A Channel Deeply Cut

By Tera Lea Fergsuon

The lost always return home...

On a two lane highway in the Crazy Mountains of Montana, there is a small green sign with white reflective lettering: Dixon, Exit 91.
The road sign is a misleading one, since Dixon is not there, just off the exit. The tiny mountain town is another fifteen miles south and buried between the foothills of the Crazies. With a sign so small and a road that leads to what seems like nowhere, most travelers never reach Dixon.
Gabe Travers wishes he could do the same, but when he reaches that exit ramp, he dutifully turns south.
He is going to home to bury his father. He's going home to keep a promise he made eleven years ago and Gabe plans to see it through and get out as fast as he can.
But not all plans or promises happen as one might expect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tera Lea Fergsuon
• Release date: Dec 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301041527

Book preview

A Channel Deeply Cut

Tera Lea Ferguson

Copyright © 2012 Tera Lea Ferguson

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

ISBN:

ISBN-13:

FOR MICHAYA

I Love You More Than The Moon…

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to the Sage Writers for taking time to read drafts, answer questions, and cheer me on. Thank you to my friends and family for always believing I could write a book, and thank you to my husband who indulged me while I wrote it. I love you all….

A special thanks to BeauL’Orange Photography for providing the cover art for this novel.

Check out Beau’s work:

www.thehandsomeorange.tumblr.com

www.facebook.com/BeauL’OrangePhotography

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This is Tera Lea Ferguson’s first novel. She has written poetry and fiction since childhood. Ferguson lives with her husband in southeastern Montana.

Prologue

Sometimes it is the moving backward that is necessary to finding out who we are and what our future holds. It is in coming home that we know which direction forward lies. Home is not always the sanctuary of cherished memories for which we’d hoped. But we are all eternally connected to the places, events, and people of our past.

Perhaps, home lies not in the confines of painted or papered walls, but in the deep cut channels of our memories and the past from which we can never release ourselves. Perhaps, home lies in the river of experience that trails behind us, growing as we grow and threatening to flood and drown us should we look back and gaze too long, or fall to dust lest we never venture into the waters.

Home is sacred. Personal. However joyful or painful, it belongs only to one.

1

1983

A river is a soul in liquid form. Transforming, emoting, matching moods to varying depths, she ages unapologetically over time. Even as the water disappears, the river leaves its mark in a deeply cut channel.

The Tommie River aged greatly in a small amount of years. In youth, a lover lonely and dangerous, she leapt over jagged rocks; eager and open-mouthed. She wore the reflection of the mountains and the changing seasons at her surface. In a constant dance with the landscape, her fluid body glided past, and beckoned human souls from her shores and the bridges under which she rushed. Small pools formed at her sides, like beckoning fingers, swirling, luring; hypnotically whispering: come to me.

Come to me.

Tommie’s intrigue deafened warnings of danger. As one gave in to her, she drew him to the heart of her current and held him there. Shutting out the world above, she caressed him and rocked him into a euphoric sleep. Then, disenchanted with her lifeless love, she lifted him gently to the bank and rolled on in search of another.

The living cast disapproving eyes as she slipped by. They cautioned their children against wandering too close to her shores. She wove a thread of fascination in fear; her embrace surely meant death, but what sweet rapture before passing!

She was indicted again and again for her wantonness. She stopped seeking human lovers. If one entered her, he gave himself willingly, sometimes forcefully. The Tommie meandered now, stretching in her channel bed of smooth stones, yawning and indolent.

Gabe Travers had last seen her in her youth. He leaned over the bridge, searching her depths for whispers of what used to be. Ears, mind, and small parts of his soul, tuned to hear Jude’s voice singing from below. He expected it and braced for the impact of reliving her life and death. Steeled like the girders of the bridge itself, he waited. Nothing. All he heard was the river slipping slowly below him. Gabe’s absence had been unkind to Tommie.

Eleven years brought Gabe full circle: back to the Tommie and Dixon. The tiny town lay just beyond the bridge and as evening peeked over the waning sun, the lights in Dixon began their ascent from gentle twinkling to deceptively warm glow. Gabe was home.

Home. He whispered the word in to the autumn air. It rolled from his tongue awkwardly and tumbled into the river. Home was a word reserved for a place of security and comfort. Dixon, Montana was his birthplace, but it would never be his home. Not again. Eleven years of absence from Dixon, as Gabe suspected, did not endear this place to him. His return only left him more detached.

He gripped the bridge railing, allowing the weight of his body to transfer to his palms. His feet lifted slightly and for a moment, his balance shifted enough he thought he may topple over the edge. Eyes closed, Gabe launched himself into the fantasy of falling head first through the October air, fingers spread and anticipating the rush of reuniting with Tommie.

A rattle shook loose the grip of Gabe’s imagination. He looked back over his shoulder as an old pickup crept past him. Nodding acknowledgement, the driver continued to the south end of the bridge. Gabe turned away, feeling more like an outsider. He recognized the old man as a familiar face from childhood, and when the pickup slowly circled back, he didn’t bother to look up. They’d both gotten what they’d come for.

Gabe eased his hold on the railing. As if exiting a graveside, he stepped backward. Retrieving a handful of dried flowers from his pocket, he released them into the wind; a fitting eulogy to his sister and the once mighty Tommie River. She ambled below in deliberate ignorance.

The truck faded until the noise of its engine was nearly inaudible. Gabe returned to his battered Chevy Nova. His steps fell hollow and determined on the bridge floor. The purpose of his visit now half fulfilled, he was soon leaving Tommie and his last promises to Jude behind him.

He settled into the driver’s seat. Hesitating before firing the engine, he drew in an anxious breath. He dreaded this moment. The drive into Dixon would be his last peace before entering a world he spent eleven years trying to forget. Shifting into drive, he drove slowly in the direction the pickup had gone. The Nova rolled, reluctantly crawling as Gabe took full measure of the short drive, his last reprieve before confronting the town of his birth and the ghosts of his family.

Tommie rolled past him, carrying the offering of dead flowers at her surface.

2

Wilmar Menken never paid for a dime’s worth of anything at the Valley Café. If odds were against a fellow patron buying his coffee, he ordered water and dismissed the waitress with a wave. As the local sheriff, he was exempt from a number of societal directives; courtesy ranked high on the list, followed by tact and most traffic laws.

Olivia Delfine waited until Menken’s truck wheeled slowly into its self-designated parking place before she lifted a water glass from the shelf. An orchestration perfectly timed, the scene played out the same as each previous day. The rattle of the ice cubes hitting water harmonized with the groan of the restaurant door. A chorus of helloes echoed the falling footsteps; a final crescendo as the water glass slid across the counter to waiting hands. Olivia was no longer aware of the timing of it all. It was instinctive; worn into her internal clock by sheer monotony.

Today, things were not ordinary. Wilmar stared above Olivia’s head at the full shelves of coffee cups.

I’ll have a cheese sandwich. White bread, no crusts.

It was the longest conversation Olivia remembered having with Dixon’s only law enforcement officer. As she slipped through the swinging kitchen doors, she tried to listen to the conversation in the dining room.

The Valley Café regulars looked surprised by Wilmar’s request.

Wil, what ya know? one asked. They awaited a standard shrug and nothin’ much. Wilmar offered neither.

Well, I just got in from patrol. Something a little peculiar out on the bridge. He said.

Interest piqued. Olivia dropped the sandwich on the table and stopped to hear his story.

Some stranger. Never seen ‘im before. Wilmar continued through mouthfuls of cheese and bread. Dropping something over the side. The others leaned in. Olivia put her hand on her hip.

Yeah, yeah. Throwin’ stuff over the railing, he was, and talkin’ to himself.

What?

Just talking away like I’m talkin’ to you now.

You tell him to quit?

You run him off, Wil?

Some guy just out walkin’ around?

It’s near dark!

Getting cold, too!

Nope. He had a car. Wilmar said; his words barely audible as he stuffed his jaws full of sandwich. Don’t know what he’s up to, but I hope he doesn’t jump. I am too damned old to swim after him.

The others laughed nervously.

The café door creaked open and the very subject of Wilmar’s news entered. All heads swiveled in his direction. Wilmar swallowed the last bite of his dinner and swept the crumbs from his chin.

They all took short glances at him, unable to keep from indulging in the study of this unknown young man. He was tall, or seemed tall in his long black coat. His wide shoulders, the posture of his body—the length and gait of his steps—were vaguely familiar. The man’s dark blonde hair stuck to his forehead in wet strands. Melting snowflakes from an early autumn storm ran down his straight nose, on their descent to his strong, square chin. His features were sharp. Precise. Something about him—something they could not grasp—was familiar.

Yet, what really drew them in was not an elusive recollection of this strange young man. It was his scar. Impossible to ignore, the angry mound of flesh began just below his right eye; shooting down, arrow straight, until it reached his chin. If he noticed them staring, he didn’t seem to care.

Olivia, too, couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering over the blemish. She stared along with the others until the man caught her gaze. He turned away, folding his hands on the counter and looking straight ahead. She slipped behind the counter, filled a water glass, and dug for a menu.

You don’t have to bother. the man said, I know what I want.

Olivia straightened and concentrated on her order pad and avoided eye contact with her customer.

Can’t find one, anyway. No one around here uses them. She said.

The Valley regulars whispered their speculations and suspicions to one another. Who was he and why had he chosen Dixon? What business did he have here?

Idiots. Olivia was struck by how stupid they all were. Didn’t they realize this man could hear every word they said?

Outsiders were a very rare occurrence in Dixon, but a feature Olivia hungered for. They were a link to the World, bringing with them their own stories and the imagery of life beyond the limits of the isolated town. She hadn’t been much further than the Tommie Bridge since she was sent to live with her father seven years before. In that time, she remained excluded, an outsider in her own right. It was life away from Dixon that Olivia sorely-

Miss? The man’s eyes met hers again and she realized she’d been gawking at him.

She flushed. Sorry.

He smiled. You must get so few new faces in here.

Her shyness gone, Olivia tilted her head to study his face. Again, he smiled.

Are you going to frame me? He tilted his head to the angle of hers. Or take my order?

Both. Olivia met his smile with her own.

The man’s face dimmed and Olivia’s humor stopped dead.

I’ll take coffee and one of those sweet rolls. He pointed to a near empty case. The regulars chattered, analyzing each detail from his dark clothing to his dinner choice.

Just a sweet roll? They clucked and clattered like a dying engine. Was he planning a long stay? Where? What was he here for?

Olivia declined to pursue conversation any further. Upended by his abrupt coldness, she offered him the same icy manner. When he finished, she took his money and mumbled a half-hearted,

Thanks, hope to see you again.

Breakfast. he answered, I have nowhere else to go.

The exit of the stranger ignited rumors within moments. Patrons rushed to the window to see the direction his car had taken. The whispers grew to a roar of excited voices.

Olivia began her end of the evening duties and mused at what a silly picture they painted, with their faces pressed against the window. She imagined from the outside they must be a comical sight. She glanced up and realized the group was moving toward her. They smothered her with inquiries and while she fielded questions, Sheriff Menken slipped away unnoticed.

3

1958

3 years

He sees her bare feet, toes down on the cold floor. He’s afraid to walk in. Jude lags behind. Mother’s face is pressed against the floor. Her eyes are open. Gabe holds her hand.

"Mommy?" He is so confused and he shakes her hand. Her fingers are limp, cold like the floor she is lying on.

She won’t wake up and he doesn’t understand.

Mommy always wakes up.

Mommy always smiles.

He cries. He screams.

Jude is quiet. She lies down beside their mother and touches her hair.

Gabe drove slowly through Dixon. He wasn’t surprised by the apparent lack of impact eleven years made, but by the deception in Dixon’s appearance. In Rockwell’s grandest dreams, there was never a place as perfect. It seemed like a clannish community, secure in its residents and its future. Family picnics and fireworks should fill the summer. Winter should bring carolers to every door. It felt as if one traveled back to a safer, more benevolent time. To a stranger, Dixon was a drifter’s deliverance from callous city life. To a stranger, Dixon was just the kind of place to embrace him.

Gabe saw its outward beauty with a new eye, but the memories of his life in Dixon tore at the façade. This was not a friendly, open-armed paradise. Sullen and hardened by too many years of nothing new, the community had given up on all prospects of innovation. It held skeptic views of progress.

The promised railroad, decades late in coming, showed no signs of arrival. Years ago, too many for most to recall, suited developers came, and after much measuring and head nodding, they assured Dixon a steady revenue as a stop on their rail line. The travelers and their money never materialized. The suits drove away, leaving Dixon’s opulent dreams in a cloud of dust.

Hope rose very little after that; life reached a dead end over nonproductive years. Winters and summers drug on and nothing changed.

Down at the Valley Café, old men gathered to discuss politics. They sipped coffee and cursed their lives. Townsfolk greeted each other resentfully. They existed, cohabitants of a common area, each as lifeless as mannequins amidst a homey Rockwell backdrop.

Gabe turned off Main Street and faced the mountain before him. Halfway up was the cemetery and further on, the little cabin of his childhood. He sucked in a slow breath and pushed the accelerator. The road angled straight up the side of the mountain and forced the car to extend all power just to maintain a slow crawl. Gabe pressed the pedal to the floor impatiently. The sooner he took care of this, the sooner he left Dixon behind him.

4

The deep ruts in the mountain road were impossible to see in the darkness. The Nova’s headlights extended just far enough to announce them less than a second before the tires jolted and bounced over them. Between the ruts and the road’s steep angle, the drive felt slow but finally a small glow appeared. Gabe turned onto a small access road that circled the Dixon Cemetery and aimed the car toward the light.

Behind the rows of headstones lay the home of Howard Gransby. The glow from his parlor window flickered briefly as a figure peered out between the curtains, and then disappeared. Light poured around the figure and on to the closest row of graves as the door opened. The little undertaker waved as Gabe pulled into the drive.

Gabe paused a moment and the mortician bent out of the doorway, puzzled the occupant of the car didn’t immediately come inside. When Gabe did walk to the door, he was met with an extended, over-zealous hand.

Welcome. Welcome. Howard Gransby gripped Gabe’s hand firmly and tried to look meaningful. We are so sorry for your loss. He visualized the little man practicing his most mournful and sincere expressions in his bathroom mirror. He avoided Gransby’s eyes, looking instead over the top of his bald head to a silhouette on a drawn curtain.

Where is he?

Oh. Oh, yes. The mortician pushed the front door closed and motioned Gabe to follow. Behind the curtain, in a dimly lit room, lay the body of Gabe’s father. Clad in his only suit, outdated by the years but still pristine from such little use, Jacob Travers looked small and withered. He wasn’t the tyrant Gabe remembered from childhood. Jacob had become an old man in the eleven years they’d been apart. His hair, now perfectly parted, had turned a dull gray and age cut deep channels in his face. The lines of his brow bent in a determined frown and his chin jutted stubbornly upward. Gabe could hear his father’s voice in his head.

No one is going to tell me I have to goddamn die!

A warm hand squeezed his shoulder.

I knew you’d come.

Startled, Gabe twisted around to meet an unexpected and friendly face.

Eddie?

5

1959

4 years

Eddie’s fumbling with his still and swearing softly to himself when he sees a man walking toward his house. A tall, wide man in worn overalls and a thin shirt, his brown hair is parted down the middle and carefully combed.

My god, he’s built like an oak tree, Eddie thinks.

He gets closer and Eddie recognizes him. Jacob Travers owns land next to Eddie’s, though he rarely sees him. They’ve never spoken