The River Burns (17 page)

“Sure you recognize him, Anton. Who doesn't? I've known him my whole life. He has a shop on Main Street so he's in favour of the bridge. What else did you expect? If a tourist takes a snapshot, he finds a way to make a dime.”

Tara found it curious that the only two men she'd met in town were now jostling in an argument, although Willis was hanging back, apparently confident that the mayor would uphold his status as the next speaker.

“Denny, you'll be permitted to have your say, but I didn't spot your hand in time.”

“You're listening to everyone who wants to keep the bridge.” Denny did not require the use of the microphone, content to loudly press his position while standing at his seat in the midst of the other loggers. He didn't mention that his side deliberately chose to sit on their hands this deep into the proceedings, and knew that his accusation wasn't fair. Years ago, Mrs. McCracken taught him to pick his spot in any public debate, and so he did. Her edict,
When you speak is equally as important as what you say,
was one lesson well learned from her. “But the loggers need to have their say, Mayor, straight from the horse's arse.”

“We're getting to everyone in due course—”

“That's okay, Anton,” Willis Howard conceded, too intimidated to speak over Denny's objections. He'd let him talk his mouth off and be more comfortable speaking afterwards. “Denny can say whatever's on his mind.”

His tone suggested that he didn't expect much.

“As you wish, Willis. Thank you for your gracious concession. The committee recognizes Mr. Denny O'Farrell.”

The loggers gave him a round of applause, as though this constituted a victory in itself. Because he'd agitated to be heard, the room was paying him particular mind now, and Tara wondered if he planned it that way. Supplanting Willis Howard might grant him a more sympathetic reception.

Brilliant, if that was true.

In any case, expectations were raised, including her own.

“This will be interesting,” Mrs. McCracken proffered, confirming her own intuitive sense.

Denny edged his way past the knees of his fellow workers, choosing at this point to command the microphone. Determination affected his stride, and when he stood before the gathering he put his hands on his hips and paused to scan the meeting. The room went stone quiet—even Tara Cogshill felt a tickle in her throat, as if a cough now might be an unwarranted, unacceptable intrusion. She was impressed by his immediate command of the room.

“You've heard from my bosses, the company executives, from their accountants and their lawyers, and even though I sincerely believe that I agree with them, I'm not sure I understood a frigging word they said.”

The room erupted in laughter, and Tara was intrigued now. This man could be a successful politician, the way he brought an entire gathering into his sway with just a few words. She leaned into Mrs. McCracken and whispered, “Some logger.”

The older woman whispered back, “My nemesis.”

Tara raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Sitting over here,” Denny went on, “I see the big shots at the table agreeing with the tree huggers and the innkeepers, with the shopkeepers and the folks who mean well but don't know diddly, you're bobbing your heads—”

“We consider everyone's standpoint fairly, Denny,” former mayor St. Aubin avowed.

“Maybe that's so, Anton, maybe it's not. You don't make the decisions anymore, so how do we know?” A point was contested that he won for his side. Tara judged that if this logger was her opposing counsel in court, she'd be alert. “You're listening to the tourism industry's viewpoint, to tree hugger experts, to townspeople, some of whom only want to hear the sound of their own voices through an amplifier, it gives them a thrill.”

A minor clamour of objection arose, countered by the murmur of those who agreed with him.

“I don't mean to insult anybody. Well, tree huggers, maybe, I don't mind insulting them.” Even that group enjoyed his mirth. “But seriously, people. Come on! We used to drive logs down the river. My dad, who's here tonight, did it his whole life. The conservation experts warned us to stop because the river was dying. Fine, they made their point. Nobody wants a dead river. Not even the orneriest son-of-a-bitch logger you can find. We don't want that. So instead we truck the logs out now because we just happen to believe they won't fly out of the woods on their own. But trucks—need—roads! When a road comes to a river, it needs a proper bridge. That pretty bridge that we have now was not intended for big rigs or tons of traffic. Not when it was young and not now that it's an antique. I know why you're so gung ho to agree with the people who have spoken here tonight.”

The face on the old mayor was reddening. “This is a fact-finding mission, Denny. I'll have to insist on that. Nobody up here, and I know that I can speak for everyone, nobody has made up his or her mind yet. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing.”

“You can't say that, Anton, because you don't know for sure.”

Tara glanced around the room, noticing how people were responding to the back and forth, their nods at one another.
Denny, you're winning points,
she deduced.

“Some people never want anything to change,” he trumpeted. “Is the government any different? We know the answer to that one. A bridge costs money and you don't want to spend it even when it's our own money. You've got other priorities. Other ways for elected officials—whose skinny asses aren't here tonight, you'll notice—to win votes and keep their precious jobs awhile. But I'm telling you, the modern world is on our side. On the loggers' side. Maybe not the fairy-tale world of the tree huggers, peace and love and shit like that.”

“Fuck you, too, Denny!” Skootch shouted out.

“Oh, go smoke a joint!” Denny called back, which, Tara noted again, won the approbation of a major portion of the assembly. “I believe in that stuff myself. Sure I do. Peace, love, nothing wrong with that. But the point is, we loggers pay the bills around here, with our sweat and our trucks and with the trees we cut down and transport. We support this town, not the guys making a mint at the inns—who take their cash south in the winter—and not the tree huggers, that's for damn sure. Nobody is saying tear down the old bridge. But build a new one. Get off your ass, stick your hand in your deep government pockets, you'll find some cash down there if you feel around and stop playing with yourself, then build us that new bridge.”

The truckers were rowdy in their praise as Denny seated himself. Applause from many townspeople, who filled the back rows and lined the rear and side walls, who brandished no particular axe to grind and perhaps were open to being persuaded, went beyond token politeness. Clapping, Tara chipped in as well, only to be scolded by Mrs. McCracken to keep it short.

“That'll be enough of that,” the old lady commanded.

“I'm done, I'm done. But he did well, you must admit.”

“I haven't spoken yet.”

“I know. You pick your spots.”

Mrs. McCracken leaned into her. “This is the spot I pick.”

She stood up. Willis Howard was making his way back to the microphone to be formally introduced by the meeting's chairman, but that proved no impediment to Mrs. McCracken. Willis, a nervous Nelly when it came to public speaking, took a breath, smiled, cleared his throat unnecessarily, and double-checked his notes, a delay that cost him the opportunity to say a word. An emphatic finger poked his shoulder. He turned.

“I'll take it from here, dear,” Mrs. McCracken informed him, in effect giving him the boot. Willis, who decided that he wasn't so thrilled to be speaking in the wake of the popular Denny O'Farrell after all, slinked back to his seat, somewhat relieved.

“Check that,” the old mayor announced. “The committee recognizes instead the lovely Mrs. McCracken.”

Her mouth a little too close and loud in the microphone so that it boomed around the room, she retorted, “Don't you dare flirt with me, you old fart.”

And just like that, Tara saw that her friend now held sway across the room. Loggers were grim, Denny O'Farrell in particular, while the rest of the room was raucous with laughter and enthralled.

“I want to thank the previous speaker,” Mrs. McCracken stipulated. “It's good to hear another person's perspective. I'm glad that you made a reference to our history, Mr. O'Farrell. It's our principle concern here, although I don't recall that you did particularly well in the subject.”

Tara guessed that it was an inside joke, as the line went over so well that Anton St. Aubin needed to resort to his gavel.

“Our covered bridge is an important part of our heritage,” she carried on.

“Whoop-de-doo!” At the sound of the trucker's voice, Tara turned to look at him. He was two seats farther down from Denny, and like Denny his voice carried well. “Whose salary does our heritage pay?”

The spry sapling of an old lady ignored him. “The bridge goes to the very soul of this town.”

The panel was nodding to these comments, something that Denny mentioned but Tara was noticing for the first time herself, and it was Denny who chose to comment.

“It's a bridge, McCracked, it's not a religion.”

Laughter at the name he'd chosen percolated around the room. Tara was impressed that her new friend appeared not to care. Undoubtedly, she'd heard the name before, and probably from children no taller than her thighs.

A panellist, antagonistic after being called out by a logger for bias, chose to interrupt with a query. “Ma'am, what do you say to the complaints from the forestry industry? The time delays, for instance. Are they not legitimate?”

“Oh, my dear,” she chided him, “you're old enough now, don't be taken in. The truckers can be patient. These little delays won't kill them. I endure them myself picking my berries. So what? Really, ask yourself, what is the big rush? Anyway, they can go around. It's a quick hop up the road.”

Denny was on his feet this time, roaring. “Thirty-eight extra clicks per freaking load. Don't bang your gavel down on me, St. Aubin,” he commanded the moderator, although he'd only raised it without bringing it down yet, “this is serious business.”

“You can make the little side trip if you want to,” Mrs. McCracken protested. “It doesn't take that long. You do it now when you're in the mood.”

“Only when the lineup's too long! Only because we have to!”

The gavel came down this time. “I must require both of you to address the panel. For now, Denny, Mrs. McCracken has the floor.”

Tara was keeping her own internal tally. Mrs. McCracken's counterarguments came across as weak, and the room sensed that. The loggers scored a point.

“Given what's at stake,” Mrs. McCracken contended, her sure, pure voice enunciating every syllable as if sharpening a blade, “our heritage, our history, it's a minor detour.”

The committee's heads kept wagging.

“Hey, you!” Denny cried out. “Tree huggers! Get in on this! She wants us to burn more fuel. Stick up for the planet here! They want more pollution, more noise. Are you just going to sit there and let that happen?”

Opposing sides were both on their feet, and Tara, observing these people in action, noted a few telling details. Having instigated the sudden splurge of insults and rhetoric, Denny O'Farrell was not swept up by the furore himself. He was keeping tabs on the room instead, letting the verbiage fly around without responding or being emotionally distraught. That made Tara think, and she watched him closely. She was unsure how much credit she should give this man, for she recognized her own prejudice here. He was a logger, not a jurist. And yet . . . if he was Mrs. McCracken's nemesis as she maintained, then he'd found the perfect way to censor her voice. In the bedlam, she was stuck at the microphone but unable to get a word in edgewise. The perfect ploy.

Tara glanced at an older logger with whom she'd made eye contact at the onset of the meeting, a man whom Mrs. McCracken described as “the head of the clan.” Alex O'Farrell was quietly observing his son, as though he also wondered if Denny was not choreographing the entire event.

At the front table, the old mayor banged the uproar to silence with his gavel. Mrs. McCracken seated herself, receiving a few pats on her back, and the old mayor decided that if he was going to get them out of there in one piece, he'd reserve the final comments of the evening for himself.

“We appreciate that the congestion on the old covered bridge is an issue. Your city council, I'm told, has put forward remedies to alleviate the problem.”

“Like what,” Denny called out, unhappy with this return to civility, “a new paint job?”

“They will buttress the bridge,” the old mayor pressed on, “to make it safer for heavy vehicles. That way, bus passengers won't need to walk across, the trucks can go a little faster.”

“We still have to wait for that bus!” another voice pointed out.

“The town will build a better turning circle, saving time,” St. Aubin stated.

“Seconds, every hour,” Denny qualified.

“And as I understand it, and this helps people in many quarters, an aesthetic issue, well, we'll repaint the bridge.”

Denny jumped to his feet. “I knew it! Paint it white, Anton, to symbolize the whitewash that's going on here tonight!”

The old mayor resorted to his gavel to bring the room back to his remarks. Slowly, with a few errant shouts ricocheting around the room, people quieted, and he scrunched his brow.

“I believe,” St. Aubin finished up, “that that sums up the town's position. Now the agencies here tonight, and the governments, they'll get together, I assure you, and I sincerely believe that they will see what else can be done. Maybe a new bridge is the answer. Maybe not. Down the road, a new one may be inevitable. It's a matter of resources, of course. Of priorities. On that, we'll have to take a wait-and-see attitude.”