The Deadly River (2 page)

Lee attended the funeral, but later didn’t remember much about it. What he did remember seemed surreal, as if he had watched it from a comfortable theatre seat while it played out on a screen in front of him.

Uncle Michael and his wife, Ellen, were now Lee’s only living relatives. Michael was his mother’s younger brother who had followed his sister to Media many years ago. He was now the senior partner in a thriving CPA firm.

After the funeral, Michael and Ellen tried valiantly to fill the void in Lee’s life, but this was very hard to do. At the age of eighteen, Lee just wasn’t prepared to face life without the two people who had been everything to him. He tried, but there wasn’t a day in those two months when something didn’t happen to knock his mental equilibrium askew. Unashamedly, he cried himself to sleep almost every night.

Lee spent his days either doing chores for Michael, tinkering with his car, or just wandering aimlessly around the hills and fields that surrounded Media.

At his uncle’s insistence, Lee tried to return to Villanova. He couldn’t do it. He walked into his dorm room and broke down. He couldn’t stand the thought of returning. His former roommate helped him gather his belongings and he left the campus, never to return.

Uncle Michael, as the executor of the estate, tried to work with Lee to make arrangements for the family’s assets. But, much to Michael’s amazement, Lee simply wasn’t interested. Money had never been a concern to Lee. His parents had always been there for him and, although they insisted that he work for what he received, he never wanted for anything important. Additionally, he just couldn’t deal with anything that reminded him of his parents. He flatly refused to even look at the work that Michael was doing on his behalf.

So Michael did what was needed. First he arranged to transfer the family checking and saving accounts to Lee’s name. Then he set up a trust that included all of the financial investments made by the family while they were alive. When the life insurance proceeds were received, Michael added them to the trust. But try as he might, Michael couldn’t get Lee to look at these arrangements. It was as if Lee was afraid to acknowledge that anything had changed from his old life; as if he was pretending that his family was out of town and would return soon; as if his involvement in the financial transactions would somehow turn the grim truth into reality. Whatever the reason, Lee stubbornly refused to even look at anything related to his parents’ finances. So Michael had no choice but to maintain control of the trust. As a CPA, he knew what to do and he did it well. But Lee just didn’t care.

Finally, at dinner one evening, Michael decided to try something to awaken his nephew. Staring across the dinner table, He opened with, “Lee, what are your plans for tomorrow?”

Lee didn’t hesitate, “I dunno. Is there anything you need me to do?”

“Yeah. I think that it is time that we make a decision on what we should do with your parents’ house. It can’t just sit there unattended forever. We need to either rent it or sell it. It’s yours now. What do you want to do?”

The question obviously caught Lee by surprise. He slowly put his fork on his plate before looking up at his uncle. “I’ve thought about this
a lot. I’m not ready to live there. Maybe I never will be. But I don’t want to cut it loose right now. Too many memories. I guess we could rent it if you think we should do something.”

The response surprised both his uncle and his aunt. It was the first indication of coherent thought they had seen from Lee lately. Aunt Ellen’s eyes watered a bit out of pure relief. But Michael continued the conversation. “That’s probably a good idea. We can get one of the local realtors to manage it and let him rent it. That way it will be in good shape when you’re ready to make a decision on it.

“Sounds good.” Lee went back to eating his dinner. But Michael wasn’t ready to stop. “If we’re going to rent it, we need to get it cleaned out. I can have a service come in and clean it and we can put the furniture and stuff in storage. But someone has to sort out the things that need to be kept and the things we need to throw out. Lee, you’re going to have to do that. Only you can make the hard decisions about the disposition of the personal possessions in the house.”

He stopped speaking at the look on the boy’s face. Lee’s fork had stopped in mid-air and his face wore an expression of absolute terror. He choked on the food he was eating and there was a brief flurry of activity as Aunt Ellen held up his left arm and thumped on his back.

Finally calm prevailed and the boy looked long and hard at his uncle before speaking. The look of terror was gone, replaced by one of desperate determination. His fork went down again, his eyes following its motion. Then he glanced up at Michael, “Okay, I’ll go do it tomorrow. I’ll make two piles. One pile will be things that I want with me now. I’ll get that one out of there. Then I’ll put a pile of stuff in the garage that can be sold or trashed. I’ll leave everything else where it is and it can be stored with the furniture. Does that sound all right to you?”

It was Michael’s turn to hesitate. He was absolutely stunned to hear such rational thought. “Yeah. That sounds fine. Do you want us to help? I can take off from work tomorrow and we can do it together.” Aunt Ellen chimed in with, “Don’t forget me. I can help too.”

But Lee demurred. “No. This isn’t going to be easy. I need to do it at my own pace. It might take me a few days, but I really need to do this myself. But when I’m done, Uncle Michael, I’d like you to go in
and take care of Dad’s office. You know the value of that kind of thing better than me.”

True to his word, after breakfast the next morning Lee backed his car up to the garage and walked into his former home. At first, he just wandered aimlessly from room to room. At times he stopped to touch something or dry his eyes with his handkerchief. But for the most part, he was able to hold himself together. Then he went to work.

It was the following afternoon before Lee felt comfortable that the job was done. He had suitcases in his car filled with the clothes he wanted. In the back seat of the car were his sports equipment, his baseball trophies, and some family pictures. In the garage were the two piles that he had planned. One pile was just trash. The other was made up of items that could be useful to someone. Each pile was carefully marked by a hand-lettered sign.

Satisfied that his job was done, Lee went back into the house for one last look. He walked through the kitchen, remembering the last time he’d seen his parents. It had been in this room and they’d been sipping wine, cheerfully arguing about which eagle should be the national symbol. It was a silly old argument they had been having for years. His mom had always advocated for the majestic golden eagle, while his Dad had been more the traditionalist, loudly defending the more familiar bald eagle. It had been a standing, good-humored, argument between the two. An argument that would never be settled now.

Shaking his head to clear the memories, he left the kitchen and entered his father’s office where he took a seat behind his father’s big desk. Stretching out, with his hands behind his head, he looked around the room. It had always been one of his favorite places. His earliest memories were of being in this room, pretending to read his little books while his father worked silently at the big desk, a cigar always in the ashtray. He just wanted one more look at the room before he left. He had already made up his mind that he wouldn’t be coming back to this house. It was something he instinctively knew he had to put behind him. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew that his future didn’t include this home with all of its memories.

His eyes fell on the big painting on the wall opposite the desk. His father had always loved that painting, a large depiction of a small lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Grey cliffs came down one side of the lake and a cabin could be seen at its farthest shore. The quality of the painting wasn’t the best. In fact, it had been purchased at a local flea market for the princely sum of ten dollars. But his father had loved it because it represented a dream he’d cherished. In his dream, he was going to someday just take off and explore the Rocky Mountains. He talked about this dream often and with such enthusiasm that both Lee and his mother had become part of the dream with both of them agreeing that they were going to do this when Lee graduated from university.

Lee stifled a sob as he stared at the painting and remembered their plans. For the first time, he looked up past the ceiling and addressed his parents. “I’m just sorry, Mom and Dad. I wish we had done this sooner. We put off the best things in life and now we’ll never be able to do them. God, I love you! I miss you guys!”

He was crying openly now, the first time since he had come into the house yesterday morning. His eyes remained fixed on the painting. Then slowly, the sobs lessened and a calm, thoughtful expression came over his face.

Slowly and softly, words formed and slipped out of his mouth as his eyes explored the painted scene before him. “We put it off too long. But we’re gonna do it now. I know you’re here with me. I’ve felt you for days and I know you’re worried about me. Now stop worrying, ‘cause we’re gonna go west. I’m going to find the place that painting was made and the three of us will see it through my eyes.” He fell silent, in deep thought. Then he continued, “Once I find that place and we see it, I’ll worry about the rest of my life. But first, we’re going to make the trip you dreamed about.”

Lee stood and purposefully made his way to the pile of donation items. Fumbling around in it, he found what he was looking for, an old Kodak box camera. Coming back into the office, he took several pictures of the painting. He took care to photograph the painting’s title, “Montana Mountain Lake” and the almost illegible one-word signature
“Hilda”. Carefully he took the painting down from the wall and carried it out to his car.

He’d found a purpose. He was going to find the lake that had meant so much to his family. Suddenly nothing else mattered.

Looking around, he picked up a family picture that had been made last year; one that showed his parents proudly standing beside him. He was in his baseball uniform, waving the trophy his high school team had just won. He stuffed the framed picture unto his jacket pocket, looked around one last time and left the home.

He would never return.

CHAPTER TWO: MONTANA, 1959

T
he four men had walked about a mile up the gravel logging road. Their trek had been mostly uphill, following a winding trout stream known locally as Little Joe Creek. All four were tall men and all were wearing heavy jackets to ward off the mountain chill. Two of the men were walking effortlessly, as the other two struggled to keep up. Finally, one of the slower men, who appeared to be the eldest of the group, called a halt.

“Hold it you two. I can’t sit in a chair back in D.C. every darned day and be expected to keep up with you fellas. I need a break.” He was laughing ruefully as he said it. His younger friend managed to gasp out, “I’ll second that!” The older man settled his long, gaunt, frame on a big rock beside the road.

The man who had been leading the group, Ray Moore, stopped immediately. “My gosh, Senator, I’m really sorry. I was so excited to be able to show you this that I never realized how tough it might be for you.” His friend, Kurt Kochran, was also attempting an embarrassed apology. But Senator Mansfield, from his seat on the rock, waved them off. “My wife will thank you guys. Now I know I have to get some exercise once in a while. She’ll be happy.” His friend, Congressman Lee Metcalf, was bent over with his hands on his knees, taking long breaths of the sweet mountain air. He looked up and laughed. “Yeah, sure, Mike. I’ll betcha twenty bucks that I never see you in a gym.”

“You won’t see me ‘cause you’ll never be there either, you butt-head!” Both men were laughing now.

The four men rested for a few minutes, talking about the beauty that surrounded them. Their walk had followed a ten-mile automobile ride from their starting point, Ray’s little café and truck stop in the mountain hamlet of St. Dubois. It had been a spectacular trip, following the little stream from where is gushed into the St. Dubois River up through the wild mountains to where they now sat. When they first left St. Dubois, small ranches covered the landscape, but the open valleys soon narrowed, becoming mountain canyons and gulches. The open fields gave way to the pine and fir forests that were characteristic of this part of Montana.

After several miles, the canyon narrowed and the patches of snow became a solid foundation for the bushes and trees that grew through it. Now an entirely new and spectacular landscape had come into view. As Congressman Metcalf was to remark later, it was as if the pine and fir forest had just been an appetizer and now a main course in alpine beauty lay before them.

The trees around them were huge, rising from the narrow, moist, valley to point into the heavens hundreds of feet above them. They were immense cedar trees, their light green needles and beautifully gnarled trunks distinctly pronouncing them the kings of this Montana forest. Their unique, aromatic, scent was everywhere, making this narrow valley a very pleasant experience for even the two tired travelers.

It had been Senator Mansfield who’d asked Ray to stop the car and walk for a bit after they’d driven several miles between these cedar giants. He said that he wanted to experience this up close. During the mile-long walk, he’d tried to lead them off the road to walk on the forest floor whenever an opportunity arose. But snow patches and the debris from hundreds of years of cedar growth had foiled that effort and now he had gone as far as he could. It was time to talk.

The Senator looked up from his seat on the rock and addressed Kurt Kochran. “Kurt, you have a reputation for being a pain in the ass about this environmental crap. That’s why I didn’t want to come out here. I don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with all the things that the environmentalists are doing. I only came as a favor to Lee.” He nodded his head at the Congressman, who had found a seat on a nearby log. He
continued, “But you’re onto something here. This cedar forest is something I haven’t seen before. How big is it?”