The River Burns (10 page)

■   ■   ■

Truckers gathered on the water's
side of the road in the shade of their vehicles, waiting there to cross the bridge. When she rode on past the big rigs and parked her scooter in her customary spot, Mrs. McCracken also stepped around to that side, perhaps to join the guys in conversation but certainly to get out of the sun. Her hairline dripped. Her dress was damp where it touched her skin. At midday, the heat was suffocating, the sun's blaze intense.

Covertly glancing at one another, the men shared secret smiles. Today of all days, they were delighted to have her in their midst.

“One hundred and three degrees,” she said to no one in particular. “It might get hotter. Don't ask me what that is in Celsius. My brain can't handle the strain.”

“You shouldn't pick berries this late in the day, Mrs. McCracken,” Samad noted. Unlike the others, he wasn't struggling to keep a straight face and didn't share in their whimsy. He seemed genuinely concerned for her well-being. “Not in this heat.”

“You could catch sunstroke,” Xavier butted in.

“I agree with both of you,” Mrs. McCracken stated as she wiped her brow with a handkerchief. “I already picked berries early this morning, Samad. Baked my pies and made my deliveries. Now I'm after the last blueberries of the season. Which I'll freeze.”

The men shuffled their feet around, and glanced at one another, and occasionally a grin caught at their lips before fading again into the obscurity of their silence. Mrs. McCracken was surprised, for usually they were a talkative lot. The heat, perhaps, subdued them.

Xavier, his expression placid, intruded on the quiet. “So, Mrs. McC, if you don't mind my asking, did you blow anybody's brains out last night? Or just scare the bejesus out of them damn thieves?”

So they knew. If she'd known that, she might not have joined them to pass the time. She dabbed her brow, guessing that she was in for it now.

“Did you miss on purpose?” Max Klug tacked on. “Or did you aim to kill? It can be tricky in the dark. Maybe you were nervous, firing so many rounds.”

“You fellows,” Mrs. McCracken remarked. “I suppose you need to have your fun, even if it is at an old lady's expense.”

“Did you warn them first?” Xavier inquired. “Or just start shooting?”

“How's she going to warn them?” André objected. “Stop, thief! Or I'll fire blanks in your face!”

For the first time, the men burst out laughing.

“You fellows,” she said. “I scared them off, didn't I? They ran for the hills.”

“Hell, you used to scare us off,” Xavier recalled. “You didn't need to say nothing more than ‘Good morning, children.'”

They laughed even harder then. The memory of her stark greeting, which always sounded like an accusation, tickled their funny bones.

“What we should do is hire you,” Xavier suggested. “You could stand guard at the other end of the bridge, Mrs. McC, and blast away at anyone who wants to cross. At least until we reach the other side.”

“Or, she could just say ‘good morning,' that would do it,” Klug said.

“Sounds like a plan,” André agreed. He looked at Denny O'Farrell, who was quiet and seated on the ground leaning against a tire. Denny was observing Mrs. McCracken and sucking on a long blade of grass that he played with in his fingers as well, although he looked up at André when that man spoke. Then he looked away again.

Denny stood up. He dusted off the seat of his jeans. The delivery vehicle they'd been waiting to cross to this side was almost over and now was the time for everyone to move up one. Mrs. McCracken walked back to her scooter, relieved to be released from their teasing but at the same time regretting that it was time to go. She was tucking her hair in under her helmet when the O'Farrell boy, instead of returning to his truck, stood before her, his knees on either side of her scooter's front tire.

She looked at him, expecting something, but she didn't know what.

“You must've been scared,” he said.

She certainly didn't expect this.
Kindness.
Or was he planning to trap her into uttering some admission he could then use to betray her? To make fun? Even so, the inherent sympathy in his voice required her to respond.

“It nearly gave me a heart attack, if you want to know the truth.”

“I bet,” he said. “I'm sorry you went through that.”

“It seems to bring no end of amusement to your pals.”

“You know how it goes. It's our way of saying we're relieved you're okay.”

More kindness. She was finding this nearly as unbearable as the sun.

“Mrs. McCracken, you know we got that town meeting coming up. Thursday night. About the bridge.”

“It was supposed to be tonight. They postponed.”

“Yeah. Well. We got a ball game tonight, some of us.”

“I see.”

“We're on different sides of this issue, you and me.”

“That seems the case.” If only she could remember his name. His brother, last night, was also kind to her.

“You're a tenacious fighter. I remember what you did for Maria Sentis. Remember her? And I know who you were helping there. I'll never forget that.”

“When I take on a cause, I give it my best. Whether it's the unfortunate woman of whom you speak or a defenceless old bridge. Look now. We have to go. We're holding up traffic.”

“Actually, it's the bridge that's holding up traffic, Mrs. McCracken. In more ways than one. Just remember, something's got to give. If we don't get a new bridge—”

“This old one cannot come down!” she said sharply.

“Fine. But I think it will, unless you agree with me. We can't wait five or ten years for a new one. We need a new bridge. Will you think about it some more? It's important.”

Mrs. McCracken started up her scooter. “I appreciate, Mr. O'Farrell—”

“It's Denny.”

“Denny. Thank you for your civil tone. We'll see what can be done at the meeting.”

He stepped aside, and Mrs. McCracken scooted on her way, followed by Big Bill Fournier and his rig. Denny walked back under the blazing sun, beads of perspiration in his eyes, to move his truck up. No one was waiting to cross from the other side, and with any luck everyone might get their loads over, one after the other without a further long pause.

■   ■   ■

Jake Withers started late in
the day, due to a bleak outlook and diminished morale, and considered not bothering to get out of bed. He hated his clothes but put them on, which only deepened his ennui. Breakfast was tasteless. He complained to himself about the heat as he clambered into his car and driving around town he found excuses not to intrude upon the lives of elderly men and women toiling in their gardens under their wide-brimmed white hats or lounging on their porches with lemonade and fans. “Bastards might even shoot me,” he moaned aloud. “Fucking hellhole.” Clearly, quite a few people needed new driveways but he'd lost his zeal to rectify their plight or to improve their property values. “Too damned ignorant to know what's good for them.”

Jackson Eugene Withers of the Rathbone Paving Company (“When you introduce yourself, son, for heaven's sake don't mention the word
paving
, not at first, nobody wants to hear that word before they know what it is you have to say for yourself”) had lost his direction. If yesterday, his first on the job, was not a banner day, then today, his second and possibly his last on the job, was surely destined to be much worse.

He was feeling so sorry for himself he could spit. He could even weep.

Still, he was formulating a plan. A partial plan. The more he dwelled on it, the more positive his outlook grew. He liked this kernel of an idea if for no other reason than it excused him from knocking on people's doors. As well, the strategy took him away from a town he was quickly learning to hate. Previously, back when he still idly calculated his monstrous commissions, for he intended to break all existing sales records for paving driveways, he came across a long, winding road in dire need of asphalt. A drive crying out to be paved, the gravel was rutted and pocked. He wasn't able to see far down the slope but noticed that, on the curves, the side walls were giving way. What stood at the bottom of the drive went unobserved, the view blocked by woods, but in his experience long drives led to big mansions and he knew that this one sale could give him enough of a boost to keep him going. Perhaps, he might generate a big enough commission to pack up his scant belongings and go off somewhere else and make his fortune.

He could take a vacation if he made this sale.

Dreaming about a big score mollified his conscience. He possessed a lengthy list of houses to visit, a list now ignored. People were too testy in the heat. He couldn't sell to them. He was perspiring too much and needed to cool down. How could he sell during the middle of the day? The thought of equipment heating asphalt in their front drives was too daunting for most people, he'd be squandering his opportunities if he approached them now—better off leaving everybody in town until later.

So he drove out of town.

He legitimately missed the long switchback drive when he first passed by, and circled around. This time he drove by on purpose, to collect himself and rehearse his pitch. At a slower speed, he motored by a third time to see what he could glean from down the slope. He was right that nothing could be seen. He then remembered a roadside stand about a mile back and guessed that he should really have a pop to cool down and maybe a dog to buoy him up before he made this cold call. Later, refreshed and fed, he passed the driveway yet another time. The world looked cooler down there, and when he approached the drive on his fifth pass he decided that the time was at hand and willed himself to make the turn and start down the driveway under the shelter of the trees.

The road was even rougher than predicted. Rougher than he'd hoped. He might call it a donkey path when addressing the owner. A smart-ass line like that just might seal the deal.

Jake Withers was increasingly excited the farther the road continued. The drift was decidedly lower, but there were inclines, dips, and twists and it was much longer than he assumed. He wondered why anyone would design so many twists. Due to the road's length, he would offer a 20 percent discount. “Right off the bat,” he practised aloud in his car, “although I shouldn't.” He sounded convincing to himself. “On account of the road's poor condition I should charge you top rate per foot, especially with these twists and bad spots. We'll have to build the roadbed up as well and none too soon, let me tell you.” That he was in no position to give anyone a discount was not relevant. He'd first inflate the price before marking it down, no big deal, no harm done, and that way everybody would feel good about the transaction.

If he pulled down this contract he might request a bonus.

By the time the road was bottoming out and a clearing was visible through the trees, Jake Withers was certain of his success both in this job and in life. The car shook upon uneven rock and he swerved to avoid a jutting thick branch that might have taken out his windshield, then he came down onto a muddy plateau and skidded. He braked gently, but felt his tires sliding off the edge of the roadway. He gunned the engine then, which only made the wheels spin more and sideslip. He braked hard, then gunned it, but he was spinning his tires now and going nowhere.

He tried, but he could not get going, and managed only to sink his right rear wheel and its axle deeper. Jake turned off the engine. He needed to collect himself. He gathered his profanities and lined them up on the dash to be screamed aloud, one by one.

But instead, Jake Withers hung his head on the steering wheel and remained silent. He wondered if life would ever be worth living, and would he live to see the day? Only the suffocating heat inside the motionless car roused him from his trance. He wanted to breathe. He looked around, and pulled himself out of the orange Dodge. He examined his straits. At least, he thought, he'd proved the need for a new road surface here, no one could argue against that.

A man was lumbering towards him, a tall, thin man, smoking, moving through the dappled light of the shade trees that were less dense now. Beyond this stand of trees, a clearing showed a clutch of cabins and sheds and, beyond them, a swath of the river. No mansion anywhere. A few fires were burning, which struck Jake as odd in this weather, for although he'd thought that this place looked cooler, it plainly was as hot down here as anywhere else without so much as a whiff of breeze.

The lumbering man stopped to gaze at him across a ditch. He stood quite still, obviously taking in Jake Withers and his stuck car with as much interest as Jake Withers was investing in him. Then he walked closer and started talking before he was near and before Jake Withers took the opportunity to commence his own spiel, or plea for mercy.

“My God, look at what you're wearing,” the stranger railed at him, but Jake Withers was plainly more interested in what the other man was wearing, and also, not wearing. His appearance terrified him. Over his bare chest he sported a narrow vest, which Jake guessed to be deer hide, maybe moose, and multiple long strings of beads. Feathers of some sort, perhaps from nothing more exotic than chickens, fluffed out from the vest's chest pocket like a banker might display a decorative handkerchief. He also wore beads in his hair, which was long and braided in places and coiled in a bun at the back of his neck and here and there knotted in a haphazard way. He didn't have pants on, or nothing that Jake could call pants. He didn't want to use the word
thong
but the skimpy little flag of attire reminded him of just that and as he got closer Jake Withers noticed the dance of mosquitoes around the man's hairy legs. He realized then that he was under attack himself and thrashed away, to beat them off his face. “You'll die of heat prostration. You'll just die.”