Authors: Craig Lesley
'"I appreciate the offer,' Billyum said as he drove us back to the ambulance. 'You better get those bodies to Gateway, call some relatives. Maybe make some more ambulance runs.'
"I guess he was right. Things were a mess out there, but what was done was done. In town we might still help somebody." Jake sipped his drink. "Billyum was sure nervous about those horses. Who could blame him? He wanted to end their suffering quickly, but he wasn't anxious about walking the track.
'"A long night,' Dave said as Billyum dropped us off. 'Nobody's getting off early. Nobody's getting paid overtime.'"
Jake rested his elbows on the sides of the chair. "That's about it. We drove back and made the calls. Tough duty for us, too. We had a hard time getting somebody living in Southern California overlooking a golf course to understand the snow and horses. None of those dead horses could be used for anything but glue. The meat was all bloodshot."
I nodded. "That's some story."
"I don't know exactly why I'm telling you," he said, as if he'd lost the drift himself. "But I'll always remember how glad I was to have Dave along that night. Billyum, too. I thought you might want to know about it. Your dad and I had a lot of other ambulance runs. Women having babies, kids with broken arms falling off bikes, guys that didn't know how to handle a chainsaw. They were always bad. But that horse accident was the worst. Dave and I talked about it lots of times. We wanted things to work out better, but they didn't. The damage was already done; we just made things worse. Maybe that's the handle I'm trying to grab when I tell you."
"All right," I said. "Well, I got to get going."
"Put the key back on the tree," he said. "Don't go sticking it in your pocket."
When I stepped outside it was dark. I could still see the pan, outlined against the snow. Snow was falling and a fresh layer covered it. The goose was gone, but the smell of burned goose and Prince Albert clung to my coat. I returned the key to the tree branch and just stood a while in the dark.
I didn't know what to think. Things were falling away from me in ways I didn't understand. Although I had wanted events to be simple and clear, they weren't. Everything seemed muddled and confused. I didn't trust either Jake or my mother anymore, especially Jake. I even suspected he might know more about Meeks and Chilcoat, but whenever I thought of the possibilities, a cold hand seized my neck and my thoughts shivered to a stop. I decided I needed to distance myself from these events and people or they would stop me like submerged logs.
When I walked to the front of the house, I heard Jake inside talking. I peered through the window and could see past a gap in the drapes. He
lit the pipe and took a couple of puffs. After the tobacco was burning good, he held the pipe in his hand, gesturing toward someone across the room. "Take care of your equipment, boys, and it'll take care of you."
He smiled, holding the pipe in front of him, close to his nose. After taking a few deep breaths, he set it in the ashtray and leaned back, closing his eyes. "I'm just relaxing a minute. I'll be coming to bed soon."
I watched the pipe smoke rise toward the ceiling and disappear as quietly as ghosts. I didn't want to see any more of my uncle then, so I moved away quietly, leaving a single line of footprints in the falling snow.
A
WARM CHINOOK WIND
began blowing in mid-December and the snow melted at an alarming rate. After two days of wind, it started raining hard, but the ground was still frozen. Water ran everywhere. Each gulley, ditch, bottom, stream, and creek overflowed. In Gateway the parking lots became pools and people waded more than walked. "Hope this is enough water for the fucking farmers," Sniffy said when I ran into him at the post office. The rising water had taken out his wife's garden and flooded their basement.
Going to the post office had become my duty. I had mailed the papers as Riley instructed, but several weeks had passed with no reply. My mother grew so nervous waiting for the divorce papers to come, her hands shook when she tried to work the mailbox combination lock. "I'm sick of waiting for that man to act," she said.
I still felt a cold anger toward her and Jake and believed any anxiety she felt was well deserved. However, I became worried in early December when she actually caught a hard flu and stayed in bed over a week, alternating chills and fever, cramps and nausea. In lucid moments she fretted she was going to lose her job. "I don't understand it," she said between sips of strong tea, the only thing she could keep on her stomach. "I'm almost never sick. It's worry touches me off."
She grew better, but the doctor's bills and prescriptions had set us back. She insisted on paying as she went and managed to sign the checks with a wavering hand, but I filled in the names and amounts. The flu had to run its course the doctor decided; neither he nor the drugs did
much more than the aspirin. However, the bills were almost as much as our rent.
I understood how disappointed she'd be when I returned empty-handed from the post office once again, so I tried to cheer her up by giving her sixty dollars of Kalim's money.
She seemed pleased but surprised when I handed her two twenties and two tens that I carefully removed from my billfold.
"Where'd you get this?" she asked.
"It was in the post office box." I shrugged. "Riley must've sent it."
She looked skeptical. "Why didn't he send the divorce papers?"
"Well, Mom, he's never been real predictable." Seeing how crestfallen she was, I added, "I'm sure they'll come soon."
A blanket over her lap and legs, she sat on the love seat, almost recovered. Even so, her arms and legs were terribly thin, and the dark circles beneath her eyes made her seem gaunt. I was relieved that she had been too preoccupied with the papers to examine closely my story about the money.
"Where's the envelope?" she asked. "I want to see the return address. The lawyer told me if I advertise at his last address for two months, I can get a divorce without his signature."
I paused, thinking over this new piece of information. It's true I had promised Riley not to tell his address. But why not let my mother get on with her life? Anyway, after all that had happened, I didn't feel as if I owed anybody.
"Traverse City," I said.
"What would he be doing there?" she said. "He doesn't have any relatives in Traverse City."
I hadn't told her about the widow woman, real or imagined. "Maybe he's working the Great Lakes. I think a lot of guys work the lakes if they're trying to hide out."
"He might be. If I remember my geography, that's on Lake Michigan." My mother examined one of the twenties. "And it does appear as if this was soaked at one time." She picked up a ten. "All of this money looks peculiar. You don't think he's involved in counterfeiting, something like that?"
"I think they'll spend, Mom. Anyway, we've been a little short this month."
Her eyes flashed. "This isn't your money, is it? You haven't been working for Jake?"
"It's not my money." I crossed my heart. "Do you want me to look around for the Bible or something?"
"I'm so tired." She leaned back, closing her eyes. "Well, we certainly need it. I just hope he didn't hold up a liquor store."
"Maybe he knocked over a bank," I said.
One eye opened. "He doesn't have the gumption for a bank."
Our house sat in a depression, so the water stood in pools all around. "They should have built this place on stilts." Mom was buckling her galoshes. She planned on going back to work, but I could tell she was still weak. "I've got to keep shagging along. They've already given me sick leave and let me use vacation time. That was very generous." She put on her coat and scarf. "I swear, it seems no matter how hard you try, you're just one disaster short of the poorhouse."
"Don't walk, Mom. Call Franklin."
"He had to go to Central on business. Won't be back until late this afternoon. Anyway, I've got a little business myself today."
"What's that?"
She put both hands on my shoulders so she was looking square into my face. "Riley sent the money from Traverse City? You could swear to that in a court of law?"
"Why would I need to?"
"I'm going to the lawyer. Pretty soon, I'll be a free woman."
"That's great, Mom. If I need to swear to it, I will." I was pleased to see her so happy. My reaction surprised me.
She took a bright umbrella out of the closet and opened the front door to a rising pool of water. "What a mess. By tonight this water will be over my galoshes. Call the city and make them do something about it. Bunch of loafers."
The high school had closed because so many roads were washed out the buses couldn't run. I felt guilty staying at home while Mom worked but felt pleased about giving her the sixty dollars. I decided to swing by at noon, maybe walk with her to the lawyer's office, just to keep her company.
At eight o'clock, someone honked outside and I thought maybe Franklin had come by after all, even though it didn't sound like his car horn.
When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Jake's rig towing his big aluminum guide boat with the twin Evinrudes. "The reservation's flooding," he said. "Lots of people are trapped in Hollywood."
I hesitated at the door.
"Hurry and get dressed. I need you to ride shotgun." He held up his hand. "Five minutes. These people need help."
In about three minutes, I had on my clothes and boots. At the last second, I grabbed my Sasquatch coat and headed out the door, splashing through the puddles.
When I climbed in, Jake looked at the coat, shaking his head. "That damn thing soaks water like a sponge. There's rain gear behind the seat." As he drove away, the tires threw up big sprays of water.
When we passed the burned-out plywood plant, Jake scowled at the hulk. "What an eyesore."
In spite of the cold, the char tingled my nostrils. For a moment it seemed to come from Jake's breath and clothes. I rolled down the window until the smell cleared.
"Don't play freeze-out," Jake said.
"Meeks and Chilcoat should have been deep-sixed." I rolled up the window. "Burning's a horrible way to go."
"You wouldn't want that," he said. "Think a minute. Your father's in the river."
That was as close as he ever came to saying he was mixed up in anything. "Well, those guys are dead," I said. "But the owner did all right for himself. Money in the bank. Lots of golf. The big fish got away, if you ask me."
Jake shook his head. "Just for the sake of argument, let's say some of the speculation is true. If that owner's guilty, he'll never bend over to putt without his ass puckering. And who knows? One hunting season, a stray bullet might wedge between his shoulder blades."
"I think Sniffy was pretty damn close to the truth," I said.
Jake's eyes narrowed. "Close only counts in horseshoes."
We remained silent for a few mintues. Then Jake said, "Plenty of times, your father and I didn't see eye to eye. That happens in families. After all, you can't choose your relations." He grinned. "But on ambulance calls, we dropped our quarrels and made a team. What say you and I bury the hatchet, at least for today?"
"All right." I swallowed. "How bad's the flood out there?"
"A damn big one. They're up shit creek without a bailing bucket."
***
A flood will do strange things, just like a tornado that drives straws through a telephone pole. When we neared the main highway bridge that crossed the Lost going toward Mission, I was astonished to see that the floodwater had washed away both approaches. Only the center of
the bridge, now an island, remained. A large egg truck had tried to make it across and remained stranded on the bridge, tilted against the railing by the water's force.
As evacuation headquarters, the Totem Pole Texaco and Snack Shop had become a hub of activity. This business was situated on high ground, perhaps a quarter mile toward Gateway from the bridge. In front were rigs from the Gateway Volunteer Fire Department, Sheriff's Department, Search and Rescue, Tribal Police, plus some sports fishermen. Behind the Totem Pole, a small bulldozer was scraping slush and ice from the landing strip dudes used for their planes. On the water, a dozen boats brought flood victims to high ground.
"Let's grab some coffee and a butter horn," Jake said. "No point in starting a rescue operation hungry."
"They got thirty thousand eggs on that truck," Gab said. "Driver says the way they're packed, he's convinced not a single one is broken. I figure that after we tame this flood, we'll whip up one hell of an omelette."
He was broadcasting a remote from the Totem Pole. Power had been out on the reservation for more than twenty-four hours and the phone lines were down, but he was giving people emergency instructions. "They can listen in their homes or in their cars, whatever's convenient. That's the beauty of radio."
"Nothing's convenient in a flood," Jake said.
Gab scowled at him. "Ask if television's done anything lately to help these flood victims."
"You're preaching to the converted," Jake said.
"Buy more advertising then. Put your money where your mouth is." Gab grinned. "We might even be able to sell the rest of those picnic tables. But right now, I've got to think of some ingredients for the Gateway omelette. What's in a Denver? Bacon, onions, cheese, green peppers. Green peppers? What the hell kind of an ingredient is that?"
"Maybe it's the Spanish influence or something," I said.
"This boy's a gold mine of ideas," Gab said. "You know how teenagers eat. What should we put in the omelette, Culver?"
"I don't know right off," I said. "Let me think about it. How'd that truck get out there, anyway?"
"The driver was heading to the tribal store," Gab said. "The water rose fast and got deeper than he thought on the bridge. Stalled the truck. Billyum went out and rescued him this morning while you were still snoozing."
"There's a fool born every minute and only one dies a day," Jake said.
Gab ignored him. "We're going to have a Gateway egg-stravaganza. I'm telling you it's a hundred thousand dollars' worth of publicity."