say a word. An emphatic finger poked his shoulder. He turned.
“I’ll take it from here, dear,” Mrs. McCracken informed him, in effect giving him the boot. Willis, who decided that he wasn’t so thrilled to be speaking in the wake of the popular Denny O’Farrell after all, slinked ba
ck to his seat, somewhat relieved.
“Check that,” the old mayor announced. “The committee recognizes instead the lovely Mrs. McCracken.”
Her mouth a little too close and loud in the microphone so that it boomed around the room, she retorted, “Don’t you dare flirt with me, you old fart.”
And just like that, Tara saw that her friend now held sway across the room. Loggers were grim, Denny O’Farrell in particular, while the rest of the room was raucous with laughter and enthralled.
“I want to thank the previous speaker,” Mrs. McCracken stipulated. “It’s good to hear another person’s perspective. I’m glad that you made a reference to our history, Mr. O’Farrell. It’s our principle concern here, although I don’t recall that you did particularly well in the subject.”
Tara guessed that it was an inside joke, as the line went over so well that Anton St. Aubin needed to resort to his gavel.
“Our covered bridge is an important part of our heritage,” she carried on.
“Whoop-de-doo!” At the sound of the trucker’s voice, Tara turned to look at him. He was two seats farther down from Denny, and like Denny his voice carried well. “Whose salary does our heritage pay?”
The spry sapling of an old lady ignored him. “The bridge goes to the very soul of this town.”
The panel was nodding to these comments, something that Denny mentioned but Tara was noticing for the first time herself, and it was Denny who chose to comment.
“It’s a bridge, McCracked, it’s not a religion.”
Laughter at the name he’d chosen percolated around the room. Tara was impressed that her new friend appeared not to care. Undoubtedly, she’d heard the name before, and probably from children no taller than her thighs.
A panellist, antagonistic after being called out by a logger for bias, chose to interrupt with a query. “Ma’am, what do you say to the complaints from the forestry industry? The time delays, for instance. Are they not legitimate?”
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