The Bobcat & The Fisherman

Fiction

In Meldana people liked to say that half the governors never even knew their state had a Meldana.

In Meldana there were no real estate agents because in Meldana, people left their homes to their kin, and if they didn’t have any kin they left their homes to the neighbors.

The second best thing that ever happened to Meldana was Terv Eckhardt building his frozen food plant there, and the best thing that ever happened to Meldana was that Terv put Kallett County on the packaging instead of Meldana.

No one from Meldana ever got famous. The closest was Bettina Knise making the state finals of the spelling bee, and her daddy took her by the ear and said “now sweetheart, you remember to tell the people you’re from Kallett County.”

In Meldana,  all the residents had jobs, mostly working for Hardtland Foods and every last one of ‘em could walk to work using the pedestrian bridge that Terv’s son Ulf had built over the Nononee River.

People owned trucks because this was America and you were supposed to own a truck, but people didn’t really drive ‘em very much unless they were movie buffs and drove to Lanceville to see Spiderman and stuff like that.

Ulf Eckhardt built such a nice employee infirmary on the plant grounds that his daughter Maija had an exterior wall knocked out and turned it into the finest Urgent Care facility in the state. 

Even when Culber “Yak” Thompson severed his finger doing some inane trick trying to juggle live catfish to impress Debbie Werlen they were able to sew the finger back on right at Hardtland Urgent.

The only way into Meldana proper, south of the Nononee by car was a little one-and-a-half-lane bridge over Abel Creek, which flowed off the Nononee.

Every once in a while people found their way (or lost their way) and wound up crossing Mitchell Bridge, which was technically part of Cotter Rd, which cut off Kallett County Rd #4, which cut off  Lincoln Road at an odd angle that most people didn’t even see until it was too late.

“Meldana,“ Mayor Lillian Davey liked to say, “is so far out of the way that there ain’t no way.”

When strangers stumbled into Meldana, people were nice to ‘em, but suggested they would have more fun at Kallett County Antique Mall, up near that way, or Conner’s Corn Maze, down over there or over to Lanceville, where they got a theater what’s air-conditioned and you can see Spiderman.

The worst damn thing that ever happened to Meldana was some kid from somewhere not Meldana, not really a kid anymore, just turned 19, somehow finding Mitchell Bridge and wandering his way into Meldana and not just down Main Street, which had long since been renamed Terv Avenue, no, this kid, this guy, with a tallboy between his legs and a roll yer own dangling from a lip with a cold sore, he cut through the streets of Meldana doing about 70 miles an hour and just from the sound of damn engine revs Curtis Gohn hopped into Meldana’s only police cruiser and followed the noise, and he got this kid-they know his name in Meldana now but won’t say it out loud ever- in his sights but not before

he struck Bettina Knise crossing Clancy Street.

And Bettina, bless her heart- that’s basically her name now, Bettina Bless Her Heart- she wasn’t just good at spelling, she was a gymnast, so she jumped at the last second and rolled and tried to catch herself when she landed, but the car was just going too fast and she spun too much and her head hit the asphalt on Clancy Street.

They rolled an ambulance to the scene immediately to take Bettina to Hardtland Urgent, but Nikki Gilberti took one look at Bettina, swore for the first time Curtis Gohn had ever heard her swear and called for a damn helicopter.

A rainstorm started before the helicopter got there, and they covered Bettina up real good , then the helicopter took off in the driving, sideways rain, and the whole town was praying and crying, and the only reason Curtis Gohn unhandcuffed the driver from the mailbox next to Okuley Pharmacy and threw him in the jail cell they never used was that the kids, even the little ones, were kicking the guy in the face and there was only swelling where his eyelids were supposed to be.

Curtis kept telling people they were gonna take care of Bettina, bless her heart, because the helicopter looked like something out of Spiderman, and it said LifeFlight, so she was gonna live, and the rain kept coming, and Billy Oldfield had the presence of mind to fill up his RV with gas, both tanks, and he put the whole Knise family in the RV for the three-hour ride to the trauma center at  University Hospital.

There was a foot of water over Mitchell Bridge when Billy’s RV drove over it.

Yak Thompson was standing there, because he had been fishing, and he watched Billy’s RV make two roostertails in the water on the bridge before it drove off down Cotter Rd, then the water kinda came back together, like something out of the Old Testament.

If it rained for another hour the creek water would be over the bridge too deep, and the only way in and out of Meldana would be through the Hardtland Foods shipping and receiving lot on the other side of the Nononee River.

Yak didn’t tell anyone right then, but the rain gave him an idea. So without saying nothing to nobody, Yak borrowed his uncle’s truck and started filling the bed with dirt. 

His Uncle, Tommy “Gun” Thompson thought Yak had finally taken that last step off the sanity dance floor shoveling fill dirt in a damn storm, every shovelful getting heavier, but he was too busy praying for Bettina to confront Yak about it.

Yak made three trips to Mitchell Bridge with the dirt before, on the way back from the third trip, he saw lights in both St. Joe’s and in the little synagogue next to the nursery, and he knew, he just knew that Bettina had died.

Then Yak made four more trips with the dirt, mad as a hornet in an empty copper still, and not crying, just sweating, though if Debbie Werlen asked him he’d admit he was crying.

Hardtland Foods canceled work for the night, out of respect, because the whole Knise family worked there, and some of the second and third shift crew stood on the corner of Clancy trying to get candles to stay lit in the rain.

When Yak was done transporting dirt to Mitchell Bridge -only because he ran out of fill dirt, not energy-he walked by the little memorial to Bettina, bless her heart- she came in third in the state in spelling and sometimes Yak forgot the p in his own last name- and quietly told some people his idea.

A couple people looked at him like he was crazy, because he was a little bit, but a couple guys liked it, especially if his idea involved the corpse of a certain person who had been speeding down Clancy Street.

Curtis Gohn had already taken that certain person to the Kallett County Jail, still alive, where they said they were gonna hold him before arraignment a few extra days for the swelling to go down so that Curtis didn’t get in trouble with the state law enforcement commission.

People said a bunch of prayers, sang a bunch of hymns, and halfway through the second time singing  Be Not Afraid, Maija Eckhardt came walking over the bridge her father had built. to pay her respects.

Debbie Werlen saw the solitary, but very recognizable figure walking over the bridge and thought “that woman is gonna pay for Bettina’s funeral services, bless both their hearts.”

Noel Tremblay saw the owner of the company he worked for walking in the rain and thought someone should bring her an umbrella.

Yak Thompson peeled away from the mourners and sprinted toward Maija.

All Noel could think was crazy SOB doesn’t have an umbrella in his hand to give her.

Yak greeted Maija at the Meldana edge of the pedestrian bridge and began to talk.

More than a few people looked up and thought let the poor rich woman come and sing with us, Yak, but whatever Yak was saying, Maija Eckhardt was nodding yes.

She gave Yak a warm, rain-dampened hug, then walked over to Clancy and joined the residents of Meldana in song.

During the third Amazing Grace, Debbie Werlen looked up and saw the state homicide detectives pull up. She could tell they were trying to be unobtrusive, but their very presence was disconcerting and only served to remind everyone of what, exactly, had happened to Bettina, bless her heart.

Curtis Gohn pulled up a few minutes later.

Yak Thompson could tell by the pattern of dead bugs on the front of Curtis’s police cruiser and the clean grill at the bottom, that the water over Mitchell Bridge was almost impassible.

Yak looked up at the sky and cursed it, almost silently, but not quite, for being late.

                                                         ***

Yak sat on a bar stool on the flattest part of the shore of Abel Creek, leaning just a little bit west.

He chose a bar stool instead of a more comfortable chair to cut down on the risk of him falling asleep.

The bright sun the day after the worst day in Meldana history also helped him to stay awake.

The homicide detectives had left Meldana around 1 pm.

Yak saluted as they drove past, though he wasn’t quite sure why.

When they rolled down the window to wave, Yak yelled “Y’all remember this Oh-ficially happened in Kallett County!” 

The detectives looked at each other, but didn’t seem to understand.

Little before the sun dipped under the top of the birch trees that lined the creek, Billy Oldfield’s RV pulled up. 

Yak assumed correctly that the Knise family was inside, put his dingy Rapala hat over his heart, and bowed his head. 

Billy gave a quick double honk and a solemn wave as he negotiated the turn onto the small, tight bridge that had been built when R and V were still just letters.

The little man in the Rapala hat and the surgically reattached pinkie finger had purposely waited for the RV to come back before he began his project.

He felt like making the Knise family wait at all to get home would have been disrespectful.

But now that the Knise’s were over Mitchell Bridge, home in Meldana, Yak Thompson fired up the Bobcat rented for him by Maija Eckhardt.

He engaged the swing boom on the small excavator and began to dump piles of the dirt he had transported with Uncle Gun’s truck onto the bridge over the creek.

When he was done, he pulled it back off again, just to see how fast he could do it.

                                                         ***

If someone from Meldana wants to go to Lanceville to see a movie, Yak Thompson is pretty damn quick to move the dirt off Mitchell Bridge, unless of course, he has a catfish on the line.

If you wanna cross Mitchell Bridge, which is technically part of Cotter Rd, which cuts off Kallett County Rd #4, which cuts off Lincoln Road at an odd angle that most people don’t even see until it’s too late, you’re just lost, and the bridge is out, and Yak Thompson is just some guy fishing, except in Meldana, where Yak Thompson is a genius, almost as smart as a young lady who went by the name of Bettina, bless her heart.

Please. Especially if you’ve never left one.

I’m feeling rather unloved. If you love this, bring me some new readers, please.

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Photo Courtesy of Getty Images