Into This River I Drown (65 page)

Cal. Cal. Cal.

I try to make her see with my eyes, try to tell her what my soul is screaming for. She looks scared and she’s yelling at someone over her shoulder, and then she looks back down at me, telling me it’s okay, to calm down, that everything will be fine.

Cal, I try and tell her. Cal.

But then I’m in the dark again.

I’m cognizant
on what I’m told is my fourth day in the hospital. Apparently, my right lung collapsed after being shot, hence the need for intubation to clear all the rising fluid in my chest. I was Life-Flighted through the storm and taken to Eugene, where surgery was performed on my lung and to remove the bullet from my chest. I woke up on the third day and had some sort of panic attack then collapsed back into unconsciousness for another eighteen hours.

My right wrist was shredded from the pocketknife. I am told I will have heavy scarring on my wrist unless I would like to consider plastic surgery. I wave the offer off tiredly. I don’t care what my wrist looks like. It’s now heavily bandaged. The stitches itch horribly. No one will help me scratch it.

My ankle is severely strained. I have contusions in varying shades of greens and yellows, blues and purples, covering my entire body. Cuts on my legs and arms. My nose is running, and I have a wet cough I can’t seem to shake.

And that’s the biggest concern, I’m told. The potential for pneumonia. It’s no wonder, the doctors say, seeing as how I was found in the river in the middle of a storm by a passing motorist who then drove me back into Roseland. They’d seen a flash of my clothing and had almost continued on but stopped. I say nothing to this, casting only a casual glance toward my mother, who looks away. We both know that’s not what happened. The risk for infection is quite high, though, the doctors say, and I’m not exactly out of the woods yet.

The path of the bullet was, I am told, miraculous. Aside from nicking my lung, it bounced off a rib, breaking it in the process, and embedded itself in muscle. It didn’t strike any other organs or any other bone. The doctors can’t figure out how a shot from a rifle didn’t cause much more severe damage at such close range. I’m told I must have a guardian angel on my shoulder.

The doctors leave, telling me I’ll need plenty of rest, though I have quite a few people waiting to speak to me.

The room is covered in balloons and flowers, stuffed animals and cards. My mother tells me it seems like everyone in Roseland has sent me something, and that there’s been quite the stream of visitors to the hospital here, though they’ve all had to stay out in the waiting room. There were always at least five or six of them, and they seemed to take turns. It’s a funny thing, she says, how close our town really seems to be. She grips my hand tightly as she says this.

“Mom?” I ask her tiredly. “What’s going on? Where’s Cal?”

A tear rolls down her cheek.

Dread fills me. “Where is he?”

A shuddering sigh. Then, “He’s dying, Benji.”

The storm hit faster than they thought it would, back in Roseland. One minute it was just cloudy and overcast and they were all enjoying the festival, and the next it was like Heaven itself had opened up and poured down. The rain, my mother says, was a frightening thing, cast almost sideways by the roaring wind. The gusting wind itself blew down Poplar Street, knocking over signs and breaking windows. The booths and displays for the festival were toppled almost immediately. Most of the town was at the festival, and the majority took refuge in the church, the rest in the Grange. It was strange, some whispered, how the wind had seemed to blow them directly into these places. Some tried to leave but turned back when it became impossible.

There were concerns that the river would rise too high and flood the streets. Sandbags were placed out along the church and the Grange as a precaution, just in case floodwaters began to chase after them.

My mother was in the church, with Mary and Nina.

The power flickered on and off before finally just staying off. Candles were lit as people huddled together, listening to the storm rising outside. My mother was panicking, not knowing where I was. She tried calling me many times, but eventually the signal cut out and her phone was useless. Mary and Nina tried to calm her, to let her know I was obviously with Cal and Abe and that we’d be okay. Christie, they said, would also be okay because she was at Big House.

There had been nothing to do but wait.

And pray.

My mother says she prayed that day. She prayed for the first time in a very long time. Pastor Landeros was leading a quiet service for those who wanted it, but my mother wasn’t listening. She was sitting toward the back, looking at the beautiful stained glass window set high on the other side of the church. It was a circle of so many whites and greens and reds and yellows, with St. Jude Novena in the center, a red beard, long flowing robes of green and brown. And blue. So much blue.

Her grandmother had taken her to this very church on many occasions when my mother was a child. She remembered a prayer she’d been taught when she asked who that man in the glass was.
That’s St. Jude Novena
, her grandmother had told her.
And he has a special prayer, one made for your darkest hour. But prayers are not like wishes, my child. They won’t always come true. But if you pray hard enough, surely someone will listen, and that, my darling, is what prayer is all about.

So my mother prayed, and recited the prayer of St. Jude Novena.

Most holy apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly that my son is safe from harm so that I may praise God with you and all the elect forever.

I promise, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.

Amen
.

Seven minutes later, the doors to the church blew open with a great crash. Wind and rain flew into the church. People shouted and screamed. And then all fell silent when the impossible happened.

An angel entered the church, deep blue wings spread wide, water dripping onto the floor. He had a panicked look on his face as he looked from side to side. “Help,” he croaked out. “I need help. Someone, please. Help me. He’s hurt and I can’t fix him. Please.” He looked down at the body he carried in his arms. “He won’t wake up. Please just wake up. Please, Benji. Just wake up.”

My mother gives me a fragile smile now, from her place next to my hospital bed. “You’d have thought,” she says, “people had seen angels all the time with the way things happened next. Doc Heward ran forward and made him lie you down. I was holding your hand and crying so hard I couldn’t see straight. Others came forward and offered to help. Rosie got blankets. Mary got the first-aid kits. Jimmy brought fresh water, and the Clarks went back to try and radio for help.

“But it was Nina who went to him first. Our little Nina. He stood, off to the side, watching the doc work on you. His eyes never left your face, not until she came over to him. She walked right up to him and reached up to touch his face. He closed his eyes and sobbed, just once, his whole body shaking.”

Everyone fell silent then, watching the tiny woman touch the gigantic angel. The doc continued to work on me, but even he glanced out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh, Blue,” Nina said finally, her voice quiet. “You are in so much pain.”

“My heart hurts, little one,” Cal choked out. “I cannot lose him. Not now. Not ever. I would be lost.”

“What does your Father say?” she asked.

“Nothing. He has forsaken me.” His voice was bitter.

Nina smiled up at the angel. “He would never forsake you. You just aren’t listening.”

The angel trembled… and then he collapsed.

“Where is he?” I demand now, horrified. “You didn’t bring him here, did you?” I can only think of him being locked in a room while having experiments performed on him by people who need explanations, who need everything broken down to exact science rather than being able to believe in the impossible. “Please tell me he’s not here!”

My mother shakes her head. “No, baby. We didn’t. He’s still in the church. The doc has been watching over him. Hell, the whole town has been watching over him. But there’s not much more the doc can do. He’s fading, Benji. Cal’s fading. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She has tears in her eyes when she finishes.

I’m still so very angry, though I don’t know if the anger is directed toward him anymore. I don’t know how it could be, but part of me still feels the need to place blame. Part of me feels none of this needed to happen, that Cal shouldn’t have been put in the impossible situation of deciding between the lives of two men. My father didn’t need to die. So many things didn’t need to happen but did because of God. Because of his games. Because of his design.

I love you,
Cal had said.

“I need to see him,” I mutter. “He needs me.” I make to get up from the bed, but my body is one gigantic ball of pain and I can barely move. I groan as I force my way through it, but my mother leaps up from the chair and pushes me back down.

“You need your rest,” she says sternly. “I swear to God, if you try to leave here and something happens to you because of it, I will never forgive you.”

“If he dies while I’m here,” I say to her coldly, “I will never forgive
you
.” And in my secret heart, I know this to be true, no matter how dark it makes me feel.

She flinches and looks away.

See me,
I pray to him.
Cal, see my thread. Please hold on. Please don’t leave me. I need you.

But anger continues to rise. At her. At my father. At God and Michael. And at Cal. Mostly, at him.

Sleep takes me only moments later.

Many
people want to speak to me the next day. Doctors, therapists. Nurses and radiologists. They all have questions as they poke and prod me, as they take my blood or wheel me down to yet another test. I’m lucky, I’m told repeatedly. Only a few more inches to the left, and the bullet would have pierced my heart. So lucky, they sigh. I could have died, they say in hushed voices. It’s a miracle.

Many people want to speak with me the next day, but none more than the FBI.

Turns out a man named Teddy Earle was found wandering near Old Forest Highway with some surface burns on his skin. He was dazed and slightly confused. He said that his friend had been burned to a crisp, that his boss was gone when he awoke. He was taken to a clinic in Jackson County, and when they found crystal meth in his pocket, they called the police. Police came (thankfully, I was told, not the Douglas County Sheriff’s office) and Mr. Earle was interviewed. Turns out he had quite the tale to tell, dropping names most could not believe. A psychopath named Jack Traynor. A dead arrestee named Arthur Davis. An FBI agent named Joshua Corwin. A sheriff named George Griggs. A mayor of a small town named Judd Walken. The woman in charge named Christie Fisette.

And, of course, a man named Edward Benjamin Green. Big Eddie, to his friends.

The storm cleared and four different law enforcement agencies ascended the mountain to the caves Earle had pointed them to. They found remnants of a large methamphetamine operation up there. They found the body of Mr. Earle’s associate, a man named Horatio Macias. They found the body of one Abraham Dufree, pulled away into the forest. Eventually, they found the body of George Griggs, who had drowned in the river, pinned up against a rock by a tree.

Mayor Walken fled the day of the storm. He made it as far as Glendale, forty miles down the road. His car was found overturned in the river. They thought he survived the impact, but might have drowned when the water rose too high. He must have lost control, they said.

Jack Traynor was found a day later, washed up on the banks down river five miles away.

My Aunt Christie was found the day before I woke up. Her body was deep in the woods, huddled up against a large rock. It was unclear exactly how she died, but most likely it was from exposure. It appeared she’d gotten turned around while trying to escape into the woods. Water, I was told, had filled her lungs. Like she had drowned. They didn’t know how that had happened.

I told those who asked what had happened, leaving Cal out of every part of it. I told them about Traynor trying to run us off the road. I told them how Abe had saved us by shooting Traynor in the head. I told them about how Griggs and my aunt had shown up only moments later. I told them about my meeting with Corwin, and how Griggs and Christie tried to use Abe to find out if I’d told anyone else. I’d told them, my voice breaking, how they’d shot Abe right in front of me.

I told them about my escape, the explosion, my run through the woods. I told them how Griggs had followed me, and that he shot me, only to slip and fall into the river. Did I remember who found me? No. Did I remember getting taken back into town? No. Did anyone in town remember who had brought me in?

Apparently no one did. Just some stranger, the agents were told. Some stranger who passed right on through and didn’t leave any information.

Small towns take care of their own.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” an agent named Nathan Rosado told me once the interview was done. “Most wouldn’t have gotten away like you did. You did a very brave thing, even if you had no business trying to go up there in the first place.” But his admonishment was soft, and I saw he was impressed. I knew I’d corroborated almost everything Mr. Earle had told them, and Agent Rosado told me that most likely I wouldn’t have to testify, seeing as how almost everyone involved appeared to be dead. “There will be more questions, though,” he said. “But those can wait for now.”