June 1938

Papio Creek’s crystal clear water moved steadily under the Nebraska midday sun, a gentle wind skimming the surface. The Roma’s brightly painted wagons rolled along the trail and settled into the soft prairie grass near the banks. Buckets and spare harnesses clanked against the wagons’ heavy wooden sides. They stopped in a line along the creek bank. 

The Roma had made this stretch of land near the Papio their summer refuge since the 1880s. This was their sacred spot where they could rest and reconnect. The men unhitched their horses and hammered stakes. The women rolled out rugs beside the wagons and built fires. The air soon filled with the savory scent of sausage and potato stew simmering over the open flames. 

After three days, they settled into their resting place. The children played along the creek bank, catching tadpoles with their bare hands. The men lined their horses along the creek as local farmers approached, drawn in by the chance of a good deal. The Roma were practiced horse traders. The farmers slid their hands along flanks and checked teeth and hooves. The women set out their woven baskets and other trinkets for trade. They sat cross-legged on the rugs and crafted jewelry. One woman told fortunes, flipping cards for a farmer’s wife who suspiciously glanced around. 

On the other side of the creek, the townsfolk of Omaha leered from their pickups, arms folded and faces tight. They whispered words of mistrust. To them, the Roma didn’t belong. They were drifters who camped too close to town and traded too freely. Quiet conversation became gossip, spreading from front porches to feed stores to downtown. By late June, the gossip had turned into orders. City officials arrived at the encampment.

“You can’t stay here.”

An elder stood up. “We mean no harm. We bring trade, not trouble. The Papio is our refuge.”

The officials scoffed. “The town is uneasy. You need to move on. If not, we will remove you by force."

That night, a heavy silence settled over the camp. The Roma knew the sting of exile. Their fires burned lower, their voices were hushed, and a decision was made. By dawn, the wagons would roll once more. But before they left, a woman wrapped in a deep purple shawl knelt by the creek’s edge. She scooped a handful of water from the Papio, letting it spill through her fingers in the sun. She whispered words only the wind could carry: a warning, a promise, a curse upon this area that had turned them away.

The Roma were gone by midday. The townsfolk breathed easier. But soon, strange misfortunes began to happen. The creek swelled and raged, washing away bridges, flooding fields, and uprooting homes. Seven people died in the Papio floods at the end of June 1938. Some spoke in hushed tones of the curse, though few dared say it aloud. But there was no doubt for those who had seen the woman by the creek and heard her whispered words carried by the wind. 

The creek remembers.

**********

June 23, 1978

“Anna, wanna ride to Towl Park with me and Joanne?” Patrice asked. 

Joanne stood beside her bike, one hand on the handlebar. She was only fourteen but had a presence far beyond her years. She was Patrice’s babysitter. Once, she told me, “Courage it takes, and courage you’ve got. If you were born Aries, a coward, you’re not!” Her birthday was March 27th. Mine was April 1st. 

I kicked the gravel, reluctant. “I can’t. Anders and I have to wash my mom’s car.”

“Oh, well, your loss. Hey, can we go down your trail to the park?” Patrice asked. “I heard the Papio is flooding again, and we want to check it out.” 

I nodded. “Sure, just watch out for the nettles at the bottom. I got stung so bad yesterday.” 

The woods behind our house led straight into Towl Park and Papio Creek. Patrice and I had built forts there, stick towers and crooked lean-tos, hidden worlds where our mud pies cooled beside a fresh, bubbling spring.  

“See ya!” Patrice called, hopping on her bike. 

Joanne gave me a little wave; her kind eyes were somehow protective. Then they disappeared down the slope, their wheels bumping over roots and rocks in my backyard. Soon, they were swallowed by the green woods.

Anders and I washed the car. Then we tried to out-spin each other with our hula hoops. Suddenly, the park’s loudspeaker crackled.

“All park visitors, leave the park immediately. Evacuate the area. There has been a shooting in the park.”

I froze. Anders stopped mid-spin. Moments later, the woods erupted. Over twenty police officers surged up our trail, breathless, radios hissing.

“Get inside! Lock your doors!” one officer barked. His eyes were scanning everything, everyone.

Sally’s car rumbled down the driveway. She just got back from her haircut.

Before she could even roll to a stop, officers swarmed her car.

“Out of the vehicle! Hands up!”

Sally looked confused and scared. 

“He fits the description!” someone yelled.

I ran forward. “She’s my sister!” An officer held me back with a firm hand.

“What’s going on?” Sally asked, trembling as they pulled her from the driver’s seat.

“We’re looking for a suspect, a teenage white male,” the police officer said. “We need to search your home.”

They started the search in our basement and worked their way up. Their radios crackled while their voices overlapped. I only caught fragments.

“…Patrice Fry…age nine…ambulance arrived.”

“…Joanne Betts…deceased upon arrival.”

I stumbled back. The world tilted. I grabbed the officer’s sleeve. “What happened? Please, they’re my friends.”
He looked at me, his eyes filled with something close to pity. “There’s been an attack in the park. Lock your doors and stay away from the windows.”

I couldn’t move.

Later, I learned the pieces they wouldn’t tell me that day. Patrice had been knocked off her bike by a boy who was fifteen, bigger, stronger, and carrying something no one should have. A steel arrowhead spear sharpened to a deadly point. He stabbed her nine times before Joanne leaped on his back, dragging him down and giving Patrice a chance to escape. Patrice ran for help, blood soaking her shirt. But by the time help arrived, Joanne was gone. Thomas Samson had stabbed her multiple times. 

Joanne Betts was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for Heroism. It is given to those who risk death or serious physical injury to an extraordinary degree while saving the lives of others. Thomas Samson pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. They said his allergy medication made him paranoid, turned his mind inside out, and drove him to madness on that day. He was charged with manslaughter and seven years in prison. He was released on December 3rd, Patrice’s birthday.

Later, Patrice showed me her scars, mostly defense wounds, except for the deepest wound, a centimeter away from her heart. We still had our adventures in the woods but never went to that area. Often, Patrice would sit on a tree branch and stare at the creek. I would sit next to her, my arm around her. The nettles still grew at the bottom of the trail, but the wind whispered differently now. 

And the creek remembers.

*********

June 23, 1983

Mr. Smith loved to fish. There was an inlet off Papio Creek, tucked behind a curtain of willows, where the catfish grew fat, and the rainbow trout shimmered against the setting sun. The creek lay still, except for the occasional ripple — the lazy flip of a largemouth bass just breaking the surface. Fireflies blinked along the wooded banks. The air smelled of damp earth and riverweed.

Smith’s bucket was nearly full of rainbow trout and a big old catfish. He could already taste them crisping in the pan. He decided to walk a little farther along the Papio, savoring the quiet. Then he heard twigs snap behind him. Something moved in the brush. He stopped and listened.

A gunshot ripped through the heavy dusk.

His bucket tipped, fish flopping onto the muddy bank. Silence. Then the creek rippled again, but it wasn’t fish this time.

The next morning, Sally popped her head into my room, wide-eyed and breathless.

“Anna. Did you hear? They found a dead body in our backyard. Right by the creek.”

I sat up, heart thudding.

“Some guy was fishing,” she continued. “Shot dead. No suspects.”

“That’s five years to the day since Joanne died,” I whispered.

Sally swallowed. “And in almost the same place.”

I still remember the blood stains of Joanne and Patrice on the creek trail. Rust-brown marks the rain couldn’t wash away. For years, they lingered, shadows on the ground where innocence bled out.

That night, I went out to dinner with my friends. We went to a little Chinese restaurant downtown. Our server was a woman in her mid-thirties with dark eyes and kind hands. She brought over tea and menus. We ordered fried rice and kung pao chicken, but I grinned when it came time for dessert.

“We have to get the fried bananas,” I said.

“Of course,” Michelle teased. “Anna Banana.”

I laughed. My nickname had stuck years ago, partly because of my obsession with Chiquita banana stickers. I had over two thousand of them: limited editions, Olympic editions, stickers with Spanish phrases, and stickers from South America and Europe. My proudest piece was from the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, a tiny collectible treasure I kept pressed between glass.

“I better ask if they use Chiquita bananas,” I said. “If they use Dole, I’m out.”

Our waitress returned.

“Are your fried bananas Chiquita?” I asked.

She blinked. “I have no idea. Why?”

“I only eat Chiquita bananas,” I said proudly. “I have over two thousand stickers in my collection.”

Her face lit up. “No way! I collect Chiquita banana stickers, too! My dad used to bring them back from his grocery runs. I still have old ones from the sixties. They’re in a scrapbook.”

We spent a few minutes trading sticker stories. Her best find was one from a Caribbean festival.

“This just made my day,” she said softly.

I smiled back and sensed something. “Rough day?”

She nodded. “My ex-husband was found dead last night. Shot in a park in west Omaha.”

“Was he fishing?” I asked, already knowing.

She nodded. “Yeah. They found his bucket of rainbow trout by his body.”

“That was in my backyard,” I whispered. “I am so sorry.”

Her eyes were glassy. “We just divorced last month. It was ugly. But we were trying for our daughter.” She paused. “She’s three. She keeps asking when Daddy’s coming home.”

We sat in silence. Before she walked away, she turned back. “Thank you for talking about bananas,” she said quietly. “For a minute, I forgot.”

They never found the shooter. And her daughter would never know her father.

And the creek remembers.

**********

Late June 1988

The summer air by Papio Creek was thick and still. The air hung heavy with cicada song and the slow rustle of cottonwoods along its banks. Somewhere, far off, sprinklers hissed. On the trail, two groups of teenagers stood staring each other down. 

Victor’s voice cut the silence first. “What are you looking at?”

John didn’t blink. “Not much.”

A girl behind Victor spat. Another girl spat back, and suddenly, the air was full of snarls and curses. The girls began fighting. Victor stepped forward to pull them apart. Already carrying the weight of too many bad choices, John did the same. 

Victor walked up to John, “Why do you keep lookin’ at me, man?” He stepped closer, getting in John’s face. 

John didn’t flinch. “You’re drunk, man. Get out of here.”  

Victor’s jaw pulsed as he stared John down. Then he spat on his shoe and turned away. “Let’s get out of here. These guys are losers.” 

An hour later, Victor’s group came back, and they came back loud. A girl from Victor’s group swung at one of John’s friends. Someone else pulled someone’s hair. The fight was on.

Victor was pushing people back, trying to get control. “Get off her!” He shouted at one of the girls.

John grabbed his arm. “You need to step back.”

Victor shook him off. “Don’t touch me.” Their eyes locked.

John didn’t say anything. His breath became heavy, and he couldn’t shake off that gnawing spark of anger.

Victor stepped forward. “You wanna do this, huh? You think you’re better than me?”

John could barely think. “I didn’t say anything, man. Just get the hell out of here.”

Victor shoved him hard. That’s when John snapped. A glint of metal flashed. John was on top of him, the first cut tearing into Victor’s side. Victor gasped, but it didn’t stop. John wasn’t thinking. He was moving, cutting, again and again. Victor crumpled to the ground, the shouts fading into a sudden, terrible silence.

John stood there, chest heaving, staring at the blood. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. The others were frozen, wide-eyed, and shaking. Someone screamed. John looked down at the knife in his hand, still trembling. 

“I didn’t mean to! Shit! I didn’t mean to!” His voice was small, broken, swallowed by the night and whispers of the wind.

Anders popped his head into my room the next morning, wide-eyed and breathless.

“Anna, did you hear? John Taulborg from our school stabbed and killed some guy from Ralston. They found his body in our backyard. Right by the creek.”

“Wait, what?” I had just returned from my first year at college and was groggy. “No way, Anders. This is deja vu now. Shit.” 

“Yeah, I guess after he stabbed him, he just stood there, frozen. People ran and called the cops,” he continued. “The police found him right by the body with the knife still in his hand.”  

“This is ten years to the day when Joanne and Patrice got stabbed,” my heart was pounding. 

“And five years after that guy was shot in our backyard. It was almost in the same place, too.”

Later, I read in the paper that John told the judge he had acted in self-defense. 

But the prosecutors spoke of anger, of reckless, unreasonable force. “You stabbed him six times. That’s not defense. That’s rage.” 

John was charged with manslaughter and the use of a weapon to commit a felony. He would spend at least twenty years in prison. Two lives ruined. 

And the creek remembers.

**********

The years came and went, but the Papio never forgot. It seemed to swallow every bad choice, every misfortune, every scream, every death. Some believed it was the Roma curse. Others thought that the land, once so vibrant and alive, had become tainted. It was a place where bad things happened too often to be a coincidence. 

Or maybe it’s the way the creek remembers. Everything that happens, all the pain and loss, sinks into the earth, and the creek carries it, waiting for the next person to come. Bad things still happen there. And I think they always will. Like the creek, the answer is unclear, flowing endlessly into the uncertain future. And maybe, just maybe, it is never done.