So Cold the River

by Michael Koryta

  “Damn,” Eric said. “This place is crazy.”

  “Yeah,” Kellen said. He’d come to a stop and was staring down at the water, entranced. “Water must be rising. It starts to swirl like that if it’s rising after a strong rain. Way it came down yesterday was enough, I guess.”

  Long white limbs of fallen trees slid in and out of the water in places, and on the low ends of the surrounding slope other trees lay on their sides, uprooted but snagged before they’d tumbled all the way into the pool.

  “They have some sort of windstorm go through here?” Eric said.

  Kellen shook his head. “That’s from the water. It rises high enough to reach the trees, and then when it gets to swirling the force is strong enough to bring them down.”

  Some of the downed trees were a good twenty feet above the current waterline.

  “See that ridge?” Kellen said, pointing at the woods to the west of them. “That’s where they found Shadrach’s body.”

  They’d begun walking again, circling toward the opposite end of the pool, where the best access seemed to be, and Eric pointed at his feet.

  “It’s been up here before. That’s sand that got pushed up.”

  He was right. The soil here was soft silt, clearly carried high above the waterline during some flood or another. They walked through it and then began to work their way down, using trees for handholds and turning their feet sideways to avoid slipping. As they got closer to the bottom, Eric looked up at the cliffs and saw the root systems of the trees dangling off the stone face like Spanish moss. The wind scattered leaves that fell around them in a whispering rush.

  “If there isn’t a ghost down here,” Kellen said, “there should be.”

  He laughed, but Eric was thinking that he was right. There was something strange about this place that went beyond the visual, an eerie vibe that seemed to rise from the water and meet the wind. That charge Kellen’s great-grandfather and Anne McKinney had agreed about.

  “You can hear the water moving underground,” Eric said. “It’s flowing right under us.”

  There was a steep, muddy slope between them and the water and no good way to get down to it. Beyond, the cliffs rose with jagged pieces of stone scattered in loose piles and dark crevasses looming, testaments to the cave that had collapsed here. Some of its passages clearly lived on.

  Kellen came to a stop about ten feet above the waterline, but Eric kept going, attempting a careful climb that turned into a barely controlled slide, his shoes plowing through thick, slippery mud that coated the hill above the water. In the far corner the pool bubbled and churned.

  “Is that a spring?” Eric called over his shoulder.

  “I believe so. But it’s a well-known spring. My guess is the one we’re looking for is not, right?”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Eric said, but he picked his way over the slippery stones and down to the spring. Just as he neared it, some water shot forward, splattering off the rock and soaking his pants. He knelt and extended a hand and took a palmful of water and lifted it to his lips. Cool and muddy and with a whisper of sulfur. On the top of the ridge—which suddenly seemed a long way up—the wind gusted and sent a shower of leaves into a gentle downward spiral, scattering across the surface of the slowly spinning pool.

  “So, uh, what am I supposed to do?” Kellen said. He was still standing on the hill above Eric. “You need me to leave, or say some sort of ghost chant, or…”

  “No,” Eric said, his voice barely loud enough to carry. “You don’t need to do anything. This isn’t the right spring.”

  “You know that?” Kellen said.

  No, he didn’t. He assumed the water in the right spring would taste the way the Bradford bottle had, though, with that faint trace of honey. And Kellen was right—Granger’s spring wouldn’t have been well known. Still, there was something about this place that had power. As if they had the wrong spring, but not the wrong spot.

  This is where Shadrach died. You’re close.

  “So we keep looking?” Kellen said.

  Eric gave a distracted nod, staring into the pool. A river coming from rock. Carrying along underground for miles, then surfacing abruptly in a strange whirlpool, then vanishing again. The Lost River. It would show you what it wanted to, and nothing more. A tease, a torment. Here I am; here I am not. The rest is up to you. Got to dig, friend, got to look deeper, got to see the parts I’ve hidden away because they are all that really matter, and in that way I am damn near human, don’t you think?

  “If we climb back up and go into the woods, maybe you’ll get an idea or something,” Kellen said. “I’ve never heard of another spring near here, but there are dry channels—places the Lost River fills only during flood seasons. Some of the springs are dependent on high groundwater, I know.”

  “If we can find the site of the old cabin, maybe we can work back from that,” Eric said.

  “Think you’ll recognize it?”

  Eric nodded. He was trying to imagine the cabin as he’d seen it in his mind, to picture it coming into view from behind the wheel of an old roadster with large domed headlights, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t let him get into the image. His headache was a constant cackling menace, and he was sitting with his hands pressed against his legs to still the shaking. His left eyelid was doing that damned twitch again, as if it were trying to blink out a grain of dust, and his mouth was dry and chalky.

  The spring beneath him churned into life again, spitting more water out as if angry about it, and Eric lifted his head and looked out to the deep portion of the pool, watched that gentle swirl and felt his eyes come unfocused. His hands began to shake violently then, and this time Kellen noticed.

  “Hey, man, you all right?”

  “Yeah.” Eric straightened abruptly, feeling a swift sense of dizziness overtake him and then pass. “Just getting a little… edgy.”

  Kellen took a few steps farther down the hill, frowning. “Maybe we shouldn’t have you out in the woods right now. Anything happens—you have another one of those seizures or something—it’ll be a bad place for it.”

  “I’m fine. Let’s find this thing before the storm hits.”

  Back up the hill and away from the cliff, back in the direction from which they’d come. Just before they entered the trees again, Eric took one long look back at the gulf, blinked hard, and stared. He could’ve sworn the water was higher already.

  51

  TIME AND PLACE PLAYED tricks on Josiah’s mind, as they had a few times up at the timber camp. He’d been staring out at the incoming storm clouds for a long time before the light changed enough that he caught a glimpse of his own shadow in the window and saw that there was a figure behind him. He whirled and found himself facing old Anne McKinney. Of course that’s who it was. But for a moment there, he’d lost any memory of where he was or who he was with. For a moment there, he could’ve sworn he heard music, some sort of old-time strings number. He’d been sitting at a bar with a whiskey glass in his hand, laughing with some fat son of a bitch in a tuxedo, explaining that the economic shifts weren’t going to bring a thing to this country that couldn’t be solved with a bit of ambition…

  A dream. But he’d been on his feet. He’d fallen asleep on his damn feet? What in the hell was going on? He was here to wait for Eric Shaw. Shaw would be coming for the water eventually, and when he did, Josiah would have him, and then the woman, and then he’d have answers. That’s what he needed to focus on. He was here to get answers. Why was that so hard to remember?

  He shook his head, blinked, then mustered a glare and held it on Anne McKinney for a few seconds, enough to show her that he was still in control. It wouldn’t do to let his mind drift like that again, not with so many decisions to be made.

  He turned back from Anne, thinking he’d steal another glance at that crazy damn cloud, but this time when he looked at the window, what he saw froze him.

  Campbell was sitting where Anne McKinney had just been. He was staring
dead on into the window, his face reflected clear as a bell, his dark eyes shimmering like the rain that splattered the glass.

  You was told to listen, Josiah, he said. Said you wanted to go home and take what was yours, and when a ride was offered in exchange for a piece of work, you agreed to it. But you failed to listen, boy. Needs to be a day of reckoning come upon this valley. It was mine once, should’ve been yours, and they took it from us. Took it from me, took it from you. You going to let that stand, boy? Are you going to let that stand?

  Josiah didn’t answer. He just stared into the glass, into Campbell’s reflected eyes.

  I could’ve chose anyone for this task, Campbell said. Could’ve chose Eric Shaw, or his black friend, or Danny Hastings. You question my strength, boy, question the power of my influence? That’s foolish. It didn’t have to be you. But you were here, my own blood, and that meant something to me. Doesn’t mean a damn thing to you, though.

  “It does,” Josiah said. “It does.”

  Then listen, damn it. Do what needs to be done.

  Josiah turned to him then, anxious to say that he was more than willing to do what needed to be done, that he was just having some trouble understanding what in the hell it was exactly. When he turned, though, Campbell was gone, the old woman there in his place, looking at Josiah with fearful eyes.

  He looked back at the window. Campbell was there again, but he was silent.

  “I’ll do your work,” Josiah said. “I’ll do it. Just show me what needs done.”

  Anne’s fear had grown as the morning went on and Josiah Bradford’s ravings turned stronger and stranger. Those muttered conversations had become something else, and now she could tell that Josiah was no longer imagining an exchange with someone, he was seeing someone, speaking directly to him as if he were in the room with him. Wasn’t a soul in sight but Anne, and he sure wasn’t talking to her.

  When he got to the last bit and said I’ll do your work in a voice that seemed untethered to his person, she squeezed her hands tightly together and looked away from him. He’d whirled on her once and she’d been afraid he might do something, but then he’d just turned back to the window and carried on with his conversation.

  She wouldn’t watch him anymore. Better to pretend she wasn’t seeing or hearing any of this, better to pretend she wasn’t even in the room.

  He took to pacing again, in and out of the room, and each time he came back, he’d look from her to the window, do it suspiciously, as if trying to catch her at something he thought he saw her doing in the reflection. Then he went all the way into the kitchen and began to rattle around, and when he stepped back into the living room, she stole a glance and felt her heart seize.

  There was a knife in his hand now. One of her kitchen knives, with a five-inch blade, plenty sharp. She pulled back, fearing harm, but he just carried on past her like she wasn’t there and returned to the window.

  Don’t look at him, she thought, don’t make eye contact. He’s as close to a rabid dog as anything now, and worst thing you can do with a dog like that is make eye contact.

  So she kept her head turned and tried not to make a sound that would attract his attention, tried not to so much as breathe too loud.

  She didn’t look at him again until she heard the squeaking noise. Even then she hesitated, but it kept up, sounding like he was polishing something with a damp cloth, and finally she turned to see what it was.

  He was drawing on the window with his own blood.

  The knife was on the end table beside him, and she could see that he’d cut his right index finger to draw blood and had then begun to smear it around the glass. His face was screwed into an intense frown, not from pain but from concentration, and he was moving his finger carefully, tilting his head from side to side occasionally to change the angle. It looked as if he was tracing something. Once he looked over his shoulder and then swore at himself and paused for a long time before beginning again, as if he’d ruined his image. She couldn’t see what he was drawing at first, but then he stepped to the side and leaned over and she got a glimpse.

  It was the outline of a man. The head and shoulders of a man, at least, etched in blood over her window. The man was wearing a hat, and Josiah Bradford appeared to have spent most of his time on the hat—and the eyes. The outline of the face and shoulders looked like a child’s scribbling, but the hat and eyes were clear. He’d drawn a nice, smooth almond shape for the eyes and now, as she watched, he took his finger off the glass and stood there squeezing it to raise more blood. He was patient, waiting for a full, thick bead of it. When he was satisfied, he reached out with infinite care and touched his fingertip to the center of the eye, filled it in with blood.

  He repeated the act for the second eye. Anne could hardly draw a breath, watching him.

  When he had the second eye filled in with blood, he stepped back like a painter studying his canvas, cocked his head, and looked judiciously at the window.

  “You see him now?” he said.

  Anne didn’t speak, keeping that vow of silence she’d made for her own safety. He turned on her then, though, looked right at her with a hard stare and said, “Do you see him now?” and she knew that she had to answer.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can see him.”

  He nodded, pleased, and then turned back to the window, sidestepping so that he was out of the way of the blood drawing. Anne sat trembling on the couch and stared at the liquid crimson eyes and, beyond them, the storm.

  They found what appeared to be an old road about a half mile from the gulf, overgrown with weeds but absent of trees, maybe eight feet across. In the distance, off to the east and west, farm buildings were visible, but then the old track curved away from the fields and roped back into the trees. There was an old barbed-wire fence lining the edge of the field, and from that point they could see for miles in three directions. Every direction except the one they were facing, southeast, into the trees.

  Eric tried to pick his way through the barbed wire, promptly got snagged and tore his shirt, then felt an idiot’s flush of shame when he turned and watched Kellen step easily off the top of a stump and over the fence. Oh, well, he probably would’ve just jumped over it if the stump hadn’t been there. Guy that size wasn’t going under it.

  On the other side of the fence the old track became even more overgrown, harder to follow, and it climbed gently but steadily. One of those hills that didn’t feel like so much until you were a ways up it and began to feel a tight burning in your calves. After about ten minutes the slope fell off abruptly and they went downhill for a bit and then came to a rounded ditch packed with old leaves, slabs of limestone protruding here and there. Water flowed through it, no more than a foot deep but moving swiftly.

  “One of the dry channels?” Eric said.

  “I’d say so.”

  They slid down into the ditch and used one of the limestone pieces to cross the water, then got back to climbing. It was about five minutes before the ground flattened out and it was clear they’d reached the top. By now Eric was breathing hard—Kellen didn’t seem to be breathing at all—and if not for the sudden absence of slope, it wouldn’t have felt like much of an arrival. Everything up here looked pretty much the same as the hill had—thick with trees, tangled with brush and weeds, dark with shadows. Insects buzzed around them, and a pair of crows shrieked in discontent. The humidity seemed twice as high as when they’d started, and Eric lifted his shirt and used it to dry sweat from his face. When he lowered the shirt, he felt an odd tingle, like a ping of static electricity. The crows shrieked again and he winced at the sound.

  “I feel like we’re just wandering now,” Kellen said. “We’ve got no idea where we should be looking.”

  “I know it,” Eric said. A gust of wind blew up, and a thin branch from one of the young trees whipped into his face. When he lifted his arm to ward it off, his hand passed through a spider web, which stuck to him with wispy, sticky threads. He swore and wiped his hand off on his jeans
and continued on as Kellen fell in behind him. They’d gone no more than twenty feet before Kellen’s phone began to ring. Eric didn’t turn at first, but when Kellen began to speak, his voice was low and serious in a way that brought Eric to a stop. When he looked back, he saw Kellen’s face knotted in an expression of disbelief.

  “You’re sure?” he was saying, voice hushed. He was turned sideways, as if trying to retreat from Eric, attain privacy. “Thanks. Yeah, I know. Crazy. All right, baby. I’ll talk to you…. Look, yeah, I got to go. I’ll talk to you soon. Thank you. Okay? Thank you.”

  He disconnected and slid the phone into his pocket, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “Your girlfriend?” Eric said.

  “Yeah.” He was looking at Eric with a frown of scrutiny.

  “Why are you looking at me like I’m a test subject?”

  “Danielle just got results on your water.”

  “Really.” Eric’s eyelid twitched and fluttered again. “Were we right? Is there something in it besides the mineral water?”

  Kellen nodded.

  “Alcohol?” Eric asked. “Some sort of whiskey?”

  Now Kellen shook his head. “Not even a trace of alcohol. It was, according to Danielle, a mixture of mineral water and blood.”

  “Blood.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just… blood. She has no idea where it might—?”

  “Human blood,” Kellen said. “Type A human blood.”

  Eric thought of the bottle, and his senses seemed to slam him right back into contact with it—he had a flash of the cold touch in his palm, the honey-tinged odor, the sickening-sweet taste…