Water Rites

by Mary Rosenblum

  “’Lo, Dan.” A chunky man in faded suncloth coveralls waved. “Hi, Nita. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. There’s space here.” He waved at the asphalt beside the pile of soap blocks he was selling.

  “How’re you doing, Pete?” Dan set his pails down.

  Nita smiled grimly at the soap vendor as she put down her pails. His lust felt like sweaty fingers on her skin. She spread out a towel with an angry snap so that Dan could pile the beans onto it. If Pete didn’t knock it off, she’d kick his damn soap right into his lap. That should wilt him.

  “Hi, Carl.” Dan straightened as the chief of police marched up. “You look a little grim this morning. Anything wrong?”

  “Maybe.” Durer cast a quick, hard look at the obviously listening Pete. “Want to come along for a little ride with me? I’ve got something to show you.”

  “Sure.” Dan’s voice had gone flat.

  Trouble, Nita thought. Durer was really upset. Rachel kicked and squirmed, her face screwing up to cry as Nita tried to sooth her.

  “I’ll be back in a little while, okay?” Dan stood, brushing dust from his jeans. “You don’t mind staying here by yourself?”

  “I know how to sell beans, Dan.” Nita smiled for him. Pete was seething with curiosity and lust in about equal proportions. Nita turned her back on him and began to arrange the beans.

  “See you in a little while.” Dan followed Durer.

  Not soon enough, Nita thought grimly. Dan’s weariness hummed in the air, a weariness of spirit, she thought. He didn’t want to be doing this. He was trapped. Nita tucked Rachel into her lap. Trapped by her father’s ghost. “I think it’s time we moved on,” she whispered to Rachel, and pretended that she didn’t feel a pang at the thought.

  The beans sold faster than she had hoped. Dan had been right — most crops weren’t quite ripe yet, and green soybeans made good eating. Dan had given Nita a list of the goods they needed and she was able to trade for most of them before noon. The three rough blocks of soap that Pete swapped her for a bowlful of beans smelled like rancid vegetable oil. They smelled like his constant, irritating lust. Nita wrinkled her nose at the bars as she tucked them into her pack. Too bad no one else had soap to trade today.

  A tall, fair-haired man stopped in front of her blanket. “I’m looking for Dan Greely. Do you know where he is?”

  Everyone in the whole damn riverbed knew she was living with him. Nita eyed the man. He was dressed very city. “He’s off with Chief Durer,” she said. “He’ll come back here eventually. If it’s important, you should probably wait.”

  “Chief Durer?” The man’s eyes evaluated her. “Is there a problem?”

  Nita blinked at the sudden satisfaction in the man. As if he was glad for the trouble? As if she had answered a question for him? Wariness tightened her stomach. “I don’t know.”

  “Hell, yeah, there’s trouble.” Pete clucked his tongue from behind his soap pile. “Anytime Durer comes looking for Dan, you can bet your ass it’s no social call. The uniforms are probably cutting up rough again. They beat up some kid last week.” His eyes gleamed. “You hear about that?”

  Nita squashed a fierce desire to kick the jerk. “I’ll tell him you were looking,” she said, ignoring Pete. “What was your name?” She smiled at him, hoping that she looked dumb and innocent. “Can he find you somewhere?”

  “My name’s John Seldon. I’ll catch him later.” He wasn’t smiling, but he was still pleased inside.

  Nita watched him walk away, trying to place the name. She had heard it . . . Then it clicked suddenly. Johnny. This was Carter’s friend; the one he cared about, or owed a debt to. He worked for the government. So why did he want to see Dan?

  She definitely didn’t like him.

  The sun rose higher, driving what little shade remained into hiding. Nita spread a sunscarf over her head and shoulders and leaned forward as she nursed Rachel, so that her shadow would shade her daughter. A knot of people had gathered on the far side of the lot. Nita heard laughter and applause and felt distant ripples of excited pleasure. Pete draped a dirty cloth over his pile of soap and wandered down the street to watch. Nita craned her neck, curious, but unwilling to disturb Rachel’s sleep. Some kind of entertainment?

  The crowd broke up after a while, scattering among the stalls, still full of laughter and good feelings. It was a nice change. Nita stretched cautiously and winced. Her right foot was asleep and her shirt was soggy with sweat beneath Rachel’s sleeping warmth.

  “Hi, I’d about given up on seeing you again.”

  Nita looked up. “Jeremy.” She smiled, pleased to see him again. “Was that you, down the block? Making people laugh?”

  “Uh-huh.” He sat down beside her, his sky-colored eyes on her face. “I thought I scared you away, on the riverbank.”

  “You almost did.” Rachel was waking up, hungry again, and Nita lifted her shirt, glad that Pete hadn’t returned. “I haven’t been hiding from you. I was at the market last week, but I didn’t see you. I . . . don’t like coming into town.”

  “I bet.” His smile lit his eyes like sunlight. “Even I can feel the tension. It must be rough for you.”

  “It’s . . . kind of wearing. Yes.” It made her feel funny, talking about it like this. Sometimes David had asked her what she heard in the bees’ song, but that was all. He didn’t ask her about what she heard from people, or how it felt to hear it, and that silence had become hers, too. She had never really put it into words before. “You made people feel better with your show. I appreciated it.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “I’m good for something, I guess.” His smile was crooked now.

  Nit sucked in a quick breath. At the end of the block, where the street ran up into the hillside, the ground had gone suddenly green with grass. Tree branches, heavy with leaves, swayed above the roof of the supermarket. Tiny white flowers bloomed beside her, poking up through the cracks in the parking lot’s surface. “It’s beautiful,” Nita murmured. She tried to touch one of the blossoms, but felt only gritty asphalt beneath her fingertips. Jeremy was staring at it, bitter inside. Sad. “I’m glad I can share this,” she told him as the green vision faded. “I can tell Rachel how it used to be, when she’s older. She needs to know. It’s like you pull a moment out of the past, spread it out for us to see.”

  “For you, maybe.” But a slow smile lighted his pale eyes and eased some of the bitterness inside him.

  “Excuse me?” A stocky woman with a pack slung over one shoulder had paused in front of them. “Do you have any beans left at all?” She frowned into one of the empty pails. “I meant to stop by earlier, but I got busy talking.”

  “I have a few left.” Nita reached for the pail beside her and tilted it to show the woman the pound or so of pods remaining in the bottom.

  “That’ll have to do.” The woman gave her a broad smile. “I can even give you scrip.”

  Nita wrapped the beans in the faded piece of cloth that the woman handed her. As she started to put them into the woman’s pack, she froze, hand poised in midair, her heart contracting.

  “Something wrong?” the woman asked.

  “Where did you get that pack?” Nita asked.

  “I bought it.” The woman eyed her warily. “Julio has a little secondhand store in Mosier. He comes into town for the weekend market. Is it yours? Was it stolen?”

  The weight of the heavy blue cloth made Nita’s fingers tremble. She turned the flap over slowly. The letters D A had been worked on it in bright green thread. Nita touched the slightly crooked curve of the D, tears burning her eyes, threatening to spill over.

  “What is it? Nita?” Jeremy touched her shoulder.

  “David Asher,” Nita whispered. “This is David’s pack.” They were both staring at her, uncomprehending. “I’ve been looking for him.” Nita spoke past the lump in her throat. “My husband. He was supposed to meet me here.”

  “I’m’ so sorry.” The woman covered her mouth with her hand.

&
nbsp; “What about the man who sold this to you?” Jeremy turned to her. “What’s he like?”

  “Julio Moreno?” The woman sounded surprised. “He’s honest, if that’s what you mean. His family has lived in Mosier forever. They grow sugar beets. Julio could tell you where he got it. I don’t think the man ever forgets anything.”

  Nita stacked the empty pails together, gathered up Rachel, and scrambled to her feet. ‘I’ve got to go talk to him.” She tucked the squirming Rachel into her sling.

  “Do you want to keep the pack?” The woman cleared her throat, her pity warm in the air. “If you’ll swap me for yours?”

  “Thank you.” Nita emptied her pack onto the ground and handed it to the woman. “Thank you very much.” She rubbed the worn fabric gently.

  David had bought the cloth at the Salem market. He had taught her how to sew with that pack. It had been a hard job and she had made a lot of mistakes. There was the seam that she had resewn four times. She had thrown it out the door of their tent after the third time and David had laughed at her temper. He had picked it up, and told her to work on it another day, and they had made love in the afternoon heat. Nita’s throat closed on tears as she tucked Rachel’s quilt, the water bottle, and a spare diaper into the familiar folds.

  Rachel started to cry irritably as Nita walked back to the truck. Dan wasn’t back yet, but she couldn’t wait for him. Jeremy had followed her, not saying anything as she tossed the empty pails into the truck’s bed. She opened the door and felt for the keys beneath the seat. It was only ten miles to Mosier — they could be back in an hour. Dan would know it was important. He’d understand. She stared at the keys in her hand. You should know how to drive, David had said when she had turned sixteen. He had traded precious honey for the use of a clunky old electric hybrid and he had taught her how to drive. Nita climbed onto the seat.

  “I think I’ll come with you.” Without waiting for her reply, Jeremy pulled open the passenger door and climbed in.

  “No, thanks.” Nita glared at him.

  He made no move to get out.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Nita started the engine.

  Rachel started crying hard, her face red and angry as Nita backed the truck out of the lot. Not because she feels me, Nita thought fiercely. That’s not why. She drove west, past the empty car lots and abandoned shopping centers that clustered at the edges of town. Rachel finally stopped crying. Nita looked sideways to discover that Jeremy had her daughter on his lap and was making a bright-green insect hover above her face. Rachel reached for it, smiling tentatively, her face still blotchy with weeping. Nita felt a stir of gratitude, but a cold stone of fear sat in her chest, squashing the words down inside her.

  West of The Dalles, one of the stark cliffs had crumbled into the riverbed. It had taken a section of the interstate with it and traffic had to turn off onto the old highway. Nita took the two-lane winding road fast. The land rose on their left, barren slopes patched with tough weeds and clumps of sun scorched grass, pierced by rocks like broken teeth. You could see the stumps left from the orchards that had died and been cut for firewood. Cherries, Dan had told her. She had never eaten a real cherry. Cherries came out of the vats, fed by the bushes that had killed the Valley and hadn’t needed David’s bees. A few tall poplars remained from the old windbreaks, like posts of a vanished fence. Nita forced herself to slow down, afraid of what might happen if the land went suddenly green.

  It didn’t go green. Jeremy made glittering butterflies and tiny green frogs for Rachel and the hills remained dead and brown.

  It took less than half an hour to reach Mosier. Nita parked in front of an empty auto-body shop. Across the street, a tall white house stood up on a bank above the level of the road. Clothes hung on the wide porch, swinging in the wind, and Nita caught sight of cluttered chairs, saw the glint of glass on tables. Julio’s secondhand store.

  Jeremy handed Rachel to Nita without a word. Clutching her daughter, Nita climbed the steep steps that had been cut into the bank. The wide porch was crammed with clothes, old tools, china plates and cups painted in vivid colors, plastic dishes, and furniture. Some of the clothes looked as if they had been hanging on the porch for years, faded into drab pastels by the sun. Others looked new and fresh, as if they had come from a store.

  “You wish some help?” A lanky man wearing a too-large denim overall stepped from the house. His left arm was scarred and twisted, but his eyes looked young, in spite of his gray hair. “You are looking for clothes, senora?” He smiled at Rachel. “For la nina?”

  “No. Thank you.” The words stuck in Nita’s throat. Slowly she held out the pack. “This belongs to my . . . husband.” Her voice trembled in spite of herself. “A woman said she bought it from you.”

  The man’s face took on a wary expression.

  “I don’t mean . . . I’m not accusing you of stealing it.” Nita flushed.

  “I did not think you were.” Julio Moreno shook his head slowly and Nita cringed at the texture of his reluctance.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  He spread his hands. “I . . . found the pack.” He looked beyond her, at the barren, brown hills. “It was away from the road, in some rocks, you know. It was empty.” Moreno coughed a little. “There were bones.” He coughed again. “It is easy to die in this dry land.”

  Bones. Nita stared at the pack in her hands, blue cloth, bought with the honey she and David had gathered, sewn in the evenings together. “Was there anything to . . . show who he was?” He? Why he? She thought in terror. The bones could have belonged to a woman.

  “He wore jeans, senora. A shirt, blue or green. His hair was dark, I think.” He shrugged, his brown eyes full of sympathy. “I put the bones in the churchyard.” He pointed up the street. “That is where bones belong. Even now, when it is so easy to die.”

  “Will you show me?” Nita whispered. She didn’t dare look at him, didn’t dare look at Rachel who would have David’s blue eyes and his face. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the pack in her hands, a wad of blue cloth that had smelled like honey and David’s sweat once, smelled like a stranger now.”

  “Lo siento mucho, senora,” Moreno said softly. “I will show you.”

  The stone he had used to mark the grave was a stone from the hillside, gray lava rock, dusty and squarish. Nita touched it with her fingertips, feeling its coolness and its weight. It was heavy, like death. It is easy to die in this dry land. Nita wondered how the man whose bones lay beneath the stone had died. He had died so close to a town, so close to a road and people.

  “It wasn’t David,” she said out loud.

  Julio Moreno, head bowed, twisted arm hanging at his side, said nothing.

  Nita turned away, angry at his silence.

  Jeremy waited at the overgrown fence around the tiny graveyard. “I’ll drive back,” he said and lifted Rachel from Nita’s arms.

  At the truck, she climbed into the passenger side without speaking. Rachel was asleep and blessedly, didn’t wake up as Jeremy tucked her onto the seat beside Nita. In spite of his hands, Jeremy handled the wheel easily. Nita stared out at the brown land as they followed the road’s twists and turns through the dust. “I don’t want him to be dead,” she whispered, but a tiny part of her — a small place deep inside — was relieved. She leaned her head against the door, wanting to cry, wanting to weep for him. Her eyes remained as dry as the soil in the dead orchards.

  The road circled around the head of a deep, cocky canyon. An old house sat down in the bottom, huge and dilapidated. A hint of majesty still clung to it in spite of its sagging roof and gaping, glassless windows. Green showed down there, the stingy, irrigated green of the present. Carefully watered rows of beans filled the floor of the canyon. As the pickup labored around a bend, Nita lost sight of the house. She wondered dully who had built it, out here in this lonely canyon.

  Up on the rim again, Jeremy pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and shut off the engine. “Come for a walk,” he said, and it w
as a command, in spite of his gentle tone.

  She had no strength to refuse. When Jeremy scooped up Rachel and held out his hand to her, she climbed out of the truck. They were up above the narrow little canyon. The wind whipped at her hair, trying to tug it loose from her braid. A promontory jutted out from the wall of the Gorge like a round island of rock, connected t the land by a narrow neck. Nita followed him out onto it. The center of the promontory looked hollow, like a bowl, and the broken skeletons of old trees jutted up from the rocky ground.

  Jeremy sat down with Rachel on his lap and pulled Nita gently down beside him. “I found this place years ago,” he said softly. “I come back when I’m in the neighborhood.”

  The dry cliff top wavered to life around them. The hollow became a pond, ringed by trees whose branches were tipped with young leaves. Stiff green blades poked up through the still water and tiny flowers carpeted the green grass, white, pink, and purple. Silently Jeremy pointed. Nita turned her head and caught her breath. Beyond the rocky edge lay the river. It stretched between the carved walls of the Gorge, vanishing eastward and westward into an opalescent haze. The wrinkled sheet of gray blue water shimmered, shading into browns along the shore. She could see the highway down below here. Dozens of trees dotted the ground and the hills glowed with soft greens.

  “The river is so big,” Jeremy said softly. “How could anyone who lived with this ever imagine that it could be empty?” He shook his head. “It’s our own fault. The Dry. I think we let it happen because we couldn’t believe in it, because we had so many rivers, so much water.”

  He loved this lost world, in spite of how much it hurt him. His sadness blended with the sweeping curve of the river, wove itself into the green hills that would really be dry and dusty if you walked on them. Nita looked down at the ground in front of her. Flowers glowed among the lush grass stems, smaller than her little fingernail. Pink and white stars clustered with fringed blue cups. A bird fluttered soundlessly in the bushes and the branches swayed, their new leaves bright green or bronzy red. So much life. She was drowning in it. It filled her up in an aching rush, overflowed to spill down her cheeks as tears, dissolving the stony numbness that filled her.