by Maureen Tan
“Just down the road to the bridge by Willie’s place,” Alex said.
* * *
Alex backed the Blazer out of the carport.
I clipped on my seat belt and huddled into my jacket.
“You might want to hang on to the bait,” he said.
I ignored his suggestion, left the used Styrofoam coffee cup filled with worms on the truck’s broad dashboard. It had a lid. No need to cosset the squirming creatures trapped inside.
Then we hit a bump.
The cup bounced upward, dislodging the lid. Another bump would likely send cold, slimy worms flying—
I placed a hand firmly over the lid and held the cup in my lap.
Alex grinned.
I muttered something extremely rude.
We drove through the darkness, out between the twin pillars, along the winding road. Within a matter of minutes, we crossed the bridge, and Alex pulled the Blazer onto the shoulder. He left the front and rear driver-side tires on the road, which gave the bench seat a steep downhill list.
“Sorry,” Alex said. “This is the best spot to park, but the shoulder’s still real soft. Be careful when you step down.”
I slid out, closed the door, found myself standing in several inches of mud, cursed under my breath, then slogged around to join Alex at the tailgate. He pulled a tackle box and two fishing poles from the back of the truck, handed me one. We walked back to the middle of the bridge.
Squinting to see by the dim, pre-dawn light, I threaded a worm onto a fishing hook, leaned forward against the thick plank railing, and cast my line into the Ogeechee River. The wind took the line toward the center of the river, the current carrying the red-and-white bobber downstream.
I waited until Alex had cast out his line, then asked: “What are we fishing for?”
“Doesn’t matter. Fishing is an excuse. Just watch the sky.”
The sun rose, scorching the darkness between the trees, creating a spider web silhouette of intertwined branches across a blaze of sky. The river swept beneath us, glimmering with drops of reflected light, then transforming to liquid fire.
I stood entranced.
The sun moved upward. The world brightened. Details emerged. Magic faded.
I couldn’t avoid understatement.
“Nice,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I leaned forward, rested my elbows on the railing, watched water droplets glinting on the filament line, branches swaying in the wind, sunlight on the water, and the bobber bobbing with the ripples. I heard traffic noise. Past dawn and the distant sound of cars and trucks was a constant reminder that Savannah was expanding outward, new roads cutting through the marshes like greedy tentacles.
A log swept by. Body sized.
I watched it travel downstream, at first concerned that it would tangle our lines. Then, as it passed, I remembered the cabby’s gossip.
“Willie, he died fishin’ off this very bridge.”
And Alex’s words: “It was a sad day when I found him floating under that bridge.”
I imagined the bridge blocked by the SPD’s white squad cars and Chatham County’s dark blue ones. And a coroner’s wagon. I imagined Alex down on the bank, wading in the shallow water, helping to pull a horribly decomposed body from the river and zipping it into a black plastic body bag.
Would Alex still fish off the bridge?
Unlikely.
Would he watch the sun rise without at least mentioning his dear friend?
Never. He was far too sentimental.
I glanced at him. His eyes were on the water, and he was using the reel, slowly working his line back upstream. Relaxed. At peace.
Peculiar.
I made a guess. I kept my voice matter-of-fact and my eyes on the river as I voiced it.
“Willie’s still alive, isn’t he? You thought he was leaving the snakes.”
25
The sun was warm.
Alex had taken off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves on his flannel shirt. He sat up on the railing, just inches from where I stood. His back was to the sun, his bare elbows on his knees.
I was still comfortable in my jacket. I left it on, continued fishing.
I kept my eyes on the bobber and the river. Anywhere but Alex’s face. Every time I looked at him, he’d look down at the bait cup or the tackle box or simply stare at his feet.
I waited, not pushing, giving him time to think.
His lack of denial had already confirmed my guess.
Finally, he began speaking, sounding almost as if he were talking to himself.
“Since the day I met him, Willie told me about his dreams. They weren’t real big by regular folk’s measure. More like a series of wants than anything else. A new fishing pole. A new pair of shoes. A feather pillow. A wristwatch. He’d find himself a dream, and every bit of him would work to make it real. Then he’d find another one. As he got older, his dreams got bigger. But still, they were nothing more than most of us just take for granted. Or simply consider our due.”
I felt a tug on the line.
Ignored it.
“So five, maybe six years ago, he dreamed of a house. Nothing big or fancy. Just a three-room frame ranch on high and dry ground. With a screened-in porch overlooking the river. He stopped by my place one evening, dropped off some peach preserves, and told me about it. I remember sayin’ that if he sold off a bit of his land, he’d have enough money for his house and then some. He asked me if I’d ever sell my daddy’s land. When I told him no, he said that was good. He said he figured that if folks like us kept selling off what we owned, there’d soon be nothing wild left. Everything would be covered by lawns and houses and pavement. Just like in town.”
I glanced at Alex’s face, saw nothing but pain.
I looked back at the river.
The bobber ducked beneath the surface.
Once. Twice.
Alex continued talking, his voice low, his drawl slowing his sentences and loading each word with emotion.
“So he decided to build the house himself. He figured to make extra money selling produce and peach preserves. I tried to help him, but he was proud and I was busy. But mostly, I think we’d just grown apart. What we’d shared was childhood, fishing, and hot summer days. And dreams. Those days were still real for Willie, but I’d left them behind. In Vietnam. In the wreck that took my parents. In the things I saw on the streets every day. I was raising Joey, watching her take joy in things I remembered loving. Some days, I swear, she was the only thing that kept me from curling up and dying.”
One more tug at the line, and it went slack.
I’d lost my bait, I thought.
At the moment, it didn’t matter.
Alex stopped speaking, half turned, and looked over his shoulder.
His deep, slow tone remained the same as he said: “That hook’s been there awhile. Why don’t you reel it on in? Let’s make sure you still have some bait.”
The abrupt change in topic was disconcerting. But I did as he said, ended up with the bobber and empty hook dangling from several feet of line.
Alex scooted himself off the railing, squatted down, and lifted the lid on the Styrofoam cup.
“Swing your hook over here. I’ll bait it for you.”
“I can do it myself. Really.”
He tipped his face toward me.
“Of course you can. I wasn’t challenging your competence, Jane. I never have.”
He looked back at the cup, pulled out a worm, and held it up for my inspection.
“This one okay?”
It was a worm, like any other.
I didn’t say so.
I nodded, then watched him slip the hook through it. When he was finished, I dropped the line back into the water.
Alex rigged his line again and stood beside me as he dropped it in the river.
Between us, there was a lot of quiet.
“What happened to Willie?” I said finally.
; “We ended up as nothing more than neighbors who waved as our cars passed on the road home. So I didn’t notice that all of a sudden, he had money. Seems he decided to try growing a cash crop on some of those high and dry acres of his. He really didn’t see the harm. Figured growing marijuana was no worse than growing tobacco, and a lot easier on the land. Like so many things he put his hand to, he did it well.
“But dope isn’t like vegetables. You can’t sell a bumper crop from a roadside stand out in the middle of nowhere. The only way to get your crop to market is to get involved with people who are in the business of supplying all kinds of drugs. One shipment, one deal, and then they’ve got you. They’ve got your place, which is real remote. A real nice place to hide people and product.”
Alex yanked the line with enough force to shake the bait off, reeled it in, shook his head, and propped the pole back against the rail. He rested his elbows on the rail beside mine and looked out at the river.
“Willie’s friend had drifted away,” he said. “But the cop who lived at the end of the road began noticing a little more traffic than usual, a little more business than usual at the bait shop. And though the friend hadn’t bothered stopping by to visit in years, the cop came knocking at his door. By then, Willie was desperate to get out. I helped him cut a deal with the DEA. He testified against some real nasty people, and the Feds put him into the witness protection program. Found him a nice place. Somewhere else.”
“What about the body?”
“An indigent who fell off a railroad bridge in Atlanta. No relatives. So the Feds shipped the body down here, and Tommy and I filed a report saying we fished it out from under this bridge. We gave the John Doe a real nice burial. And I figured we’d done all we could to keep Willie safe.”
He turned his head, met my eyes, started to speak, and abruptly looked away. He began talking in the direction of the river again.
“Problem is, Willie is too tied to his land to stay away very long. Lots of people have seen him, which is how the ghost story got started. Hell, I’ve seen him at least a dozen times over the past year. Usually at night, walking by the side of the road. I’ll be driving past, spot him out of the corner of my eye. And every time, I’ve slammed on the brakes, turned the car around, and gone back to talk to him. But he always slips away, back into the marsh. I guess he doesn’t want to talk to me. So when this started, I naturally figured—”
Abruptly, he stepped back from the railing, grabbed his pole, bent to pick up the tackle box and bait cup, then straightened.
“If you don’t mind, let’s get out of here.”
His face was stiff, his voice thick, and he didn’t wait for my reply.
He turned on his heel and walked to the back of the truck. After dropping the tailgate, he put the tackle box down on it and spent a moment dumping the worms into the wet grass beyond the road’s soft shoulder.
I reeled in my line, but I didn’t go to him right away.
I stood on the bridge, holding my pole, watched as he disassembled his rod and reel, violently yanking the pieces apart. He flung them into the back of the truck, stood with his back still to me.
“Damn it!” he said. “Damn it all to hell!”
I walked over to him then.
I stood behind him, brushed my fingers over his cheek and neck, then rested my hand on his shoulder. Someone, I thought, should tell him that he wasn’t responsible for every life that touched his.
I said: “So you thought Willie had come back to punish you for doing your job. And for failing as a friend.”
He nodded.
“Yeah. And because I have his land. I had no idea he’d go and leave it to me to take care of. But that’s what his note said. And the paperwork was already filed. But he’s had a couple years to think about it. I thought maybe he decided he’d made a mistake. Maybe he figured I wanted to take his daddy’s land away from him.”
It didn’t matter where Willie was, I thought. His spectre remained in Savannah. Haunting Alex.
Guilt was like that.
Even irrational guilt.
Someone, I thought, should tell Alex.
Perhaps, someday, I would.
* * *
The distinctive crack and echo of a high-powered rifle interrupted his words and my thoughts. It preceded the bullet by a heartbeat.
Alex and I dove into the red mud behind the passenger side of the car, putting the truck between us and the shooter. The bullet slammed into the side of the tackle box, sent it tumbling, sent fish hooks and bobbers and lures spraying onto the road.
Our eyes met. Fear in his. Undoubtedly in mine, too.
“You have a gun?” I asked a little breathlessly.
He nodded.
“My backup. In the glove compartment. You?”
“Colt Cobra. In my purse. On the floor.”
No surprise in Alex’s expression. It wasn’t the first time I’d carried a weapon along on an innocent outing.
I was nearest the door. I reached up, caught the handle, discovered there wasn’t enough strength in my right hand to manage the latch from that angle.
Alex moved in close, grabbed the handle, and released the door. He let it swing open less than an inch, then hunkered down low. Encouraged by little more than gravity, the door swung open above our heads.
A bullet smashed in through the driver-side window and out through the open door. Another bullet followed the same path as the first, just a few inches lower, piercing the door panel, whizzing past us, embedding itself in a tree trunk.
Alex and I buried our faces in our arms.
When we dared lift our heads again, Alex said: “If that’s a Lee-Enfield or the like—and I’d be willing to swear it was—and if the shooter is halfway competent— which he seems to be—then one of us is damned lucky not to be dead. I’m guessing it’s you.”
I didn’t deny it.
His eyes were hard, the characteristic warmth gone from his expression. A reminder not to mistake compassion and decency for weakness. Or lack of courage.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “First things first.”
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then slid in through the open door, flattening himself against the rubber mats. He snagged the purse with his left hand and shoved it back in my direction, along the left side of his body.
Part of the bulky purse dragged beneath the seat.
I grabbed the strap, tugged it free, immediately pulled out the Colt and released the safety.
Alex supported his body on his right arm, reached over his head with his left, and unlatched the glove compartment. He eased it open and retrieved a holstered semiautomatic. Then he pulled his hand away slowly, lowering his left arm nearly to the mat.
I heard a high-pitched buzz.
The two-foot-long rattlesnake struck at Alex with curved fangs.
Struck from beneath the front seat.
Hit him above his elbow. Once. Twice.
Alex yelped, dropped his gun, flinched away.
My shot paralleled the floor, dangerously close to Alex’s body.
The bullet hit the snake, split it almost in half, then penetrated the floor where it bowed upward to accommodate the drive shaft.
* * *
Alex’s face was pale and strained.
“A pygmy rattler. Not lethal. I swear.”
His breathing came in quick, short gasps.
It was still cool outside, but beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. His elbow was already swelling, the skin just above it an ugly, ruddy purple and getting tighter by the moment. The puncture wounds were marked by thin trails of blood.
I needed to get him to hospital. Candler was only twenty minutes away. The route was burned into my memory.
“Keys?” I said.
He retrieved them from his trouser pocket, focusing all his attention on moving his hand those few inches.
I watched his face, regretting not getting the keys myself. I took them from him as quickly as I could.
Then I tucked my purse and the Colt in beside him, pulled his SIG-Sauer from its holster and put it in my jacket pocket.
I crawled past him, keeping my head low and brushing sharp cubes of safety glass from the driver’s seat as I moved forward. I stuck the key in the ignition.
“Get into the truck,” I said.
Alex crawled, trying not to groan, and wedged himself into the cab. He leaned against the seat, left arm up, his butt on the floor, legs tucked in, and knees pointing toward the gear shift. His breathing was getting worse, his complexion greying.
A crack, an echo, and then a bullet whizzed through the cab.
I kept my head below the level of the glassless side window, depressed the clutch with my left foot, and kept it there. I held the steering wheel with my left hand. With my right, I turned the key in the ignition.
The engine roared to life.
I threw the gearshift into first and released the hand brake.
My arm objected. I ignored it.
I pressed the accelerator with my right foot, released the clutch. As the truck lurched forward, I glanced over the steering wheel, then ducked again as a bullet whizzed past me.
I risked another look at the road, depressed the clutch again, and shifted to second. I accelerated to thirty miles per hour, then shifted to third.
Ahead of me, the road curved sharply.
I pressed the accelerator, taking advantage of the bit of straight road that still remained, and urged the truck to forty-five.
Briefly, I turned my head to check Alex.
He was pale and breathing open-mouthed, but he was still conscious.
He managed the ghost of a smile.
“Old-fashioned girl,” he gasped.
Damn it! I didn’t want to love him.
I returned my attention to the road, holding tight to the steering wheel as the road curved left. I adjusted the steering to avoid a deep pothole and didn’t quite manage.
The Blazer bucked beneath us, slowing fractionally.