Adrift in the Sound (16 page)

“Last call!” Marian said.

EIGHTEEN

RAIN SPRINKLED ON THE PARTY’S REMNANTS
, dampened Lizette’s hair as she picked up paper napkins and cups in the front yard, stuffed them into a trash bag. Fisher fussed with the toppled fence, trying to prop it up, but it fell over again. She stepped over the fallen fence into the field, dampened her pant legs, and happily chased the escaping papers.

In the tangled bushes beyond the meadow she listened to a bird’s tentative evensong, just a few notes, a few more, then it stopped. Along the fence, she saw one brave purple crocus beside a discarded beer bottle. She felt a pulse of gratitude that it hadn’t been crushed during the party and picked it, ignored a guilt pang at breaking this tender promise of spring from its stem. She licked the drop of nectar that formed a dainty knob on the tubular end, put the flower behind her ear, slipped more beer bottles into her sack.

Throwing a leg over the low fence, she stood again on the clipped grass in the front yard and picked up more trash. It felt good to bend, to stretch out the backs of her legs. She squatted, gathered potato-salad-caked paper plates, and rolled up through her spine, took a yoga breath, giggled in relief that the party was over, trash in both hands. She put it in the bag and set it aside, extended her arms overhead, pulling out the kinks, one arm, then the other, Marian style.

Poland rolled up, his truck’s windshield wipers flapping out of sync. She threw the plastic bag she carried into the truck’s bed. He pointed to the flower behind her ear, smiled.

“You found spring.” She fingered the delicate petals beside her ear. “Pretty,” he said. After a couple of months, he thought, she looks plumper and pinker.

“How much more junk you got?” He got out of the truck, looked around. There wasn’t a lot left to pick up in the yard, he saw. She’d done a good job. “Is there more trash inside?”

She checked, returned with two more full bags from the kitchen, beer bottles clanking as she walked to the back of the truck.

“There’s more,” she said. “Couple of bags left in the kitchen. These were on the porch.” She wrinkled her nose. “Stinks. We should’ve made a dump run
before
the party.”

Poland grunted and tied the tops of the sacks, pushed them against the back of the cab. “Where’s Coyote?”

“Inside.” She shrugged, pulled a frown. “They’re in the bedroom, arguing.”

“Not good.” Poland shook his head. “They fight like fire and water, too much steam.”

Lizette got the rest of the garbage. She heard angry voices coming from behind the bedroom door, went into the living room and stood there holding a garbage bag in each hand, listening, trying to decide if Marian was in trouble, needed help. It didn’t sound too bad, Lizette thought, nothing Marian couldn’t handle. But, to be sure, she knocked on the door.

Greg yanked it open, leaned his goat face into the hall, “Get lost!” he yelled and slammed the door. She went out to the truck and lobbed the bags into the back. Poland put in a gas can and some tools.

“Everything OK?” Poland said. Lizette threw up her hands, shrugged.

Nodding at Fisher who’d been putting chairs in the barn, Poland said, “You coming, Piano Man?”

Lizette got into the truck cab, scooting to the middle of the seat. The men got in on either side. They bumped along the orchard road, the tires slogging through the long grass. Poland gunned the engine in the thick spots.

“Sheep need to get to work on this grass,” Poland said as they bounced along. Lizette bumped her head on the cab’s roof and rubbed the spot. “Didn’t want to move the flock down here, not with all those crazy people around.”

Fisher smiled at Poland’s assessment and showed his horse teeth. She looked at his long, pretty fingers resting on his knee, at his perfect, oval fingernails. Compared her hand to his. She felt his thigh brushing against hers and pulled closer to Poland.

At the back of the ranch, in a crease of land beyond the orchard, the dump was a deep cup that had been hallowed out long ago with a tractor. Over the years the hole had been widened and deepened as the hungry maw chewed up household garbage, broken equipment, old appliances, hunks of rotting wood, glass, even a rusting truck that might have been new in 1920.

Poland called it the bone yard. He’d taught both Marian and Lizette to shoot a .22 rifle there when they were teenagers, setting rusted soup cans and moldy fruit jars on an old truck radiator so they could practice their aim. Both girls liked the pull of the trigger, the kick of the stock against their shoulders, the explosion of glass and metal when the bullets hit their mark. They’d squeal and cheer and slap each other on the back.

But, Marian was the best shot, always had dead aim, whether it was pool, bowling or darts. Once she killed a rat at the dump with a Frisbee as it was licking a broken ketchup bottle. It toppled, hit cleanly behind its tiny ear, a red glob of blood suspended on a long whisker when they checked it. Lizette thought about that now, felt like taking some shots, wondered if Poland’s rifle was in its usual place under the front seat.

Poland parked on the edge of the pit, pulled bags from the back of the truck, and started down the slope, holding his body sideways against the steep angle as he went. Fisher grabbed a full bag in each hand and followed him. Lizette took the rest. “Dump them over there,” Poland said, gesturing toward a blackened place in the deep bowl. Two long tree trunks, set side by side, bridged a section of the pit’s rim, about twelve feet above the bottom. They burned the household refuse there, using the big old trunks as a shield against the chance that embers would fly up and set fire to the cedar trees towering above the pit. They untied the bags and mounded the garbage. Poland went back to the truck and got a rake and hoe. He brought the battered yellow and black gas can back, too.

He looked up at the sky that was dropping thick mist onto their heads and doused the pile, a colorful confusion of waste. He picked up a stray napkin and lit the edge with a match and dropped it onto the pile. The fire whooshed into dancing flames. Lizette clapped and half whirled, took a couple of slow bops, right then left.

“Fire dancer,” Poland said, laughing, clapping a rhythm with his hands. Fisher stood transfixed by the fire as beer bottle labels curled and flat black ashes floated heavily up to the underside of the logs. Waves of smoke snaked between the logs and disappeared into the moist and darkening sky.

Lizette called down from the tree-trunk bridge. They looked up to see her balancing there, one foot on each trunk, catching warmth from the fire between her legs, drying her pants.

“Watch out, Hummingbird,” Poland warned. “Here comes fire!” and he doused the pile with more gas. Whoom!

Lizette threw back her head and cawed like a crow, wobbled, caught herself, looked down on the men in the pit, everyone laughing. From the black shadows of the cedar trees, Greg stepped forward, a wild-animal look on his face.

“Fucking bitch! Crazy whore!”

Spooked, Lizette lost her footing and fell hard across the trunks, knocked the air from her lungs. Greg made a small leap to the trunk nearest the pit’s edge. He stepped along spider-like until he stood above her, his face glowing from the fire below like an evil orange lantern. Cerberus flashed through her mind, Dog of Hell. He pulled a butcher knife from his belt. She rolled onto the opposite log and inched backward. He stepped across and loomed over her, eyes dilated, shadowy red snakes of firelight writhed around his head.

He stared blindly, gripped by rage. Lizette heard Poland and Fisher’s voices, but they sounded far away and musical.

“No. Stop. No. Stop.”

Greg did not waiver in his advance on her and Lizette put her arms up to protect her face. Greg swayed over her, slashed, caught her pant leg with the blade, pulled up from the rip. He gathered all his power, raised the knife like a spear above his head—fell sideways.

Lizette saw the round metal disk strike Greg’s abdomen and fall onto the tree trunk, tumble to the fire below. She turned to see Marian standing on the pit’s opposite rim, her arm and wrist still extended from flinging the dented hubcap like a Frisbee. Greg tumbled down the side of the pit, rolled to a stop near the edge of the fire, howled, twisted, held his stomach, flopped side to side. Lizette stood and jumped to the rim, slid down the side of the pit on her butt.

“Move him away from the fire,” Poland said. “See if anything’s broken.” He waved toward the truck. “Marian, get the tarp from behind the front seat. Come on, Piano Man, get his legs.”

Fisher and Poland dragged Greg away from the flames. Marian ran, slipping on the side of the pit, crawling toward the truck on all fours, getting to her feet. The two men lifted Greg, who moaned loudly and spit a little blood. They moved him to a flat spot, next to an old, rusted refrigerator.

Marian spread the tarp, directed as they lifted him. Greg gagged and moaned. She took Greg’s wrist, checked his heart rate against her watch.

“Where do you hurt?” Marian asked, getting her own breathing under control and straightening his arms, squaring his shoulders. “Lizette give me a hand! Straighten out his legs.”

Lizette pulled away from the scene, slowly backing, as if from a poisonous snake.

“It hurts here, ahh, here.” Greg pointed to his abdomen and tried to roll onto his side as Marian pushed on the spot. She ripped open his shirt and looked at the blue welt and swelling, gently pressing into his belly with her fingertips.

“Jesus!” He gasped like the wind had been kicked out of him and sucked hard for air.

Marian looked around at the worried faces. “I think it’s his spleen! Maybe a rupture. We’ve got to get him out of here.” They helped Greg sit up while he cussed.

“Can you stand?” Marian had her hands under his armpits, lifting, but not getting him on his feet.

“How should I know?” In tears, Greg craned his neck, pulled away from her and the pain. Poland and Fisher got on either side of him, Marian pushed. He swayed and the men braced him, pressed in to share their strength. Draping Greg’s arms over their shoulders they eased him forward and he took a step, cried out.

Lizette paced a few steps to and fro, bent and picked up a round piece of glass, fingered it to stay calm. They staggered with him to the pit’s slope and looked up, gauging the ten or twelve feet, to the top.

“Get his belt from the back,” Marian said, looking over at Lizette, who was tweeting into the towering trees while her fingers worked the glass disk. “Snap out of it, Lizette. We don’t have time for that shit!”

Lizette recoiled as if she’d been stung, grabbed Greg’s belt and pushed from behind, the force catching Fisher off guard. He fell sideways against the hill, tripped over his own feet. Greg wailed.

“Take it easy!” Fisher said to Lizette and got his arm back around Greg. He glared at her from behind his thick glasses. “We know you’re pissed, Liz. Knock it off.”

“Go this way,” Poland directed with his free arm. “It’s not so steep over there. But, be careful, the dirt’s slicker.”

Greg let out a deep groan as they dragged him sideways, moving together, until a foot slipped and they all went down, flopping against the slope. Greg cursed as they grunted and huffed, regained their footing and moved him forward again.

“Lower the tailgate, lift him into the back,” Marian ordered, stamping off the mud that had collected on her boots. The others did the same and piled into the truck’s cab.

Marian got into the bed and settled Greg, jumped up and banged on the cab, signaling Poland to take off. He wheeled the truck around and tore through the orchard. Marian jumped over the side when the truck stopped rolling, ran for the house.

“Sandy, get your stuff!” she yelled. “Rocket! We gotta go! Greg’s been hurt! We’ve gotta get him to Seattle. To a surgeon!”

Marian came out leading Sandy by the elbow and slinging her black medical bag over her shoulder, a blanket draped over her arm. “They can’t handle a trauma case like this in Bellingham,” she told Poland. “We’ve got to get to the ER at King County Hospital. I know the docs there. When does the next ferry leave?”

“About twenty minutes,” he said, calmly. “But we can’t all fit in the truck.”

“I’ll drive Sandy in her car,” Fisher said, looking sympathetically at her big belly and sleepy eyes. “That’s how we got here.”

“OK, let’s go. Where’s Rocket?” Marian said as she jumped into the back. Lizette got into the cab. “Gun it, Poland!”