Cold River (24 page)

“I thought this was late spring,” Leesie said.

“Our late spring is first of June.”

Rael turned around, drove back down the road a mile, and veered off on a logging road that headed uphill. “Hang on,” he warned as he switched to four-wheel drive.

“Hanging,” Mandy said. “Where are we going?”

“Up there.”

She looked where he pointed and saw a white clearing halfway up the mountain. “Oh.” She clutched the seat.

After a steep, bone-jarring ride, Rael parked and cut the motor. When Mandy climbed out and turned around, the panorama spread out before her took her breath away. The sky had cleared after a cloudy morning, and a mid-afternoon sun studded the snowy landscape with diamonds. The craggy, glacier-frosted mountains on the opposite side of the valley stood out in stark relief against a cobalt sky, and the river, twining through the valley far below, looked like blue braid adorning a woolly skirt of hunter green.

Leesie climbed out the back, took one look, and hollered, “Yee-haw! Have you ever seen anything like that, Mandy?”

“I never have. It’s like a Christmas card.”

Jake took a stack of plastic cafeteria trays out of the back of the Jeep and handed one to each person.

“Oh!” Mandy laughed. “I understand now. It’s
tray-ing
. I thought Leesie said
trang
, and I had made up my mind that it was a place, not an action.”

“I did say
trang
,” Leesie said. “It’s one syllable, not two. At least if you speak Tarheel— which I don’t, though I’m trying to learn.”

“Let’s hear some,” Jake prompted.

Leesie thought a minute. “If brains was lard, he couldn’t grease up a good-size skillet, bless his heart.”

Jake grinned. “You say that so good, it’ud make a rabbit hug a hound.”

Leesie topped him with, “I’m busy as a farmer with one hoe and two rattlesnakes.”

Willow’s eyes slid sideways to Mandy as she added her mite. “She has a face like a blind cobbler’s thumb.”

“Are we trang, or are we flapping our gums?” Rael asked.

Jake took off up the hill. “We’re trang! Come on, Leesie.”

Leesie grabbed Willow’s hand and followed.

“So, what do we do?” Mandy asked, looking doubtfully at the tray in her hands.

Rael’s angular face broke into a grin. “Go up and come down.” He took her hand and began the ascent. “Come on.”

Mandy followed, trying to keep in his footsteps. About halfway up, they stopped to watch the teenagers. Jake slid by, folded up like a pretzel and perched on the tray. He was followed by Willow, riding serenely with her hair blowing behind her, and Leesie, squealing at every bump.

“They’re not going very fast,” Mandy said.

“Not yet. It gets faster as the snow gets packed down.”

That proved to be the case. By the time Mandy descended for the first time, sitting cross-legged and hanging onto the narrow tray sides with her fingertips, the speed was enough to put her next door to terror.

The trays were surprisingly versatile sleds, allowing them to go in tandem or as a five-person chain, which invariably broke at the weakest link halfway down and scattered them, laughing, willy-nilly along the way.

Before the sun set, Rael built a fire. They sat around it as Mandy’s chili heated, and Leesie, Jake, Willow, and Rael sang old songs like “My Dear Companion” and “Farther Along.” Rael said the songs had been passed down among country folk for a hundred years or more.

It was dark by the time supper was over, but a full moon rose and reflected off the snow, creating an iridescent, blue-tinged world. The teenagers set off up the hill with their trays again, while Rael and Mandy sat talking.

“Thank you for inviting us,” she said. “It has been such a fun day.”

“We try to come up every spring. Each year I think the young ’uns will have outgrown it, but they haven’t yet.”

“They’re good kids,” she said.

He nodded. “I didn’t hear about the stinkbug thing with your car until today. Willow will be by to apologize, for sure.”

“It was really quite clever,” Mandy said. “Very inventive.”

“She’s irrepressible.” He smiled. “Like her mother. That was one of the things I loved about her.”

There was a silence as they both stared into the fire. Rael stood and pushed a half-burned log back into the flames with his boot.

Mandy, sitting with her arms around her knees, looked up at Rael. “When did she die?”

He paused with a piece of wood in his hand and stared at Mandy. “She isn’t dead.”

“But Willow told Leesie—” Mandy was silent for a moment while she worked it out. “Oh, I see. Willow must be very angry at her mother.”

“She probably feels she has a reason.” He threw the wood on the fire. “Mind if I tell you about it?” He sat on the log beside Mandy, looking intently at the flames. “I promise not to cry on your shoulder. I’d just like you to know the lay of the land.”

“No, I don’t mind.” She laid her cheek on her knees, facing Rael so she could watch him as he told the story.

“I left Limestone when I was seventeen. Never finished high school. I took my guitar and went first to Seattle, then to Los Angeles, then to Nashville. I worked as a carpenter to keep a roof over my head, but I spent every waking minute on my music.”

“You were a musician?”

Rael nodded.

“Of course,” Mandy whispered.

“I met Lovey in Nashville. She was the singer for the band I was playing in.”

“Lovey? Was— is— that her name?”

“Her name is Maggie Loveday, but everyone calls her Lovey.”

“What was she like?”

The glow of the fire accentuated the hollows in Rael’s cheeks and highlighted his unruly hair. He considered a moment before answering. “She was all that is bright and good in the world— all that is warm, all that is comfort. For me, she was breathing. I thought I could not survive without her.”

Mandy nodded. The silence stretched out, but she didn’t say anything, waiting instead for him to continue.

“We married, had children, toured with our own band. We were successful. We worked with some very talented people and made a lot of money. But it’s no life for a family, no life for children, you know?”

Again Mandy nodded.

“I wanted to give my children what I was given by my parents. I wanted them to have roots— freedom to roam in a safe, rural environment. I wanted them to have old friends and family around them. I wanted Granny Timberlain to be part of their lives.” He brushed back a curl that had fallen over his brow. “I felt that the music would be with me wherever I went, that I wasn’t defined by how famous I was or how much money I made. More than that, I felt that I
would
be defined by how good a father I was and how much good I did with my music.”

Rael picked up a stick and poked the fire. “Ten years ago I made the decision to move back here. Lovey didn’t want to come. The job of postman was open, and I took it to have a steady income and health insurance. Very mundane considerations, but important ones if you’ve got a family. The hours are good. I start early in the morning, and I’m done by early afternoon. Plenty of time to devote to other things.”

“Did she come with you, then? Back to Limestone?”

He nodded. “She stuck it out for five, six years.”

“And then what happened?”

“She left. She just wasn’t able to leave the performing life behind. She said she felt suffocated here in Limestone. The first year we did the Opening Festival, we had some out-of-town musicians come to play. She sang for one of the bands.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Actually, she fell in love with one of the musicians, and when he left, so did she.”

“Oh, Rael. I’m so sorry,” Mandy said softly.

He shrugged. “I’ve found that I can breathe on my own.” He chuckled. “It’s kind of a cross between asthma and emphysema, but I am breathing.” He took a deep breath and exhaled.

Mandy smiled. “Was that a demonstration?”

He laughed out loud. “No, that was a great big sigh, like a load off my shoulders. I haven’t talked to anyone about Lovey for a long time. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be.”

“So, are you able to move on?”

“Glacially. I’m still married. That’s— that’s what this conversation is all about.”

“The lay of the land,” Mandy said. “I see.”

Rael stood and put another log on the fire. “I know I’ve got to face… well, you know. But I haven’t been able to yet. I’m still finding my way as a man alone.”

Mandy fished in her pocket for a tissue to dab her eyes. Then she stood and embraced him. “Thank you for telling me,” she whispered.

Just as he tightened his arms around her, a coal popped out of the fire. He lifted her and swung her out of the way, and she laughed as she stood in the circle of his arms and looked up at him. She put a hand on his cheek. “Are you growing a beard, too? Your chin is scratchy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

In the distance they could hear Leesie and Jake whooping as they rode down the slope.

Mandy hugged him once more. “You’re a good man, Rael.”

He laid his cheek against her hair. “Thanks for listening.”

They parted, and as they sat down on the log again, she saw movement in the shadows beyond the firelight.

“Come and sit by the fire, Willow,” Mandy called, but nobody answered.

THE CAMPFIRE CRACKLED
and popped, and the scent of burning wood filled the air. Mandy felt the encircling arm of the man next to her, and she nestled in, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’m worried about Willow,” she said. “She stays out there in the dark.”

“Don’t worry about her. She’s working on an apology.”

It wasn’t Rael who spoke, and as Mandy straightened up to look at her companion, she heard Leesie in the distance calling her name.

Rael had turned into Grange, and as he bent his half-frozen face down to kiss her, Leesie called again, from closer this time.

“Mandy, wake up! The house is on fire!”

She sat up in bed, her senses scrambling for formation as sound and smell mounted a dawn assault. “What’s happening?”

Leesie stood at the foot of her bed in an oversized New Mexico State T-shirt with her hair all awry. “Get up! The house is on fire!”

“Where? How?”

“I don’t know. Out on the back deck. Oh, hurry, Mandy.”

Adrenalin propelled her out of the bed ahead of her wits. She grabbed a pair of shoes and sped barefoot down the stairs. Rounding the corner by the kitchen, she coughed as she inhaled the smoky air that piled up against the low ceiling under her sleeping loft.

Narrowing her eyes, she rushed to the sliding glass door and tugged on it. “I can’t open it,” she said frantically.

Leesie was right behind her. “Unlock it.”

Mandy undid the catch and pushed the door open. Stepping out on the deck, she was hit by the heat that radiated from a column of fire licking the cedar siding beside the bathroom window. She looked up and saw that the shake roof over the deck was beginning to burn, too. “Go call 9-1-1,” she said to her sister.

Just then someone shouted, “Mandy! Leesie!” A moment later, a breathless Fran emerged from the woods behind the house. She sprinted the last hundred feet and motioned to the end of the deck. “There’s a hose there,” she managed to say between shallow breaths. “Get it.”

“We’re calling 9-1-1,” Mandy said. “Go and do it, Leesie.”

“It’ll take twenty minutes for them to get here. Get the hose!”

Leesie brushed past Mandy and ran to the end of the deck. She jumped to the ground, grabbed the coil, threw it on the deck, and turned on the faucet. After she climbed back up, she grabbed the nozzle gun and pulled the trigger, pointing the end up in the air so the water would reach while she was still dragging the hose closer.

Fran shoved a bucket in Mandy’s hands. “Get upstairs and fill this with water,” she commanded. “Go out on the balcony and pour it on the deck roof there by your bathroom. Do it!”

“Where did you get the bucket?” Mandy asked.

“It was under the deck. Now go!”

Mandy cast an apprehensive glance at the fire, smaller now since Leesie was training a vigorous spray on it. When Fran pushed her gently but firmly, she dropped her shoes and hurried back into the house and upstairs. While the pail was filling in the bathroom, Mandy turned on the exhaust fan to try to get rid of the smoke that had seeped into the room. Then, with her right arm extended to balance the load, she carried the heavy bucket out and hefted it up to sit on the railing. She took a deep breath and flung the contents as far as she could. The water hissed as it hit the roof, and a cloud of steam rose.

Mandy headed back to the bathroom with her bucket, heedless of the fact that she had splashed almost as much water on herself as she had the roof. She repeated the process a second time, and the third time she dumped it, the water rolled down the cedar shakes and off the roof. No hissing. No steam.

She set the bucket down and leaned on the railing. “How’s it coming down there?” she called.

Fran answered. “I think it’s out.”

Mandy’s knees suddenly felt weak. “Hallelujah,” she whispered through chattering teeth. She leaned on the balcony railing for a moment and then called, “Are my shoes down there?”