by Craig Lesley
As we packed, he talked with great enthusiasm about the town. "Lots of construction. Gateway's building two new subdivisions and the plywood mill's going a hundred ten percent. Three shifts—'round the clock. And they're building a big dam on the Upper Lost for power and flood control. The workers are hunting and fishing fools—spend half their paychecks in my store."
"It sounds great," my mother said.
"Even the Indians are doing okay," my uncle said. "They're finishing a big lodge and resort on the reservation. Got piles of federal money. Eighteen-hole golf course smack by the river. The Frybread Tournament's scheduled this summer. Pretty soon they're going to tear down a bunch of reservation houses and put up new ones. I tell you, this whole country's booming."
"And we're going to be part of it," my mother said. "It sounds wonderful, doesn't it, Culver?"
Jake punched my shoulder. "You'll love the high school's new gymnasium. University-style hardwood floors and glass backboards. I got the contracts for the uniforms and shoes, too." He grinned. "Of course, I had to show the superintendent and athletic director a couple of secret fishing holes on the Lost. The fix was in, but don't worry; I saved the very best for family."
"I'm sure it will all be lovely," my mother said.
She directed our packing and didn't seem to hesitate about what to leave and what to take. "We'll buy some new furniture," she said. "This has gotten so shabby." Of course, she took the love seat and drum table.
Dwight's wife never left the house, but he wandered over to check things out. From his casual manner, you couldn't tell anything had happened the night before. "I see you're leaving us," he said to my mother. "What about Riley?"
"They're splitting the sheets," Jake said.
"An opportunity came up for a job in another town," my mother said. "A wonderful opportunity."
"Is that right," Dwight said. "I'm sorry to see you go."
He didn't offer to help with the loading, but maybe it was just as well. We were doing fine by ourselves. As we were finishing, I thought about my mother's word "opportunity." Maybe she was referring to my job or one she planned to get, but the word sounded good and my mood improved a little. With Riley, it seemed we had been slipping downgrade for a long time. Now Jake's enthusiasm and my mother's good cheer convinced me better times really were coming.
Still, I felt low spirited about running out on Riley, leaving him to bach at that miserable little siding. After the truck was loaded, I went back into the house a moment, and it struck me how bare it looked. I sat at the kitchen table and tried to write a note, but nothing much came to mind. Finally, I printed, "Riley, we went to Jake's. You take good care now," signing it with just my name. I didn't feel like adding "love" or "your son," because that would have been close to outright lying and perhaps make both of us feel worse.
Before climbing into the truck, I stood on the tracks and stared long and hard toward Barlow. Maybe I expected to see the speeder car, just a speck in the distance at first, then growing larger and larger as it approached with Riley at the wheel. However, I didn't see anything except the long empty track and scattered blackbirds along the telegraph wires.
On the long trip to Gateway, Jake spent the first couple of hours talking about the town's boom, what with the tourists, plywood mill, lodge, and construction projects. "Some days, I take in fifteen hundred dollars, and that's not hay. You'll find a job there easy, Flora, and the boy can be my right-hand man."
My mother hugged her knees, and even then I could see her arms were trembling. "It's exciting, isn't it. A fresh start. I just had a tremendous feeling."
After a while she leaned back and closed her eyes, but a slight smile lingered on her face and she seemed to relax. She looked younger, I thought, and I was struck again at how pretty she was. Maybe it was possible for us to improve things, get ahead a little, especially with Jake leading the way.
Frowning suddenly, she opened her eyes and turned to my uncle. "Can you blame me?" Something about the way she said it made me shrink back in my seat a little, because I sensed a sorrow and anger older and deeper than anything Riley had caused.
Jake might have sensed it, too. After a few moments he said, "Hey, nobody blames you for anything."
"He just didn't have any gumption," she said, and I realized she was now focusing on Riley. "What kind of an example is he for a boy like Culver, one with so much potential."
"You're doing the right thing," Jake said. "No question."
"Absolutely right," she said, setting her mouth straight across.
"Think of this kid." Jake grinned at me. "You've done a great job with him. A smart kid, good looking; he'll be running Gateway in a couple years—the whole enchilada."
"Of course," she said, reaching over to tousle my hair. "Everything's going to be better."
Pleased with the praise, I closed my eyes and leaned back to rest. The truck vibrations were soothing, and I felt good that we were getting somewhere at last. Mother's perfume mingled with Jake's aftershave and the smells of crops outside—alfalfa, wheat, onions—and the good moist smell of water in ditches.
We all sounded so optimistic, and I realized how long it had been since I had believed anyone who talked in such a hopeful way about things. Sometimes, when Riley had tried to sound hopeful, his words were hollowed with doubt, like a kid calling out on a dark night, pretending not to be afraid.
"What is it?" I asked, waking up. The truck was still running, but Jake had stopped it on the shoulder.
"Smell that," he said.
I took a deep breath, but couldn't place the pungent odor.
"Mint," he said. "Right in this county we grow half the peppermint in the whole damn United States."
"No kidding," I said. "What do they use it for?"
"Candy, toothpaste. Some old fart opens his Pepsodent, he's got Jackson County to thank for the flavor."
"Hang on a second," I said. "I want to get some." Climbing out of the truck, I remembered how much my mother had enjoyed the lamb with mint sauce. Reaching through the fence, I grabbed some of the dark green stems and leaves, bruising them between my fingers to release a stronger scent. In the distance a yellow biplane swooped low, crop dusting an emerald green field. When I climbed back into the truck, I handed several sprigs to my mother. "Doesn't this smell great?"
"Delicious. I wish we lived in the South so we could all sit out on the veranda and drink mint juleps."
"You can put it in iced tea," I said. "Or spoon it over lamb chops."
"That's a lovely idea," she said, holding the peppermint beneath her nose. "But I believe that mint sauce actually requires spearmint."
We settled into a small rental house across from the high school where my mother planned to enroll me in the fall. Although smaller than the place in Griggs, it had a combination bathtub and shower. She seemed excited about being on her own—except for me—and working again. She made curtains for the windows and bought some secondhand furniture in Central, about fifty miles away. So many people were moving to Gateway because of the boom, all the decent local furniture had been picked over, she said.
Jobs were easy to come by, and she got hired as a receptionist at Sunrise Biscuits. She had to go to work early, but the hours were regular and she wasn't on her feet. Anything was better than being a waitress was how she looked at jobs. "This pay's steady and you don't have to take anyone's lip."
As he had promised, my uncle put me to work, starting with simple things around the sporting goods store like packaging worms and fixing flats on kids' bicycles. The hours were long but the pay was low, as he liked to say, and I enjoyed working there, meeting the people coming through on vacation or planning their yearly fishing trips.
Except for Riley's occasional calls and the awkwardness they caused, things got back to normal. He had started calling as soon as we had a phone installed. A couple of times he had long conversations with my mother and talked about getting back together, but she shook her head firmly and told him that wasn't
an option. Once he said, "Put the boy on," and she handed me the phone.
He talked about old times awhile, then asked, "Seems like her mind's set, huh, Culver?"
"It does seem that way, Riley."
"The best years of my life, gone to hell in a handbasket." He paused. "Well, anyway, I'd like to see you, buddy. Maybe do some fishing. Remember those salmon we caught on the coast? One was pretty near as big as you."
"Those were fish to remember all right," I said.
"By golly, we'll go again sometime then," he said, brightening. "Well, that's it for now. Don't take any wooden nickels."
I hung up, feeling a little low but wondering exactly why I didn't feel more torn up.
One morning, after we'd been in Gateway about two weeks, my mother was just ready for work when my uncle Jake showed up, pounding on the door. He pushed in past her and slapped the newspaper down on the kitchen table. I was finishing my shower but I could hear them talking with excited voices.
When I came out of the bathroom, my mother sat at the table reading the newspaper spread out before her. A strange look was on her face, one I can only describe as vindicated, but she seemed fierce, too.
"Would you believe it?" Jake said.
She stood and swept her hand across the table. "I knew it. I could see it coming." She paced around the kitchen, clearly agitated but somehow pleased, too, the way a person is when proven right. Stopping at the sink, she got a glass of water and took a long drink. "We got out of there just in time," she said.
"Do you want me to do something, Flora?" Jake asked.
"Just take me to work," she said, picking up her purse. "This is only my second week and I don't want to be late."
Jake started to gather up the newspaper, but she stopped him. "Let him read about it," she said, meaning me. "I got him out of there just in time." She thumped her small fist on the table. "Just in time."
When they had gone, I poured a glass of orange juice and sat, braced for the worst. I feared that Riley had blown off his head, or someone else's, but that wasn't the story.
He had burned Griggs to the ground, every building standing, including the trackwalker's outhouse. And he had planned it carefully, waiting until the trackwalker left on a binge and the stationmaster and his wife headed to the movies in Pratt. After dousing the buildings with railroad kerosene, Riley had burned them. The arson investigator said Riley had left three cans around as evidence.
By the time the county's outlaw fire engine raced to the scene from Pratt, all the buildings were fully involved and the fire burned out of control toward the river. Only the water stopped it.
Remarkably, Riley had driven to Griggs Junction, drunk coffee, and eaten doughnuts while watching the spectacle below. "He was calm as a cucumber," the waitress was quoted as saying. "I never suspected him at all. He left a generous tip and said 'Good evening' as polite as pie." In the newspaper quote, Dwight called Riley "a very disturbed and sneaky bastard," but I guess that wasn't too bad, considering his house and all its belongings were gone. The paper went on to say the alleged arsonist had not been apprehended but the authorities were following leads.
In addition to the story, the paper carried "before" and "after" photos of Griggs. Nothing remained in the after photos except the buildings' charred foundations and the basketball hoop hanging from a blackened telegraph pole.
After studying the pictures awhile, I smiled because I realized that the first photo wasn't of Griggs, but of Barlow, the siding thirty miles east, and somehow it made me happy to think that probably no one had a picture of Griggs, except for how it looked after my stepfather burned it.
I fixed a bowl of corn flakes and sat at the table, reading and rereading the story just to see if I could fill in any of the gaps, but the story remained pretty much the same as when I had first read it. Neither my mother nor I was mentioned, and that made me feel relieved somehow, as if I had a special secret. Of course, I figured the authorities would contact us eventually to see if Riley had been in touch, but I didn't plan on telling them anything, even if I knew. Having a stepfather on the run made me feel exhilarated and I decided not to go to work.
When I went outside, the morning was bright and fresh. Two girls were hitting a tennis ball on the high school court, and their tennis outfits gleamed white in the sun. Even at this distance, I could see both were better looking than any girl in Grass Valley.
Beside the tennis court was a basket with five guys playing a pickup game. Two of them were Indians from the reservation nearby, and after we shot for sides, I was on their team. I realized the three big farm boys on the other team had missed on purpose, so they could play together, but I didn't mind. Still, I said to myself, Culver, you remember this is how things work in Gateway.
Knowing a man I had lived with for eight years was now a felon on the run gave me a streak of recklessness, and that day I shot red-hot hoops. Every shot seemed to fall. Each time I released the ball it flew like a wild bird to its nest, and when the farm kids tried to double-team me, I made quick passes to my open teammate for easy layups.
After a while the girls stopped playing tennis and watched us, the way girls do when they're interested but trying not to show it. The dark-haired one smiled a couple times like she knew something special, and after I made a long fadeaway jumper, I gave her a little wave. She half waved back, and not long after, they left.
"Don't even think about it," one of the Indian boys told me. "That's heartbreak city."
"Is that right," I said. "I'm new in town."
"What's your name, anyway? Maybe you're gonna make the team."
"Culver," I said. "I live right across the street." I nodded toward the house. My mother had left her bedroom window open, and in the breeze, the bright curtains seemed to wave a greeting, but I couldn't say if it was hello or farewell.
3
THE GATEWAY SPORTING GOODS sign featured a leaping blue trout with a red neon rainbow along its side. The sign was illuminated twenty-four hours a day, and we stayed open most of those hours during fishing season. Gateway was the closest town to the Lost River Wilderness Area, and all the Chamber of Commerce brochures proclaimed "Gateway to Recreational Paradise."
Uncle Jake was the kind of stand-up guy a small town relies on. Before going into the sporting goods business, he had worked at the weekly newspaper, so he was acquainted with nearly everyone in town and on the nearby reservation. He had driven ambulance and fought fires as a volunteer when he wasn't guiding on the river. In short, he was everything my stepfather Riley was not.
As soon as the store opened at seven, we had to take the bicycles from the aisles and line them along the sidewalk just outside the plate glass windows that ran the length of the store. By clearing the aisles, we made a path to the worms, which were kept in a big refrigerator at the back of the store. It took fifteen minutes or so to clear the path, especially if one of us had to stop to write a couple of fishing licenses or boat permits for the Lost. During that time, the worm customers would browse and pick up hooks, weights, nets, and lures. Even the most dedicated bait fisherman sometimes became frustrated when the fish refused to bite on natural bait and would try trailing the worm behind an Indiana or Colorado spinner. I came to realize there was no particular hurry in getting the worms for the customers, because the longer they were forced to browse in the store, the more likely they would buy other equipment. We actually lost money on the worms but made it up on all the tackle.
Three quarters of the worms came from Lucky's worm farm in the valley, where it was cooler and they had more rainfall. Lucky stopped by every two weeks with a small refrigerator truck loaded with worms. The truck had green shamrocks on the side but Lucky wasn't Irish. We'd buy six thousand on the spot because we kept another refrigerator in back that could hold twelve large boxes. They came five hundred to a box.
I guess we must have been his best customers, at least in that part of the state, because after each delivery he'd sit an hour or two in back, shooting th
e breeze and helping me package worms. We put them in Buss Bedding, adding a little moss to hold the moisture. The bedding was a dry grayish compound that resembled the dumpings from a vacuum cleaner bag. Moistened, it felt like bits of clay. In the refrigerator worms could last a month, but if someone left the worms unprotected in a sweltering car, they'd die in a couple hours. Backpackers who put them in their packs, then hiked five or six miles to some remote mountain lake, found the worms dead when they arrived. "You sold me lousy worms," they'd complain a couple weeks later. To prevent this sort of thing, each time I sold a package, I'd lift the lid and show them the worms, perfectly alive and wiggling.
Jake also bought worms from kids who caught them at night on the high school lawns after the big rotating sprinklers soaked the ground. The kids filled coffee cans or milk cartons, and we paid them a penny a worm, as long as they hadn't used electrodes. Shocked worms turned mushy and died after a couple days, so Jake never had me package kids' worms until they'd been in the refrigerator a few days and we could see how they were holding up. If a kid lied about them, we didn't buy any more from him. Only a couple tried to cheat.
As soon as we had wheeled the bikes onto the sidewalk, clearing a path to the bait refrigerators, and served the initial surge of customers, Homer Baxter delivered a tray of doughnuts, bear claws, and jelly rolls. Like most bakers, he got up around two A.M. so he could be to work at three, and as he was fond of pointing out, by the time we opened the store he was halfway to quitting time. Homer took great pride in his simplest goods such as cake doughnuts, but his passion was to create a perfect raspberry jelly roll. He rolled up long sponge cake strips into tight circles oozing jam and sprinkled the outside with confectioners sugar; then he sliced the cake in sections two fingers thick. No matter what I was doing, when I saw Homer bearing a tray of jelly rolls, I stopped my task and headed to the back of the store. Once in a while, Homer would try a slice of his roll and grin. "I've almost got it right," he'd say.