Page 121 of The River We Remember

“Down here.”

He saw then, on the riverbank below the spillway, a form that was ghost-white in the moonlight. He knew the voice now, knew the man who’d spoken. Felix Klein sat with his feet in the water of the Alabaster. As Scott watched, the small man gathered himself and climbed laboriously to where the boy stood. He carried his shoes and socks, and in the glow from the moon, Scott saw how misshapen his bare feet were from the amputation of all those frost bitten toes.

“Different, isn’t she,” Felix said again.

“Beg your pardon?”

“The river. Under a big moon. She’s different from the day. Beautiful, don’t you think?”

“Sure.” His answer was polite and vague, because the river’s beauty wasn’t at all what he’d been contemplating.

“I come here a lot at night because I don’t sleep too well. Haven’t since Hannah died. My wife,” he said.

Scott knew who he meant. Sometimes in the Wagon Wheel, when Felix Klein had been drinking, Scott had listened to him hark back to the days of his marriage. Sometimes the man spoke of them fondly, sometimes not.

Behind Felix, the sky was lit occasionally with broad, bright explosions, lightning from a storm still too distant for the thunder to be heard. But that storm was coming. Scott could smell it in the wind blowing out of the southwest now, something brittle and electric.

“The Indians in these parts used to call this Spirit River,” Felix said. “Because of the color under a full moon. It changes to white. Something about the minerals from one of the springs that feeds it. Makes it appear to luminesce, like a specter, I suppose.” His eyes followed the broad, smooth flow upriver, which did, in fact, seem to glow. “Spirit River,” he said again, more softly.

Scott knew the Indian name for the river. It was a part of the long history of the land. But out of politeness he remained quiet and let the man go on.

“Sometimes I drink before I come down here. I admit, I do. Sometimes I have to.” Felix spoke more to himself than to the boy. “They found her down there, my Hannah.” He nodded toward the roil of water below the spillway. “But you probably know that. Something you may not know though. It was no accident. The truth is she killed herself.” He was quiet a long moment. “The river was high that year, just like now. She wore her long, black wool coat. She used to collect rocks, beautiful reminders of the places we’d been. Big pieces of quartz and pyrite and copper ore and geodes. She filled her pockets with those rocks and threw herself off the George Street Bridge.”

Scott wondered if the man had been drinking, though Felix didn’t sound drunk.

“She wasn’t an easy woman to live with. Never very happy. I don’t know why. I did my best. She always told me I would be better off without her. Well, she was wrong. I loved her, unhappiness and all. She thought, I guess, that she would be freeing me. Or, I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t thinking of me at all. I wish she had. Because the honest to God truth is that she hasn’t left me. She’s in all my wondering, all my regret. She haunts my every moment.” He fell quiet and seemed to think. “Or maybe it’s me and I just can’t let go of her. Either way, I’m in a pickle.”

“Why don’t you let me help you home, Mr. Klein,” Scott said.

But Felix wasn’t listening. He was staring at the Alabaster. “She’s still in there, I think. Her spirit anyway. Hers and Quinn’s and everyone else who ever died in that water.”

Scott didn’t know Mr. Klein’s wife, but he knew Mr. Quinn, and because of the kind of man Quinn had been, Scott didn’t much like that idea.

“It’s not just this river,” Felix said. “It’s wherever you are when you die. The place takes you in, all that energy, all that life. The land feeds us, then we feed the land.”

Scott said again, “Maybe it’s time to go home, Mr. Klein.”

Felix considered it. “I think you’re right.”

The man sat down and worked his socks on and then his shoes. Scott helped him up, and together they made their way slowly back to Felix’s house.

At the door, Felix turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Everybody says there’s something wrong with your heart, son. Well, the truth is that none of us has a perfect heart. But you’ve got a good one, and that’s more important.” He smiled. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Give your mother my best.”

“Thank you for the medal,” Scott said. “It means a lot to me.”

“You deserved it.” Felix turned and went inside.

Scott walked home slowly. The storm in the southwest drew nearer, and he could hear the first distant rumbles of thunder. He thought about the things Mr. Klein had said. The ghosts of the Alabaster, of Black Earth County. He remembered the words: The land feeds us, then we feed the land. He dropped his clothes onto his bedroom floor, climbed into bed, thinking sadly that lately what he and the others in Black Earth County had been feeding to the land was mostly poison.

WHEN BRODY WALKED in that Sunday night to relieve Hank Evans from his long day’s duty at the jailhouse, Hector leapt up from where he lay in his favorite corner and trotted to greet him, tail wagging madly.

“Hey, boy.” Brody ruffed the dog’s fur lovingly, then asked Evans, “Did you say anything to Bluestone?”

Evans shook his head. “Didn’t see a need until I knew what was what. Then I figured you’d fill him in.”

“Thanks, Hank.”

Evans gathered up his newspaper and the book he’d been reading. “I understand folks being upset with Bluestone for bringing home a Jap wife. A lot of good boys from this county dead because of those slant-eyed little bastards. But shooting a dog? Only pond scum would stoop that low.”