Biting the Moon (3 page)

You mean subcutaneously?

She had said
yes,
wondering what it meant.

But that's not for amateurs.

Well, you've got a lot of amateurs out there doing it.

We're not talking druggies here.
Raised his eyebrow.
Are we?

Her sigh, being honest, was extravagant.
No, I'm just saying there's an awful high incidence of success for untrained hypodermic users.

The vet's mouth had twitched as if he was trying to keep from laughing and didn't seem to realize they'd drifted away from the subject of Jules.

My mother's a nurse. She can do a proper injection.

If she's a nurse, she can administer pills too.

No, she can't because she's got arthritis. It's in her hands and she can't hold Jules's mouth open the way you have to like—this.
Here she twisted her
hand around, showing how much strength it would take to hold open Jules's mouth.

Just what kind of dog is this?

In the waiting room she'd seen small dogs and large, one that looked as big as a panther.
It's like that big one out there.

The Rottweiler?

Yes. Look, I'm not asking you to give me anything; I'm only asking for information. How could I go out and shoot up on information?

Since that was true enough, the veterinarian showed her what he used to anesthetize and what he might use to keep the pain down during recovery.

She had thanked him profusely. By the time she left the vet's office, she was so convinced of Jules's existence he became part of her Olivier family. Often, she had to shake herself out of whatever dream she'd fabricated.

The second visit to the pharmacy had been far more productive. It had taken some time searching with her flashlight—she brought along her own, which was a halogen one and stronger; at the same time, it didn't diffuse the light but concentrated its thin beam on what she was looking at.

Fortunately, the codeine was not locked up. It was in tiny premeasured bottles of the sort she thought you'd stick a hypodermic into and draw the fluid out with. She debated how many of these she could safely take—none, probably, since the pharmacist would have his supply carefully recorded. Still, if she took three or four, it wouldn't be enough to arouse suspicion right away (for there were at least thirty or forty of the little bottles). It might be a while before he realized they were missing.

Thus, here she was for the third time. It amazed her how easy it was to “break in.” If she'd been a thief, a real one, she could probably work this trick in half the stores in town.

He must've got in a new supply, for now there were perhaps twice as many bottles of the drug. She had found that a quarter of a bottle was really enough to stop the pain so that the animal could relax and even sleep. She was, of course, afraid of a lethal dose, so she had tested varying
strengths on herself (hoping she wouldn't become addicted) and had taken the dose down from there. She supposed an animal would need less than a human. Anyway, she told herself that such a death would at least be preferable to the slow and agonizing one of dying in a leg-hold trap.

She put three more bottles in the outside pocket of her backpack and was about to leave the cubicle when its fluorescent ceiling light, directly above her, flickered on.
Oh, God,
she thought.
He's come back.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted at the glass, but with the light on directly above her, the pharmacy was simply thrown into greater darkness. The only things she could make out were humps of shelving and the area around the front window, which had its own lights. She could see nothing else; she could see no one.

The girl inside the pharmacist's cubicle could have been on a stage lit by footlights, trying to look out over a dark theater into an audience she couldn't see. This image was enhanced by the little dispensary's being raised on a platform. There was a set of switches inside the front door that operated all the lights, and it was one of these that Mary had flicked to flood the cubicle with light.

Mary stood near the pharmacy's soda fountain, wondering who this blond girl was. A druggie, probably. Why else would anyone break in and head for the small room where the pills and bromides were shuttled into little amber tubes and dark bottles? There was plenty of stuff back there, lots of codeine-laced painkillers. Valium, Demerol, Percodan. Heaven for an addict.

But what had really stopped Mary dead in her tracks, had shut down that shout in her throat—
Who are you? What're you doing?
—was that the girl made Mary think she was seeing things, for she looked like Mary's dead sister. She looked so much like her that for a second Mary
had grown giddy with the hope that Angela's death had been a terrible mistake, that the body had been misidentified, that it wasn't Angie they'd buried, and by some miracle she was back.

Mary shook her head to clear it. Of course, as she looked at this person who could not see her (and that was an unaccountable pleasure, Mary thought), it had taken but a moment to show Mary she was wrong; the differences between the two were many, too many to comprehend, really, and the reason for confusing Angie and this girl was wishful thinking on Mary's part. That and the long pale hair, the fragile look of the cheekbones.

She flicked on the overhead lights in the rest of the pharmacy and started walking toward the back at the same time that the girl walked out of the cubicle. Mary saw she was much fairer than Angie had been and much younger. And Angie would never dress in jeans and an old shirt. She'd always worn loose dresses. Mary tried to sound authoritative. “What're you doing? Were you after the tranks, the Valium and stuff?”

The girl shook her head slowly. “I'm not an addict.”

The girl didn't follow this up with what she
was,
though. Apparently, she didn't feel much need to explain herself. Mary rather liked that, but she wasn't going to let on that she did. “Then what were you after?”

“Painkiller.” She held up a small bottle. “This.”

Mary frowned. “For what? If you're not an addict, like you say.”

The girl looked down and then (as Mary saw it) “adjusted” her expression. Or “arranged” it, to back up whatever lie she was going to tell. Mary knew this because she did it herself quite often. She waited, her own face expressionless.

“I have this really sick aunt—”

“Oh,
please
.”

“Who are you, anyway?”

“My name's Mary Dark Hope. I work here. My cousin used to own it, her name's Schell. It's still called Schell's Pharmacy. Now it belongs to Dr. Rodriguez.” Wait a minute! Why was
she
answering questions? “So what's
your
name?”

“Andi.” She seemed to be thinking again, her eyes moving over the room, raking the air, as if she were trying to turn up something. She added, “Olivier.”

“Well, glad to meet you. But what do you want painkiller for so much you'd break in and steal it? And not for your sick aunt.”

“Coyotes, foxes, bobcats—anything that gets stuck in one of those leghold traps.” She blinked several times, her lashes fine as dandelion filaments. She gestured with her head. “Out there.”

Mary was stunned. This had to be the truth because it was simply too outlandish for a lie. But she didn't know what to say. She looked back toward the soda fountain. “You want an ice-cream soda? Or a milkshake? That's what I came in for. Dr. Rodriguez lets me come in any time I want to.”

With a great deal of relief and a brilliant smile, Andi said, “I haven't had one in a long time.”

“Come on; it's over there.”

Andi followed her down the aisle to the soda fountain and sat up on one of the tall stools. “Chocolate,” she said, pushing a strand of her silvery-blond hair back over her ear.

Mary set out two ribbed glasses and started digging into the container of hard ice cream. Her head was into it so far that her voice, when she asked the question, echoed. “Do you live in town or outside of it?” Mary stood up straight. “This ice cream's like concrete; I'll have to wait a minute.”

Andi had been leaning over the counter, watching the progress or lack of it. She looked disappointed. Actually, Mary thought, she looked as if she might be hungry. Pinched, a little. “Anyway, I feel like maybe I'd like a sandwich. We could have the sodas for dessert.” She wasn't hungry; she'd just eaten what felt like a tubful of polenta with chicken and pozole, one of those heavy meals Rosella liked to cook. But now she opened the refrigerator under the counter and took out some cheese. “You want cheese or ham or—chicken, there's some chicken slices?”

“Cheese would be great, thank you.”

Mary set about making the sandwiches—she guessed she could eat a little so that Andi wouldn't think she was a charity case—mayonnaise and some wonderful nut bread. She repeated her question. “Do you live in Santa Fe or outside of it?”

“Outside, I guess you'd say.”

Mary glanced up, thinking that sounded kind of vague. “Like in Tesuque or someplace?”

“Well, no, I really mean outside.”

“Camping?” Mary finished constructing one of the sandwiches and cut it in half.

“Kind of. Thanks!” Andi looked at the sandwich as if it were spread with pearls instead of mayonnaise.

“So you only kind of camp?” Mary put a slice of cheese on a slice of bread and folded it over. She took a small bite. Andi was eating her sandwich very carefully, as if she didn't want it to be gone too soon. “And that's how you see these coyotes?”

Andi was silent, thinking and chewing. She said nothing more until she'd eaten the sandwich half. “Actually, it's a kind of camping trip through the mountains and so forth. It's more to study . . . trapping.”

Mary knew this wasn't true from the way she ended up so weakly on that word. But she didn't contradict her. She hated it when people stepped on her own evasive answers to things. She went back to digging at the hard ice cream, and said, “I hate those traps. I saw some pictures once of a gray wolf with its leg caught in one.” She had actually only glimpsed the picture and looked quickly away. She thought of Sunny. How she'd feel—rather, how
Sunny
would feel—if he got his leg caught in one. “It's like torture chambers that they used to have in castle dungeons. That's just what it looks like. Iron jaws.” And then Mary realized that Andi had been trying to rescue animals. Not just one she'd stumbled on, but many. That she went looking for animals in trouble. She stared at Andi, who was eating the crust of her sandwich and who said nothing, only nodded.

Mary stepped back, feeling shy, almost dumbstruck. This girl had thought these rescues so important she had been willing to commit a crime to get medicine. Who was she? Where had she come from?

“I loved this bread. Could I have another piece?”

“Sure. There's butter, if you want it.” When Andi nodded, Mary got out butter and cut off a thick wedge of bread. “It's from Cloud Cliff.”

“Cloud Cliff?” Andi smiled. “Yes, it should come from somewhere with that sort of name.”

“It's a bakery.” She slid the bread onto a plate and put it on the counter. “Did you drive into town?”

Andi chewed the bread, shook her head. “I don't have a car.”

“How old are you? You look seventeen, at least.”

Andi hesitated, then said, “Seventeen, yes.”

“I'm—fourteen,” said Mary. Well, she would be in a couple of weeks.

“Good. Then we're practically the same age.”

Mary thought that was one of the most generous things she could imagine, to be granted another year or two by an older girl. She was a little stunned. No older girl she had ever known would have given her a three-year gift of age. To the contrary, the sixteen-year-olds loved to lord it over anyone a day younger. She said, “I was thinking: when you're young, being older is so great; when you're older, being taken for young is. It's weird, age.”

“Then it must not be very important; it must not really mean anything. Fudge sauce!”

“
Hot
fudge sauce!” Mary ladled the sauce onto the ice cream. “I thought maybe we could have sundaes instead of sodas.” She set one dish in front of Andi.

Andi smoothed the fudge sauce over the ice cream. “I haven't had a hot fudge sundae since—I can't remember.”

Mary wondered why Andi's skin, light to the point of luminescence anyway, went so much paler when she said this. It couldn't be the hot fudge sundae that upset her. Mary said nothing, and they ate in silence.

Then Mary asked, “Where'd you start your camping trip? Where're you going after here? I mean, I guess you're going different places. Who's with you?”

Andi appeared to be thinking. “I'm mostly on my own, you could say. It's just sort of something I wanted to do. Every once in a while I find an empty cabin. You wouldn't believe how many empty cabins there are!” As if this were the most surprising thing about her appearance here. “Or”—she shrugged—“caves.”

Mary didn't say it, but such a trip sounded like sheer heaven to her. Imagine being allowed to do it on your own. But the flush that spread over her neck and face made Mary think that Andi seemed ashamed
of it—that it was her fault she had to sleep in caves or empty cabins. Mary knew the feeling. It was that if you didn't have what most people took for granted—the material things—there was something wrong with you: you were lazy, a bum or a tramp. You weren't even an object of sympathy, but of scorn. There had to be something shameful about a person who lacked even the most rudimentary necessities. A home. Parents.