The River Burns (18 page)

He thanked the individuals at the head table and the citizens for their participation. His gavel, and a halfhearted smattering of applause, declared the meeting closed.

Out in the cooler night air, Tara walked Mrs. McCracken to her scooter. “So?” she asked. “Did you win the debate tonight, do you think?”

Mrs. McCracken adjusted her helmet.

“I didn't have to win the debate tonight. I just wanted to make sure that my side didn't lose it. I'll bet you a blueberry pie that come morning, come next week next month next year,” Mrs. McCracken prophesied, “the bridge will still be standing. Most likely, as the only one.”

“Why the only one?” Tara asked her. “What's wrong with two?”

“Because we're too small for two, dear. We're much more than a hamlet but not in the government's mind. To them, we're nothing but a whistle-stop. A name on a map. A detour during election time. Not a soul in government is going to care enough about us to build a second bridge when we already have one which, as far as they are concerned, true or not, is adequate. I mean, who do we think we are? The rich? The powerful?”

Tara took her meaning, but still tried to speak for the other side. “The men have a different point of view. They represent commerce, big industry. Well, maybe it's only modest-sized industry. But they made several good points.”

Mrs. McCracken was having none of it. “Understand me, I don't
care
if they get a second bridge as long as they don't tear mine down to build it. That's the risk I'm not willing to take. I don't believe there will be a new bridge. Like I say, we're too pint-sized a community. There aren't enough votes here and anyway, those votes are split down the middle. All I want is to make sure the authorities have it in their craw that if—a big if—
if
they build a new bridge, then they must make certain that the old one stays where it is and will be properly maintained
or there will be hell to pay
. I want them to fear our side and I believe they do. I know very well that if the old bridge becomes a secondary crossing, voices will say that it's outlived its usefulness, it won't be maintained, eventually it becomes a danger and gets torn down. So! Do you want to take that bet or not?”

“I win a blueberry pie. What do you get if I lose?”

Mrs. McCracken mulled it over, then broke into a wide grin. “Your pride, Tara. Your youth. Your beauty. I'll snap all that up for myself and you get to hobble around as an old codger.”

“You witch!”

“Only for a day, let's say. So is it a bet?” The old lady's eyes were dancing.

Tara let her know that she could never risk all that.

“Yet you do, dear. You've already risked everything by coming here. Over time, you might keep your pride, I pray that you do, but someday everything else will be gone.”

“Unless I give it away to you, hunh?”

“Oh, if only you could, dear. If only life was like that. But in any case, only for a day. So, no bet?”

Tara laughed happily. “No bet,” she said.

14

W
hen harvesting a field, truckers required coordinated radio communication. Much of the roadway—flat, hard-packed gravel, dusty these days—was single lane, so trucks awaited cues before arriving or departing. Upon receiving an all-clear, they barrelled down the road in packs of four or five, straight and fast, confident of no oncoming traffic.

Passing lanes existed at two locations along the logging road, for the sake of potential breakdowns but principally to allow rigs to enter and travel partway along when trucks from the opposite direction were not yet on their way. As many as four trucks could wait on each siding while the oncoming vehicles passed by. Denny O'Farrell was given clearance to carry on to the loading field, but he pulled over onto the siding anyway, drove his rig up to the farthest end, and cut the engine. Momentarily, three companion trucks motored behind in his dust. The drivers shut their engines as well, something they rarely did, a silence that felt suddenly uproarious. Denny stepped down from his tractor, tapped his tires as he walked to the rear, and joined Xavier, Samad, and André. Two men fished out their cigarettes, and Samad shined an apple on his shirt before biting into it. Denny took a long pull on his water bottle.

Foliage shaded them, the day mild and breezy, cloudy with a threat of rain. They'd not spoken in private since the town meeting the night before.

“Not even the courtesy to wait,” André said, assuming that the others would catch his reference. “They didn't even pretend to show us any respect. Just flat out, no bridge.”

“It wasn't flat out, but faking a response, that's no courtesy,” Denny concurred.

André emphatically shook his head. “This way, see, they don't just turn us down, they don't just tell us to take a hike. This way they make sure we know that the meeting was a blow job.”

“Then how come I didn't enjoy it?” Samad asked. The others were not in the mood for his joke and didn't respond.

“This way, they can tell everybody they listened. They made themselves look good. To us they're saying, forget this shit, we only listen to people on their knees.”

“We can eat moose shit for breakfast, that's what they think,” Xavier added, a thought that made Samad feel glum. He tossed his apple core away.

The men were quiet awhile, and Xavier did a tire check down the length of his rig and returned up the other side. When he came back, he was watching Denny, and Samad checked him out as well, repeatedly glancing his way. They knew, instinctively, that what mattered now was Denny's reaction. If anyone could find a way out of this, he was the man. But he chose not to get embroiled, neither in André's emotions nor in his own pent-up fury nor even with his frustration at being put in this position. He never asked for this, but he long presumed that the decision would fall upon him anyway. Most people could not understand what it meant to be a leader of a pack of men, and not just these three. He kept a lid on things, but he kept a lid on things by implying that the lid could be removed one day, and when that day came he'd take it upon himself to remove it. That day, it seemed, fast approached, or was already here. Whatever the logistics of the process, the former mayor's comments to close the meeting unofficially confirmed that no new bridge would be built in the immediate future. Probably the government didn't want him to repeat all that he overheard, yet he may have picked up insider knowledge which he then let slip, softening the blow a notch by adding, “not at this time.” Possibly, Denny considered, the old mayor deliberately overplayed the government hand as a way to tip the loggers off, to let them know the lay of the land. Always they were advised to give it five or ten more years, to place their faith in the god of patience, that sooner or later a new highway and with it a new bridge would be constructed, but never, it seemed, did that loose timeframe get reduced, not even after years went by. Not that the loggers wanted to wait that long anyway. The mayor's remarks convinced everyone concerned that the government had made its decision before the meeting was called, that the whole point was to mollify those who held to a different opinion, so they'd feel included and wait out another five or ten in peace, and now Denny was on the spot.

“We know what we agreed to do,” he said.

“We know, Denny,” Xavier confirmed.

Samad studied his boots. He hated this. He knew that they needed him for a very specific reason and wished that that was not true. He felt an ache rise through the bones of his chest, as if cracking across his breastplate to prepare him for a surgical procedure, which was unnecessary perhaps with the end result in doubt. He wanted to run, yet hated being such a coward. He was afraid, too, of what his wife might think.

“If anybody wants out, then now's the time.”

“This is no time to back down,” André objected.

Denny reeled him in quickly. “That's not your decision,” he admonished him. “Every man makes that choice for himself. You don't get to make it for me or for Samad or for Xavier. Every man is on his own in this. But now's
the time. After this, that's it. Whoever is in is in. Whoever is out is out.”

“You can't be out,” André fumed.

“Anybody,” Denny reminded him, and his anger showed, “can be out.”

“Well, I'm in,” André told them.

Neither Xavier nor Samad shared his enthusiasm, but if this was the time to back down, then neither possessed the wherewithal to do that. They didn't know how. Samad was the least committed, the worrywart, the one among them prone to imagining the worst. But he was not a man who made decisions on his own. Even when Denny gave him an opening as wide as his truck was long he could not bring himself to step through it. Denny knew that, but he also knew that if Xavier decided to call it quits, then Samad might find the courage to join him. He and André couldn't go it alone, just the two of them. So in a way their gambit was entirely up to Xavier. Only Xavier didn't know that.

The large man was taking his time to decide. André wasn't worried but Denny knew why, because André believed he could bully anybody into anything. Denny wasn't going to allow him to do that. Xavier needed to make up his own mind and he would be free to do so without being intimidated or else he'd call this whole thing off himself.

“I've thought about it a lot,” Xavier said.

“What the fuck is there to think about?” André demanded to know.

“Hold it,” Denny said. “There's a ton to think about here.”

“Like what?”

“Like jail time, André. Like fucking prison.” Then he shrugged, as if confounded by a thought that ominous popping out of his mouth. “It's a possibility.” He couldn't imagine being caught. Accused, possibly, but not tried, let alone convicted. He'd read statistics in a newspaper article that arson was the most successful major crime, and the least prosecuted, in part because the evidence normally burned away. He was determined to improve on those stats, although there were no guarantees.

His cautionary words not only silenced André Gervais but gave Xavier's deliberations more traction. Unlike Samad, he had the internal fortitude to join in with them or to stand up against them, but he did not have the acuity to strike the right course of action. Denny knew that about his friend. He told him one time that his Achilles' heel was his brain but Xavier didn't feel insulted because he didn't know what Denny meant. “Do you think we should do this, Denny?” he asked. He wanted support.

Denny refused to make up another man's mind for him. Not for something this risky.

“Somebody has to do something,” Denny told him. “To be honest, I wish it didn't have to be me or you. But you have a choice. I've got a choice, too.”

Xavier seemed upset. He wanted this to be simple, yet it was more complicated than he could handle. He strolled away from them, his back to his friends and to the sun, and they thought he was going to check his tires one more time when he turned around and although nothing changed and nothing could be predicted, he said, “Look. I'm in. That's that.”

Samad wished he'd said nothing, Denny could tell, but the small man nodded, and put his hands in the hip pockets of his jeans and spit. These men were his friends. He said, “I'm in, too.”

“Don't sound so goddamned enthusiastic,” André admonished them both.

“They don't have to be,” Denny censored him.

André accepted that, and then he said, “You didn't actually say yourself, Denny.”

He blew out a gust of air. He really wished that someone else could do this, take the risk, be responsible for executing their plan. This is what he'd never be able to explain, thinking at that moment of his brother and father. And of his wife. They'd be disappointed in him. This wouldn't be done to hurt them, or spite them, or to prove himself in their company. He hoped they'd never find out. This was not about being the younger brother becoming his own man. He accomplished that on a daily basis, didn't he, at home and on the job, being the breadwinner and the best damn dad he could be? This was about leading these guys, whom he loved and cared for, too. They counted on him, every day, and because they counted on him he led them. Angry men who felt humiliated were capable of surrendering to their baser instincts, their bad impulses. As far as Denny was concerned, he was doing what was wrong to prevent something far worse from taking place.

“I'm in charge. That's the deal. If you don't like it, bug out now. If you accept it, then I'll decide exactly when we go. You'll do what I say. Period. Samad, you ready yet?”

Samad gave him a thumbs-up. “Already done,” he let him know. Which was good. Denny forewarned him to be prepared well in advance so as to diminish any connection back to their group.

“You won't get much notice. Just be ready to go,” Denny advised them, and held out his fist. Each man tapped it, then he and the others returned to their rigs and restarted the big diesels. They looked calm. They moved slowly. But each man's heart was thumping. Then they drove down the dusty road.

■   ■   ■

“Hop on.”

To climb aboard a flimsy, zippy scooter with an elderly driver wearing an outrageously brazen helmet felt a trifle daunting.

“Where to?” Tara asked. She squinted under a shaft of bright sunlight. She was outside without sunglasses as scudding clouds cast a pall.

“The graveyard.”

“Oh! Sounds lovely.”

“Sarcasm does not become you, young lady.”

“If it makes me any less a
lady
, I'm all for it. But if you prefer, a trip to the graveyard sounds creepy.”

Mrs. McCracken had obviously planned the afternoon outing, given that a spare helmet sat tidily strapped to the passenger seat. Tara put it on, snapped the clasp, then swung a leg up and over and made herself comfortable on the scooter's small rear seat. Reaching behind her back she grabbed the chrome bars.

“Not too fast, okay?” she pleaded.

“Oh hush.”

They were off.

Stores, including Potpourri, were closed on Mondays as the train didn't run. She should probably be sprucing up her new home now that she was moved in, and she was making progress on that front. Yet Tara felt undermined, her familiar focus wreaked by a restlessness of spirit and a new and unrequited longing. Justifications came readily to hand: she'd not run away from job and home merely to lock herself into a similar manic routine. So she strolled along in search of whatever might buoy her spirits on a cloudy day, and realized soon enough that her feet were propelling her towards the old covered bridge. She thought it a worthy destination after the prior evening's debate. The bridge stood proud and was strikingly attractive—she'd not given it sufficient attention since her arrival, she supposed, especially considering how fixated others were on its stature. She was about to turn off the sidewalk onto the dirt path that was the riverside walk when the indomitable Mrs. McCracken intercepted her foray. She gathered that the old gal intended to snatch her from her apartment if she wasn't claimed off the street.

Mrs. McCracken wasn't joking about their destination. The ride to the cemetery was no quick jaunt and gave Tara sporadic cause to be terrified. Winding roads, potholed pavement, steep hills to climb. The scooter whined loudly, objecting to the day's extra weight. The pair made it to the top without the engine stalling, although Mrs. McCracken acknowledged the battle. “Thank goodness you're only a wisp of a thing.”

“You're wispier.”

“Thank goodness for that, too.”

“Now what?”

“The graveyard, dear. It's worth a visit.”

From the small parking lot they climbed farther on foot. A breezy day, with showers in the forecast, and each woman put a hand to her hair from time to time. Fighting a gust, Tara turned to face the wind a moment, allowing it to blow her hair back over her head, and in doing so saw for the first time above the canopy of trees the astonishing view from this altitude. She stood still before the rolling hills and snatches of speckled farmland. Mrs. McCracken, a few strides ahead, returned to take in the vista herself. While intimately familiar to her, she never grew tired of the pastoral scene.