Fever Tree

by Tim Applegate

Look, I’m sorry if I scared you, barging in like this. I didn’t mean to do that.

  Fractionally, the clerk’s expression softened. Apparently his apology had muted, to some degree, her apprehension. That’s all right, she said. Job like this, you see all kinds!

  I was in an accident.

  I can see that.

  By the river.

  The Wakulla?

  Yeah, that one.

  The girl twirled a strand of her hair. Do you want me to call someone for help? I can do that you know.

  Dieter took a closer look at her. Her skin was clear and her eyes were blue and when she smiled her heartbreaking little smile there was a glimmer of metal braces. She reminded him of a girl in a painting by Vermeer, sad and vulnerable and terribly needy, the kind of young woman who would be hurt, over and over, by men. Stifling an urge to reach out and press her against his chest while he described what it felt like to kneel down in a weedy clearing and glimpse nothingness, he scattered some bills on the counter, mumbled another apology, and staggered out of the store.

  _______________

  Maggie was brewing a second pot of coffee—she had just driven Hunter, who had missed the bus, to school—when Dieter’s truck fishtailed down the drive. At the sight of the bloody rag she raced out the door.

  My God, Dieter, what happened to you? She helped him out of the truck and ushered him into the kitchen. The fuck happened? Who did this?

  Later it would all come back to him: the flat light in the kitchen, a wall calendar featuring a photograph of flamingos, Maggie’s faint, windy voice.

  You stay right there. Opening the door underneath the sink, she grabbed a handful of rags and a metal basin. At the stove, she heated a kettle of water.

  Lean your head down, there, like that. With a rag dipped in the warm basin she cleaned, as best she could, the gash Raul’s pistol had torn open. The hair around it was stiff with dried blood. Out in the truck, he groaned. There’s some bandages, some peroxide.

  Returning to the kitchen, Maggie wet a second rag with the peroxide and gently pressed it against the wound, biting her lip in sympathy every time Dieter flinched.

  Hold on, hon, this won’t take long.

  She waited for the peroxide to bubble before dabbing the wound dry. Then she applied, with the detached efficiency of a nurse who had done this a thousand times before, a fresh bandage.

  There.

  Inch by inch he lifted his head, gauging the level of pain. Coffee, he croaked. Could you bring me some coffee?

  With his hands wrapped around the cup, Dieter told her about the Percocet, the meeting by the river, Raul’s gun.

  Maggie was confused, angry, and frightened. The men she loved kept showing up on her doorstep in disrepair.

  But why would Raul try to kill you? I thought he was your friend.

  He is my friend.

  Some friend!

  Look, I don’t think it was his idea. I don’t even think he knew who he was supposed to kill.

  In the ensuing silence they listened to the tick of the clock on the kitchen wall count off each uneasy second. The implications of Dieter’s statement had stalled the conversation, but sooner or later one of them had to speak.

  What are you saying, Dieter?

  It was too late to mince words, to make excuses. They had to face the truth. I’m saying that someone hired him.

  Someone? Maggie hung her head, sickened by the realization that Dieter meant Colt, and that he was probably right. Abruptly she scooted her chair back and stood up to check the bandage. Already a faint pink blush was starting to seep through.

  You’re gonna need stitches.

  I don’t think so.

  And we better call the cops.

  Not yet. All at once, sitting there in that warm, sun-filled room, he was overcome by fatigue. Please. I need to rest first.

  Unable to deny this simple request, Maggie ushered him back to the bedroom and turned down the sheets, wrapping an old towel around the pillow to protect it. When he woke a few hours later she cleaned and dressed the wound again, encouraged by the lack of fresh blood on the bandage. Head wounds, she recalled, tended to close fairly quickly if they weren’t too deep.

  In the closet she found a checkered shirt Colt had left at the house. She laid the shirt down on the bed next to his khaki pants, which she had washed while he was sleeping. Then she went into the kitchen and heated up two bowls of soup for their lunch.

  When they finished eating, Maggie refilled their coffee cups and for a time they sat at the kitchen table in silence again, avoiding the one subject they both knew they would have to confront. When he finds out Raul didn’t do it, Maggie finally whispered, he’ll come after you himself.

  As if fearful that someone might be eavesdropping, Dieter lowered his voice too. I don’t think so. I don’t think he has the nerve. That’s why he hired Raul.

  We have to call the cops.

  Just stay calm. He reached across the table to squeeze her hands. They felt cold and dry, like parchment. We’ll get through this. I promise.

  In exasperation, Maggie jerked her hands away. You’re trying to protect him, aren’t you?

  Protect who?

  Raul!

  I don’t know. Dieter hung his head, refusing to meet her eyes. I don’t know what I’m trying to do.

  When Hunter came home Maggie ran out to the front yard to warn him that Dieter had been in an accident and didn’t look too good. She saw a shadow pass across the boy’s face and she knew that he was thinking about his father lying in bed a few weeks ago swaddled in similar bandages. A flesh wound, she said, to counter his fear. Nothing to worry about, ‘kay?

  ‘Kay.

  To prove that Maggie wasn’t lying, Dieter stood up when the boy entered the kitchen and announced that this was as good a time as any for him and Hunter to go out to the pond and catch a couple perch.

  For supper?

  That’s right, big guy, for supper.

  Yay!

  Dieter knelt down until his face was level with the boy’s. And if we ask real nice—he gave Hunter a confidential wink—I bet your mother’d make us some peach cobbler.

  In the kitchen, Maggie watched Hunter cast his line into the shallows, standing next to Dieter just as he used to stand next to his dad. She felt a pang of regret over the way she was raising her child, even though she knew the circumstances which kept disrupting his life were not her fault. Regardless, she felt bad for him, considering how much he missed Colt. Then she heard a squeal of joy and glanced out the window again as Hunter lifted a fat silver perch out of the water.

  The boy started to turn toward the cabin to show his mother the perch but something distracted him. Tingling with sudden fear, Maggie followed Hunter’s nervous gaze as it swung out toward the black Trans Am skidding to a stop in the gravel drive.

  She immediately picked up the phone and called the local precinct. A patrolman, the dispatcher assured her, was on his way.

  As she put down the phone, an egret rose up from the shallows and soared across the pond. Momentarily dazzled, Maggie watched the flight of the snow-white bird against the wall of dark trees on the opposite shore. Then her attention was drawn back to the driveway, back to Colt, who was stumbling across the gravel with a pistol in his hand.

  33

  On Friday afternoon police officer Dave Kershaw, the same patrolman who had found Colt Taylor cut and bleeding out on Pheasant Hill Road six weeks before, responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at Maggie Paterson’s cabin. Minutes later, when he arrived at the location, officer Kershaw noted three other vehicles parked on the property: a jeep directly behind the cabin, a blue Ford pickup in the driveway, and next to the truck, a black Trans Am. Parking his own cruiser facing the pond so that he could crouch behind the hood, if necessary, while keeping the cabin in his direct line
of sight, Kershaw also took note of the four people gathered, like figures in a painting, on the dock and the lawn.

  Instantly he was able to identify three of them: Maggie Paterson, who had paused in mid-step halfway across the yard when she spotted the cruiser; Colt Taylor, who was striding toward the dock; and the boy, Hunter. The fourth figure, the young man with the pageboy haircut standing on the dock next to Hunter, was a stranger.

  What officer Kershaw couldn’t have known was that in Colt Taylor’s drug-addled mind the man on the dock wasn’t a stranger but a ghost. Because William Dieter was dead, lying in the bloody weeds behind a canoe outpost. So how could he be here, Colt wondered, here at the cabin, fishing with his boy?

  He had climbed out of the Trans Am without the faintest idea of his intentions. There was a gun in his right hand but he didn’t know what it was doing there, and he had no recollection of retrieving it from the glove compartment of the car. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now, either, though it seemed imperative he at least go over to the dock and ask the ghost some questions. Like why he was wearing his shirt, and why he was fishing with his son, and why, for that matter, he had risen from the dead. Then he heard Maggie’s cry from the far side of the lawn and at the same time, out of the corner of his eye, saw a police cruiser pull up next to his car.

  Instinctively Dieter wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulder, pressing him to his side. Maggie paused in mid-stride. And officer Kershaw, who had not had a chance to call for backup, crouched behind the hood of the cruiser gripping, in both of his shaky hands, his own weapon.

  It occurred to Colt that perhaps he should take this opportunity to inform the police officer that his .45 was fully registered and that as a long-time resident of Crooked River, and the son of a local cop, he had every right to carry it on his person. But the policeman preempted him.

  Freeze!

  Kershaw, Colt thought. Wait a minute, I know this guy.

  Put down your weapon!

  The day after his father’s funeral half a dozen fellow police officers, including patrolman Kershaw, had stopped by the Taylor house to offer their condolences to Colt and his mom. Their intent was to assure them that officer Taylor had acted both professionally and honorably, and that the shooting of Tina Johnson was a tragic accident no one could have prevented.

  Freeze! Colt tried to focus. Cattails swayed in the breeze at the edge of the pond but no, he would not dive into them at the last moment. If he did, the bullet meant for him would strike Hunter instead, just as his dad’s had struck Tina Johnson.

  Colt? Startled by the sound of Maggie’s voice he wheeled around. She was standing on the lawn not ten feet away and there were tears in her eyes but something in her voice, too, akin to affection. Put it down, honey. Please, put it down.

  He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, and how sorry he was. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay.

  Freeze, goddammit! PUT THE FUCKING GUN DOWN!

  But I already did, Colt thought. No, wait . . . Jesse Taylor was screaming at the black man to put down his weapon. Tina Johnson was there too but Jesse couldn’t see her because she was hiding behind her father.

  The assailant, who was visibly agitated, Kershaw would later tell investigators, proceeded to raise his pistol. Yes, he admitted, Mr. Taylor may have been lifting his hands in surrender, but he was also holding a gun. What, he wanted to know, would you have done?

  Colt?

  The first bullet struck him in the throat, severing his jugular before exiting through the back of his neck. The second shattered his chest, puncturing the aorta.

  Maggie was running across the yard. In her peripheral vision she saw Dieter lift the boy in his arms and shield him from the shooting so he couldn’t see what was happening to his dad.

  Epilogue

  The first day on the road, Hunter barely spoke a word. As if drugged, he gazed dully out the window at the passing landscape, at the mist in the foothills and the gradual ascent up the mountain and the needles of the roadside conifers shivering in gusts of wind. A timbered peak then the long freefall down the opposite slope accompanied by weightlessness, vertigo. He thought about astronauts floating in space, flower petals, seeds. If you ever let go, you could vanish too. Souls white as snow released into the afterworld and forgotten.

  On the second day Maggie followed Dieter into a gas station, urging him not to worry about the boy. When he was ready to talk, she said, he would do so. Until then, she thought it best not to press.

  Assuming that Hunter’s withdrawal was a delayed reaction to his father’s violent death, Dieter accommodated his silence by pretending that nothing was wrong. He talked about his favorite movies, his favorite baseball team, his favorite foods. He bought the boy chili dogs and French fries, chocolate sundaes, a banana split. At night in their motel room he read him the stories of Dr. Seuss.

  And then on the third morning, Hunter suddenly broke out of his shell. After a cursory glance at the breakfast menu at a roadside diner he looked up at Dieter and asked him what red-eye gravy was.

  You take the drippings from a ham, Dieter replied, and mix it with black coffee.

  The boy’s eyes grew round as saucers. Coffee?

  Listen, it’s better than it sounds. You should try it.

  Hunter lifted his brows and curled his lips in disbelief, as if to imply that Dieter had apparently gone mad.

  I don’t think so.

  For Dieter, this unexpected exchange was like a cool wind wafting across a summer meadow, waking various birds.

  I’ll make you a deal. How about I get the red-eye gravy and you get the French toast. How’s that sound?

  They stayed in a motel outside Macon and a rooming house in Chattanooga and for three days, in a cabin in the mountains of east Tennessee. The cabin was paneled in planks of cedar that smelled like rain. There was a lake where they could fish for bluegills and a tire swing hanging from the bough of a Japanese maple. One evening Dieter found half a bottle of bourbon and a Monopoly board in a back pantry. With a mischievous grin he mixed two hefty drinks (along with a virgin cocktail for Hunter) and divvied out the fake cash. Then he rolled the dice and landed on Redding Railroad. Soon he had accumulated so many properties Maggie complained that it wasn’t fair.

  What’s fair got to do with it?

  For some reason Dieter’s flip remark tripped Hunter’s funny bone and he rolled around on the floor clutching a wad of colorful money. Yeah, Mom, what’s fair got to do with it?

  Each morning over breakfast they studied the road map before deciding where to go. The route was generally north but Dieter remained open to suggestions. Since they were in no particular hurry they avoided the interstates for county highways where they discovered roadside stands selling racks of ribs and motels featuring teepees. To give Hunter a deeper sense of complicity in the journey, Dieter showed him how to decipher the symbols on the map. Those squiggly blue lines, he said, are the rivers; the red ones are the roads.

  Every other day Maggie called her father and her sister from a pay phone, allowing Hunter to chat with his grandparents, with his aunt Lureen, with Toby. She assured her father that they were all fine and that even though she didn’t know when they would return he was not to fret. Naturally Frank Paterson sounded worried anyway—he couldn’t understand what they were doing out there—but he did his best to keep his tone upbeat, especially when he spoke to the boy.

  One afternoon, the dark skies over the hill country they were passing through opened up and showered the truck with cold rain. Hunter called the rain an “omen” though he wasn’t quite sure if that was the right word. Dieter nodded thoughtfully, switching the wipers on.

  Well, there’s two kinds of omens you know.

  There are?

  Of course. There’s good ones and there’s bad ones.

  What kind is rain?

&
nbsp; Rain is a good one, Dieter responded. Always has been.

  Why?

  Because rain makes things grow.

  Like what?

  Like corn. Like tomatoes.

  The boy looked skeptical. You telling me if it didn’t rain there wouldn’t be any tomatoes?

  That’s exactly what I’m telling you!

  They stopped outside a 7-11 so Hunter could call Toby. But when he returned to the truck he looked pensive. Toby, he reported, had overheard his mother tell his father that Hunter was in a place called Limbo. Where’s Limbo, he asked his Mom.

  Maggie considered her response before answering, camouflaging her anger at Lureen for saying such a thing. Limbo, she finally said, isn’t a real place, it’s a story place.

  But where is it?

  Maggie wasn’t sure how to explain it. She looked over at Dieter for help.

  He gave the boy a reassuring smile. Limbo, he said, is the place you stop at before you get to the place you wanna go.

  Hunter thought about that for awhile before deciding that Limbo was a train station at dusk on the outskirts of a mountain village somewhere in the south of France. Men smoking big cigars stared out the depot’s dark windows while their wives chatted with fellow travelers. The children squirmed on the station’s hard benches, impatient for the train to whisk them away. Trains, depots, journeys. One night he dreamed about a black locomotive, shiny with ice, hurtling through a canyon. At the end of a corridor his father was lying in a pool of blood. He woke with a whimper, which woke his mother, too.

  There now, she whispered, it was only a dream.

  She slid into his bed and rubbed his bony shoulders until he fell back asleep. Then she lay in the dark listening to the swish of cars on the highway, wondering when, or more to the point if, the nightmares would end.

  Dieter woke early and dressed in the dark. He bolted a cup of coffee in the lobby of the motel, then jogged across the highway to a small city park with a gravel path encircling the perimeter. An empty playground. Picnic tables. A chestnut tree. It felt good to be alone for awhile, to hike through the park in the cool morning air, to clear his mind of distractions. In a world of betrayal and mistrust the theme of his next book, he decided, would be forgiveness. How Dieter forgave Raul and Hunter forgave officer Kershaw and Maggie forgave the world for treating her the way it did. He paused in the shade of the chestnut tree and gazed across the highway and thought about the boy and his mother in their beds at the Holiday Inn. He was responsible for them now, just as they were responsible for him, and the book would be about that, too, the end of isolation. For if to be fully human was to embrace the suffering of those you love, he had come full circle, from grief to healing, from penance to prayer.