Above the Waterfall Page 3

  “Not yet.”

  “It ain’t your business to tell her.”

  “I think she needs to know.”

  “She’ll take my side,” Gerald said stubbornly.

  I nodded at his field.

  “You’ve got plenty around here to keep you busy. You take care of that corn and let me deal with the resort.”

  Six

  There were two photos of Richard Pelfrey and Becky online. One dated July 11, 2010, was of them at a strip-mining protest that had turned violent. Amid fists and tear gas, Becky and Pelfrey faced off. Screaming at him to stop, she’d told me. But in the earlier photo, taken that April, Pelfrey’s arm was around her waist. The way she looked up at him, you could tell Becky loved him. People change, she’d said about Pelfrey, but it bothered me that Becky hadn’t seen any change until he threw a tear-gas canister. You’d think after Pelfrey she’d be less certain about people, but not in Gerald’s case, and now he’d not only trespassed but also put a good man in a tight spot.

  Becky smiled as she came up the trail to meet me, but, as always, her cheeks and brow tightened, causing a squint, as if smiling was a bit painful. She’d turned forty-three in April and, in spite of the girlish ponytail, her solid gray hair might cause some to think her older. Her face had creases from all the years outdoors, but Becky’s eyes were youthful. They were blue, but a blue that darkened the deeper you looked into them. We gave each other our usual calibrated hug, neither casual nor intimate. The drab uniform couldn’t hide Becky’s narrow waist and firm breasts and hips. Just brushing against them brought memories of the night at her cabin.

  “I’m sorry to hear about what happened in Atlanta,” I told her as I stepped back. “I know it brings back bad memories.”

  Becky’s shoulders hunched slightly, hands linked in front of her, as if even after three decades, just the mention of a school shooting caused her to make herself a smaller target. For a few moments the only sound was the stream. A kingfisher crossed low overhead and Becky watched it, though watching didn’t seem the right word for how intently she followed the bird’s flight. She did the same with a spider’s web or a wildflower. The first time I’d seen her do it, I’d thought it an affectation. It wasn’t though, it was a connection. The kingfisher followed the stream’s curve and disappeared.

  “Those flowers Friday night were like a Monet painting,” Becky said, brightening, “except better because the flowers were alive.”

  “Sorry I missed that.”

  “I want to show you something,” Becky said, and took my hand, leading me across the bridge.

  “If this is another episode of Nature’s Wonders, it needs to be a short one.”

  “It is,” Becky said, and smiled.

  We walked up to where the creek curved. The meadow appeared, behind it the road and across it Tucker’s lodge.

  “Here,” Becky said, pointing at a blackberry bush.

  But before I looked closer, I heard Gerald’s truck, then saw it bump over the culvert where Locust Creek entered the park, dust rooster-tailing in its wake as Gerald turned into the resort’s drive.

  “I’ve got to go,” I told Becky.

  I walked fast and then trotted, the bridge’s planks shuddering as I crossed. Becky followed, shouting for an explanation.

  “Gerald’s gone to the resort to cause trouble,” I said and got in my car, already cursing myself, because I should have known this might happen.

  When I got there, Gerald was facedown on the lodge’s concrete sidewalk. A security guard jabbed a knee into Gerald’s back, while his right hand held a Beretta’s muzzle inches from Gerald’s head. Another security guard stood beside them. Tucker shouted at the guard from the porch as I warned him to put the gun on the ground. Becky’s truck door slammed and she ran toward us, shouting as well. The guard looked up at me but didn’t put the pistol down until Tucker nodded. I picked it up and saw the safety was off.

  Becky grabbed the guard by the collar and jerked so hard he tumbled off Gerald and onto his back. Sobbing, she helped Gerald to a sitting position. The right side of his face looked like a sander had been at it. Becky talked to him but Gerald was too dazed to understand. His pill bottle lay on the ground and Becky took out a nitroglycerin tablet and pressed it into his mouth.

  “He okay?” I asked.

  “His heart at least,” Becky said. Tears still streamed down her face as she turned to the guard. “You had no right to do this. No right.”

  “He damn well did,” Tucker shouted as he came down the porch steps. “He was doing his job, protecting me.”

  Instead of his usual suit and tie, Tucker wore a blue polo shirt and white khakis, probably planning on an afternoon of golf, at least before this happened. I raised an open palm and warned Tucker not to come nearer. I went over and set my free hand on Becky’s shoulder. Her whole body shook, but the sobs had stopped.

  “It’s okay. Just take care of Gerald,” I said, keeping my hand on her shoulder as I turned to Tucker. “What in the hell happened?”

  “He came up here cursing and raising hell,” Tucker said, “saying he’d come to set things straight with me and nobody, including my guards, was going to stop him. I’ve got witnesses.”

  “Did he physically assault you?” I asked. “Did he threaten you directly?”

  “I didn’t give him the goddamn chance,” Tucker bristled. “Why the hell do you think I have security?”

  “Did Gerald have a weapon?” I asked the security guard.

  “No, but he said he was going inside to see Mr. Tucker and that we couldn’t stop him.”

  “So you shoved an old man onto concrete and pulled a gun on him?”

  “They were doing their job, Sheriff,” Tucker said.

  Gerald muttered something to Becky.

  “He wants to get up,” she said to me.

  Becky and I helped Gerald to his feet. He looked around but he seemed unable to focus. Becky placed a hand on his arm to steady him.

  “Get him to the doctor,” I told Becky.

  She kept the hand on Gerald’s arm as he shuffled to her truck.

  “You’re not taking him straight to jail?” Tucker asked incredulously. He raised a hand to the hearing aid plugged into his right ear, as if it had surely malfunctioned. “Are you shitting me?”

  With his heavily creased face, unconcealed hearing aid, and no attempt at a comb-over of what hair he had left, Tucker seemed reconciled to his age, until you noticed his body. He wasn’t a tall man, five eight or so, but wide-shouldered, his body veeing to a narrow waist. Tucker had played football at NC State in the late sixties and even at seventy he radiated a running back’s compact, barely contained power. It wasn’t just golf that kept him in shape. I’d seen him at the Y in town, working with a trainer and always using free weights, not the machines. I felt that power directed at me now, and plenty of frustration.

  “No,” I answered. “If your people had handled this right, I might be. That Beretta your security guard pointed at Gerald had its safety off. If I’m arresting anyone, it’s your employee for reckless endangerment.”

  “Is that right about the safety?” Tucker asked the security guard.

  The guard began to mutter something in his own defense, but Tucker cut him off.

  “Get out of my sight before I fire you,” Tucker said, and turned to me. “I’m still swearing out a warrant on Gerald.”

  “Fine, but I’ll not serve it.”

  Tucker wasn’t a man used to people bucking him. He looked about to say something more, then abruptly turned and walked back up to the porch where C.J. now stood. Tucker passed him without any acknowledgment. I was about to speak to C.J. but he turned and went inside as well.

  Seven

  The smell of a room soaked in long silences, dusty quilts and mothballs, linger of linseed oil and mildew. My grandparents’ bedroom had been much the same, even the mattress sagged by weight and time. Those nights I came frightened but silent to their bed, a wordless shiftin
g to make room. Worn springs soothingly sighed as feathers nestled around me. At breakfast come morning, no TV or radio or much said, allowing night’s stillness to linger, never asking more of me than a head shake or nod. My grandfather’s words when my parents brought me: This girl will talk when she’s ready.

  The ladder-back chair’s legs scrape as I get up. Across the room, bedsprings stir but Gerald does not wake. I leave the house and walk to the barn. Grasshoppers launch, then land, the high stalks swaying. On a loud orange trumpet vine flower, a swallowtail’s blue wings open and close in slow applause. Caught on an angelica tree, a black snake’s cast-off stocking. Closer, ribs of milk traces, manure scabs the color of oatmeal.

  The so-much of memory as I step into the dark and wait: always back then believing my grandparents’ barn was asleep until I’d entered, light’s slow emergence like one eyelid drowsily lifted. Even now something of that feeling as I step farther inside. In the corner the duster and pesticides I’ve talked Gerald out of using. Beside them a pitchfork and a kerosene can. A barn swallow flutters in the loft, then the parabolic swoop toward thicker light. On a stall door a leopard slug. Slug: its body a slimy slow lugging, and yet, the twice-pronged crown, the long robe’s silver wake. The slow going forth magisterial, as I’d seen as a child, now see again.

  Good memories that even now can heal. Those mornings when I laddered to the loft, made my straw manger beside the square bale door. There on the straw-strewn floor, a sundial of slanted light. I’d reach my child’s palm into it, hold sunspill like rain. Eyes adjusting, much more revealed: junctions knit with spiderwebs, near cross beams dirt dauber nests, the orange tunnels rising like cathedral pipes. Sometimes a shadow suddenly fleshed, long black tail draining into the straw. The few sounds soothing, swallow wings rustling, insect hum. Then my grandmother’s voice. Come, child, it’s time to eat.

  I step out into noon’s startling whiteness. Gerald still sleeps so I sit on the porch and take out my notebook, read the entries I wrote last week.

  the hummingbird nest at the meadow edge—a strawy thimble

  the hummingbird’s wings—stained glass alive in sudden sunlight shimmer

  wildflowers sway in their florabundance

  the grasshopper’s rasping papyrus wings

  I take out my pen, remembering what I felt when Les came and placed his hand firm on my shoulder.

  even the hermit thrush calls out to the world

  Eight

  I was plenty put out with Gerald, but I’d told Becky I’d do it, so at five o’clock I left the office and drove to Darby Ramsey’s house. The place was in no better shape than other times I’d been there, Darby’s idea of home improvement hanging a satellite dish on a sagging gutter. He hadn’t cut his grass in months and I didn’t see Gerald’s lawn mower. A woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties stood on the porch, a blue cell phone pressed to her ear. She wore jeans and an oversize orange-and-white football jersey that made her look even skinnier than she was. But the number 13 seemed right for any woman hanging around Darby. When I got closer, I saw more than time had aged her. Eyes sunk deep in their sockets, teeth nubbed and colored like Indian corn, scabby chin. A fine addition to a Girls on Meth pinup calendar.

  Inside, a toilet flushed. I knew what that was about, but at least I’d cost the asshole some drugs. The front door opened and Darby came out wearing only jeans, tousling his hair like he’d just gotten up. He lit a cigarette and smiled. His teeth weren’t wrecked like his lady friend’s, but the loose jeans argued graduation to meth-head status since I’d last seen him. I couldn’t help but think of William, Darby’s first cousin, who was dead at nineteen while Darby was still alive. Justice. You’d think a lawman would have some faith in that word, but in thirty years I’d seen too little of it.

  The woman said, “Got to go,” and put the cell phone in her pocket.

  “Come to ask me to be your replacement, Sheriff?” Darby asked.

  Even halfway whittled to bone Darby still had a strut about him. I looked into eyes the color of dirty motor oil.

  “No,” I answered, “convicted felons can’t be sheriff.”

  “Just the unconvicted ones, I guess,” Darby said, and turned to the woman. “The sheriff here takes good care of the pot dealers around these parts, and they take care of him. Gives the sheriff more time to bother folks like me who ain’t in on the deal.”

  I stepped past Darby and went into the front room. With no light and the blinds pulled down, it was hard to see much, but there was no cat-piss smell, so they weren’t cooking.

  “Where’s your uncle’s lawn mower?” I asked. “He needs it back.”

  “Uncle Gerald ain’t said that to me,” Darby said. “That hippy park ranger sent you out here, didn’t she? I know what she’s up to. That land’s been death-bed promised to me and Gerald ain’t changing that will because some bi—woman acts all concerned and caring about him.”

  “Becky does care about him, unlike you.”

  For a moment, I thought about telling Darby what had happened at the resort but decided not to. He’d find some way to turn it to his advantage.

  “You don’t know what I care about,” Darby sneered.

  “All I’ve got to do is look at you to know what you care about,” I answered. “Another month and you’ll need no more than a shoestring to keep those jeans up over your scraggly ass. What about that lawn mower?”

  “If you see it, take it,” Darby said, and motioned the woman inside the house. “You got any other business with me?”

  “Not today,” I said, and Darby followed the woman inside.

  Twice I’d put Darby in jail for six months. The meth, however, could soon put him away for good, six feet deep. Even with a bad heart, Gerald might outlast him. A man entering his coffin. That was what came to mind when Darby followed the woman through the oblong door and into the dark. Darby shut the door, and I had a pleasing image of a wooden lid slowly closing over him. Smoke it, mainline it, whatever will do the job, just go ahead and do it.

  Go ahead and do it. The same thought I’d had eleven years ago, but back then I had said it aloud.

  Nine

  At the Sierra Club meeting, some left while Richard still spoke. Others fell silent, and made quick exits after he finished. A coal company bulldozer had shoved a thousand-pound boulder off a mountain and killed a child. After two years of delays by coal company lawyers, the state court ruled the company had been negligent. Punishment: a five-thousand-dollar fine. Can’t you people see this is a bare-knuckle fight, Richard had told us. A three-year-old is crushed to death and you talk about fund drives? You don’t think it will happen again to another child? After the meeting, I alone stayed. Let me guess, he’d said. You work at a library or a bookstore. You want to save the world if it doesn’t take more than one evening every two weeks. You love “nature” but never camped more than a quarter mile from asphalt.

  I’m a park ranger, at Shenandoah, I’d answered. I camp where I see no humans for days. What happened to that child, I don’t want that to happen again, ever.

  Four months together. I worked at the park while Richard, who was good with his hands, made money as a handyman and from the honey harvested from his bee hives. Most of our food came from his garden. On days and nights we had free, Richard and I camped in places where no one else went. We attended biweekly meetings where no one spoke of donations and land easements. Not quite Earth First! but close. Confrontation but not physical violence, we all agreed, including Richard, though the words par tous les moyens nécessaires were tattooed on his forearm. It was Richard who had planned a demonstration on the anniversary of the child’s death. Not at the mine site but at the company’s headquarters. We may do some riverbank cleanup afterward, Richard told me that morning, and handed me my steel-toed work boots. He hefted a backpack onto his shoulder as we were leaving. Snacks and water, he said.

  Locals joined us that day, some whose tap water was slurried with coal, but most, like us, outraged
by both the child’s death and the verdict. In front of the office, two policemen and a company security officer stood on the sidewalk. Outside the yellow tape with us, two newspaper reporters, one with a camera draped around her neck. Richard held no sign. He watched and waited, the backpack in his hand. Coiled, I realized later.

  “Child killer,” a local woman shouted when a man in a suit came out of the building. She raised a jar filled with gray water. “And now you’re going to kill the rest of us with this.”

  The man walked toward the parking lot, head down, until the woman threw the jar. Glass shattered and the water soaked his pants.

  “Fucking bitch,” he said.

  The woman surged forward and the yellow tape snapped. Then she stepped back, as if the tape were dangerous, like a downed power line. No one else crossed, until Richard’s tear-gas canister clanked on the concrete, spun once, and detonated. Then smoke and coughs and curses, thicker sounds of struck flesh. A hand slapped me and the taste of rusty iron filled my mouth. As the gray lessened, I saw Richard and, between us on the ground, the man in the suit. Richard swung his boot and a rib cracked, audible as a rifle shot. Richard kicked again and the steel toe drove the man’s front teeth into his throat. Then a camera flashed and sirens wailed. A few moments later a policeman shoved me aside, kept his gun on Richard while another officer handcuffed him.

  He got out on bail the next day. As I’d packed my last belongings, he’d offered me the newspaper photograph. You’re looking at me, but who were you really angry at, Becky? Richard had said. I think you might have started in on that bastard yourself if we’d had another few seconds.

  I sit up in bed, unable to sleep. Too many echoes of the past, Gerald on the ground, the guard’s gun, the school shooting. I try to follow the dream that sometimes leads me into sleep: the iron ring that opens the concrete door, then the descent into the low cave where the lost animals wait. But tonight I can’t grasp that ring. I pull on a T-shirt and go out on the cabin’s porch, try to turn my thoughts to what I will show the schoolchildren tomorrow. But memory nags. After my grandparents’ deaths, I let no one get close, not in college or grad school, twelve years at the Shenandoah park.