Auraria: A Novel (27 page)

Shadburn straightened his jacket and aligned his hat appropriately with his ears. Then he stepped to the podium, threw out his hands as if he were embracing the valley, and roared, “I declare this bridge open!”

There were only a few slow claps. Someone in the crowd said, “What’s its name?”

“It needs to have a name too?” said Shadburn. “What shall it be, Holtzclaw?”

“I wouldn’t venture a guess.”

“Let’s call it the New Bridge,” said Shadburn.

“But there was no old bridge,” said Holtzclaw.

“The name doesn’t have to be explained.” Shadburn turned again to the crowd and repeated his gesture, this time calling, “I declare this bridge, the New Bridge, open! And the dam too! Say hallo for Lake Trahlyta!”

There was some fumbling behind the dais. A match was struck, and then a rocket launched into the sky. It exploded over the valley, letting off a rain of green sparks. They were only visible for a moment against the gray sky; then they were lost in the daylight. If the men at the dam had seen their signal, they were sealing the floodgates now, but it would have been easy to miss such an unspectacular display.

A wooden barrel of fruit drink was wheeled into the crowd. Men and women drank the red, red stuff from tin dippers.

Shadburn did not wade out among the crowd. He stayed on the dais, half-covered in Holtzclaw’s shadow. No one came up to chat or congratulate. The crowd communed with itself, but with only half the verve of a party. Perhaps it was the strangeness of seeing their valley turned into a streak of mud. Perhaps it was the absence of spirits.

“Well,” said Holtzclaw, “do you think we should mingle? Shake hands? I thought this would be a proud moment for you.”

“It makes me too thirsty to talk to them. To be in Auraria makes me thirsty.”

“Well, there’s fruit drink. Shall I ladle some up for you?”

“Anything but. Where did you get such a terrible recipe, Holtzclaw? Our native potations are far superior.”

“You could have chosen anything you like, Shadburn. How should I know how to cater a bridge opening?”

“It’s not important, Holtzclaw. When the hotel opens up, and there are superb guests—then I shall be a perfect orator, and you, I’m sure, will be a perfect caterer. But right now, I’m thirsty. Like in the old days.”

The burble of conversation around them soon subsided; in its place was disquiet.

“Why is no one leaving, Holtzclaw?” asked Shadburn. “Do they expect an all-night entertainment from me too? I’ve forgotten how to swallow fire, and my legs don’t know how to jig.”

Dr. Rathbun sidled up with an explanation. “The matter,” said the mayor, “is the folk tradition that the first person to cross a new bridge is soon to die.”

“Many people crossed it when it was being built,” said Holtzclaw. “I walked it end-to-end two dozen times, inspecting. The workmen ate their lunch on one end and relieved themselves from the other.”

“Yes, all well and good,” said Dr. Rathbun. “But that was just a span of wood and metal, not a bridge. A plank laid across a creek is not a bridge. This structure—now that it has been opened, now that it has been named—is unequivocally a bridge, and you have on your hands a boodle of over-cautious people, none of whom want to be the first to cross it.”

“I suppose the only recourse is for one of us to be the first,” said Shadburn. “We must lead by example, even if we find it exhausting.” Shadburn linked elbows with his assistant and began walking, with Holtzclaw stuttering and shuffling to match the pace of his taller employer. Just at the end of the bridge was a warped board that curled up an inch. It interrupted Shadburn’s stride; he was forced to take a short step to avoid coming down on top of it. Holtzclaw’s left heel landed on earth a moment before Shadburn’s right.

#

On the lake-facing side of the dam, a painted red line on the closed floodgates marked the natural level of the river. The water already ran a handspan above the line. Quiet tides lapped against the metal. On the obverse of the dam, though, where men were reinforcing the gates with rock and clay, there was a frenetic scene. The Sky Pilot harangued the workers, tossing pellets of ice. The ground rumbled, throwing workers to their knees and shaking apart the barriers of clay as they were curing behind the sealed floodgates.

“They’re on my land!” said the Sky Pilot to Holtzclaw. “Every time one of them puts a foot across this line, they’re on my land, and I have the right to pelt them with ice. And that’s because I’m a kind soul. I could shoot them in the back as trespassers or punch them clear through the ribs, and I’d feel clear in my conscience.”

“I don’t think a jury would uphold you shooting a man in the back because his foot slips into your land,” said Holtzclaw. “What is it that you want?”

The Sky Pilot threw a cube of ice at a young worker that had come too close. The ice hit the boy on the shin; he cried out in pain and scampered back like a wounded animal. His companions glared across the dividing line at the Sky Pilot. Holtzclaw worried that if he had not been present, the workers would have invaded the property and made their revenge, against all claims of trespassing.

“This dam cannot be removed now that it displeases you,” said Holtzclaw. “If you are holding out for money, it is too late. I have no money to give you. So, what do you want?”

“I want you,” said the Sky Pilot, stabbing his finger into the space between Holtzclaw’s second and third ribs, “to talk with my friend. Since you’ve turned off his river, he weeps so much.”

For the second time, Holtzclaw was suspended from a rope harness and lowered down to the cave of the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin that Lives Under the Mountain.

The dam workers had paused from consoling the injured boy to warn Holtzclaw about putting his life in the hands of the crazed enemy, but Holtzclaw didn’t think that the Sky Pilot would drop him on the descent. On the return, though, if he could not come to an agreement with the Terrapin, then Holtzclaw would request that someone else belay him.

No spray splashed at his feet. The tiny scrub pines that had clung to life in the crevices were starting to wither. In place of the constant roar of the falls were the cries of men, the chirping of birds, and the settling and stretching of the earth.

Holtzclaw alighted on the ledge, removed the rope harness, and entered the cavern.

“Little morsel, I am sad!” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin. He scraped his claw-tipped legs against the stone of the cavern, and the mountain quaked.

“I am sorry,” said Holtzclaw. “What can I do?”

“The mountain is pressed. The rocks are complaining. There is too much quiet. I miss the flow of the waters over the rock. They were many voices in excited conversation.”

“So you would like the men up there to make more noise? Talk more? I could have them set off an explosion on the half hour.”

“Long ago,” thundered the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin, “when the world was not yet baked, there was a great river that followed across the world, end to end, and back around to itself. And when the Great Hog and the Great Turkey and even I, the not-yet-Great Terrapin, were thirsty, we came to the river to drink the fresh, sweet water. And when the Great Sweet Potato and Great Corn were thirsty, they stretched out their roots through the soft earth and drank from the river. But the Great Beaver could not master his instincts. He gnawed through the children of the Great Pine and the Great Chestnut and the Great Poplar—the children wailed as they fell across the river, and the Great Beaver sealed them together with sticks and twigs and mud. He dammed the single great river! And when the water could no longer flow downstream, then it could no longer loop around to itself and feed from the top of the stream, and the river became a dry canyon. There was great thirst in all the land because there was no water, no water. And there was no more roar of the cataracts and waterfalls. No more bubble of the streams. The world was quiet except for the wails of the thirsty.”

The Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin sobbed.

“I look out of my cave and I see the dry river and I hear no roar and I am reminded of the terrible sadness long, long ago, when all were thirsty and quiet. I think about the Great Hog. His shiny bristles turned dull and fell from his skin, and he grew small and became a naked pink creature of no significance. I think about the Great Corn. He was tough and noble, a hard and useless and proud thing that grew wherever he wished. Now he has been made fat and sweet. He hides in his little silken house. He is a fancy dandy, a rich idler, as your people say. Oh! And your people raise his children by the thousands and grind them into your bread. It is a terrible fate. I have too many memories, too many stories.”

“You enjoy telling them,” said Holtzclaw. “You would go on for hours if I let you.”

“It is necessary to tell them! Long ago, there were more stories, but they have been forgotten. They were not told, and they went away into the earth. Too few knew them and they withered, like seeds that are scattered too thinly across a field. They cannot take root. The weeds of lesser stories choke them.”

“Listen, terrapin! I’ll build you an amphitheater. I will put it here, just at the entrance to your cave, with a staircase leading up to the gorge rim. All day and night, visitors will come and listen to your stories.”

Holtzclaw attempted to calculate the costs of such a promise. Building steps in vertical rock, bringing wood for benches—these were not easy projects. To make a promise is inexpensive and easy. For the moment, it needed only to be made, not fulfilled.

“There would be many people?” asked the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin.

“There would be as many people as you like,” said Holtzclaw. “We can advertise your names in all the best weeklies, and you will have a constant throng of admirers. Families will bring their young ones, mouths brimming peanuts and sweet pies and yelps of glee and boredom and affection. They will applaud thunderously, like a waterfall. Or we can invite only the finest guests and sell very few tickets very dearly so that any who buy them would treat the same experience with deep reverence. The women will wear long gloves, and the men will put on tails. After your stories, they will clap primly, and the mingled sound of their appreciation will be the babble of a gentle stream.”

“And what must I do to receive this boon?”

“It is very simple. You and your companion, the Sky Pilot, must not trouble my works nor undermine the dam. Leave it alone, and you will have your audience.”

“It is agreed,” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin.

The Sky Pilot appeared behind Holtzclaw during his last monologue. He had climbed down to see if Holtzclaw had appeased his friend and, if not, to obtain more ice to throw at trespassers. The Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin lifted his head. His beaked face, streaked with leathery lines, cracked with recognition.

“Friend, I am glad,” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin. “This little morsel has promised that he will bring me people to hear my stories. They will sit on something called an amphitheater, and they will listen.”

“I’ve heard all your stories,” said the Sky Pilot. “And I would gladly hear them again. Do you need more friends who will listen? Am I not enough?”

“You are not a roaring stream. There must be a Great and Wide and Infinite River from the Mountain. But you are my good friend.”

The Sky Pilot ran to the terrapin; he embraced the terrapin around a keratinous claw.

“Now,” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin, “I will play the Song of Comfort.” A simple scalar melody lilted from the turtle’s shell. The Sky Pilot, still embracing the terrapin, swayed in time. He smiled like a child about to sleep.

#

Mother Fresh-Roasted sat on the front porch of her riverside cabin. In her lap was a broken banjo. It had no strings, but she strummed the air above the scoop and fretted the neck as though she were playing, teasing some sound from it. She had sold her land readily enough but had put off the move, blaming the mules. They were too comfortable in their present home.

“Mother Fresh-Roasted, the water is rising!” Holtzclaw called out to her as he approached. He’d acquired the wrong impression of her on his first days in Auraria. Emmett the druggist had set her up to be a witch doctor, purveyor of potent potions, but Holtzclaw now suspected that image was motivated by professional jealousy. Rather, Holtzclaw found Mother Fresh-Roasted to be quite charming, if stubborn. By the time he’d arrived on her farm, well into his stay in Auraria, her peculiar familiars did not spook him in the least.

The woman cast aside the banjo in a rough way that explained how it lost its strings. “I saw a wet hen run smack into a wet dog this morning. Guess they had both been at the springhouse, and when they were coming up here to get their feed, they got all tangled up. Usually means a storm’s coming, but I guess this time it meant flood. Is it minutes, hours? You are so winded. You must have hied like lightning to tell me.”

Holtzclaw panted, but it was an act—he had not hurried, and his knees were accustomed to the mountain roads. He hardly needed any Effervescent Brain Salts to take away their aches.

“Well, it will be four weeks until the whole lake is filled,” he said. “But your stables will be underwater in a few days. You must move now.”