Corbett
The Novel
by
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“Emi, Emi!” Haruyo frantic with fear. The embankment caved in just a hundred or so feet from where she and Corbett were searching. Haruyo changed her direction and began running again downstream. “She has passed.” Out of her mind and racing downstream, her sister gone forever.
Corbett turned to follow when at the end of a fallen tree stump sticking out in the middle of the stream, he saw a bit of yellow snagged. At first it looked like a beaver towing a yellow dress. ‘My God’ he thought, it wasn’t a beaver but Emi’s head faceup hooked by the nap of her linen dress. The water broke around Emi’s head causing an eddy just below the chin but bobbing like a cork, water also flashed over her face.
“Haruyo, she’s here!” Corbett shouted as loud as he could. Haruyo was long passed the lane and would never hear over the noise of the river. The tree floating freely from the shore bounced patiently against a wall of willows. Emi’s body aimlessly tossed about in the waist high, fast moving water. Corbett couldn’t swim.
Corbett decided to wade in just behind the willows and tree, using both to ease the flow against his legs. The water’s origin just ten miles upriver, a snowbank to be sure. Corbett’s legs stung from the cold and when he crossed the demarcation line from legs to waist, he grabbed himself from the shock. A large limb attached to the bobbing tree lay at the water line between he and Emi. Too high to straddle and too difficult to climb. Holding his breath, he ducked under the limb, came up splashing and gasping. His chest tight, he looked closely at Emi. Dead, he had seen dead before. The face and lips perhaps slightly blue. Corbett held the lifeless body above the water about mid-chest. He shut her mouth and pinched her nose and both went beneath the limb. His energy gone, he stumbled to the bank and deposited her rather roughly and flopped beside her.
The next minute must have been a dream. Haruyo screaming toward her dead sister, then dragging the limp soul to lay face down on some wet grass. She stepped over Emi’s body, one foot on each side. To Corbett’s amazement, Haruyo dropped to her knees, both landing on Emi’s back. Water spewed from Emi’s mouth and nose. Haruyo repeated the act twice more.
“Corbit hurry, bring Emi to the house.” Half walking and half running to the wagon carrying Emi, Corbett’s icy clothes stuck to his body and wept rivulets of cold river water.
“Haruyo, she’s dead!”
“No, no. Icy water.” running ahead.
Each look at the white face he was carrying changed, one time it was Emi, the next Ajei. It didn’t matter which, the pallor of death was there.
Mrs. Portman felt proud, the supply orders for the Gypsy mine complete and in the file drawer. Mr. Portman would have been proud too. Corbett was sure making a lot of noise in front of the house. The front door crashed open, heavy feet barged though to the back of the house. Mrs. Portman pulled open the door to the study, muddy tracks traced the route across her polished floor.
“What’s happening?” asked Mrs. Portman following the trail to the twin’s bedroom. Lying in state was Emi, Haruyo madly cutting away Emi’s dirty dress. Corbett stood near the bed where he laid her. Stunned, he just stood there.
“Corbett, go!” By the time Corbett left the room, Haruyo had pulled off her dress and slipped in next to her sister. Mrs. Portman stepped closer to the pair, examined Emi’s face. “She is dead, Haruyo. She is dead.” The poor woman would not accept the truth.
“No,” Haruyo screamed. “Ice water put her to sleep, not dead.”
Corbett sat sagged on the chair next to his bed, a few drops of water still fell from his clothes.
“Corbett, what did you do? You’re all wet and cold” Jenny not knowing what she was seeing. “Get your shirt off!” unbuttoning his shirt and pulling at the sleeve.
“Now your pants. You’re freezing.” She was at his belt, then to the buttons on his pants. Jenny jumped back embarrassed, what was she doing. Looking at the area in question, had she touched something or seen something. What was she doing? “I’ll get hot tea.” She will never be able to talk to him again.
The evening report to the kitchen table, this time by Jenny, “She’s breathing, it’s so terrible,” tears in her eyes. “She’s breathing like a fish out of water!”
Two hours later, Haruyo, ever the one to appear a proper Japanese, came around the corner, her long coarse hair disheveled and dirty, her robe far too opened for a proper Japanese. She was spent.
“You look terribly tired.” A mother couldn’t have said it better. Mrs. Portman was distraught with the slow, agonizing death of Emi. “What can we do?” Those were the exact words once spoken to her while she waited the last breaths of her husband.
“She will live,” stated Haruyo tired of the comments to the contrary. ”Her heart is beating next to me.”
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About the Book
Young coal wagoner, Corbett Jones, has a bright future ahead of him. He’s got a good job and the love of a beautiful girl, when he is struck with an unspeakable tragedy. In one bloody afternoon, he loses everyone he loves. Adrift in a sea of terrible grief, he seeks out his one remaining family member, the embarrassing father he barely knows.
Befriended by a tiny miner, a mothering prostitute and a powerful mine owner, Corbett navigates his way through trauma and into manhood. He discovers a love of reading and seeks to further his education. He is attractive to women but keeps them at a distance. To him, love equals death. Will he be able to put his tragic past behind him to find love again? Will the search for that love push him into ranching or will his love of reading propel him into being a schoolmaster?
From the mining country of southern Colorado to the logging camps of Northern Oregon, Corbett ranges across the landscape of the West in the late nineteenth century. He faces danger and adversity every step of the way, trying to become the man his father never was. Although he is devastated by loss, he battles a tremendous set of obstacles to achieve his destiny. Will his path always be a lonely one? Will the guilty constraints of his broken heart ease enough to allow him to love again?
About the Author
Steve Whiteman has lived a full life. He has driven cattle through Durango, jumped mining claims near Telluride, and taught in a one-room school. He lived and taught on the Southern Ute reservation for fourteen years. He and his wife live in a small logging town in Oregon.