The River Burns (37 page)

“I'll never understand why you took up your profession either.”

The man chuckled, and spread open his arms as though to indicate the river, the town, the surrounding forests and hills, and the last trace of evening light. “This magnificence,” he questioned him, “yet you wonder why?”

“I enjoy it, too, Skootch,” Ryan pointed out to him. “As much mine to enjoy as yours. Except, admittedly, for this pile of junk.”

“But I have the
freedom
to enjoy it, Ry! You dress up for Halloween each day and strap on a gun in case somebody wants to shoot you. Your attire claims you, it defines you. As does mine.”

“Touché,” Ryan conceded.

“Not to mention, though you chide me for it, I figure if there's a half-dozen women in my life I won't be bitten so badly if one decamps in the middle of the night. I rue the loss of an infielder more.”

“You got me there, too,” Ryan said.

They let the night prevail then, surrendering to the gathering ambiance. Bats and nighthawks skittered above them on a mosquito hunt, and below them the windless surface of the river was broken intermittently by patrolling fish, nibbling at the toes of water bugs and ditched flies.

“Whatever happened to us?” Skootch asked. “Is that the question posed at this hour?”

Nodding, Ryan concurred. “Time goes by. Hey. Speaking of time, it's sad about Mrs. McCracken. She used to keep us both in tow.”

“Yeah. I loved that old chick. Arrogant as sin, though. She told me one time that she refused to give up on me. So I told her that I pray for
her
every night. Man, that rotted her socks. Teed her right off. How come she was so old from the day she was born, though? I don't understand that about her.”

Ryan reached up under his shirt's collar, yawned, and scratched his shoulder. He was still yawning as he began to talk. “She always wondered why I never arrested you. She actually suggested, seriously, I think, that I sink your boat, although in fairness, I don't think she knew it was your boat.”

“Sweet old dame. I wouldn't put it past her to sink me herself, if she was still around. Do you have plans along those lines, Ry?”

“Not yet. But I could sink you, Skootch, in more ways than one.”

Time to resort to the whisky.

Skootch chose a rather solemn tone, for him, when he asked, “Why haven't you? Long ago I ceased to believe that it's just for old times' sake.”

“Here's to old times,” Ryan said. They clinked mugs, and drank.

They revelled in the quiet of the night awhile longer.

“As boys, Ryan, we thought we'd ride this river one day, float the logs downstream. That's before it hit me what an ugly thing a hewn forest can be, and wanted no part of the work. Before you got religion and became a cop. But I miss it some days, the dream. Do you? I still go to bed at night sometimes and imagine myself on a log drive. It's an old-world dream. Before clear-cutting and contaminated rivers. But it was a good dream, while it lasted. You miss it?”

Ryan took up his tone, this bend in the river of their discussion. If Skootch wanted to be nostalgic with him, he was willing to go there. “Sometimes. Sure. Like you say, though, our worldview didn't have a snowball's chance of holding up. We got knocked off our plank by life, Skootch. If you want to move logs today, drive a truck. That's a far cry from being a raftsman.”

“Yet here I am. Living on the river. At least for a spell. And you, Ry, do you want to cut the crap?”

He nodded and sipped. “Okay, Skootch. If you want me to. This morning three logging trucks were firebombed. A few others were spray-painted. There's not a person in his right mind who doesn't think the tree huggers are behind the sabotage.”

“Tree hugger,” Skootch parlayed, “is a derogatory term. You may continue to use it, just as I will continue to say, for example, logger fucks, but I just want to make that point, you being a civic official who really should mind his tone.”

“Duly noted,” Ryan complied. “Let me remind you, I'm not in uniform.”

“You will be tomorrow. Sabotage, also, is a discretionary word.”

“How about
you
cutting the crap, Skootch? You play with language, but . . .”

Skootch looked away and back, nodding slightly. The nod felt defiant now, even threatening. “Fine. Violent acts of protest, and some minor vandalism, occurred today, initiated by a person or persons unknown.”

“The crap, Skootch.”

“At the time I was sitting on top of Ol' Smokey here, in plain public view, eating my curds and whey. What the fuck is whey anyway, do you know?”

“I thought so,” Ryan said.

“Thought what?”

“You made a public spectacle of yourself in order to establish a rock-solid alibi. You were saying, you've wondered why I haven't put you away yet.”

“Are you suggesting that old times' sake doesn't cut it? I like to think that whatever it is you imagine I might be doing that requires my being
put away
, in your words, I have not given you one shred of evidence to sustain the charge. Am I correct?”

“If you screw up, you're done. You're toast. You'll be under arrest. You're right to think that way. And you're right to think that you do a remarkable job of covering your ass. There's another aspect to this, though.”

“Do tell.”

“I prefer the devil I know, Skootch.”

“You don't honestly think of me as a devil, do you, Ryan? Not you.”

“Likely, your replacement, if it comes to that, will be an ugly thug up from the city who keeps a pistol in the glove box of his SUV and a semiautomatic in the trunk. He'll have biker pals. He'll keep people in line by beating the shit out of them with a baseball bat that's never met a ball, or by executing them somewhere along the riverbank and burying them in mud. Things will change without you, Skootch. You have your own methods of maintaining internal order. I prefer them. There's not a good-sized town on this continent that doesn't have buyers and sellers of illicit drugs, so I'm not going to kid myself into believing I can stamp out the problem or make it go away. The best I can do is keep the ancillary problems under wraps. Your methods help with the internal order around here. Until now. And now it's time that we consider again the internal order, for the benefit of everyone concerned.”

Twice Skootch appeared set to respond, and twice he swallowed his words, washed down with another sip of whisky. He had more to think about here than anticipated.

“So this discussion is about internal order?” he wanted to clarify.

“It is.”

“Hmm.” Night fully collapsed upon them. Their platform remained lit by a hurricane lamp and a few candles in pots, and by streetlamps a distance off. They could see each other well enough. “This is also about Denny,” Skootch construed.

“You don't want a war between tree huggers and loggers. Neither do I.”

Skootch sat up so that he was sitting astride the divan. “Ryan, I care for the forest, the river and the air, and for the planet. That care, of course, has to be financed. So I learned to attach myself to what really counts in life and I don't give a shit for stuff that doesn't matter no matter what people think. Except, of course, baseball, but baseball matters to me. As it does to Denny, which is why I'm so fond of him. Him and me, we started that league. Us, we decided on hardball, none of that fastball shit. But there's a cost, Ry, a payment extracted from those who denude and destroy. I warned your brother not to destroy that bridge.”

“Thoughtful of you, Skootch.”

“He did not heed my warning.”

“So a truck was destroyed. Let's say by a lightning bolt from heaven. So tit for tat. This is where it ends.”

“If the loggers are satisfied with that, then fine. But you and I both know they won't be. If it's a war they want, it's on their heads.”

“Regarding your internal discipline,” Ryan said, trying to find traction.

“This is about Denny, right? Will you at least admit that?”

“You said so yourself, you don't know the individuals involved. No one does.”

“Except the individuals themselves.”

“I haven't heard anyone confess, have you? But let's say the loggers are up in arms, which is not a stretch. Let's say that for your sake, Denny's sake, my sake, the town's sake—my God, even for the forest's sake and the river's—let's say that if the loggers saw some retribution exacted—”

“Upon tree huggers?” Skootch asked.

“Upon the firebombers—then is there not a good chance that hostilities might cease? On both sides?”

In the silence that ensued, Ryan knew that his brother's close childhood pal was weighing the options.

“Denny is still on the hook—”

“Not necessarily.”

“The SQ is investigating, I heard.”

“That's the problem, you see. I'm betting that they don't want to stick around. It's not their turf. They don't give a shit. They'd rather get back to their friends and families and favourite watering holes. Maybe they golf, I don't know. Life here is a motel room and restaurant food and their per diems
don't pay for the best places. Here our cheap places to eat and sleep are, well, cheap.”

“And the golfing sucks.”

“They want to find a legitimate suspect to lay a charge against and beat it.”

“But not if it's Denny.”

“They don't care if it's Denny or not. As it happens, I do.”

Ryan stood up to depart. He said what he came to say, and dared go no further.

“At least you're not a choirboy,” Skootch remarked. He reminded him, “I've only asked one thing of you, Ry. I respect you too much to ask for special dispensation, or a blind eye, nothing like that. One thing only I've asked. Remember what it is?”

He couldn't recall initially. Then something cropped up.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Why? This is going to cost me,” Skootch negotiated. “I should be compensated in return, no? It should cost you something.”

“You're persistent. I'll give you that. God.”

“Just,” Skootch mollified him, “to the end of the season—and the playoffs. No long-term commitment.”

Ryan saw no easy way out, and so consented with a nod and took his leave. He climbed down the ladder and on the lower tier the youthful earth mother smiled as he leapt off the raft onto solid ground.

“Good night,” she said. “Come back soon.” The moon, just rising above the hills, shone upon her face and bounteous cleavage. But he'd spoken his piece, and would not return.

■   ■   ■

Partially clad, Denny and Val
fell asleep in each other's arms. They'd had a few drinks. When his alarm woke him Denny found his socks pulled off his feet and his belt buckle undone, but otherwise he still wore his lazy-day jeans. Up during the middle of the night, Val changed into her PJs, and now snoozed soundly through the alarm. Denny tapped it off, then fell back asleep himself. Jerking awake further on, he was already late, and a little annoyed when Valou, minutes later, knocked on his bathroom door. He swung her up into his arms and gave her a bumpy ride.

“You're a pork pie!” she called out. How could the child, any child, be so awake so early, with so much energy and life while he possessed so little? Of his three kids, she was the least concerned about the troubles in their household, and for that, at least, he was grateful.

“You're a pork pie with a lemon nose and jalapeño peppers in your teeth.”

“You're a pork pie with Buffalo wings for ears and a . . . a giraffe with a liquorice pipe in your belly button.”

“Now you're just being silly,” he said, and put her down. “It's a silly game, but you can't start off silly.”

“Why not?”

“Not enough fun that way. It has to work up to being silly. Daddy needs a shower this morning, sweetheart. Use the toilet downstairs, okay?”

“Aw.”

“New rule. Come on. I'm late. Scoot! Look at poor mommy. She's still asleep. Go quietly, okay?”

She was surprisingly obedient and Denny entered his shower where he felt achingly tired and deeply gloomy.

He already booked off a couple of hours for later in the morning to go to Mrs. McCracken's funeral, but when he got downstairs he phoned in to say he would not be back until the afternoon. He drove into town to look up the only lawyer he knew and was outside the man's office when Joe Pavano showed up for work, parking his Austin Mini. He followed Joe through the doors into the modest law office.

The sign on the door called him Giuseppe.

Joe was in before his secretary. Typical behaviour. Always the nerd.

Denny deemed that the lawyer was not ageing well, despite a level of prosperity he and his peers would never know. Not just the balding hair and the expanding waistline, but the bags under his eyes were overly pronounced and he detected a slight wheeze to the man's breathing. They both fathered young children—perhaps Joe's were wearing him out before his time.

“Good morning, old buddy.”

Giuseppe Pavano gazed at Denny in the doorway to the office as though he did not recognize him. Finally, he said, “My secretary doesn't make appointments this early for anybody.”

“Yeah. I came in on my own. Checking things out. It's been a while, Joey boy, how's it going?”

“I haven't heard that for a while. People call me Joseph, if they're not calling me Giuseppe, or Mr. Pavano.”

“We go back to the good old days. I sure as hell won't ask you to call me Dennis.”

“What's up, Denny? What can I do for you?”

He seldom was made to feel unwelcome, anywhere, and in this instance his irritation rose quickly, snaking through him. He didn't see why Joe Pavano should have anything against him and supposed he'd turn out to be another poor slob who loved the old bridge more than life itself. One of those nut bars.