I say it was the old river road, because there was a new one now, an offshoot of the highway farther down from the wreck, which ran under the train bridge to the riverside. The old one had followed a similar pattern, back in the old days before the dam. Once the river started rising, the part of the old road by the shore had been slowly covered up by water. In time, the road was blocked about a mile before the wreck by one of those black-and-white painted barricades with a yellow traffic diamond studded with reflectors. In time, the pavement crumbled and the hillside undermined. Crumbled clods of dirt and grass clumps fell down to the bottom of the hill and replaced what was left of the road. Bushes grew up, weeds choked things, old rusted beer cans and other debris were bared.
Parents warned their children not to play on that road. The undermining of the hillside worried them. But, kids being kids, we all went down there to play. It was a great place to set up forts and go exploring. The only danger I ever saw was the wasp nest in a hole near the rusted car.
Progress comes to all places, even Prairie Cross. The aging of the population brought a new idea to town, an assisted living center for people who needed a little help but who otherwise could manage on their own. The plans were drawn up, and the site determined: The Old River Road. The hillside would be graded, parking put in, and a small infirmary built. The entrance to the complex would be about where the old wreck lay.
Once the weather turned nice in spring, they brought in the equipment. Earth-moving monsters, graders, scoopers... It was almost as big a production as the building of the apartment complex in the quarry. And, since entertainment hadn't improved, the site was an attraction to people looking for a little excitement.
First, the road was smoothed out enough for the trucks and equipment to come along. Then the hillside began to be scooped away and reinforced. The day came when the car was to be towed out. A lot of us were there for that. It had been part of our world since we could remember.
Bushes were torn out, earth scooped and chipped away. More and more of the car was revealed. First, the chrome of the back window frame, then the dirt-filled back window area. The crushed top followed and I heard someone say behind me, "And you said it was cut off!"
At last, the whole thing was revealed. It was almost completely rusting away. The foreman stood and looked at it a while, then motioned for one of the scoopers to come up. People moved back while straining forward. The adults were just as bad as the kids. The scooper reached its metal cradle down and started to lift the car.
"It won't make it," someone said behind me.
"The rust'll collapse, they'll have to make a few trips."
The scooper lifted the chassis. The thing shuddred and groaned, then the front of the vehicle fell away from the corrosion. Nothing was heard above the noise. Then someone hollered.
The firewall was still there in parts, but through a gaping hole we could see bones. And not from someone's chicken take-out. The shifting had thrown them forward and there were several sticking out through the gap.
Everything stopped while the police and the medical staff looked into it. The site was cleared, work was suspended for a week. At the end of that time, the verdict came down:
There were four occupants of the car, and they had been dead for forty-some years. They were identified as four young people who had been missing all that time and who had been thought to have run away from home. The officials speculated that they had decided to go riding on the Old River Road after it had been closed, just for fun. Some beer bottles in the back led them to suspect that some minor consumption had been going on. They must have careened around the curve and smashed into the embankment, which then crumbled down and crushed the vehicle and its occupants, leaving the familiar rusted trunk we all knew.
"They were known for that," one of the people at the store said once the news came out.
"What about that car?" someone else asked. "Why didn't they run the license plate and find out?"
The man who had started the talk shrugged. "You didn't know those kids," he said. "They were a bad bunch. Thought they were tough. They stole cars and went joy-riding. To make it harder to be identified, they'd take the license off or mud it out. The least offensive thing they ever did was to go down that road when it was closed."
The four were buried and their families finally had that closure that comes from knowing at last what had happened. And the new Assisted Living Center is doing nicely, except for some lonely nights when late-returning residents swear they can hear the sounds of drunken revelry and the squeal of tires along the Old River Road.