Once Upon a River Page 0,133
water. She wasn’t ready to let them go yet.
The waxwings and some rowdy warblers were gathering in trees in the farmer’s windbreak, descending from the sky and landing in branches, and then lifting off and settling again. When they alighted they became dark specks against a sky the color of heavenly blue morning glories, like the ones Joanna planted every spring at the river’s edge. One waxwing after another flew down like a little masked bandit from its high perch to dip its beak in the spring water. The migrating birds would carry a bit of the Kalamazoo up north with them, maybe up to the Stark River, where they’d drink again before continuing their journey north, where they’d build nests and breed and possibly even see wolverines, who were not fouling traps or destroying camps, but just going about their business of finding food, shelter, and companions.
She heard equipment humming in a distant field. The farmer had survived the winter for a new season of work. She and he had been aware of one another all these months, but he’d not come to her boat until a few days ago, when he’d delivered the papers for the crop-damage permits. As soon as the farmer planted these fields, Margo was free to shoot all the deer she wanted, legally. She had finally met the farmer’s wife when she’d been visiting Mrs. Rathburn, and the three of them had sat in the Rathburn kitchen and had coffee. Margo hadn’t said more than a few words, but that was okay, since both those other women had plenty to say, and Margo enjoyed the music of their voices.
The catbird landed only ten feet from her, on one of the taut ropes tethering her barge to land. It wagged its tail to keep its balance, meowed a few more times, and then resumed its whistling mimicry of the waxwings. Margo wondered if the imitation was pure fun for the catbird, or if the bird learned something new with each borrowed note.
She crossed the gangplank and made her way barefoot along the riverbank and down to the water’s edge. It was the first time she hadn’t put on her boots before venturing off the boat. For the first time this year, for the first time ever, she felt the silt of the Kalamazoo squeeze through her toes. The fresh chill of it was electric. She walked to where the animals drank at the spring and left her footprints beside the four-toed signatures of songbirds.
Margo took off her sheet, wadded it up, and tossed it onto the deck of the boat. Only then did she think to look around and make sure no one could see her. She waded in up to her knees, and then to her thighs, felt the river weeds brush against her like a mother’s long hair. Back in Murrayville her daddy had wanted her to wait to swim until the air was seventy degrees by the screen porch thermometer, but when he was at work, Luanne had let her swim as soon as she could brave the cold.
“All right, baby, welcome to the river,” Margo said. She stepped away from shore so the water went over the tops of her thighs, and before her feet could sink into the muck, she pushed off. The floor of the river gave way, and she submerged herself up to her neck. As her belly slid through the water, she felt a moment of uncertainty about her ability to swim. Her limbs didn’t move right, didn’t seem rightly proportioned for supporting herself in the water, and her head went under. She was being swept downstream. She struggled until she remembered to relax in the current, let it flow around her. She righted herself and began to sidestroke back upstream. She was lighter in the water—the river was a paradise for a girl swollen up the way she was. She buoyed herself with her belly and backstroked. She grabbed hold of an iron bar attached to the front of her barge and let her legs float. Her naked belly stuck up and out of the water like the finest puffball mushroom in the river valley.
She had felt the baby startle at her contact with the river, had felt it jostle as she began to swim, and then the baby relaxed. As Margo floated, the baby floated with her. The black dog left his food bowl and jumped off the side of the gangplank, came splashing down into the river. He walked in up to his knees and lapped at the water. Smoke would turn in his grave to see his dog drinking from the river. Margo laughed and held on so as not to be swept away.
• Acknowledgments •
Thank you, Heidi Bell and Carla Vissers, Andy Mozina and Lisa Lenzo, for being smart and generous readers and fine writing friends. Thank you, Bill Clegg, for going above and beyond for this book. Thank you, Jill Bialosky, for your shaping, your fine tuning, and your plain good sense.
The following kind souls helped me by reading one or another draft of this novel: Gina Betcher, Jamie Blake, Glenn Deutsch, Godfrey Grant, Sheryl Johnston, Lindsey Kamyn, Mimi Lipson, Susan Ramsey, Diane Seuss, Melvin Visser, Shawn Wagner. Thank you Gary Peake, Master Bull’s-Eye Shooter, for sharing your expertise and philosophy and for your exquisite attention to every shot Margo takes. I’m indebted to my grandpa Frank Herlihy of Red House Island, who lived long enough to know more than anyone else on the river, and granny Betty Herlihy, who knew plenty her husband didn’t. And my dear Unca Terry Herlihy, who keeps a toe in the water.
Many people helped me with this book. A more complete list of acknowledgments appears on my website, www. bonniejocampbell.com.
Every person and place Margo encounters in this story is pure fiction. Even many aspects of the Kalamazoo River have been reimag-
ined. Once Upon a River includes material from two short stories. “Family Reunion” was first read aloud on WBEZ’s Stories on Stage and first published at Mid-American Review and then in American Salvage (Wayne State University Press, 2009); “Fishing Dog” was originally published in North Dakota Quarterly and then in Women & Other Animals (University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).
Thank you, Susanna, for always being there, and for being just the mother a writer needs.
Thank you, darling Christopher, for everything, always.
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