Joey was going to join Brady as soon as the ferry docked in Bellingham. Nadine didn’t answer her phone anymore.
“If everything works out, you can go to Montana with us,” I coaxed Dad quietly. I was thinking of Monique and my new nephew, Colin James. Dad didn’t answer. He handed me a letter and a handgun instead. The letter was folded three times. He told me to read it later.
I knew Dad would never leave the hills. For better or worse. He would take his insurance money and buy supplies. He would hunt his own food. Cook over an open fire. He would sniff at the boundaries—view the strange houses that popped up with astonishing speed. He would shake his head at all the people—their thin skin and cruel stupidity. He would sneak back to his cabin like a beaten dog and keep his mouth shut. He would grow strange and tireless in his bitter solitude. He would wait.
The machine was up and running smoothly. It was oiled with Annie’s and Colin’s blood.
All thoughts of a future had long ago been buried in cement.
I got up and stared at the fish. I thought of the things Dad told me so long ago. About resources and devastation. About powerful men and trouble. And how if you didn’t fight, there could only be a land sucked dry and a world that was stormy and barren and drained. And then it would be too late—the fighting would be frightened desperation.
I remembered, It is worse to fight a man who is scared than to fight a man who is bigger than you. A man who has nothing to lose will do crazy things. Anything. Adrenaline takes over—the fight mode. He might bite and scratch and use scissors to stab you. Kick you in the groin. Stick your own switchblade in your back while you’re doubled over.
We left the salmon to keep watch from the rocks. There would be many storms to come. The fish saw the confusion, and the cold. They sensed the coming heat. The wind, and droughts, and floods. The hunger and despair. The mass extinctions and lack of adaptations. The ice age that would come whether we liked it or not. My father planned his cabin. It was becoming more and more clear.
From the trail down, I listened for the sounds of war to come along with the wet scent of the far-off, foggy sea air. The fresh blood mingled with the strong, painful scent of Douglas fir. I smelled the misty spring rain and heard the sounds of the train and felt the rumbling rumors. I listened for that scream in a cheating wind. That shout on the playground that I never heard.
That night I sat alone in the house on Cota Street. I waited for the sunset. And the time when every moment became one moment and then got lost. I had come up against a wall. I had to turn and fight. Luckily, I was a fighter. Luckily, I was born for it.
I closed my eyes against the waning light. I saw the blood dry and harden behind my eyelids. Colin’s stains were still on the cheap paint. I dreamed of legions of shaved heads and ships docking at discreet western ports. The men buried in the hills moaned and turned and grew restless. Soon, they would rise along with the rest. The stories circled my head. They agitated my every move. The images would not leave. It was in my blood. Words did not come easily. Words did nothing.
The body of the eighteen-year-old man from Angel Road was controlled in shackles and chains as the guards transported him from the county jail to the Washington State Correctional Facility in Matlock. They did not give him my letters. They photographed and documented his tattoos. They asked him questions about his affiliations. He knew they wasted precious time.
Jimmy James Blood’s shoulders sagged from the knowledge of what they did not know—at what they would not understand until it was too late. His spirit boiled from inside his handcuffs and clenched teeth.
Monique sat entombed in a lonely silence across state lines. She tuned her acoustic alone in her room. She knew I was coming to tell her the news. She wore black eyeliner to school. She did not look at her classmates directly. She did not look at anyone directly.
Dad watched from the tavern by the train tracks as his house burned down in hot flames—as the fire licked hungrily at the dry wood.
On the side of the highway, Brady’s Bronco sat with the engine running. Sam Cook sang “Summertime” as the windshield fogged up.
Dad watched the smoke make shadows on the cracked pavement of Cota Street. The flames burned the old blood, the broken glass, and the memories we left there: a bloodstained baseball bat and a pair of fourteen-eye oxbloods. It happened more quickly than I thought it would. I clambered up the ladder and into the crawl space. The window at the end had always been broken—the glass Colin had kicked through so long ago.
I jumped.
The ground flew at me. The stars shone brilliantly. I was screaming—my hair a golden flag of battle. The wind slapped my face—the cold air rolled up my body in waves. Just for a moment, I was the red-ocher glow and the sooty smoke. Before the fire overcame the wooden frame, I readied myself to run. Aerosol cans exploded as I hit the ground. I was frightened, but . . . I knew my boots would take the shock.
Acknowledgments
It’s possible this book would never have been published without Jonathan Evison, who accepted an unsolicited manuscript after I was hours late to his workshop. For a reason I can only call kindness, he accepted the story and actually read it. He championed the book and gave it to Harry Kirchner, who believed in the novel before it was truly born, offered editorial advice, and found it a home.
Thank you to everyone at Counterpoint, Catapult, and Soft Skull who helped make the writing better: Mikayla Butchart and Jennifer Alton, who helped smooth out all the rough edges, and Jordan Koluch, who put up with my last-minute edits.
Also thank you to everyone who helped much earlier in the process:
Carmen Hoover, who offered advice and assistance along with the spring 2002 creative writing class at Olympic College Shelton; Alejandra Abreu (I came to you with a backpack full of papers, and you said you would help); Rana Becker, who read numerous drafts and kept believing in the story; tutors at The Evergreen State College Writing Center, who helped edit the bits and pieces we could cover in under an hour; Tobi Vail, who encouraged me to keep moving forward and then showed me how; Sara Peté and numerous other librarians at various Timberland Regional Libraries, who helped set up readings; Meagan Macvie, who helped edit and posted an interview on her blog; and Bobby Brown, who offered technical advice on the ins and outs of murder.
Portions of this novel were completed during a fiction residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Thank you to everyone who supports fellowships, and also Jane Hamilton, the visiting writer, who read early chapters and offered careful criticism. I completed additional work during a creative writing retreat at The Evergreen State College taught by Rebecca Brown and a feminism class taught by Therese Saliba and Lin Nelson, and I received general encouragement from many, many additional professors and students at Evergreen. Thanks to everyone who kept coming to my readings and supported me over the years: you know who you are.
Additionally, I can’t forget the ghosts in the rain who shared their stories, the ghosts downtown who wouldn’t leave me, and some among the Douglas fir, who follow me still. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope you find what you are looking for.
Most importantly, thank you to my son, Walter, who was such a patient toddler throughout the editorial process. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.
© Walter Ferguson
MELISSA ANNE PETERSON grew up in a rainy working-class logging town in Washington State. She received a BA and BS in writing and biology from The Evergreen State College and an MS from the University of Montana. She has worked in endangered species recovery in Washington and Montana for twelve years. Her writing has been published by Camas Magazine, Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, Oregon Quarterly, and Seal Press. Find out more at melissaannepeterson.com.
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