Because he was on the long, moonlit stretch between Millersburg and Maysville, the driver had plenty of time to stop his rig, floating down one gear after another in the thick fog, then gently braking to a forty-ton stop like a conductor pulling his train into a midnight station. John stopped, because even though the figure was wrapped in fog like a man in a dream, he could tell he was a young guy alone in this unforgiving land. It was foolish to stop, especially on a night like this, on a route like this; you never really knew who was friend or foe, but … yeah, it was definitely a young guy. What could you do? You had to help a brother out. He’d been two weeks away from Miranda and was ready to get home; he knew she was lonely and always worried about him when he ran his Southern routes. She’d be making him steak and kidney pie right now on the far side of this fog-strewn night, so he was smiling when the passenger door swung wide and a haunting face appeared, dark, severe, and streaked with black.
John tried to hide his alarm, and his amiable mouth made it easy. It was already saying, “You need some help getting somewhere, my man?”
There was no answer as the young man stepped up into the cab without visible effort at all, as though he were a weightless thing, the mere shadow of a man.
The driver cleared his throat. “I’m Mr. Parker, but you can call me John. And you are?”
There was a long pause, then the man slowly turned his head and stared straight through John with chilly, golden eyes like jeremiads. He didn’t say his name; his face was expressionless. Fear instantly cinched John’s throat. “Hey, no problem,” he blurted with a wave of his hand. “No problem if you don’t care to share your name. I got nothing against a private man. We’ll just hit the road and be on our way. No problem at all.”
No sooner had he said it than a shiver wended along his neck and John felt the sudden cold—my God, the cab felt like a freezer. He was about six gears into real foreboding when he suddenly smelled the subtle scent of smoke on top of the chill. Barely detectable at first, like a faint memory, then the strong, sure smell of campfire.
“You been camping, my man?” he said. Again, no reply was forthcoming, just swallowing silence. The man beside him stared straight ahead out the dash without blinking an eye, without even the whisper of visible breath.
A true frisson of nerves now, the old, instinctive part of the body that detects the presence of danger. But he didn’t need to panic yet. Best to just settle back, keep your eyes open, and not say a word. Yes, indeed, just stay calm, don’t provoke, don’t question, not one single word—
“Young man,” John said gently, interrupting his better sense, “I know it really isn’t my business, but—”
The man raised a single hand and, without a word, pointed toward the long, dark road.
“You want to go north?” Parker expelled a breath. “Hey, that’s cool. North is where I was headed. I’ve taken a bunch of folks up this way, yes indeed. Just follow the North Star and you can’t go wrong, know what I’m saying?” His hands were shaking slightly as he gripped the wheel, but at the same time he suddenly felt reassured deep in his bones; he was going to be all right. Just like animals, most folks were only dangerous when they were afraid. So he was coaxing the gas and they were flying through the thick Kentucky night, rolling north out of the Bluegrass and into the counties that separated central Kentucky from the Ohio line, the counties where John always started to relax and feel safer, where the river was close at hand.
About thirty minutes down the road, he said gently, “Now, just so you know, I’m going north, but I wasn’t going all the way into Ohio tonight.” He hoped that agitation wouldn’t pierce through the steadiness of his voice. The man’s head turned slowly in his direction, but John was afraid to look into those fathomless eyes again. He added hastily: “See, I live in Ripley with my wife, but I’ve got to drop half this load tonight and half in the morning, both on the Kentucky side. Processing plant just west of Maysville, you know, where that famous singer lived, you know who I’m talking about?” And now he was really starting to relax, extolling the virtues of voices you couldn’t hear on the radio anymore and talking about the housing boom and how it couldn’t last, how it was going to be a disaster, and of course it would hit working folks the hardest—folks like the two of them—but what could you do, really, what could you do, rich men ran the world, they called the shots, all you could do was try to stay one step ahead. His passenger sat rigidly beside him, motionless, and never said a word, so John tried to not think about how his cab now smelled like a barn on fire, and how he was so cold that the hair was standing straight up on his arms, and that the man’s face was stony like an Egyptian sarcophagus, the kind they had in the museum in Cincinnati. Why, oh why, had he picked this one up? Because … dammit. A human being is precious cargo, and you had to help a brother out. It was how his mother had raised him. She’d seen a lot of hardship back in Virginia, hardship like you couldn’t even put in words. If you didn’t learn to help others, what was the point of surviving suffering?
When they finally turned onto Route 8 west of Maysville, John said, “We’re getting pretty close now,” but it was like the man already knew; he was leaning forward in his seat, closer and closer to the edge, reaching out to grip the dash with granite-like hands—God, were they singed from a fire?
John gathered his courage as he was pulling onto Plover Road with its quiet subdivision, where the night was pulling down a thorough black around the houses. He hesitated, wondering if he should venture it, then said gently and very carefully, “Young man, it seems to me like you’ve come into some kind of trouble. Now it’s not my business and I’m not asking you for details, but I’d like to help you out. I’m happy to get you to a safe place where nobody’ll come looking for you, and tomorrow you can travel on—”
“The river,” the man said suddenly, his first words, and the raw voice nearly stopped John’s heart. It was the sound of old, rusted machinery rolling into motion.
John whispered, “The river’s right down this hill behind those houses. And my house in Ripley is right across the river. It’ll be easier to see in the morning.”
“Stop.”
“Son—”
“STOP.”
John couldn’t disobey that voice, enormous as time and deep as a grave. It filled every cavity of his heart with migraine, it made his limbs go rigid. He was not even close to a rolling stop when the door was flung open and the man floated out, first his dark head and boxy shoulders, then his tattered T-shirt snapping and disappearing, the blackened sole of one work boot the last thing John saw of him.
Now the man was passing over a thick, shadowy lawn, around a swing set and a shed of fresh sawn wood, straight through a row of hedges, away from the rig and away from the South, away from the markers of civilization until all the houses disappeared and the night swallowed him, the ground sloping down and away.
It was dark as far as he could see. The world smelled like coming water.
The man discovered he was not alone. A steam calliope shrieked in the dark; muskrats peeked out at him from the shadows, and in a great collision of sound, all the animals began to chatter at once—ospreys, papery herons, belted and bearded kingfishers, bank swallows in their burrows—but this time it didn’t frighten him. The muskrats chirped and the turtles whispered and all the white-tailed deer conversed as, far below, like music, the river was running. The man could see it now—eternal and quick, and on the other side, the luscious, original world, the place where he had been made. High on that distant shore, far above the bottomland with its rushing river, a single light burned. He understood it was burning for him. He passed down the embankment, the brambles parting before him and the limestone earth making a way, little stones rocketing down before him to herald his arrival. The calm, watchful moon shone on the ancient course of the flowing river, which sparked and fired with its dark gems. He was racing toward it now with all the remembered strength of his body, wanting only to wash the ash from his old skin, the burn marks from his clothes, the acrid stench from his hair. There before him the northern side was dark and lovely. He heard a calling in the distance and his mind was filled with the wonder of expectation. The whole world was rising toward him. When he reached the mudflats and felt the cold river embracing his weary feet, he cried out, “Yes!” From somewhere on the other shore, she called to him by his given name, and the sound filled him with knowing. He raised his beautiful, burned arms in long-awaited greeting.