Medicine River

by Thomas King

  “He’s got a room at the Marquis.”

  “He’s not staying with you?”

  “No.”

  “Hey, Harlen.” And there was Joe, wide awake, leaning over the table with the butt of one of those cigars sticking out of his mouth like a brown carrot. “Time to go. Will, you come too. You got your car here, Harlen?”

  “Most every place is closed now, Joe,” I said.

  “Not in town…going out to the reserve.”

  “Right now?” I said.

  “No time to argue, Will. It’s time to drive.” And Joe got out of the chair, stuffed the cigar into the ashtray and headed for the door.

  “It’s not a good idea, Joe,” said Harlen.

  “It’s a great idea. Come on, you guys, live a little.”

  It was the wind that did it. That damn wind was blowing hard when we came out of the American, and it blew us into Harlen’s car. I wouldn’t have gone, but there was the wind, and the reserve was as good a hiding place as any.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I said.

  Joe crawled into the back seat and laid his head on the armrest.

  “Vernon Heavyman’s place,” he said, and he went to sleep.

  I looked over at Harlen. His hands were on the wheel, and the key was in the ignition.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and he started the car.

  As we pulled away from the American, Joe began to snore. The wind howled, and Joe snored, and Harlen set his lips against his teeth and drove into the night.

  Floyd hadn’t been much help. He had stood there in the bathroom with the one wet pant leg, pleading ignorance. I was left with my curiosity, Harlen, and the wind.

  I tried Harlen’s trick of strolling around a topic.

  “So,” I said, “Joe’s your brother.”

  Harlen looked in the rear-view mirror.

  “So,” I said, “how come you never mention him?”

  Harlen looked at the speedometer.

  I was already tired of strolling. “You don’t seem to get on too well with him.”

  “Joe’s okay, Will,” said Harlen. “We’re just different.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  “Floyd said…” And I couldn’t think of what Floyd might have said that would help to crack Harlen’s shell.

  Harlen began to laugh a little. “Will,” he said, “I’ve never seen anyone so curious about other people’s business.”

  “Well, Floyd said…” I said, sticking with the original lie, hoping Harlen might finish the sentence for me.

  “Floyd probably told you that Joe and me don’t get on so well, and that’s true. And he probably told you that I more than likely wouldn’t be at the American tonight. And that’s true, too. He may have even said that I don’t like Joe, but that’s not true. Joe’s twelve years older than me, you know. He was out of the house and gone before I really got to know him. He always had different friends and did different things than me. How good of friends are you with James? He’s only four years younger than you.”

  James’s letter was in my pocket. I tried to imagine him in New Zealand, standing on top of a glacier, waving.

  “Joe’s got great stories, though. That one about the pig….Did he tell the one about the pig?”

  Harlen talked about Joe for a while, and then we listened to the radio. By the time he turned off the gravel road onto the dirt road that led to Vernon Heavyman’s house, the sky was beginning to lighten behind us.

  “Pull in there,” said Joe, “next to the corral.”

  “Damn, Joe,” said Harlen, swinging the car around. “You almost scared the hell out of poor Will. Thought you were asleep.”

  “Feel great. Come on.”

  Harlen barely got the car stopped, before Joe was out and stretching.

  “Come on, Harlen,” said Joe.

  Harlen turned around in the seat. “Listen,” he said, “why don’t you stay here?”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. We’re just going for a walk.”

  “Come on, you guys,” Joe shouted. “We got some climbing to do.” And he headed down the slope to the river.

  Harlen got out of the car. I got out the other side.

  “Where’s he going?” I said.

  Harlen leaned on the car and shaded his eyes. “To the bridge.”

  “The trestle bridge?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to climb it,” said Harlen. “Maybe you better stay here. Pretty high, that one.”

  “You guys are crazy. That bridge must be a hundred feet high.”

  Harlen nodded and headed down the slope after Joe. I looked around. There was Vernon Heavyman’s house and his corral and the land stretched out to the mountains and Harlen’s green-and-white Ford.

  “Hey,” I said, “wait up.”

  It was a long walk to the bridge. Joe was out in front, singing. Harlen was about twenty feet behind him, and I was right behind Harlen. The trestle had looked high from the bluff, but down in the river bottom, it seemed to stretch up forever.

  “Why are we doing this?”

  “Don’t have to do it, Will. Maybe you want to go down to the river. Have a nap.”

  “I’m not sleepy. This have anything to do with when you two were kids?”

  Harlen waved me off with a hand. “Nope. Joe just likes to climb around on things. Me, too.”

  It was going to be a hot day. Joe kicked up clouds of dust as he walked, and the grasshoppers and dragonflies in the willows along the bank began warming to the day.

  Joe was waiting for us at the foot of a huge concrete abutment.

  “Okay,” he said. “You coming, Will?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

  Joe took off like a monkey. Up the side of the abutment and onto the first steel beam. Harlen followed him. I had some trouble.

  “You got to find the toeholds, Will,” Joe said. “That’s the secret.”

  That first girder was as high off the ground as I ever want to be.

  “Hey,” said Joe, “that was the hard part. The rest is easy.”

  I was going to say something, but Joe began moving out on the girder. Harlen was right behind him.

  “You guys are crazy,” I shouted, but I kept moving along the girder.

  When Joe and Harlen got to the centre of the bridge, Joe began walking up a transverse beam that went from the girder we were standing on to the one above us. The beam was set at about a thirty-degree angle and you had to hold on to it and climb at the same time. Joe was halfway up when I caught Harlen.

  “You okay, Will?”

  “Sure. Always wanted to climb a trestle.”

  “The next part’s tricky,” Harlen said. “You got to hold on to the beam and use your feet to push yourself up.” Harlen spit into both his hands. “The hard part is near the top. When you get close, you have to grab on to the girder and then pull yourself up….Look…watch Joe.”

  Joe was almost to the next girder. His head was right up against it. Suddenly, he let go of the beam and grabbed the girder. His feet slipped, and for a second, he was dangling in mid-air above the river.

  “Uuuuuuwweeeee,” he shouted. “Come on up!”

  Joe threw one leg over the girder and pulled himself up.

  Harlen’s mouth was set on a line. “That’s how you do it,” he said, and he turned away so I couldn’t see his face. Then he spit into his hands, again. “You want to go first?”

  “What happens if you fall?”

  “I won’t fall,” said Harlen.

  “Not you. Me. What happens if I fall?”

  “Push off if you can. You don’t want to hit the beams. Water’s a little cold this time of the year.”

  I looked down at the river. “You go first,” I said.

  Harlen didn’t manage as well as Joe. He dangled over th
e river and waved his legs for a while, but he got up.

  “You guys are crazy,” I shouted. And then I started up.

  The first few feet went okay. It was an awkward position, bent over at the waist, trying to hold onto the beam and walk up it at the same time. I was halfway up, when my arms began to cramp. The beam seemed to narrow as I got near the top.

  “Come on, Will,” Harlen shouted. “You can make it.”

  “Come on, Will,” shouted Joe. “Fun’s just starting.”

  My head hit the girder.

  “Almost there, Will. Let go with your hands and grab the girder. Got to do it quick, though,” said Joe.

  “Don’t look down, Will,” said Harlen. “It’ll make you dizzy.”

  Which is, of course, exactly what I did. The river seemed a mile below me. I wasn’t even sure I would hit it if I fell.

  “Told you not to look, Will,” shouted Harlen. “Come on, you can do it.”

  And I did. I grabbed the girder. My feet slid out from underneath me. I waved my legs in the air for a minute, and after several attempts, I managed to throw one leg over.

  “Damn, Will,” said Harlen, “you tore your pants.”

  So, there we were, Harlen, Joe, and me, standing on a steel girder, twenty feet above the Medicine River. Actually, I was kneeling. The girder below had a cable that ran all the way across that you could hang on to. This girder didn’t. It was about a foot wide, and, if you wanted to move along its length, you either crawled or trusted to your sense of balance. I was happy kneeling. The top of the bridge was another thirty feet above us.

  “You guys go ahead,” I said. “I think I’ll just sit here for a while.”

  “We’re here,” said Joe, and he looked out over the edge of the girder. “This is where we jump.”

  It didn’t register immediately.

  “You got to do a safety jump. You put your arms like this and keep your legs bent, like this.” Joe covered his face with one hand, locked the other one around his body, and stood on one leg. He looked like a flamingo.

  “Jump?”

  “Yeah,” said Joe. “But you got to do it like this.”

  “I’m not going to jump.”

  “You don’t have to, Will,” said Joe. “But the climb down is pretty tricky. A lot easier coming up.”

  “It’s a hundred-foot drop.”

  “Naw,” said Joe. “Maybe twenty feet. I’ve done it five or six times. Pretty exciting when you first start to fall. But when you hit that water….Smash! You can’t imagine the feeling.”

  “Sort of like death,” I said.

  “Damn, Will,” Joe laughed. “You are a joker. You guys ready? Come on, we can jump together. Like the Three Musketeers.”

  Harlen was looking off down the river. He wasn’t smiling. “Maybe you should go first, Joe. Show Will how it’s done.”

  Joe put his hands in his pockets. “How about the two of us jumping together. Like old times.”

  Harlen looked at me and shook his head. “Better stay here. Make sure that Will jumps. You know, encourage him. Somebody should stay behind to show him the way down in case he can’t do it.”

  “I can get down by myself,” I said. “I’m not going to jump.”

  “Come on, Harlen,” said Joe. “You and me. Just like old times.”

  “I’ll be right behind you, Joe. Just want to be sure that Will’s okay.”

  Joe looked at Harlen and then at me. “Okay,” he said. “Hey, it’s like flying.” Joe leaned over the edge, looked back at the two of us, winked and said, “See you in China.”

  And he jumped or rather he fell, screaming all the way down.

  “YAHHAhahahoooooooo.”

  We were too high up to hear the splash. All you could see was a great boil of green water.

  “You see him?”

  And then, there he was, waving and floating down the river and shouting something up to us.

  “There he goes,” said Harlen, and he turned back to me. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “You go ahead and jump. I’ll watch.”

  “Better I stay with you.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Go ahead, jump.”

  Harlen sat down on the girder beside me and pulled his head down into his shoulders. You could barely see Joe now. He was floating towards the big horseshoe bend. Every so often, he’d wave his arm.

  “Joe going to be okay?”

  “Sure. He’ll float down to where the highway crosses the river. We’ll catch him back in town.” Harlen didn’t look like he was much interested in moving from where he was.

  “You ever jump?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Have you ever jumped off this trestle?”

  “Ripped your pants pretty bad, Will. Hope those weren’t your good pants.”

  “Harlen…”

  “Too bad you didn’t bring a camera. Could have got a great picture of Joe. Maybe win an award.”

  I wasn’t in any mood for Harlen and his wanderings. “You never jumped, did you? That’s what happened. Joe jumped, and you didn’t, and you never have jumped.”

  Harlen shook his head. “Real tricky getting down, Will. Harder than coming up.”

  I looked down at the river. It didn’t look that far away. Hold your hand over your nose, keep your feet spread a little….

  “Well, I’m going to jump,” I said suddenly. “You can stay here, but I’m going to jump.”

  Harlen smiled. I stood up and wished I hadn’t. The river looked farther away now; the girder seemed narrower.

  “I’m going to jump, just like Joe. You coming with me?”

  “Sure, Will,” said Harlen. “You go first.”

  “That’s right,” I shouted, trying to keep my balance. “I’ll go first.”

  I stood at the edge. Joe had made it. I could make it.

  The wind came up. It must have been blowing all the time, but I hadn’t noticed it.

  “Wind’s starting to blow pretty good, Will. We better start climbing down.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to jump.”

  The wind blew a little harder. Harlen was holding on to the girder with both hands. The backs of his knuckles were pale.

  “You going to jump?” I said.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Same reason you won’t jump.”

  “I’m going to jump.”

  “Don’t think so, Will.”

  A gust of wind almost blew me off the girder. I sat down next to Harlen. “I’d jump,” I said, “if the wind wasn’t blowing.”

  “Blowing pretty hard, that wind,” said Harlen. “You got your good shirt on, too. No sense ruining it. Maybe we should climb down now.”

  Joe had disappeared around the bend. “Wind ruins everything,” I said. “Got a letter from James. He’s in New Zealand.”

  “New Zealand?”

  “Going to climb a glacier.”

  “No kidding.”

  “He writes me all the time. We talk a lot.”

  The climb down was hell. I tore my shirt on a loose rivet. My hands were scraped, and my shoes were badly scuffed from trying to hold on to the beam we had come up. Harlen didn’t fare much better. When we got to the concrete abutment, I looked at Harlen and Harlen looked at me.

  “You know, Will,” he laughed, “we should have jumped.”

  “Next time,” I said, turning away from the wind, “next time we’ll jump.”

  I didn’t see Joe Bigbear again. Floyd told me that Joe was off to Italy, this time, but then, that was Floyd. If Harlen knew, he didn’t say. We never told anyone about the bridge. It was our secret, Harlen and me. By the time we got home, we had agreed that Joe had taken the easy way, that climbing down was harder than jumping. Joe had his way of doing things, Harlen said, and we had ours.

  “You know,” said Harlen. “We should go out there next week and jump from the first girder. You know, get the feel of it
. By the time Joe shows up again, we’ll be jumping off that third girder, sweet as you please.”

  We never went back to the bridge. At least, I never did. I was satisfied with the first adventure—the river miles below me, the wind whipping around the girder, Joe letting go of everything and plunging into the green water, and Harlen and me, perched on that narrow piece of steel like a pair of barn owls, hanging on for dear life.

  12

  I was in the back of the studio when the front-door buzzer rang. I stepped into the front shop, just in time to see Lionel James close the door.

  “Oki, Will,” said Lionel, and he helped himself to the padded chair by the window. “Boy, feels good to sit down.” Lionel looked around the room. He smiled. “Pretty good chair, you know. Nice sign, too. Medicine River Photography.”

  Lionel was one of the elders on the reserve. He belonged to the Horn Society, and he owned a medicine bundle. I had only seen him in town three or four times before.

  Lionel laughed and shook his head. “That’s Jonnie and Cecil,” he said, gesturing to one of the pictures on the wall. “That’s a real good one of them.” Lionel rubbed his knees. “Maybe you’ve got one of them credit cards, too.”

  “You want some coffee, Lionel? I’ve got some fresh,” I said, just as Harlen Bigbear came in the door.

  “Damn,” said Harlen, pulling his hair out of his eyes. “It’s windy out there. Couldn’t find a parking space. That coffee machine of yours working, Will? You got any coffee?”

  “Coffee sounds real good, Will,” said Lionel.

  I went to the back room. The coffee machine was making its strange noises again.

  “Hey, Lionel,” said Harlen, “what do you think? Old Will’s a wealthy man. A real success. Always willing to help out a friend, too.”

  I could hear Harlen clearly from the back room where the coffee pot was. Lionel wasn’t deaf, and neither was I.

  “Will is always helping someone. Takes pictures of all the weddings. Will could take your picture, too.”

  “It’s a real nice place,” said Lionel.

  “You want your coffee black, Lionel?” I asked.

  “Black’s okay, Will,” said Lionel. “Maybe some sugar if you have any.”

  “Black for me,” said Harlen.

  “Maybe some cream, too, if you have any,” said Lionel.