Down River

by John Hart

  I tried the door—locked—then circled the trailer, stepping over discarded furniture and other refuse. The back looked like the front with one exception, a generator under a limp tarp weighted with bricks. I checked all the windows. Two bedrooms, one empty, the other with a box spring and mattress on the floor. There was one bathroom. It had toothpaste on the counter and dirty magazines on a stool. I checked the main room again and saw a rabbit ear television with a VCR and a stack of tapes, ashtrays on the floor, couple bottles of vodka.

  It was a flophouse, a place to hide from the world, which made sense if you were a man like Zebulon Faith. I wanted to break in and tear it down. I wanted to burn it.

  But I knew that I’d be coming back, so I left it.

  No point in scaring him off.

  I drove toward the farm, sun low and in my face. I called Robin, talked about a lot of nothing, and said I’d see her tomorrow. No mention of Zebulon Faith. Some things are best done in the dark, and I did not want her involved. Period. I turned off the phone and pushed harder into the scorching orange. The day was dying, and I wondered what it would take with it.

  I saw my father’s truck from a distance, parked across the drive from Dolf’s house. I pulled in behind him and got out. He was in old clothes bleached by the sun. Miriam sat next to him, looking exhausted.

  I leaned in the window. “You okay?” I asked.

  “She won’t talk to us,” he said.

  I followed the direction of his nod and saw Grace in the side yard. She was barefoot in faded jeans and a white tank top. In the soft light, she looked very hard, very lean. She’d put the archery target a hundred feet out. The compound bow looked huge in her hands. I watched her draw back and release. The arrow moved like thought, buried its head in the target’s center. Six arrows nested there, a thick knot of fiberglass, steel, and bright, feathered flights. She nocked another shaft, steel head winking. When it flew, I thought I could hear it.

  “She’s good,” I said.

  “She’s flawless,” my father corrected me. “She’s been at this for an hour. Hasn’t missed yet.”

  “You’ve been here that whole time?”

  “We tried twice to speak to her. She won’t have it.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  His face worked. “Dolf made his first appearance in court today.”

  “She was there?”

  “They brought him in wearing full chains. Waist, ankle, wrists. He could barely walk in all that. Reporters everywhere. That dickhead sheriff. The D.A. Half dozen bailiffs, like he was a threat. Goddamn. It was intolerable. He wouldn’t look at any of us. Not at me, not at Grace, not even when she tried to get his attention. She was jumping up and down . . .”

  He paused. Miriam shifted uncomfortably.

  “They offered him the chance for counsel and he turned it down again. Grace left in tears. We came out here to check on her.” He nodded again. “This is what we found.”

  My eyes swung back to Grace. Nock and release. Smack of hardened steel on stuffed canvas. The feel of split air. “Grantham has been looking for you,” I said. “He seems to think there are still things to discuss.”

  I studied him closely. He continued to watch Grace and his face did not change. “I have nothing to say to Grantham. He tried to talk after court, but I refused.”

  “Why?”

  “Look what he’s done to us.”

  “Do you know what he wants to talk about?”

  His lips barely moved. “Does it matter?”

  “So, what’s going to happen with Dolf? What’s next?”

  “I talked to Parks about that. The district attorney will go for an indictment. Unfortunately for Dolf, the grand jury is sitting this week. The D.A. won’t waste time. He’ll get the indictment. The dumb bastard confessed. Once the grand jury returns the indictment, he’ll be arraigned. Then they’ll figure out whether or not the death penalty is on the table.”

  I felt a familiar chill. “Rule twenty-four hearing,” I said flatly. “To determine if a capital charge is appropriate.”

  “You remember.”

  He couldn’t meet my gaze. I knew the steps from the inside. It had been one of the worst days of my life, listening for long hours as the lawyers argued over whether or not I’d get the needle if convicted. I shook the memory off, looked down, and saw my father’s hand settle on a sheaf of pages on the seat next to him. “What’s that?” I gestured.

  He picked up the pages, made a sound in his throat, and handed them to me. “It’s a petition,” he said. “Sponsored by the chamber of commerce. They gave it to me today. Four of them. Representatives, they called themselves, like I haven’t known them all for thirty years and more.”

  I riffled the pages, saw hundreds of names, most of which I knew. “People that want you to sell?”

  “Six hundred and seventy-seven names. Friends and neighbors.”

  I handed the pages back. “Any thoughts on that?”

  “People are entitled to their opinions. None of it changes mine.”

  He was not going to discuss it further. I thought of the debt he had to repay in a few short days. I wanted to talk about it, but couldn’t do it in front of Miriam. It would embarrass him.

  “How are you, Miriam?” I asked.

  She tried a smile. “Ready to go home.”

  “Go on,” I said to my father. “I’ll stay.”

  “Be patient with her,” he said. “She’s too proud for the load she’s carrying.”

  He turned the key. I stood in the dust and watched him go, then sat on the hood of my car and waited for Grace. She was smooth and sure, bending arrows with quiet resolve. After a few minutes I pulled the car into the driveway, went inside, and came back out with a beer. I dragged a rocking chair to the other side of the porch, where I could watch her.

  The sun sank.

  Grace never lost her rhythm.

  When she finally came up onto the porch, I thought that she would walk past without speaking, but she stopped at the door. Her bruises were black in the gloom. “I’m glad to see you,” she said.

  I didn’t get up. “Thought I’d make dinner.”

  She opened the door. “What I said before. I didn’t mean it.”

  She was talking about Dolf.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

  I found ground beef in the refrigerator and had dinner on the table by the time she came out. She smelled like clean water and flowered soap. Wet hair brushed the robe she wore and the sight of her face shot new barbs through my chest. The eyes were better, but the torn lips still looked raw, the stitches black and stiff and wrong. The bruises had eggplant hearts fading to green at the edges. “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “This?” She pointed at her face. “This is meaningless.” She looked at the water I’d poured for her, then pulled a beer out of the fridge. She cracked it, took a sip, and sat. She pushed up her sleeves to eat, and I saw the wreckage of her left forearm. The bowstring had chewed it up, put long welts across a ten-inch stretch. Grace caught me staring.

  “Jesus, Grace. You’re supposed to wear arm guards.”

  She took a bite, unflinching, and pointed at my plate. “You going to eat that?”

  We ate dinner, drank beer, and barely spoke. We tried, but failed, and the silence grew close to comfortable. The company mattered. It was enough. When I said good night, her eyes were heavy. I lay on the guest bed, thinking of Jamie’s deceit and of tomorrow’s conversation, of all the things that lived with such force in this place. The sheer volume made the room spin. Life, in all its complications, seemed to funnel down from a vast, high place, so that when Grace opened the door, it felt ordained.

  She’d lost the robe, wore a cobweb gown that could have been nothing. When she moved into the dark, she was a whisper.

  I sat up. “Grace—”

  “Don’t worry, Adam. I just want to be near you.”

  She crossed on swift feet and climbed under the comforter, being
careful to keep the sheet between us. “See,” she said. “I’m not here to spoil you for other women.” She moved close and I felt her heat through thin cloth. She was soft and she was hard and she pressed upon me in near perfect stillness. It was then, in the dark and the heat, that revelation found me. It was the smell of her, the way her breasts flattened against me, the hard curve of her thighs. It came with an audible snap, the sound of pieces slipping into place. Danny’s call three weeks ago. The urgency in his voice. The need. And there was Grace’s friend, Charlotte Preston, who worked at the drugstore and told Robin of some unknown boyfriend. She’d said that there were issues, something that made Grace unhappy. Other pieces shifted and clicked. The night that Grace stole Danny’s bike. The wormlike twist of a tight, pink scar and the words that Candace Kane spilled with such venom when I’d asked why Danny had left her.

  He was in love. He wanted to change his life.

  What had been void mere seconds ago now brimmed with bright, dripping color. Grace was not the girl who lived in my head. Not the child I remembered. She was a grown woman, lush and complex.

  The hottest thing in three counties, Jamie had said.

  There were still gaps, but the shape was there. Danny worked the farm, he probably saw her every day. Danny would know that she loved me. I rolled away and turned on the bedside light. I needed to see her face.

  “Danny was in love with you,” I said.

  She sat up, pulled the comforter to her chin. I knew that I was right.

  “That’s why he was breaking up with his other girlfriends,” I said. “That’s why he was clearing his debts.”

  An edginess moved into her face, a stiffness that spoke of defiance. “He wanted to prove himself. He thought he could convince me to change my mind.”

  “You dated him?”

  “We went out a few times. Motorcycle races on the parkway. Late nights in Charlotte, dancing at the clubs. He was fearless, charming in a way. But I wouldn’t go where he wanted to go.” She lifted her chin. Her eyes glittered, hard and proud.

  “You wouldn’t sleep with him?”

  “That was part of it. The start. Then he got crazy. Wanted to spend our lives together, talked about having kids.” She rolled her eyes. “True love, if you can believe that.”

  “And you weren’t interested.”

  She put her eyes on mine, and her meaning was unmistakable. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “That’s why he called me.”

  “He wanted me to know that you weren’t coming back. He thought that if you told me that yourself, I might actually believe it. He said I was wasting my life waiting for something that would never happen.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Even if you’d done what he wanted, come home and told me face-to-face, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  “That night you took Danny’s bike . . .?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes I just need to see the dotted line go solid white. Danny didn’t like me doing it without him. I took the bike all the time. I just never got caught.”

  “Why do you think Dolf may have killed him?”

  She tensed. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “We need to.”

  She looked away.

  “He hit you,” I said. “Didn’t he? Danny got mad when you told him no.”

  It took her a minute. “I laughed at him. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”

  “And he hit you?”

  “Once, but it was pretty hard.”

  “Damn it.”

  “He didn’t break anything, just bruised me. He was immediately sorry. I hit him back and hit him harder. I told Dolf as much.”

  “So, Dolf knew.”

  “He knew, but we worked it out, Danny and me. I think Dolf understood that. At first, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Danny was stubborn, like I said. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Once things calmed down, he went to Dolf, to ask for my hand in marriage. He thought Dolf could convince me.” She barked a laugh. “The nerve.”

  “What happened?”

  “Dolf thought it was the worst idea he’d ever heard and he said as much to Danny. He said there was no way he’d let me marry a hitter, not even a onetime hitter. No matter what. No way. Danny was drunk at the time, trying to get his nerve up, I guess. He didn’t like it. They argued and it got ugly. Danny took a swing and Dolf laid him out. He’s tougher than he looks. A day or two later, Danny was just gone.”

  I thought about what she’d said. I could see it. Grace was Dolf’s pride and joy. He’d have been furious at the thought of anyone laying a hand on her. And Danny trying to force a relationship on her. . . . If he kept pushing . . .

  Grace waited until I looked at her. “I don’t really think that Dolf killed him. I just don’t want anybody thinking he might have had a reason.”

  She lay down, put her head on the pillow. “Did you love him at all?” I asked, meaning Danny.

  “Maybe a little.” She closed her eyes, sunk lower in the covers. “Not enough to matter.”

  I watched her for a moment. She was done talking. I was, too. “Good night, Grace.”

  “Good night, Adam.”

  I turned off the light and lay back down. We were both stiff and aware, not just of each other’s proximity, but of all the things still unsaid. It took hours to fall asleep beneath the open window.

  When I woke, it was to the smell of fire.

  CHAPTER 28

  I sat up fast. Dead-of-night darkness spilled through the window, and with it came the taint of smoke. I shook Grace. “Get up,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “You smell that?”

  She reached for a lamp. “Don’t,” I said. I swung my legs over the bed and pulled on pants, snatched up my shoes. Grace climbed out, too. “Get dressed.”

  Grace ran for her clothes and I passed down the dark hall, out onto the porch, the screen door screeching like a night bird. A solid black sky pressed down: no stars, no moon. The wind came over the hilltop, the charred smell so faint I could almost miss it. Then the wind gusted and brought smoke thick enough to taste. When Grace came out, seconds later, she was dressed and ready. “What are we doing?” she asked. I pointed north, where sudden orange stained the bottoms of low clouds.

  “Get in the car.”

  I flung gravel as I slammed the pedal down, fishtailed out of the drive. We raced down a dark tunnel, Grace’s hand clenched on my shoulder. As we came over a hill, the glow expanded. It was still distant, a mile or more, and then we were almost to my father’s house.

  “I’ll drop you at the house. Wake everybody up. Get the fire department out here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Find out where the fire is. I have my cell. I’ll call the house once I know for certain. You can direct the trucks once they get here.”

  I barely stopped at the house. Grace sprang for the steps as I gunned it. I hit the tree line in seconds, engine revving as I overpowered on the loose gravel. I got the car under control, pointed it at the long winding hill that sliced through the forest. The glow intensified as I approached the crest. I exploded over the top of the hill, out of the woods, and slammed on the brakes, sending the car into a long, stuttering drift. When I came to rest, I spilled out into the hot air, smoke like a blanket. The valley below was raging. It was the vineyard, the hundred acres that Dolf had shown me. Orange tongues licked at the sky. Black shadows danced as heat and flame sucked in great drafts of air and pushed smoke skyward. A third of the vineyard flamed.

  And suddenly I understood.

  Jamie’s truck was skewed across the road less than twenty yards from the flames, driver’s door open. Windows reflected the hard yellow boil. The paint danced. When I looked for Jamie, I saw him halfway across the bowl, moving like a locomotive through unburned rows near the fire’s outer edge. The fire had cut him off from the truck and he was in full flight, arms driving. I thou
ght I saw him look back, but couldn’t be sure.

  I was already in a full sprint.

  I cut downslope, aiming to catch him on the other side of the vineyard, near the slide of dark water. Loose earth turned under my feet. I stumbled, then ran harder. I wanted to catch him. That’s what I told myself, but some deeper part of me knew that if I just ran hard enough, fast enough, then I could escape the truth of my brother’s betrayal. For an instant it worked; my mind went blank, then black with pure, sweet anger. Then something caught my foot and I went down in a hard sprawl of limbs and cascading earth. I struck my head on a root, tore skin from my hands. When I found my knees, I needed to vomit and it was not because of the pain. The truth filled me up, the ugly, bitter swell of it in the center of my soul. I’d been wrong all along. It wasn’t Zebulon Faith. It was Jamie. My brother. My own damn family.

  And I was going to make that right.

  No matter what.

  I choked down the nausea and pushed myself up. It took a second to find my legs, but gravity was on my side and I hit the bottom of the hill in a dead run. I leapt an irrigation ditch and crashed into the vineyard, heat on my back. I ducked vines and turned onto a long row where light jigged and twisted with nightmare precision. Smoke cooked my throat, but I was sucking hard and couldn’t stop. Jamie flashed through a gap twenty feet in front of me. His arms beat at vines in his path. He stumbled once and almost fell. Then he was gone behind the green, and I ran harder, the great roar of consumption behind me.

  I flicked a glance left, saw a gap in the rows, and ducked through it. When I came out, Jamie was ten feet in front of me, feet thudding into the earth, giant arms churning. I must have screamed, because his head whipped around, even as I closed the gap and took him down. He was huge and hard as oak. I drove my right shoulder into the small of his back and felt his body whiplash as his knees dug into the ground. Momentum propelled us, and as I came down on his back I drove a forearm into the back of his head and slammed his face into the dirt.

  Most men would be stunned, but it didn’t faze him. He rolled sideways, over me, came to his feet with a rock in his hand. He raised it, emotion bending his features, then he recognized me, and we faced off beneath the wall of flame. He dropped the rock.