In the previous installment:
Darnell lost Leesa, the love of his life, to a quarry accident. Now he must find a way to carry on. He begins a new relationship and finds a powerful, surprising connection with the land. Around him, though, negative forces are arrayed that will bring new complications and pain to his life.

View previous chapters: 11 thru 15

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Chapter 16

The only thing that Harry couldn’t make a plan about after his revelation was what kind of memorial he was going to make for Leesa at the quarry. He thought about it. He thought about taking a huge chunk of sandstone and having Leesa’s beautiful face chiseled into it. He then thought of the huge howl of laughter Leesa would have produced having met that idea. She would have said something like “You can do that as long as you put President Kennedy, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix there with me. Mount Rushmore East you could call it… Harry you’re such a doofus.”

He thought of renaming the quarry to serve as her memorial. When he put “Leesa’s Rocks” down in a list of ideas he quit trying in a fit of self-critical laughter.

He had to let the idea drop. His businessman’s brain could stretch no farther on the subject than it already had. He closed up the office, hopped into his Lincoln Continental, and flew down the valley to the Foothills Country Club. He had a 10:30 tee time with his old buddies Mitch and Killer. The weather was the kind that one could only experience in the mid-atlantic states. The air was fragrantly moist but not so much that it was oppressively wet. The clouds were puffy and seemed to be riding on a wash of delicate blue mist. The sun was amicably hot. When his first tee shot left the driver it sailed out into the fairway like a cartoon missile. He was certainly going to enjoy this round of golf. The beer in the cart tasted like nectar from the gods.

Hole five was a longish par three. It required the sober golfer to hit a hard high tee shot that needed to clear an ancient lime quarry and some equally ancient pear trees at the right front portion of the green. The tee looked into the sun. The water in the quarry shimmered and blended seductively with the misty air. Harry teed up and stood in. He surveyed the green and measured the hit in his mind. He looked again and, just as he started his back swing, caught the figure of a woman on the apron of the green. The woman was Leesa; there was no doubt in his mind. She had on a fringed buckskin dress and too quickly to be believed bent over and shot him a moon. He released the swing and lost the ball in the sun. Mitch and Killer said the shot sounded sweet. Harry said nothing about Leesa. There was no plop of water but the ball was nowhere to be seen. Mitch and Killer took their shots. The three of them spent almost five minutes trying to locate Harry’s ball. Mitch got impatient and took his putt. It was a 15 footer and he was deadly from that range and wanted to sink it right away. Killer yanked out the stick for him. Harry’s ball thunked to the green. It had been in the cup-a hole in one, an ace.

Harry was to call the golf tournament the Leesa Pines Memorial Invitational and inaugurated play in the fall of 1980 at the Foothills Country Club. It eventually earned him more money than the quarry. Elgin Wool designed the new course that was built from the 20^th Anniversary profits.

Chapter 17

Darnell was into his second week of agoraphobia. In that time he had put together what he eventually trusted to be the sign he got during the thunderstorm. The pile of dirt in his yard had been heavily gouged by the torrent. He took the tools and the screen out to it and began to repair the damage. He set the screen up on some two foot long boards so that it leaned on an angle. He screened the soil before he finished off the repairs so that the surface of the pile would have soft soil in which he planned to plant more wild plants that he would gather.

The tools felt good in his hands. He planned to fill the gullies with the larger rocks from the screening. So he started shoveling the leavings into the screen. He shoveled for a good while. He tossed the rocks to the side toward or into the gully if he could make it. He worked automatically and serenely. It felt relaxing and somehow rewarding. He couldn’t put an exact estimate to what was going on as he was doing the work but he enjoyed it immensely.

He took a little break and sat on the side of the pile near the gully. He looked down into the bed of rocks there and his eyes rested themselves in the strewn pattern of stones and rocks. It was minutes before he realized that he must have dozed off.

When he awoke he was still looking at the stones in the gully. As he regained his senses he understood that he couldn’t move his eyes. He was drawn to some detail in the stones and rocks that had not caught his attention before. A smooth stone was very oddly shaped. It had a shininess to it as well. It looked like a pair of wings. He bent and picked it up. It had a perfectly round hole down the center of it where wings came together. Darnell was mesmerized. He had no idea what it was. It felt good in his hands but it felt alien also. He took the stone over to the porch, sat down, and carefully turned it over in his hands cleaning the dirt from it as he examined every detail of its surface. He decided it was manmade.

He let out “Holy Smokes!”

Chapter 18

Maybe Donald liked the dark side of the moon because there he could hide things. Darnell could not figure out where Donald came up with a lot of the things he knew and would say when he was asked for some kind of response.

Donald took a second’s glance at the wing shaped stone with the hole that Darnell was showing him and turned away quickly.

“Hey, man, you got some big medicine from the Grandfathers there, buddy-o.”

“What do you mean, Donald? What is it?”

“Whites call it a banner stone, but it is for… The old ones used it to… uh, never mind, goofus, you just found something very nice. What else you find?”

“I haven’t found anything else, I don’t think. D’ya wanna look down by the dirt pile with me? Maybe I just don’t know what I’m lookin’ at.”

“You don’t. I’ll look a little bit. I’m kinda thirsty and hungry.”

Donald got very uncomfortable very quickly down by the dirt pile. There were artifacts all over the place. He didn’t say anything to Darnell about what he knew about what was there. He looked at the sky and said that Darnell could go along to The Rail with him if he wanted.

Darnell declined the offer as he normally did. Donald was slightly aware of Darnell’s commitment to stay at his house until he knew what he was going to do with his wanger. How had Darnell put it? Until he worked things out in his heart. Donald didn’t mind because he needed some thinking time in order to decide what if anything he should do about all the artifacts Darnell was sifting out of the dirt pile.

Darnell kept screening the soil after Donald left. He noticed as Donald pulled away that the Biscayne was sounding very ratty like maybe the exhaust manifold was about to fall off one side of the V-8. Donald didn’t give a shit that was for sure.

A beautiful fluffy mound of sifted soil was beginning to accumulate behind the screening frame. The soil was a luminous shade of coppery brown. Darnell liked to stare into it and smell it as well. It truly caught his attention more than the stones and rocks. He believed that it would be perfect growing soil for his favorite plants.

He decided then and there that he would pick up some clay pots for plants at the flea market. He would try growing plants on the dirt pile and in pots. It sounded like it might be a good thing for him to do for fun. He just couldn’t help from being that freakin weird guy that everybody saw him as. He was walking down the road with a kick me sign flapping in the breeze on his back and he had no clue whatsoever.

Chapter 19

The next day was Saturday so Darnell fired up his light blue Chevy pickup truck and headed to the flea market. It had been over three weeks since he had pulled out of his lane. It was a fine summer morning with the hint of things to come later-maybe a rain shower or a fast moving thunderstorm.

Darnell always circled the stands at the flea market before finding a parking spot and getting out to walk around. If he saw anyone he wanted to avoid he’d just pull away and wait till later or for another weekend. Today’s crowd looked cool so he stopped. It was a busy morning. He knew which stand owner would most likely have the pots he was looking for so he headed directly there. The choices of pots available weren’t as many as he had hoped. His quirk in choosing to own anything was in his ability to be able to choose the object’s uniqueness. He wanted at least a dozen pots but he wanted each pot to be different. He found five distinctly different clay pots in the stacks. He eyed up a sixth candidate and drifted back slightly as he held it up to the light.

By the time he realized that he had collided butts with the person bending over behind him he had already lost his balance and landed on top of the person.

For him it was a soft landing very soft. And fragrant.

For a second he didn’t move, didn’t want to move because the feeling was extraordinary. He turned over slightly. It was if he embraced a smooth agile animal. The image of an otter came into his mind. An otter that smelled of flowers.

“Whoa chief” she said “is that a spear in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”

Darnell pulled back to see. It was the girl from Mrs. Gruber’s deck.

He didn’t stop this. He kissed her. She kissed him back. It was wet and warm.

In the next instant he stood before her. She laughed.

“Well, chief, what’s next?”

He couldn’t run this time.

“I’m Darnell” he said.

“Yes, I know… I’m Jill, but you must call me River. I’m not wasting time with you. That’s the name my People gave me. River Woman? OK?”

“Sure, River.”

“And the name I give you now is Spear. Got it? What are you gonna do with the pots, dude?”

“Huh?”

“Grow pot?”

“Huh?”

“Just kiddin, you look like you could be an ‘illegal farmer’.”

“Huh?”

“Stop playin stupid with me. You’re a hippie, right? You know exactly what I mean.”

“It’s just that you would think I’d do something like that. That would be a waste of time. Especially the hippie generation’s time.”

Jill was taken aback. She forgot with whom she was dealing. “Yes” she thought “the spirit man is strong. That is what Grandmother told me. When you see one, strong things happen.”

Jill lowered her eyes. She gave him a little shove with her arm to suggest a truce. He laughed.

“Could I buy you a hot dog, River?

Jill hated hot dogs.

“That would be very nice.”

Nikki and Norma had wandered off. Jill didn’t care to find them. She helped Darnell pick out more pots and then roamed the flea market the rest of the morning with Darnell and let him drive her to his house. She roared with laughter when she jumped into Darnell’s pickup. She was on the “res” again. When they crossed the valley to his house a gentle rain fell on the road bringing steam up into the air.

Chapter 20

Darnell dropped Jill at the Gruber’s before dinner.

“I’m going home to Pittsburgh tomorrow. Harry, Norma, and Nikki are driving me back. You take care of yourself, brother. We’ll meet again, for sure.”

Jill leaned in and kissed Darnell on the side of his face. This second kiss threw a tremor up both their spines. Darnell threw the pick-up into second gear.

“You know where I’ll be, that’s for sure” he said as casually as he could.

“Later, Spear. I’ll be home soon.”

With that Jill turned and was gone into the Gruber mansion. In her hands was a small clay pot in which was planted what Darnell called arrowhead. He gave it to Jill because he had found the plant in water by the edge of the creek. “Perfect for River” he thought.

“Remember,” he had told her “to keep it very wet.”

“I won’t forget, doofus!” she giggled.

Darnell pulled out of the Gruber’s driveway headed towards Donald’s house to see if he was home. His body spun out of control. He laughed.

“Holy Crow” he whispered to himself “Holy Crow. Donald will never believe this.”

But Donald wasn’t home.

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Continue: view chapters 21 thru 25