ON A BANK of the Ohlone River in a bayside town called Tres Ojos, a man
and a dog slowly make their way along a dimly lit bike path. The man is walking alongside a bike that’s attached to a small bike trailer which holds all his and the dog’s earthly goods. The dog, a pit bull, follows his nose, sniffing out random wrappers and things only a dog can smell. He’s listening too, with those sensitive ears of his, to the song of the river: baby wood rats mewing in a rotted log by the shore, swirling bats slicing the air overhead, a vole tunneling beneath his feet, a distant car alarm, and also a very eerie tuneless melody. It’s his job to keep the man safe, but also his job to keep his own belly fed. Tonight’s rations have been slim, for him and the man, so his senses are turned up high. You never know what might show up along the river.

And then there’s the man.

His bike has a banana seat and high-rise handlebars. At one time the frame
was black, now it’s just dust and rust. The man’s clothing was also once black,
though his garments are now a mottled mix of dirt and stain, but they have style:
filthy frock coat, novelty tricorn hat, boots. That’s because the man is a pirate—
or believes himself to be. Truth be told, he’s more scavenger than marauder. If
you’ve left it behind it’s free for the taking, that’s his quiet code. Admittedly,
his interpretation of “left behind” is sometimes questionable. But he’s harmless,
mostly, if you leave him be, which most people do. Nothing about him reads
approachable. His overuse of skull-and-crossbones imagery: tied to his bike
trailer, around his dog’s neck, inked on his skin; the way he often mumbles to
himself as he walks the streets of Tres Ojos; the haunted look in his eyes.

He goes by the handle Captain Eddie, but much of the time he’s just called
Move Along! or Out of My Way! or Dude, You Stink! But those who know him call
him Captain Eddie. People at the Food 4 All Tent, for instance, that’s what they
call him, and at the Last Stop Encampment on the river behind the Ross Dress
for Less, where the disenfranchised of Tres Ojos pitch their tents and sleep on
mattresses of thin cardboard, those sad souls call him Captain Eddie too, if they
bother to call him anything. Most people just leave him and his first mate, the
pit bull Apollo, alone, despite them being what you might call a fixture in Tres
Ojos. They came up from the San Bernardino area some years back. Summers
there had gotten too hot, the air too filled with smoke, making it hard to live
on the street, and he’d heard from others in his situation that Tres Ojos was
paradise, and while he has not found this to be entirely true, it’s better than San
Bernardino. The weather is nicer. The police too.

Like Apollo, Captain Eddie hears things others can’t. Voices, for instance,
tricky ones that give him conflicting opinions about what he should do next.
That’s why you sometimes see him sitting alone in a doorway arguing with the
air or standing at a street corner oblivious that the light has turned green. But he
hears more than voices. Like Apollo, he can hear the subtle creak of gravity, the
dry summer grass’s whine for water, the elevated heartbeat of the steelhead trout
as they struggle to swim upriver. Some might call this hypersensitivity a gift, but
mostly it just makes it hard for him to think, all those sounds coming at him at
once. It’s a wonder he gets along as well as he does.

But let’s jump to the evening in question, Captain Eddie and Apollo cautiously
making their way along the riverbank. Our captain is thirsty and his bottle is dry.
Not long ago, river water took him to the clinic, where he’d had to leave his rig
outside, where villains had raided and stolen his good pair of socks, a couple of
Pop-Tarts, his copy of Treasure Island. So no filling his bottle at the river.

He and the pit bull trudge on. They are heading toward Last Stop Camp—the
outskirts of it. The camp itself has grown too big to feel safe. Too many people are
tweaking on fentanyl and meth. Fights break out. But a quarter mile out, there
is a spot he likes that’s surrounded by brush. He feels safe there, or as safe as a
man like him can ever feel, and he hopes that the flat of cardboard he’d slept on
the last few nights and the jug of water he’d left there hadn’t been cleared by the
well-meaning residents of Tres Ojos who volunteer their time to “clean up” the
river. He actually feels lucky. Earlier in the day he’d come across a table of shoes
set out by the church that were free for the taking. Socks too. He’d traded out his
too-big hiking boots for a pair of work boots. Steel toes. Nice. Black. Soles not
too worn, almost his size. Pirate King boots.

As he approaches his spot in the brush, he hears a strange melody, not like a
passerby crooning a light tune to keep the night from closing in around them,
and not like the nearby trees when they sing excitedly readying for a storm, and
not like the high-pitched whine from the electric frequencies cluttering the air.
This melody is sweet, a siren, it calls him—demands him. Apollo stops his sniffing
and lifts his head, pricks his ears. He hears it too, which comforts Captain Eddie.
He trusts Apollo more than he trusts himself.

He and Apollo have been sailing together for over three years now. Captain
Eddie saved the pit bull’s life and the dog knows it. The poor pup had been
torn from his mother’s teat and tossed in a dumpster that Captain Eddie was
marauding. At first, he didn’t even see the tiny squirming whimper of life.
Almost stepped on him. Then wasn’t sure what to do with him, whether he had
the means to care for such a thing. But he stuck that spit of a pup in his gaping
coat pocket, and they’d been traveling together ever since.

The siren’s melody grows in intensity. He adjusts his tricorn hat, nervously
fingers the penny whistle in his pocket, caresses the tarnished brass button on
his coat, the third one, it has to be the third one. He does this to calm his mind,
but it’s not working. He searches for a thought. Best to move along. That’s what
Common Sense says. But Apollo is barking. He’s down at their spot in the brush
and he’s barking and barking.

Captain Eddie steers his rig off the path and onto the rugged berm. The
melody and the barking are cluttering his head. That along with songs of the
weeds, ducks, and stones as they cry out at the dimming of the day, the sounds of
desire, joy, petty jealousies all traveling toward the sea to be filtered and distilled
by the clouds overhead.

Then he sees it. A man’s leg sticking out from beneath a bush. Someone
sleeping in his spot? Someone on his flat of cardboard? The voices in his head
clamor to be heard. Retreat! Retreat! No! Don’t retreat! What, are you scared, you
lily-livered, bilge-sucking scalawag? This is your spot! Take what is yours! The siren,
she urges him forward. Do this for me, she says, for I am The Maiden, and I will
love you like no other. He tugs at his filthy, shoulder-length, flaxen dreads, trying
to clear his mind. The dog, Apollo, meanwhile has no hesitation. He’s stopped
barking and sniffs at the boot attached to the leg. What harm could just looking
do? This is what Captain Eddie thinks. He fingers his penny whistle again,
touches the third button of his coat. Sirens are not to be trusted, he knows this,
they lure men into troubled waters. Still, the melody is so beautiful. It beckons
him. He sidesteps down the bank.

Even with so little light he can see that the pool of blood has not yet soaked
into the soft earth, the man’s body splayed out like a starfish. It’s a fresh kill. What
to do? He shakes his head. Focus. Pay attention. He fingers the penny whistle
again. Wants to pull it out to play to drown out the assault of noise, but knows
better than to draw attention to himself. Is anyone else on the path? He doesn’t
think so. Still . . . Check for booty or set sail? The question rises up out of the
cacophony. It never occurs to him to alert the authorities. He is a pirate. He lives
outside the law.

He lowers to one knee for a closer look. Maybe it’s someone he knows. Maybe
from the Free Lunch Program by the town clock, or the Last Stop Encampment,
or the library where they let him use the bathroom. It’s hard to tell. The light is
bad and it’s so loud. He covers his ears with his hands, but so many of the sounds
are inside his head. For me, The Maiden croons, this one thing for me. Blast! He’s
gotten blood on his pants. He tries to wipe it off, but now he has blood on his
hands too. He’ll have to clean it off in the river, but wet pants will be cold in the
wee hours. Maybe one quick check for booty, then move along. Yes, The Maiden
hums softly. Yes. He yanks at the dead man’s coat, reaches for a pocket then
notices a glint of metal by the poor soul’s leg. He reaches for it.

Chapter 2

TO BE CLEAR, I, Ash Reilly, did not kill my mother. She was already dead
when I was born. Impossible, you say. It happened, I say. Splitting hairs, Clay
would say.

Here’s how it went down. Forty-three years ago, my parents, coming back
from a party, high on the night’s activities, swerved into a retaining wall. Car
exploded. Dad was killed immediately. Mom died in the ambulance. That’s
when I made my emergency exit. Story has it, minutes after her heart stopped
beating, I shot like a rocket out of her womb. I was due in three weeks. At the
hospital, my grandmother was asked what name they should put on the infant
girl’s birth certificate. Slammed with shock and grief, my grandmother looked
to my eight-year-old brother, Clay, who she’d been talked into babysitting. Clay,
having just learned that he’d lost both of his parents in a fire, suggested, “Ash.”
My grandmother, already processing the implications of this loss on her own
precious life, didn’t get the reference, and uttered, “Ash, yes, that’s a lovely name.
Ash. Put that down. Yes.”

Or that’s the way Clay told it to me. Then again, he was known for tall tales.

Clay, my big brother.

The reason I do what I do.

THE DOORBELL BUZZED early, damn early, and repeatedly, and I admit
I lay there for a minute or two, hoping whoever it was would go away. I’d had a
rough night. Woke up at two-fifteen to a couple of guys hurling drunken insults
at one another out on the street. It happens: bars let out; people discover the
troubles they thought they’d left on the barstool were just outside lying in wait. I
get it. Downtown living, downtown soundscape.

My apartment sits above the flower shop. It’s tiny, but it suits me, and the
light is nice. The flower shop sells chocolate too. That’s a plus. On the package-
sized back deck of my apartment I grow my weed. Here in Tres Ojos, it’s legal
to grow six plants. I have room for two. It saves me a bunch of money, which
matters. To make a living, I occasionally work as a grant writer. I’m like a snake;
after gorging on a job, I can make that chunk of change last. Frugal should be
my middle name.

But back to the buzzing doorbell. Whoever it was was persistent, giving me
no choice but to slip on my blue sweatpants and a tee, tuck my graying shoulder-
length hair into a messy ponytail, and tiptoe down the single flight of steps to the
door before the flower shop got involved. I peered through the peephole, careful
not to lean into the door and reveal myself. If needed, I could still pretend to be
out.

It was Crow.

“I know you’re in there, Ash,” he said, as his magnified eye filled the peephole.
“Open up.”

I knew him through the Neighbors in Need Garden. I volunteered there. It’s
a project for people forced to live on the streets here in Tres Ojos. We have more
than our share. They come for the temperate weather and social services, the
garden being one of them. There, they find community, learn skills, and grow
awesome veggies.

Crow is the lone paid employee. He lives on the five-acre property in a one-
room shack. His bathroom is a compost toilet and a garden hose; his bedroom a
bed roll on a cot; his living room a canvas folding chair, a small folding table, and
a bookshelf. He pulls electricity off a garden outlet on a post by means of a long
orange extension cord. With this, he powers his laptop, phone, and toaster oven.
He’s big on solar lights. Says they keep him in touch with the earth’s rotation. It’s
a life he professes to like.

Besides teaching people the power of mulch, his job incudes keeping the junkies
from making the garden their playground and making the RV boondockers, who
gravitate to the dead-end road alongside the garden, pack their trash. Fastidious,
intense, and prone to wild costumes he assembles from the Goodwill warehouse
where clothing is sold by the pound, he’s moody, often irritating, and someone
I am proud to call my friend—though he can be intimidating, especially the
way he dresses. That morning, for instance, he’d shaved his dark eyebrows into a
series of dashes and was wearing a turban stuck with a bunch of black feathers.
He looked like something out of Heart of Darkness.

“Crow,” I said through the crack in the door. “What’s up?”

He stared daggers over his right shoulder. Crossed his arms, one of which was
wrapped in a black feather boa. “We got a problem.”

His use of the word we was troubling. “And this problem can’t wait until I
come by the garden for my shift?”

He reached his hands over his head like he wanted to hit something, dropped
them, then stared straight up like he was demanding God to step up and do
something. To be clear, when I said I was proud to call him my friend, I didn’t
mean the kind of friend who drops by uninvited. Especially pre-caffeine. Pre-
toothbrushing. Still, Crow was not prone to hysterics, and he looked hysterical.

Sighing, I let him in.

Over coffee he explained the reason for his visit. Captain Eddie was sitting in
the county jail—accused of murder.

I took a long pull off my coffee. Let the caffeine seep into my veins. Captain
Eddie was many things: born in the wrong century, a lover of all things pirate, and
a regular at the garden where, if he felt calm, safe—which wasn’t often, he was a
haunted fellow—you might get lucky and hear him mutter to himself something
like, “C-c-carrots on the starboard side.” If he was in one of his darker moods, he
was cruel to himself. “No b-b-better than a bloody bilge rat!” he’d mutter while
madly assaulting the compost with a shovel. He always spoke quietly, his voice
thin and pitched a tad too high, as if he had to fight with his vocal cords to get
anything out. But he was not a murderer. No way. I’d seen him tear up at the
sight of a dead raccoon.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

“They found him with the body. Out by the river.”

Crow’s musky stink made it hard to think. I leaned across the tiny table in my
tiny kitchen and cranked open the window. Outside, a dozen white gulls wheeled
around in the blue sky. It was going to be a beautiful day in Tres Ojos. Or was,
until Crow came knocking.

I don’t mean to sound cold-hearted, but putting in as much time as I did
with the leagues of people living on the fringes, to care for those who are hard to
care for—the vets, the drug addicts, the intellectually disabled, the handicapped,
those just down on their luck—you have to callous yourself, because their stories
are heartbreaking, their needs never-ending, and there are so few resources.
“Stabbed to death,” Crow added. “And Captain Eddie was covered in blood
when the cops came across him wandering the bike path by the river.”
I stared out the window at those free-wheeling gulls, then looked Crow in the
eyes. He had amazing eyes, green with flecks of fire, made even more dramatic
by the new dashed eyebrow look. He seemed tired, like maybe he’d had a rough
night too.

“You ever think about just turning a blind eye?”

He gave me a sad smile. “I think about it.”

“And?”

He looked down at his callused hands. They were large and knuckled, the
nails chipped with black polish. “And then I can’t.”

I nodded. We were two of a kind, me and this human crow, and we’d sat at
this intersection before, many times, and always chose the hard road.

I grabbed a piece of unopened mail from my pile on the table. Flipped it onto
its blank side. Picked up a pencil. “So, what do we know about the person who
was stabbed?”

He sat back in the chair. Stretched out his long legs. “Word has it, it’s that
guy who’s been showing up at the Food 4 All tents. That new guy? Always wears
a trench coat? Even when it’s freak’n hot? Has that white panel van?”

“Doesn’t like to make eye contact? Brings his own bowl?” I asked, because I
volunteered there too.

“That’s the one.”

“Damn. Do we know anything about him?”

“We do now.”

“And what’s that?”

“He’s a she.”

Martha Engber says: