The Footbridge That Beat the Toll Gate

The Rails

The rails were the part Coy had been fussy about, and he was right.

I welded uprights every six feet on both sides, made from the last joint of pipe cut into short lengths. I ran a top rail at forty-two inches and a middle rail at about twenty-one.

The uprights stood close together, so a four-year-old had a pipe to hold every few steps and nowhere to wander.

Hub checked every upright. He checked every weld on every rail. He took a ball-peen hammer and rapped on each one and listened to it ring.

At about four o’clock Sunday afternoon, he climbed up onto the bridge on his side and walked to the middle. He stood there with his hands on the top rail and looked up the creek and down it.

“Bounce on it,” he said to the men.

Eleven grown men walked out and stood on that bridge together. Hub had them jump. All at once, three times.

Then Hub got down on his belly on the far bank, in his good overalls, and sighted along the stringers.

“She didn’t move a quarter inch,” he said. “I’ve seen rig floors move more.”

I was standing at our end with my hood flipped up and my gloves in my back pocket. I don’t think I said anything. I don’t think I could have.

Sunday Evening

When everyone had gone home, I walked out to the middle of the bridge by myself and stood where Hub had stood.

The creek was going down. It was still brown, but you could hear it now instead of just seeing it, the little talk water makes over rock.

Up on the hill, Vance Tolliver’s gate was closed. His coffee can was still on the post. I could see it shining in the last of the sun.

I could see him, too. He was sitting on his tailgate up by the hay barn, the way he sits most evenings. He had been sitting there a good part of the weekend.

He had watched the winch truck come. He had watched the pipe go across. He had watched eleven men jump on it.

He had not come down once.

I lifted my hand to him. I don’t know why. It was not a wave, exactly. It was just a hand.

He did not lift his back.