Saints at the River Read online

  “Looks like this is a dangerous road,” Allen Hemphill said.

  “Yes, especially during the winter.”

  Woods pressed close to the road on both sides now. A few weeks earlier, Judas trees would have created a scattered blush across the understory. Jessamine and silver bells would have lit up the forest as well, but now only the dogwoods bloomed.

  “Have you ever been up here?” I asked.

  “Once,” Allen said. “My Sunday school class camped out on the Tamassee one weekend. Of course that was over twenty years ago. I’m sure a lot’s changed.”

  “Probably not as much as you’d think.”

  I caught a whiff of Allen’s aftershave, a kind of green, fresh smell, like lime. A good smell. Never get involved with a man you don’t like the smell of, my Aunt Margaret always said.

  I looked over at him, trying to gauge the difference between the face three feet from me and the picture on the back of The Center Cannot Hold: Death and Life in Rwanda. The genesis of that book had been the reporting he’d done in the mid-nineties for the Washington Post. Four years ago the book had been a finalist for a Pulitzer. I’d bought a copy after we met.

  In the author photo Allen stared directly into the camera. I’ve seen what most people can’t imagine, his eyes seemed to say, and something more, a hint of arrogance as well, as if to add, and I’m good enough to make you see it as well.

  But he had done more than that. Allen’s best passages in Death and Life in Rwanda accomplished what Brady’s and Capa’s most affecting war photography did. They didn’t just make you see, they made you unable to forget what you’d seen.

  “I brought your Rwanda book,” I said. “I’d like you to sign it later, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Sure,” Allen said, but without much enthusiasm.

  “It’s a fine book. I read it in one sitting.”

  Allen glanced over at me skeptically.

  “I tend to do that, start a book and not put it down.”

  “I’m bad about that myself,” Allen said, smiling now. “When I was a kid I’d go to the library and be so oblivious I wouldn’t know what time it was until the librarian started cutting off lights.”

  “Sometimes when I’m working that same thing happens. It’s like I’m outside of time. Three hours will pass and seem like thirty minutes.”

  Allen nodded. “Writing used to be the same way for me.”

  “Used to be?” I asked.

  “Used to be,” Allen repeated.

  It was clear he didn’t want to explain further. I was reminded of the audio file Hudson had sent out after Allen had been hired, an interview with NPR the year of his Pulitzer nomination. Despite a decade out of the South, Allen’s voice was pure Carolina midlands, but his manner was brisk, his answers almost sharp. At one point, when the interviewer asked if he ever questioned his ability to continue covering a particularly tough story, he seemed on the verge of losing his patience. No, he replied. Though any significant story had an emotional component, it was the reporter’s job to redirect that emotional energy into the service of clarity. Then the interviewer asked if he planned to continue working overseas, and the tension seemed to dissolve as Allen laughed and said something to the effect that he probably would, though his wife was trying to get his passport revoked.

  Evidently she, or they, had decided to get their marriage revoked instead. I wondered if it was the long overseas assignments that had ended the marriage. Or, perhaps, problems with the “emotional component.” I glanced at his wedding ring and remembered a poem from my British Lit class where a woman wore a necklace engraved with the words Noli me tangere. Touch me not.

  The blacktop curved a final time. WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB proclaimed a graying piece of wood nailed to a tree. A few yards beyond was another wooden sign with DAMASCUS PENTECOSTAL CHURCH and an arrow pointing left. Once the two-lane straightened, apple orchards lined the road and then a wide-porched building with WHITEWATER RAFTING TOURS painted on the slanting roof came into view. Thirty yards beyond was Billy Watson’s service station and general store.

  “We’re low on gas,” I said, nodding at the fuel gauge. “This is the only place to get some this side of the river.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Allen said, and flicked on the blinker with his left hand.

  MINNOWS AND REDWORMS FOR SALE, the hand-printed placard beside the pumps read.

  “The pumps aren’t on,” I said. “You have to pay first.”

  Though it was still too early for many tourists, Billy sat in a rocking chair on his store’s rickety porch, a book in his hand and a brown Labrador retriever at his feet. He wore a torn flannel shirt and faded overalls. A black beard draped off his chin like Spanish moss. All his costume lacked was a corncob pipe. Billy had a degree in agriculture from Clemson University, and his family owned the biggest apple orchard in the valley, but he’d decided after college that his true calling was playing Snuffy Smith to fleece tourists. He swore if he could find a cross-eyed boy who could play banjo, he’d stick that kid on the porch and increase his business 25 percent.

  “Maggie,” Billy said. He raised his hand in greeting but did not lay his book on the banister until we’d stepped on the porch.

  “This is Allen Hemphill,” I said after Billy had released me from a bear hug.

  “William Watson the Third,” Billy said, holding his hand out. “But you can call me Billy since you’re with Maggie.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’ll take fifteen dollars of unleaded,” Allen said, handing Billy a credit card with one hand and shaking with the other.

  We stepped into the store. Even in midafternoon the two bare bulbs hanging overhead couldn’t disperse the dark that pooled in the corners and lined the back wall. Billy had made changes since he’d bought the place from Lou Henson. He’d hung a hornet’s nest and a tanned timber rattlesnake skin on the wall. In the back corner he’d installed a potbelly stove many tourists believed was a moonshine still.

  Billy also sold items that Lou Henson never allowed on his shelves: for the tourists, T-shirts and ball caps with TAMASSEE RIVER printed across them, walking sticks, postcards; for the river rats, Tevas and Patagonia shirts, plastic dry bags for cigarettes, even a few paddles in the back.

  But other parts of the store remained unchanged. The floors still smelled of linseed oil. A ceiling fan big as an airplane propeller creaked and rattled overhead. Fishing and hunting equipment crowded the first row of shelves, much of it covered by a fine layer of dust. I knew if I lifted the lid of the red battered-metal drink box Cokes and Nehis and Cheer-wines would be up to their necks in ice and water so cold you had to snatch them out.

  And the cigarettes. They were behind the counter, the same place they’d been eighteen years ago when my father left my brother Ben and me alone with a pot of simmering navy beans so he might come to this store and buy a pack of Camels.

  I looked down and saw that my left hand lay over the part of my forearm scalded that long-ago evening. Covering the scar had been a habit I’d formed in middle school, a habit I’d never been able to break.

  Allen turned from the counter.

  “I’m going to get a couple of things I forgot to pack,” he said, tucking the credit card back in his billfold. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” I said.

  Billy wrote something on a receipt and placed it in the cash register. Despite the ZZ Top beard, he was a handsome man, eyes a deep blue, hair the shiny black you see on a raven’s wing. You didn’t need the Watson family Bible to know that a few generations back Cherokee and Celt in this valley had done more than just trade and fight.

  “You got any idea where Aunt Margaret is?” I asked Billy. “I called her last night but didn’t get an answer.”

  “Joel said she went down to Greenville to see that grand-baby.”

  “Did he say when she’d be back?”

  “No, but she’ll be here in time for the singing tomorrow night. She d
oesn’t miss those, even for a grandbaby.”

  Billy looked toward the back aisle where Allen lingered.

  “So what brings you all up here?” he asked me.

  “That girl’s drowning.”

  Billy pointed to the hornet’s nest behind him.

  “That nest is nothing compared to the one stirred up since it happened, but I guess your daddy’s already told you that.”

  “We haven’t talked in a while,” I said.

  Billy’s eyes registered disappointment but little surprise. We’d grown up on adjoining farms. As children, Billy and Ben and I had built secret clubhouses in the woods and seined for minnows in Licklog Creek. On rainy days we played Monopoly and Chinese checkers. Sometimes my cousin Joel would play too, but it was usually just us three. Momma called us the Three Musketeers. Billy and I had stayed close through high school and college at Clemson.

  “What exactly happened to that girl?” I asked.

  Allen clutched a toothbrush and toothpaste in his hand, but he lingered in the aisle, pretending to check out the fishing equipment.

  “What I know is she was picnicking with her family and decided to go wading,” Billy said, “above Wolf Cliff Falls, of all places.”

  “Did her parents try to help once she got in trouble?”

  “Her mother dove into the pool three times. She’s lucky the hydraulic didn’t shove her under that rock as well.”

  “What’s a hydraulic?” Allen asked, coming up the aisle to stand beside me. He placed the toothbrush and toothpaste on the counter.

  “A place where an obstacle makes water move in a circular motion,” I said. “It’s kind of like being inside a washing machine.”

  “Except in this case it’s a washing machine to the tenth power,” Billy added.

  “But she’s not in the hydraulic?” Allen asked.

  “No,” Billy said. “She’s behind it.”

  When Allen opened his billfold, I noticed the plastic photo covers were empty.

  “That comes to four dollars and thirty-two cents by my ciphering,” Billy said, taking Allen’s five-dollar bill.

  “So she’s under that big rock on the left side of the falls?” I asked.

  “That’s my understanding. Randy took an underwater camera down there last week. The current makes it hard to see, but the people who looked at the film claimed they saw a body.”

  Billy handed Allen his change.

  “But the father didn’t go in the water?” Allen asked.

  Billy nodded.

  “Maggie here can tell you it would have been not just dangerous but useless. That water’s pouring in at two hundred cubic feet a second. It would be like pulling someone out of the eye of a tornado.”

  “But the father wouldn’t have known that she was on the other side of a hydraulic,” Allen said.

  Billy bit his lower lip and slowly shook his head. “I hadn’t thought about that.” He closed his cash register. “I reckon youall will be at the meeting?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll look for you. It should be entertaining, depending on who shows up.” Billy met my eyes. “Especially if one of them is Luke.”

  “Rest assured Luke will be there,” I said, as the three of us stepped onto the porch.

  I picked up the thick hardback on the banister, The North American Cougar and Its Habitat printed on the spine, and showed the title to Allen.

  “When we were kids Billy thought he saw a cougar. He’s been trying to prove it to the rest of us ever since.”

  “I did see it,” Billy said. “Black-tipped tail and all.”

  “You don’t think they’re up here?” Allen asked me.

  “I’m an agnostic on that question. There have been sightings for decades, but no one ever finds a carcass or scat. Luke, the guy we just mentioned, he’s never seen one, and he spends more time on the river than anyone.”

  “The Tamassee and its watershed can hide a lot,” Billy said, “even from Luke Miller. And I may have found some empirical evidence for you skeptics. My boys and me were camping on Sassafras Mountain six weeks ago and found a six-point buck. The throat had been punctured and it had been covered with leaves and branches.”

  “Couldn’t a wild dog or bobcat do that?” I asked.

  “Possibly. But here’s the kicker. It had been dragged thirty yards uphill from the kill site. We’re talking about maybe a two-hundred-pound deer.”

  “I hope you had your camera with you.”

  “Oh yeah. I took two rolls’ worth, and I’ve sent copies to the folks at Fish and Wildlife.”

  “Heard anything back?”

  “Not yet.”

  Allen checked his watch. “I’m going to pump the gas,” he said.

  Billy motioned for me to stay as Allen turned and walked to the car.

  “You heard from Ben lately?” he asked.

  “Last week.”

  “He’s doing okay?”

  “The baby still isn’t sleeping through the night, but otherwise everything’s fine.”

  “Tell him I said hello next time you two talk.”

  Billy turned his eyes from me and gazed toward Sassafras Mountain. Years back, Ben and Billy and I had climbed Sassafras. The climb had been Billy’s idea, a way of getting Ben out of his room after another skin graft. At the top we’d used Billy’s jackknife to carve our initials and a date into the white oak.

  Allen put the handle back on the gas pump.

  “I’d better go.”

  “Come back more often, Maggie,” Billy said softly. “Your daddy’s going to need you.”

  Billy watched from the porch as we drove away toward the river. The road was all slants and curves now. A pickup coming from the other direction swung wide on a curve, briefly crossing onto our side of the center stripe. I caught the blur of an unwhiskered face, some teen, probably still in high school.

  “The way the land’s slanting we must be near the river,” Allen said.

  “Yes,” I said. “We’re close now.”

  I looked out the passenger window. Trees thickened, some dogwoods but mainly birch and yellow poplar. TRUCKS USE LOW GEAR, a yellow sign warned. We soon passed Laurel Mist development, a guardhouse with a wooden swinging gate at the entrance.

  “Are they keeping people out or in?” Allen asked.

  “Out,” I said, “unless you’ve got a whole lot of money.”

  We drove by apple stands. Four months from now the ground in front of them would be a bumpy red, green, and yellow quilt of Winesap, Granny Smith, and Golden Delicious. The wood shelves would sag with gallon jugs of cider and quart jars of apple butter. Tackle boxes on the counters would fill with bills and coins. But now the stands were empty, like booths left behind by a passing carnival.

  “Where does your father live?” Allen asked.

  “We passed the turnoff two miles ago.”

  “Do you want to turn around?” Allen asked.

  “No, the motel is straight ahead.”

  I glanced at the clock on the dash.

  “The meeting’s in an hour. There’s a barbecue joint across from the motel. The food’s great if you don’t mind raising your cholesterol level ten points.”

  “Don’t mind it a bit,” Allen said. “Greasy food and sweet tea were the two things I missed most when I was up north. I’ve got some culinary catching up to do.”

  “Well, Mama Tilson’s is your place, then,” I said. “Nothing to eat that’s not dripping in grease.”

  We passed Luke’s log cabin, the TAMASSEE RIVER PHOTOGRAPHY sign out front punctuated with a couple of new bullet holes that hadn’t been there in December. A battered aluminum canoe lay upside down on the porch. Luke’s pickup wasn’t parked out front. I wondered if he was already at the community center.

  “Here,” I said, and Allen turned into the Tamassee Motel’s gravel driveway.

  “I’ll be at Mama Tilson’s,” I said, as he unlocked the trunk. “Come on over when you get settled in.”
/>   “What about your check-in?”

  “I’m staying at my father’s house. I’ll drive out there after the meeting, unless you need the car.”

  I leaned into the trunk and gripped the handle of the laptop. Allen placed his left hand on my wrist.

  “I can get it all myself,” he said, letting his palm glide lightly onto the back of my hand and pause there a moment as his grip replaced mine. I felt the smooth center of the palm, the tougher skin where fingers and palm connected.

  Allen lifted his suitcase and computer from the trunk.

  “No, I won’t need the car.” He set down the suitcase. “Here,” he said, and handed me the keys.

  “See you in a few minutes,” I said.

  I watched him walk across the asphalt and into the office. He was a good-looking man, his eyes that deep, steady blue you see in an October sky, his wavy brown hair starting to gray at the edges. His haircut was functional: barbershop, not salon. He had a hard lean body that would look good in jeans and a T-shirt. He kept himself in shape.

  Perhaps it was just the longing of a woman who hadn’t been with a man in over a year, but as I watched him disappear through the doorway I wondered what the fingertips and palm of his hand would feel like pressed to the small of my back. Maggie Glenn, you’ve been a long time lonely, I said to myself, and drove across the road.

  “LOOK WHAT THE CAT’S DRAGGED IN,” MAMA TILSON announced, bustling out from behind the counter, her body covered by the white barbecue-stained hospital gown she always wore instead of an apron. She leaned forward to hug me, not letting the gown touch my clothes. “Good to see you, girl.”

  She stepped back and looked me over. “You’re just as pretty as ever. I still tell Billy Watson and those Moseley boys the biggest mistake they ever made was letting you get away.”