Read Online Crooked River: A Novel by Valerie Geary - Free Book Online

closer to the front room.
    “Would you just listen to me for one second?” I recognized Travis’s voice, despite it being high pitched and frantic.
    “Go! Get the hell out!”
    “Dad, please. I’m only trying to help.”
    “If I wanted your help, I’d ask for it.”
    The edges of the curtain trembled.
    Ollie tried to wiggle out from under my arm, but I held her tight.
    The voices got louder, moved closer, almost right on top of us. Someone threw something hard against a wall. We heard a violent crashing and splintering, and then Travis shouted, “Fuck!”
    Mrs. Roth turned her head, blinked at me and Ollie like she was just seeing us there for the first time. “I think you girls had better leave.”
    She didn’t wait for us to go. She just turned her back on us and disappeared through the curtain.
    “What is going on?” Her voice reminded me of Grandma’s that time Ollie and I were visiting and tried to make milk shakes in her kitchen, but forgot the part about snapping the blender lid on tight.
    Another something smashed and broke against the wall.
    Travis shouted, “Shit!”
    Mrs. Roth said, “Language.” And then, “I will not have you two fighting in my store. This is neither the time nor the place.”
    The curtain twitched. Mrs. Roth’s long fingers and violet-painted nails poked through, gripping the edge, readying to pull it open again. “Get a broom and clean up this mess,” she said.
    I rushed Ollie out the front door. We jumped on our bikes and rode hard and fast out of town.
    Z eb and Bear sat side by side on the lowered tailgate of Zeb’s truck, parked in front of the hemlock stump. They kicked their legs back and forth in the air like they were boys again and bored with summer. When Ollie and I came around the last bend, Bear hopped off the tailgate first. Zeb climbed down more slowly.
    Two Decembers ago Zeb had broken his hip going down the driveway to get the mail. He wasn’t watching where he was going, he’d said, too busy staring at the snowflakes coming down. He slid on a patch of ice and landed the exact wrong way. He’d recovered quickly for a man his age—seventy-nine and holding—and liked to say it was because he drank a glass of whole milk every damn day of his life as far back as he could remember. He used a cane for a few weeks after, but now he got around just fine on his own, only having trouble if he was climbing up or down from something, or if the weather was about to change. Even then, you’d hardly notice. A slow descent, carefully putting one foot down, testing the weight; a hand rubbing over the bad hip, massaging the aches away. Mom had once said that Zeb was going to outlive us all.
    I got off my bike and leaned it against the side of the truck. Ollie dropped hers in the dirt and ran full speed toward Zeb. He crouched and held out his arms and when she ran into them, he folded her up and swung her around. For a few seconds he was as strong as Zeus, she was as light as a cloud, and there was no such thing as gravity. When he set her down again, she kept tight hold of his hand.
    I was close enough now to see the equipment loaded in the back of the truck: a spray bottle of sugar water, a saw, a ladder, a bucket, an empty Langstroth box. My bee suit and helmet.
    Zeb smiled at me and touched the brim of his straw hat, nodding once. He said, “There’s a swarm trying to make a home in one of my apple trees. Your daddy said you might be able to do something about that?”
    “Me?” I looked over at Bear.
    He was leaning up against the truck bed, arms over the side, hands loosely clasped together in the air. He squinted off into the trees, worrying a long piece of grass between his teeth. Though I’d seen it done, I’d never captured my own swarm—that had always been Bear’s job.
    “You sure?” I asked. “You think I’m ready?”
    Bear took the grass he was chewing on and tossed it aside. “You don’t have to be ready. You just have to try.” He climbed