Free Water Rites by Mary Rosenblum Page A

about them,” Montoya said quietly.
    A big semi came growling around the bend, heading into The Dalles. It slowed with a hiss of brakes. “Yo, Sam.” The bearded trucker who had delivered Renny’s message stuck his head out of the cab. “You okay?”
    “Yeah,” Montoya called out. “You going to Portland? He needs a lift.”
    He didn’t sound angry, he just sounded tired. “I’ll get my pack,” Dan said. He shook off a dull sense of regret. “Thanks.” He grabbed it, then had to look out at the falls, one more time. He wasn’t coming back here. Not ever. So he could look.
    And she was there. Amy. Up above, staring down at him.
    Celilo Falls, eddy in time, coyote-corpse of yesterday. Dan stared at her, sweating. She was real, like when that kid with magic in his hands had summoned her. If he looked down the bed would he see a patch crew working on the Pipe? Maybe see a skinny kid with black hair standing down there, looking up into the sun, looking up to see what his sister was doing up there?
    The road ran almost level with the top of the old falls along here. It was a mirage, he told himself. A crazy trick of light and memory. On the ledge, Amy leaned out over the drop that had bruised her face purple and broken her neck.
    The cheating, cloudy light made the stones glow and her black hair streamed over her shoulders.
    “Hey,” the trucker called. “You comin’ or not?”
    A rock rattled down the cliff face.
    “Amy!” Dan yelled, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth. He scrambled over the cement barrier, heard Montoya shout something behind him. He stumbled and skidding down into the riverbed. The wind was worse down here, full of grit, filling his eyes with tears.
    Panting, groping for handholds, Dan scrambled up the ledges that made up the falls. Amy was right above him, so close, so real. Could you hear a ghost’s shirt flap in the wind? Dan’s fingers slipped, his skin shredding on the gritty stone. He wasn’t close enough. In a moment, she would fall past him, arms spread, like she was trying to fly.
    Above him, she took the last step, poised at the edge, body starting to can t outward . . . “Don’t!” he screamed. “Goddamn you, don’t!” He got his feet under him, lunged, pain spiking up his leg. His fingers touched cloth, clenched tight, and he fell hard, knees scraping on the rock, heard a cry, felt her sprawl beneath him — no ghost, no ghost — warm under his hand, against his face. Alive.
    Thunder boomed overhead, dry and hollow. Dan lay flat on the stone, panting, face buried against a cotton shirt, arms clasped around warm flesh, hard ribs.
    “Dan? What . . . the hell?”
    Dan’s heart lurched and he raised his head slowly. The hair was gray, not black. The wind tangled it across her face, and she pushed it out of her eyes with a faltering hand. “Jesse,” Dan said numbly. “You were going to jump.”
    “No.” She looked away. “I don’t know.”
    Her eyes held the same dun emptiness that filled the Drylands.
    “Don’t do it,” he whispered.
    “What do you care?”
    He fumbled in his pocket, still breathing hard, sweating with the throbbing pain in his knee. Thunder boomed like cannon over his head as he pulled out the necklace, held it out. “I stole this.”
    “Keep it.” Her loose hair stuck to her face, veiling her empty eyes.
    “I watched my sister jump off this ledge,” he said thickly. “I think she hated me a little, too. Because she got stuck with me.” He saw her flinch and look down at the rocks below.
    “Don’t do that to Renny,” he said.
    The trucker had left. Sam Montoya leaned against the fender of his pickup, watching them.
    “If you let me stay on.” He laid the necklace beside her knee. “I figure I can make enough with the card tricks in town or down in Bonneville to make up the pay hike.” He started to climb down, careful of his knee.
    At the bottom, he leaned his forehead against the face of the cliffs, waiting for the