One Lane Bridge: A Novel (4 page)

He walked to the door of the brick two-story house with dormer windows and cracked walkway and banged the brass door knocker three times. Someone from inside yelled, “Coming!” just before the front door swung open to reveal a small gray-haired woman in shorts and a sweatshirt. She smiled up at him and took full control of the conversation with, “Good afternoon. Who are you, and how can I help you?”

“Are you Lavern Justice?”

“I am.”

“I’m J. D. Wickman, and I’ve come to ask you about some property you used to own.”

“Well, J. D. Wickman, you don’t look like a serial killer, so would you like to come in?”

J. D. smiled and took her invitation as a compliment to his appearance and a credit to his general comportment and followed her to the living room just inside the door and to the left.

“Have a seat anyplace you like, J. D. Now what property are you interested in?”

“Out in the county about eighteen miles on Route 814. Your father used to own it, and then you owned it, and now there’s a country store there.”

“Okay.” Lavern inserted this word in the conversation not so much as an approval of what had been said, but as a nod to continue.

“I’m interested in what was on that property before that store was there.”

“Why?”

“I beg your pardon?” J. D. wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly.

“Why? Why do you want to know what was there before?”

J. D. wasn’t expecting this question and wasn’t ready for it. He knew he couldn’t tell her the truth because even he didn’t know the truth. He looked this bright, friendly, no-frills lady in the eye and spoke.

“I think my grandmother used to live in a house out there, and I was just wondering if you might remember her.”

“What’s your grandmother’s name?”

“She was Nettie Wickman.”

“She could have. Lots of people lived out there before my time.”

J. D. decided to get right to the point. “Wasn’t there a house right near where Stan’s shop is now?”

“I have no idea, young man. I haven’t been out there for years.”

“Well, there was a house out there when you sold it, wasn’t there?”

“Can’t be sure of that either. I was only ten years old when my father died and all that land was divided between my brothers and me. My name wound up on the deed, but it was all done by Daddy’s law partners. I knew nothing about the sales or the property until I came of age and got the profits. I don’t go out that way much anymore. Why are you researching where your grandmother lived?”

“It’s just … ah, that, I’m doing a family tree. And just, you know, interested in my roots.”

“Do you think there’s some buried treasure out there, J. D.? Just what are your motives?”

“Motives? What do you mean?”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

J. D. was perspiring. This woman had an effect of authority on him—like an old schoolteacher or a strong mother figure. He wasn’t comfortable lying to her and certainly wasn’t comfortable confiding in her. But he had taken the deception too far to turn back. “I’m just researching all the different places she lived in the area. Putting a little booklet together for posterity.”

Lavern Justice’s eyes were stone, yet her smile was strangely warm. “Did your grandmother die there, Mr. Wickman?”

“Ah, no, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know where your grandmother died?”

“Ah, yes, I do, and no, it wasn’t there.”

“Mr. Wickman, I’m seventy-one years old. I’ve been around the block and down a few alleys, and I have a natural, built-in lie detector. And it’s flashing red lights all over this room. You may not be a serial killer, but you’re not on the level.”

J. D. stood up and said, “Miss Justice, I thank you for your time. If I could tell you more, I would. And when I can, I will. For now, it’s been a pleasure.”

As J. D. turned around in her driveway, he could see her standing at the picture window watching him pull away. He didn’t wave, but he did take note that the next time he turned into a street with a bright yellow rectangle sign that said “Dead End,” he should pay closer attention.

J. D. watched the odometer and the digital clock in the dashboard as he rounded the curves on the country road. One read seventeen miles; the other read 7:17 p.m. He couldn’t be sure, but he strongly felt that the time of day had something to do with the mysterious appearance of the one lane bridge. It was twenty minutes after seven when he first came upon the bridge. The sun was in the exact same place, and now there was only one more mile to go until the road curved to the left. Around that bend he would come upon either a wide, two lane crossing with low concrete sides or a large, old-fashioned steel-trestle one lane bridge. He was prepared to be shocked either way.

And he was.

The one lane bridge towered before him as he stopped in the middle of the road. He was almost afraid to cross it. He was fearful it might not support him, that it might disappear just as he was in the middle of it. But he crept across at five miles per hour, watching the land and the stream on all sides. As he drove slowly down the small grade where the bridge ended and the county macadam resumed, he saw the dirt driveway to his right—the same driveway that this morning had been a paved parking lot in front of Stan’s One Stop. His head hurt and his eyes were watering, but he made himself turn up the dusty little lane marked by weeds and vines on both sides. The muffler scraped on the loose dirt and gravel, but he hardly noticed. He was focused on the old frame house that was quickly coming into sight.

J. D. parked the van near an old tin cistern that looked like it was still in use. He sat for a moment before getting out, collecting his thoughts and preparing himself for whatever greeting, good or bad, he might face. As he closed the car door, the kitchen door opened, and Paul Clem stepped out on the porch. He looked shorter and thinner than he had yesterday and strangely older. The lines in his face were deeper and darker, and he was bareheaded. His hair was gray and thinning. When he spoke, his voice didn’t have the friendly greeting it had yesterday when he had said, “Can I help you?” But J. D. had no reason to expect that same friendliness today. He had offended the man’s sense of dignity and was now back standing in his yard, totally at his mercy.

“Mr. Clem. How are you doing, sir?”

“I’m fine. Do I know you?”

“Yes sir. My name is Wickman. John Wickman. I was here yesterday evening.”

“You were? I don’t remember you. You got the right house, young fellow?”

J. D. opened his mouth to offer a reply but suddenly realized he had none. He looked at all his surroundings to make sure he
was
at the right place because with all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he couldn’t be certain. But of course he was. And this was the same man. Paul Clem. How else would J. D. have known his name?

“You
are
Paul Clem, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

J. D. remembered the groceries in the back of the van and said, “I don’t want you to take this wrong, but I have some food I brought that I want you to take.”

“Are you from the church?”

“The church?”

“Yeah. The holy rollers down at New Park. They bring stuff up here all the time. If you are, thanks. And if you’re not, thanks. I’ll help you put ’em in the kitchen.”

Paul ran his hand slowly over the fender of the van as J. D.’s breath quickened at what might be going through the old man’s mind. They made the necessary repeat trips from the vehicle to the kitchen until all the groceries were stacked on the kitchen table.

J. D. saw a light shining through the beaded doorway that led into the parlor. He asked in a low voice as he set a final bag of canned goods on a kitchen chair, “How’s your wife, Mr. Clem?”

Paul Clem looked at him with a quick jerk of his head. “What did you say, boy?”

“I said, how is your wife? Is she feeling any better or about the same?”

“Oh, she’s feeling better, son. She’s feeling a lot better. Ada’s been dead for two years.”

The stun from the words and the sting from Paul Clem’s sarcastic attitude left J. D. dumbfounded. Was there some sort of misunderstanding? Was the woman from last night not his wife? Had he misconstrued who she was? No. He distinctly remembered him saying, “That’s my wife. She’s bedridden.” What fresh hell was he going through now? He was about to turn and rush out the back door when someone called from the front parlor.

“Who is it, Daddy? Who’s here?”

“Somebody from the church, honey. You go on back to sleep.”

J. D. recognized the voice coming from the other room. And he knew he couldn’t leave this house again with so many mysteries hanging thickly in the air. He looked at Paul with a sternness he had no right to express and said, “Who is that in there?”

“That’s my daughter, if it’s really any of your business.”

“Your daughter, Lizzie?”

“The only one I got. Are you sure you’re from the church?”

J. D. considered explaining everything he knew to this hardened man of the earth, but just as he was about to speak, the voice came from the other room.

“Daddy, send him in to see me.”

J. D. stared into Paul’s tired gray eyes. “Can I go see her?”

Paul began taking the food out of the plastic bags, pausing to examine the bags, and nodded his head without returning J. D.’s glare. J. D. wondered for just a moment if the plastic bags gave way to any suspicion in Paul Clem’s mind. Certainly Paul had never seen anything like them before. Never had the question, paper or plastic? loomed so large in J. D.’s mind. He wished now he’d said “paper.”

“Sure,” Paul said. “It won’t hurt nothing.’”

J. D. pushed back the strings of hanging beads and walked through the dark dining room, toward the single-bulb lamp in the far corner of the living room. The daybed was in the same position by the front door, but a different person was lying in it. This time it was Lizzie, and she looked different. Prettier. Longer hair. Fuller cheeks.

“Lizzie?”

She smiled and sat up. “Hi. I know you. Your name starts with a W.”

“That’s right. Wickman. John Wickman.”

“I remember you real well. You had that funny-lookin’ car.”

“Lizzie, where’s your mother?”

“Mamma died nearly two years ago. Did you know my mamma?”

“Well, I met her once. She was right here in that very same bed when I was here yesterday.”

“Yesterday? Do you mean that in a poetic way, Mr. Wickman? My schoolteacher talks like that sometimes when he’s readin’ poetry and stuff. He says ‘yesterday’ when he means ‘a long time ago.’ Is that what you were doin’?”

J. D. heard the back door close. He looked at her more intently than he ever had before and tried to find reason and good sense in the conversation they were having.

“Lizzie, listen to me. How long has it been since you saw me last? How long since I was out here in your kitchen and you were frying bread?”

“Is that what I was frying when you were here? I didn’t remember that, but I love fried bread.”

“Lizzie, listen to me. How long ago was that?”

“Oh, it must have been two years ago anyway, if Mamma was still alive.”

“It wasn’t just yesterday?” J. D. was beginning to feel frantic but hoped his voice didn’t show it.

“Why, of course not. Yesterday I was here in bed. Mamma died when I was fourteen. That was two years ago.”

J. D. took a deep breath and asked the question he knew he had to ask but was in mortal fear of hearing the answer.

“Lizzie, what year did your mamma die?”

“The fall of 1940.”

Something grabbed J. D. in the hollow of his stomach, and he thought he might be sick. He felt a shiver from deep in his spine, and he knew his voice was shaky when he took a deep breath and asked, “So what is today’s date?”

“You mean you don’t know what today is? Today is Thursday.”

“No. I mean the
date.
Do you have a calendar?”

“There’s a calendar on the back of the door. The one with the pretty pictures. It’s September tenth, 1942.”

Where was he? How did he get here? What was that bridge? A doorway? A portal through time? And why? Why was he here, and who were these people?

“Lizzie, do you remember me being here before?”

“I said I did.”

“But your father doesn’t.”

“Well, that was a couple years ago, and Daddy’s failed a lot since Mamma passed. Plus he don’t like a lot of people. He’s kind of gruff.”

He looked at this pretty young girl lying in a sickbed yet still full of conversation and personality. “Why are you in bed here in the parlor?”

“I hurt my foot about a week ago. I was working up in the barn and stepped on a nail. It was rusty, and boy, was it big. It went clear through my foot. Wanna see? It went in the bottom and came out the top. Daddy pulled it out.”

She drew the sheets back to reveal a swollen foot bandaged with gauze and wrapping. There were bloodstains on the top and bottom. He could tell she was in pain as she grimaced while trying to lift her foot to show him.

“Has a doctor seen you?”

“Doctors cost a lot of money, and I don’t know what they can do for me.”

Those were almost the exact words Paul had answered with when J. D. had asked if a doctor had seen Ada. J. D. had left then without taking any action, and some time had passed—just a day to him, but two years to the Clems! And now, Ada was dead. Lizzie needed a doctor, and soon. He couldn’t leave her here like he had her mother.

“Where did your father go, Lizzie?”

“Out back, milking probably. You’ll see him out there somewhere. Are you leaving now?”

“Maybe. I need to talk with him, but I’ll see you before I go.”

“Thanks for the food. Tell all of them at the church I said, ‘bless ’em.’”

J. D. walked into the kitchen. As he neared the door leading to the back porch, he heard something he faintly remembered from yesterday. A radio. It was turned down low, and he had to stop to hear what was on. It was Ernest Tubb singing, “Walking The Floor Over You.” What he had assumed to be a traditional country music station yesterday—a “classic” country station—was actually a regular country music station playing current hits.
Hits from 1942!
His knees nearly buckled.

He found Paul carrying a bucket of chicken feed out of a shed in the backyard. The look on his face was just as fierce and unfriendly as it had been when he met J. D. at the van. Life had whipped him and left him blowing in the wind. He had lost his wife, and now his daughter was flat on her back, fighting what could be a losing battle. The look in his cold, empty eyes said he had no reason to get out of bed each morning, yet he walked through his duties as man of the house. J. D. spoke to him with apprehension. He wasn’t expecting a positive answer, but he did hope the negative would not be violent.

“Mr. Clem. Lizzie is a very sick girl. She may have blood poisoning. She needs to see a doctor. Can I take her to see one?”

“Take her? No. You’re not taking her anywhere. You think I’m turnin’ my daughter loose with some stranger and lettin’ her get in that station wagon or whatever that is with you?”

“You can come along. We’ll just be gone for a little while. Just long enough to get her to the emergency room.”

J. D.’s back stiffened at what he had just proposed. What if the old man took him up on his offer and all three of them went into town? How could he explain what was happening and all the sights he would see? The highways, the cars, the houses, the buildings? How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself?

“She’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her. Always have.”

“I know you have, sir. But she needs something you can’t give her this time. She needs a doctor as soon as possible. If you won’t let me take her to see one, then let me bring one out here.”

“Doctors cost money.”

“I’ll pay.”

“I think you need to go.”

“I’m not leaving here without her.”

Paul Clem set the small pail on the ground by his feet, stood with his shoulders squared, and raised his height a good two inches. His eyes narrowed and there was flint in his voice. “You got any kids?”