Deep River Burning (7 page)

Chapter 12

Wolves

She wanted to preserve things. To preserve Adena, to preserve the landscape upon which it rested, to preserve the friendship she had cherished all of her life, to preserve herself. No one likes to feel as if parts of themselves are scattered about for the wolves to stalk and devour. And sometimes she felt that way, like there were wolves circling, waiting for her to make a mistake, and then they would come out from their hiding places and take what they wanted because they knew that eventually, she would make a mistake. Somehow, they know the vulnerable people, the fragmented people who haven’t figured it out yet, who haven’t gathered their strengths into that impenetrable shield that the wolves can also see. When the shield is there, the predators stay away. When we are whole, we are strong. We have the strength of everything we know working together. But it seemed that everything was falling apart in one slow motion wave.

She went for a long walk on the back roads around her house and found herself admiring the signs of survival all around her. The birds built their nests in the tallest trees that would sustain their own lives and the lives of their young, the flock of geese that went to the same spot every spring hoping to find the same nourishment and refuge they found every year, and a small snail slipped into his shell as round and smooth as a polished gemstone.

This place was a paradox. It was a small place, with big problems. It was a small town on a small section of a larger river where there are small houses, small animals, slender forests, and it could all be made thoroughly unrecognizable and uninhabitable in a matter of a few short days. Denver felt small in the midst of all of this hunger.

“Anything is possible,” she said out loud. No one ever thought the wild pigeon would become extinct. The population was once prolific in Pennsylvania. She imagined a mile-long flock gliding in the sky, descending upon its home farther northwest where it has been said that so many birds would nest in one tree that the branches would break from the weight and hang dangling like broken arms. The birds must have been striking, large in stature with red eyes and red feet, a rust-colored chest, and sprawling wing span. When the babies sat in the nests with their mouths wide, they uttered a high-pitched screech that the hunter would hear, and the poles would rise into the trees and bump the babies from their beds. No one ever thought the birds, that would leave their nests in the morning in one mass body of wild flight, would ever become extinct. The flocks seemed endless.

Denver felt suffocated in her own sense that something was very wrong, and she spent her free time trying to find a way to get away from it. There are things we just know by the way every cell in our body contracts and expands in response, and what she knew nagged at her like a drumbeat in the distance that keeps getting louder. She walked down one dirt road, then another dirt road, and another road farther away from the house, a road she rarely ever explored. She reached an open space where down in a large pit sat a bulldozer and other mining equipment familiar to her. The pit began there and went on and on in a wide strip that looked like a knife slice in flesh. The bone marrow is worth money, she thought to herself. It heats the home that holds the human that drinks the water that breathes the air that hates the hole that halts the highway, “I don’t know why she swallowed a fly, perhaps she’ll die,” she sang.

As she continued her walk, she heard an engine running behind her. She turned around and saw a shiny, red pickup truck moving slowly toward her. She didn’t think much of the truck, but it did seem to get louder or closer, so she turned around again and realized the truck was crawling at a pace not much faster than her own and following her. She didn’t recognize the truck, and she couldn’t see who was driving it. She was just about ready to run into the trees when she heard a voice from the window.

“Denver? Denver Oakley?”

“Randy! Damn you, you nearly scared the daylights out of me, crawling up on me that slowly. Don’t you know that I’m a marked woman around here?”

“A marked woman? How did that happen?” Randy asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“Oh, all right. I know most of the story. You’re involved in the relocation project.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you get involved I guess.”

“And what happens if you don’t get involved?”

“You stay out of trouble.”

“Or you stay
in
another kind of trouble,” she quickly responded.

“Want a lift back to town? Hop in,” he said as he leaned over and opened the door for her. Hesitantly, she got into the truck. Randy was a banker in Adena. He was someone she ran into on occasion, but not someone she considered a friend.

“So, what brings you out here all by yourself?” he asked.

“I was just going for a walk, to think.”

“Why would somebody as pretty and sweet as yourself be way out here alone walking and thinking?”

“Do you have to be nasty and gnarly to walk and think?” she asked with a grin on her face.

“Ah well, I guess not. Maybe you think too much,” he said with a slight laugh.

“Well, if I do, I don’t feel bad about it because most people don’t think enough.”

“I can’t argue with that.” After an awkward pause, he asked, “I hope I am not prying too much, but I was just wondering how you’re doing, meaning after what happened to your parents and all? That’s got to be tough.”

“It is tough, but I’m fine.”

“I find that a little hard to believe.”

“Really. I’m fine.”

“So what’s the matter?”

“Oh, just a variety of things . . . nothing I want to talk about.”

Randy shook his head and looked out the window.

“It sure would be nice to know what you’re thinking.”

“Why? I really don’t know you that well, Randy.”

“Yes, but that would be a way for us to get to know each other.”

“What do you want to know about me? You know the main aspects of who I am.”

“Yes, I know all that, but who is Denver really? You show people this strong, self-reliant woman but I haven’t seen what is behind that, what makes you tick.”

“Well, I don’t mean to disappoint you, Randy, but you probably won’t.”

“I know what you need,” he said with a grin on his face. He pulled the truck over to the side of the road and went to the back of the truck where he had an ice box. Denver heard the swish and crack of ice adjusting as he came back to the driver’s seat with two beers.

“Here you go,” he said, handing Denver a Michelob.

“A beer? You think I need a beer? I don’t drink beer.”

“You don’t drink beer? Are you serious? What do you drink?” he asked genuinely baffled.

“Iced tea, coffee, water, juice.”

“No no, I mean what alcohol do you drink?”

“I don’t drink alcohol,” Denver replied casually.

“Really?” He thought about it for moment while putting the truck back into drive and pulling back onto the road. “Well, that tells me something about you.”

“Oh really? What does it tell you?”

“Well, I guess that your life has probably been a sheltered one.”

“Really? Maybe I was addicted once and quit. Maybe my parents were alcoholics and I was so abused by their drunkenness that I vowed never to touch the stuff. Maybe I’m allergic to it. Maybe I find other ways to relax and enjoy life. Maybe I’m a compulsive liar,” she said smiling.

“I’m just saying . . . if you don’t drink alcohol, you’re anti-social, ya know? You separate yourself from others because you think you’re too good for ’em,” he said.

“Separating myself from whom? You? Should I start drinking beer just because other people want me to?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that you are choosing to separate yourself from others.”

“Is it that I’m choosing to separate myself, or is it that these
people
you are talking about feel threatened that I don’t want to drink? It’s a silly shame when one is ostracized from society because of their beverage choice,” Denver said, looking out the side window.

“Well, another thing is that you aren’t engaged.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, Denver, but women your age want to be married.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. So that tells me something about you too.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” she said, turning toward him in the truck.

“Don’t you have any desire to be married?” he asked somewhat flustered.

“Just because being single is driving you up the wall does not mean that it is bothering me,” she answered truthfully.

“Then why are you out here walking alone looking sad?”

“It may be true that I’m not happy at the moment, but what makes you think that the problem is that I need a husband?”

“Because you’re a woman and women need someone to take care of them.”

“Do you have a calendar in the glove compartment? I need to check what century it is,” she said.

“What? It is natural for a woman your age to want a husband!”

“Natural in what way? In the same way that I should naturally want to drink alcohol?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the ticking biological clock!”

“Which is a myth—”

“What!”

“Put into people’s heads so that they will do certain things at certain times of their lives because certain people have decided that it should be that way. More people I know get married because they are conforming to deep-seated societal pressures than because they are in love. Then they end up divorced and scarred and disillusioned. What is so natural about all of that?”

“I hate arguing with you!” he said entirely frustrated. “I just can’t figure you out!”

“Maybe that’s the problem, Randy. Why is it so damn important for you to figure me out?”

“So I can be a better friend to you.”

“Is that what you want? Or is it so you can control me?”

“Why would I want to control you?”

“Because you want me to be someone I’m not. Because, for some reason, who I am makes you uncomfortable. Could you even for a moment dream of working a job that wasn’t nine to five?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’ll have to figure that out on your own, but I don’t want to get on your case questioning the choices you have made in your life, and I would appreciate it if you would not harass me about mine.” She thought about dumping his beer on the smooth, light gray seats that were still in perfect condition.

Denver signaled for Randy to pull the truck over to the broken curb in front of the municipal building.

“Where are you going?” Randy asked, sounding exasperated.

“Someplace where people don’t believe that mental stimulation will shrink my uterus.” Denver unhooked her seat belt. “Oh by the way. Everybody knows you’re a fucking alcoholic, Randy. Maybe you should drop the booze and try being a social outcast for a while.”

Denver got out of the truck, and that was the last time Randy and she spoke. She felt exhausted and awful after the argument. She knew that the last thing she said to him was cruel, but she resented being expected to fit into someone’s idea of who she should be and conforming to someone else’s idea of what she should be doing with her life. The more she thought about it, the more the frustration moved through her body in swift waves.

Randy was gone, but in her mind, she was still arguing with him as if he was standing next to her: You want me to be like you because you think that your way is the best way, but it may only be the best way for you, not for me. I don’t do what you want me to do and you condemn me. You think I have a problem or that there is something wrong with me because I’m different from you.

She sat on the steps of the municipal building and cried. Sometimes it seemed that life was all about maintenance and defense—maintaining your health, your relationships, your peace of mind, your livelihood, your environment, everything from doing the dishes and showering to earning paychecks. And then there is the defense—defending your home, your choices, your point of view, your rights, your body, your life.

She heard wolves sitting still along a tree line in the distance, their eyes flashing. She heard them breathing. They were in a pack now, but if she fell apart and they came after her, then even these wolves would turn on one another.

Chapter 13

Death Sentence

It takes a long time for a town to die
, she wrote in her journal.
How often does a town truly die, defined only by cracked slabs of black asphalt that proclaim what used to be there?
What makes one town come together in a time of crisis and another fall apart?

Not long after the march through downtown, Adena received its death sentence. The results of the investigation of the mine structure and fire conducted by a New York independent mining corporation were finally published. It appeared that the fire was worse than anyone had expected. The fire was progressing at a rate of about two feet per day and in all directions. It was heading toward the cold side of town and was even beginning to impact a neighboring town, ironically named Burnside. The exceptional heat was igniting mine shafts disconnected to tunnels already burning. The sulfur smell became so rank and rancid that black steel plates were secured over many of the vent and bore holes, but the stench spilled out through crevices and tiny holes in the plates used for lifting them out of their secured place. There was no stopping it.

Adena was an odd place to be. The continuing investigation of the mine fire had distributed the heaviness of waiting evenly among the residents, and once the news was released of the fire’s extent and severity, the fear and anticipation subsided. Some people cheered and drank beer on their front porches as if it were a long football game that finally found a winning team. Others were in their homes grieving and making plans to move away.

After receiving the news, Denver went to see Josh. His mother was stinking drunk when she answered the door, claiming that Josh had left weeks ago and that she had no idea where he had gone. Denver had been so wrapped up in the fire and her own misery that she never saw him leave. She ran to the homes of two of his friends and asked where he had gone, but they didn’t know. At first she didn’t believe them, but she knew Josh, and she knew he could just pick up and go without telling a soul. He had warned her that he was going to leave.

Denver ran down the streets without stopping for several miles. She wasn’t going to slow down until the feeling was gone, the awful feeling that she swore she would never feel again after her parents died. The entire earth might as well have fallen through to oblivion at that very moment because as far as she knew, there was nothing underneath to support her anyway. Every sound became sharp and scraped in her ear. She ran home and couldn’t stay there either. She went into the house and the emptiness was unbearable. The walls were hollow, made of nothing, yet they blocked her vision so that she couldn’t see what was beyond them.

She ran down the street to see Helena. The lights were glowing from her windows, and the crickets in the bushes around her house were singing in rhythm with one another. The sound of it slowed Denver down. Helena’s door was open except for the screen door. When she saw Denver walk up to the porch, she said “hello” and told Denver to come in before she had to knock. They sat down at the kitchen table made of thick oak. It had a pretty pink and white floral arrangement in the center. Helena’s entire kitchen was decorated in pink. Pink flowered towels, pink lined window curtains, white and pink wallpaper. Denver didn’t like pink. It reminded her of Pepto Bismol. But Helena looked beautiful in it, and it suited her with her rose skin and dark hair.

Denver did everything she could to hide the fact that she was on the verge of crumbling again, all the while thinking that Josh couldn’t be gone. He would have said goodbye first, wouldn’t he? At least to her. But then she remembered that she had rejected him, at least emotionally. At a time when he seemed most vulnerable and open to her, she closed the door. Denver felt like a vast mansion of hallways and corridors, which still had many rooms she was unwilling to enter. Josh tried to break down the door, for himself and for her. He must have felt that he had no one in the world and no reason to stay in Adena any longer.

She knew that Josh was far more sensitive than anyone ever gave him credit for. He always smiled and took on troubles with an enviable composure that made him seem impenetrable. This side of him was real, but it hid the part of him that was intense, vulnerable, and contemplative. Only those who were perceptive could see in his eyes the conflict that rolled and thundered beneath his exterior. He needed Denver. He came to her and reached out to her, and except for that one night at Desert Ring Island, she wasn’t there for him. The guilt and regret she felt could have swallowed her whole and drowned her in a bed of seaweed, choking her in its shallow depths, if it wouldn’t have been for Helena and Aunt Rosemary.

Helena looked inquisitively at Denver’s face, damp and flushed from running. She went to her cupboard and pulled out two wineglasses and placed them on the table. From the kitchen counter, she chose a bottle of wine and poured the dark red liquid high into the glasses.

“You don’t look good,” she said. “Actually, you look beautiful . . . tragically beautiful.”

“Where’s Carl?” Denver asked.

“He’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes you do.”

“No. I really don’t.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What happened?”

“You know what happened. You just didn’t want to be the one to tell me. You’re my best friend, Denver. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know for sure. I only heard rumors. That’s not the kind of thing you tell someone unless you are absolutely sure. What if it would have been wrong? Once that seed is planted, it’s always there.”

“I suppose you’re right. I’m sorry.” Helena lit a cigarette.

“When did you start smoking?” Denver asked with surprise.

“Everything and everyone smokes around here. I was feeling left out of the action.”

Denver laughed a little at her remark and looked down at the pattern on the table cloth.

“So the rumors are true,” Denver said.

“Yes. Do you believe that? We’ve only been married a few months and he starts messing around. Geez, if you’re going to commit adultery, at least wait until several years into the marriage to do it, when you’re bored to tears and looking forward to the mid-life crisis. Is it just me or is cheating during the newlywed stage particularly tacky?” Helena asked.

“There are problems with it at any time during a marriage,” Denver replied, knowing Helena wasn’t really looking for an answer to her question.

“Well, you know what they say, ‘once a cheater, always a cheater,’ so his new girlfriend will have her heart broken in no time. Once he cheats on enough of us we can form a support group.”

“Did he move out yet?” Denver asked. “I see his truck is outside.”

“He’s moving out this weekend.” Helena looked down at the floor.

“Be glad you aren’t pregnant.”

“Yeah. That’s true,” Helena said quietly. There was a long pause before she said, “What’s wrong, Denver? I can tell you’ve been running. You only run when you’re upset.”

“It’s Josh.”

“What about him?”

“He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Totally gone. No one knows where he is. I stopped over at his house. His mother was wasted. He could have left right in front of her and she wouldn’t have known the difference.”

“Are you sure he just didn’t go into the woods for a few days?” Helena asked.

“I’m positive. He always told someone when he went to the woods. No one knows where he went, and he took things with him that he doesn’t take to the woods. He kept a secret box. Only I knew about it. He kept all of his money in it.”

“When do you think he left?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it was recently, maybe we could still find him,” Helena said optimistically.

“Not Josh. Even if he just left last night, he’s yawning through Ohio by now.”

“What are you going to do?”

It was the most deafening question Helena could have asked. Denver would have preferred if she would have asked her to single-handedly put out the mine fire with a garden hose. Denver looked at Helena with eyes that saw little into what was going to happen passed the present moment, other than the fact that the sun had set and it was now dark outside.

“Well, it looks like we’re a pair, you and I,” said Helena. She finished her wine and went to take her glass to the sink when she reached for the bottle and refilled the glass.

“I’ve got an idea,” said Helena.

“What?”

“Let’s go out and do what we used to do, you know, when we were kids and stupid and were expected to do crazy things so then we didn’t get into that much trouble.”

“Like what?”

“You remember what we used to do.”

“Well, yeah, I guess so, but Josh was always the ring leader when it came to mischief and juvenile rebellion. Do you remember how the boys on Walnut Street always got into trouble for what we did?” Denver asked.

“Of course they did. We were girls and everyone expects girls to be angels. And since Josh was usually with us, he was never implicated. All I know is that I’m going to go insane if I’m cooped up in this Betty Crocker picket fence hellhole any longer. We don’t need Josh. We can be bad girls all on our own. Let’s go cause trouble!”

“This is so unlike you,” Denver said sarcastically.

“All the more reason to do it. Cork the bottle and bring it along. Wait, I have some things I need to get from the bathroom first. Here are the keys. You drive. And if we wreck that bastard’s pickup truck, we’ll tell him his new girlfriend’s husband came over and stole it and drove it into a ditch. Maybe we’ll go ahead and drive it into the ditch anyway, just for laughs.”

Denver went to the truck and started the engine. Helena followed carrying a shoulder bag and the two wineglasses. They drove around town singing to the radio. Helena finished the bottle of wine and then threw it out the window where it smashed into a telephone pole.

“Oh my God, Helena, I can’t believe you just did that!” Denver exclaimed.

“Yeah, I can’t really believe I did it either.” Helena looked out the back window of the truck toward the pole.

They were consumed by different thoughts that evening. They drove slowly along a dark street on the east side of town where they parked in a small graveyard to visit the grave of Helena’s sister, who had drowned in the river when she was six years old. You would think Helena would have developed an aversion to the river after that, but she didn’t. She merely said, “It’s not the river’s fault we can’t breathe under water.”

Helena went inside a small market and returned with another bottle of wine and two sandwiches wrapped in foil. They drove for a little while outside of town into the darkness of the countryside while eating their sandwiches and laughing. For a little while, they were both quiet riding down the road hearing the swoosh sound of the blowing trees they passed. Helena’s cigarette glowed as she held it by the cracked window so the smoke wouldn’t bother Denver. Then, out of nowhere, Denver began to laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” Helena asked.

“I told Randy the other day that I didn’t drink alcohol.”

“You fool. Who taught you to lie like that?”

“He was trying to get me to loosen up so I would open up.” Denver laughed.

“Yeah, and we both know what he was trying to loosen and open!” Helena said putting out her cigarette.

“Oh yeah! And I didn’t entirely lie. I only drink wine, on rare occasions. He had Michelob in his cab. Gross!” Denver said as the wind blew over her face from the open window.

All of the sudden, Helena asked Denver to stop the truck and get out. “Get out of the truck. I want to drive,” said Helena. Denver got out of the driver’s side and Helena hopped in. “Got your seat belt on?” she asked Denver.

With a wild look of sweet revenge in her eyes, Helena screamed, slammed her foot on the gas pedal, and roared the old truck into a tree that stood on the right side of the road a few feet ahead. She put the truck in reverse and slammed it into the tree trunk again all the while both of them were screaming and laughing until tears came from their eyes. Denver wasn’t so much laughing about having the truck destroyed but watching Helena’s enjoyment of the moment was something she knew she would never forget. Helena slammed the truck enough times into the tree trunk that it stalled out and would no longer run. They got out of the truck and watched the smashed engine smoke and hiss, half wrapped around the tree trunk. “Poor tree,” Helena said sincerely.

“There are worse things that could happen to it,” Denver replied looking back toward town.

Denver grabbed the wine bottle and keys. Helena claimed her bag and the wineglasses. Before she closed the door, she opened the glove compartment and took a stack of cash out of a leather wallet. Denver poured wine into both of the glasses as they turned back onto the road and walked slowly back toward town. The crickets and tree frogs sang in the heat, and the moon gradually peered over the trees in the west, lighting the road back to Adena.

“Helena, I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“This wine sucks!”

“Shit.”

It took a long time to get back to Helena’s house, not because it was that far but because they walked slowly. Sometimes they were quiet listening to the night sounds and their feet shuffling down the road, other times they reminisced about good times when they were younger. Up ahead a ground hog waddled arbitrarily across the road. They had already passed several piles of road kill and were hoping the ground hog was not next on the list.

Out of the blue, Helena stated, “Josh was such a little dork when we were kids, but he’s grown up to be such a nice guy and good looking too.” Denver felt a pang of hurt move through her chest as her thoughts returned to Josh.

When they finally reached Helena’s front door, Denver made sure Helena got into the house safely and locked the door before she started back down the street. Instead of going home, she decided to walk downtown. She felt like walking all night long. She walked back through Adena, taking the same streets they had driven earlier in the evening.

Denver tried to remember where Helena broke the wine bottle on the utility pole. It was hard to see anything at 4:30 in the morning. She found the broken glass almost a block away from the twenty-four-hour Sheetz convenience store on Market Street. She picked up the large pieces of glass first, threw them in the trash, and then picked up the smaller pieces. Her hands smelled like alcohol. She heard the bell on the convenience store door ring as someone walked out of the store. About a minute later, she heard footsteps walking toward her. It was Officer Frick carrying a cup of coffee and an Italian sub.