The River Is Dark

by Joe Hart

  “Dani,” he said again, praying for a response. He dropped the coal and waded through its brethren, the sound of his movement like a thousand hissing snakes. His outstretched hand met a cold wall of rounded steel, and he followed it up as high as he could reach, his eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the darkness. Above him, he saw the rectangular opening that they’d fallen through. It was at least four feet over his head, and the sides of the container they were in were smooth and without any handholds he could see. He turned back toward the center and made out a darker form within the chunks of coal, and waded to it as he blinked against the gas fumes.

  Dani lay on her stomach, her face pressed into the coal. Carefully, he turned her over, cradling her head in his lap. “Dani?” Nothing. He bent closer, felt the push of air from between her lips against his face.

  A clumping sound filtered in through the opening above them and Liam looked up, listening, waiting. Soon the sounds became clear: footsteps, distant at first and then closer, and closer. He pivoted, trying to take in his surroundings again, and saw a flat wall of steel nearby that made up the end of the room. Several pipes and openings graced its surface, along with the heavy heads of bolts nearly two inches across. The footsteps approached, and he gauged they stopped only feet from the other side of the wall. A shrieking of rusted steel gouged at his eardrums, and he looked up in time to see a flap being pulled shut over the opening above them. The darkness became complete.

  “Dani, wake up,” Liam whispered, and tried to haul her to her feet.

  She moaned in her throat, and with an immense effort, he picked her up and began to wade away from the end where the footsteps had stopped. He felt the scab on his back tear open and bit down on his lower lip as blood began to drool from the wound in streams that stopped at his belt line. A light scratching issued from behind them, and the sound registered somewhere inside him, drawing the already constricting band of fear in his chest even tighter.

  It was a match being struck.

  The smell of gas, the coal sliding around his feet, and the steel container all assembled into a horrifying surety within a breath.

  They were inside a furnace.

  Liam doubled his speed, and nearly cried out when they ran into the rear wall. He set Dani down and heard the match scrape against steel again, knowing they had only the space of seconds. Liam traced the steel, rust flaking off beneath his touch. He bent his knees, his fingers searching for a handle or seam. They found only the corroded heads of old rivets and the pocked surface of steel. He dove down deeper beneath the layer of coal, and at the bottom of the furnace, the rust became toothy and sharp. He felt the edges of it bite into his skin as his fingers poked through into open air, and he spun onto his back and kicked with both feet as hard as he could.

  The sound of ancient rivets popping loose filled the air. Liam kicked out again and felt the steel, thinned by years of moisture and oxidation, break loose beneath his feet. The coal around him poured away, and he grabbed on to Dani’s arm just as he felt heat bloom against the back of his neck.

  Fire ripped toward them as he lunged through the gap in the steel, dragging Dani as he went. The flames kissed the back of his neck, releasing the sweet smell of burning hair, and he felt his skin blister and then pop, amazed at how fast the reaction happened.

  Then they were on the floor, cool concrete rubbing against his forearms and a puddle of water soaking into his clothes. He pulled on Dani’s arm again, yanking her legs free of the furnace just as flames shot out with reaching tongues nearly four feet long. Dani’s pant legs caught fire, and she began to scream, her voice louder than anything he’d ever heard before. Scooping up handfuls of water, he doused her burning legs until all the flames were gone. Her scream reached a vocal-shredding crescendo, and then she fell silent and limp against him, the threshold of her pain tolerance exceeded and capped by unconsciousness.

  Over the roar of the fire chewing the coal inside the immense furnace, Liam heard the sound of someone coming nearer. He stood and pulled Dani farther away from the glowing inferno, before spinning and drawing out the straight razor from his pocket.

  Peter was there, his oblong skull half-lit by the fire, his eyes glinting with the reflection of flames. With an enraged bellow, he charged, bringing up the massive blade at his side. Liam waited, his hand twitching the razor open. His muscles flexed, even as the rest of his body cried out in pain. Peter swung the sword in a vicious downward arc, and Liam dove past him, drawing a line across the other man’s dirty clothing with the razor.

  Liam rolled to his feet and stood, the heat from the furnace making the burn on the back of his neck feel as if it were blistering all over again. Peter’s weapon clanged off the concrete where Liam had been a moment before, sparks shining in a flutter of light. Peter turned and put a hand to his chest where a chunk of cloth hung like a limp sail and began to grow red.

  “Come on!” Liam yelled, as Peter bared his teeth and glanced at Dani’s prone form. “No, you want me! You leave her alone!”

  Peter’s gaze locked on him once again, and he lumbered forward, his rounded shoulders flexing as he re-gripped his weapon.

  Liam backed up and looked over his shoulder, spotting the stairway that led up to the main level. A massive conveyer system sat to the right of the stairs and blocked the lower treads. Liam turned from Peter, stowing the razor away, and scrambled over the piled machinery until his feet were on the stairway. Peter climbed after him, the massive sword clanking against the steel components. Liam turned and sped up the stairs until he set foot on the main floor. Searching the area for weapons, he ran forward, his hip glancing off a solid worktable. He hissed with pain and spun, seeing the table roll a short distance before stopping. Liam grabbed the nearest edge of the table and pushed it toward the head of the stairs just as Peter emerged.

  The table struck Peter in the chest, and his eyes flew open. He cried out as he tipped backward, Liam shoving with all his might on the other side. With a flailing motion, Peter swung the long sword down, and Liam felt it connect with his hand, the bones within vibrating like a struck bell, the flesh around them numb. The table continued down the stairway, jostling Peter in front of it. Finally, the other man fell beneath its stout form as it toppled end over end.

  Liam glanced at his hand and saw the skin flayed open and the white glare of bone within the torn tissue. He groaned as he tucked it close to his body, and looked down the stairway. The table lay on its top, its legs in the air like a dead insect. For a moment everything was still. Then, the table flipped to its side and Peter crawled from beneath it, heaving his weapon up with him.

  Liam staggered back from the stairway, looking for something else to throw at the juggernaut. A long steel rod leaned against the far wall, and he ran to it, tugging on it with his good hand to no avail. Looking up, he saw an iron strap holding it to the wall, and another anchoring it to the floor. He slid to the right, his hand seeking anything loose in the cobwebbed darkness. Behind him, he heard Peter step onto the main level and begin to stalk toward him, his breathing ragged and wheezing. Liam wondered if the other man had broken a rib or was bleeding internally. He hoped so.

  With nothing at hand, he pulled the straight razor back out of his pocket and snapped the blade free of the handle. The puny length of knife looked so disproportionate when compared to Peter’s sword, Liam almost let out a bray of crazed laughter. Peter came closer and wound up, swinging the blade at Liam’s midsection. Liam leapt back and felt the passage of air as the weapon sliced by him. Peter swung again, this time at his head, and he ducked, placing his clenched fist on the floor for support. A hard chunk of concrete nudged his knuckles, and when Liam looked down, he saw a pile of bricks lying beside him. Dropping the razor, he grasped a brick and stood just in time to dodge another wide swath of Peter’s sword. Lunging forward, he drove the heavy brick into Peter’s head.

  The other man staggered from the blow,
dropping his weapon, which clanged onto the floor. Liam drew the brick back and whipped it forward again. Peter turned just enough to deflect the attack with his shoulder, and Liam lost his grip, the brick spinning away into the darkness.

  With a roar, Peter swung a fist at Liam’s head and caught him with a grazing punch that sent stars flying across his vision. Liam fell back and was about to skirt a workbench to regroup when a thundering report filled his ears and blinding white pain lanced through his left shoulder.

  He fell to one side, bracing himself with his right arm on the nearby table. June stood a dozen yards away holding his gun in both hands. He opened his mouth and gasped with the rolling pain that continued to shoot veins of fire down his arm.

  “You’re industrious, Liam, I’ll give you that,” June said, taking a step closer. “I don’t know how you got out of that furnace, but it doesn’t matter. I won’t let you walk away from here. I won’t let you destroy everything we’ve worked for.” She turned to Peter. “Finish him, son.”

  Peter grunted and ambled forward. Liam tried to back away, but the other man caught hold of his bad arm and wrenched him close with a grip like a vise. Liam felt his feet leave the floor as Peter hugged him to his thick chest and wrapped both of his tree-trunk arms around his back, beginning to squeeze.

  Liam’s eyes bulged as all the air fled his lungs under the immense pressure. His spine popped as it adjusted and then bent as it flexed beyond its designed curve. He screamed and brought an elbow down on top of Peter’s head, but the other man merely tightened the bear hug. Liam felt one of his ribs break. He slammed a fist against Peter’s ear and tried to press a thumb into his eye, but the darkness around him was deepening. He felt light with agony, and in that moment he wished for it to end, as his intestines relocated to new territory. With his last stores of energy, he brought his head back and slammed it forward into Peter’s temple. The grip around his back loosened for a split second, and he drew a breath in, knowing it was his last. Liam managed to lift his head again and saw Dani standing behind June, a length of pipe raised over her shoulder.

  The gunshot was louder than the first, and before the ringing began in his ears, Liam felt a strange tug at his stomach. Looking down into Peter’s face, he saw the other man’s eyes open past the whites, dark blood coating his crooked teeth.

  Peter’s arms fell away, and Liam dropped to the floor, his legs holding him long enough to allow him to heave in a mouthful of air and then collapsing under his weight. He waited for Peter to step forward and end him where he sat, but instead, he fell too, like a tall tree cut at the base. Peter plummeted backward onto the floor. A gurgling cry came from the darkness, and Liam squinted, straining to see who made the sound.

  “Momma.”

  The word was garbled and indistinct, but Liam heard it just the same. Blood bubbled at Peter’s lips, and he coughed, a rope of crimson flying free onto his chest where a black stain was already spreading.

  “Momma!”

  Liam grasped the edge of the table and pulled himself up, still gulping down air like a starving man at a buffet. Then Dani was there, her shoulder beneath his armpit, her hand clutching at his stomach.

  “Oh God, Liam, you’re shot.” She moaned.

  “I know,” he said, looking at the hole in his shoulder.

  “No, your stomach.”

  He looked down and saw a dark patch on the front of his shirt near his navel.

  “When I hit her with the pipe, she fired, and it went through him and into you.”

  “Noooo!”

  The cry cut through their conversation, and Liam looked at where Peter lay. June crawled toward her son, her right arm hanging at a strange angle.

  “Momma,” Peter moaned, his voice half as strong as before.

  June reached him and pressed a palm to his face, wiping away the blood from his cheek. “I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”

  “Momma,” Peter gasped, and more blood boiled over his lips. His chest heaved and convulsed before he exhaled for the last time.

  “Momma’s right here, son. She won’t leave you.” June clutched Peter’s head and sobbed, her wails becoming louder and louder.

  “Liam!” Dani shouted.

  The foundry toppled to one side, and his body met the cool floor. Darkness flooded his vision, and he felt as though he were floating away on the currents of the river outside.

  CHAPTER 26

  Liam opened his eyes to sunshine.

  The light streamed into the room through a high window, and he thought he was at the farmhouse. Then he felt the familiar pull of the blood-pressure cuff against his bicep and inhaled the smell of disinfectant. Not yet, but soon; today he could go home.

  Liam sat up in bed, wincing at the snagging ache in his stomach. The wound itched. He supposed that was a good thing. His father always said that was the body’s way of saying it was healing. Swinging his feet out of bed, he pushed himself free of the covers, with his bandaged left hand. His fingertips were still numb, but the doctor said that the feeling might come back, at least partially. With an agitated jerk, he pulled the Velcro cuff loose from his arm and flexed it. He stood and felt emboldened by the strength in his legs. Taking a few steps, he grabbed the thin, blue robe off the visitor’s chair and managed to get it on before a plump nurse with frizzy black hair strode into his room with a clipboard.

  “Mr. Dempsey, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He smiled. “Morning, Bernice.”

  “Don’t you ‘morning, Bernice’ me! You’re not supposed to get out of bed without help, you know that,” she said, coming toward him, the prepared look of anger barely holding on her kind face.

  “I’m going home today,” Liam said, searching the floor for his slippers.

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

  “Listen,” Liam said, his eyes still on the floor. “I know you’d like to keep me here permanently, and your infatuation with me is flattering, but I really do have to leave sometime.”

  Bernice’s dark eyebrows rose in unison, and then she let out a burst of warm laughter. “Your slippers are over there, sweetie. Let me get you your ride.”

  A few minutes later, after donning the slippers, which were no more than glorified socks with rubber patches on the bottom, he watched Bernice push a wheelchair into the room.

  “You know, I’m perfectly capable of walking down there,” he said, seating himself in the padded chair.

  “Oh, I know you are, handsome, but my orders are to keep you in the chair until discharge,” she said as she wheeled him around the end of his bed. “You aren’t expecting any more company today, are you?”

  Liam knew she was referring to Phelps and Richardson. The two agents had visited him almost every day since his admission at Fairview. At first Phelps’s demeanor remained unchanged, his questions hostile and accusatory. But gradually over the two weeks that had passed, the agent became more docile and even respectful as the evidence mounted into a chain of facts that couldn’t be ignored. Nut had been released, and June Harlow now sat in a cell in Hennepin County awaiting a trial and transfer date.

  “No, I don’t think they’ll be coming back today,” he finally said.

  As he watched the corridor scroll by, Liam adjusted himself in the wheelchair, listening to the soft squeak of Bernice’s shoes behind him. “You know, Bernice, I think I can make it from here. I’ve been down there a few times.”

  Bernice laughed again. “A few? Boy, I’m surprised you haven’t driven that young girl mad with your constant pestering.” He craned his neck around to shoot a look at the nurse. “Oh, I get it, you don’t want your gal seeing you pushed in by an old lady.”

  “You’re not old, Bernice, you’re ancient.”

  Bernice cackled and gave him an extra shove, letting go of the chair as she did so. “You have a nice visit, and I’ll find Dr.
Mason, see if you really are going home today.”

  “Thanks, Bernice.”

  He spun the chair’s wheels and glided to the end of the hall, smiling occasionally at nurses or candy stripers that he knew by sight. Turning left, he went through a set of double doors marked Burn Unit before coming to a stop in front of a wide desk manned by a severe-looking nurse with a long nose and tightly cropped blond hair.

  “Good morning. Is Dani awake yet?”

  The nurse glanced at him over the top of a folder before going back to reading. “Yes, go right in, Liam.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and rolled across the room to a closed door in the far wall.

  Opening it, he was glad to see Dani alone. The questioning hadn’t been relegated solely to him, and the agents as well as the local law enforcement had questioned her rigorously about their version of events. He sat in the doorway for a few seconds, admiring how the sun shone off her hair draped across the pillow, and thought about what he wouldn’t give to climb into bed with her at that moment, to hold her tight to him.

  Turning her head, she finally noticed him sitting there. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “You’re up early. Did you sleep okay?”

  He rolled across the room and stopped beside the bed. “Better than ever.”

  She smiled. “Good.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “As well as can be expected. They said I’m healing nicely, but . . .” She threw a glance at her bandaged legs, covered with gauze from just above the knees down.

  “But what?”

  She just stared ahead at the wall for a long while, and he waited.

  “Are you sure?” Her voice came out small and strained.

  “About what?”

  “About me and what we talked about? I wouldn’t blame you if—”

  Liam shook his head and slid his hand into hers. “I wouldn’t care if you lost your legs completely, you’re beautiful.” He watched her, trying to judge her expression. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”