Absolution River (4 page)

IX

Man often used to walk into open spaces. That untouched nature to restore his soul. Experiencing something grander than himself in the hopes that bright and shining light rubbed off on him, if even just a small part. Though it seems men have been flocking to larger cities. They huddle around the small dying fire that are our grand cities for that last glimpse of hope and warmth before it goes out for the last time. As the cities overpopulate it merely increases the speed at which the fuel of our humanity is consumed. A fuel found in the nowhere places, the abandoned places.

The drifter contemplated this often in his own quiet places with pity and condemnation. As he lay there in the evening light with the sun going down ever so slowly, creating a small glow over the horizon, he pondered the inevitable destruction of hope. Not a loss of humanity but that fire inside of each person that holds all of the power. The hope, drive, love, compassion, thoughtfulness and honor lost in those he has met along his journey. What was
his
place in this world?

The sun had come down fully over the horizon and he decided to move quickly to prepare his bedding. He didn’t have the energy to hunt tonight, so he just ate what was left of last night’s kill and laid down. His eyes were closing, and clutching his mother’s hairpin with white knuckles, he quickly drifted off to sleep.

The day had barely decided to begin when he awoke with a stir nearby. He slowly opened one eye to examine the area around him. He smelled the air and quieted his breathing to determine if there was any disturbance. A faint odor of flesh and urine filled his nose and without moving he was fully aware that a predator was within striking range of him. With one smooth motion he got up and pulled his Native American short blade. Its handle was of an Elk antler and the blade diamond sharp. He sat there crouched in an attack posture and assessed the situation as he had done a thousand times. Before him was an all black wolf with yellow eyes.

The animal was large, bigger than any wolf that Jack had ever seen. The eyes were also different. There was an intelligent quality about it. He couldn’t quite figure out what it was about this animal that was strange to him, he only sensed that this behavior was not normal. Throughout Jack’s life he had been keenly aware of Cheyenne culture. It was an inevitability living in Montana. The duality of the wolf is divided between protection and destruction. This animal lived between two worlds, with a separation of the inward self that is experienced by most men. Struggling to find what is good but often finding being left with only what is evil. There are moments in a man’s life where the decision to be one or the other is only determined by a few choices. Those choices shape who you are and there are so many who choose so poorly.

Jack snapped out of this rabbit hole of his subconscious as he noticed the wolf slowly moving its way toward him. Its steps were heavy, as the wolf was easily twice Jack’s size. Unsure of to do, he stood his ground, ready for anything. In a moment the wolf leaped a distance of ten feet. The paws were massive and the impact hard on his chest as he was laid out onto the rocky ground. His spine would have easily been broken from the animal’s force had it not held back.
Why did it hold back?
Jack’s ankle burst with pain as he saw it twisted in the wrong direction. There was no time to address the injury as he felt the breath from the vicious predator on his face. The smell of rotting meat was heavy as Jack struggled for breath from the weight of the animal. Its head came down closer and closer. Their faces were but inches from each other. Eyes locked once again as it seemed the wolf was trying to savor its fresh prey. When the animal released its hold on Jack and allowed him to breathe once again, there was something very peculiar about the way it was acting. There seemed to be something that it wanted to communicate but could not within the physical limitations of its current form. This was no animal. It was there for a purpose. There was something it was trying to say and it could not.

The animal turned and walked fifty feet to the edge of the woods. It turned and once more, for only a moment, locked eyes with Jack. Its head went down in seeming frustration with its inability to say what it was sent to say. Then as quickly as it came, it was gone into the dense woods.

Jack sat up and brushed himself off, assessing the injury. His ankle was getting bigger by the minute and his attempt to put weight on it ended in utter agony. As he collapsed to the ground, waiting for the pain to subside, his mind landed on an image of his father. His cruelty was uncompromising and his desertion the reason Jack could not live in this world. Jack also remembered a few times when his father was sober. The times were rare, and there was a long stretch after his mother passed that his father hardly drank at all. His mind switched to an evening when the sun was coming down over the farm. The barn was empty and they spent the entire day bailing and tossing hay into the back of the tractor. The work was hard but they worked together. Even laughed more than once. Jack didn’t know what to think of his father then, as a sixteen-year-old boy who had been beaten nearly his entire youth, he was confused by those kinds of days. He welcomed them and tried to enjoy every moment with a father that was real, and maybe even loved him. What happened at the end of the day was amazing and painful at the same time. It was a glimmer of a hope that never came alive, the thought that his father might actually father him. Be a light that he never thought he would see. As they walked back to the house, each sweaty and dirty from the day, his father put his arm around his boy. They walked like that all the way to the porch. Those hundred yards were the happiest that Jack had ever been. He savored every step. Even through the hatred from the years of torment, he was still in that moment, hopeful for a future where that was all behind them. They could finally be a family.

Jack lifted himself up to one foot and hobbled back to his campsite. Dazed at the revelation this wild animal brought to him.

X

Arch awoke that morning with a screaming headache. He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a bottle of some type of booze and drank those last few drops. He threw the bottle to the floor and sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the ground. He was usually in a stage of disbelief in the mornings as he continued to disbelieve and discount the purpose of continuing on to another day. As this sensation passed he moved over to the television and flipped on the local news. He went over to the mirror and looked at himself. He didn’t look good, and he didn’t care. He thought about taking a shower but decided against it, as he will just be sweaty and dirty again in a few hours. He overheard the news about some kids who were arrested for trespassing on private property, apparently a bunch of nature enthusiasts. He laughed under his breath. He left the motel room and was blinded temporarily by fresh daylight and cursed under his breath. To his right down the exterior motel walkway he saw Charlene passed out and curled into a ball.

“Stupid bitch,” he mumbled under his breath.

Arch got into his truck and drove to the work site. He arrived at the office and Fred was sitting there.

“Oh great, what now?” He whispered to himself.

“Hey Arch, uh, how’s things?” Fred nervously asked.

“Why in the fuck do you care?” Arch replied.

“Well uh, just thought you should know, that uh, some of the scouts found an old cabin in the woods in the new sector. Thought you know, uh, you should know, you know?”

“Who gives a shit, drive over it with the DC-10, and get me some damn coffee!” Arch demanded.

“Well, uh, you see the problem, is uh, they think that someone lives there,” Fred replied.

“Did I ask if someone did or did not live there? Run it the fuck over!” Arch screamed.

His headache was moving from bad to critical and if he didn’t get a fix he was going to hurt something.

Fred was cautious in his response, “Well, uh, sir, the problem is the scouts won’t do anything until they are sure no one lives there”.

“Uh huh, I see,” replied Arch, losing interest in the topic entirely.

“What should we do?” Fred asked.

“Take a fucking team, and fucking check the fucking cabin, do you fucking understand?” Arch groaned.

Fred nodded and left as quickly as he could. He understood the moods of Arch better than most. Arch moved over to his desk and opened the bottom left drawer. In it contained raunchy magazines, small baggies of cocaine, and half-drunk bottle of whiskey. He pulled out the cocaine and formed two lines with a razor blade he kept with the rest of his goodies. He brought the mirror to his nose and snorted them simultaneously. He could feel the headache and pain drift away. After a moment of relief he ran to the trailer door and flung it open. He could see Fred walking away and he yelled, “Nothing will stop this operation, you hear me, nothing!”

Fred nodded and walked over to a crew who had already assembled.

“Alright guys, you heard the boss. We gotta find out if someone lives in that cabin or not. Frankly, I don’t think he cares if someone does or not. We at least ought to warn whoever might live there,” said Fred.

There were nods all around and they mounted up. The cabin was twelve miles from where the office was located. They drove through the rough forestry roads and had to walk in about a mile to where the scouts located the cabin. Fred and his men walked up on the cabin and it didn’t look like anyone was home.

“What you think, Freddy?” said Marty, one of the lesser minds of the group.

“Dunno, I’ll check the front door,” replied Fred.

He walked around the small cabin. It was very old with firewood lined up along the west side of the structure. In the front was a stack of un-chopped wood and an axe planted into a large stump. Before he reached the front door to knock, he heard wailing back from where he came.

“Ah! My leg, my fucking leg!” yelled one of the workers.

“Holy shit man,” replied Marty in disgust as he saw what had happened.

Fred ran up to the screams and came upon the men standing around the wounded worker. Holy shit is right, he thought as he looked at the carnage. What he saw was a massive bear trap and the worker’s leg, or what remained of it, completely severed. Another worker turned and threw up behind some bushes, and that made everyone even queasier.

“Alright, alright, uh, Marty, grab the med kit from the truck,” Fred yelled nervously. “You,” as he pointed to some of the workers, “give me your shirts, we gotta stop the bleeding.”

Fred took the dirty shirts and began to wrap them around the wound. Marty returned quickly with the med kit and gave it to Fred. Fred grabbed the pre-made tourniquet designed for chainsaw wounds and closed it around the worker’s leg just below the knee.

“You and you,” as Fred was pointing to some of the workers, “take him to the truck and get him the hell out of here. Take his leg with.”

The workers just kind of stared at each other, then at the wounded worker, then at the leg still in the trap, in a state of shock.

“Now!” screamed Fred.

One of them picked up the wounded worker and wrapped his arm around his neck and they began to hobble to the truck. The other moved to the trap and looked at the mangled body part. He put his forearm over his mouth to somehow hold the vomit in and it seemed to work. He saw the leg still in the teeth of the bear trap. He put both hands on the boot still attached to the leg and gave it a good tug. The bone in the leg was still gripped by the trap and he had to tug a couple more times before it was released. On the last tug he gave everything he had and the trap released, sending him flying backwards, the leg ending up on his chest. He pushed it off of him frantically while some of the workers stood and watched. Some horrified, others trying to keep the laughter in. He got up, snatched the leg with one hand and dragged it through the woods to catch up with the leg’s owner. Fred walked over to the bear trap to get a better look and noticed something peculiar. The traps’ teeth were filed down to a razor’s edge. Fred was no trapper, but he knew the teeth needed to be dull to keep the animal alive and fresh. Someone had done something to this trap, and it didn’t seem meant for animals.

Fred and the remaining crew went up to the cabin, with significantly more caution than before. They huddled around the front discussing what to do, not wanting to disappoint Arch. A few moments later, an old man, maybe in his sixties, came through the woods on an old path. He was very disheveled and looked like he had been out there a very long time. His beard was long and white, and his gray-white hair was in a ponytail halfway down his back. He wore animal skin clothing from head to toe. In one hand he carried an old flintlock rifle and a blade made from animal bone in the other.

“Look alive guys”, said Fred quietly. “Hello sir! Excuse me, sir?”

Eli came within a few feet of the men and, without any acknowledgment, walked past them to bring his fresh trappings into the cabin. He emerged moments later with the furs and hung them up on a string near the entrance. He had his head down. He grabbed his pipe from a pouch he wore and pulled some tobacco out. After he loaded the pipe he drew a match. He struck the match on the cabin exterior and slowly and meticulously lit it. Eli took a deep breath of the sweet tobacco and savored it for a moment. He looked up and in the calmest manner asked, “Can I help you gentlemen?”

“Yeah man, you fucking almost killed one of my guys with your fucking trap!” yelled Fred.

“I see,” replied Eli taking another puff from his pipe. His eyes barely visible below the brim of his animal skin prospector hat.

“You fucking see, well I guess everything is okay then!” screamed Fred.

“Is there something I can help you with, gentlemen?” Eli again asked in a manner unfamiliar to the other men. There was a quiet way about him. As if he had figured everything out and was content with the way the world was, or the way it had to be.

“So I guess you live here huh?” Fred stated with frustration and a mild case of disbelief.

“Yes sir, I do,” replied Eli.

“Well, hate to say it bud, but you won’t for long,” Fred said with some pleasure.

“I see,” replied Eli without an ounce of reaction.

“So like uh, you gotta pack up, okay?” Fred queried.

There was no response from Eli. He simply stood there and puffed away on his pipe. He looked up into the trees and admired the sun shining through the leaves. He looked back down at the men. “Rain’s coming, you better pack up if ya don’t want to get wet,” said Eli.

“Rain is fucking coming, what the fuck are you talking about, there isn’t a cloud in the sky!” Fred exclaimed “We are coming through here with a full mechanized lumber operation in a few weeks, you gotta be outa here, okay? If not, you know, my boss ain’t as nice as me. He’ll run right over your little paradise here and laugh while doing it.”

Eli nodded in acknowledgment of the statement but not in acceptance of its terms. Fred knew this was not a man that would just lie down. He had a feeling that this was the beginning of something and he was afraid of what Arch would do. Fred wasn’t a killer, but he knew Arch was, and had.

“Three weeks, okay old man? Oh, and I gotta tell the boss what you did to my friend and his leg, he ain’t gonna just let that one go.”

Eli just looked at Fred and was unwavering in his concentration on him. Fred looked down and yelled to his crew that it was time to leave. They walked past the bear trap and felt the urge to vomit rise again. A few revisited that bush and eventually they were all on their way back to the truck. They got in and began to drive back to the main office. Fred was driving and soon he noticed drops of rainfall on the windshield.

…

Anders woke in the middle of the night. He had been sweating profusely while experiencing the same nightmare he had most nights. Aponi woke with him, “what’s wrong sweetie? The same dream?”

Anders nodded, “The same dream. This time it was different somehow. It started the same, but the details were clearer. I think I remember one of the guys I served with in the war.”

“Who?” His wife asked.

Anders ran out to the living room. The morning light was just beginning to break through the living room window. The baby began to cry and his wife went to comfort her. Aponi came out of the spare bedroom with the baby and began to rock her back and forth. Anders grabbed the photograph of him and his comrades that sat on the mantle. He looked at it in the morning light. A look of wonderment and disbelief spread across his face. He pointed to a man in the photo, “I saw him.”

“Of course you did, you guys served together,” said Aponi.

“No, I mean I just saw him, he was released from the prison yesterday.”