The Footbridge That Beat the Toll Gate

May

The county started on the new crossing in July. They finished in October, not bad for six months.

But before that, in the middle of May, it rained again. Four inches in one night. The creek came up brown and ugly, right to the bottom of the stringers, and it stayed up most of a day.

That morning I walked down to the bridge early to check it. The water was roaring under the planks and the whole creek smelled like mud and cut grass. The bridge didn’t move. Hub was right. You could have put a cow on it, standing on another cow.

The kids came down at seven-ten like always. Easton walked Josie across, like always.

And behind them, coming down the hill from the hay barn on foot, was Vance Tolliver.

He had his two grandkids with him. They were staying with him that week while their mother was in the hospital having a baby. A boy about seven and a girl about Josie’s age, both of them in brand-new backpacks.

He walked them right up to the end of my bridge. He stopped and looked at me.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning, Vance.”

“Single file?” he said.

“Single file,” I said. “One hand on the rail. Nobody runs.”

He nodded. And then he took his granddaughter by the hand and his grandson by the other, and he walked them across, one plank at a time, with that brown water roaring under his boots.

At the far end, Hub handed both of them a dog biscuit for the heeler.

I stood at my end of the bridge with my hood up and my hands in my pockets and watched them climb the bank to the yellow bus.

Ardith came and stood beside me. She didn’t say anything. She bumped my shoulder with hers.

I’ve built a lot of things in my life. Miles of pipeline across three states. I have welds under rivers and under highways that I will never see again.

That bridge is the only one I ever built that my son walked across holding somebody’s hand.

When the creek rose again in May, Vance walked his own grandkids across that bridge.