This River Awakens (11 page)

‘I have to pee,’ Sandy said suddenly.

Barb’s laugh came as a shriek.

‘Over at that tree there, then,’ Jennifer suggested. The tree stood at the edge of the homestead’s foundation. It was an old ash that had probably been planted when the house was first built.

‘Is that stuff going to make us go crazy?’ Barb asked.

‘Maybe a little,’ Jennifer admitted. She looked down at the three small squares of gelatin in her hands. She had taken acid twice before, yet both times it had been indoors. This time, she knew, it would be different.

Sandy had returned from the tree and now stood in front of her. ‘So that’s acid, huh?’

‘Yep. Windowpane.’ She distributed the squares to her friends. ‘Cough drops,’ she laughed.

An indeterminate time later, Barb muttered, ‘I smell olives.’

‘The snake’s stopped moving,’ Sandy replied.

‘I hear flapping wings.’ Barb sat down on the ground and looked skyward. ‘Fluttering leaves.’

‘There are no leaves,’ Jennifer said. ‘Just little fists.’ Leaning back, she watched the currents of air moving back and forth, carrying scents and sounds attached to their threads like notes.
I’m watching music.
‘Little fists pounding. Hear them.’ Suddenly she felt omniscient. She began to see visions not her own; she began to see with Barb’s eyes, Sandy’s eyes. ‘Early begun.’

‘Further spun.’ Barb smiled.

‘One day done,’ Sandy finished.

They sat in wondrous silence.

II

‘Me and Roland saw an eagle today,’ Lynk said, pausing to kick at a clump of mud.

I snorted. ‘There aren’t any eagles around here. Just hawks, and owls.’

‘How the fuck would you know?’ Lynk demanded hotly.

‘There just aren’t,’ I replied, at a loss at how to explain my certainty, but feeling stubborn anyway.

‘Pretty sure it was an eagle,’ Roland said slowly, frowning. ‘White head. Real big, gliding back and forth.’

I grunted. ‘Maybe it was heading north or something.’

The field was still muddy after yesterday’s rain. Heavy globules of mud clung to our boots as we walked. Up ahead stood Fisk’s farm. From our approach the three long rows of cages created a wall in front of the house itself. As we neared, an old brown pick-up truck pulled on to the section road from Fisk’s driveway. Moments later it clunked past us, heading for the highway.

‘Who was that?’ I turned to follow the truck. It seemed to sway from side to side, like a foundering boat.

‘Old Man Louper,’ Lynk said.

‘The guy with the dogs?’

‘Yeah. Fuckin’ meanest dogs you ever saw. Just like Louper himself. The guy’s half nutso.’

‘Wonder what he was doing at Fisk’s?’ Roland mumbled.

I glanced at him. He seemed distracted for some reason. I had sensed it as soon as I got off the bus. He walked slowly now, almost aimlessly, as if he had lost interest in his destination.

I took a deep breath, then said, ‘This is boring. There’s gotta be something else we can do.’

Lynk swung his cudgel at a clod of mud. ‘Like what, asshole?’

Something in me snapped. ‘I’m getting fucking tired of you calling me an asshole, Lynk.’

Everyone stopped. Turning to face me, Lynk raised his stick. He grinned. ‘And what the fuck’re you gonna do about it, asshole?’

‘Drop that toy pecker of yours and I’ll show you,’ I said slowly, anger curling my hands into fists.

Our gazes locked. Lynk’s grin appeared frozen on his narrow face. The stick moved up between us. ‘I’ll fuckin’ bash your head in,’ he rasped.

‘Well, before you do,’ Roland drawled, ‘let me go home and get my bat.’ He turned to me, but did not smile. ‘You wanta borrow my bat, Owen?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, grinning at Lynk. ‘Either that or we do it now, Lynk. With our fists.’

We stood there for another minute, then Roland walked between us. ‘C’mon, we’re wasting time.’

No one spoke until we were past Fisk’s farm, and then Lynk, trailing the rest of us by a few yards, called out. ‘Hey, look! Old Man Fisk’s gonna burn some mink guts!’ He pointed.

We saw the man standing there at the edge of his field. Beside him was a black mound and a tall, barren metal pole.

‘That guy gives me the creeps,’ Roland said.

I nodded.

‘Aw, fuck that,’ Lynk said, though without his usual bluster. ‘He’s just a fuckin’ weirdo.’

‘He can probably hear you,’ I hissed. There was no more than fifty yards separating us from Fisk. ‘So shut the fuck up, asshole.’

‘What’s he holding?’ Carl asked in a small voice.

‘Kerosene can,’ Roland muttered. ‘He’s gonna douse the pile.’

‘Maybe he already has,’ I said, as if the distinction were somehow important.

‘Can you smell it?’ Roland asked, glancing at me.

‘What? The kerosene?’

‘No. Mink guts.’

With his words I became conscious of the odour, sweet and faint on the wind.

‘And he’s standing there.’ Roland shook his head. ‘Right beside it.’

‘A fuckin’ weirdo, man.’

Fisk took a sudden step forward, raising one arm. ‘Get outa here!’ he roared.

We stepped back.

‘Get outa here! You goddamn vultures!’

As one we turned and ran. I could think of nothing but escape. My legs pumped wildly, flinging clumps of mud high into the air. Though on the edge of panic, something in the back of my head remained calm, and it sent out a stream of clarity that made the world around me seem all at once brighter, sharper. Lynk moved past on my right, his stick gone – left behind. That detail stayed with me, and I clung to it the way my eyes clung to Lynk’s back as he pulled farther away.
He’s panicked,
I gasped to myself.
Look at him go!
With that thought I began to slow, my fear dissolving, laughter overtaking me.

Roland stopped a few paces ahead and turned. Seeing his sudden wide grin, I whooped with laughter. All along I had been carrying my school books under one arm. Now they toppled forward, falling at my feet. Papers skirring out in all directions and then settling down on the mud suddenly seemed to me to be the funniest thing in the world. Tears coursing down my cheeks, I fell to my knees.

Roland did the same a few feet away. I glanced up at him. He pointed. Lynk had almost reached the edge of the forest lining the river. Carl caught up with us then, a broad smile on his face.

Fisk, I saw when I turned, was still standing there at the edge of his field. After a moment he walked over to the mound and began dousing it with kerosene.

‘Lynk’s coming back,’ Roland announced, wiping at his face.

He must have stopped at the treeline; he must have seen us way back here. As he approached I saw the deliberate and not-quite-successful swagger he had assumed. I giggled again, only slightly more subdued than earlier.

‘What’re you guys laughing about?’ Lynk asked as he came up to us. He saw the spilled books and paper and grinned.

We said nothing as we climbed to our feet. Roland helped me gather my muddy homework, and then we resumed our leisurely pace towards the river. We came to the edge of the forest, and as we entered the trail I heard a scuffle behind me and I turned. Carl had been following in my immediate wake when we had crossed the field. But at the trail’s edge Lynk pushed in front of him. I caught only its aftermath, and yet it was at that moment that I was witness to a most surprising display: in one brief flash I saw Carl’s hatred unveiled and directed at Lynk’s back.

‘I told you he was fuckin’ nutso,’ Lynk said behind me.

I shook my head. ‘So what do you want, a gold medal?’

‘Looks like all the ice is gone,’ Roland said.

Over his shoulder I saw the swirling brown surface of the river. The pageantry was over, the spoils gone. It lost much of its magic for me, then.

‘Maybe we should sneak back to Fisk’s farm,’ I ventured, an idea coming to me.

‘What for?’ Lynk demanded.

‘To see if he lights the fire,’ I replied.

‘Yeah.’ Roland nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s almost dark. We could sneak in.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘It’s barely six o’clock. We still got a half-hour before dinner, right?’

‘We don’t eat till seven,’ Roland said.

‘Great. Let’s go.’

When the two of us headed back up the trail, it didn’t surprise me that Lynk and Carl followed. They were both probably going to miss their suppers – as was I – but the challenge had been made, and it had to be accepted.

III

The barking dogs announced Sten’s return. Taking a seat on the piano bench, Elouise began wiping dust from the instrument’s polished surface. The wood was cool beneath her hands; she thought of tilting back the key-cover and playing a few notes.

She wondered where Jennifer had gone to now – dinner was only a half-hour away. The thought of eating with only Sten for company filled her with dread. She and her husband had exchanged no more than a dozen words in the last two days. With the seeds freshly planted and the first weeding still a week or so away, Elouise had no reason to leave the house, and Sten seemed to have planted roots on the back porch. When he had climbed into his truck and driven off a short while ago Elouise had rushed to the living-room window, imagining for a brief, terrifying moment that she was seeing the last of him. After a few minutes, however, she realised that the fear was a foolish one. Like her, Sten had nowhere to go.

And now he was back. She continued cleaning the piano, hoping that he would stay outside – at least until dinner. Reaching up, she touched her face as she had already done countless times since morning. Misshapen and oddly smooth – it had now become a mask.

Sten had shattered her dentures with his fist, he had driven the plate to the back of her throat, and she had almost choked to death. It was hard to eat; she could manage only soup and, of course, jam. But already the swelling had passed; its colour had deepened from red to blue and greenish-black, and the pain was only a dull throb now, though her neck was, if anything, stiffer.

The prospect of going to the doctor terrified Elouise. There was no disguising what had happened – the imprint of Sten’s fist was all too evident. Nevertheless, those few times when she had attempted to move her jaw to any great extent had brought excruciating pain, and the sound it made was of two stones grinding against each other. She was fairly certain that Sten had broken her jaw.

She would need to get it looked at sooner or later, she knew. Thoughts of that time terrified her.

‘Dinner ready?’

Sten’s voice behind her snapped her upright on the bench. She took a rattling breath. ‘Thoon,’ she said, not turning around.

‘Good,’ Sten grunted.

Elouise listened to him walk away. Sten had been drinking on and off ever since the accident, but he had never struck her until now; he’d saved his violence for walls, doors, dishes and furniture.

Sten had gone into the kitchen. She heard the hissing snap of a bottle-cap, and sighed. She had hoped that he would have been shaken out of it. If anything, Sten was drinking even more, although only beer – it had been liquor, rye, that had triggered his rage. And he had poured his remaining supply down the sink.

Sten returned to the living room. ‘Leave my supper in the oven, Elly. I’m going out to get some more beer.’

She nodded. Thank God, she muttered to herself.
Now I can eat alone.

IV

We moved through the shadowed ditch like raiders. The pewter clouds had pooled just above the western horizon and the setting sun created a streak of orange and red beneath them. Long before we came near enough to Fisk’s farm to see the burning mound we smelled its smoke. And now like shredded black wings the smoke curled down into the ditch around us.

Roland glanced at me from over his shoulder. ‘Hear it?’

I nodded. The fire crackled, hissed, sizzled – combined, it sounded like endless chattering, as if living mink were being burned – burned, but not dying.

‘Let’s get closer,’ I whispered.

We slithered along the inside slope of the ditch, parting the dead grass with our bodies. And then, up ahead, we saw the fire’s glow. We edged up the slope and pulled ourselves over the ridge.

Fifty feet away stood the mound, lit up with white heat from within. The maypole glowed like a spear of fire beside it. Of Fisk there was no sign.

‘That’s not possible,’ Roland rasped.

‘What?’

‘Meat and bones don’t burn that hot,’ he said, his face pink in the reflected glow.

‘Must’ve put something else in it,’ Lynk whispered. ‘Birch logs or something.’

Slowly, Roland nodded. ‘Yeah, you can sort of see them through all the bones and stuff.’

Even at this distance the heat brushed our faces. Within the mound I could make out leg bones and skulls. On one side I saw a hunched spine burst in a shower of sparks that lifted skyward as if flung by an invisible hand. ‘I’m going closer,’ I said.

‘Are you fuckin’ nutso, man?’ Lynk demanded.

‘Chicken shit.’ I took a moment to sneer at him, then I dragged myself up from the ridge and began creeping towards the mound. There were lights on inside Fisk’s house, but I figured even if he was watching, the fire from the mound would turn the rest of the world black.

At about thirty feet I stopped. It was too hot to crawl any closer. Still, from this distance, I could make out one individual skull, its eye sockets filled with red flames.

I lay there until Roland’s hand closed on my ankle. The skull had long since burned to white ash. Together, we crawled back to where the others waited.

‘The sun’s gone down,’ Roland said. ‘I gotta get home.’

V

Sitting on the concrete pier where gas and diesel were pumped for the yachts, Walter Gribbs watched the sun set. The river had its origin far to the south, but its course here was set on a south-west–north-east axis. This early in the season, the sun – from this vantage point – sank directly behind the river’s waterline, and this was what Walter had come to watch.

It reminded him of sunsets on the sea. The water turned into liquid gold trimmed with red fire; it spread the sun’s gilded coat like a warm blanket, and even the darkness that claimed the rest of the sky seemed somehow benign and salutary.