Stillriver

by Andrew Rosenheim

  Michael suddenly felt sick. ‘Oh Christ,’ he said softly.

  ‘You see,’ said Ronald, as if he were explaining something intricate but anodyne, ‘I can fly up here and fly back, pay cash, use any old name I like, and nobody’s the wiser. But overseas is different altogether. Even if I got permission, which I wouldn’t, there’d be no way to hide the fact I’d gone and found you. But this way, you came and found me, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘You killed him to be sure of getting me back here?’

  ‘Partly,’ said Ronald readily, as if conceding a point. ‘But partly because I wanted to kill your father. I never got him back for the time he saved your ass. He made me feel two feet tall that day.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just go back later and beat him up too?’

  ‘Sure, and if Cassie had found out about it she wouldn’t have touched me with a bargepole. Fact was, I was sure she’d find out what I’d already done to you. I was holding my breath.’ He shook his head briefly at the memory. ‘You must not have told anybody what I did – Cassie never heard a word before we moved to Texas. She couldn’t understand why you’d run off. I knew, of course.’ He gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘But I wasn’t saying anything.’

  ‘That was taking a risk. I could have gone to Jerry Dawson. My father wanted me to.’

  Ronald nodded in agreement. ‘I didn’t think it through. You have no idea how much I wanted to be with her, how long I worked on getting to know her. You started diddling some babe at college and I saw my chance. And then what do you know, you stuff your dick back in your pants and ask for forgiveness. When I saw you kiss her down at Nelson’s something snapped.’

  ‘So you killed my father and now you think you’re going to kill me.’ It felt surreal saying the words; he half-expected to discover that this was a dream too.

  ‘There’s no “think” about it.’

  ‘Real fair fight you got in mind,’ Michael said, pointing at the sledgehammer. Could he shame Ronald into giving him half a chance?

  ‘There isn’t going to be any “fight” about it either. If all I wanted was to beat you, I could kick your ass in about five seconds flat.’

  ‘No,’ said Michael. ‘With my skills and training it would take at least half a minute.’

  It took Ronald a moment to realize he wasn’t being challenged. The resulting smile was at once appreciative and sarcastic. ‘Cute, that’s real cute.’

  ‘So what happens after you kill me?’

  ‘Not much. I go back to Texas, find a job, start my life again.’

  He hasn’t mentioned Cassie, thought Michael, just as Ronald said, ‘If you’re thinking about Cassie, don’t bother. I’m not going to hurt her. Somebody’s got to raise those kids. I can’t. But I tell you one thing: she’s going to know who killed you and why. She’s going to know that if she hadn’t took up with you again you’d still be alive. And so would your daddy. Sorry about that.’

  ‘When you killed my father, I hadn’t seen Cassie in six years.’

  ‘So what? You think I’d ignore the fact you fucked my wife because it happened six years ago? You think I’d forgiven you?’ He was gripping the hammer more tightly now, the veins in his forearm bulging like implants of rubber tubing.

  ‘If you tell Cassie what you’ve done, aren’t you taking quite a chance that you’ll get caught?’

  ‘They won’t have any more evidence than they do now. As far as the law’s concerned I’m in Texas – I haven’t missed a meeting with the parole guy yet. If I’d left any evidence they’d have found it by now.’

  ‘What happened with the bat?’

  ‘You mean why did I leave it? Simple. I needed them to suspect somebody else while I got my ass back to Texas to see my parole officer. I never thought it would take them two months to find it. Jesus, Jimmy Olds is just hopeless.’

  ‘How’d you get it in the first place?’

  ‘Raleigh Somerset. Your brother left it out at his place. Raleigh was determined to get your brother back for selling him out to some cop in Muskegon. Said he had this bat with your brother’s prints on it, and he was going to set him up with it somehow. I used it instead.’

  ‘So is it Raleigh’s you’ve been staying at?’

  ‘That’s right, but never for long – I can’t take a risk that the parole officer finds me out of Texas. Even Raleigh’s wife didn’t know I was there. Though I had quite a scare yesterday when some detective paid a visit. Fortunately, it was Raleigh he was looking for, not me. I don’t know why they think he killed your daddy.’ He smirked. ‘Maybe the swastika I painted on your place pointed them in his direction.’

  ‘Are you a Nazi too, then?’

  Ronald gave a hoot of derision. ‘Not me. Though I tell you, in a Texas prison you got to be polite to the Aryan Brotherhood if you want to survive. But I don’t believe any of that stuff. No, Raleigh owed me big time, though I expect we’re about even now.’

  ‘What have you got on Raleigh, then?’

  ‘I saved his life. Remember? Back when we were kids. You got to remember that,’ he said, sounding mildly peeved.

  ‘I remember. You were a hero.’

  ‘I was,’ said Ronald, and chuckled. ‘The thing nobody ever knew, including Raleigh, is that sure, I saved him from drowning, but I was also the one who pushed him in.’ He was laughing heartily now.

  ‘But how did you know I was coming back again?’

  ‘You told your brother, didn’t you? He told somebody else, and that somebody else told Raleigh.’

  ‘Who? Bubba?’

  ‘Not that fag. Someone else.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, suddenly certain. ‘It was asshole mouth.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Ronald demanded.

  ‘Barry. That’s his name isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ronald said impatiently.

  He was struggling to form more questions. He didn’t want to dwell any more on the bat – there was no point explaining why it had gone undiscovered for so long, for if he brought Ethel into the conversation, God knows what might happen to her. He noted with an odd detachment that he wasn’t especially frightened, as if in confronting the source of fifteen years’ worth of fear he found that its incarnation could not match the terror of fantasy. Worried, yes, he was certainly that, for he could not see any way out. If he attempted to climb back up the cliff he had just so awkwardly come down, Ronald would hit him in the back of the head with his hammer before Michael had even got one leg up onto the top of the sandy ledge. The alternative – going past Ronald to the Junction – would bring about the same grim resolution. He didn’t know what to do.

  But it seemed Ronald did, for suddenly Michael heard the faint rustling and watched as Ronald tightened his grip on the sledgehammer speaking with a cold, low menace: ‘I think it’s showtime.’

  And then a third voice suddenly entered the air, young and shrill. ‘Leave him alone!’ When Michael turned sideways he saw, to his astonishment, that Jack was standing on the ledge above them, pointing with his finger at Ronald. He had left his slicker behind and was wearing only a yellow T-shirt with his jeans. He’ll catch cold, Michael thought incongruously, then barked harshly at him, ‘Go back. Run back up the hill and get Donny.’

  The boy looked at him with a mixed expression of hurt and incomprehension; clearly he’d assumed that Michael would be pleased he had followed him successfully along the rocky, dangerous trail. Then Jack turned his head and looked at Ronald, who was starting to sidle over very gradually towards the ledge. Again Jack waved his finger at him, saying, ‘Don’t you hurt him or I’ll tell my daddy.’

  Ronald stared at the boy with disbelief and shook his head. Then he laughed and asked, ‘And who might your daddy be?’

  Michael thought, He doesn’t even know this is his son. For Christ’s sake, look at the kid – who else could his father be? Doesn’t Ronald recognize him?

  And Jack said, ‘His name is Ronald Duverson, and he’ll get you if you hurt my friend. I promise, h
e’ll get you.’ Ronald looked stunned at first, and stared at Jack, sizing up the little boy he hadn’t seen for over three years. For a brief moment, Michael expected the discovery to be too much for Ronald – he’d hug the boy, or want to talk with him. But instead he laughed again, and kept laughing in a harsh series of explosive bursts – haw, haw, haw – in which Michael sensed a hysterical note. This increased his own sense of urgency and he shouted at Jack, who was still standing close to the edge of the ledge: ‘Go Jack! Get out of here. Do what I say.’

  But Ronald, still moving slowly but steadily towards the ledge, had stopped laughing, and said with calm deliberation, ‘Don’t listen to him, Jack. We were playing a game. It was just pretend. Everything’s all right.’ And Jack, who had looked ready to obey Michael and run, hesitated for a moment, looking first at Ronald and then for guidance to Michael. And as Michael started to shout at him again to run away, Ronald slid a long arm out, like a snake extending itself with deceptive speed, and pulled Jack’s leg out from under him. As the boy fell Ronald grabbed him by the waist, and in one quick movement brought him down with a sudden wham onto the riverbank. Stunned, Jack started to cry, while Ronald held him by his T-shirt with his left hand, keeping the sledgehammer firmly in his right.

  ‘What was the point of that?’ Michael demanded. ‘This has got nothing to do with him and you know it. Let him go.’

  Did Ronald look confused? ‘I can’t,’ he said, tightening his hold on the boy’s T-shirt.

  ‘Why not? He’s yours. You can’t hurt that boy.’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ Ronald protested. For the first time, there was uncertainty in his voice.

  ‘Then let him go.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Ronald. ‘I need time to get away. I’ll never get out of here if I let him go. The Junction’s just around the corner. There’s bound to be people there.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re going to take him back to Texas with you?’ asked Michael. Ronald shrugged, then lifted the hammer menacingly. Michael ignored this and said, ‘You’re going to make him watch what you do to me?’

  Ronald thought about this for a moment. Jack was squirming under his grip and Ronald looked down at the boy. ‘Stay still,’ he ordered, then looked back at Michael. ‘I don’t see as I have much choice.’

  ‘That’ll be a nice thing for him to live with. Bad enough to know you’re a killer; now he gets to witness the crime.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ said Ronald doggedly, but he was thinking. Michael was wondering what to say next when he saw Jack suddenly twist his neck to gain some slack from Ronald’s grip, then turn his head sideways and bite hard into Ronald’s ungloved hand.

  ‘Goddamnit!’ Ronald shouted, letting go of Jack to look at the wound, which was already bleeding profusely. But before Jack could escape Ronald lifted his bleeding hand and slapped the boy viciously across the face. As Jack stumbled and fell down onto the gravel, Michael ran at Ronald. As the sledgehammer started to swing towards him he readied himself for the blow while simultaneously launching a punch with his right hand. It landed high on Ronald’s face – he felt his fist hit a cheekbone – just as the heavy hammer hit his shoulder with colossal force, driving him sideways on to the gravel.

  Ronald was knocked backwards by his punch, but though he dropped the sledgehammer he didn’t fall down. As Michael lay on the riverbank he shouted at Jack, now standing again, ‘Run, Jack! Run!’ This time the boy didn’t hesitate and flew off along the gravel pan towards the corner.

  Michael rolled towards the cliff and scrambled to his feet as Ronald retrieved the hammer from the ground. Ronald looked at the escaping boy as if contemplating running after him, but thought better of it and now focused on Michael. He was standing with his back to the river, blocking Michael’s access to the bend and the safety of the Junction, swinging the sledgehammer gently with his hand as he took a step forward to work Michael back against the cliff.

  Neither man spoke. A minute before their voices, sheltered by the cliff, had rung out clearly in the chill air against the background of rushing river: Ronald’s harsh and slightly Texas-flavoured, Michael’s resonant and deep like his father’s; even the boy’s high-pitched tones had been shrilly audible. But now the river roar was almost deafening, a wall of sound modulated only when Michael moved his head in the wind. At least Jack got away, thought Michael, for he could see no escape from the kind of mortal hammering that had killed his father. He thought of Henry Wolf with a sudden, intense compassion, and the irony of dying himself when he was at last happy to keep living was not lost on him. An image flashed through his head of the Philippino guards in their final fatal sleep, but there was no peace in this prospect, and he saw no reason now to envy them at all. I don’t want to die, he thought angrily, imagining Jack running towards the Junction, then envisaging Cassie and Sally sitting out at Sheringham’s.

  He had to do something, so he feinted sharply to the right like a ballplayer in a rundown, trying to avoid the tag, and Ronald was slightly slow to react. So he did it again, and this time Ronald simply backed up a little, to make sure Michael could not slip by him. Michael feinted left this time and Ronald backed up again, getting closer now to the river. And then Michael remembered Malley’s advice: Try to surprise the son of a bitch. It stayed in his head like a moral injunction, which he now struggled to translate into action. How? He was thinking so hard that he didn’t notice how Ronald had edged forwards again, until the sledgehammer came out of nowhere and smashed into the side of his forearm. He leaped back, trying not to rub the arm, which felt agonizingly painful – he was sure some bones were broken. Ronald laughed his harsh, shitty laugh and looked more confident, though he still kept his distance to cut off any chance of escape.

  And then Michael made up his mind, and did something he hadn’t done since his baseball days, showing off in Little League. He took two quick steps towards Ronald and then simply dived – as in a headfirst slide with his arms folded together in front – right at the man, aiming to hit him waist high. And even as he felt the sledgehammer break the air and he prepared to be hit, he was confident that he had found his target. He hit Ronald like a human torpedo, right in the middle of his belt buckle, with all of his 192 pounds. As Michael fell onto the gravel, scraping his face as he hit the stones, and already feeling the pain where the sledgehammer had struck home, he heard a frightened shout of surprise as Ronald’s feet scratched desperately at the gravel, then slid suddenly as he lost his footing altogether, and Ronald toppled backwards into the raging waters of the Still.

  Michael rolled over and sat up on his knees, trying to ignore his own pain, and watched as Ronald struggled in the rushing water. Even with the flooding the river was shallower here by the bank, not the depth of a man’s height, and for a moment, as Ronald got both feet down and started to rise, Michael thought he might just make it out of the river right away. He looked around for the sledgehammer to protect himself, but then stopped as he saw Ronald, trying to take a step, get knocked suddenly sideways by the current’s force.

  And then Ronald was swept quickly downstream by the water. Michael stood up, and as his adrenalin masked the pain he began to run, trying to keep up with the figure in the water. But it was hopeless, for though Ronald was moving his arms and even kicking in a vain effort to swim towards the bank, he was now entirely in the grip of the raging river. He’s a goner, thought Michael as he watched Ronald going pell-mell towards the bend. He strained in the dark to see him, and picked him out as he was caught in a vortex of water that pushed him even further from the bank. As Michael kept running he was startled to discover that he was actually catching up to what his eyes had marked out as Ronald, and as he got closer he saw that it was him, stationary in the water. Approaching the bend, Michael found the mystery solved when he saw Ronald hanging on for dear life to a boulder jutting out of the river, about a third of the way across. As he drew parallel Michael saw that Ronald’s chest was draped over the front of the large rock, while he
clung on desperately to its sides with both hands as the water rushed around him.

  There was no way Michael could reach him. He looked fruitlessly around for a rope until he recognized the absurdity of this. ‘I’ll go for help!’ he shouted out across the waters, which seemed even fiercer in the dusk, pouring by him with a rushing, boiling roar. He doubted that Ronald had heard him, so he shouted again, and this time he could just make out his face, pressed against the rock but turning to look his way. ‘I’ll get help!’ he shouted one more time, taking a last look out at the figure on the rock before he turned to run to the Junction. It was getting more dark than dusk now, and he wondered if it was simply his imagination, for the expression he thought he had just made out on Ronald’s face, hanging on as the water poured around him, seemed – even now, even in his utter desperation – completely contorted by hate.

  As he turned the corner he could suddenly see the Junction bridge, its three supporting piers looking inexplicably dark until he realized the water level was so high that the space beneath the bridge was almost filled to the top with river. On the surface of the bridge two patrol cars sat, one on each end, facing each other in the woolly light, their roof lights stabbing red, white, and blue into the darkening air. He could see no human figures near them and worried about Jack’s whereabouts, until to his right, on the Stillriver side of the bridge, higher up on the elevated causeway, he saw several people standing in a group, bunched around a lamp. Kerosene? he wondered idly. And as he struggled to continue running, feeling stabbing pain in his ribs with each breath and every step he made on the hard gravel pan, he tried to wave his arms and shout. Then the wide beam of a big searchlight played across the gravel until it reached him and hit him full on, momentarily blinding in its brightness. He kept moving as fast as he could, shouting, ‘Help, help,’ and as he came within about a hundred yards of the grouped men he saw a policeman step towards him, and recognized Jimmy Olds. Jimmy was holding something yellow in his arms, and to Michael’s immense relief he saw that it was Jack.