John Hart - Down River

So was Sarah Yates.

I crossed the river and forest marched beside me as I struggled to get my head around this powerful sense of knowing her. I turned off the road and onto the narrow track that led to her place on the river. When I came out of the trees, I saw Ken Miller in a lawn chair by the purple bus. He was in jeans, with bare feet stretched out in the dirt, and his head tilted back to catch the sun on his face. He stood when he heard the car, shaded his eyes, then stepped into the road to block my passage. He held out his arms as if crucified, and frowned with great commitment.

When I stopped, he bent low to peer inside, then stepped to my window. Anger put an edge on his words.

“Haven’t you people done enough for one day?” he demanded. His fingers gripped the window frame. Earth grimed his neck and gray hairs protruded from his shirt collar. Swelling closed one of his eyes. The skin shone, dark and tight.

“What people?”

“Your goddamn father. That’s what people.”

I pointed at the eye. “He did that?”

“I want you to leave.” He leaned in closer. “Now.”

“I need to speak with Sarah.” I put the car in gear.

“I have a gun inside,” he said.

I studied his face: the hard line of his chin, the vein that pulsed at the temple. He was angry and scared, a bad combination. “What’s going on, Ken?”

“Do I need to get it?”

I stopped at the blacktop. It was empty, a long slice of hard black that curved away in a two-mile bend. I turned left for the bridge, window down, noise level ramping up. I came out of the bend doing fifty. Any faster and I would have missed it.

Sarah’s van.

It was parked at the back corner of a concrete biker bar called the Hard Water Tavern. She’d nosed it in beside a rusted Dumpster. All but hidden, it was definitely hers. Same maroon paint, same tinted windows. I slowed the car, looking for a place to turn around. It took another mile, then I whipped into a gravel drive, backed out, and gunned it. I parked next to her van and got out. Sixteen Harleys were lined up between the door and me. Chrome threw back sunlight. Studs gleamed on black leather saddlebags. The bikes angled out with military precision.

Inside, it was dark and low. Smoke hung above pool tables. Music blasted from a jukebox to my left. I went to the bar and ordered a beer from a weary woman who looked sixty, but was probably not much older than I. She stripped the cap off a longneck and put the bottle down hard enough to bring foam out of the mouth. I sat on a vinyl swivel stool and waited for my eyes to adjust. It didn’t take long. Lights hung over green felt. Hard light pushed in from the edges of the door.

I pulled on the beer, set it down on the moisture-stained bar.

It was a one-room, three-table joint with a concrete floor and drains that would serve equally well for washing down booze, vomit, or blood. Ten feet down, a fat woman in shorts slept with her head on the bar. Two of the pool tables were in play, circled by men with beards so black they looked polished. They handled the cues with calm familiarity, and looked my way between shots.

Sarah Yates sat at a small table in the back corner. Chairs had been pulled aside to accommodate her wheelchair. Two bikers shared the table with her. They had a pitcher of beer, three mugs, and about fifteen empty shot glasses. As I watched, the bartender threaded her way across the room and delivered three more shots of something brown. They clinked glasses, said something I could not hear, and knocked them back. The bikers slammed the empties down. Sarah lowered hers between two delicate fingers.

Then she looked at me.

There was no surprise in her face. She bent a finger to summon me over. The bikers made room for me to pass, but not much. Hard cues brushed my shoulders, smoke exploded in my face. One man had a teardrop tattoo on the edge of his left eye. I stopped at Sarah’s table, and the pool games resumed. Her companions were older than most of the other bikers. Prison tats on thick arms had faded to powder gray. White streaked their beards, and lines carved their faces. They wore thick rings and heavy boots, but appeared neutral. They would take their cue from Sarah. She studied me for half a minute. When she spoke, her voice carried.

“Do you doubt that any of these boys would split your head if I asked him to?” She gestured around the room.

“Because you’re their dealer?” I asked.

She frowned, so did the bikers next to her. “Because I’m their friend,” she said.

I shook my head. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I ask because I don’t want a repeat of the same kind of crap your old man pulled. I won’t tolerate it.”

“What did he pull?” I asked.

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Partly.”

She looked at the two bikers. “It’s all right,” she said. They got up, huge men smelling of smoke and booze and sunbaked leather. One of them pointed at the bar and Sarah Yates nodded. “Sit down,” she said to me. “Want another beer?”

“Sure,” I said.

She caught the bartender’s eye, lifted the pitcher, and pointed at me. The bartender brought a clean glass and Sarah poured. “I don’t normally drink in the afternoon,” she said. “But your father put a kink in my day.”

I looked around. “Is this your regular place?”

She laughed. “Once, maybe.” She gestured with a finger, swept it across the room. “When your life revolves around ten square miles for as long as mine has, you get to know pretty much everybody.”

I studied the big men with whom she’d been drinking. They sat with their backs to the bar, feet on the floor like they could still cross the room in seconds. Unlike the others, they watched us closely. “They seem to care about you,” I said.

She sipped her beer. “We share a similar mind-set. And we go way back.”

“Can we talk?”

“Only if you take back the dealer comment. I don’t deal.”

“Then I take it back.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

In spite of the empty glasses, she did not appear to be drunk. Her face was soft and unlined, but a hardness underlay all of that, a metallic glint that sharpened the edge of her smile. She knew something about hard living and tough choices. I saw it in her measuring gaze and in the way she kept a thin line of contact with the boys at the bar. They watched and they waited.

“Two things,” I said. “How do you know me and what did my father want?”

She leaned back and adjusted herself in the chair. Fingers found an empty shot glass and spun it slowly on the table. “Your father,” she said. The glass twisted in her long fingers. “A stubborn, self-righteous, son of a bitch. A hard man to like, but an easy man to appreciate.” She showed small teeth. “Even when he behaves like the world’s biggest asshole.

“He didn’t want me talking to you. That’s why he came out to see me this morning. He rolled up like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Angry, cold. Started barking at me like he had the right. I don’t accept that kind of behavior. Our conversation got a little heated. Ken, poor bastard, tried to intervene when he should have known better. First, because I didn’t need it. Second, because your father won’t tolerate another man laying hands on him.”

“He hit Ken?”

“Might have killed him on a different day.”

“Why was he so angry?”

“Because I’d been talking to you.”

“You talk to Grace all the time.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the issue, boy.”

I leaned back, frustrated. “How do you know me? Why does he care if we talk?”

“I made him a promise once.”

“I found a picture of you in my father’s desk. It was taken a long time ago. You were with Dolf and my parents.”