Saints at the River

by Ron Rash

  Ben had been the same way. All those years he’d never once given voice to the pain he felt, whether it was pain from another skin graft or from a classmate’s cruelty. Maybe that was what happened when people grew up in a place where mountains shut them in, kept everything turned inward, buffered them from everything else. How long did it take before that landscape became internalized, was passed down generation to generation like blood type or eye color?

  So we spoke only the words we felt comfortable with that Sunday afternoon, and in the days and months that followed as well, until now nine years had passed and any other language had become hopelessly foreign, untranslatable.

  CHAPTER 7

  I went straight to the statehouse Tuesday morning to photograph the latest protest against the Confederate flag flying on capitol grounds. When I got back to the office, thirty e-mails awaited me. The first was from Allen, who was in Cheraw. He’d driven there to do a story about a woman who claimed to be Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe’s love child.

  I was glad he was doing the story. A good dose of southern zaniness offered him a much-needed reprieve from the story he’d just written, the story he would resume on Friday when we returned to Oconee County for the second meeting.

  “I’ll be back in Columbia by noon Friday, so let’s plan on leaving by two o’clock,” Allen’s e-mail said, “unless this woman suddenly produces the birth certificate for Elvilyn Presley she claims is hidden in the Memphis courthouse vault. If that happens I may be a little late.”

  I clicked to the other messages, most of which congratulated me on the photograph, including one from an editor at the Charlotte Observer asking if I’d send a résumé her way. I read the e-mail from lmiller@Tamassee.org last. There was no subject or greeting.

  “I expected what Hemphill would do, but you disappoint me. You understand what’s at stake up here. Or maybe I should say you once did. A lot of people have devoted a significant part of their lives to saving the Tamassee. You have betrayed every one of those people. It’s the only free-flowing river left in this state. Is it too much to ask that one river in South Carolina not be turned into a lake or open sewer? Just one, Maggie, one river left alone? Is that so radical, so uncompromising?”

  I read the message again. Blunt and to the point, classic Luke. In spite of myself, I smiled, thinking back to the first time I found myself on the receiving end of Luke’s directness. It was the summer after my sophomore year at Clemson. We’d been at Mama Tilson’s because Momma hadn’t felt up to cooking. Having come straight from my summer job potting plants at Ellis Gillespie’s nursery, I’d washed my face and hands in the bathroom, but black dirt was wedged under my nails and stained my T-shirt and jeans.

  That’s the troublemaker Harley beat up, Daddy had said, nodding toward the counter where a man was sitting down. I’d have thought him to have the sense to tuck tail and leave after a whipping like that. The man’s face was scabbed and bruised. Stitches stubbled a black crescent on his chin. So that’s Luke Miller, I’d thought, because I’d heard about him, not just from Daddy but other people such as Billy, who admired him. He seemed not to care that several people now glared at him, including my father. And that impressed me, his not giving a damn, not being afraid Harley or one of his cronies might be around.

  When we finished eating I went to the bathroom while the rest of the family went on outside. As I passed the counter I stopped and told Luke how much I admired his attempts to protect the Tamassee. He’d replied brusquely, telling me admiration didn’t do a damn thing for the river, that if I wanted to do something that did matter I should come to the community center tomorrow at ten and help address envelopes.

  Billy and a few other locals came that Saturday, as did some middle-aged and elderly people from as far away as Columbia and Atlanta. And of course the river rats, not wearing bright-colored river shorts and polypro shirts and Tevas as they would years later but cut-off jeans and tank tops and tennis shoes. The men wore their hair long and attempted beards with varying degrees of success. The women wore their hair long as well. They didn’t wear bras and, like the men, were tanned and muscled from long days paddling the river. Luke moved among us, distributing address lists, envelopes, and stamps.

  They had all heard what had happened, but it was obvious a number of people inside the community center hadn’t seen Luke since Harley Winchester had beaten him up. They studied his battered face, the way his cracked rib made his breathing shallow and quick, like an animal panting. But what struck me was that, unlike my father, the people who’d gathered that Saturday morning weren’t surprised he was there. One of the river rats said aloud what Luke’s damaged body proved—that nothing short of being killed would keep Luke from trying to save the Tamassee.

  I lifted my eyes from the computer screen. There was no reason to reply to Luke’s message. I hit the delete button and closed the program.

  I WAS EATING THE GRANOLA BAR THAT WOULD BE MY LUNCH when Lee Gervais walked over, the front page in his hand. My photograph filled the bottom third right corner, the first six paragraphs of Allen’s story on the left. A father’s grief, the photo caption read. FATHER FIGHTS RIVER AND LAW TO BRING DAUGHTER HOME headlined the article.

  Lee folded the paper so it looked like a baton used in a track meet. He held it in his right hand and shook it for emphasis.

  “We’ve already gotten more response on this than anything in months, and I mean anything, even the damn flag controversy. Senator Jenkins’s office called this morning. They wanted it made clear the senator would do everything possible to help Kowalsky get his daughter back. Reuters just called too. They’re picking this up, photograph and article both.”

  Lee grinned.

  “You’re in high cotton, girl.”

  “Am I?”

  “Sure, it’s a good bet other places will pick that photo up as well, maybe even a magazine or two.”

  “I’m not sure how that works. I’ve never had to worry about it before.”

  “At the least you’ll get a photo credit,” Lee said. “Someone like Newsweek picks it up you’ll get a couple hundred bucks. It could mean a raise too.”

  “Does this mean I can get that Volvo I’ve been wanting all my life?”

  “Well, if not that, at least a new muffler for your Escort.” Lee nodded at the paper. “Hudson’s a happy man. He finally got Hemphill to write something of consequence. This is the best thing that could happen for everyone involved.”

  DOGWOOD BLOSSOMS NO LONGER BRIGHTENED THE WOODS AS we drove up Stumphouse Mountain. Instead, the oval leaves blended with the surrounding hardwoods. Sarvis bloomed by the road, interspersed with purple and yellow beardtongue and ragwort. A fresh-picked vase of birdfoot violets lay next to one of the crosses.

  I yawned, loud enough that Allen looked over at me. I had slept only a few hours the night before. Three A.M. is the hour of doubt, and Luke’s e-mail seemed engraved in my mind. Except for our stop at a McDonald’s near Greenville, my eyes had been closed most of the trip.

  “Sorry to nap the whole way,” I said. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “Me either,” Allen said. “Kowalsky called at eleven. Somehow he managed to track me to Aiken. He’s already gotten phone calls of support from Senator Jenkins and the governor, and his congressman is flying down from Washington to be at the meeting. Jenkins and the governor are sending some of their staff people to represent them at the meeting as well.”

  Allen smiled.

  “Kowalsky said the piece has made people realize what’s really going on up there, but we can’t let up the pressure on the other side.”

  “We?” I asked. “So we’re on Kowalsky’s side?”

  “Those are Kowalsky’s words, not mine. I tried to be fair in that article. I didn’t demonize Luke or take cheap shots at the search and rescue squad or Forest Service. Is it wrong to show some sympathy for the man?”

  For the first time since I’d known him, I heard anger in Allen’s voice, ang
er directed at me.

  “No, not at all,” I said.

  “I’m going up there to cover a story to its conclusion, not to be somebody’s mouthpiece. But yes, if I have to choose a side, I’m on Kowalsky’s.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, touching his wrist with my hand. “I wasn’t criticizing you.”

  Allen’s voice softened.

  “I’m just a little defensive today. Some woman left a message on my answering machine last night. She told me I was trying to single-handedly destroy the Tamassee River, and the only reason was because I couldn’t get past my own daughter’s death.”

  “That was a cruel thing to say.”

  “But maybe it’s true. I said much the same thing to you the other night.”

  We were near the top of Stumphouse now, nearly 2,500 feet above sea level. In the woods a few dogwood blossoms lingered like stars in a dawn sky.

  “I’ve got one more question for you,” I said.

  Allen glanced at me warily. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

  “Does Elvilyn take after her dad or her mom?”

  “Definitely her mom,” Allen said. “She has the same peroxide-blond hair.”

  “What further proof does anyone need?”

  “I agree,” Allen said. “Seeing is believing.” He freed his wrist from my hand to check his watch. “It’s a good thing we made that pit stop to eat. We barely have enough time to check in before heading to the meeting.”

  We passed the Laurel Mist development sign. The bullet holes in the fawn had been caulked.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” Allen said. “Why, if you majored in English, do you use a camera instead of a word processor? I mean, was it an aesthetic or philosophical choice?”

  “More a wanting-to-be-employed choice, at least at first,” I said. “My first boss said my writing was too florid, that if I was going to imitate a writer it should be Hemingway, not Faulkner. He had a point. I’d spend three paragraphs describing the inside of the Moose Lodge when he wanted two hundred words on their latest membership drive.”

  “So you don’t necessarily view us wordsmiths as inferior.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “You’re the one making judgments in that department.”

  Allen groaned. “As I’ve said before, that was a youthful indiscretion. I’ll admit right here and now that there have been times when pictures were truer than words. Am I going to have to sign a blood oath to convince you?”

  “No, just a specific example.”

  “The Civil War. You go back and read first-person newspaper accounts, and you’d think they’d been out there playing baseball four years. It’s Matthew Brady’s photographs that capture what really happened.”

  “Like the photo of the dead rebel sharpshooter at Gettysburg?”

  “Exactly,” Allen said.

  “That photograph was staged.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That man died in a field. They moved his body to the sniper’s perch. Even the gun doesn’t fit. It’s an infantryman’s rifle, not a sharpshooter’s.”

  “I never knew that,” Allen said. “But you could still argue it’s true to the horror of war, truer than those ‘factual’ accounts of correspondents. Brady captured the crucial truth. The soldier was dead, and he’d died young and violently. Brady didn’t arrange that.”

  “And you yourself would buy that argument?”

  “Yes,” Allen said, as we passed Billy’s store. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE SECOND PUBLIC HEARING BEGAN, the last chair in the community center had filled. Cameramen from Charlotte and Columbia and Atlanta TV stations staked out the far corners. Three dozen journalists held note pads and tape recorders in their laps and hands, almost as many photographers interspersed among them. A long table had been placed beside the lectern, metal folding chairs behind it. The two placards on the table said WALTER PHILLIPS, DISTRICT RANGER and DANIEL LUCKADOO, STATE SUPERVISOR OF FORESTS.

  Phillips was standing off to the side talking to Myra Burrell. Lee hadn’t been interested in any shots of Phillips, but I had developed them anyway, then arranged the photos across a desk as though a police line-up. Will the real Walter Phillips please step forward, I told the photographs. And one of them, the one with the widest perspective, seemed to.

  It was the hands, the way he had balled them into fists, like a man ready and willing to stand and fight if pushed far enough. But how far was far enough? As I watched Phillips talk to Myra Burrell I wondered if tonight I’d find out.

  At five minutes to seven, Phillips and Luckadoo sat down behind the placards. Myra Burrell filled the third chair.

  The last time I’d seen Daniel Luckadoo had been seven years ago at a Forest Watch ceremony. He was grayer now and near retirement. It was obvious from his demeanor that Luckadoo wished he was retired right now, was not here but sitting instead on a screened-in porch sipping an after-dinner drink. But before he could get his gold watch and lake house rocking chair he’d have to drive up here to play Solomon.

  I turned to Allen. “So how soon after the meeting does Luckadoo make the decision?”

  “Kowalsky said tomorrow morning.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?”

  “Allow it. He’s getting a lot of political pressure to go that way, from the governor on down. Luckadoo has the look of a man who understands the good-old-boy system.”

  I nodded. Luckadoo had been appointed Supervisor of Forests by a governor who wouldn’t have cared if every tree in the state had been cut down. Over the years Luckadoo’s actions, especially in regard to clear-cutting, made it evident he shared the governor’s philosophy.

  Allen nodded toward the front row where Kowalsky sat. Brennon sat on one side of Kowalsky, talking to a man wearing the only suit and tie in the building. On the other side of Kowalsky was a woman I’d never seen before.

  “They think it’s a done deal. Brennon has already flown the dam down here, as well as the men and materials to put it up. All that does is put more pressure on Luckadoo.”

  “True,” I said, looking over to the corner where Sheriff Cantrell and Hubert McClure stood. “But somebody must have thought this wasn’t going to be smooth sailing, else the law wouldn’t be here.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, a firm hand.

  “Proud of what you’ve wrought, Maggie?” Luke asked.

  “I can’t help it that girl is in the river,” I said, my voice more defensive than I’d have liked.

  “No,” Luke said, “but you’ve given them cause to get her out.”

  Luke turned away before I could reply.

  People leaned against walls and sat in the aisles while others huddled at the door. My photograph had helped fill this room. I watched Luke walk toward the front where Carolyn had saved him a seat.

  I’M STARTING TO THINK MAGGIE IS MORE THAN A DILETTANTE, Luke had said in this same room eight years earlier. That morning was the fourth Saturday in a row I’d shown up, and Luke’s words served as confirmation not only to me but to all the others that I was truly one of them.

  It wasn’t just my desire to help save the river that had brought me back to the community center each Saturday. Luke Miller was a handsome man, a fact I wasn’t alone in noticing. I began to dress like the others, not just the T-shirt and cut-off jeans but the pigtails and face free of makeup. Before Daddy stopped letting me drive the truck I’d take my bra off somewhere between the house and the community center and stuff it in the dash.

  The weekend before I went back to Clemson, Luke asked me if I wanted to go canoeing. He knew every current, every depth, every wood snag and rock. He knew where to enter each sluice. The river rats had told me Luke sometimes kayaked the river at night, and I’d assumed they meant clear nights with a waxing moon and plenty of stars. But as we made our way downstream that last Sunday in August I realized he wouldn’t need light. He could navigate the river blind.

  We
stopped and ate our lunch. After we finished, Luke took my hand and we walked up the bank of Lindsey Creek to where a waterfall spilled into a pool wide and deep as a hay wagon. Luke reached into a gap behind the waterfall and lifted out a battered tin dipper. He filled it with water and drank.

  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get sick?” I asked.

  “No. This water’s from three springs, and every one of them is on forest land. It’s the purest water in the state.” Luke filled the dipper again and held it out to out me. “As the poet said, ‘Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.’ ”

  I drank water so cold my teeth ached, and then we sat on the bank’s plush, cool moss.

  “This is my favorite place in the whole watershed,” Luke said. “Sometimes I’ll spend most of an afternoon here.”

  “Are you usually alone?” I asked.

  “Usually,” Luke replied.

  He had let go of my hand when we sat down and hadn’t reached for it again. He sat with his legs tucked to his chest. I leaned back on my elbows, my left hand palm up and close to his hip. Luke pointed to a shiny-green plant on the other side of the pool.

  “You know that one?”

  Mountain laurel surrounded the plant, and I thought it might be a sprout. But I didn’t want to venture a guess and sound stupid if I were wrong.

  “No,” I said.

  “Oconee Bell,” Luke said, taking my hand. “When they built Jocassee Reservoir they destroyed two-thirds of the Oconee Bells in the world. Think about that. In the world.”

  I moved closer to him. “The ones here should be safe at least,” I said, because in mid-August the Tamassee’s Wild and Scenic status had been approved by the House. We were careful not to be overconfident so we kept forwarding the petitions and letters, but it looked more and more certain the Senate would vote our way.

  My left hand lifted Luke’s right. I raised his hand to my mouth and kissed it.

  “So are you on the pill?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, trying not to sound stunned by the question.