John Hart - Down River

“Any message?” I asked. “Assuming that I find her.”

The small body sagged, and the emotion that touched her face was as soft and quick as a moth’s wing beating once. Then the spine locked and the eyes snapped up, brittle and tight. Blue veins swelled beneath the paper skin, and her words popped like dry grass burning. “It’s never too late to repent. You tell her that.”

She crowded me and I stepped back; she followed me out, finger up and eyes gone crazy-bright.

“You tell her to beg our Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness.”

I found the stairs.

“You tell her,” she said, “that hellfire is eternal.”

Her face overflowed with some unknowable emotion, and she pointed at my right eye as the fire in her voice snapped once more then died. “You tell her.”

Then she turned for the great mouth of a door, and by the time it inhaled her, she was a much older woman.

I drove down shaded lanes and left the armored walls behind me. Thick lawns dwindled to weed and earth as I hit the poor side of town. Houses grew short and narrow and flaked, then I was through and onto long roads that ran wild into the country. I crossed into Davidson County, the bridge humming beneath me. I saw the long, slow brown, and a fat man with no shirt drinking beer on the shore. Two kids with stained lips picked blackberries from a thicket on the roadside.

I stopped at a bait shop, found an S. Yates in the phone book and tracked down the address. The drive pierced a dense tree line eight miles from the nearest traffic light. I made the turn, and the drive straightened into a long descent toward the river. I came out of the trees and saw the bus, which sat on blocks under a gnarled oak. It was pale purple with faded flowers painted on the sides. In front of it, fifteen acres had been cleared and cultivated.

I got out of the car.

The bus shifted as someone moved inside. A man stepped down onto the bare dirt. He was in his sixties, wearing cutoff jeans, untied boots, and no shirt. He was sunburned and lean, with gray hair on his chest, small, callused hands, and dirty nails. Long, gray hair, either damp or unwashed, framed a lined, brown face. He moved sideways, one arm bent, and his smile stretched wide.

“Hey, man. What’s happening?” He walked to me. The smell of burned marijuana hung on him.

“Adam Chase,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Ken Miller.”

We shook hands. Up close, the smell was stronger: earth, sweat, and pot. His eyes were red, his teeth large and yellow and perfectly straight. He looked from me to the car and I saw him take in the word gouged into the hood. He pointed. “Bummer, man.”

“I’m looking for Sarah Yates.” I gestured at the bus. “She at home?”

He laughed. “Oh, hey man.” The laughter grew in him. One hand rose, palm out, the other cupped his stomach. He bent at the waist, trying to speak through the laughter. “No, man. You got it all wrong. Sarah lives through there, in the big house.” He got control of himself and pointed toward the next tree line. “She just lets me crash here, you know. I take care of the garden. Help her out when she needs it. She pays me a little, lets me crash.”

I looked at the field of green. “That’s a lot of work to sleep in a bus.”

“No, this is cool. No phone, no hassles. Easy living. But I’m really here for the education.”

I looked a question at him.

“Sarah’s an herbalist,” he stated.

“A what?”

“A healer.” He waved an arm at the long rows of plants in the field. “Dandelion weed, chamomile, thyme, sage, catnip.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Holistics, man.”

I pointed to the other side of the clearing, where a gap broke the trees. “Through there?”

“The big house. Straight up.”

The big house was about fifteen hundred square feet, a log home with a green tin roof streaked orange at the edges. The logs had weathered gray; the chinking looked like river bottom. I parked behind a van with a bumper sticker on the back that said, GODDESS BLESS.

Shadows filled the porch and my skin chilled as I crossed to the door. I knocked, doubting that she was home. The cabin had that empty feel, and there was no canoe at the dock. I looked over the river, trying to guess exactly where we were. I put the location somewhere north of the farm; couple miles maybe. I walked down to the dock.

There was a wheelchair there, and I stared for a long second. It looked very out of place. I sat down on the dock to wait. It took about twenty minutes. She rounded the northern bend in an easy slide, the bow sweeping in, the current taking the stern out until she caught it with a firm stroke.

I stood, and the sense of knowing her welled up. She was an attractive woman, with ageless skin and a direct gaze. She locked it upon me when she was ten feet out, and did not look away, even as the canoe sidled up against the side of the dock.

I took the rope from her hand and tied it off on a cleat. She lay the paddle down and studied me. “Hello, Adam,” she said.

“Do I know you?”

She flashed small teeth. “No, you don’t.” She waved a hand. “Now step back.” She put her hands on the side of the dock and heaved herself up, turning so that she sat on the edge. Her legs twisted away beneath her, thin, lifeless sticks in loose jeans worn, in places, to the color of sand. I saw wasted skin at the ankles.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Of course not.” Anger snapped in her voice, so that she sounded very much like her mother. She pushed herself back and her legs slid lifelessly behind her. She grabbed the arms of the wheelchair and pulled herself into the seat. She reached down for one of her legs, then fastened those lamplight eyes on me. “No need to stare, young man.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and looked for something of interest on the other side of the river. I could sense her behind me, working to position her feet and legs.

“No harm in it, I guess. I don’t see people that often. Sometimes, I forget there’s something to stare at.”

“You handle a canoe better than most.”

“It’s my only real exercise. Now, that’s better.” I turned around. She was situated in her chair. “Let’s go up to the house.” Her hands gripped the wheel rims and she turned without waiting for an answer. She propelled the chair uphill with strong, abrupt strokes. At the cabin, she turned for the rear. “Ramp’s in the back,” she said. Inside, she maneuvered to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher. “Tea?”

“Sure.”

I watched as she handled the job with economical precision. Glasses in low cupboards. Ice from a separate freezer. I looked around the cabin. It had a large central room dominated by a fieldstone fireplace; the stones were brown and irregular, probably cleared from the soil beyond the trees. The space was spartan and clean. She handed me a glass. “I can’t abide sugar,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

She rolled for the front door, spoke over her shoulder. “Did you meet Ken on the way in?” she asked.

We went outside. I took a chair and sipped tea that was raw and bitter. “Interesting man.”

“Once upon a time, he made more money than you’d believe. Seven figures in a year, sometimes. Then something changed. He gave it all to his kids and asked me if he could live out here for a while. That was six years ago. The canoe was his idea.”

“Unusual place to live.”

“It was there when I bought the place. I lived in it myself until I got the cabin built.” She reached up and pulled a joint from her shirt pocket. She lit it with a cheap lighter, sucked in a deep breath, and let the smoke run out over her pale pink lips. She offered it to me and I declined. “Suit yourself,” she said, and I watched her take another toke, how she sucked in multiple, small breaths, tightened her jaw before exhaling.