“Only when I think about it,” she said, pulling her bangs down. “You know, in school and stuff. But not around here where there’s so much to do.”
I blinked. “You’re kidding. Here?” I said. It just slipped out. There was nothing to do out here. Other than run, that is. The boredom was enough to make a person want to learn to appreciate watery beer and date a guy who chewed Skoal.
But Karen looked at me and her brown eyes were afire with enthusiasm. “This morning Kevin found coyote prints. It was so cool. Coyotes usually don’t come this close to houses. Come see!” she said, and she reached out and put her fingers in my palm.
Her hand was hot and calloused and dirty. The hand of a kid who didn’t mind digging for worms. And yet I didn’t pull back.
Mr. Armstrong broke her grip and patted her on the head. “Now now, Karen. What did we talk about? Ronnie has to shave some time off her 10K if she wants to make the cross-country team.”
I couldn’t help doing a double take.
“I’m not going out for cross-country. I’m just running.”
“Uh-huh,” Mr. Armstrong said, eyeing me critically. “Tell you what: there’s a mile between here and the Ranger Station. See if you can run it in nine minutes. It’s slow, but it’s a start.”
Back off, I thought. If I want to run slow, I’ll run slow. But thankfully I didn’t say it. Whatever else was up, this guy thought he was doing me a favor by pointing out my faults. Not that I liked being patronized, but he had given me fruit.
“Oh, right, the berries,” he said, taking the bucket out of my hands. “Leave them here and you can pick them up on the way back.”
I considered. I hadn’t ever thought about speed, but why not? It was something to do.
I turned to go but then Mr. Armstrong stopped me again. “I almost forgot to ask: could you babysit for us tonight? My wife wants to go to the Tiki Hut for a drink. It wouldn’t be long. Just an hour or two. Those pink Scorpion Bowls are really potent. I think they sugar them down.” He paused and considered. “Anyway, we don’t drink much and the wife doesn’t play pool so we should be home by eleven.”
My lips were already forming the word no. I didn’t babysit. Ever. Let alone for four kids. Four kids without a trampoline to help them get the wiggles out. What would they have to jump on? Me, probably.
But then a strange thing happened: Karen, the girl I rescued, ran back to join her brothers and sister, but before she did, she waved at me and smiled. “See ya,” she said. Her smile was broad enough to melt ice caps. And for the first time since we’d moved, I started to feel at home.
What had her mother called her when she was trying to quiet her? Sacagawea? Everyone in Oregon knew about Sacagawea, the native guide on the Lewis and Clark expe-dition. She blazed the trail with a bazillion stinky guys in coonskin hats and fringy jackets and no showers and with a baby strapped to her back, too. Without her, Lewis and Clark might have wound up in Peoria.
Karen caught up to her brothers and sister, her face crossed by Steri-Strips that could come off easily in a scrum.
Brave. Very brave. Definitely Sacagawea.
“What time do you want me?” I asked Mr. Armstrong.
In the months that followed I babysat for the Armstrongs once a week officially, more if you counted all the times Karen showed up at Patchworks and wanted to hang out. How could I not? She made everything seem interesting and glamorous. “Hey, Ronnie. The periwinkles are on the move. Wanna come see? Kevin caught this garter snake and put it in his sock drawer. Come on, Ronnie, come look.”
I followed as Karen blazed the trail. If she was Sacagawea, then I was Lewis and Clark. I learned to appreciate things other than trash in the ditch. Thanks to her, I learned to spread out fish heads on the back lawn so Fred the Eagle would have a buffet lunch. I was able to pick out jasper and agate from the riverbed. I learned to cast critter prints and take them to Ranger Dave for identification. I learned the difference between petrified wood and plain rock worn into strata by the river. Once, I even found an old flint arrowhead. I gave it to Karen, of course. How could I not? She practically jerked it out of my hands with delight.
All these things we did together didn’t have anything to do with Vassar or debate or playwriting or wearing black. They had nothing to do with what I had before and was now lost.
But with Karen it hurt less. What I’d left behind was like my own line of Steri-Strips making a lopsided cross on my forehead. It itched terribly when I thought about it, but with her I rarely did. How can you possibly be unhappy with so much stuff to do? Come on, Ronnie. Come look.
4
“Ronnie, what’s wrong? What is it?”
I stood heaving on the front porch of the ranger station, my hands on my knees. I couldn’t catch a breath. Ranger Dave was standing in the open door. Like the time I found Karen injured in her driveway so many months before, I had trouble forming words, and, like that first time, I didn’t need them. Ranger Dave threw on a utility belt with what could have been a gun or could have been a flare over his Dalmatian robe. His movements were deft. This was a man used to dealing with disaster.
“Did you call 911?” he asked.
I remembered the cell phone in my sweats. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I showed it him, too numb and stupid even to press buttons myself.
“Do it now,” he said, dashing ahead of me down the porch.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” I found my voice; my heart slowed enough for me to form words. “She’s been in the river awhile.”
I didn’t explain who, but didn’t have to. I watched as Ranger Dave’s face seemed to catch fire then turn to ash in a matter of seconds. “Make that call,” he said ferociously.
He found a kit and sprinted after me as I talked to the “what is the nature of your emergency” operator. I don’t remember what I said or what she said, only that I got ma’amed a lot.
We reached the embankment and I was about to sprint back down to Karen, when Ranger Dave threw an arm across my chest. “Stay back,” he said. I thought: why? Not like I haven’t already seen it. Not like I haven’t already fished my fingers around in her cold, slimy mouth. But I did as he said and watched as he clambered down to get a better look.
He walked a circle around her, then crouched low and stuck two fingers into her neck, looking for a pulse.
“I couldn’t find the artery,” I called down. “And are you supposed to put three fingers or the heel of your hand on the sternum when they’re that little? I hope I didn’t break a rib.” But instead of working on her the way I had hoped he would, he took my rain jacket that was already covering her torso and moved it up over her face. Then he rocked back on his heels. He looked up at me and shook his head.
“Come on,” I wheedled. “You can bring anything back to life. I’ve seen it. Do something!”
He climbed back up to the street. “Ronnie,” he said, digging his fingers into my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
I wrenched myself away. He had the moist, glassy look of someone who was about to hug me, and I didn’t want to be hugged. If he hugged me then somehow that would make it real, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“This can’t be right,” I said. “Karen wouldn’t have an accident like this. She’s so sure-footed.”
“The river changes, Ronnie,” Ranger Dave said. “You can’t trust it.”
I stared down at the body on the embankment. And suddenly the whole horror of it hit me: she was lost.
I started to shake; then I started to snivel. There was some excess snot I couldn’t snort back up but had to let drip drip drip into my mouth. Then I gave up trying to contain the runny nose. Soon after, I gave up trying to contain the shakes and let myself rock.
That was when I let Ranger Dave wrap himself around me in a damp hug. And even then I wished he’d leave me alone. All I wanted to do was sink to the ground and curl up into a ball. “You don’t understand,” I said into his Dalmatian robe. “Who am I gonna follow now? I c
an’t follow her. Not through this.”
I knew that was the wrong thing to say but I couldn’t keep from saying it. Me me me. What was going to happen to me? My selfishness just made me cry all the harder. Karen deserved a better friend.
“Shhh,” Ranger Dave kept saying, patting circles on my back. “I know. I know.”
Then we heard one siren. Two sirens. A whole orchestra. An ambulance came. A Santiam County Sheriff’s car came skidding to a stop. Sheriff McGarry herself got out and climbed down the bank. She was a thin woman in her thirties with perfect auburn hair, no flyaways, and she sometimes saluted me when I ran past. If you saw her out of uniform you might think she was harmless and dateable, but when she pulled over drunk drivers she became a grizzly. I’d once seen her approach a drunk coming out of Phil’s Tiki Hut, trying to get his car keys to fit into the keyhole of his Chevy. “Sir, will you step away from the car, sir?” When he tried to brush her off she whirled him around and cuffed him in one fluid movement. No matter what the challenge, I’d never seen her rattled.
Until today.
She drew her fingers away from Karen’s neck. “God damn, this makes me sick,” she said, and pressed a button on a walkie-talkie that was strapped to her collar.
Her deputy, a guy with a top-heavy build and a Fu Manchu moustache, came over to Ranger Dave and me. “Which one of you found the body?” he asked. He had a big, authoritative voice that would’ve scared me if I could still be scared.
“Ronnie did,” Ranger Dave said.
Then the scary man did something that surprised me. He took off his see-through raincoat and draped it around my shoulders. It didn’t help keep me dry—I was already soaked—but it was a nice gesture. “I’m sorry you had to see this, hon. We’re going to need you to stick around so we can ask you some questions.”
I don’t like being hon’ed. I find it patronizing. But the way this man said it made me feel encircled, like a jacket. “Thank you,” I said.
Then the Lookie-Lous arrived. They must’ve heard the sirens and all crawled out. I didn’t know there were that many citizens in the whole town. Pasty faces; floral print; plaid, denim. Lots and lots of denim. I could make out Casey Burns’ mom, in a flannel nightgown and rainboots, a Members Only jacket held over her head like an umbrella. She motioned me over to her but I pretended I couldn’t see her. At that moment I hated her, I hated them all, pointing and shaking their heads. There wasn’t a one I would trust to lead me through the wilderness.
Then Sheriff McGarry and her deputy put up yellow tape everywhere and made the herd stay corralled, like cattle. A navy blue SUV with “Santiam County Coroner” printed on the side arrived. Someone handed me a cup of Styrofoam coffee, which was how I knew Tiny was there, too. Nobody made worse brew than he did. He couldn’t even drink it—he called it espresso and charged vacationers five dollars a cup. Ranger Dave acknowledged him with a wave and a smile, but I just looked away. I’d seen enough already that morning.
But I definitely remember the next part, which is that the Armstrongs’ truck pulled up and Mr. Armstrong got out.
“What’s going on?” He rushed the yellow tape.
“Sir,” said the deputy who’d given me his coat. “We’re going to need you to get back in your vehicle and go home, please. Let us do our job.”
“What job?” he said. “What’s happened? My little girl’s missing and someone said they thought she might be here.”
The deputy looked to me. I nodded once.
He turned back to Mr. Armstrong. “Go on home, sir,” he said in his scary, authoritative voice. “You’ll be contacted.”
“Ronnie,” Mr. Armstrong said, catching sight of me. “What’s happening? Just tell me: how many stitches is she going to need this time?” He tried to smile but his eyes were bright and watery. He needed reassurance to grasp on to, like a buoy, but I couldn’t give it to him.
Perhaps it was then that he noticed the coroner’s SUV, because Mr. Armstrong got belligerent. “Let me through,” he said to the policeman. “I want to see. I have to see.”
“Please, sir, not here,” the policeman kept saying.
I shrugged off the Hefty bag raincoat and let it fall to the ground. I marched forward, wrapping myself around Mr.Armstrong the way Ranger Dave had wrapped himself around me earlier. Mr. Armstrong tried to push me away at first. “Get away from me,” he said. “You’re not mine. You’re not Karen. Get me Karen.”
But he didn’t even try to move, and at last he slumped into me, his body racked with something more than sobs. It was as though huge chunks of him, like embankment, were falling away and churning into the ground under our feet.
Behind us the river was still shrieking; all around us were swollen clouds, making the air so dense we could hardly see, and that was okay by me. It blurred faces and voices. Sir, I need you to step away, sir.
I don’t know how long I held Mr. Armstrong up. It wasn’t long before he was as wet as I was. Ranger Dave offered to shelter us in the ranger station but neither of us let him lead us away. Instead we stayed outside, where a skyful of water, cold as lidocaine, was raining down.
5
After the police were finished with us and the neighborhood gawkers had crawled back to their warrens, Ranger Dave volunteered to drive me home. He had a mud-splattered SUV with these scratchy brown ponchos covering the seats.
By now he was out of his Dalmatian bathrobe and in his beige Forest Service uniform. He left the broad-brimmed Smokey Bear hat at home. “Are you okay?” he asked as I strapped myself into the shotgun seat. The scratchiness of the poncho worked its way through my clothes and into my back and thighs.
I nodded, but both of us knew it didn’t mean anything.
Ranger Dave smiled a weak smile, turned the ignition, cranked up the heat, and we were on our way.
Slowly, I began to realize that heat was a very bad idea. The rain-numbness was wearing off and the feeling returning to my limbs. As soon as the feeling came back, so did the memory: that plunk! sound Karen’s body had made as I pulled it free from the log, the pebbles that had dribbled out of her open mouth when I’d tried to do CPR, the way the side of her head had seemed to open and close like it was on a loose hinge.
It was too hot in here. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to be sick. Somehow I managed to get the window down and stick my head out of it, and threw up down the side of his SUV, getting watery vomit all over his Santiam National Forest logo.
Ranger Dave pulled the car to the side of the road and patted me on the back, his hands describing slow circles on my shoulder blades.
“Easy, Ronnie,” he said.
I stayed half out of the car for awhile, the rolled-down window practically chopping me in two at the waist. But that didn’t dam the flow of pukiness. I heaved even when I didn’t have anything left to bring up—just clear, frothy liquid, like whitewater.
“Sorry about your car, I’ll clean it up,” I choked.
“Don’t worry about that, Ronnie. We’ll let the rain take care of it.”
“She was just a little kid,” I said, making no move to get back in the car.
Ranger Dave sighed. “I know,” he said, and repeated in a whisper, “I know I know I know.”
“The river should be illegal.”
I heard Ranger Dave draw in his breath. “Usually I love it. But today I’d fence the whole damn thing if I could.”
It was still raining. The back of my head was being pelted and so, with the passenger window open, was the interior of Ranger Dave’s car. Those woolen poncho seat covers were going to shrink and smell like moldy alpacas. I pulled my head back in and rolled up the window.
“Take me home,” I pleaded.
Ranger Dave nodded and pulled the car back out onto the road.
I leaned my soggy head against the door, miserable. He didn’t understand. He was taking me east, toward Patchworks, when I wanted him to take me west, back to my old home—my real home—in Portland.
Believe it o
r not, I wasn’t always this whiny. I used to have things to look forward to—after-school activities where I didn’t have to devein anything or shovel anything or grout anything, and friends who weren’t already developing beer guts at the age of sixteen.
Before we moved to Hoodoo, Mom and Dad and I lived in a white Queen Anne–style house with purple trim and a wraparound porch in the funky northwest section of Portland, within walking distance of both Starbucks and Coffee People; Cinema 21, and a McMenamin’s pub and eatery for when I got tired of Mom food and just wanted a burger. The posters in my bedroom were of Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman, neither of whom (rumor had it) liked the other; both of whom were smoking and drinking coffee and wearing black. You could see the depth in their eyes. They hadn’t had the easiest, most traditional lives, but they were better artists because of it. They could flay open the human condition and look fabulous while they were doing it. And that was what I wanted. I wanted the sophistication of having many husbands or no husband at all, and I wanted to wear smooth velvet dresses and have deep red, almost purple, lips.
When I lived in Portland, that still seemed possible right down to the accessories.
Back then, my mom had her own cooking show, The Flowerpot Cheesebread Gourmet, on Oregon Public Television. She invited local celebs—politicians, Trail Blazers, news anchors, the pygmy marmoset keeper at the zoo—to appear with her and help her shove spicy drumsticks into a tandoori oven or chop cilantro for cool, puckery gazpacho. No one ever turned down a guest spot on her show. She was unfailingly gracious and fed them well.
I used to think of my father as the anti-Mom. He was an attorney with the Public Defender’s Office. The kind of guy who used words like falsify instead of fake. He certainly seemed happy enough, but now I wonder if Dad was ever truly happy or if he was merely satisfied and drowsy, like after a good meal.
Then I woke up one morning and the air was so spicy-sweet I thought it might singe off my nostril hairs.
The River Page 3