Nothing gold can stay (13 page)

It was odd, though, and unlike them to leave such a big meat stash unprotected. There was enough here to feed both families until the first salmon hit fresh water.

It was also a first-class bear magnet. She rummaged around in the back of the Cessna for the shotgun. Shed wait until a half hour before dark, that was it. If they didnt show, she would leave the meat to the mercy of any wandering critter who happened by, two- or four-legged.

She propped her back against a boulder and closed her eyes against the slanting rays of the lowering sun. The rock radiated heat soaked up during the day, and she felt no need for the jacket in the plane.

She thought of last night. The Nunapitchuks had a small cabin out back of the homestead, one with four bunks they used when family showed up to stay for a while. They had given them sleeping bags and pillows with fresh-smelling cases and left them alone. She loved making love to Liam, in a hard, narrow bunk, in the shower, on the bank of the Nushagak River, it didnt matter, she loved making love to him. Shed read or heard something somewhere, something about when a couple was going through a bad time, the sex helped keep things together until they came out the other end, and that when the relationship was good anyway, it was just the icing on the cake.

That was what it was like with Liam, icing on the cake. She smiled without opening her eyes.

She liked to talk to him, too, about everything and nothing. He kept up most of the time, but sometimes he was way ahead of her, and she liked that too; she didnt think she could live with someone who wasnt as smart as she was. She liked him with Tim, friendly, not pushy, letting Tim get to know him at Tims own pace. It was important for Tim to learn that all men dont hit.

She liked it that Liam read recreationally. The does-he-read test was the only test she required the men she allowed into her life to pass. She didnt care if they were tall, short, fat, thin, old, young, she didnt care if they were Yupik from Bethel or Hindu from Indiaor Caucasian from Anchoragethey had to read. She didnt care what they read, they didnt even have to read the same things she did (a good thing because she read fiction, mostly, and Liam read non, mostly), but if they didnt read, they were out.

Shed read out loud to Tim while he lay in the hospital. Half the time she didnt know if he heard her or not. She read to him anyway, books from her childhood like
Little House on the Prairie
and
The Lost Wagon
and
Nancy and Plum
and
Anne of Green Gables
and
The Lions Paw.
It was make-believe, but it was what Tim needed, and she read them all to him every minute she could spare. The business suffered some that month.

When he came home with her from the hospital, she had already furnished the second bedroom in her house, empty until then. Just the basics, a bed, a nightstand, a reading lamp, a desk with another lamp, some new clothes in the closet, khakis and T-shirts shed ordered over the Internet from the Gap. There was also a bookshelf shed filled with books, the Heinlein juveniles, all fourteen of the Oz books,
The Hobbit
and
The Lord of the Rings,
everything by Gary Paulsen. By then he was reading on his own.

Hed stopped for a time earlier this year, when hed gotten in with a group of kids who had maximum security written all over their futures, but hed begun easing away from them after Liams arrival, and hed broken with them entirely after Kerry and Michael Malone had died. He had respected and admired Michael, who played opposite him on the basketball court, and Wy suspected he had been a little in love with Kerry, a pretty cheerleader.

Liam had handled that with Tim, talking to him honestly about what had happened to the two kids, offering intelligent sympathy without ever once resorting to “Bad things happen to good people.

Liam was good with kids. Shed never seen him with Charlie, the son who had been killed by a drunk driver before he was two, but shed bet Liam had been great with him, too. He wanted more kids. Well, so did she.

She had to tell him. She could feel something like tears well behind her eyelids and blinked them away.

There was a sudden snapping of twigs and cracking of branches and she shot to her feet, checking that both barrels were loaded and that the safety was off.

It was only Teddy and John. The smell of beer preceded them into camp by a good twenty feet. “Oh hell, she said, disgusted all over again.

“Lets go, John said shortly, brushing by her to head for a caribou haunch hanging from a tree. Teddy barreled after him. Both of them were pale of face and sweating. Both seemed a lot more sober than she had expected. “How much can we take with us?

“I thought I was flying you out one at a time, Wy said, standing with the shotgun hanging from the crook of her arm, muzzle down.

He looked at her. “Yeah. Right. Of course. Sorry. He looked at Teddy. “You go in first.

“No, you go in first.

“Goddamn it, Teddy, I said you go in first!

“And I say you do!

They went toe to toe, glaring at each other, and it was a moment before Wy, watching stupefied from the sidelines, stepped forward to pull them apart. “Guys. Relax. Toss a coin or something. Whoever gets left behind is only going to get left behind for ninety minutes.

They continued to glare. Teddy Engebretsen and John Kvichak had never been known to raise a hand or even a voice to the other. They stood shoulder to shoulder against all comers, but never against themselves. And now here they were fighting over who should go into town first?

Teddy broke the stalemate eventually. “Okay, John.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

“Good, John said gruffly. “Help me load up. He caught Teddys eye. “Its okay, Teddy. Ill be all right.

“Whats going on? Wy said.

“Lend me a hand with this line, will you, Wy? Teddy said.

Old Man Creek, September 2

They ate salmon fresh out of the creek, sticky rice with generous helpings of soy sauce and steamed wild celery, the latter gathered by Amelia, who had finally gotten back out of bed. After dinner they got out the cards and played single-deck pinochle, girls against boys. Bill had to carry Amelia, but Moses told Tim, “Jesus, boy, you think youre some kind of card shark, dont you? Tim, still sore from the second practice of the daythis one had lasted two hourstrumped Bills ace of diamonds and shot the moon. Bill sighed and subtracted thirty-three points from their score, which put them at minus ninety-seven. “Another fifty-three points and we can go out the back door, she told Amelia.

Amelia blinked at her. “What am I doing here? It was the first time shed spoken all day.

She didnt look good, Bill thought, surveying the girl with a critical eye. Her eyes had deep dark shadows beneath them, the natural warm brown of her skin had turned a pasty kind of yellow in between the big blue and purple bruises, and she kept pulling at her hair.

Bill looked at Moses. “Because youre a damn fool, is why, he said. “Shuffle the goddamn cards.

The girl focused on him as if she were seeing him for the first time. “Uncle.

“Yeah, what of it?

“Wheres my husband? I want my husband.

He looked at her, at the bruises blooming beneath her skin, at the swelling of her eye only now going down. Darren Gearhart had a mean right; short, stiff, packed a lot of power. Amelia wasnt a pygmy but she wasnt his equal in size. Moses remembered Joe Gould, the Newenham ambulances emergency medical technician, describe a head injury once over a lot of beer at Bills bar. Joe had just lost a patient to head trauma suffered when a fight at the small-boat harbor led to a fall between boats. “One of the guys told me you could hear the crack all the way up to the harbormasters office when the guy went in. Like breaking an egg. He went on to explain, with a delivery that became more didactic as the drink in his glass dwindled, that the human brain floated inside the skull like a cork bobbing in the water. When something hit the front of the skull, the brain inside was knocked against the back of the skull, which was why so many blows delivered by fists caused injury to the back of the cerebrum, not the front.

Maybe, Moses thought, maybe I should have run her by the hospital before I packed her onto a plane to get her out here.

He consulted the voices on the subject. They were silent. Figured. Most of the time they wouldnt shut up. Now, when he was actually looking for insight, they wouldnt talk.

“I want my husband, Amelia repeated. Her voice sounded more stubborn than whiny. If that stubborn could be harnessed for her own benefit, she might make it after all.

“No, you dont, Moses told Amelia, and snatched up the cards and began to shuffle them himself.

Later, when both kids were in bed and asleep, Bill and Moses moved to the porch. “What are we going to do with her? she said.

“Come here, woman, he said. She curled easily into his lap. One of his hands settled naturally on the rise of her hip, the other on the curve of her breast. She sighed a little and wriggled as if to press into both. He gave her a smack on the back. “Be still before I haul you down to the ground and have my way with you.

“You mean you wont if I stay still?

“I will no matter what you do and you know that perfectly well. He smacked her again, turning it into a caress. “Im going to keep them isolated and safe for a few days. Im going to teach them tai chi. Im going to sweat the evil spirits out of them in the banya.

“It wont be enough for Amelia.

She felt him shrug beneath her cheek. “Its what I can do.

“You told her not to marry him, didnt you?

“Nope.

“I was there in the bar, I remember.

“I didnt tell her anything. She asked me if she should marry that little prick, and I said her fathers name.

“That was all?

“Yep.

Bill sat up and looked at him. “Maybe you should have tried a little harder.

He stood up, dumping her without ceremony or apology to the selfsame floor he had been giving serious thought to wrestling her to. “How many times do I have to explain it, Bill? How many times do you have to see it? They come to me for all the answers. They think the voices will speak through me and take them by their goddamn little hands and lead them through the goddamn wilderness. It doesnt work like that, even if they do listen, which they most of the time dont.

She picked herself up to wrap her arms around him from behind. “I know.

He anchored her arms against his belly with his own. “They talk at me, all the time they talk at me. They tell me whats going to happen, they tell me flat out. I used to try to tell people what they were saying, but nobody wanted to hear. Nobody does now.

“A prophet has no honor in his own country, she said softly into that firm, erect back.

“Shit, he said. “I cant remember when I didnt hear them. This man will abuse you if you marry him, this boy will leave the village forever if you let him leave once, this girl will die drunk beside the road in winter, this man will fall off his boat and drown next summer. At first I thought everyone heard them. When I was ten my Auntie Christine took me to a shaman in New Stoyahuk to ask him to drive the evil spirits from my brain. He told her he could do nothing, that the spirits chose through whom to speak and nothing we could say or do would change that. When I was thirteen she sent me to the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. They said I was delusional but functional and sent me home. Thats when I started drinking. When I was seventeen, I got Auntie Christine to sign me into the Air Force. I got posted to the Far East, where I learned to do form. First thing that helped.

Shed heard bits and pieces of the story, but never before the story from beginning to end. “I stayed there, traveled all over the world, looking for answers in some of the goddamnedest places. Cassandra was cursed with telling the truth and never being believed. I remember the first time I heard that story, I was happy. I wasnt alone, at least not in myth.

“Then one day, I was about forty-eight, I guess, I went back to Hong Kong to see my sifu, and he told me if I hadnt found the answers I was looking for that maybe I was looking for them in the wrong places. He turned around and linked his hands behind her waist. “He was right. Whatever this is, it belongs here, at home, so I came home. He grinned at her, only a slightly less lecherous grin than before. “And you were my reward.

She searched his face with uncharacteristically solemn eyes. “What? he said.

She adjusted his collar. “Why are you telling me this now?

“I dont know. He was silent for a moment. “Yes I do, he said finally. He jerked his head toward the cabin door. “I was looking at her this evening, wondering how bad hurt she is, wondering if maybe I shouldnt have taken her by the emergency room before I hauled her out here. He shifted his shoulders. “I asked the voices.

“And?

“And they didnt say.

She digested this. “Couldnt say? Wouldnt say?

“I dont know. He fidgeted.

“Is this the first time this has happened?

He thought, and shook his head. “No. But it doesnt happen all that goddamn often, I can tell you that.

“You wish theyd leave you alone, and you get nervous when they do.

He glared at her. “I do not get nervous.

“And when you get nervous, she went on inexorably, “you talk too much.

“Well, excuuuuuuse me, he said, insulted. “I didnt know I was boring you.

She kissed him before he could pull away, putting everything she had into it. His pique was instantly forgotten, his response was immediate and enthusiastic. When they came up for air, breathing hard, he said, “Thats one thing those goddamn voices havent interfered with.

“What?

“Us.

She grinned. “Right. She kissed him again, hands roaming, seeking, finding.

“Gulp, he said. “Good thing Im hanging on to something, Id probably be on my ass about now.

“That you would, little man.

They moved to the dock and undressed, savoring the slow shedding of clothes, the slow revelation of flesh, the slow kindling and then culmination of desire. The great thing about being old, Bill thought dreamily, was that you never had to be in a hurry. There was time to linger, time to taste, touch, feel, listen. The hitch in the breath, the murmured laughter, the bittersweet flavor of the drop of sweat that rolled into the hollow of the throat, the quick, shifting arch of the hips, the sly reach of a fingertip, the firm thrust of flesh, and then the well-remembered but always new sensation of falling off the world in a blaze of white-hot glory.