Dark Coulee by Mary Logue

Author:Mary Logue [Logue, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Fiction
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2000-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

15

JENNY woke with a start. Sunshine streaming through trees. Her body was cold and sore from lying on the ground. She got up on one elbow and waited until her head stopped spinning. She had fallen asleep in the shade of an oak tree. That must have been hours ago. As soon as she had gotten to the coulee, she had taken a couple pills. After not sleeping all night long, she had been exhausted, and she knew that school was out of the question.

She stood and walked out to the edge of the overhang—a rock outcropping that overlooked the coulee. In many areas the wash was not very deep, but here it dropped away and cut deep through the limestone. If there was significant rain, a small waterfall would form under the rock overhang. She loved to come and watch the water pour over the edge of the rocks. Liquid silver. Gentle force.

She shook and moved back from the edge, knowing she wasn’t too steady on her feet. She didn’t want to be like the Indian maiden.

On Lake Pepin, there was a spot on the bluffline called Maiden Rock. The legend went that an Indian maiden was told that she had to marry an old Indian chief when she was in love with a young warrior. The night before she was to be wed, she climbed up to this rock, which was more than twenty stories high by Jenny’s calculations, and jumped, falling to her death.

Who could blame her? Being forced to marry some old geezer would be horrible. Jenny never had understood young women who married old men. No matter how much money the old man had stored away, she never thought it would be worth it. But then Jenny had yet to find a young man who did much for her either. Sometimes she wondered if she was a lesbian, but she thought she would know for sure by now if that was the case.

Jenny had always thought the story of Maiden Rock was pretty cool. Very dramatic. And when you think about it, how else could an Indian commit suicide—fall on an arrow? Not very effective. They probably knew of poisonous plants and berries that would kill them, but a lot of them could produce pretty painful deaths.

Jenny looked down into the coulee. It must be three or four stories high here. Enough to do some pretty serious damage. With the tree branches and all, it might not be a guaranteed death, though.

She dumped out her bottle of pills into her hand. She had about ten left. She’d take a couple more, just to get her through the day and help her sleep tonight, and then she’d come off them. She’d go to school tomorrow, and then the weekend would allow her to get through the withdrawal.

She swallowed two more pills. She didn’t even need water to swallow them anymore. Looking up at the sky, she thought it must be getting close to three o’clock, and Brad would be coming home on the bus.

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