Mink River: A Novel (35 page)

17.

Grace goes to the pub after the picnic and downs a shot and then another and another and another and another and another and then picks out a guy and takes him out to his car and she tears open her shirt and he gropes her greedily but when the guy tries to kiss her she spits on him and kicks open the car door and stomps back into the bar and has another shot and then goes to pee. Some guy says something leering at her on the way to the bathroom and she tips his table over in his lap so there’s wet broken glass everywhere. The backup bartender jumps out from behind the bar and grabs her by the shoulders and marches her out the back door saying c’mon now easy now c’mon now. She tries to spit on him too but instead she throws up. He dances out of the way cursing. The vomit splashes on the patio and chairs. He stalks back inside and slams the yellow door. She’s on her hands and knees on the patio throwing up. Overhead owls, nighthawks, stars. She can’t stop throwing up. Then someone is kneeling next to her holding her shaking shoulders. Fuck off, she says, choking. Easy now, Grace, says Nicholas. Easy now.

It takes Grace a while to quit throwing up but after a while she does and she sits down heavily with her back against the wall.

What do you want from me, Nicholas?

Nothing.

Then why are you here?

Heard you barking.

Everybody wants something, Nicholas.

I guess.

So what do you want from me?

Nothing.

Bullshit.

Why do you fight everybody, Grace?

I don’t fight everybody.

Yeh you do.

Piss off.

You don’t trust anybody.

Piss off twice.

You could trust me.

I don’t know you from a hole in the ground.

Pause.

Why don’t you try trusting me? See how it feels.

Why don’t you go piss off?

I’m serious.

So am I.

Pause.

So you don’t want any friends, that what you want?

Pause.

I asked you a question, Grace.

Piss off.

You got to throw up some more? I’ll get out of the way.

Grace starts to say piss off again but instead she cries. Nicholas doesn’t say anything. Overhead owls, nighthawks, stars. Grace stops crying after a while and she doesn’t say anything and Nicholas doesn’t say anything. After a while Nicholas unfolds himself from kneeling and sits down against the wall next to Grace. He doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t say anything and they just sit there for a while looking out to sea their legs pointing out to sea.

18.

The O Donnell brothers Peadar and Niall are sixteen and fourteen years old respectively and they are sick and tired of being the youngest brothers of a snarling older sister and a testy older brother. They disliked their dad as much as Grace and Declan did though without, as Peadar says snickering, Declan’s whole oedipal battling the king thing and Gracie’s rage that dad made mom leave or mom left because of dad or whatever.

Plus Red Hugh is Dead Hugh now anyway, says Niall.

Dead as a doornail, says Peadar.

They are sitting on the beach in the starlight drinking beer. They have had a lot of beer since the picnic ended.

Let’s go surfing, says Peadar.

In the dark?

What the hell.

What the hell hey.

They fall down laughing.

We don’t actually hey have boards, says Niall.

There’s boards in the surf shack, says Peadar.

Shurf sack, says Niall and they fall down laughing.

They take two longboards from the safety shed where all that stuff is stored: ropes, life preservers, first-aid kits.

Shore stuff stored, says Peadar.

Hey hey, says Niall. It’s awful dark. And cold.

Chickenshit.

And we are no good at shurfing.

What the hey hey.

They take good long swigs of beer and then madly dash out through the surf shouting. The water is so cold their balls shrivel and each boy immediately wants to sprint right back out of the water but that would be chickenshit hey. Peadar mills his long arms and zooms out through the brooding black walls and catches a swell and jumps up on his board and instantly falls off backwards which sends Niall into hysterics but then a wave dumps Niall too and he gets rolled good, sand in his nose and eyes and everything. As he surfaces desperate for air Peadar’s board flies by his head like a ten-foot arrow and misses him by maybe two inches. Niall doesn’t see it. He staggers up to the beach and sits down heavily, feeling sick. Peadar retrieves Niall’s board and heads out again. As he waits for a wave he searches for Niall whom he sees huddled pale on the beach. Chickenshit. Then Peadar notices someone walking fast dark against the dark dune line at the very back of the beach. Then he turns to check the wave which is coming fast and then he turns back to see who that was at the back of the beach but as he does so he sees the water beneath him go pale as ice as a huge white shape slides by endlessly inches away from his face.

19.

It’s a shark and Peadar is scared shitless. He grabs his board so hard his fingers go as white as the shark. He forgets the wave coming. The wave hits and he gets rolled. He holds onto the board as hard as he can he even wraps his legs around the end of it desperately. He tries to yell
shark
to Niall but it’s too late he’s underwater and he gags. He tries to keep his eyes open but there’s sand and kelp in his eyes and his mouth and he gags. The wave smashes him against the bottom and his shoulder drags against the rocks and shells. He is gagging and choking. He rolls and rolls in the rocks. Sand in his mouth. Can’t breathe. O god o god. The board smashes against his head o god can’t brea where’s th suddenly his head is above water and his lungs drag air in savagely along with sand and he chokes and a wave hits him in the face and knocks him underwater again he loses his board o god o god his foot touches bottom and he scrabbles desperately to get purchase and then his left arm is almost pulled
off
and he screams with terror o god! o god! and yanks his arm back as hard as he can but he is yanked right out of the water onto the beach screaming and kicking and punching and Niall is screaming and waves are crashing everywhere but Michael the cop has a relentless grip on Peadar’s arm and he hauls the boy out of the hungry ocean yelling hey hey it’s okay you’re okay I got you I got you it’s okay and then Peadar is choking and vomiting on the beach and Niall is crying and Michael is saying breathe breathe breathe all right there we go all right okay it’s okay it’s all right just breathe just breathe okay all right I gotta go I gotta go.

20.

Michael runs up the beach after the man with the coat. Across the sand toward the dunes. Last I saw he was cutting along the dune line. He’d hit the river and have to turn east. I’ll cut through the bushes there and cut him off. He tries to run as quietly as he can but now he is cutting through salal and alder and fern and blackberry and salmonberry and the plants slap and grab at him. His knees hurt and his back hurts and the surge of adrenaline that rose when he hauled Peadar onto the beach away from the shark is ebbing. That was a huge shark. Have to remember that. Tell Cedar. Post signs. Huh huh huh he runs. Thinks of Sara and the girls. Don’t think. Do. Move. Where is he? Stay cool. Move smoothly. No sudden motion. At the riverbank Michael stops and melds himself into the shadows and listens for anything that isn’t river. Far away he hears the metallic clanking of the picnic tables being folded up on the football field. Hears nighthawks overhead. Wind
sighing through spruce. He makes himself breathe evenly and listen to each sound individually trying to pick up any dissonance. That’s the river. That’s the surf. That’s the wind. A rustling in the woods behind him. He tenses; and a raccoon waddles past toward the river. All right. Think. He’s on foot. He doesn’t know I saw him. Or does he? If he saw me with the boys on the beach. Shit. Shit. Okay. Think. He’s either in the woods here or he’s on the river path toward town. He has no reason to hide here if he didn’t see me on the beach. Therefore he’s on the path. Okay. Go slow. Quiet. Michael eases out of the shadows and walks along the path as quietly as he can possibly go which is pretty quiet. The river is loud. Where the path bends he slips into the woods for a moment to scout ahead. Still no moon. He tries to remember if there is a moonrise tonight or not. Suddenly a line from one of the books he reads to the girls at night pops into his mind:
goodnight stars goodnight air goodnight noises everywhere
and he smiles thinking how many hundreds of times he has said those words and then suddenly the icy barrel of a pistol is in his right ear and a calm voice is in his left ear:
don’t move don’t make a sound don’t be a hero.

21.

Anna Christie humming walks home with her two daughters and Sara humming walks home with her three daughters one the size of a bird inside her and No Horses looks around for Owen but as she rises from the bench to find him George Christie the old logger opens his mouth and out comes his cheerful growl.

Well, kid, here’s the thing. Here’s my idea. I’ll plop her down on the table and you can study her from every old angle whichaway. Here’s what I figger: we go into business together. I’ll get ya wood and you cut her. I know where the good wood is and you know what to do with it to make it all arty and stuff. You’re good at that. Everybody says so. I don’t know jack about art but I like your stuff. It’s not half bad. We can sell it to city people and stuff. Architects and retireds and that sort. They like fancy statues and art and stuff. We’ll go fifty fifty you and me. Your problem economic wise is that you can carve the stuff but you are no good at getting it and selling it. My problem is that alls I know is wood. I need the money is all. I don’t know art. I know wood. That I know. I know wood good. So whatya say, we partners? We’ll need a business name. You figger that. You’re smart. Hell, this’ll be fun. I know where there’s walnut twice as thick as you, and ironwood, and yellow cedar, and the biggest old hemlocks you ever saw. I know those trees. I known ’em fifty years or more. They’re good trees, most of ’em. Some are bad apples same as people. Some are rotten but not many. This one old cedar now, he’s the king of the woods, and could he talk he’d say hell, time for me to be some statues that’ll send them girls of yours to college, George. That’s what he’d say. I listen to the old buggers, you know. I ain’t religious but there’s a lotta stuff in the woods nobody knows hardly at all. So whatya say, we partners or what?

Let me sleep on that one, George, says Nora. I like that idea very much but let me think her over, as my friend George Christie would say.

All right, kid, he says. All right. Well, I gotta go. I aint young enough to be up so late.

Night, George.

Night, kid.

Nora goes looking for Owen and finds him sprawled on a table in the middle of the field staring at the stars.

Working hard, Mr. Cooney.

I am that, Mrs. Cooney.

Got any room on that table for me?

Plenty of room right here on me, girl. Climb up.

Which she does and folds herself into him like a creek into a hill.

People will wonder what we’re doing on the table, she muffles into his neck.

And just what would you like to do on the table? he says into her hair.

O no, she says laughing. Her breath a hot hole in his neck. No no. Let’s go kiss our boy. There’s a boy I know needs to be kissed way more than his daddy does.

22.

Michael the cop and the guy in the coat walk silently north through the dark woods to the river. Michael walks in front of the guy. For a little while the guy keeps the pistol in Michael’s ear while they walk and then he holds it against Michael’s neck while they walk but it’s too hard to walk fast that way so he tells Michael to put his hands behind his head and walk fast along the path and if you do anything weird or try anything weird or say a word I’ll put a bullet through your brain. Stay on the path. Just walk. Don’t say anything. They walk and walk. Pretty soon Michael hears the river. He tries to stay calm and not think of the girls or anything. He tries to figure out the lay of the land. He ponders the gun. He considers that if the guy put it in his right ear it must be in his right hand. He listens to the guy’s footsteps to hear if the guy is wearing boots or sneakers or what. He tries to gauge the guy’s pace and wind, to hear if he’s puffing or what. He tries to remember the guy from the time he saw him pressed against Kristi in the trailer in Trailer Town. Tall? Fat? He wants to talk to the guy to get him talking so he can figure him out but this guy is ratcheted pretty tight. Not a time to take a chance. Stay calm. They walk. It’s dark.

Where’s your car? says the guy.

By the boat ramp.

If it’s not there I’ll put a bullet through your brain.

It’s there.

No more talk.

When they get to the river they don’t take the walking path but instead continue right down to the riverbank where there’s a little sandy rocky shelf. The guy makes Michael walk ahead of him along the shelf. East. The river is a little low but it’s still fast and it’s still pretty loud especially when you are right on the edge of it. They pick their way along the rocks. Michael is so alert that he’s calm. He sees and smells and hears every sight and scent and sound there is. The guy’s feet are quiet on the rocks. If he fires the gun down here no one will hear it. That’s murder though. He a murder guy? Now they are on the riverbank below the parking lot and Michael pauses by the rickety little wooden stairs up to the parking lot. Up, says the guy. Michael starts to turn to look at the guy but the guy sidesteps deftly and puts the pistol barrel in Michael’s left ear this time and says, Don’t turn around again or I’ll put a bullet in your brain. Go up the stairs slowly and walk toward your car. If there’s someone there just say hi like normal and then get in the car. I’m right behind you. If you try anything weird I’ll blow your head off. Go. Michael goes.