Death at a Bend of a River

The smoke coiled out of the colt revolvers barrel and seeped out of the cracks along the edge of the cylinder and one round had been emptied from its chamber. Darryl looked down at her dead body, crumpled on the dirt, her red dress with printed sunflowers, stained with crimson that tinted the petals of the flower print. The cotton fibers drew the blood into its fibers, darkening the red fabric more, bleeding into the yellow pedals. Her fingers had dug into the dirt as she fell to the ground and her fingernails were caked in dirt with her palms up laying next to her. When she had heaved out her last breath after huffing for air her chest collapsed for the last time. Her eyes, blue eyes, went black. Dilated pupils stared straight up into the trees, watching the birds land on branches after they had been scared off by the gunshot.

The water’s edge was only feet away from where Donna had fallen. If she had seen him a moment sooner, she could have jumped in and flowed down steam away from him, his gun, and her death. She wouldn’t even have to swim, the current was swift but gentle. The barrel dug into the dirt after he let it slip from his sweaty grip. The denim jeans tightened on his knees when he bent down, and they dented the earth under his weight. He sat back on his heels, breathing fast and heavy. He had daydreamed of this moment but never thought he could get himself to do it. His mind raced back through the morning and the days leading up to this. How he had borrowed the gun from work, a display from the old west exhibit. Researched and bought bullets and even had to retrofit a new cylinder ring to convert to rounds from black powder. He wore old clothes, but nothing to old, not ratty, just not nice. While she packed their lunch, he practiced how to hide this cannon of a sidearm. It was big, long, and heavy. His pockets weren’t deep, so he wore a jacket with an inside pocket but loose enough, so it didn’t show through. He pushed his hair over and back and then slipped on his boots. She yelled up for him to hurry up, she would be in the car waiting.

They had spent the day driving out to the park, her suggestion, but he knew where he was going since he had been there many times before. After they parked and hiked into the woods along the path their old spot was still there, a small clearing next to the river. Only about ten to twenty yards in diameter, it was at a bend in the river and over the years the river would rise out of her banks and clear the bald spot, always preserving it. Grass had been able to grow thick but nothing else had a chance since it would be washed away with the spring thaw.

He stared at her, he was looking for her fingers to twitch and shake the dirt out her upturned palms. She had scraped her right elbow deep as she fell. Her arm had hit a rock that was in her way down, but there was no blood, only a gash, and exposed muscle. His gaze now slowly drifted toward the river and the swift current. If he pushed her in she would slip away. He would say they got separated and he lost her. He would go straight to the ranger, and they would do a search and the sheriff or police would help. They would find her downstream and he would be inconsolable.

“How could somebody just shoot her” he would cry. He would morn and they would search and if they caught somebody to blame it on, just as well. Because it wasn’t him.

He pushed her at first and then grabbed her by the left arm and drug her over to the edge. When she was lined up with the edge of the river with a swift pushing kick of his right leg, shoved her into the current. The water took her in immediately and soaked her hair and dress down to the skin. The blood began to wash away and rinse out the yellow flower pedals. She bobbed in the water for a moment but remained stationary in the current until it began to take her up stream.

As she drifted up the river, against the current she passed around the bend and out of sight. He could only stare. It was unnatural what he had seen but it was unnatural what he had done. He looked sat where she had been laying and how clean the dirt was and how green the matted grass looked where she had been lying dead. No blood, no exit. The bullet was still in her and it was the only thing connecting him to her death. Dread consumed him, his vision went black, and he leapt into the river, forging upstream against the current to recover the bullet from her body.

He was up to his thighs and then his waist as he pushed his way around the bend and the current got stronger the further he went. He could see her, face down in the water, slowly drifting upstream. She looked like she was on the end of a fishing line that had caught an enormous fish. She was going just as fast as he was, he was making no headway. His lungs began to burn, and his legs ache each time he dug his feet into the muddy bottom of the river. The water was becoming colder and as he got closer to her, she disappeared into a dense fog that seemed to form out of thin air. All daylight around him was being consumed by the heavy thick mist and as he got closer to her, he was consumed also.

If the night were gray instead of black, he would be in the deepest, darkest night ever. Other than fighting the current he could not tell which direction he was going. He plodded along as the water began to freeze and his clothes began to form ice and burn his skin. He kept pushing forward until he hit the edge of a sheet of ice that was as thick as it could be in the middle of winter. With a belly flop and push from his legs he heaved himself onto the sheet of ice and sat on his heels as he shook and hug himself. His breath was now as thick as the fog and every breath came out thick. The ice was slick, so he pushed himself along on hands and knees, sliding and crawling what he thought was toward where he had seen Donna.

The outline of a woman’s body was on the ice in the fog in front of him now. Arms by the side and legs straight out with face up. She didn’t look wet anymore or even cold, just asleep. Ahead of her was a dark figure stretching out an arm and she was next to it raising her arm up. She was whole and her dress was new again with bright red cloth and yellow pedaled sunflowers printed all over. She looked back at him and then turned away and disappeared into the greyness. He bolted forward toward her but only slipped on the ice and fell face first breaking his nose and gushing blood all down the front of his shirt and jacket. He rolled over onto his back and began to push on the ice with his heels until he felt his head hit the riverbank and dirt get caught in his hair.

He rolled over onto his stomach and reached up to grab roots and grass to pull himself up onto the solid dry ground. He was freezing and wet and his clothes were frozen thick from the ice. Laying back he could only look up into the thick mist, it was collecting on his face and getting so thick it would run off in small streams. He was breathing hard, his muscles had given up so he couldn’t move.

“Daddy! Daddy! There’s a man by the river and he doesn’t look good.” Annabelle had seen Darryl pull himself out of the river, like a madman being chased by the devil himself.

“Stand back girl, don’t let him reach out for you. Look how he’s froze. Frostbite on a summer's day can only come from chasing the Soul Monger.” Her daddy poked him with his long branch he had fashioned into a walking stick. “Don’t let him touch you or you’ll be able to see the Soul Monger and it’ll be able to see you and reach out for you.” He had stuck his stick into the ground at an angle between her and the man on the ground.

“Soul Monger?!” Annabelle repeated her daddy with fear and backed away.

“He was here and looks like I was too late to save whoever he was after. They can’t take the soul if you can pull the body back into the warmth and if you get them wet, they vanish. That’s why they always make the river ice over when they must collect a river soul.”

“Yeah, I saw it….” Darryl was begging to warm up and come around. It was in the fog, and I saw it take her away.

“You did, did you” Annabelle’s father unholstered his sidearm “All right mister you can get up nice and slow or you may be seeing that thing again reel soon.

Darryl looked at him as he got to his feet “No, I don’t think you understand, it took Donna and disappeared. I saw it, it floated over the ice and took her hand and they both just disappeared into the fog.”

“Mister, I don’t know what you’re talking about or what you have seen but folks around here talk about the Soul Monger and the only ones who can see it are those who are dead or those who killed them and you don’t look like your dead.” He pulled out his revolver and raised it level to Darryl’s chest.

With that last motion, Darryl reached into his jacket for the colt and remembered he had left it in the dirt back at the bend in the river. He felt his head hit the dirt first and then the rest of his body come crashing down and his arms bounced off the ground next to him as he came to rest. The crack of exploding gunpowder ripped through his ears and he could see the fog setting in around him. This time though he couldn’t feel it, not the moistness or the cold.

“Annabelle, get back to the truck and out of this fog. Go get your coat on so you don’t catch cold” her daddy scowled in fear and disbelief at her, and she stared back.

“Daddy it’s not foggy and it’s about ninety degrees, I don’t need my coat” He motioned her to move away and pointed in the direction of the pickup truck, “I said go now, so go” as he yelled, she dashed off towards truck and her daddy knelt down next to Darryl who had been swallowed by the fog.