The Big Blow

On the TV, Cheyenne Bodie had just fought off an ambush on his prison wagon when Del heard footsteps on his parents’ tiny porch. No knock. Just shuffling of feet on cedar boards. It’d been ten days since the storm that’d put him out of work and Del was sitting on the orange velveteen sofa—feet kicked out on the rag rug, can of Hamm’s warming in his grip—next to Pop, who’d fallen asleep after Kennedy’s Cuba speech, briefly grousing about the Russians before starting to snore. Nuclear strike capability against the western hemisphere. Kennedy’s warning. His mother was at church for her Monday-night ladies’ meeting.

Del got up, making the least noise possible, and checked the window. Zip Waskowitz was standing outside in the fading October light. Del eased open the door, finger to his lips.

“Hey pal,” Zip said, in a stage whisper.

“Old man’s sleeping.”

Zip chortled, showing a nervous grin. “Don’t want Ol’ Boot-Heel Jack raising up out of that davenport.”

“Pray he never hears you call him that,” Del said, slipping outside.

“I’ve got some trouble.”

Zip’s Christian name was William, but he’d earned his rightful handle at a bar urinal—a moment of negligence involving his wrinkly meat sack and a pair of dungarees. He’d played high school ball before being kicked off the team, and he’d drawn the eyes of plenty of girls—Del’d looked up to him then—but years of booze and carousing had left him somewhat diminished. The two men worked together at a logging camp—one of hundreds dotting Washington’s Olympic Peninsula—but a couple weeks ago the Columbus Day storm had blown through and killed forty-six souls across three states and knocked down a chaos of trees that’d shut down the forest roads. Some of the boys had been summoned to start clearing access, but so far neither Del nor Zip had been called to work.

Del motioned Zip over toward his trailer—a 1950 Westcraft now affixed to his parents’ land—and they crossed the short distance and stood under Del’s makeshift awning.

“Need a little help,” Zip said.

Del shifted his stance. “I’m fixed for a quiet night.”

Zip looked more hungover than usual for a Monday. But his hair was wet from the shower and he was dressed as if he planned to spend time out in the cold.

“Ride with me,” Zip said.

~

Zip drove north out of Aberdeen into the National Forest. Del scanned the cab of the pickup—a ’55 Chevy medium-duty, painted bronze—then checked out the back window. There was a hand truck and a jumble of firewood avalanching onto what looked like a bundle of white linens held down with a few bricks. A bulk underneath.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll catch you up when we get there.”

Del tried to relax, feeling the familiar unease of riding in this truck. He remembered seeing his wife step out of it, two hours after the bars closed, him watching from behind the corner of a curtain. Annie. This was back when she was still alive and they’d had a drunken fight at a wedding reception. He’d left her at the tavern. “We were just talking,” she’d said of Zip the next morning. “Who else was I gonna ride with?” But it didn’t make sense given what she knew about Zip—given what she’d just told Del about what he’d done to her in high school. And now Zip was the only person living who knew what’d happened on that ride home, and he’d never so much as alluded to it. And for reasons too complicated even for Del to understand, Del hadn’t asked.

Del looked at Zip. “Tell me what’s going on, or drive me back to town,” Del said, his voice sounding over-loud in the din of engine burble and tire hum. “Don’t know what the hell I’m doing out here.”

“What critter’s in your knickers?” Zip said.

Del said nothing.

Zip’s smile faded. “You know that new guy, works at Camp 5. We saw him on the bus a couple weeks ago.”

During the week, they slept in a bunkhouse at Camp Grisdale, and the company ran buses back and forth to Aberdeen Fridays and Mondays for bachelors to blow their earnings and married men to tend to their home lives.

“I was down at the Golden West and he was arguing too loud with his friend,” Zip said. “We got into it.”

“Dammit, Zip.”

“Hear me out, it ain’t like you think,” Zip said, raising a hand as if to forestall Del’s judgment. “I gave him a whooping. Nothing too bad, but it was his first fight in town and he didn’t take it too well. We all went home anyway. And I get up the next morning and go over to Vel Pot’s place with Floyd Ramey and his sister—and she’s grown herself a classy chassis let me tell you—and we was drinking beer and plinking cans. Anyway, I drive home in the dark with one eye open and I’m getting out to put myself to bed when this guy pops out of a shadow and comes at me with a little boot-knife. God’s truth, if I hadn’t stumbled getting out of my truck he woulda stuck me good. But as it was, he missed, and that surprised him, and I just sorta went at him like a bear and he went down with me on top. Knocked his wind clean out. Might’ve hit his head. Anyway, I took to walloping him until he quieted down.”

Del glanced out the back window at the sheets, then at Zip.

“I figured he’d wake up and go lick his wounds,” Zip said, “but when I come out this morning, he was cold as ground frost.”

Del turned and watched the edge of the headlights scroll over the dark forest webbed with splintered trunks. He glanced back at Zip, who seemed to be waiting for something. “You were defending yourself,” Del said, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

“You think I want to convince a jury of town folks that I wasn’t in the wrong? And all them knowing me. My family. Forget it.”

Del remembered Kennedy’s words on the TV tonight: Sudden mass destruction. A series of offensive missile sites. We were sending ships against Khrushchev. The way the storm had decimated this place, if the bombs fell tomorrow, might be nobody would know the difference. And now this thing with Zip. The world was weaved too loose.

~

Zip pulled the truck into the little dirt turnaround at the National Forest trailhead and braked to a stop on the carpet of fallen leaves and fir needles. He retrieved a big flashlight with a handle from under his seat and passed it to Del. They stepped out, easing the doors shut, listening in the dark—distant forest creaking and crackling, hissing of wind in the boughs. There was a Jeep parked across from them. The night was moonless and cloudless.

“Alright, help me with this thing, would you?”

“What’s the plan, Zip?”

Zip reached behind the seats of his truck and fetched a blanket and a car jack. “We’re gonna find a big windfallen tree and stick him under it. Make it look like the pitiful creature was out wandering and one of these damn giants fell on him.”

“Fell and bounced on his face fifteen times?”

“We’ll put his head right under it.”

“That’s not a likely scenario.”

“Well, there’s not a lot of likely things happening in the world lately, is there? Plus, the guy’s got no kin. Nobody’s gonna fuss.”

A half-baked plan. But people got away with things. “I’m about done with you.”

“You’re a good friend.”

They got the appalling load out of the bed and onto the dirt. It wasn’t Del’s first body—accidents happened at the camps.

“Why’s he dressed like a ghost, Zip?”

The sheets—there appeared to be a couple layers—had eye holes cut in them.

“My yard decorations. Had the trees all hung with these, cut up to scare the kiddies on Halloween.”

“What’s the point of eye holes if nobody's in them?”

“I told you, it’s so they look like ghosts.”

Zip fetched some rope and went at the two ends with it, tying the sheets tight so the thing resembled a Tootsie Roll. As he finished, there was a sound back in the woods—something big pushing through brush, a low growl. Del’s adrenaline spiked. He took a step back and raised the flashlight in the direction of the sound.

A shape emerged. The face of a mountain lion, as high as a man, draped in dark, tattered rags.

“Gerry?” Zip said.

Del saw it then. The bowed head of Gerry Offenthal, watching the ground as he emerged from the trail carrying the cougar on his shoulders, his hunting dog, Bug, at his side.

“Got yourself a lion, eh?” Zip said.

“Bug treed her.” Gerry’s voice was a high-pitched rasp, wheezing out from atop his six-and-a-half feet.

“The trail’s passable then?”

“Trees all over the place anyway. But me and Bug got through.”

Zip stepped closer. “That’s one helluva lion.”

“Bug treed her,” Gerry repeated, tone unchanging. He didn’t so much as glance at their bundle of sheets.

“Well, have a good night, Gerry,” Del said.

Gerry didn’t respond—just carried his trophy to his Jeep. Bug growled needlessly again.

When Gerry was gone, the trailhead was empty and quiet. Zip laid the hand truck flat, and they each took an end of the sheets and slung the body onto it. Wrapped tight, stiff with cold and death, the bundle was about six feet, stretching up past the handle of the truck like a rolled rug. Zip lifted the truck and Del helped center the awkward bulk.

They slogged up the trail where Gerry had come, Zip dragging the truck. Del trailed, lighting their path with the flashlight, pushing sometimes, occasionally steadying the load against the jostling of a big stone or a tree root. When it rolled smoothly, they could hear a stream murmuring. About a hundred yards in, a fallen cedar blocked their way. They lowered the truck to horizontal, then lifted it onto the tree, hefting and pushing. Zip scrambled over, steadying the load as Del followed. They then reversed the process, easing it down onto the dirt, grunting with grim effort.

“Did you hear they named that storm Freda?” Zip said, breath fogging the night. “They give typhoons ladies’ names. Sensible enough, in my experience.”

Del scoffed. “In your experience? Try sticking with a woman more than three weeks.”

“Never had luck with that.”

They got moving again. Del was thinking about those last few months when Annie was alive. This Christmas would be two years. She’d taken what was left of her Seconal and hanged herself in the shed. Going back to high school, she’d had a melancholy disposition. But her darkness had become something active and malevolent after giving birth. Although “giving” seemed like the wrong word. She’d pushed out an unmoving, half-mummified-looking thing they’d expected to be their first child.

The trail got steeper, rocks jutting, tree roots twisting. After a quarter mile of difficult terrain, Zip halted their little caravan at a bend in the trail where they had a clear view down the gash of the creek. The trees stood back and the sky was visible—the stars damn near casting shadows.

Zip wiped his brow with his flannel sleeve, looking up, the sky too spectacular to ignore even for him. “You figure there’s anybody out there?” he said. Everyone had heard Zip’s story about standing out on the wharf one night—a starless night—and seeing lights whipping around in the clouds. Del knew he’d have to answer.

“On TV they say there are more stars than we can count. And the open spaces on Earth are overrun with every sort of creature. No cause to think God wouldn’t make the rest likewise.”

“So, you believe in God?”

“Not really,” Del said. “I don’t know.”

“You believe in aliens, but not God?”

“If you claimed to know a particular alien and said he spent all his time worrying about us, I’d have my doubts about him too.”

That seemed to overload Zip’s circuits and he said nothing. They started walking again.

A spill of jumbled rock forced them to pick up the truck again. “What about ghosts?” Zip said, straining.

“We got one right here,” Del said, setting the wheels back on the dirt, sweating from effort despite the cold. “And I do believe he’ll haunt you.”

Zip ignored the barb. “Carl Pickett’s granny said her house was haunted by a little pioneer gal. Said she’d been hanged as a witch.”

“Weren’t any witches in Grays Harbor,” Del said, watching the trail pass under his feet. “Shut up now.”

Zip was quiet for a minute. His head steamed in the light scattered off the flashlight beam. The only sound was their steps and the rusty lament of the wheels. “If there’s a God, he puts me in some unlikely scenarios.”

Del scoffed. “God did this?”

“It wasn’t me made this fella jump out of the dark holding that Texas toothpick.”

“Consequences of your own will.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zip said, looking over his shoulder, scowling a little. They’d probably covered a mile now. Their breathing was labored. Del could smell the sap of storm-shattered trees.

“Cause and effect, Zip.”

Zip didn’t respond.

Del recalled Zip standing at the edge of the ravine, minutes before. He had the passing thought that everything might be better if, one of these days, Zip just fell off a cliff.

“Unlikely scenarios,” Del said. “Bullshit.”

“Take it easy.”

“You take it too easy. No business of yours how I take things.”

“Alright,” Zip said, his tone appeasing. “Don’t need you upset.” He snickered. “I know what your blood is capable of.”

Del’s father had earned the sometimes-whispered nickname of Boot-Heel Jack when he’d been a foreman. A young guy had been clowning by the head rig and knocked the sawyer against the blade—a grave injury that ended up costing the sawyer’s arm. The offender argued with Pop, and Pop lost it, punching him down and stomping on his hand until the screams summoned half the mill. From the stories, it wasn’t a mere breaking—it’d been an amputation by boot heel.

Del halted. Zip took a few more steps before he noticed and looked back.

Zip’s face sagged. “It ain’t serious, Del.” He turned and started walking again.

~

They cleared a rise and came to an expanse of flat ground where the stream ponded against some boulders and the trail curved around. The storm had flattened dozens of trees there, like some fairytale giant slashing with his scythe.

“This is the place,” Zip said. “Help me find a tree.”

“I think I’ll just sit here and rest a bit.” Del said, settling onto a boulder. He reached and offered Zip the flashlight.

Zip huffed but didn’t argue. He started trudging through the grove.

Del thought of the day after Zip had dropped Annie off. A dripping, cloudy September morning. She’d been mournful and mildly apologetic. Earnest but not too vehement in her denials, conducting herself better than he had. It made no sense, leaving the bar with Zip, except as some act of self-destruction—or sacrifice. And because she’d been reticent, Del had sulked like a little boy. He could acknowledge his shortcomings as a husband now. Over the ensuing months, Annie had worn a brave face, but behind it her black waters rose. Meanwhile, the two of them drifted apart like rafts in a swollen stream, such that when she really needed help he was out of reach. And there was no doubt Zip had some responsibility—if not the cause, surely the catalyst.

Del watched the orb of light bobbing among the shattered forest remnants. He could see Zip’s problem. Every tree was either suspended off the ground—fallen too steeply for the jack to get a hold—or laid too flat and mashed into the dirt so there was no getting it underneath. Zip was working his way through the whole stand of trees.

He appeared back on the trail, shoulders slumping. “Fuck it,” he said. “Help me fetch some rocks. We’ll load the sheets and throw him in the pond.”

Del glared, saying nothing.

“This ain’t my fault,” Zip said.

Del stood, averting his eyes, sore from sitting too long. Zip was opening up the sheets just enough so they could get some rocks in without seeing the body. Del made a loop off one side of the trail and came back with stones in each hand, the biggest he could hold.

Zip was still crouched, fussing with the sheets. Del stood behind him, clutching the rocks, watching Zip straighten the flaps of linen—Zip’s head silhouetted by the jittery puddle of light falling on the dirt strewn with wood splinters like yellowed bone shards. Del felt the grit and moss on the cold stones, hefting them, anticipating the weight of lifting one above his head. He flexed his shoulders, glancing at the pond where Zip was fixing to drop the body.

“I miss Annie,” he said. He wasn’t speaking to Zip, exactly. “I want it to fade. But if anything, it’s more now.” He saw the steam of his breath coming and going. His heart was beating faster. “Sometimes it’s too much to suffer.”

Zip whipped his head around, looking at Del, alarmed. Del froze. Briefly their eyes met. But then Zip cocked his ear down the trail. He wasn’t listening to Del—hadn’t heard a word. Something else had spooked him.

“You hear that?” Zip said, his voice hushed.

Del said nothing.

“Sounded like a car door.”

Maybe Del had heard something. He wasn’t sure. But he sensed the passing of a moment, so he nodded anyway.

“Dammit,” Zip said, looking properly afraid for the first time tonight. “Help me finish loading these sheets.”

~

At the base of the trail, the sheriff’s car was parked behind Zip’s truck, headlights off, spotlight angled down for ambient light. They’d ditched the hand truck as soon as they’d seen it. Sheriff John Knoll was leaning on the hood, showing neither concern nor impatience.

“Sheriff,” Zip said, with the tone of surprise that might be expected, but sounding convincingly untroubled. Always a good liar. “What brings you out on this lovely fall evening?”

“Saw Gerry Offenthal down at the highway. Thought I’d come up and make sure everything was alright.”

“You saw that lion then?”

“I hear Bug treed her.”

Zip nodded. “That’s what we heard.”

The Sheriff smiled, almost imperceptibly. He was a sturdy man, and the spotlight drew campfire shadows on his craggy features. “Hey Del, can I talk to you right quick?”

The Sheriff ambled over to the edge of the turnaround where a big Douglas fir had fallen. Del followed, rubbing his icy hands against his thighs inside his pockets.

“Mind if I sit?” the sheriff said. He shifted his weight onto the downed fir trunk, sighing. “When the Lord takes away work from the men around here, he gives plenty to the sheriff.” He removed his hat. “I should deputize half of you. At least then I’d know which ones to arrest when you guys get to bashing each other.”

“I guess so,” Del said, glancing at Zip. He watched Zip shoot a nervous glance their direction—gone quick as lightning.

“Zip looks worse for wear.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Haven’t been running with him except this evening.”

The sheriff seemed to weigh that. Del waited.

“You know, I was the one picked up your daddy that day.” The sheriff brushed his hat brim where a spruce needle had fallen. “He’d have done jail, except that boy recanted and said it was an accident. Of course, the kid would’ve been finished in this town otherwise.”

Del nodded, wondering about the sheriff’s aim.

“I hear you never give the fellas in town much fuss. Certainly never gave me any to speak of.”

“No, Sheriff.”

“Zip on the other hand. Well, I surmise it’s only a matter of time before he comes in on some big piece of trouble.”

Del said nothing.

“What do you think about that?”

“I suppose time will tell.”

The sheriff eyed him, searching Del’s face, reading his eyes, triangulating whatever he saw in that countenance. The breeze sighed in the limbs overhead and a few somber needles rained. “I suppose it will.”

~

It was just past eleven when they pulled into Del’s driveway. Zip slid the gear indicator to park, leaning back in his seat. “You sure you don’t want to get something to eat?”

Del answered by reaching for the door. He felt Zip’s hand on his shoulder. He turned.

“You were always a good friend,” Zip said. He wore a wistful little smirk. “I’ve never forgotten that. Not for one minute.”

“I’m not your friend, Zip,” he said, shrugging off Zip’s hand and slipping out of the truck.

The smirk melted into a glare—so quick. The change surprised Del. It attested to something—the way Zip went dark so fast—and it figured. Del ignored it though, chunking the door shut, turning, not waiting to watch Zip leave. The engine rumbled and faded down the driveway.

Seeing a light on, he went to his parents’ house. His mother was in the kitchen. She’d changed out of her weekday dress into her robe, glasses on, the harsh light making her hair look grayer, sitting at the kitchen table with the crossword—her bedtime routine. “Was that William’s truck I heard?”

“It was.”

“The partaker’s as bad as the thief,” she said—one of her biblical aphorisms, he supposed. Her tone was mildly accusatory, still loving.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means if you drink with long liners, you’ll smell of fish.”

Del lay in bed for a time, restless, feeling the world—whatever powers governed it—had a plan for him. And yet he couldn’t decide whether, tonight, he’d served or betrayed his purpose. Maybe his forbearance with Zip would disturb the natural order—or God’s judgment would begrudge his mercy. No way of knowing.

~

On a September night two years previous, Dolene and Rob’s wedding guests had left the ceremony at the First Presbyterian and walked down to the reception at the Golden West Tavern, the mood boisterous, except for Del and Annie, who’d marched along in that category of impassive silence peculiar to husbands and wives rebuilding after a big blowout.

The guests clinked cheap barware and the bride’s father gave a toast, then the groom and, at last, Dolene. She had vitiligo down her arms like spatters of rust, but she got twenty percent prettier when she spoke. “Marriage is difficult sometimes, I know,” she said, after the usual pablum. “But I’m excited for those parts too.” Guests quieted—regulars listened from their stools. “The Psalms say: ‘Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.’ It’d be a waste of our gifts if our paths led the ways we asked. I trust God's plan will be more gratifying than the one I might choose.” There was a pause. Folks realized she was finished and gave a few whoops, clapping, calling: “Hear, hear.”

Del’s mood eased with the reception’s atmosphere. Settling at their table with drinks, he said, “I’m tired.”

Annie looked quizzical. He’d sounded bleaker than intended.

“It’s no excuse, but this past year got the better of me.”

Each probably owed an apology to the other, and yet this wasn’t one, but she discerned his effort. She cupped her hands around her glass, glancing down, then meeting his eyes. “You never touch me.”

Del felt an urge to reach for her. But he didn’t, instead fidgeting with a cocktail napkin.

“Do you blame me for your suffering?” he said.

“I was born like this.”

The word “born” briefly halted their talk.

Johnny Preston’s “Running Bear” was playing on the jukebox. Del looked over at the bar where Zip was dancing a stupid little jig. He looked back at Annie. “What can I do?”

“You can’t reach in and pull out the sad parts. They’re woven in with the rest. I’ve got to know you’ll stand by me though.”

Zip interrupted, cavorting to the music. He steadied himself on the table edge. “Come on you two. Let’s rattle.” Drunk already—probably started before the ceremony.

Del stood, bracing a hand on Zip’s shoulder.

“Alright, don’t flip your lid,” Zip said, wrapping Del in a hug, kissing his cheek before twisting off to the bar.

Del took his seat again. “Never trusted him,” Annie said.

“No one does.”

She shook her head, looking down. “When I was a freshman, he asked me to the homecoming dance. But he brought me straight to the riverfront.” A place kids parked back then—probably still do. “I told him to let me go, but he kept on trying, so I hit him twice—once to get him off and once so he’d remember. Walked four miles home.”

Del shot a glance at Zip, capering by the bar. “Why’d you never say anything?”

“What’s to say? Zip is Zip.” She got quiet in her peculiar way that—if unchecked—could spiral into weeks of sullen withdrawal.

He reached for her hand, gently thumbing her wedding ring, grasping back for the moment before Zip had interrupted. He’d deal with Zip later. “I don’t regret marrying you.”

“I never thought you did.”

“I mean, I’d do it again,” he said, mustering a loving tone, aiming to forestall her looming darkness.

She seemed to decipher his meaning—his pledge to stand by her.

Annie’s friend Janice appeared then, pulling her out to dance. Del went outside to cool down, walking the half block to where US-12 crossed the Wishkah River. He could do it—show more affection, shelter her from the gloom. And from Zip. They’d be OK.

A raft of river junk floated past bearing a dead gull. Stone-blue clouds rose over the harbor, tops billowing ghost-like. He tugged his collar against the breeze, turning back for the bar’s warmth. She’d be wondering where he’d gone.

~

The morning after hiding the body, Del was still seated against the trailer with a cup of coffee when his father came out into the yard, not noticing him. Pop trudged over to the side yard where he chopped wood. A couple red alders had come down and he was in the process of whacking them into firewood. He limped a little, joints ragged from years of mill work. Still strong as a bull though.

Boot-Heel Jack. He hadn’t waited. He’d seen a malefactor and acted on sight. Eye for an eye—man’s law be damned. Only way to do it maybe. Del’s life testified to the repercussions of waiting.

He recalled gripping the mossy stones the night before. Maybe the sheriff’s suspicions would surface the truth. Maybe nature would render up that body from the pond. Sure, he might see some trouble too. But was he not deserving?

He got up, approaching his old man, nodding good morning. He reached out for the axe. “Let me get this, Pop.”

His father grumbled, but gave it over, settling onto one of the rounds of alder.

After a few swings—the crack of wood satisfying in the stillness—Del looked at Pop. “You ever regret what you did in the mill that day?” The question came easy because Del had been ruminating on it.

“No,” his father said, sounding a little tired. He’d had plenty of time to think it over. He took his rolling pouch from his breast pocket, studying Del, hunching to roll a cigarette. “These bombs,” his father said, “people act as if they’re something new. But the world has always had terrible forces. Comets. Plagues. The same men who split the atom will tell you the Sun’s going to swallow us.” His father centered the tobacco, wet the paper with his tongue. “And not all dangers knock you down,” he said. “Some you can’t see. Your wife knew it.”

Del watched his dad strike a match, cupping it to light the cigarette.

“Anyway, there are consequences you can expect,” his father said. “Others, you just live in their aftermath.”

“People still say you did the right thing.”

“People say all kinds of things. Keep that axe moving.”

Del brought the blade down on another round of alder. His thoughts shifted to Annie—one of the last moments before their fight, watching her dance in the Golden West. Was this still some aftermath? He couldn’t let go of the suspicion there was more to come, like some machine had been turned on that couldn’t be quieted. But for the dead, there’d be no more consequences—a small mercy at least. Nothing else remained for the living.