The River Burns

by Trevor Ferguson

  His claim on her just felt so irritating.

  She preferred the rainstorm she’d been caught in the previous evening.

  Tara tried to break free once, as if by accident, only to be chided by Willis for entering the inner sanctum of the tree huggers. A second move away would have put her among loggers, no better a choice in his rigid hierarchy.

  “Are these like reserved seats?” she complained.

  He laughed at what he perceived to be a feisty spirit. “Nothing like that.” Indeed, the turnout was exceptional. More chairs were being unfolded and put out. “You don’t want to sit among the loggers or the environmentalists.”

  “I don’t, huh? Why not?”

  “Each group needs to make itself look as strong as possible. We’ll be with the tourism industry—the merchants and innkeepers. That way we can show that our point of view is well represented.”

  “Who are those people, over there?”

  Willis leaned in front of her to look across the room. “Strangers,” he noted. “You know what that means.”

  They didn’t look like strangers to her. Well-groomed men in suits and ties, and women in spiffy pants suits, were reminiscent of her former enclave. She could only speculate on their purpose here. “Actually”—annoyance crept into her voice—“I don’t.”

  “Bureaucrats. Provincial, federal, municipal, the works. Lawyers.”

  She cast a glance their way. That’s where she should properly be seated, but she didn’t want any part of that group. Tara supposed that she should just go home. She was on the verge of feigning a headache, or of declaring that it was too nice outside to be indoors and really she never intended to be in such a big crowd. But to leave would countermand her own curiosity. What could sufficiently interest this spectrum of diverse people to not only turn out in numbers but to seem so animated, so energized?

  A bridge?

  “Who’re the other suits?” she inquired. Another gaggle sat forward of the loggers on the same side of the room.

  “Logging company officials. Their lawyers.”

  More lawyers. More of her own kind, yet she felt so estranged from them now. Behind them arrived the minions, a broad public panoply eager for an evening’s entertainment that promised to outdistance the summer fare on TV.

  As Willis was seating himself she finally found a way to elegantly slip loose from his company. “There’s Mrs. McCracken now. I promised to sit with her.” Her first business partner lie.

  Willis Howard came up with no retort. Although his disappointment showed, he politely let her go, and Tara settled in four rows behind him and a few seats over—still within the bounds of the tourism industry—beside the elderly firecracker.

  “You don’t know what you just saved me from,” Tara whispered.

  “Oh, Willis can be a bore,” Mrs. McCracken chimed in. Somehow, she just got her, this woman. They smiled.

  “I hear you’ve been firing blanks at burglars.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Despite the words of protest, Mrs. McCracken smiled as she spoke and did not seem to mind her comment.

  “Spill the beans,” Tara continued. “Explain to me why so many people are here. I’ve heard about community involvement but this is ridiculous. Something about a bridge?”

  “Oh no, not a bridge, dear,” Mrs. McCracken corrected her. “Although two are involved. Our beautiful old covered one and a new monstrosity that’s not even built yet and hopefully never shall be. No, dear, this is about our heritage, for starters, and it’s also about our hopes for the future.”

  “Nothing trivial, then. Whose side are we on?”

  “In tossing your fate to the wind, my dear, you have landed with the tourism industry. We are supported by the ecologically aware young people in our midst, and by different levels of government. Keep in mind that the latter can never be trusted. But we enjoy the support of the good, the pure, and the enlightened people on our planet.”

  She loved this gal’s wit. “Such good news. And our enemies are?”

  “Loggers.”

  “Thought so. They don’t favour our heritage and future?”

  “They do not. They’re in it for the money.”

  “Whereas the tourism industry . . .”

  “Oh, shut up.” This time, she may have meant it.

  “So what’s the difference?”

  “The loggers are dunces.”

  “Undoubtedly so. But what’s their case, their point of view?”

  “My dear, listen to me when I’m talking to you. They’re dunces. Nothing more needs to be said.”

  Tara shot a glance at the enemy trenches. Men turned out in good numbers and looked ready for bear. She did not have a handle on the issues, but she couldn’t simply endorse Mrs. McCracken’s position without further articulation. Her elite training as a lawyer taught that adversaries could be creeps and malcontents, pathological liars and brutes, rapacious villains or wretchedly needy imps, but they were never dunces, unless you planned on losing the case, which made you the dunce.

  “Mmm,” she said.

  “I know what that means,” Mrs. McCracken opined.

  “No, you do not.”

  “Now you be nice, dear, or I’ll send you back to sit with your Mr. Howard.”

  Tara shot her a glance. “You wouldn’t.”

  Mrs. McCracken clicked her fingers. “In a trice,” she said. “Like that.”

  Laughing lightly, Tara touched the old lady’s bare forearm. “I’ll be good,” she promised. “Boy, you people around here play rough!”

  ■ ■ ■

  Alexander O’Farrell was not alone in noticing the new young woman in town. Every person in attendance at the meeting succumbed to some awareness of her presence. Her newness as well as her beauty were magnets, and while many found excuses to glance in her direction, a few numbskulls blatantly stared. Not only men were the culprits. Women glared as if mentally preparing for a catfight if she dared come into contact with their husbands. Government agents, who had no clue that she was a newcomer in town, craned their necks as if scanning the audience to assess its size, but specifically to bolster their initial impression that a rare creature resided in their midst. The evening might not be a total waste. Alex, observing her, did feel concern for his eldest son. Ryan had come to grief in his life, and this woman struck him as being a walking heartache.

  He wished that Ryan thought to join him at the meeting, though. He might have found a chance to introduce himself to her. What was so important that he was avoiding this?

  Alex appreciated how the young woman was relating to old Mrs. McCracken. The two interacted like schoolgirls, giggling together. He liked her, an impression not wholly tied to her fine looks. She received the attention of the room, she was fully aware of it, yet she didn’t play to that attention, or exhibit any sign that it was either justified or necessary. Nor was she intimidated by the interest of the room in evaluating her, for none of her gestures appeared remotely self-conscious, and she didn’t perform for the wide-angle lens of that camera’s eye.

  Something odd occurred that quietly strengthened Alex O’Farrell’s positive view. The woman turned to look right at him. So many were gazing at her and yet she returned the scrutiny of just one man, the one who, in his estimation, was sympathetic to her plight. That perception bowled him over. Yet he did not react as he might with any other, did not turn away or pretend that his gaze was accidental. He’d been found out, observed, and so confirmed his study of her by meeting her eyes for the few seconds that she returned his look, before her attention reverted to her companion. Mrs. McCracken soon shot a glance over her shoulder. So the young woman was asking about him, and now Mrs. McCracken conveyed a report.

  A walking heartache for sure, Alex concluded, unless she happened to take to his son, in which case—and he was surprised by how convinced he became of an opinion
he could only call rash—they’d be well suited for each other. For he knew Ryan as no one else did, better, perhaps, than the young man knew himself, and not merely as a father might know his son, although that aspect was involved. In Alex’s mind, Ryan possessed a quality that transcended the familiar, setting him apart, a native intelligence he hadn’t fully tapped into yet and, depending on life’s circumstances, might never fully experience. He possessed a generosity of spirit—his wife, Ryan’s mother, alerted Alex to this—as rare as it was precious, in her words, and as vital as it was undefined. The boy didn’t know about any of that, Alex considered, pulling his gaze away from the woman out of courtesy while thinking also about his long-deceased wife. But a woman such as this one, if his instincts regarding both young people held true, could aid him with that discovery.

  As the meeting was about to begin, Alex sensed that he was the one hot to trot here, vicariously, on behalf of his elder son, and even, strangely enough, on behalf of this new woman in town. He consciously reverted his attention to the meeting to see how the younger of his two sons might fare.

  The retired mayor called the meeting to order and Alexander O’Farrell sensed the partisan tensions rise, one side of the room pitted against the other, as if they were all a pack of brawling in-laws at a shotgun wedding. “This could get interesting,” he whispered to those seated just ahead of him.

  To bring people to order required more than the formality of pounding a gavel, although the former mayor of Wakefield, Anton St. Aubin, gave it a try. He was selected to be chairman due to his experience with similar gatherings, as the organizers prevailed upon the presiding mayor to step away from the task. No one wanted the discussion to seem controlled or even sponsored by any level of government. The meeting was meant to allow opposing factions into the same room to see what could be jarred loose from their mutual antagonism, to learn who could be placated and what could be done, if anything, to calm the waters.

  Even, although this idea was deemed a pipe dream, to find solutions.

  As anxious as the populace felt attending the meeting, many were not above treating it as a social outing. To get people to quiet down proved difficult. The old mayor finally resorted to virtual profanity. He roared into the microphone set before him on his table, “Everybody, will you just shut the”—he lingered for a breath to give people time to fill in the blank for themselves with the appropriate expletive, then titter, before he finished—“up.”

  He’d won their attention.

  The old mayor, a youthful seventy-five, albeit with a widower’s characteristic malaise—spills on his tie, a crumpled shirt, for he’d sloughed off his jacket as the room warmed up, and he was in need of a haircut despite a shiny, liver-spotted pate—spoke with a smile.

  “How’s everybody doing tonight?”

  Most everyone concurred that they were doing just fine.

  He announced that dignitaries and professionals were to be introduced, and as he did so they joined him at the head table facing the congested room. Only outside officials sat at the table, provincial bureaucrats at one end, federal at the other. In the middle, closest to the former mayor and on either side of him, experts on bridges, on roads, on forestry, and on the economy converged, and while no one explained who employed them—“We’re consultants,” the junior bridge expert attested—those in attendance could detect in the strangers’ manner the long arm of government agencies.

  Each man and woman at the head table was invited to speak, and each had the decency to keep their opening remarks brief and noncommittal. An operative phrase for the meeting, “We are here to listen,” underscored that they were neutral observers, and those in attendance abided their statements with patience. Not that anyone believed them to be as neutral as they claimed.

  The audience sat waiting for the fireworks to commence. Without the advantage of that expectation, accustomed to meetings so dull and monstrously detailed that they bordered on the carcinogenic, Tara Cogshill settled in for an evening of tedium. She took comfort in the advantage of this introduction to her new community. Loggers and shopkeepers, innkeepers and artisans, the old and a few young, misfits and the genteel commingled. She gathered, with help from Mrs. McCracken, who whispered pertinent, if blatantly biased, notes, that an old covered bridge impeded traffic, and that the forestry industry felt imperilled. “In days of yore,” as one man began a poetic effusion, logs were driven south on the Gatineau River. Those great floating masses of timbers worked well for more than a century but over time threatened to choke the life of the river, and eventually were deemed an ecological hazard. So now logs were trucked out of the woods to mills.

  “Those men of old,” Mrs. McCracken started to whisper.

  “In days of yore,” Tara stipulated.

  “Exactly. Back then, they drove the logs on the river with patience and expertise. They relied on their wits.”

  “Therefore?” She loved this old gal, loved goading her on, just a touch.

  “Young men today are too impatient! Everything’s rush, rush, rush. They can go around. They can wait their turn. They can relax, for heaven’s sake. Given what’s at stake that doesn’t seem too much to ask, if you ask me.”

  “Isn’t that the point of the meeting, Mrs. McCracken? To ask you. And everyone else while we’re at it.”

  ■ ■ ■

  “Work to do,” had been Ryan’s excuse for bowing out of the meeting. Perhaps to justify his fib, he cruised through town, the streets starkly empty with so many at the meeting. The supermarket shut early, everyone off to do their civic duty, which at twilight contributed to a spooky, ghostly atmosphere. Ryan’s tour took him past Mrs. McCracken’s house, and he considered this to be correct police procedure as well. He told her one thing, yet also gave credence to a second theory regarding the rampage through her home. Blaming kids was credible, but loggers might have committed the trespass. Among their numbers were those with the temerity. And within that tribe were those with motive, for she was a formidable political opponent in the current dispute over the bridge. They might want to unsettle her, get her off her game. Should that guess prove right, they could conceivably return when her house was empty to wreck further havoc. Fortunately, her home as he drove by seemed quiet. Lovely, in a still, sedate way in the gloominess of dusk. From there Ryan drove to the old covered bridge, in part to guard against anyone taking advantage of the exceptional quiet to scrawl slogans or commit some reckless, malevolent act.

  As he arrived, he came across a group of young people, each taking turns jumping off the upper rail into the water below. A serene scene of summer, which held in its moments—the girl crying out as she leapt feetfirst into the stream, the young boy fearful on the rail prior to his first jump ever, the older boy swimming across the current to a boulder near shore, still hooting with the thrill of his leap—a nostalgia for summers past, for simple joys and special memories. If he were an artist, Ryan thought, cheesy or not he’d capture this scene. Strictly speaking, the sport was not legal, although Ryan was never the sort of police officer who enforced infractions for the sake of proving his power, and he’d made the leap into the river himself countless times as a kid. Dangers lurked—only a patch of the water’s surface was free of rocks and rapids—and yet generation by generation young people managed to negotiate the dangers and teach one another to be safe even as they revelled in the risks. In Ryan’s estimation, no one could be protected and shielded from himself or herself at every moment. Taking reasonable risk, as a youthful folly, was probably beneficial over the long term. Let folks or their kids speed or drink in cars, though, and he was on their tail in the blink of an eye, and merciless.

  As well, the river was not swimmable, due to the proliferation of deadheads, the old logs still floating around or stuck in the river bottom or lassoed by grasses or lodged in the side banks, often just out of sight where a child might slam into one if plunging below the surface. Forget about boating,
as a rudder or prop might easily be ripped off. Only the rapids cleared them out from the area below the bridge each spring, so only here, beneath the bridge, could children enjoy the water.

  Walking out onto the old covered bridge he was ignored by the kids at first. He was not in uniform and stayed at one end, away from the deepest diving spot. Recognizing him, the teenagers conferred with one another, which resulted in an emissary being sent to approach him. Before the dripping boy got within twenty feet, Ryan issued an edict. “Kid, don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving you permission. But I’m not on duty. I’m not on duty and I’m not in the mood for a chat.” The boy retreated to the company of his friends. In essence, Ryan was giving them his tacit approval, yet somehow he spoiled their fun. He never meant to do so. After a few minutes, following one more leap, the teenagers gathered up their clothes and towels and walked off the bridge in the direction opposite Ryan.

  His weight against the railing, his arms crossed over it, he stared down at the rapidly flowing river.

  The first girl he ever kissed was on this bridge.

  The first breast touched.

  He broke up a fight on the bridge once, standing between two youths wailing on each other and getting them to stop. Seventeen at the time, about two years younger than the combatants, he came away from the experience shaking. He’d put himself in danger, but to his surprise, inexplicably, he gained the approval of a number of his peers, guys and girls both, and from that moment forward he considered that an idea floating in his head was viable. He might actually carry through on an inkling. Ryan accepted that he was destined to become a cop.

  Standing on the bridge as he did now, except that it was wintertime then with ice below and a chilling wind at his back, he contemplated, and absorbed, the agonizing death of his mother. And he returned on an autumn’s evening to wallow in emotional wreckage when bad news regarding his girlfriend ripped him asunder. The bridge and the river below exerted this kind of pull on him. Others talked about heritage and history and tradition, but for Ryan the bridge counted in ways he was unwilling to speak about to anyone. Certainly not down at the town meeting. The bridge was his personal holy ground. A private place for an intimate correspondence with himself.