“Anyway.”
He became aware of Anne, her arm around his own and her head against his shoulder and the smell of her hair mixed with the rich scent of pine. A sense of well-being swept through him, like that of a man feeling sure of his ground.
“Evan got back yesterday, and before he jumps all over me, I better get down to see what he’s got to say about this.”
Anne squeezed his hand, then wordlessly went to roll up her work. Joe started off for the jeep, then stopped. Wade stood behind him, smiling, Butter’s rump on his foot.
“Don’t see what’re you so lit up about, Wade; I still think I oughta clobber you.”
“What for?”
“For inventin that engineer story, that’s what for. Getting me in over my head.”
Wade shrugged, scratching the dog’s ears. Butter looked up, a drooling toothy dog smile, his tail beating the grass.
EVAN WAS AT the home of Einar Leeds, one of the attorneys representing Hellwater Reservoir Corporation. The sky was full of fast moving clouds; their shadows zipped across the browning lawn. The two men were moving out to the porch when another shadow, a silver jeep, raced across the dry grass toward them. Joe Meeks got out and approached them.
“Evan, is HRC surveyin for a second dam site?”
Evan removed his sunglasses, his eyes squinting, making him look oddly haggard.
“Joe, I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Hang on just a second.”
The old lawyer turned his back to Joe, said something inaudible to Evan, glanced over his shoulder. His eyes flashed.
Evan nodded, then turned to Joe. “Better yet, Joe, I’ll meet you in the Mint. Half an hour all right?”
Joe looked from one to the other, then left without answering.
The sun came from behind a cloud, its immediate heat desiccating his eyes. He put back his sunglasses.
HALF AN HOUR later, Joe walked into the Mint. Backlit by the sharp summer sun, he couldn’t see well at first, but knew the boisterous crowd could see him. The way everything fell silent. “That’s him,” he heard someone say, then noticed the turning of heads in a rolling wave down the length of the bar. Walking to the back, he sensed the not particularly friendly eyes follow him.
Evan was sitting at the end of the bar, playing blackjack with Marly who was behind the bar. Marly showed an ace for the house, Evan a two-eyed king of diamonds.
“Hmm. Should I stay or should I draw?”
He dabbed his finger in his scotch, tasting it, musing.
“I don’t care, long as you don’t do both,” Marly said, avoiding any notice as Joe took a stool himself.
“Then I’ll stay. Your bet.”
Marly stayed also. Evan turned over a ten to her unburied nine; both had twenty one.
“All right, this time let’s liven it up. One-eyed jacks wild?”
Marly nodded, reshuffled and dealt, still no eye contact whatsoever with Joe.
“Marly, while you’re at it, why don’t you bring our new arrival a drink, on me?”
Evan lifted the tip of his card.
“Evan, all’s I want to know is about HRC land and the land above Sweetgrass Moraine. What’re they up to? They thinkin about a dam up there now?”
Evan looked at his card again and this time motioned for a hit.
“Could be, down the road,” he said at length. “There’s enough demand for water to warrant another one.” Now he looked squarely at Joe. “If they are, that’s their business, not ours.”
“Unless maybe they’re thinkin to put the dam there instead of Bitterroot Gap?”
Evan took the second card Marly dealt. “Why on earth would you think that?”
“You said they got to build in a hurry. Could be that locatin it there would be a lot cheaper and faster to build.”
“Damn!” Both Evan and Marly turned up 21. Evan shrugged, nodded at her to shuffle again, then turned back to Joe.
“Okay then, what’s your point?”
“A dam at Sweetgrass Moraine, and the ranch right below, all that water, it’ll grow crops thick as horsehair.”
“Sure, if you can afford it, that is; I don’t imagine they plan to give it away.” Evan cut the deck. “Especially to someone with a history of getting in the way.”
Over his shoulder, Joe could see Evan holding the jack of spades, its eerily beady one-eyed profile a little like Evan’s own.
“You talk anymore like you’re with HRC on this. What’s with you?”
“What’s with me?” Evan spun on his stool. “You talk like you want this deal to fall through. Second guessing dam sites now, what, so you can play rancher? Sure, Joe, great idea. Don’t sell. Forget the money. Hang onto that worthless piece of property instead. That’s your new half-baked numbskull plan?”
His voice rose, as he heated up. The many bar patrons turned their way, raptly attentive.
“Look Joe, maybe this is just the next in a path littered with endless screwball theories and being thrown off job after job because of them. Maybe I don’t know why, maybe even you don’t, maybe I don’t even care, but when a maniac with a goddamn relentless compulsion to fuck things up starts in sabotaging the deal I’m working my ass off on, a deal that’s the best, the fairest, and the only way to help us all out, including you, most of all, you, then I do what it takes to stop him.”
Evan downed his glass of scotch and banged it on the bar.
“You think maybe you can understand that?”
He shoved his glass to Marly. She quietly filled it, and while Evan cooled off, drumming his fingers, she set one out for Joe too. It sat untouched. No one spoke. After a while the din returned to the barroom.
“One more thing.” Evan’s voice calm again. “Idiotic intrigues aside, still, it’s been oddly helpful. HRC doesn’t share my certainty you’ll come to your senses, and frankly, if they are looking at this other site I’ll bet it’s because they’re worried you’ll drag your feet long enough that Arapahoe will pull their capital out, leaving HRC holding the bag. Which gives me some leverage, and since I’ve been unable to pin you down, I took the opportunity to use it. I just delivered Einar Leeds my final contract, which is for all the property Bitterroot Gap dam will inundate. It asks for more than I’d ever imagined asking when I first got involved. Whether or not you’re even interested—take my word for it, it’s a windfall even after it’s divided among the Burchards, Gustafsens, and the Meeks survivors. With one stipulation: we close by the first of next month. Simply put, July 4th, you either sign over or the whole megillah is null and void. I cut my losses and get back to L.A and the hell with it.”
He looked to Marly, laughing now.
“Jesus, you know? You need zero tolerance for all this thick-headedness, first Frances and now Joe. That, and find yourself the nearest chapter of Meeks Anonymous.”
Marly smiled, halfheartedly, at Evan, then at Joe, then dealt Evan another card with a resounding click. For the third time, both had 21.
“Hmm,” Evan said, “that’s rare.”
“Good things come in threes,” Marly said, “Right Joe?”
But Joe had already left.
EVENING. JOE IN the lobby, wanting to check out. Marly at the front desk, on the cold vinyl of the stool, arms in her lap.
“I don’t have enough cash, Marly; can I maybe owe you?”
She waved him off.
“I don’t care about the bill, so much as your leaving. Wade’s movin up with you too, I suppose?”
“He’s there with Frances already.”
“You’re not still countin on keepin the ranch, are you? People’d never forgive you.”
Joe studied the floor.
“I guess probably not. I don’t know. But even if it’s just another month out here, it’d be nice for Wade to have it at the ranch. He likes it there.”
Marly lit a cigarette; the match arced smoke as she put it down, waving it, a useless wand.
“I hate to see you go,” she said, surprised by her sudden can
dor. “I liked havin you here, even when I didn’t see that much of you. I thought maybe you’d. . .get to feel the same. Ain’t much, I know, but you liked it here a little, didn’t you?”
“Beats where I came from, that’s for sure.”
She put her hand on his.
“Joe? The truth is—oh believe me I know it’s silly of me—but havin you around, well, it kinda got my hopes goin. Is that why? Too much for you?”
“No but, it’s not like that, Marly.”
“Do you know what I mean, then? At all? Feel even a bit the way I do?”
“It was so long ago. We were just. . .too young.”
“Two people right for each other once, don’t you think they’d be always? Able to pick up where they left off no matter how long a time went by?”
Her chest rose, mushrooming confusion and hurt.
Joe bit his lip. “I don’t know. So much happened.”
“What? What did happen? All these years, and I still don’t know. Did you blame me for Scotty? That’s what I always thought.”
“No. That’s just. . .no, course not.”
“But why else would you have just run off and left?”
Joe lowered his head, but had no answer.
“It might repeat all over again, that what you’re afraid of?”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid, maybe like about what happened to Scotty will happen to Wade? Like that?”
“Marly, I just don’t like draggin up what don’t need to be dragged up. I know you got it into your head I’d make a nice addition to your plans for the Grand, but. . .”
Their eyes locked. She stood, anger rising in her.
“It better not have anything to do with Anne, then. She’s her own girl, Joe, but she’s the one got it into her head. That you’ll get her out of here. Don’t do it to her, Joe. You did it to me, and I can forgive that. Do it to her? I’d never be able.”
“Marly, c’mon. It isn’t anything like that. What’s wrong with you?”
His hands went to his head, rubbing it, soothing it. Then he turned and left.
Marly, her cigarette out, pulled out another, but didn’t light it. She didn’t want to strike flame into the dark of the lobby. She put it in her mouth but didn’t smoke. She didn’t have the breath for it.
WADE WRESTLING WITH sleep, tossing in Emma Meeks old musty bed. A summery breeze billowing the old lace curtains of the open window. Frances’s hall clock tolling. This time he counted twelve.
Whether a minute or a year, he never had a real sense how long the headaches lasted, but since one wasn’t ending, he got up. Walked noiselessly to the kitchen. Put a wet cloth in the icebox for freezing the forehead pain. Took a flashlight from the drawer and went outside. On the lawn, the ghosts of two dogs joined him, curious, sitting quietly at his feet. His calf, bawling faintly across the river, must have sensed him too.
Like always, his eyes popping and flashing imaginary lights He stared into the night sky, big with stars. It helped. He knew no constellation except the Big Dipper, and though he knew it was supposed to be a bear, he didn’t think much of it, with its square stomach and dented tail.
Deer in the orchard eating the few leaves. Turning the flashlight on them, their eyes shone radium green. Fawns swimming with spots; does big with nervous ears. One lone buck, antlers coated with soft fiber. Did Wade’s own eyes look green to him?
His gaze back to the sky again, Wade noticed this time that the Big Dipper had redesigned itself; its ladle was now a gargantuan torso, its handle an elongated massive arm, the triangle of quieter stars above it now a fearsome snout. It was no longer a dipper but a standing sprawling bear, whose immense twinkling outline had overtaken the entire northern night, encircling the earth. The smaller dipper was now her ferocious cub. Awed, Wade momentarily forgot the throb in his temples. And the vivid colored pain rimming his eyes. And the night silence hissing inside his head. In a way it was all normal.
Then a deep growl, a shower of white illumination like a roman candle going off. The darkness erupted, light burst on the leaves of the willows, pointed the blades of grass, flickered from his fingers and bare toes like sparklers. The yard a raging carnival of neons, with light show deer, a fire-tipped porcupine, two vibrating dogs.
And Wade? He was back in the night sky, He was light years gone.
Unconsciousness awhile, all black, all light extinguished. A slam. Gravel crunching, sparks underfoot of a large invisible walking thing. Wade looked hard right, moving the pain and blindness left, so and in the rim of his vision a face appeared, its teeth sparkling in the beam of his flashlight, its eyes shooting violet rays.
“Wade?”
The voice of Joe. Wade felt a force, a hand on his arm, lowering his flashlight. The face disappeared.
“Little cold to be out here in your undershorts, isn’t it?”
A coarse-fabric jacket came over his shoulders. Then a hand came to his forehead. The wide warm palm sucked up some of the headache.
“You all right?”
Wade nodded. The nodding hurt.
A second or an hour passed.
The sound of deer feeding on the stackyard hay. No. The sound of Wade’s own voice.
“There’s a buck over there. He’s in lavender.”
The sound of a laugh. “You mean in velvet.”
Wade laughed too and pain split sideways to let out his mirth, yellow spears in his temple.
“C’mon, sit down here on the porch a minute.”
Joe talking. Wade answered something that meant okay, though it didn’t sound like okay; it sounded underwater. The palm on his back guided him across a seaweed lawn. Grass sticking to his bare feet.
At the porch he stubbed his toe. “Ouch.” His words. A yellow triangle pain joined the green pain; briefly the two canceled each other out. Then he could see a little. Sky. Joe. Dogs. He set his bare feet on their fur. He relocated the great starry she-bear, her pulsing umbra both awesome and indifferent. He could see why cave men looked to the heavens for strength.
“How come you aren’t asleep, Wade? You’re not still having headaches, are you?”
“No.” His head shaking. “I just like it. Here.”
Joe sat, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He scratched Butter, who inserted himself between them, switching his head from one to the other for double pets.
“It’s a temptation, this place. Half wish it’d be permanent.”
“It’s permanent for now.”
“Permanent for now, huh?” Joe chuckling. “Well, I guess enjoy it while you can.”
Wade felt a hand pat his hair.
“Growing out thick on top there.”
“So’s yours.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Joe stood up. “Let’s get in. You hungry?”
In the kitchen, the icebox beamed out white. Wade stepped back. Joe dug out stewed mutton and scalloped potatoes. He ate ravenously. Wade did not.
“So I’m thinkin,” Joe said, licking his fingers, “we’ll go ahead an stay till the end of the month.”
“Maybe even longer.”
“Can’t. Already late to get workin on your school.”
He shut the icebox and guided Wade down the hall. The wall clock tolled. Once. Twice. Three times. They stopped at Emma’s room, Joe waiting awhile at the door as Wade got into bed.
“I know I haven’t quite been myself much. Have I?”
Wade nodded on is pillow.
“Me too.”
Joe closed the door.
IN THE MORNING the window was brilliant with cold, clear sky. Wade woke, his head also cold and clear. He sprang from Emma’s bed.
He stood on the porch. Everything was white.
“It snowed?” he squawked, his voice breaking.
Joe, sitting at the table, said, “Well it’s not powdered sugar.”
“But it’s summer. And. . .how can it be snow?”
“Don’t worry. It’ll melt off by noon.”
“Man, any
thing can happen here, can’t it?”
Wade was starving. He found leftover stacks of pancakes, and those he didn’t eat he took out to the dogs, who leapt eagerly at him, spilling the scraps in the wet dripping snow.
“Damn you dogs!”
Unlike Sorry, the dogs still weren’t taking Wade’s training seriously. As though they knew he was an adult and didn’t present any threat. Even his profanity merely set both tails wagging, like he was playing some fun barking game with them.
“One of these days, you guys,” Wade said, “you’re. . .” His voice cracked again, sinking then rising like a girl’s. He brushed their muddied snowy paw prints from his shirt. He felt like he was maturing the wrong direction half the time.
To feed his calf, he emptied the milk remaining in the peeling steel creamery can into the rubber nipple pail and lugged it toward the bridge. Butter, who ran out ahead, turned back and now was waiting for him, a furry troll, crouched on his front legs, ready to pounce. Wade stopped and planted both feet, lowering his milk bucket. Butter raised his rear end. Wade lifted his free arm menacingly. “No!” he boomed in his lowest loudest voice, the deep sound surprising him as much as the dog. Butter cocked his head, puzzled. For a minute it was a standoff, then Wade flinched in the manner he’d seen Frances do. Butter stood, and backed up. “Sit down,” Wade commanded. Butter sat. Wade walked past, unimpeded. “Now come on,” he ordered, and Butter amicably fell in escorting him to the loudly bawling calf.
AFTER BREAKFAST JOE and Wade drove down into town. Descending Bitterroot Gap, very slow going; the road slippery with melting snow. Coming down one particularly steep switchback, he saw a big cattle truck ahead. Saw it was stopped. Rounding out of the hairpin curve, saw that it was in trouble, its cab in the burrow pit, its trailer jutting across the road, jackknifed into both lanes, a mass of twisted steel.
Fast approaching, Joe downshifted, but it did not slow his jeep enough. He braked, but the brakes seized; pumping them merely locked the tires, throwing the jeep into a headlong slide straight at the wreckage ahead. Only a feebly low guard rail stood between them and the sharp drop-off into Bitterroot Gap. Joe’s only hope, a very narrow gap between that and the trailer wreckage. He could only wheel straight and hope the jeep could squeeze through and not run off the road.