The River Burns (7 page)

“Would you excuse me a moment?” she asked him quietly, and went back inside.

Jake Withers had heard that phrase earlier in the day, or one like it, and this time his antennae were alert.

“You don't own a shotgun, do you?” He chuckled nervously.

“Certainly not,” she assured him, and carried on inside. She emerged shortly carrying a croquet mallet.

“What's that?” Jake Withers asked her.

“What does it look like?”

“I'm not sure. It's colourful enough.”

“A croquet mallet.”

“What's it for?” To err on the side of caution, he took a farther step down.

“Given that you want to destroy my croquet lawn with your ridiculous driveway, I thought that it might be perfectly fitting for me to bop you one over the head. It won't hurt that much. I am old, not so strong, so there shouldn't be too much blood. Don't you think that's fitting?”

“Oh, come on!” Jake Withers did a complete spin. “What is wrong with you people in this town! I'm here to pave your driveways and increase your property values and you treat me like
I'm
the criminal!
You're
the criminals! With your shotguns and your weapons! I'm just trying to earn my living here!”

“Not at the expense of my lawn, you won't.”

She didn't have to run him off, he was already leaving on his own accord. He threw his driveway samples into his backseat and flung his hands in the air as he berated the wind. Whatever he was muttering to himself, the flurry came upon Mrs. McCracken as unintelligible.

She watched him drive off, then returned with her mallet to the cool sanctuary of her home where Buckminster yawned in apparent approval. “I'd be better off with a dog,” she told him. “A yappy mutt.” The cat had heard the threat before, and so stretched out, nonplussed, to help cool his furry self.

■   ■   ■

Up from the riverbank, in
from the pubs and cafés, out from the curiosity shops, and down from the trails through the woodlands, excursion train passengers flowed back towards the town's centre and the train station. Tara Cogshill found herself carried along by that current, but as she passed the store she visited earlier she stepped inside. The man with the combed-over haircut and slender nose was hoping for her return. She confessed that his eyes were not so beady, that they were probably his finest feature, soft with a greyness, but believed that they ought to be beady given his subtly creepy demeanour.
Icky.

“You mentioned a business proposition.” He wrung his hands together as he spoke. “I confess that I am quite stumped as to what that might entail. How it relates to the sign in the window—I confess to being baffled.”

Tara smiled. He wasn't that bad a guy, not really. She'd met worse. “You asked if I have retail experience. Isn't every business, ultimately, about selling? Commerce revolves around buyers and sellers. Intrigue is one lure. If you are willing to concede that I garnered your interest, then you kinda have to concede that I've proven something here.”

“Ah, excuse me? Proven what?”

“That I have enough experience to sell. In this case, I'm selling, in a manner of speaking, don't take this the wrong way now, myself.”

Good speech. Major pat on the—

“So,” the shopkeeper supposed. Tara demonstrated that she was giving him her fullest attention, even as he grew hesitant, still baffled. “So you do want the job.”

“Hardly,” Tara let slip.

He nodded, as though to confirm his own assessment. “I didn't think a job in retail was part of your—how shall I put this?—persona.”

Sounding creepier, dude
.

Taking a breath, she pressed on. “A business proposition, sir, that's what interests me. My name is Tara Cogshill.” She stuck out her hand. “You are?”

“Willis Howard. I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Cogshill.”

“Tara,” she corrected him. She wondered if she should not correct him twice, for did he not give his names in reverse order? “I'm pleased to meet you . . . Mr. Howard?” He didn't contradict her, so his first name must really be Willis. “Despite the fact that your anteroom over here is a disaster.”

“Ah.” Willis Howard stepped back, peered over his shoulder. “I do have my secret plans. It's a question of time and, of course, resources.”

“Precisely. That's where I come in. At the moment I have time. In a modest way, resources, too.”

“Ah. You want to redesign my store?”

“Not a chance. Not your store.”

“The anteroom?”

“Own it, actually.”

“Excuse me?”

“The products inside, at least. I'm proposing a store within your store. Which saves me the headache of setting up a business in a town where I've only just arrived. I don't even know my way around yet. This spares us becoming direct competitors, as well. My start-up costs will be minimal. Maybe I can get off the ground without high risk.”

“And,” he said, speaking slowly, smiling as though he found the idiocy of her proposition as amusing as it was irritating, “I'm selling you part of my store because—” He let his voice trail off, waiting for her to finish the sentence. Rather than do that, Tara strolled over to the room in question and gave it another look.

She faced him.

“Dull, useless, wasted space that produces negligible revenue. You can't put items of value in here because you can't keep your eye on them. You can't put big-ticket items in here, such as those grandfather clocks, because if you spent time in this room with a customer your clientele on the other side might rob you blind. You cannot afford—it's illogical—to hire someone merely to keep an eye on this tiny room. So you've made it a junk room that just doesn't pay. No, the only solution that makes sense is to allow me to take over the space, run my own business, one that's complementary to yours, and pay a percentage of sales in lieu of rent. A win-win-win proposition.”

Her proposal flew out with such alacrity, the bows tied and the buttons done up, that Willis Howard was unable to mount a quick defence. He realized that that was exactly what he was attempting to do—defend himself, and his shop, against her onslaught.

“I'm—sorry. I don't think so, Miss, ah—Tara.”

The moment he spoke her name she knew she'd won.

“So I should get on the train, then?”

“Excuse me?” Once more caught off-balance.

She showed him her return ticket. “The train? I get on it?”

In his hesitation Willis Howard was truly lost.

“Departure time is in nine minutes,” she reminded him.

Tara started to back away, holding up her ticket. Facing him. Stepping towards the exit, bopping in a slightly exaggerated fashion, as if she, the fish with a hook in her mouth, was pulling the fisherman into the drink.

“There's a number of complications. Issues. Agreements. I can't have you in direct competition with me.”

“Everything can be worked out down the line. Do I go or stay?”

Abruptly, Willis Howard put aside the negotiation. He simply regarded the young woman before him. She was what he would call, in his own personal vernacular, a straightforward, shining beauty. The vulgarities which sometimes attracted him on the Internet did not come attached to this young woman. Tall, willowy, elegant, even wearing a backpack she exhibited a suave and sophisticated bearing. He assumed that she came from money, perhaps power, good family—something about her pores. Breeding. In any case, he'd not spoken to a woman so pretty at such length over the course of his lifetime, not even as a shopkeeper to a prospective patron. Whatever the ramifications for his business might be, they were now being superseded by a baleful and pathetic internal desire not to let her out of his sight.

But he just couldn't commit to this flimflam arrangement.

Tara pushed him over the edge. “Did I mention that, when my room is bereft of clientele, I can help out on your side of the store, at the cash or wherever? Of course, you'll have to agree to look after my wee alcove whenever I need time away, and when things are quiet.”

“It's so complicated.”

“Simple, actually. Time's on our side. We'll work it out.”

She was nearly out the door. Out. Gone. That light.

“I accept,” he agreed. Just like that. “We'll try it. I just need to know—”

Tara interrupted him by ceremoniously depositing the ticket back in her pocket, then holding up her hand. “The details come later. There's something I must see to before the train departs, Willis. I'll drop in tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded, sensing as he did so that this would not be his first such acquiescence. And knowing that, oddly for him, he didn't mind. Not so much. Not yet.

■   ■   ■

She wanted to see this
done. A trick for the tourists. A nostalgic gesture. She wasn't able to wholly imagine how it was possible so needed to see it for herself. She was like that. At the end of the railway line, the old steam engine that dragged them to Wakefield required that it be turned in a half circle, in order to pull the passenger cars back home while facing elegantly forward. The engine was detached from the train and slowly it eked onto a set of rails laid upon a circular wood platform. Passengers took hold of braces that served the purpose and walked the engine and the round table around until it faced the opposing direction. Tara wanted to see this done, but before the engine was a quarter of the way through she joined in, amazed by how little effort it took. She laughed with the others as the little engine was spun, then shyly stepped away. Travellers were happily embarking, going home. She was not. She was on her own, staying put.

It's official.

I'm here now.

Tara walked away without turning back. As the locomotive pulled out from the station, she was still ambling along slowly, yet faster than the train. Farther along, she could sense it catching up. By then it was time to turn off the road and stroll to an inn she'd first spotted in a pamphlet. She was excited. Feeling exhausted and alone. Everything so far in her new life, from birdsong to the shining water tumbling down the mountain creek to the town itself to her soft steps in the roadside dirt to the way her body slipped and sang along her bones, as if she was dancing on a speckle of light, thrilled her. This was the first big surprise. She expected to feel nothing but sadness for a good long while, to be weepy and forlorn, consumed by defeat, a rejection to herself, as though she intended to be in mourning for her old life and a once-promising career. Instead, she rejoiced.

9

T
hat evening, in the moist, heat-induced tanginess of humid air, Denny O'Farrell tended to the backyard barbecue. His domain. The property bordered a forest. During the summer, the foliage dense with luxuriant growth, he could seldom distinguish his neighbours' homes on either side. Only an occasional, excited, disembodied voice might rise up from other yards to announce a child's presence or a parent's reprimand. His own yard perpetually struggled between its domestic purpose and the wild surrounds. Denny never replaced his old dog when he passed away two years previously, but remnants of Coot's manic diggings remained, the grass scraped bare in patches, the excavations of shallow bone holes never backfilled. In their fervour the kids did their worst as well, running and scrapping and tumbling in the dirt. Tougher weeds abounded, springing from the selvage on the forest's perimeter, taking hold and laying siege. He'd given up on grass, although it grew high around the twin car engines which dominated the backyard. At one time he intended to restore them, or create one functioning engine from the two, but that wasn't going to happen. He'd finally admitted as much to himself, if not to Valérie, and the motors now sat rusting as inexplicable sculptures. Old tires and still-good winter ones fell about in haphazard array, tunnels through a mountain range one afternoon, mini-trampolines the next. At the back of the yard stood a homemade swing set that each child used briefly around the age of three, only to reject in favour of portable toys. His children seemed to share the same adage, that if a toy could not be dragged through the woods where it was undoubtedly clobbered and humiliated for hours on end, then it wasn't worth the playtime. Some toys, of course, never returned from the deeper woods.

Val left her imprint on the backyard as well, it wasn't only Denny's and the kids' doings. She constructed the picnic table herself after giving up on her husband getting around to it, and under where they sat their feet gouged small dirt valleys in the earth, puddles when it rained. She purchased new lawn chairs while allowing old ones to descend into ruin along the perimeter. The decrepit wheelbarrow twisted onto its side spilling a cascade of flowers was also her idea, one that worked, and save for the tomato plants remained pretty much her only attempt at a garden. Following that success she tried something similar with an old wagon discarded by the boys, but no sooner did she plant annuals in it than the boys reclaimed their property, doing so without permission. She made them replant the flowers in the front yard that year but Valérie learned her lesson. Leave their stuff alone, no matter how old or dysfunctional.

An idea to plant cylinder heads with chrysanthemums was scratched.

The backyard adopted its own style. The old and neglected found a home, and consequently the space was much used, typically cheerful and loud.

Boy-Dan, who nicknamed himself when he first learned to talk, a tag that stuck, shouted out the explanation of a point, “It's called a baker's dozen, Dumbelina.”

Denny turned over the chicken breasts on his grill, only vaguely attentive to his kids' incessant chatter.

“That just proves bakers can't count,” Davy astutely parried.

“All right! Geez. We take twelve horsemen each. Okay?”

This division of the spoils held one point of interest for Valou. “How many cannons for me?”

“You got tanks,” Davy reminded her.

“I want cannons, I said! I told you six times already!”

“But I'm the fort!”

“I'm the navy,” Boy-Dan decided on a whim. Until that moment, no one was aware of an ocean. “The ships are mine.”

“Then how come you get the horsemen?” Boy-Dan was the oldest but Davy didn't let him get away with a thing.

“Fine. Split up your stupid horsemen. I get the ships.”

“Davy! Davy!” Valou cried, her voice a veritable shriek that her father considered silencing.

“What?”

“I'll trade you. One cannon for a tank. Even steven.”

Davy was perhaps willing to make that deal, although first he wanted to consider his options, see if a superior trade might be doable. Their negotiation was interrupted just then by their grandfather coming around the side of the house, which caused Valou to drop the whole matter.

“Grandpa!” she cried out.

“Va-looooou!” hooted Alexander O'Farrell, opening his arms wide to snag her.

She ran up to him with her good news. “We're building a fort!”

“Make sure you don't get stuck in the tower.”

“It's only a play fort!”

Alex gathered her up into his powerful arms and hoisted her to his shoulder.

“Play forts have the scariest towers,” he warned her.

As he lowered the lid on the barbecue Denny was engulfed by smoke, and waved a forearm to clear it. “Hey, Dad, how goes the battle?” he asked.

“Good. You?” He sought confirmation from his granddaughter on his shoulder. “It's not so bad, eh, Valou? How goes the world with you?”

“Help yourself to a beer,” Denny invited.

“Don't mind if I do. Thanks.” He went up the steps to the broad wood porch on his achy joints, lifted the cooler's top with his foot, then sat and swung Valou onto a knee in one motion. He executed the move with practised perfection, but this time he winced. His left hand dropped into the cooler and he uncapped a bottle and took a swig and only then did Valou slide from his lap and dash back to join her brothers before they won the war without her.

Val poked her head out the screen door.

“Bonjour, Alex. Stay for dinner?”

Alex offered his typically shy shrug. “Valérie. I don't know.”

“You should. We have enough.”

Where the war waged among ships and forts, tanks and cannons, the voice of the innocent pointed out to her grandfather, “You always do.”

Alex laughed a little at that. So did Val. Whenever he came over at this hour, he stayed for dinner. A foregone conclusion. Stripped of artifice, he consented to the invitation. “That would be nice. If you've got enough.”

“We've got enough,” she assured him, and let the door bang shut.

Warm from the walk over, Alex took another long swig then bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he observed his grandkids in their play. His gaze eventually settled upon his son and somehow Denny had expected that, although he didn't know why. He looked up, inquisitive.

“What's going on?” Denny asked, and grinned, trying to be casual, holding his own beer in one hand, tongs in the other.

“Funny,” Alex said. “That's more or less what I came here to ask you.”

Denny furrowed his brow and gave him another questioning glance, then opened the lid again and was concealed behind a billow of smoke. He squinted and angled his head away. Being the cook bought him some time.

In the kitchen, Val checked the vegetables. She'd made enough. She didn't know why Alex couldn't call first, or come over sooner, but this was his way. So be it. A few of her friends complained about their in-laws but she never did. An extra chicken breast was intended for Denny's sandwich tomorrow, but now she'd snap open a can of tuna for that, no big deal. Nor was cost an issue. They had mouths to feed and Alex never brought food or beer, but a few times a year he'd take home the electricity bill, or ask, “What's this about?” as he picked up her credit card statement off the small desk in the hall where it awaited payment.

As if he didn't know. She'd say, “Alex.”

He'd say, “Never tell your accountant what he hasn't already guessed.” The bill would vanish into his jacket pocket, to be paid by Monday.

What accountant? What did that phrase even mean? He repeated it when, once a year, he mentioned that he was taking care of the mortgage that month.

“Alex, we have money.”

“You pay your own way. I know that. You also have three kids, and your kids have a grandpa mooching off your table half the time, drinking your beer and whisky.”

He brooked no argument, she found out, and so it went. If she was mildly embarrassed earlier on, she no longer felt the need. He wasn't only helping them along, the arrangement made him more comfortable about dropping by for dinner whenever he pleased. He walked a mile to their place, through woods, across a field, then down their road, uphill on the trek back home. The stroll was part of the attraction. Getting his exercise as well as being fed.

On the flip side of the coin she could call him at any time. He stood guard over the kids while she borrowed his car to run an errand, so it worked out. To be on the safe side, though, she put an extra potato in the microwave. She could have that while the others ate the ones that made the kitchen feel like a sauna, boiling away.

Denny came up onto the porch and stood leaning against a support beam, beer in hand and held against his chest. “Same old with me, Dad. Nothing much is up. Batting average has slipped a touch, but there's been a few indications that my good stroke is coming back.”

“In my day—”

“Logger sports, Dad. Maybe you had no time for baseball, I know that, but you had time for logger sports.”

“Logger wars more like it.”

“Yeah. I'm sure that's true. Baseball can be like that sometimes.”

“You mean the tree huggers.”

“Mostly them, yeah.”

“The thing is, Denny, I didn't come over to talk about your batting average.”

They sustained a moment's eye contact and Denny grew uncomfortable. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Alex asked.

“Is it those rumours? I heard a few whoppers myself. About me, about different people. Seriously, Dad, don't pay them any mind.”

“Denny,” Alex shushed him under his breath. “Ssshhh. Look.”

Denny's glance went first to his children, and they were fine, then to the edge of the woods. Alex left his beer on the bench and stood slowly, trying to rise and yet be motionless at the same time. He edged back towards the screen door.

Val's heart constricted as Alex slipped into the kitchen, making doubly sure not to let the door slam or make a sound as it closed behind him, then crept on the balls of his feet to the den.

“Oh no,” Valérie whispered.

He put a finger to his lips.

“The kids.”

“They're safe,” he whispered back and carried on to the gun rack.

She looked out the window. She couldn't see the children. Denny was standing with his back to her, staring out at the forest. “Denny!” she warned under her breath. Yet she meant for him to hear her.

She saw Alex in the den loading a rifle.

“Shit!” Still, she knew only to whisper her alarm.

Valérie went to the door and saw the boys on the back porch, safe, sound, and accounted for. But where, where was Valou?

“Denny!” She tried to get his attention yet still remain virtually silent. “Valou?”

Alex O'Farrell tapped his daughter-in-law's shoulder and she moved aside just enough to let him pass with the rifle, then she followed him out the door. Valou remained in the yard, but she was coming their way, a valiant effort to make no sound as she sneaked up on her tippy-toes to the porch steps. Alex passed the rifle to Denny, who took aim.

Deer grazed at the edge of woods and yard.

Risky. This was not hunting season.

He was waiting for a doe to step onto his property.

“Denny!” she whispered hotly, her anxiety apparent while hushed. “Valou!”

Her daughter was not safe, still not out of harm's way.

Just then, a deer glanced up, startled as Valou tripped on a miniature cannon she missed seeing, stumbled, and Valérie jumped to catch her, although that was impossible, and she lightly jostled Denny as he fired. Quick as gusts, the deer vanished amid the trees.

The shot boomed in their ears and echoed off the trees.

“You missed,” Alex remarked.

“The doe spooked.”

Valérie erupted.

“Denny, you shithead! What the fuck's the matter with you!”

“Mommy, you said a bad word.”

“Block your ears, Valou. Put your hands over your ears right now.”

The urgency in her voice compelled her daughter to obey. The little girl cupped her palms over her ears, though with negligible effect on her hearing.

“Boys! Same thing!” She pointed a forefinger at each of them. “Right now.”

They cupped their ears also, although long ago they learned to make it look good yet fully admit sound.

Denny ejected the spent shell.

“You stupid dumb ugly—” Valérie mouthed her expletive, so that the children were excluded from hearing her talk that way but Denny still got the message. She was seriously pissed. He wanted to defend himself but thought better of it.

“You shot right over her head! Right over her head! You freaking imbecile! You idiot!” Storming inside, she punctuated her rage by slamming the door.

The children uncupped their ears and awaited their dad's reaction. He'd provide their cue as to what to think. When he shrugged, Davy and Boy-Dan looked set to bust a gasket.