Thursday

CHAPTER 4

The irrigation commissioner for Big Knife County had won election on the promise that he would use his personal airplane for head gate inspections. With the county maintaining his plane and providing fuel, he took advantage of every opportunity to take early morning flights around the area. Three natural streams, coming from the mountains in the north of the valley, fed a series of irrigation canals. The water level in these creeks was high in spring and rarely ran completely dry before the next seasonal snowfall in the mountains. At the lower end of the valley, the remainder of the water in these creeks fed into the Big Knife River, south of Big Knife. 

This morning, the commissioner flew low over Marion and increased his air speed, gaining altitude for the run up the valley. As he banked, turning north, a vibration rattled his gauges. He banked harder left and watched as debris fell, splashing into a small pond behind a wrecked beaver dam. The water slowly emptied down a spillway created by the dynamite explosion. A hundred yards north of the pond, a man on the ground waved to him. The commissioner saluted in response.

As he continued his flight, the terrain began to rise up to meet him. Toward the end of the valley, the plane again banked hard left, making a one hundred and eighty degree turn. Again gaining altitude and speed, the commissioner flew his plane in a beeline for the Big Knife air field.

As he flew close to the sloping foothills of Biawihi, something caught his attention. The natural stone tones and scrub brush greens were interrupted by a flicker of non-native color quickly detected in his peripheral vision. Jerking his head right, he scanned the hillside, but saw nothing. Curiosity caused him to bank the plane left and fly another wide, arching u-turn over Marion. Aiming toward the mountain again, he flew along the cleft of a ravine. Decelerating, and descending, he flew comfortably along until he found what had caught his eye.

                                                            .

Leah got out of bed and cautiously stepped to the window. Peering around the curtain, she saw nothing unusual in her front yard. A fat circular roll of store ads lay on the ground just inside her hedge. Exhaling slowly, she relaxed, and then straightened her shoulders dismissively. Store ads thrown over my hedge caused the shadow on my wall, she thought. She smiled, forcing away the uncomfortable fear

Though rare, there were times when she felt vulnerable; times when the secure woman again felt like a little girl. As that little girl, she had run to her seemingly invincible father when afraid. Since leaving home she had easily met harsh conditions with that same steadfastness that made her father a giant in her eyes; a quality that was now her own. The courage that she had inherited by equal parts nature and nurture had given her a tall yard stick by which she measured men. She had never met one who so comfortably inspired security in her as had her father. Well, maybe one comes close. She thought. Why didn’t I think of him?

She again picked up the phone. As she entered the number for directory assistance, she realized that her hands were gently trembling. A voice spoke, asking for her choice. Leah requested the Big Knife Valley area, Gary and Grace Erickson of North Camp Road.

                                                            .

The phone was ringing in the living room. Gary Erickson seldom answered it before having his coffee and showering for the day. He stood in the kitchen, pouring coffee into his Thermos. These early morning callers were usually obsessive clients, hoping to catch his undivided attention before he left for the day. Gary had long ago decided that his personal hours at home would not be mixed with business. He allowed voicemail to collect the calls made after 7:00 pm and before 8:00 am. He took calls during the day on his Blackberry. After three rings, the phone clicked, indicating that the caller had hung up.

            Reaching into the refrigerator, he grabbed two packs of cigarettes from the carton in the door tray and tossed them onto the counter near his lunch box. The coffee cup by the sink had half of an inch of coffee at its bottom, and the cigarette burning in the ashtray had a long ash extending from its tip. Picking up the cigarette and tapping the ash into the sink, Gary put it to his lips and drew in a deep drag. He blew the smoke into the sunlight streaming through the window above the sink and watched it hang suspended for a few seconds. Grace complained about him smoking in the house. While he agreed with her in principle, he defiantly continued to smoke in the kitchen with his first cup of coffee. he dropped the remainder of the butt into the half-inch of lukewarm coffee. Instead of igniting the oil slick on the coffee’s surface, the cigarette sizzled out and floated.

Gary wore torn gray sweat pants and a white t-shirt. He was barefoot. Rubbing his bristly chin, he looked around the kitchen. A cereal bowl containing a small pool of milk with three Cheerio floaters rested on the kitchen counter. The glass next to it was set in a puddle of orange juice, and a stool lay on its side on the floor. The electronic game that his son had received for Christmas perched precariously at the edge of the counter top, hanging on the edge nearly too far to remain in place. Gary reached and rescued his son's toy, giving it a more secure resting place next to the cereal bowl yet away from the orange juice pond.

The television in the living room, left on earlier by his son, announced the local weather forecast: partly cloudy for Portage Falls, the larger town one hundred miles to the west, over the Biawihi Mountain range. A commercial jingle began to play and Gary stopped listening as he directed his attention to the ceiling. There was thumping and the sound of running feet. He heard the muffled voice of his wife Grace, communicating morning instructions to their son Dalton, prompting him to prepare for school.

Again the phone rang.

Gary replaced the coffee pot into the coffee maker and switched it off. He screwed the green stopper into the top of his Thermos, causing coffee to overflow and run down the side. Reaching into the cupboard over the dishwasher while closing the refrigerator door with his foot, he grabbed his go-cup. It had been given to him by the guys on his crew six years earlier. The faded lettering on the side, almost unreadable now, had once clearly proclaimed, Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty. He shook the cup to his ear and heard water sloshing between the outer covering and the inner lining.

Dalton flew down the stairs at that moment and attached himself to Gary’s leg. “Bye Dad, I love you.”

“I love you too, Wild Man,” said Gary as he leaned down to kiss his son. “Get real smart today.”

Dalton detached himself from his father's leg and ran for the back door through the kitchen. After hurdling the stool on the floor, he grabbed his folder of school papers from the table as he passed and was gone with a slam of the screen door.

The phone clicked into message mode, then clicked off. The calling party had given up.

“Hey,” Gary stepped quickly over the stool and reached the back door in four steps. From the porch he yelled after Dalton, “No more throwing pens, do you hear me?”

Dalton was up to full speed as he ran past Gary’s pickup truck, but he turned without missing a step and ran backward to acknowledge his father. “Right Dad, see you later. I gotta catch Tommy.” He turned, making a tire screeching noise with his voice, and ran forward again, rounding the corner of the back fence and disappearing from Gary's view.

            Gary walked back through the kitchen, reached around the stairway wall into the living room and grabbed the phone handset from its base. The screen lit up as he lumbered up the stairs. “Hmm,” he said as he tried to recall the location of the area code on the small screen. “Helix,” he whispered, remembering. He walked into the bathroom and set the phone down on his work folder by the sink. Doesn’t Will’s daughter live in Helix? He shot shaving cream into his hand and rubbed it onto his bristly face. As he looked in the mirror, curiosity got the best of him. Again picking up the phone, Gary looked hard at the number. He wrote it on the cover of his folder, and then pressed the button to return the call one handed, with his thumb. Holding the phone away from his face, keeping it clear of the shaving cream on his cheek, he listened as the call went through. He shaved absentmindedly with his free hand.

Memories of the day, three years earlier when he had met Leah on one of her visits home, flooded his mind. He could see her standing next to her father, his friend, Will Banner in the grocery aisle of Tory’s market.

                                                            .

Will had driven her into Big Knife that cold, snowy morning. An overabundance of steam rose from the river at the submerged hot springs by the turnoff to town. The river had been iced in from its edges but still flowed through the main channel with sulfur from the springs graying the water and filling the surrounding atmosphere with putrid flatulence.

Will down-shifted his Dodge as they entered the city limits, passing the 35 mile per hour speed limit marker. Leah searched Blue’s Department Store’s parking lot as they passed. It was an unconscious habit. Blue’s had been the evening gathering spot for the high schoolers during her teens. Absentmindedly, she always looked that direction when coming into town, searching for her friends of twenty years ago, all in their late thirties now and not easily identifiable. Leah smiled at her lapse.

Will relished their father/daughter time. He asked questions and Leah answered as she spoke of her life in Helix, carefully embellishing certain details while deliberately leaving others out. Will breathed these details in like badly needed oxygen. They’d had breakfast at Jenkins’ Restaurant and then stopped at Tory’s Market to buy the monthly stock of groceries for the lake home. It was there that they had run into the tall construction worker, Gary Erickson. Leah’s heart beat hard as she instinctively sucked in her tummy—a bit late to not be caught doing it.

            Gary had smiled. He looked too deeply into her eyes for someone whom she had just met, unnerving her pleasantly. It was the rare man who could affect her in this way. He had taken her hand gently as Will introduced them. The moment was lost, however, when a pretty woman with menacing eyes had rounded the corner, pushing her cart up their aisle. “Gary?” Grace, his wife, interrupted questioningly.

                                                                        .

Leah answered her phone, “Hello.”

A man’s voice spoke into her ear, “Good morning, this is Gary Erickson, returning your call.”

The sound of Gary’s business voice took Leah by surprise. “Yes, hello, is this Gary?” Of course it’s Gary, she admonished herself, putting her right palm to her forehead and squeezing her eyes closed, he just said so.

“Yes, it is. And who’s this?” he laughed.

Leah hesitated for a second and then blurted, “This is Leah Banner. Remember, Will Banner’s daughter?” Leah pictured him smiling, looking down at her. “Thank you for calling me back. Gary, I‘m having difficulty reaching my folks; have you seen them recently?”

“Not recently.” Gary thought hard, trying to remember his last conversation with Will. “The last I remember talking to your dad has to be about a month ago. That's odd, come to think of it. He usually comes into town once or twice a week. It could be that their road isn’t good.” Gary reached for a towel and wiped the shaving cream from his face.

“I wonder if I could ask a favor of you, Gary.”

“Shoot.”

“Would you mind running up to the lake and checking on them for me? I know that would take the better part of your day but I’d really appreciate it.”

“I could go up Saturday. I’m pretty slammed until then.”

“Thank you; that would be great.” Leah had hoped Gary would offer to take a trek up to Marble Lake sooner, but she politely refrained from pushing him with the request. “I’ll look forward to your call on Saturday afternoon. Say hello to Grace for me.”

Leah shivered remembering the grocery store incident, Grace Erickson’s eyes staring a piercing message that engraved, don’t even think about it, into Leah’s brain. Grace had then taken hold of Gary’s arm and turned him around to walk with her down the aisle of the grocery store. Her eyes had remained locked onto Leah’s as she had walked away, her head turned, looking over her shoulder. She had smiled a knowing smile as she turned away slowly, chin up, with a hint of superiority in her penetrating eyes, closing them in a slow sensuous blink.

Leah hadn’t backed down. She had maintained that eye contact, accepting the challenge, until Grace had broken it. “Unbelievable,” Leah had said in a half whisper, still staring at the back of Grace’s head as she walked away with Gary.

“I sure will,” said Gary, bringing her back to the present moment, “and don’t worry, Leah; everything is probably just fine up there.” Gary reached for the pen from his folder and initialed LB next to Leah’s number. Writing her name, instead of merely the initials, would have been inviting a fight with his wife if she should happen to see it. He had learned to be very careful.

While at the Banners’ the previous season, Gary had enjoyed conversing with Leah, who had been visiting over Thanksgiving. Will had invited him up to see their bear. Gary slipped and mentioned to Grace that Will’s daughter Leah had been there. The fight had lasted three days.

Gary said, “I’ll call you Saturday, then. It’s good to hear from you, and I hope we get to see you again, soon.”

“Thank you, Gary; I hope to be up soon. Bye now.” Leah ended the call and leaned back against her pillows.

She slowly closed her eyes; the vivid image of Gary sitting at her parent’s table, laughing and talking--almost flirting--brought a smile to her face. The memory of the topic of that conversation was unimportant at the moment but she allowed the sound of Gary’s voice to continue in her mind as he spoke his last words again in her freshly forming fantasy. I hope to see you again . . . soon. Leah imagined him pulling her down into the bed as she slid once again between the sheets, her nightshirt twisting up around her waist.

Thomas!

Leah tried to force her present boyfriend’s visage from her thoughts and rejoin Gary, but it was not possible. Thomas’s face intruded into her ethereal desire, demanding her focus and dissolving the intense pleasure that she had been cultivating. Her fantasy of making love with Gary evaporated.