The Wash

by Cary Christopher

  The three seemed like they had grown up together, which in Robert and Javier’s case, they had. The camaraderie between them was palpable. The conversation always flowed easily and while it was peppered with some salty language, Ruth didn’t even mind that. In her mind, these three men (her boys, as she referred to them) had done more for her than she could ever repay. Before Robert arrived in The Wash, it looked as if Ruth would have to give up her house and her freedom. Her real son was insisting she move into a retirement community closer to him and it was a move she was pretty sure would have killed her.

  For Ruth, being independent was what kept her going. Her house was a large, two-story home that she proudly pointed out was over 100 years old. It had originally been built in 1867 by Charles Ogden, the son of Ogden Wash’s founder. Behind the main house, there was a small guest house and in a last ditch effort to bring in some money, Ruth put up an ad looking for a renter. Just the work involved in getting the guest house ready was almost too much for her. The place was unfurnished but the electricity and water worked. There was even a small fence around it, giving some sense of personal space. It would be perfect for one person, but The Wash wasn’t exactly bustling with would-be renters. She was pleasantly surprised when a month later Robert came calling. He was new in town, had just bought some land and was about to build a business. When he explained it was a bar, Ruth didn’t blink.

  “This place could use one,” she’d said. “People need to let off some steam.”

  Renting to him was the best decision she’d ever made. Almost immediately she found Robert doing things for her without her even asking. First, he offered to mow her lawn. When she offered to cut his rent in return, he told her not to worry about it. Then, he started doing little things like straightening out the clothes lines in the back, fixing the gas grill that sat rusting for the last year, even helping install new flooring in her kitchen. For that project, he’d brought in Javier and J.B. to help him and that’s when Ruth really fell in love with all three. They were quick-witted, eager to help and always seemed to be thinking of her.

  Since that project, they’d put a new roof on both her place and Robert’s, painted her house and even installed the satellite dish so she could watch something beside the handful of channels her old antenna picked up. Her home looked brilliant, freshly painted white with green trim around the windows and doors. In return, she cooked dinners for them on all the major holidays and most Sundays (since Robert’s bar was technically closed that day… although in fact, he would usually open it later and serve anyone who wandered in). She also defended them anytime she had an opportunity. At a point where Ruth thought she was likely losing her family for good, she’d found another one that was even more fulfilling and she wanted the world to know how grateful she was.

  This morning, she had barely pulled herself out of bed when she heard Robert knock on the back door.

  “Let yourself in,” she yelled from upstairs. “It’s not locked.”

  Robert walked in the door and immediately noticed there was no coffee brewing.

  “You slept late, Ruth!” he called up.

  It was just after 8:00 in the morning and usually, Ruth would have been up hours already. Robert walked over to the cupboard and began making the first pot of coffee. Between the two of them, they would polish this one off and another by the end of the day. Ruth came down the stairs as he was switching the pot on. Her skin was burnt brown and spotted from years in the sun. Her hair was cut short and curled into a peppery gray perm that pulled away from her forehead. Deep creases marked her face and cascaded down beneath her dark brown eyes onto her cheeks. Robert looked at her and for the thousandth time thought to himself how much she reminded him of his own abuela. He liked the old woman. She was straightforward, but she had a wonderful sense of humor and a spirit of true generosity.

  “You want to help me with the turkey now or have some coffee first?” she asked.

  “What’s to do with the turkey?”

  “Well,” she said wiggling her arthritic fingers at him, “I need hands that aren’t all knotted up, so that means you. You’re gonna have to get elbow deep in that bird for me. Shouldn’t be too long though. I think you and I can knock it out in twenty minutes or so.”

  Robert ran a hand through his hair and let out a small yawn.

  “Elbow deep, huh? That’s a visual I’m not ready for yet. Let’s get some coffee first.”

  Ruth laughed.

  “What woke you up?” she asked.

  Robert took a seat next to the small table against the back wall of the kitchen.

  “Bad dreams.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I don’t remember what it was, just that it was bad. I woke up kind of panicked and then couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  “How long you been up?”

  “About an hour or so.”

  “You should have come over earlier. I didn’t need to sleep as long as I did.”

  Robert shrugged,“I read some before I came over. What good’s a holiday if you can’t get some time to yourself, right?”

  “I have way too much time to myself these days,” Ruth smiled.

  She poured coffee into two cups and brought them over to the table.

  “So anything exciting happening in The Wash?”

  “Not exactly exciting. Same old stuff actually. Although Wendell Stokes got all shaken up about something.”

  “Stokes… he’s that young kid who works with Steve Cohn, right?”

  “Yeah,” Robert continued. “That’s him. He was at the bar last week with Steve Cohn and Cindy Walker. You remember her, right?”

  Ruth nodded.

  “Well, Wendell swears that after they left he was chased down the street by a coyote.”

  “A coyote?” asked Ruth incredulously.

  “Yeah, and he’s serious about it. He swears it was sitting by Ogden Pond and then chased him to his house. He was pretty shaken up. Since then, he won’t walk anywhere. He drives his car to and from the bar. Doesn’t have more than a couple of drinks because he says he wants to stay sharp. He says he’s being watched. Says he looked out yesterday morning and it was back again sitting at the edge of his lawn just staring at him.”

  Ruth shook her head and gave a half smile to Robert, “What exactly were you serving him at the bar?”

  Robert took a sip from his coffee, “That’s what Javier, J.B. and I kept needling him about. He did tie one on pretty well that first night, but as far as I know, he doesn’t take anything harder than a tequila shot.”

  “Hmm,” Ruth sipped at her coffee. “Anyone else see this coyote but Wendell?”

  “No, at least not yet. He’s pretty freaked out though. I think he’s going to Steve and Sara’s today and they’re going to try to get him to stay overnight. Looking at him I’d say he’s not sleeping much. He was kind of manic when he was talking.”

  Ruth took another sip of coffee and sat back in her chair.

  “You know,” she began, “There’s a lot of old stories about coyotes in this part of the country. J.B. might know a few from growing up on the reservation. Most of them are from the Native Americans. When I was researching the history of this place, I ran across a ton of mentions of local wildlife and there were plenty of coyotes around. That said, I’d be hard pressed to tell you the last time I saw one.”

  Robert drained his cup and stood up to go get more.

  “Funny you should say that. Javier said he saw one when he was headed out this way last week. He said it leaped the wall into the Old Ogden Cemetery when he was driving past. As best as he could remember, that was the first one he’d seen since he moved here.”

  “Maybe they’re making a comeback,” said Ruth, handing him her empty cup. “They weren’t hunted for food or anything but they did seem to get scarce here beginning in the 1930s.”

  Robert handed Ruth’s freshly filled cup back to her.

  “You ever hear of one chasing somebody?” he asked.

>   “Never. They’re scavengers so they may come around and raid a trash can or two, but they’d never try to attack someone, much less chase them down the street. They’re scared to death of people.”

  Robert pushed his shirt sleeves up and nodded to the turkey.

  “Well, enough coyote talk. What do you say we get this bird set up?”

  Six hours later, the group sat around the table all smiles except for Javier. The afternoon football game had been a blowout, much to his chagrin.

  “There is no way this can happen to me four times in one week. It just can’t,” he said. “I spend a lot of time researching these games. I make a good portion of my living from gambling. How is it I get burned four times in the same week on solid bets?”

  J.B. finished chewing a mouthful of turkey and swallowed.

  “Dude, I even gave you 10 points. Vegas wasn’t giving 10 points.”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “Maybe a career change is in order,” Robert ventured.

  Javier shot him a look that said, ‘Stuff it’ as Ruth walked back in the room with a pitcher of tea. She slid onto the bench beside Robert. The table was an antique big enough to seat eight, but the four of them were gathered at one end. Unlike a normal kitchen table, Ruth’s was set up like a large picnic table, with long benches on each side. It was similar to one she had seen in a picture of the original Odgen furniture used by the family after the house was built. In front of them were the remains of a grand meal. There were half-empty plates of turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, cornbread and stuffing. Robert and Ruth were both finished and leaning with their elbows on the table while J.B. and Javier continued to chisel away at the food.

  “You know,” Robert started, “One of the better things about Thanksgiving is the leftovers, but in order to have those, we’ll need to have food actually left over from the meal.”

  J.B. pushed his plate away, “I’m done. This turkey has to be your best yet.”

  “Damn straight,” said Javier around a mouthful of stuffing. He swallowed and continued. “Especially the gravy. What’s in this again?”

  “Bacon grease, turkey drippings, butter and some corn meal,” said Ruth.

  “It’s like a spoonful of heart attack in every bite,” laughed J.B.

  Ruth smiled and stood up again. She went over to a cupboard and pulled out a thick book with a green cover. Its pages were yellowed and the paper smelled musty.

  “I ran across this book years ago,” she said. “It’s a recipe book that was printed in the 1940s. It’s got recipes for everything you can imagine from squirrel to filet mignon. I found the turkey recipe in here and have been dying to try it.”

  She passed the book across the table to Javier who put it between he and J.B. and began thumbing through it.

  “Damn,” he smiled. “There’s a recipe here for wild boar.”

  J.B. pulled the book away and scanned through the index.

  “Nothing for coyote though,” he said grinning. “You hear about that Ruth?”

  “Robert told me this morning. Wendell really thinks a coyote was chasing him?”

  J.B. shifted in his seat to get more comfortable, “All kidding aside Ruth, I’ve honestly never seen Wendell like that. Not ever. He comes in the bar a couple of nights a week during the summer and fall. He’s a genuinely laid back guy. He cares about one thing and that’s snowboarding. If he’s talking about that, he’s animated but usually, he’s pretty low key. For the last few days though, he’s been seriously rattled.””

  “Do you think it’s true?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of a coyote doing anything like that. It really doesn’t matter though. Wendell thinks it’s true. He’s one hundred percent certain there is a coyote stalking him.”

  The four fell silent for a moment.

  “Could it be a wolf instead? I mean, those will actually hunt bigger things where a coyote generally just scavenges,” Robert said.

  Javier perked up, “You know, I thought about that too. Could be a wolf.”

  J.B. shook his head.

  “A single wolf won’t stalk something for days at a time. Besides, wolves were hunted out around here. I doubt there’s any in all of Utah.”

  The room was just starting to get dark as the sun dipped below the mountains.

  Ruth turned to J.B., “I’m sure you heard a ton of coyote stories growing up.”

  J.B. nodded, “I know of a few. The coyote is considered a trickster in Ute mythology. He likes to play games with people and other animals. He ends up getting in a lot of trouble most times. There are stories where he’s even killed for the shit he pulls.”

  “Did you read those?” she asked.

  “No, my grandmother told them to me. I don’t know how many are actually Ute stories though and how many come from other places. She loved the old stories and she used to gather them from other tribes. When she would tell them to me, she wouldn’t tell me where they came from.”

  “Do you have a favorite?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not a coyote story. It’s only been my favorite since I’ve been an adult. It’s a story I heard when I was a kid, but when I was older and heard about Leprechauns I realized the Utes and the Irish were telling the same story.”

  “Will you tell it?” Ruth asked.

  “Sure,” J.B. started, “There was a brave warrior who had traveled a long way from his people in search of food. The sun was hot and the land around him was dry so he became very thirsty. As he walked along, he came to a stand of trees and he leaned against the trunk of one to rest in the shade.

  “’I am so thirsty,’ he said out loud and pretty soon the wind picked up and the leaves of the trees began whispering a message to him. They told him to take one of their branches and whittle it down into a whistle. Once he was finished, the trees whispered to him to play a happy song and call out to the Little People. The trees told him the Little People would meet him and show him how to strike a rock and get water.

  “So the warrior played a tune and then he spoke up and said, ‘I whistle and I sing, do you hear me call? Come out, Little People, one and all.’

  “Instantly the Little People came out and each had tiny dippers in their hands. They approached him and asked him what he wanted. He told them he was very thirsty and wanted a drink. They led him to a large group of rocks nearby and told him to strike the top one with his whistle. He did so and it split open creating a waterfall that poured down and began making a pool below.

  “The warrior drank the water and became very sleepy. Soon, he couldn’t fight it any more and when he awoke, he found himself back in his wigwam, laying with his wife and children. He had been returned to his tribe by the Little People.”

  Ruth was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Your grandmother told you that story?” she asked.

  “Yeah, she told me when I was really little but I still remember it. I remember most of the stories she told me.”

  “You should write them down.”

  “I’ve actually started to,” J.B. said. “I may never have kids but if I do, I want them to hear the same stories I grew up on.”

  Javier had finished eating and had pushed his plate away also.

  “So how does the Irish one go?” he asked.

  “Pretty much the same way except the guy is a lost traveler and when he wakes, he finds himself home but his gold ring is gone.”

  “Hmm,” replied Javier. “So the Irish little people are all about the money, huh?”

  “Apparently,” J.B. nodded.

  “I can relate.”

  Javier stood up and stretched. On his cue, Robert also stood and the two began clearing plates.

  “You know,” Ruth said. “I’d love to read more of those stories if you have any you would let me borrow. I’ll make copies for you if you would like.”

  J.B. held his hands up in protest, “No, no. No need for that. You can borrow what I have. I trust you. I’ve written down about twenty or th
irty so far. Nothing big but the ones I’ve written are my favorites. I’ll bring them over next week.”

  “Just send them home with Robert,” said Ruth.

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  J.B. stood up also and began clearing plates. As Ruth started to stand, Javier put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down.

  “None of that. We’re doing the cleanup. You’ve outdone yourself again and the rule is the cook never cleans.”

  “Does this apply to Christmas as well because if so, I’d rather clean this up than clean up the mess you make when you do tamales.”

  “We’ll let you off the hook on those too, Ruth,” Robert chimed in. He picked up two plates and headed back toward the kitchen.

  Outside the wind picked up as the last light of the sun hid behind the peaks. A few flakes of snow began to fall and just out of sight of the kitchen window, a lone coyote made its way along the back of Ruth’s property, headed in the direction of the Anderson house.

  IX

  On Friday morning, Wendell opened his eyes and panicked. This wasn’t his house. It wasn’t his bed either. He bolted upright and it took a few moments for him to recognize this was Steve and Sara’s living room. He’d slept like a rock. Since the coyote incident, Wendell had been more than a little paranoid. What bothered him most was no one believed him. Everyone agreed that coyotes didn’t stalk people. They were scavengers. They tipped over trashcans and stole food from restaurant dumpsters. In fact, he’d kept the part about the girl to himself. People were already whispering that he was going crazy.

  If that had been the only thing creeping Wendell out, he may have been able to move past it but there was more. Since he’d seen the fiddlebacks at the garage with Steve, now he was noticing spiders everywhere. Not fiddlebacks though. Instead it was daddy longlegs, wolf spiders, small jumpers and even those big black and yellow garden spiders he usually only noticed on trees in the summer. He’d never had a spider problem that he could remember, but in the last few days, he’d killed at least twenty. He had finally gone out to the shed, mixed up twice the amount of poison as the bottle recommended and sprayed all around his foundation, windows and doors. He’d had to kill a handful more that must have already been in the walls but for the most part, it seemed he’d gotten rid of them.