Michael Smith - Rivers

COHEN RETURNED AND GAVE THE baby back to kris and they all sat for a little while longer. Howls and screeches came from the woods surrounding them. Aggie called out every half hour or so for something to drink or something to eat but no one reacted to him any more than they did to the animals in the woods.

Thunder and lightning joined the wind and they knew it was time to go in. But before they dispersed and went to bed it was decided that in the morning they would load whatever they needed and leave out for the Line. Cohen had gone from truck to truck to see what would crank and out of the four sitting in the field, two of them would run. Two trucks and his Jeep. He and Evan searched around for gas cans and they rounded up a handful of containers that still held some gas. They would keep all the supplies in the back of one of the trucks. Cohen would drive the Jeep alone. He told them about Charlie and the supply truck and they decided it would be best to go and see if he were around before heading north. There wasn’t enough gas to make it very far otherwise.

The women went to bed, the infant and Brisco going with them, and Cohen and Evan stayed up looking around for what they’d need. In Aggie’s trailer, they found plenty of protection. Back in the bathroom, the toilet and sink had been ripped out and the small area was stacked with rifles and shotguns and boxes of ammunition. Cohen spotted his sawed-off shotgun, his own blood smeared across the stock. He picked it up and handed it to Evan and told him to set it in there on the bed. Then he began going through the stack. There were pump-action shotguns and rifles and semi-automatic pistols. As he held each piece he imagined where it had come from. Where it had been found or who it had belonged to and the way it had been taken away. He asked Evan if he could shoot and Evan said all you gotta do is aim and pull the trigger.

“Guess so,” Cohen said. “What about Mariposa? Can she shoot?”

Evan shrugged. “All you gotta do is aim and pull the trigger,” he said again.

Then Cohen remembered her urging the boy to shoot him, shoot him, and giving her a gun didn’t seem so smart. Not until he was certain whose side she was on.

Cohen chose a pump-action .12-gauge for himself and a rifle for Evan. He took two of the pistols and stuck them in his coat pockets. And then he told Evan to go get a bag somewhere and when Evan came back he filled the bag with boxes of ammunition.

When they were done they went into the storage trailers. Several empty boxes were on the floor and they filled the boxes with canned food and bags of coffee and gallon water jugs. There were diapers and a few cans of baby formula and they packed it all and Evan walked the boxes out to one of the trucks while Cohen kept on. Cigarettes and cases of beer and charcoal. Blankets and pillows and toilet paper and towels. Cohen filled up another half-dozen empty boxes and Evan took them out and when the boxes were gone, Cohen sat down next to the fire with a case of beer. Evan sat down with him and he gave the boy a can. The wind pushed the flames down to nothing and a steady stream of orange sparks trailed away.

They sat, drinking the beer, listening to the crack of the fire and the sound of the wind. There seemed to be something in that natural quiet that Cohen didn’t want to leave. A humble silence. An honest silence. A silence that seemed so pure, veiled by the dark.

After a little while, Evan said, “You think we’ll make it?”

Cohen smiled at the boy. Turned the can in his hands. “Don’t see why not.”

Evan moved his hand across his smooth face. He had been leaning back in the chair but he sat forward with his elbows on his knees and he stared into the fire. His pupils reflected the red. “The thing is, when we do, what then?”

“Maybe it ain’t that bad.”

“Maybe not. Think there’s even roads to get all the way there?”

“Could be we’re gonna hit the highway and be there in two hours. Like the good old days.”

Cohen got up and walked circles around the fire, trying to keep his leg from getting too stiff. He sat back down and finished his beer and took another one. Evan continued watching the fire.

“It’s gonna be slow going,” Cohen said. “No idea what roads are left. What bridges are left. Looks like it’s gonna be raining all the damn time. Not to mention we got a full load of not the most agile.”

“And a baby.”

“Yep. And a baby.”

“What’d that feel like holding him?”

Cohen thought, then said, “Felt good. Like you really got something.”

Evan blew on his hands then held them out to the fire. “Wouldn’t nobody hurt a bunch of women anyways,” he said.

Cohen watched him. Tried to figure what to say. He wanted the boy to be certain about getting to the Line, but he also wanted him to be certain about what might have to be done to get there.

“Men down here aren’t like the men you think of,” he said. “Men down here will probably hurt a bunch of women before they’ll hurt anything else. I don’t figure nobody ever hurt anything without knowing they could hurt it first. That’s the way it is and probably the way it’s always been.”

“Then that’s right,” Evan said.

“What’s right?”

“The men down here are just like the men I think of.”

Cohen set his beer and down and lit a cigarette. “Where’s your momma?” he asked.

“Where’s yours?”

“Heaven or hell.”

“Mine, too,” Evan said and then he tossed his empty can into the fire. He sat back down and said, “What we supposed to do when we get there?”

“I don’t know.” Cohen shook his head. “But this ain’t a place for nobody.”

“How come you stayed? Your woman?”

Cohen laughed some. “My woman. I guess so. My woman.”

“She get killed?”

“Yeah. A while back. Before all this.”

Evan looked confused. He thought a second, then said, “So. What’d you stay for?”

“What for,” Cohen repeated. “What for.” He sat up and looked around. Out across the fields where there was nothing more black. “You can probably understand better one day a long time from now. A long time from now you can probably understand carrying something around with you that can’t be real in no way but yet it feels as real as a bag of cement strapped across your shoulders and you walk around with that heavy thing and can’t get loose from it. And for whatever reason, that time is now up.” He leaned back in his chair again and stretched his legs out in front of him.

Evan got up and took another beer from the case and he stood closer to the fire. “What you gonna do with it when we get there?” he asked.

I don’t know, Cohen thought. “Don’t know,” he said.

“Sounds like it’s going with you.”

He looked at the boy. So lean and so young and responsible for so much. Cohen said, “You’re doing good taking care of that boy.”

Evan turned around and went back to the chair and sat. Then he said, “You worry about something that ain’t here. At least can’t nothing else happen to her. She can’t get hurt no worse. But mine walks around and gets hungry and cold. Cries when he’s scared. Holds on to my leg.”

Cohen sighed. He already understands, he thought. “You ever drink beer before?” Cohen asked him.

“Not more than one.”

“So how many is that?”

“Two.”

A few minutes later, Evan got up and went off to his trailer, leaving Cohen alone. He kept on drinking. Kept on thinking about what had been and what was to come. Thought about this ragtag band of refugees. Thought about walking over and killing Aggie just to see what it was going to feel like to kill another man. Because he had the feeling that he would have to do it before this was all over.