Ghost River

by Jon Coon

  “Where are the troops?” Gabe asked.

  “Zack is still with Paul. I think he realized we needed some time apart and was trying to help. Mickey took my car, and she and Emily drove to the mall. It’s been a tough day. I needed some peace and quiet.” She picked up one of several moist tissues from the table and blotted her eyes. “What can I do with him, Gabe? He’s making my life miserable.” She got up, knelt by Gabe’s chair, and sobbed on his arm.

  Even dogs who play with skunks aren’t this much grief, he thought.

  Gabe held her and said, “This has to stop. If I talk with him, it may not end well, but this has to stop.”

  “Not tonight, please. I don’t think I can handle anymore shouting.” She felt limp against him like she was melting and there was nothing left. “I’m going to bed before they come back. Tell them I have a headache.”

  He kissed her hair and was angry. No kid has the right to be this much trouble. “I have to leave early because we’re diving tomorrow. Call me. I’ll come back as soon as I get out of the water.”

  “Thanks. I’m so sorry to add all this drama to your life. No wonder you’ve stayed single.” She kissed his cheek and went to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER 22

  0800

  The River

  The river was still at flood level with the current ripping. Gabe sat on the worn wooden bench preparing to dive. Barges and cranes worked to pull debris from the fallen span. Gabe would recover the truck passenger’s body, and then one of the big cranes would lift the big rig off the bottom. A huge drop hammer, like a pile driver, waited to start busting the concrete span when the debris was cleared. Gabe had insisted on recovering the body before the truck was moved. Clayton Mayweather was waiting, and Mayweather had answers. It was a conversation Gabe was counting on.

  The crane barge was anchored in place with four massive anchors. The crane cable, with a wrecking ball and hook attached, was lowered beside the barge, to the bottom for a downline, and the workboat tied off alongside the barge. The dive-com radio sat on a bench, and the umbilical carefully laid in a figure eight on deck. It was a familiar setting for Gabe as he pulled on boots rather than fins. He would dive wearing a Kirby Morgan helmet borrowed from one of the McFarland divers rather than his usual Aga mask. He might well have been back twenty years and a hundred miles offshore, diving the oil rigs.

  Jim helped hold the heavy helmet while Gabe eased it over his nose and down onto the mating flange. Jim closed and locked the clamp, then when Gabe stood snapped the helmet wire tie downs into the parachute-like harness with gate clips.

  Gabe turned on the air and answered Jim’s request for a com check, “Loud and clear. Let’s go.”

  Three steps to the edge of the barge and a ten-foot jump. Gabe pulled his way over to the crane line.

  “Descending.”

  “Roger that.”

  Gabe held for a moment, prayed his prayer, dumped air, and began to drop. The strong current tugged him and spun him on the way down. He held on to the crane cable until his shoulders ached and inched his way to the bottom. Then his boot caught the railing. He dropped and flattened himself against the bridge railing. He adjusted the helmet’s airflow, took two deep breaths, added a small amount of air to the dry suit, and said, “On bottom. I’m on the bridge deck, Jim. Even with all this weight, the currents a bear.”

  “Roger that. On the bridge deck,” Jim’s voice, a bit robotic, responded.

  Without the sixty-pound weight harness, ankle weights, and heavy helmet he would have had an impossible fight to stay in place, get leverage, or move. When he’d caught his breath and was oriented, he asked Jim to send down the body bag and striker frame. The striker fame, with deflated lift bags and small air tanks, came down the crane line. Now all Gabe needed was a truck and a body.

  He found the plastic nuts holding the com wire, twisted one loose, and pulled that wire clear of the helmet. His prayer was more visual than spoken. He whispered, “Amen.”

  “Okay, here we go. Clayton Mayweather, awake!” His voice boomed through the darkness. Gabe waited.

  Light flashed. Ahead and below him he could see the truck. It had landed on its side when the span broke free, and he could look through the windshield into the cab. He moved down to the truck, climbed up to the top, and pulled up on the door. As when he rescued the driver, it wouldn’t budge.

  Frustrated, he dropped off the cab, found a basketball-sized chunk of concrete with a piece of rebar sticking through it, climbed back up the cab, and smashed the windshield. Mayweather’s soul had begun to collect itself, floating just above the blanched corpse, which had slid mostly to the cab floor. The ghastly incarnation lacked the luminescence of a healthy soul, taking more the color of diesel exhaust from an engine with bad injectors.

  “What?” Mayweather’s ghost gasped.

  “Sorry, pal. You didn’t make it,” Gabe answered.

  “I’m . . .”

  “Afraid so. We don’t have much time, and I need answers.”

  Nothing. Mayweather was still in shock.

  “Tell me about the bridge scam. What was going on between McFarland and Jewels Peterson, and what’s wrong with this bridge?”

  Mayweather hesitated but had no choice other than to answer honestly. “It’s the footings and piers. They’re plenty strong, but they’re not to specification on the original plans. Peterson created two sets of plans. He had a deal with McFarland. The plans we got were for a cheaper bridge. The competition’s bid had to be higher because they were building a different bridge. That’s all I know. We build good bridges.”

  “Interesting comment, considering your ‘good bridge’ just killed you!” Gabe said.

  “Well there is that I suppose,” Mayweather said, frowning as he contemplated his fate.

  “Who was Wilson Corbitt? What happened to him?”

  “Corbitt was an engineer with the demolition company. Somehow he figured it out. He was going to talk.”

  Gabe could hear thunder coming down the river and knew what was about to happen. “Quick now, what happened to Corbitt?”

  “Peterson called him back to check something on the old bridge the day before they were going to shoot it.”

  “And?”

  “He and Rogers blew the bridge. Fired just enough charges to drop the lift span on Corbitt’s workboat.”

  “How can I solve it?”

  Thunder and a ghastly howling now made it nearly impossible to hear.

  Gabe shouted, “How can I prove it?”

  “Don’t let them take me!” Mayweather screamed as the hounds, just smaller than bulls with grossly oversized, massive heads, frothing jowls, and sabertooth-tiger teeth, charged. Their ember eyes glowing, they circled and crouched. Grotesque and terrifying, they played him. They climbed the truck. They looked in through the busted windows.

  “Where is Corbitt?” Gabe shouted. He dropped down beside the door, not wanting to be confused with the evening meal.

  “He’s still in the river,” Mayweather screamed, as if the truth, in a final act of desperation, might save him. But the vicious creatures moved in for the kill. “Save me! For God’s sake!” he screamed. But it was too late. The hounds were on him. They came through the windshield and the door window. They ripped Mayweather’s soul with snarls and snaps. Then, as though on command, like wolves with hungry cubs to feed, they turned back to hell, howling into the darkness, carrying away shredded trophies of their kill. Mayweather’s soul-less body lay on the cab floor like a ruptured balloon.

  Gabe was exhausted. Teeth and claws had been inches away. The howls and screams were unbearable. He fell back against the truck, gasping for breath. He reached to the side of the helmet and opened the air valve to full volume. Cool air rushed in, and he drank it in like cold water after a hard run. When his breathing slowed, and he’d regained enough composure to talk without gasping, he reconnected the com wire and said to Jim, “I’ve got a problem: The body’s here, but the door’s jammed, and
he’s too big to come out through a window. I tried pulling him out the windshield, but it’s not going to work. I guess we’re going to have to bring him up in the truck after all. Ask the barge hands for two choker cables I can use to rig the truck.”

  “Roger that. Stand by.”

  Moments later two, one-inch diameter steel cables with eyes spliced in both ends came down the crane line to Gabe. Working by feel, he crawled under the truck, rigged the wires around the front wheels, and hooked the top eyes into the pelican hook on the crane cable. Working the thick cable was tiring. When he was done he told Jim, “Pick up easy, and let’s see if it will hold.”

  The utility truck was larger and heavier than an average pick-up, and as the crane lifted the cab, the truck slid farther down the bridge span. As it slid it snagged Gabe’s umbilical, and suddenly he was being dragged under the truck. He yelled, “All stop!” But the grinding of the steel frame on his hose cut through the com wire and then through his airline.

  Gabe was lifted under the truck, which moved erratically as it came off the bottom. He could hear metal tearing as the cables cut into the fenders, and he knew if the cables failed and the truck fell, he’d be crushed beneath it. He grabbed the severed umbilical, which still had him hanging from the truck, and jerked until it pulled free and dropped him back to the bridge. He landed hard on knees and hands, but nothing was broken. He reached to his harness for the valve on his bailout tank only to discover there was no tank. He was wearing the borrowed harness with the borrowed helmet, and they’d forgotten the spare tank. It was still in the truck.

  No com, and only the air trapped in the helmet by its non-return valve: one or two more breaths at most. And he was wearing extra weight, too much weight to get off the bottom. It was time to do something drastic.

  He remembered the lift bags on the Stokes stretcher and the air tanks to inflate the bags. He crawled forward and began frantically sweeping his arms across the bottom. He took a shallow breath and tried to conserve the last precious molecules of life.

  On the barge, Jim saw the truck’s hood surface. As the truck rose, he saw the severed umbilical caught in the chassis. “What—”

  The crane lifted the truck and swung it up onto the barge. Billy, McFarland’s lead diver, also saw the severed umbilical and came to Jim on the run. “Has he got a bailout bottle?”

  “It’s my fault,” Jim said. “We were using your harness, and I forgot to clip on the tank.”

  “Help me dress. I’ll go after him. Maybe we can get him up in time.”

  They both ran to the dive shed and didn’t see the lift bag pop up in the same spot the truck had surfaced. The bag began bobbing: four bobs, and rest, four bobs and rest. It was the Navy line pull signal for a distressed diver: three pulls—everything is cool, pick me up. Four pulls—nothing is cool, get me out of here!

  The crane operator saw it, leaned on his horn, then shouted down to the deck, “Buoy on the surface. Unhook that truck, and let’s send him down the crane line and an air tank.”

  Jim came running with a tank and regulator. They hung it on the pelican hook, and the crane operator dropped the hook down beside Gabe’s buoy.

  On bottom, Gabe had found the two tanks on the stretcher used to fill the lift bags. He cut the second stage off the regulator hose of the first and then stuffed the cut-end inside the neck seal into his borrowed helmet. He turned on the regulator just long enough to fill the helmet with cold, fresh air and then unhooked a lift bag and used the second tank to give it enough air to send it to the surface. Then he grabbed the crane line and stood on the big block, which held the hook. Jim saw the lift bag bobbing at the surface and told the crane operator, “He’s ready, come up slow.”

  The operator gave a thumbs-up and began lifting Gabe off the bottom. Jim checked his watch and looked at the amount of time Gabe had been down. “Billy, get the chamber ready, he’s way over his bottom time.”

  When Gabe landed on deck, Jim and Billy grabbed him, opened the helmet’s cam lock, and removed the thirty-five-pound helmet. Jim pulled the buckles on the weight harness, which dropped to the deck, and they hurried Gabe into the chamber. Billy went in with him and as soon as the doors were closed and dogged down, gave Gabe an oxygen mask, and said, “Breathe, slow and deep.”

  Jim had out the NOAA dive-ops manual looking at the Navy surface decompression tables for omitted decompression. He found what he needed and pressurized the chamber to twenty feet. “Get comfortable in there, this is going to take a little while,” he said into the intercom. “Gabe, get out of your dry suit so Billy can check you for signs of skin bends, and let me know if anything starts feeling weird.”

  Although he was exhausted and desperately wanted to sleep, Gabe knew he had to stay awake during the treatment. He’d spent many hours doing chamber decompression on commercial offshore projects, so this was nothing new. He was over his allowable bottom time by twenty-four minutes and would have spent forty-four minutes decompressing in the water at twenty feet. But because he would be on oxygen in the chamber with less than a five-minute surface interval while getting down to treatment depth, his time was reduced to eighteen minutes. Will this river never run out of ghosts? Now there’s Wilson Corbitt, and who knows how many more? Enough!

  1130

  Alethea’s Home, New Orleans

  Darkly overcast with clearing unlikely

  “Mére, tell me about her, the woman he’s with,” Cas said. They were sitting on the porch drinking afternoon tea. Cas had been in a “mood” since Gabe went back to Florida.

  “Her husband was Gabe’s best—”

  “That’s not what I mean. What does she look like?”

  “Oh, she’s pretty. Red hair, fair, trim, nice figure.”

  “How old?”

  “Late thirties I suppose. She has a seventeen-year-old son.”

  “Gabe loves her?”

  “Perhaps, but if he does, he’s not admitting it to himself or to her. Not yet.”

  “And she loves him?”

  “I think so, but she knows it’s too soon for anything with Gabe, and even if she wanted, he won’t have it. Why?”

  “I’ve been thinking about him a lot. I need to go to Florida.”

  “Cas, don’t. You know Gabe is damaged goods. He broke your heart once, and he’s still’s hauling around the same baggage. If you get close, it will just happen again. Do yourself a big favor, and leave that poor man alone.”

  1830 The River Camp

  It was somberly quiet that night at the river camp. And there was no sign of either Paul or Zack. Emily worried about her brother. Mickey worried about Zack. Carol worried about everything. The dogs picked up the mood and lay empathetically morose by the cold fireplace.

  An hour after dark Zack’s truck came down the dirt drive, and Zack got out alone. “I’m sorry,” were the first words out of his mouth. “Paul told me he wanted me to take him to the DMV to get his license and that you said it was okay. He got the license, and then we went to your house and picked up his dad’s truck. He said he was going to get some things from the house and follow me back here. I helped him load a bunch of clothes, then he went into your bedroom and came back out with a travel bag.”

  “We keep cash for emergencies. There was a couple thousand. Both kids know where it is,” Carol said.

  “One more thing,” Zack continued. “He got a .22 rifle and some ammo. Again, I thought it was okay. We started back, but when we came to the interstate overpass, he got on the onramp and took off. I did a U-turn and tried to catch him, but he was long gone. When I tried to call, I realized he must have taken my phone. I’m very sorry.”

  “We wouldn’t let him get his license because of the stunts he’s pulled recently. Like smoking dope at home and getting caught with it at school,” Carol said.

  “I can have him picked up,” Gabe offered. “But arresting him isn’t going to help change his attitude. I wonder if he has a night or two on his own . . . perhaps reason and reality will pr
evail. With that cash, he won’t starve, and he won’t sleep in the rain. But if he misses his Saturday shift, we’ll have to go after him. He wants to make his own rules, let’s give him that four days to see how that works. Why don’t you try calling him and lower his anxiety?”

  “Will you call him? What I’d say to him now will only make things worse,” Carol said.

  “Okay. Let’s go sit on the porch. I think we need to pray about this before we make the call.”

  After talking, praying, and agreeing, Gabe called. Paul answered.

  “Your mom is here. She asked me to call. Here’s the deal. She says you can keep the truck and the cash. She’s not going to have you arrested. She wants you not to do anything stupid. Okay so far?”

  Long pause. “Okay.”

  “Now, you made a deal with the court to work off your community service. You have two choices. The smart choice is to show up and finish your sentence. The dumb choice is to run and get arrested. If you show up on Saturday, I promise not to hassle you. You want to be on your own, that’s okay. When or if you decide to come back, that’s okay too.”

  “You don’t want me . . .”

  “No one said that, Paul. But here’s my rule. You will never be disrespectful to your mother again while you’re under my roof. And you will apologize to her and mean it before you come back through my door. Are we clear?”

  Silence for a while.

  Gabe prompted him with, “Well?”

  “Yeah, we’re clear.”

  “Paul, I certainly remember what it’s like to want to run your own life. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re old enough and smart enough. Just remember that gold line, that cave diver safety line we talked about? You need to find yours and find a goal, a mission for your life. Anyone can have a job. Successful people have a mission. Just one more thing: Zack needs his phone back. Figure that out. Have a good night.”

  And Gabe hung up.

  Paul was left staring at Zack’s phone wondering what on earth had just happened. A cold chill swept over him as he realized the independence he’d dreamt about had just been handed to him on a silver platter. It felt like a one-way ticket to an undiscovered planet. For the first time in his life, he was indeed, freely, totally, alone.