Authors: Wayne Wightman
Their expressions had relaxed enough that several of them smiled. Rusty, Roy, and Charlie accepted immediately, and Christie seemed pleased, but Dora remained inexpressive, and April looked to August for a response, but he made none.
Outside the house, walking out to the road, Martin asked Winch, “Just how close were you to putting Joshua out of our misery?”
“Less than a hair. If you'd been the only one there, it would be over. I would love to give that man his wings. I'd sleep better.”
Martin put a hand on Winch's shoulder and they walked back, like brothers.
Chapter 68
The next week or so went smoothly. The sun, a clean white fire in the sky, turned the days warm, and though neither Martin nor Winch saw Joshua or any sign of his group, they knew they were around. It was common knowledge that August frequently met with Joshua. April, his young wife, said that he had started taking one of their girls with him when he went into the forest in the mornings. And Rusty mentioned that Dora, his older wife, spent several hours every afternoon up in the mountains with Joshua and his followers, “praying and seeking guidance.”
But in their village, as the warm days drifted by, the newcomers mixed easily with the original settlers, and new friendships began to form. Ross, who had been so reluctant to let Martin out of his sight, had now attached himself to Solomon and Xeng, and though Solomon was younger by three years, Ross eagerly listened and learned from him, and even, Martin noticed with some relief, engaged Solomon in such boyhood pastimes as kite-flying, catch, and running crazy through the fields.
Charlie remained a loner, but Martin had found him to be creative, resourceful, and surprisingly bright for his sixteen years. The boy had decided he wanted to live alone in a guest cottage in the trees behind Martin's house.
One afternoon, Martin saw Charlie in the backyard of one of the unused houses, standing under one of the fruit trees, whittling on a branch with a pocketknife.
“I wanted to see if I could do grafting,” Charlie explained. “I thought I'd try putting two kinds of plums here and see which does best. You were talking about being resourceful, and I like plums. You don't mind, do you?”
“Me? Mind?” Martin asked. “No, that's a smart thing you're doing. I never would have thought of it. Or tried it if I had. Why would you ask if I minded?”
“Because you're our leader."
“No,” Martin said. "We don't have a leader. We're friends. We talk things over to decide what to do.”
Charlie grinned and walked over to the fence where Martin leaned. “When I lived with Rusty, Dora was the leader. But she wasn't very smart and thought she had to tell everyone what to do. You don't seem to tell people what to do.”
“I never wanted to be anyone's leader,” Martin said.
“That's good,” Charlie said, leaning his arms on the top of the fence next to Martin. “When I was in high school, it seemed to me that the ones who wanted to lead were the ones who liked telling other people what to do. It was the power they liked. Powerhogs. I never learned much about politics, but it seems to me it works the same way. Maybe anybody who wants power should be automatically disqualified.”
“Charlie, you hold on to that idea. And if you ever see me enjoying telling people what to do, put salt in my coffee.”
“Okay. So what are we going to do about Joshua? They do funny stuff up there.”
“What kind of funny stuff?”
“They chant and drink blood and get weird.”
“What blood are they drinking? And how do you know this?”
“I sneaked up one night and watched. Joshua stuck a needle in his arm with a rubber tube and a squeeze bulb and pulled out about a cup of blood. Then he squirted it in this plastic bucket, poured in some water or juice or something, and then they all drank it. Then they got really weird. I left.”
“Charlie, I hate to do this, right after I said I didn't want to be anybody's leader, but don't go up there again without telling somebody, all right? I wouldn't want you to disappear.”
“I already decided that. So what's the plan?”
Martin gazed over the picket fence, into the weedy yard, at the grove of fruit trees. Through the trees he could see the horses grazing in the pasture. Isha, her golden back and white ruff, moved easily among them, going toward the house. When enough people got together, Martin was thinking, it seemed like there had to be someone trying to push someone else into an ideological closet. Out there in the pasture, their animals ignored each other. But people seemed to be driven to make others agree with them.
“I don't know,” Martin said. “Readiness is all. I'm hoping I'll know when the time comes. It makes me uneasy that August and Dora spend time with them and Joshua takes it as his duty to see that others accept what he presumes to be true.” He knew he was thinking out loud, clarifying his feelings to himself, and he wondered if this was going over Charlie's head.
“I heard Catrin talking about how stupid it was, the way people die for ideas. Men mostly.”
It wasn't going over his head.
“But they aren't bothering us now. They're leaving us alone, which is what we want.” But what if they move in on us in some way? Martin was thinking. What then? What would an animal do? An animal would be direct and to the point. “Charlie, I wanted to get down to the beach to see how Rusty's doing with his fishing, but anytime you want to stop by our place, I'd be glad if you would. Catrin and I would like to see you more.”
“I'll cook for you some time.”
“You have secret skills.”
“I do.”
Chapter 69
Isha caught the sudden scent of a squirrel and with her nose to the ground turned around toward the back of the house. She heard a crunching of leaves, followed the scent and quickly came up short. A stranger stood in front of her, too near her house.
She lowered her head and growled.
“Isha,” the man said. “Isha, Isha,” and held his hand out to her. His smell was familiar now — the young man used to live with them, in the other place. But now he was a stranger and he tried to hide a big stick behind him.
Isha growled and moved sideways and saw another movement, this one up on the roof of the house — a black formless shape with two yellow eyes.
“Isha,” the man cooed, “Ishaaa.”
In a crouch, she moved sideways toward the house.
“Ishaaa,” he said one last time and brought the stick out, swinging it down hard at her.
Isha dodged sideways as Mona sprang off the eave and snagged the man on the neck and the side of his face. She sank her teeth into his cheek and clamped herself to his head with her front claws and kicked hard down his neck with her back claws. His skin furrowed open.
The club hit the dirt when the man let it go, and when he grabbed Mona and flung her away, she left long bleeding streaks where her claws ripped through his skin.
Isha chased him into the forest, until he was a safe distance from the house. Then she returned to find her pet on the front porch, patiently cleaning her claws with her pink tongue, calm, self-contained, at peace with herself.
Chapter 70
Martin found Rusty wet to his chest, with sand caked on his left side. Rusty was cursing the earth, the air, and the web of existence. But lying in the sand near him were three silver and gray fish, each about a foot long. Further back on the beach, Roy was bent double laughing.
“I'm gettin' the god damn hang of it,” Rusty yelled at Martin when he saw him approach, “but I almost died out there.” He threw down his pole. The line had fouled through the eyes and around the reel, and beside him, his equipment was a jumbled mess. “Maybe I should read my Hemingway again, see how he did it.”
“The fish look good,” Martin said, wanting to say something that wouldn't incite him further. “What are they?”
“They're
fish
. Jesus christ, I don't know. I threw the line out and they got on it. Maybe Xeng will know if they're edible.” He laughed at himself. “And that homo back there—” He pointed back at Roy, who was still laughing and now strolled toward them.
“Only my friends call me a homo,” Roy said to Martin, still chuckling.
“I guess I was pretty funny looking. I'm used to water, you know, but not when it's always coming after me like that.” Two-foot breakers had lined up for a hundred yards, coming in like pendulum swings. “Xeng told me what to expect, I have to give him that.”
“He said he used to fish a lot back in Cambodia,” Roy said, coming up to them. He was wearing a baggy white shirt and white pants rolled halfway up to his knees, no shoes.
“Yeah, I gotta respect that little guy. He was out here yesterday, took off all but his shorts, you know, waded out, and brought back a couple fish, but they didn't look like mine. Me, now, I gotta put on these fancy boots, get all equipmentized, and I get my ass dragged up and down the beach and almost got a prostate exam with this pole. Tomorrow I'll do it his way.” He started knocking the sand off his side.
“How's Dora doing?” Martin asked, getting to the real purpose of his showing up.
“You mean with the nuts up in the woods? Let me tell you, Dora is a good woman, but she's different lately. First thing, she's real quiet most of the time, but when she isn't real quiet, she's real pissed off, telling me and Christie what a couple of losers we are, you know, like it's our fault she's living with us. She said that back in the old times, Christie woulda been a whore and I woulda been her pimp. Upset Christie.” He shook his head once. “She don't have a lot good to say about you, either, Martin. Sorry. Or you either, Roy.”
“If I had a soul, it would be crushed. However, I am desolated.”
“You said, 'First thing,'” Martin said. “What's the second thing that's different about Dora?”
“She don't eat at home anymore. I think she's going to join up, get saved or something. Meet Jesus out in the woods.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Well, you know, it was the circumstances that threw us together. It wasn't like Dora and me was in love. So if she wants to romp with Joshua, that's okay with me. The way she's been lately, I'd just as soon see her leave.”
Martin squatted down and breathed in the salt air and watched Isha pad through the rolling foam and sniff the water. “Rusty, what's your feeling about what's going on with Joshua and us?”
Rusty sat beside him and began a big production of pulling off his boots. “Tell you the truth, they take Dora, they take away one of my problems. They stay up there, we stay down here, I don't see what's to worry about.” Rusty looked at one wet, sand-filled boot and shook his head. He began tugging at the other. “But that probly ain't gonna happen, is it?”
Martin nodded and said, “Roy, how do you feel about this whole business?”
“Well.” He sat in the sand beside them. “As you can guess, knowing my preferences, I never had any positive experiences with people who specialize in knowing exactly what and who are right so they can send the rest to hell. I believe in cooperative muddling.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rusty said. “But I can see how you and Winch are a little more involved. They took one of my kids, I'd cut some hands off. Not wise to trust people who'd do something like that. And if they got Christie moanin' and carryin' on like they did to Jan-Louise....” He clicked his mouth. “Martin, you want to run 'em off, you say so, I'll be there with you. Soon as I can get me some shoes.”
“Likewise,” Roy said. “Those people are trouble looking for a time to happen.”
“As for running them off, I thought I'd keep that on hold, for the time being. Like you say, if they stay up there and don't bother us, we can get along.”
Rusty held his tongue in the corner of his mouth as he flicked sand from between his toes. “Isn't it pretty to think so.”
Isha ran along the water's edge with a piece of driftwood in her jaws, her white ruff fluttering in the wind. Martin never tired of watching her elegance and grace. “Both of you, let me know if anything unusual happens, all right?"
“Like Rusty catching something without getting his butt dragged up and down the beach?”
“Yeah,” Martin laughed, “anything extraordinary like that.”
“I'll keep you posted,” Roy said.
“You—” Rusty spluttered.
“Don't say it unless you're my friend,” Roy said.
Rusty said it.
Martin left them bickering and brushing sand off themselves. When he headed back to the village, Isha bounded past him, her long hair waving rhythmically as she ran. Martin felt a sudden chill when it crossed his mind that one day she would no longer be with him... that one day he could awaken and find that Isha or Catrin or Land or anyone could be gone... gone or dead. He remembered Leona's baby and what he had said over the pathetic mound of dirt where they had buried the tiny thing in a white sheet.
With the day-to-day trivialities he had forgotten what he had said that day, what he had hoped Solomon remembered.
He hurried back to Catrin and Land.
Chapter 71
Morning sun flooded the curtains. Lying beside Catrin, he touched her face, moving his finger along the lines of her bones, amazed at the woman that lived inside the body.