Michael Smith - Rivers

He had come into possession of a backhoe, which heightened his expectations and obsession. He explained to his crew that the focus of their responsibilities would be in pursuit of the buried money, which had not been a difficult sell as the job of warding off potential looters of Charlie’s truck had become tiring and cumbersome. He told them that things might get a little hairy. He told them that shooting first and asking questions later was acceptable. He told them to be prepared to receive the same treatment. He told them that whoever saw the backhoe would want it. He told them that many a son of a bitch had been put down over a hundred dollars, much less a million. He told them to expect everything. He told them there would be several hundred thousand dollars in it for the finished job. After that, he didn’t have to tell them anything else.

Charlie and the crew had begun on the east end of the coast. If it was possible to identify a casino’s grounds, and possible to dig on those grounds, they dug. Charlie would drive the backhoe and the muscle would make a wide circle, keeping watch, fingers on triggers. Charlie would dig a hole and move on. Dig another hole and move on. And over and over until the casino land appeared as if it were home to a brotherhood of giant aggravated gophers. The first few digs had been uneventful and fairly irritating, as the rain didn’t stop to let Charlie dig a hole. But as they had moved west across the coast, the digs had become more lively as more treasure seekers appeared, and warning shots had been fired.

The more holes Charlie dug, the more frequent the sound of warning shots, until the warning shots finally hit the side of the truck and pinged off the backhoe and the friendly fire several times turned into straight-up gunfire. In reaction to the increasing danger, Charlie decided to dig at night with a rack of rigged spotlights, but that damn near got them killed the first night out as all it did was shine a bright light to the targets on their backs and blind them from seeing who it was attacking them and from which direction.

But he kept on digging and sliding across the coast. The muscle kept on ducking and firing back. And the influx of interested parties only fueled Charlie’s insistence that somewhere out there was the buried money. He believed that it existed. He was certain of it. And like most of the treasure hunters he had seen in movies or read about in books, he decided that he was either going to find what he was after or he was going to die trying.

THE RAIN CONTINUED ALL DAY. Not much stirred around the compound except for trips back and forth to the supply trailer for something to eat or drink. From time to time a high-pitched cry from the baby cut through the sound of the rain. Ava paid most attention to the child. She was the oldest woman there, with wrinkled hands and eyes, but she moved in a straightforward manner, with a stiff back and shoulders high, like a kid at boot camp. She knew where to find the bottles and formula and diapers because she had helped Aggie stash it all away. She moved in and out of the rain, taking things for the baby, delivering something to drink to Brisco, helping open cans and slicing apples for the others when they were hungry. She had been a part of Aggie but now seemed a part of them once the decision of life or death was presented to her. She wore a pair of men’s jeans, baggy and rolled to midcalf, and two sweatshirts and the faded blue bandana around her head, with strands of gray-black hair trailing down her neck.

During the day, each time Ava moved from one trailer to the next, Aggie called out to her but she ignored him. Even shouted once for him to shut up.

Around evening the rain let up and Cohen and Evan built a fire. The others came out, stretched, passed around the baby. The woman named Nadine was the first to notice Lorna’s grave and she walked out to it. Stood with her arms folded. Stared at the soggy mound and off into the slate-colored horizon. Then she came back to the fire with the others.

In half an hour the fire was going strong and they sat around it in their newfound freedom with their plates full, after taking what they wanted. Baked beans and yams and corn and the empty cans of whatever else appealed to them littered about. Some drinking beer. Some drinking Cokes. Some smoking cigarettes. All of them thinking about tomorrow. The keys to the vehicles and trailers sat on a table as it had been decided that no one alone was to keep them.

The woman named Kris held the infant and held a bottle to his mouth. But he wouldn’t take it and he fussed and wailed.

“What he needs is a good tit,” Nadine said. She had a scar on her forehead and her legs were long and she had a sharp chin. She wore a pair of black laced boots with her pants tucked into them. Ava sat with them drinking coffee.

“Well,” Kris said and she set the bottle on the ground. Her hands were small and her eyes were close together and she was six months pregnant. “He ain’t getting one. Not one that’d do him any good.” She took her pinkie finger and held it down to the baby’s mouth and he sucked at it and closed his eyes and sucked more until he fell asleep.

“Mine never would do it,” Ava said. She ate from a can of green beans.

“Yours? You got kids?” Nadine said.

“Somewhere. Two boys. I ain’t seen or heard from either one in probably twenty years.”

“Damn,” Nadine said. “I thought I hated my momma but I at least knew how to call her.” Nadine’s long legs were crossed out in front of her. Her dirty-blond hair was cut short and uneven and a small harelip gave her the kind of snarl you might see at a county-fair roller derby.

“I didn’t say they hate me,” Ava said. “I said I don’t know where they are.”

“It’s all the same,” Nadine said.

Ava shrugged. Looked at her wrinkled, spotted hands. “Maybe it is,” she said.

Kris hummed a lullaby while she held the sleeping baby, but she paused to say, “Aggie’s sure been calling out for you.”

“Yep,” Nadine said. “You ain’t been over there to him, I’m guessing.”

Ava shook her head. “I done told y’all.”

“You might tell us again.”

“Fine. I want to go like everybody else,” she said.

“I saw her walk on past him,” Kris said to Nadine.

Nadine cut her eyes at Ava but didn’t say anything else.

The night went on and the wind began to pick up, pushing at the fire and blowing cups and napkins out across the field. Cohen tried to keep the coffee going on the gas burner but it kept blowing out. Mariposa offered to put the burner in her trailer but Cohen shook his head, said he didn’t really want any more. Finally he got up and walked over to Kris and the baby and said, “Can I hold him?”

Kris looked at him, a little surprised. “You ever held one before?”

“He ain’t gonna break,” Nadine said.

“No,” Cohen said. “I never held one.”

Kris stood. Cohen folded his arm and Kris set the tiny child in the crook. Cohen adjusted the baby some, couldn’t believe how small and light the child felt. He wrapped his other arm around the baby and cradled it.

“It’s easy when they’re asleep,” Ava said.

“Let him be,” Mariposa answered.

Cohen looked at the baby’s wrinkled eyes and chin. A little sound came from the baby’s nose when he breathed. Cohen walked a few feet with him, stepping carefully around the fire, around the others sitting close to the flames. He kept walking, away from the firelight, away from the others, out of the circle of trailers and out into the dark field, where it was easier to pretend that this was a little girl and this was the dark of his own land and the light from the fire was the light of home.