The Urn Carrier (7 page)

“Xander.”

“Exactly.”

Even her mom is attracted to Xander. All the older ladies are. He
can charm the pants off most anyone. Except Tessa. And he’s tried. Tessa told
Dina who just laughed it off with, “If he hadn’t tried with you, I’d worry he
was sick.”

“So once you’re past Indiana which road do you take, 65? Or 75 to
Florida?”

Her mother has said a whole paragraph and Tessa has to catch up
with her.

“Uh, I dunno.” She realizes she’s twisting the hair by her ear.
She drops her hand. “Sorry.”

”Oh, I know, it’s boring talking to your mother, but will you do
me a favor?”

“Maybe.”

“Will you call me tonight? I have to get ready for work.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“I know, honey. I just want to hear your voice. I’ll keep it
short. Let’s try for eight, okay?”

Tessa nods because she can’t seem to find it in her right now to
say no.

Chapter 8

IN PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wisconsin the Mississippi is wide and slow.
Tessa stands on the banks as she contemplates where to spread ashes.

“Are you kayaking the river?” a voice behind her asks.

She turns to see a young man, about her height, a bit robust, hair
on his chest, in kayak shorts and shoes, finely muscled legs, carrying a single
kayak over his shoulders.

“Uhm, I’ve never actually kayaked a river. I wouldn’t know how to
get back.” Tessa points to the truck and camper.

“Nice rig.” He looks her over as if making a decision. “I already
posted my car downstream and rode my bike back.” He indicates a bike locked up
at the park. “You could just leave your rig at the Villa Louis Museum and tell
them we’re kayaking downstream and will be back this afternoon.” He sticks his
hand out. “My name is J Prince. Not like the singer. I just don’t like my first
name, so call me Jay or Prince.”

“Tessa.”

Murphy lets Prince pet him.

“Okay,” Tessa agrees. “But I’ve only kayaked a lake. Not a river.”

“Well, the Mississippi is basically a lake at this point. A series
of large basins divided by the locks and dams.”

Tessa has no clue what Prince is talking about, but she nods
along.

Once the museum folks, who know Prince, okay Tessa leaving her
rig, Prince carries her kayak for her down to the river. He stands in the cool
waters of the Mississippi, holding the bow, and Murphy readily jumps in and
lies down, then Tessa steps in the middle, like Paul had shown her.

She sits and Prince hands her the paddle and shoves her out. She
drifts toward midstream, panic rising in her, but he quickly joins her.

“Let’s just float a little,” Prince suggests. “Let the river carry
us.”

As they float, Tessa’s fast beating heart returns to normal. They
talk about nothing and everything. Pretty soon they are casually paddling, and
then they are really moving downstream.

“This is fun!” Tessa exclaims. “And easy. Easier than in the
lake.”

“That’s because the river is helping you.” Prince smiles, then
points his paddle up. “Look there.” A giant thunderbird is painted onto the
limestone cliffs.

“Is that real?” Tessa asks.

“Mmmm, not really. Some hippies in the seventies painted it.
That’s what my folks say. Then every year some historical group keeps up on it,
near where the original was.”

“But how do they get there?”

“These days they rappel, and use harnesses, maybe? I don’t really
know.”

“So why are you kayaking?”

“I’m training for a triathlon, but it’s still too cold to swim, so
I run and bike and kayak.”

“You’re ambitious.”

“I just like to be outside.” Prince smiles.
“What’s your story?”

Tessa pulls out a little zip lock bag of ashes.

“Great Aunt Sadie. Took a trip with Uncle Percy around the states
and now I’m spreading her for the family.”

“Are you serious? That’s sort of awesome.”

“Yeah, actually I have to do ceremony.”

Prince looks at her blankly.

“It’s a family thing.”

“That’s cool, but you might want to wait till we get down to the
Piasa bird.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s another painted bird on the limestone. The big one is
further down the river in Alton. That one has a lot of imitators. The original
was mined out a long time ago, so they put one down by Alton, and there’s one
up here. Some locals insist the Piasa belongs up here anyway. And, it’s really
not supposed to be a bird. It’s supposed to be supernatural dwarves; little
people with super powers.”

“Like aliens?”

Prince chuckles. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Well, I’d better not tell Mom. She’s into that stuff. She’d be
here in a heartbeat. Great Aunt Sadie was little and she definitely had power,”
Tessa muses as they paddled away from the thunderbird.

And definitely revered.

“When we break for lunch we should be close. There’s a nice wide
sandy beach there too. Do you need fire for your ceremony?”

Tessa shakes her head. “I have a candle and a feather and some sage.”

After lunch, out of respect, Prince stays back as Tessa walks the
beach and looks at the painted creature. Prince said the one in Alton had
wings, but this one looks more like a dragon, with a tail flipped around almost
to its head.

Its eyes are shiny and its mouth is open. It reminds Tessa of
Maori warriors in New Zealand. Prince is right. This is the perfect place.

Tessa closes her eyes and gets real quiet. Murphy sits beside her.
She calls in her guides and all the people that have gone before her. She calls
in the four directions. Most of this she does silently, then she calls in the
elements. Sometimes she’ll find a feather on the way, or a rock, like a
heart-shape rock or quartz. Today she is just with Murphy and Prince, so she
uses Josh’s feather. She lights the sage and cleanses herself with it, and
Murphy. And the ashes. Then she walks into the water and blesses her Great Aunt
once more, and releases the ashes. Then she takes a picture of the ashes and
the water as she has every time. And sends it in a message to Mr. Forsythe.

“I didn’t know iPhones were part of ceremony,” Prince calls out.

Tessa grins and walks toward him. “Ahhh yes, the sacred iPhone
family ceremony.”

“That’s pretty cool. I respect you for taking the time to care for
your Aunt that way.”

“I’m doing it for Aunt Sadie
and
the family.”

“Murphy seems to take it pretty seriously too.”

“He does, doesn’t he?”

Prince points to the purple bird foot birthmark on her left thigh.
“That’s a cool mark.”

“Yeah, my twin has one just like it.” Tessa wishes she hadn’t said
that.

“Well, why isn’t your twin here?”

“He’s got a job. Couldn’t take time off.” Tessa hates lying so she
wills herself to believe it’s true, in a way.

Prince doesn’t dwell on it. “Let’s scoot. We have a few miles to
cover yet.”

Chapter 9

WHEN JOSH FIRST found Tessa and Eli, he saw Eli crying and trying
to hold Tessa’s intestines in. Josh snapped his knife in the bloodied snow and
commenced to treat her like he would any animal on the farm; a cow with a
prolapsed uterus, a calf with fescue and half a hoof gone. He opened his kit
and, thankful that Tessa had passed out, proceeded to field stitch her.

He ordered Eli to grab the travois in the back of the truck so Eli
could trek Tessa out. He did not want to chance the jumbling of the truck with
his fragile stitching. They bundled her tightly in a blanket wrap so as Eli
pulled the travois, she wouldn’t be jostled. And he directed Eli to the shorter
route, only five hundred feet to where an ambulance siren was already approaching.

“Go! Now. Meet them over the hill. Straight to Traverse City. Tell
them she fell on her knife.” 

He handed Eli his.

“Now!” Eli, still in shock, nodded dumbly as he gazed at the other
figure in the snow.

“I’ll take care of everything else. The less you know, the better.
Go!”

Josh knelt next to Gabe and turned him over. Grimacing, he gently
lifted the part of the scalp that had been almost cut clean through. He wrapped
tight the head wound before heaving Gabe’s lifeless body over his shoulder.

Josh carried him over the snow that would melt first in the next
day or two with the rains and forty degree temperatures. He walked right in
their footprints they had made coming up the hill. He belted the body in his
truck and trussed him up. He took a moving blanket from the bed of the truck
and wrapped Gabe in it. He put sunglasses and an oversized wool hat on him.
Gabe looked as if he was sleeping.

Josh drove out, bucking and spinning the way he came in. He would
return to this spot at dawn and, with any luck, no one would be the wiser till
then.

Josh kayaked with the lifeless form across the river. His strokes
were methodical and consistent. The body in front sat hunched over, unmoving.
Almost frozen.

Josh’s cousins were waiting for them on the Canadian side. The fog
was barely lifting in the early morning hours. Josh tried to keep his mind on
the task at hand and not worry about Tessa. She was in good hands now. She was
strong and he had to trust she would survive.

The cousins pulled the kayak in. They helped Josh move the limp
form from the front and treat his body carefully, like an elder, like glass.

They made a strange contingent of men with
long hair in Levi jackets and jeans, muddied work boots, a small parade in the
thicket of swamp cedars. Silently they walked, carrying a gurney. Two Ford
trucks waited for them, indistinguishable from all the other logging work
trucks and crew cabs in that part of Ontario. Chainsaws, fuel cans, bar oil.
They rumbled down the two track and eventually to a deserted hard-top road.

No cars for miles. The lead truck turned right and a hand waved.
The truck the elder’s body was in turned left and began its journey. First to
Sudbury, and a small shack a mile off the train tracks and eventually to the
original clan; the caribou followers.

Josh was already halfway across the river with one final task to
finish. After stowing the kayak on the ladder rails of his truck, Josh drove
the three hours back. This time he came in from the east on the Rayle Road.
Just as he thought, half the snow had melted in the several hours he had been
away. He parked, found a barely discernable path, and hiked to a deer blind
left over from the fall. Gabe’s deer blind.

He climbed the stand and waited. As the sun rose higher and
higher, he believed his relatives had deserted him. Then he heard a crack. A
step. Another step. Turkey?

Josh dared not move. He waited. The young doe came in. He steeled
his heart. He couldn’t feel right now. He slowly moved the crossbow to sight.
Her nose twitched. But she was here. For him. For Tessa. For Eli. Yes, even for
Gabriel. He pressed the release. Just behind her right shoulder. She stumbled
and went down.

Josh was on the ground and over her. His breath fogged over her
neck as he held her and slit her throat. She bled out and still he did not
allow himself any emotion. He placed the plastic over his shoulders and carried
her over his back, forelegs in his right hand, and back legs in his left. And
he placed her over the blood pile from yesterday.

He field dressed her here, from neck to anus, and was thankful she
was too young to be carrying fawn. He prayed over her, he called her and asked
for forgiveness. And smeared her blood over Tessa’s blood and Gabriel’s blood
and he prayed that this was enough to keep everyone safe.

Then he carried her again to his truck and covered her with the
same moving blanket from the day before.

Once he was on the road toward Peshawbestown, then and only then
did he let himself cry.

Chapter 10

TESSA WORRIES HOW she will make up Lake Superior, The St. Lawrence
Seaway, and Bay of Fundy, way north and east. Would she do it at the end of her
trip? All she knows now is she is heading to Stone Mountain Georgia and then on
to Florida and the Keys.

She’s listening to iTunes with her ear buds. But as she flips her
visor down to block the rising eastern sun, she sees a variety of CDs in a
flap.

She pulls one out. It’s unmarked save for “Good Driving Music”
printed neatly from something like a Sharpie.

She pops it in and is instantly greeted with blaring lyrics from
“Kryptonite.”

Tessa fumbles for volume, eject, anything. She ends up jumping a
track to Bon Jovi’s, “It’s My Life.”

“Lord. Auntie. Scare me ’bout half to death.” It’s quite a switch
from Lana Del Ray and Taylor Swift.

She tries another “Good driving CD” this time, making sure the
volume is lower. “White Rabbit” rumbles through the speakers. This song is
definitely about drugs, popping pills that make people smaller, or taller, or
something.  

“Holy crap. I’m gonna get an education.”

Finally she settles on one marked Allman Brothers and listens to
that. Nothing too excitable there. The opening guitar licks to “Midnight Rider
”
begin playing, and she turns up the volume and opens the windows, directing the
rig from the middle part of Illinois toward Tennessee. With any luck, she’ll be
in Stone Mountain tonight.

MR. FORSYTHE’S REVISED directions takes her beyond the actual park
entrance by about a mile. Curious, she pulls into the trailer park and asks at
the office if they have a reservation for her. It’s after nine p.m. She really
needs to quit driving like it’s a job.

“You’re Tessa Wiliams?” the woman asks doubtfully.

“Yes.”

“Mmmmhmmm,” the woman intones. She doesn’t wear a name tag.
Obviously everyone knows everyone else. She’s middle aged, and has frizzy fine
fake red hair. Her lip gloss is purple and it’s smudged a little.

“And how long you staying?”

“One night, maybe two.”

“Mmmmmm-hmmm. Says here, a week.” Tessa can hear a loud television
behind the thin walls of the office. There’s a lot of shooting and sirens on
TV.

“A week?”

What the hell could Forsythe be thinking?

“Mmmmmhmmm. Says you want a quiet lot. You gotta dog?” the woman
asks suddenly.

“Yes.”

The woman crosses Tessa off one lot and puts her way in the back.
Instead of five lots around her she’ll have one neighbor next to her.

“Yeah, okay. License, license plate number, no dogs off leash.
Pick up after them.” The woman pushes back from the desk and waits for Tessa to
hand print her information.

“Got kids?”

“No.” Tessa’s head is bent over the paperwork and she glances up
to see the woman smirking. “Oh . . . that was a joke?”

The woman shrugs, looking over Tessa’s brown, blonde-pink hair.

“Site’s paid for a week. If you leave early, let us know.”

Tessa sighs and goes to find the lot circled on her hand-held map.
Guessing from the crude diagram and the fine print she heads straight in and
all the way to the back. She veers left and follows this drive a short
distance. She can see the bottoms of very large trees here. In the morning
she’ll look over the site and make sure no dead limbs are about ready to fall
on her.

The next morning she’s out stretching with Murphy before their
run. An older guy wanders over from the camper next door with a cup of coffee
in his hand.

“Name’s Brett.” He holds out his hand. He has
no drawl to his voice, like the woman the night before. “In town for long?”

“Not really,” Tessa says, retightening a shoe lace.

“Nice dog.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m here working on a movie set,” Brett offers. “Union painter.”

“Really? I didn’t know they used painters on movie sets.”

“Oh yeah. It’s a good gig, especially when they wreck one by
accident.”

“So you just travel all over?”

“Pretty much.”

“What’s the movie?”

“Well, I’d have to kill ya if I told ya,” he jokes.

She laughs.

He leans over and whispers, “ ‘Don’t Talk to Strangers.’ It’s a
murder mystery set in Atlanta.”

“I thought you were giving me advice.” Tessa can tell by Murphy’s
reaction to her neighbor, he’s unconcerned. He wanders to a pile of junk and
lifts his leg.

She looks up at the trees. They are fine. She looks over to her
left and breathes in a little.

“That’s a cemetery.”

“Yup,” Brett says, wandering over with her.

“Well, why is it so . . . I dunno, trashed?” The stones are every
which way, and a blue plastic cup blows over the weedy tan grass. She goes to a
stone and wipes the long grass from the face. These are very old graves. 1886.

“I believe it’s a black cemetery.”

Mystified, Tessa turns to him.

“From the slave days.”

“Yeah but these should be cleaned up . . .”

“Did you meet the owners last night?”

“Red hair?”

Brett nods.

“Mmmmhmmm,” he intones.

They both laugh.

“Perhaps this is one of those situations where the folks operated
it with care and the kids . . .” He wags his head. “Not so much.”

They regard the stones silently as Tessa removes the blue cup and
some other debris.

“Just stay away from that branch of the trailer park over there.”
Brett waves his coffee cup, indicating a drive that is across the way. Tessa
can see four or five mobile homes. Like permanent renters. “Cops are there
every week.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Have a good run. You might just wanna take your
truck and run at the park. It’s a lot quieter over there.”

TESSA FOLLOWS BRETT’S advice. She drives in the park, curious
about the giant piece of granite that gives the area its name. She reads the
information marker. “Second largest piece of exposed granite in the world.”

People are hiking up and down on it.

“Whaddya say, Murphy? Wanna try?”

They follow a younger couple and get started up the slope.
According to the info it’s eight-hundred-and-fifty feet high. As they climb and
course their way around the rock, Tessa is tempted to jog at certain intervals.
To her right she notices someone running a little faster—a guy, a few years
older than her, running up the mountain with one leg and a crutch. Her jaw
drops. He looks back and winks.

She gets to the top and settles on a private rock protrusion and
Murphy circles it and lies behind her. Above them she hears a weird sound and
looks up.

Flocks of huge birds are circling and calling and wending their
way through each other, like threads in the sky.

“Sandhill cranes,” the guy with one leg says to her. “They migrate
twice a year here.”

“That’s so awesome.”

“Sure, if you wear a hat,” he jokes. He’s not wearing one either,
but he pulls a lime green cycle cap from the back of his shorts. “Have one on
me.”

“Seriously?” She puts it on.

“Looks good with the pink.”

“You’re amazing.” Tessa looks at his crutch.

“Nah.” The guy smiles. “I just don’t let anything stop me. Not
even my own stupidity. Motorcycle accident. So now I’m healthier than I’ve ever
been. Blessings.”

He cranes his neck up to regard the birds.

“Why do they come?” Tessa asks.

“Maybe to watch the Hawks play.”

“Hawks?”

“The basketball team.”

Tessa feels ridiculous.

“Actually I’m unsure why. Some say there’s a magnetic force in the
granite and the birds know where to go from here. They meet up and separate
into four different directions, spring and fall. To me,
that’s
amazing.”

Tessa watches with him.

“Well, I have to get back down,” he says after a moment. “Enjoy
Atlanta.”

Tessa marvels at the way she’s meeting so many good people just by
putting herself out there, by traveling. By willing to be available to the
moment. And the sights she’s seeing opens her eyes to the fact that almost
wherever she goes, where other people call home, each place seems to have
something unique and special. Just like people. Maybe this is why Madeline
Sweet is so addicted to adventuring.

Later in the afternoon, Tessa locates the thing called a carillon.
A little old lady sits as erect as she can and plays an organ inside a room
that is surrounded by glass. Behind her, the music she’s playing on the organ
breathes through an elaborate series of dampers to produce bell sounds in the
tall bronze-looking pipes outside.

Tessa wanders down with Murphy to the walkway. This early on a
weekday, very few people are around and she gently and quietly drops some of
Aunt Sadie here, with Murphy witnessing. She takes a quick movie so Dan
Forsythe can hear the Carillon playing “My Blue Heaven.”