John Hart - Down River

Thirty yards out I left the trail. The light was too much, the trees thinning. I found the darkness of the deeper forest, and angled away from the river so that I would cut the clearing above the cabin. I stopped at the edge of the trees, settled into the low growth. I could see everything: the gravel drive, the dark cabin, the car parked at the door, the shed next to the woods.

The cops.

They’d left their cars on the drive above me, and were on foot, almost to the cabin. They moved like I thought cops would move, bent at the waist, weapons low. Five of them. Their shapes blurred into one another, separated. They accelerated across the last gap, reached the car, divided. Two moved for the door. Three split for the back. Close. Damn they were close. Black on black. Part of the cabin.

I waited for the sound of splintered wood, forced myself to breathe, and saw something wrong: a pale face, motion. It was by the shed at the edge of the woods, someone peering around the corner, then pulling back. Adrenaline slammed through me. The cops were pressed against the sides of the door and one of them, Grantham maybe, had his pistol in a two-handed grip, barrel at the sky. And it looked like he was nodding. Like he was counting.

I looked back at the shed. It was a man in dark pants. I couldn’t make out his face, but it was him. Had to be.

Danny Faith.

My friend.

He ducked low and turned in a dead sprint for the trees, for the trail that would lead him away. I didn’t think. I ran, down the edge of the clearing, toward the shed, the gun in my hand.

I heard cop sounds at the cabin, voices, crashing wood. Someone yelled “Clear!” and it was echoed.

We were alone, the two of us, and I could hear him thrashing through brush, limbs snapping into place behind him. I made for the tree line, the shed coming up; then I was there, and I saw the glow of fire shining through the cracks of the door and through the dirt-smeared windows. The shed was on fire. Raging on fire. I was next to it when the windows blew out.

The concussion threw me into the dirt. I rolled onto my back as flames poured skyward and turned night to day. I could see everything to the edge of the woods. The trees still guarded their blackness. But he was out there, and I went after him.

I was at the edge of the trees when I heard Grantham shout my name. I saw him at the cabin door, then plunged into the trees, half-blind. But I’d grown up in woods like this, knew them, so that even when I fell I popped up like I was on a spring. But then I went down hard and the gun spun out of my hand. I couldn’t find it, couldn’t waste the time, so I left it.

I saw him on the trail, the flicker of his shirt as he rounded a bend. I was up to him within seconds. He heard me, turned, and I hit him in the chest at a dead run. I landed on top of him, and saw how wrong I’d been. I felt it as my hands went around his neck. He was too thin, too brittle to be Danny Faith; but I knew him, and my fingers ground deeper into the withered neck.

His face showed his own bitter hatred as he struggled beneath me. He twisted to bite me, couldn’t reach, and I felt his fingers on my wrists as he tried to force my hands away. His knees rose up; his heels drummed the hard-packed clay. Part of me knew that I was wrong. The rest of me didn’t care. Maybe it had been Danny. Maybe he was at the cabin, arrested and in cuffs. But maybe we’d all been wrong, and it was not Danny Faith that had raped my Grace. Not Danny, but this miserable old fuck. This sorry, worthless, undeserving motherfucker kicking in the dirt as I crushed the life out of him.

I squeezed harder.

His hands left my wrists and I felt them fumbling at his waist. When I felt something hard between us I realized the mistake I’d made. I rolled off of him as the gun hammered away, two enormous concussions that split the dark and blinded me. I kept rolling, off the trail and into the dampness under the trees. I found a wide trunk and put my back to it. I waited for the old man to come and finish the job. But the shot never came. There were voices and lights, badges glinting, and shotgun barrels as smooth as glass. Grantham was standing over me, his light in my face. I tried to stand, then something crashed into my head and I was on my back.

“Put this cocksucker in handcuffs,” Grantham said to one of the deputies.

The deputy grabbed me, flipped me onto my stomach, and slammed his knee into the center of my back.

“Where’s the gun?” Grantham demanded.

“It was Zebulon Faith,” I said. “His gun.”

Grantham looked around, shone his light down the trail. “All I see out here is you,” he said.

I was shaking my head. “He set the fire and ran. He shot at me when I tried to stop him.”

Grantham glanced at the river, at the slow roll of water that looked like sucking black tar, then upslope, to the oily glow of the burning shed. He shook his head and spat in the dirt.

“What a mess,” he said, then walked away.

They stuffed me in the back of a cop car then watched the shed burn to the ground. Eventually, firemen put water on the smoking debris, but not before my arms went numb. I thought about what I’d almost done. Zebulon Faith. Not Danny. Feet drumming clay and the fierce satisfaction I’d felt as the life began to fade out of him. I could have killed him.

I felt like that should trouble me.

The air in the car grew close, and I watched the sun rise. Grantham poked through the soaking ash with a white-haired fireman. They picked up objects and then let them fall. Robin’s car rolled out of the trees an hour after dawn. She passed me on the cratered road, and lifted a hand from the wheel. She spoke for a long time with Detective Grantham, who pointed at things amid the ruin, then at the fire marshal, who came over and spoke some more. Several times they looked at me, and Grantham refused to hide his displeasure. After about ten minutes, Robin got into her car and Grantham walked uphill to where I sat in his. He opened my door.

“Out,” he said.

I slipped across the seat and put my feet on the damp grass.

“Turn around.” He made a motion with his finger. I turned and he removed the handcuffs. “A question, Mr. Chase. Do you have any ownership interest in your family’s farm?”

I rubbed my wrists. “The farm is held as a family partnership. I had a ten percent interest.”

“Had?”

“My father bought me out.”

Grantham nodded. “When you left?”

“When he kicked me out.”

“So, you have nothing to gain if he sells.”

“That’s right.”

“Who else has an interest?”

“He gave Jamie and Miriam ten percent each when he adopted them.”

“What’s a ten percent stake worth?”

“A lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

“More than a little,” I said, and he let it go.

“And your stepmother? Does she have ownership?”

“No. She has no interest.”

“Okay,” Grantham said.

I studied the man. His face was unreadable, his shoes black and destroyed. “That’s it?” I asked.

He pointed at Robin’s car. “If you have questions, Mr. Chase, you can talk to her.”

“What about Danny Faith?” I asked. “What about his father?”

“Talk to Alexander,” he said.

He shut my door and walked to the driver’s side; turned the car around and drove back into the trees. I heard the car bottom out in a rut, then I walked down to speak with Robin. She did not get out, so I slid in next to her, my knee touching the shotgun locked to the dash. She was tired, still in last night’s clothes. Her voice was drawn.

“I’ve been at the hospital,” she said.

“How’s Grace?”

“Talking a bit.”