What I Never Told You
by Rebecca Lawton
You came to the Canyon after the war and left when you had to, years later, when the sons of bitches we worked for let you go. Everybody besides them knew the river was the best place for you, with its sidecanyons and grottos—maybe the only place a guy could stand to live after two years in a strange jungle. Other vets were going systematically crazy in those first years after the war, popping off a few relatives or a lover before doing themselves in. What's a man supposed to do, get a desk job? After he's been trained to slit the throats of his sleeping enemies. After he's walked point in utter darkness, developed a sixth sense for trip wires. Even now, though I'm thinking you might have left sooner, I can't picture you eating microwaved meals in some darkened office, staring at some windowless wall. On the river you found your perfect niche.
Damn you anyway. Today I slammed down the phone after talking with the cops. I told the one cop he lied, that he didn't know you. I think I screamed at him—I don't know—for being wrong about you. He didn't know you were just out of place. Back on the river there was room for you. There you could live under the sky, use your knife every day, feel a rush of adrenalin in the roughest waves in the biggest rapids. You could work with ropes, coil them, tie them, pull and cut them. You could wear your boots, those green-and-black hightops you never took off. Even at night you wore them, your feet sticking toes down into the sand past the end of your groundcloth.
Nights when you fell asleep halfway down the beach or up in the kitchen, wherever you finished a bottle, I'd cover you with your blanket, but I wouldn't touch the boots. You said wearing them around the clock pulled you through more than one night raid, skirmishes other foot soldiers never survived.
You'd been on the river eight years before I came there, fresh faced, ready for everything. You were the veteran boatman; I was the eager trainee there for one trip. You swept like one more drop of water into the foam and waves and sharp falls that together pounded loud as thunder. You'd spent nights under the dark sky and bright stars, watching the glow on far rims after the moon goes down. You had the distance in you.
I drew to you as fast as water runs off stone. Who could've resisted? I'd come to the Canyon to learn the rapids, the names of sidecanyons, the best route through Lava Falls, how to survive the heat. You knew it all. You could show me. Since coming home you'd spent every summer rowing long days against the wind, setting up camps after dark, lining up for the bubble line entry at Lava. You'd probably run every rapids a hundred times, all nerve ending and mumbled prayer, the same way you say you walked point. You may have lost your youth to the war, your virginity to an Asian whore, but your heart still beat hot and fast.
At the oars you showed an artist's skill and madman's flair, detached from fear in a God-given way. To you the hairball entry at Crystal Rapids was the world's greatest cakewalk, a waltz with another great giant. I could only watch in awe alongside the other members of the crew. But being the only female, my unspoken awe worked two ways: I knew your hair curled at the nape of your neck, that you stood tan and tall, all parts intact. I knew about the difference in your eyes, their haunted and startled look. They drew me. I fought a growing urge to touch you—but what to do with a man who tells scary war stories? When you caught me looking, you blinked, then smiled so dazzlingly wide I felt the hope of every angel crash in on my heart.
Of all places, we kissed first at the Flagstaff drive-in. Ironic, after what the police said today, but true. We'd been together on a real river, leading people through glades of single-leafed ash and cottonwood, near clear-running pools. But we never kissed until we sat under the screen featuring "The Corpse Grinders," on one of those asphalt bumps built up for cars so everyone can see the movie.
We'd driven out under a striped sky, crimson at the dark earth and lavender up higher, then indigo up under the first spread of stars. Just off the trip and smelling shower clean, you looked handsome in a pair of clean jeans and light summer shirt; I wore a blouse and long skirt. We parked outside the chain-link fence and hoisted up a blanket before climbing over. At the right side of the lot, few cars had parked; we spread the blanket for us and a car speaker. Nighthawks dipped near lightpoles. We smelled sagebrush and popcorn on the night breeze. You left to fetch sodas as the title blasted onto the screen with a blare of sappy music; your laugh carried back to me from the refreshment stand. When you returned I pulled you to me; we giggled and huddled together as the corpse grinders fed chopped human liver to rampant killer cats.
Soon you lay on and around me, rolling with me on the blanket and asphalt, your breath smelling thick and exciting of smoke and beer, dangerous and repelling. I kept my mouth open to kiss you. Your hands snaked under my blouse and skirt, felt calloused and rough on my clean skin, breasts, and belly.
"Oh la la," you whispered. I rubbed your boots with my toes, groped for your jeans, tugged open your fly. Inside were coarse, curled hairs, smooth skin. I dug deeper, then pulled my hand away too fast when I felt you, knowing I shouldn't. I tried to reach in again, but you rolled away.
You cried. "I can't."
I'd guessed that. You'd felt limp as string. I brushed tiny rocks from your hair, prayed to leave the hard ground of the Flagstaff drive-in. Maybe it would have gone better on some beach on the river, in the sand still warm from the summer sun. You sobbed quietly. I covered you in the thin camp blanket—it was yours, government issue.
Forget it, Maddie, you told me, shaking your head; I could never have anything normal with you. If you loved me, I'd leave you too.
I got that. You'd already told me about John from Twin Falls, who'd wanted to come home to raise quarter horses. And Henry from Rochester, who'd planned to manage his dad's hunting lodge. I knew you'd outlived your whole squad, all nine men blown away like leaves, not once but twice. The second time you'd made it by burrowing under the dead bodies of your buddies until the V.C. had swept through. If I'd pried more I would have learned the gory details: crushed intestines, fixed stares, pumping blood. Better men than you, you claimed--and here you were.
The credits rolled as car engines coughed and started up across the drive-in. We climbed back over the fence to walk to your truck, the Chevy Impala with a rack of old, sawn-off oars nailed together. We rode back to town and the crystalline street lights on that clear August night. I spread my knees for you to shift gears; you kept your big hand on my leg. You dropped me back at the boathouse, though I'd said I'd go with you to Williams, to anywhere, maybe we could just drive all night and figure things out. But you dropped me off fast. No wonder your words stunned me: you were in love with me, you said. You quickly pulled the truck door closed. I watched your taillights under the other red lights in town, the blink-blinking aircraft-warning signals up on the peaks.
But try telling all that to the police. Ask anybody, not just the cop I talked to, to take a heart as big as the world and give it some shit. Rough it up really good, then turn it loose and see how it does. Or just watch a star fall, or a bird blow to earth in a storm.
Our little window slammed shut as fast as it had flung open, just as the summer season was ending. September pressed in, and fall touched the river. I joined you on one more trip. Little flocks of egrets moved upstream, on to somewhere. The pairs of ducks we saw didn't linger in pools; no more stopping and starting and letting us chase them downstream late afternoons. They flew right on through the Canyon. I watched you watch the birds move on; the nights I had to cover you grew more frequent. I'd heard from the crew that you drank more toward the fall, maybe everybody did as dread crept in about winter jobs and colder weather. But you fell asleep out of your bag every night, curled up on the beach near a bottle, and seemed harder to wake each morning.
No doubt about it: drink didn't improve your disposition. In that you were no exception. The crew knew to give you room on a hangover day, but the passengers didn't. And unfortunately you combined a hangover with our scheduled day at Havasu Creek. Talk about your worst combination: Havasu was the spookiest place on the river for you, the most reminiscent of the jungle, tangled with grape and arbors of cottonwood and willow. I'd seen you in Havasu in a full sweat by the creek, first thing in the morning, just remembering. I'd seen your face covered in tears, you talking to yourself, features twisted, the only place I saw your dialogue with demons. Maybe if the New York lawyer's wife had snuck up behind you on a good morning at another creek, you'd have kept your job.
I didn't see what happened, but I heard it: twin screams, yours and hers. Later she confessed between sobs that she had run up tippy-toe behind you to tap on your shoulder, you who could always hear a man behind you or a whisper fifty yards away. But you were lost in the jungle that day. You'd whirled on her—tall in your instant ferocity—spun her, and held your knife to her throat. As soon as you did it, you'd realized your mistake, as soon as the knife had pressed to soft flesh. Of the screams I heard, I remember yours, anguished and terrible.
You'd let her go. She'd squealed and run for the boats.
By the time I saw you on the trail, your fate had been sealed. First I saw your boots, through the wild grape, though the man wearing them was barely recognizable. You looked crumpled, your sun shirt torn and half-tucked into your cutoffs. You turned to the creek and threw away your knife. It struck a midstream boulder, clattered, and fell into the turquoise water. I opened my mouth to call your name, and you whirled in the path. You stared and swayed, a world away.
I tried, but couldn't call your name. My mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, no sound coming out.
You squinted; I waved. Unsmiling, you peered, turned, lurched into a trailside ocotillo. You weaved and staggered down the path, hobbled out of sight, headed for the river and the boats.
In early December of that year, you started calling me. You didn't say much over the telephone, just giggled and said you were fine. You were sure you'd be back on the river for the next season. Some veteran's program was working wonders, you said. I never found out where it was. Each time, I asked for your number—each time, you didn't tell me. Instead you said you loved me and hung up the phone. I wanted to say sweet words, too, but you were gone too soon, and the line went dead. When you called around Christmas time, you sounded blurred. After that, I heard only from the police, who said my number had been in your wallet.
Now I know you'd been living in your truck, maybe even since September. The last place you had a meal and a shower under one roof may have been back at the boathouse in Flagstaff. And it wasn't even the cops who found you. Two guys on a clean-up crew saw you in your locked car after hours at a drive-in in Bakersfield. They pounded on your window. They shouted at you to wake up, mister, the movie's been over for an hour. When they couldn't rouse you, they called the police.
The cop read me the coroner's report: adult male, veteran of the Vietnam War. Williams, Arizona, address. Thirty-six years old. Alcoholic seizure. Found in street clothes and combat boots.
The cop said, too, that the coroner was amazed you could wear any kind of shoe. "Pair of wicked bone spurs. Never could have passed selective service."
I told him your feet must have been normal—you'd been drafted. The war drove you crazy, if anything. I told him the truth and slammed down the receiver. Soon as I did, I picked it up again. There was a lot I could tell them. They didn't know you slept with your boots on, face down mostly, that you worked on the river and could sleep anywhere, even in the cab of your truck. You had gone cold turkey and were going to work again next season. You had things to look forward to. You were in love with me.
It wasn't a cop's voice I heard then—just dial tone. No words. Just a whine lonelier than any sound I can remember, lonelier even than a river's hush when winter's coming. No voice from me, either. Just my mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, no sound coming out.
(First published in Walking the Twilight. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Publishing. 1994. Edited by Kathryn Wilder.)
