Biting the Moon (7 page)

He gave her a few ineffectual taps on the back, said, “Not used to it?”

Her head came up; she wiped the tears from her eyes. “I'd forgotten what fun it was.”

Heartily, he laughed until the laugh became a chuckle. “Haven't smoked in a while, huh?”

“I'm trying to quit. Haven't tried one for over a year. You forget what they're like.”

“Hell, these are only Merit.” He made a face, crushed his out. “No nicotine, no taste.”

“Still.” She shrugged.

There were the inevitable questions about where she was coming from, where she lived, went to school, and so on and so on. She slipped into her easy lies, continuing to smoke the cigarette, wondering how people ever got in the habit, looking at his hands on the steering wheel, rough but well cared for, feeling uncomfortable in the looking. He lit up another no-taste cigarette, bringing out the gold lighter to do it. He talked about the East and how he'd hated it and moved out here. Ever since he was a kid, he'd loved the outdoors, the mountains and rivers. His daddy had owned a fishing lodge. Fishing was his daddy's life.

When he said that, she flinched and turned to look out of the passenger window. Daddy.

There was little traffic on this road. Only a couple of cars passed them, and there was just one behind them. As she watched the mountains drawing closer, instead of seeming to recede, she thought she'd been right to take the ride; she'd never have got this far, not even by tomorrow night. Now she could get off the roads, out of the towns. Away, just away to the mountains.

The pickup truck behind them passed. Looking through the driver's-side window, she saw it was the old Indian. He turned to look at her, the Indian in the big hat, and made some sort of sign.

“Why'd he do that?”

“What? Who?”

“The man in the other truck. You know, he was back there getting gas—” Something stopped her, a pause filled with warning. What? She went on. “He looked Indian.”

“Well, that's hardly unusual around here. What'd he do?”

“Oh, nothing. Just made some kind of sign.”

“You have an admirer.”

“Don't be silly,” she said, feeling cold again. But there had been something odd in that sign he'd given. Was he a kind of shaman, or whatever they were called?

“Wasn't me he was looking at, darlin'.” He laughed. “I don't know where you're headed, exactly. I mean, where do you want to be dropped off?”

“Well, does this run into I-Forty? Do you know where the Tijeras exit is?”

“Yeah, I know that. But I'm not letting you off at some highway exit. So where do you go after that?”

Andrew had certainly made things easier for her, sharing his fund of information. Confidently, she said, “To Canyon Estates. But you certainly don't have to drive me all the way there. I mean, even Route Forty's out of your way, I imagine.”

“Not really. Anyway, a few more miles isn't going to hurt me; I'm not in any hurry.” He turned to look at her. “But what happens then? I mean, you're sure not going up to Sandia Crest this evening?”

“Oh, no. I'm meeting my family at the trailhead. My father and brothers.” Why her father and brothers saw fit to let her hitchhike to their destination was a question she hoped he wouldn't ask.

He didn't. “No problem, we'll find it.” He started whistling under his breath. “Let's have some music.” He fiddled with the radio for a few seconds, got static, then a country music station.

•   •   •

He found the Estates and the parking lot and helped her get her things from the truck bed. He said he'd wait until her family showed up.

Of course, she couldn't have that. But it was nice of him, she thought, to be reluctant to leave her here on her own. She said, “My brother told me just to wait for them in the parking lot.” This was a poor direction to give; it invited too many questions in itself. She was getting lazy in her lying, overconfident.

He blew on his fingers; he had no gloves. “You're not going to do any hiking this evening, are you? It's near dark. Well, dusk, anyway.”

She looked up at him, backlit by the light of the dying sun that was pink on the western face of the mountains. She was getting tired of making up answers; he asked too many questions, anyway. Probably he just wanted the company, and she could certainly understand that. She said, “Oh, they've probably lined up some hotel or motel where we'll stay overnight.” But if that was the case, she thought, why wouldn't they have had her meet them there?

At least he didn't think of that question. He just stood there looking up at the mountains. When she was starting to strap on the bedroll, she stopped, remembering her brothers were supposed to pick her up, so she wouldn't have to shoulder all of her gear again. She set it down on the ground beside the smiley-face bag. She put out her hand to say good-bye and they shook hands.

He opened the driver's-side door and hopped back in the truck. “Listen: I like to ski, like I said. Maybe we'll see each other on the slopes.” He smiled and winked.

“Maybe,” she said, raising her hand in farewell.

He started up the truck and drove off. Then she realized she did not know his name.

She sat down on the bedroll, as if she were waiting for someone, until his truck was out of sight.

She had left the parking lot and had been hiking along this trail, Faulty Trail, it was called, for a short while. She stopped and looked down the canyon walls to her left, at the slopes of piñon and ponderosa pine, and watched the sunset. A straight line of carmine diffused and spread into a melting bank of violet, blue, and rose. It seemed to pull the color from the landscape—the ocher of the desert, caramel-colored foothills—and cover it with a silvery sheen, with the crust of ice on the snow as bright as a pink-tinted mirror. She could have watched for a long time, but now it would get even colder and she'd better keep going.

She pulled out her compass, not to get directions—east and west meant nothing to her now—but rather to see some concrete evidence that her movements were stabilized, that she wasn't floating away like seed filaments on the air. Every fifteen or so minutes that she walked, the temperature seemed to drop by another five degrees. The air got thinner; she could smell its purity. She took out Andrew's map again. She had missed the trail that went up to Sandia Peak and was too weary to go back and search it out. The trail she was on was well marked and maintained and she decided to keep to it. Tomorrow, she could find the peak.

When she came to a grassy shoulder, strangely fresh and unfrozen, she dropped her backpack and sat down, leaning against the trunk of a pine. She'd been hiking up (and she supposed ascending) the mountain for over an hour. Gratefully, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Night fell quickly, like a blind, in this country. Yet there was never dead dark because of the unearthly light cast by the moon.

Her bottled water was nearly gone. There was a spring near; she had seen a sign. But she was too tired to get up right now. She decided she
could just sleep right here; she unrolled her sleeping bag. Then she got out the wrapped submarine and ate two-thirds. As she ate, her head dropped and she slept for a few minutes. She dreamed in fragments, broken wings of images. Coming awake, she shook herself. Surprised and still holding the sandwich, hand on her knee, she thought that even if she couldn't remember her life, still it was there, locked away in her unconscious. This made her feel better. At least she knew that her old self was near her, as if it were someone waiting behind a shop window, anxious for her to turn up. She finished the sandwich and struggled into her sleeping bag, zipping it up after her as one might lock a door.

She was turned toward an opening in the branches, and through them, at some distance, she thought she saw a weathered wooden wall. Quickly, she rose and went back to a secondary trail that branched off from the maintained one, walked along that, and then to another that was more a depression in the ground than a trail. She came to a clearing in which sat a small cabin in perfect stillness among the trees, unoccupied (she was sure). But how could anyone build a cabin in this wilderness area? It was a wildlife refuge, Andrew had said; it would hardly convey as private property. Perhaps it was just outside the boundary line and perhaps near some other residential area in the foothills. That must be it. Or maybe it was a ranger's cabin.

Wood was stacked neatly to one side of the door, and around the corner of the cabin stood several big barrels. She looked in them and saw water. Rain barrels, they must be.
You can't holler down my rain barrel, / You can't climb
—The snatch of a song swiftly came and vanished, like childhood. Someone singing in her head.

She crossed to the door, expecting it to be firmly locked. It opened at the turn of the knob. She stood in one large room, very neat and clean. In the corner opposite the door were bunk beds and a big dresser. In the center of the room sat a square pine table and mismatched chairs. An oil lamp on a pulley hung from the ceiling over the table.

There was running water, apparently, for there was an old cast-iron sink dressed up with a faded flowered skirt, and behind a curtain of the same material was a toilet. No bathtub or shower, or perhaps the barrels were there to collect rain, soft water to fill some kind of tub. Beside the sink stood a black wood-burning stove; that was what the stacked wood
and kindling were for, then. The surface of the stove was flat and had in it two round inserts like little manhole covers. This would be what they cooked on, all of their food cooked over a wood fire. Imagine.

She wondered who “they” were.

There must be a road somewhere nearby, but she didn't see one. What did the owner use it for? A hunting cabin? A summer retreat? Behind the skirt of the sink were pots and pans, and lined up on the wooden counter were mason jars filled with beans, rice, and other grains. Also, there were cans of soup, a big can of peaches, and small tins of sardines and anchovies. She could hardly believe it: shelter, warmth, food.

Wooden pegs nailed to the wall held metal hangers that rattled in the wind coming through the open door, a sound like tiny chimes. The place was cold, cold as the outdoors. But she could drive this away once she got a fire going. She stood there hugging herself, not from the cold but from the sheer joy of her changed luck. Somewhere she knew there would be matches, for there was everything else.

Everything but a note pinned to a pillow, saying
Welcome.

“I just loved to clean that cabin,” she said now to Mary. “There was this disinfectant stuff in the cupboard, and I'd pour that in my pail and slop it over the floor and get down with a brush and really scrub. I just love that cabin.”

“I can't even stand to do dishes,” said Mary, whose mind was on other details in Andi's story that she puzzled over.

“You wouldn't mind if all you had to wash was a glass and a tin plate and cup.” Andi watched the fragile shadows on the ceiling cast there by the tree beyond the window. She yawned. “It must be nearly light. I'm going to sleep. Good night.”

“Night,” said Mary, who then turned on her side and watched the ghostly moonlight begin to give way to blue dawn. Way out there on the horizon, a band of liquid light spilled across the Sangre de Cristos. She was thinking about the man who'd given Andi a ride in his truck. Why had it taken him so long to pick her up?

Mary was pretty sure it bothered Andi, too.

“I think you should stay,” said Mary, the next morning.

“Stay? Here, you mean?”

Mary nodded. “Why not? Rosella sure likes you; you heard her at breakfast.”

Hadn't she ever?
This is a nice girl, you could maybe learn some manners
was the way it had gone all through breakfast. She'd been that way ever since Angela had died. Rosella was worried that Mary, having no big sister to act as her role model, would go to rack and ruin.

Andi had reached down to scoop up a handful of earth, which she let trickle through her fingers. They were some distance from the house, sitting on a wide, flat boulder. “That's nice of you, but I don't—”

Mary interrupted. “What if he finds you again, and you're alone?”

“He must've stopped looking by now. It's been over four months.” The tone was less certain than the words.

“But you wouldn't recognize him, right?”

“I'd know that car.”

“What makes you think he'd be driving it?”

Andi reached down again and picked up a verdigris-green stone. She turned it in her hand. She didn't answer.

Mary said, “Look. I don't want to make you jumpy, but this guy who picked you up—”

“What about him?” Andi turned to look at Mary.

Mary could see in her expression that her mind had nearly made the leap to Mary's conclusions. “You said you'd been walking for some time when his truck came along. But even with allowing time it would take him to pay for the gas, why did it take him so long to catch up?”

“Maybe he got to talking to someone in the store.” Andi tried to shrug it off.

Mary agreed with her; yes, that was possible.

“But there is one thing—”

Mary was sure there must be, and that Andi was suspicious too. “Yes, what?”

“Remember the Indian?”

“Sure. He made some sort of sign, passing you, and it bothered you.”

“Yes. Only I don't think it was what he did that bothered me. I think it was the way his car was headed.”

Mary frowned. “What do you mean?”

“In the gas station. You know the way you pull up to gas pumps; well, usually it's the way your car's headed, the direction you've been driving from.” Mary nodded; Andi went on. “The Indian's was headed south, towards Albuquerque; he was coming from the north, away from here. But the man who picked me up, his truck was headed in the opposite direction,
towards
Santa Fe. Why did he go in the same direction as the Indian, then?”