Where the River Stood

Cole steps down into the reeds below the stone lip and gets the long-tined rake into the grate. The first slab of silt comes off gray and heavy and smelling like a cellar. He keeps his back to the path. A lantern is swinging down from the glass, slow, the way a man walks who has never once hurried for water.

"Water's backing up, not running," he says. "Give me ten minutes with this rake and it'll move. Delia, hold your buckets till it clears or you'll fill them with mud."

Delia sets two buckets on the lip and wipes her hands on her scrubs. She doesn't stay with them. She walks toward the path and stops in front of the fence, which puts her in front of the cut, and he sees she's done it on purpose.

"Ten minutes I can do, Cole, but that lantern's four minutes out, so rake faster. And after the grate, you shut your gate tonight and shovel in the cut on my side of the fence, because I'd rate that ditch a nine and I'm not losing my spot on the list over it. Also, what happened to the cart?"

He doesn't know what happened to the cart. He rakes.

Jonas has climbed off his post. The old man goes to the outfall stone and fits his thumb into a deep score in its face, a long way above the water. He knocks the porch bell once with a knuckle, writes, and holds the slate out to Delia because she's nearest.

Look. Here. This is where the river stood.

On the lip beside the buckets sits a paper quarter of Maries from Hebble's. Nobody buys Maries unless they owe somebody. Cole doesn't know who brought them, and he doesn't look up to find out.

Pike sets the lantern down next to the biscuits. Pressed shirt, dry collar. He looks at the score in the stone and not at Jonas, and lowers his reading glasses on their cord to study the pool.

"Good evening, Miss Marsh, Mr. Vance, Jonas; we are glad the grate is being seen to, and glad the clinic's buckets are what brought you, since we would never wish the ward short. The river does stand and fall as it likes this season, doesn't it, and a mark on a stone is only where it happened to stand. Mr. Vance, when the tailwater runs, you'll tell me what it's pulling against below the stone, as"

The pins crack. The grate tears loose on the rake and the whole pool drops at once. Most of it doesn't go down the old ditch. It goes sideways through the fresh channel in the reeds, straight at the clinic fence, and under the lip the newer pipe stands bare in the lantern light, dripping where it's spliced in.

Cole drops the rake across its mouth and plants his boots in front of it. He kicks silt over the joint. His thumb finds the gate key on its lace.

"Water's going sideways, Mr. Pike, that's all, reeds give way where they want. Grate's clear and it's running, so the buckets can fill now, Delia. Nothing below the stone but mud and a bad joint."

Delia already has two buckets by the rope bails and is down at the running water, filling them without a glance at the pipe.

"Buckets first, then the mud, Cole, and I'm calling that joint a nine whether Mr. Pike looks at it or not. Four buckets short last night, so somebody tell me straight what happened to the cart."

Jonas comes down to him. He takes the lace off Cole's thumb, key and all, and presses Cole's palm flat against the scored mark. The stone is warm as a stove lid. Then Jonas strikes the bell hard, twice, looking at Pike, and turns the slate.

Liar. Dawn. You ring the shares with me.

Pike lets the second ring die out. He steps down into the mud in his good shoes, crouches, and lays two fingers on the splice the way you'd test a cup of tea.

"Jonas, we hear you, and we would never dream of ringing anything in the dark when the ward is waiting on its buckets. Mr. Vance, this joint is a bad one, as you say, so tell me what it draws against below the stone, and we will see it mended before the river has any say in the matter."

Cole's hand is still on the stone. Jonas has the lace wound around two fingers, the key hanging under his fist, and he's watching Cole's mouth. The water keeps pouring at the fence. Pike's fingers haven't moved off the joint, and he's waiting for an answer.