The Painter: A Novel (11 page)

The moon was settling now into the western quadrant, settling in for a long sail, casting the fragrant valley in something between dark and dawn, a midway limbo that suited. In its benign light I could make out the fruited trees, the boughs heavy with black apples. I saw the hydrant and the hose as if it were morning, and for a moment I just stood there, wishing that this stillness,
this limbo, could last forever. It couldn’t. The ugly man intruded again, his image face down washing against the boulders, moving a little with the rhythm of the stream.

I pulled up on the stiff tap handle, felt the gush swell and weight the hose. A spray head at the end. Moved it over the truck, from hood to bed, bumpers, back up the other side, remembered the roof. Crouched stiffly down and washed the undercarriage as best I could, re-coiled the hose, took one more deep breath of flowers and pulled out. Pulled on the headlights: reminded myself that if seen now in town it would look worse with the beams off. I turned back onto the pavement that led to the edge of Grand Ave and as I did my headlights swung and a bright shape filled the windshield, splayed across, big as the night. Owl. White owl, wings wide as the truck, soundless swift and gone. Jesus. Heart hammering now, booming. Had kept my cool before, but now— It was spirit. I had not one doubt, not one doubt in the world. And it was not of the man because it was beautiful and it flew and was silent, it was Alce. That’s what I thought, said: Alce.

Thanks or warning or just company, reassurance, I didn’t know. Alce. Out of the twilit limbo of this night that was both night and day, deeply peaceful and profoundly violent. In a night that was between everything, came my daughter flying. Thanks, I said as I drove.

I crawled into bed and curled around Sofia. Sleep came stubborn and slow but came, carried me into the dark. Sometime between falling asleep and morning a storm swept in and it rained. Hard. Then cleared just as fast. Monsoon season.

I woke with the rain. Woke with the first halting tattoo on the metal roof
tap tap taptap taptaptaptap tap
fingerdrumming, tentative, a few scattered drops, pause, then a clatter like someone throwing a handful of seeds, speeding up until the beats ran together, then the onslaught. A rush, a dark flood that silenced all thought.

Inside the roar I spooned her. Cradled her breasts in my left arm, pressed my cheek into her hair, curled around her warmth and let the wind that came through the screen door wash me. Inside the roar and the dark and the currents of cool wind we floated.

I could die now. My one thought. Somehow complete. With the
Ocean of Women
back on the easel and the dead man in the creek and my friend in my arms and the rain at last reaching the ground and drenching the country.

Woke again with the knocking. Not tentative. I woke and I realized I was expecting it.

I untangled myself, slipped to the floor, pulled the Hudson’s Bay blanket that came with the house over Sofia, pulled on a pair of paint smattered khaki shorts that were hung over the rocker.

Two of them this time. The last time, when I shot Lauder Simms, it was just the sheriff. Well. He had been my friend. This time evidently they were not here to arrest me. He was very polite. He was a rangy thirtyish detective in a green soft wind jacket, the kind sporty outdoor people wear, I remember thinking it was a beautiful color, something between sage and grass, looked supple, thinking it would be perfect for fishing on a night like last night. Last night. The man was thin, with the drawn cheeks of a runner, with red spots flushing the cheekbones; gave him an impressionable sensitive look the way adolescents can’t quite control their emotions. Steady hazel eyes, a smile. A man you could trust.

To lock you up forever.

That’s what I thought. Of Rilke’s panther. In the first instant, opening the door, taking in the man and the uniformed deputy behind him I thought, Careful Boy, say the wrong thing and this man will put you away to die in the zoo like Rilke’s cat.

“Jim Stegner?”

“Yah.”

“Sorry, did we wake you?” Very polite. Held up a wallet badge. “Craig Gaskill, Delta County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Nah. I mean, yes, but it’s okay. The rain in the middle of the night. Slept better than I have in a month.”

Clear conscience. Something a stone cold murderer probably wouldn’t say. Much less feel. I was standing holding the carved door open with my right arm, kind of leaning into it, and smelled my fishing vest. It was hanging on a hook two feet from my head. I could smell it because often if I was just keeping dinner for myself, I would slip one or two trout into the zipper pocket high on the back. If it was a hot afternoon I would unshuck the vest and tear a bunch of grass and horsetails from the bank and wet the fistful in the creek and stuff it in the pocket with the fish to keep them cool. Made the vest smell fishy but I liked it better than carrying around a slung creel. The vest was two feet from my face, hanging on the wall right where the open door swung into it, and I could see that it was spattered with blood.

Icy grip in the guts. The sporty detective saw it. I know he did because he said, “Mr. Stegner, are you okay?”

“Yah,” I said fast. “Just haven’t had my coffee yet.”

And in the rush to cover for myself I heard myself saying, “You boys want some coffee too? I’ll just make a pot.”

And heard Sport say, “That is very hospitable. I certainly could use another cup, you, Dan?” And I heard Dan say he was just
thinking they better get down to the Conoco out on the highway and get a refill. And I saw myself stepping back and opening the door wider and they came through the screen door with a clap and I heard Sofia call out,
“Jim?”
And I said, “It’s alright, honey, we have guests. Gonna make some coffee.”
Honey?
I must’ve been really frazzled. And I saw the men come to the long counter and pull up two stools and I went behind it and reached for the old pot and rinsed it in cold water and refilled it all the while talking about how bad we needed the rain and how fresh the country looked already like it had been rinsed in green, and saw myself clutching the little grinder to my chest like a secret and compressing the sprung top in my hands while the motor triggered and the blade bawled and shredded the beans that rattled then whined.

Heard the door to my bedroom which opened onto all of us slam and that snapped me out of it.

She had slammed the door. She didn’t want to talk to cops, to anyone this early. That was one lucky break the way I saw it. She was not social this early in the morning. She did not wrap herself in the blanket and come out stretching and purring and being polite to the nice policemen and go into the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth and throw on a wrap and join us for coffee the way some more finished hostesses might have done. Finished like finishing school, not her. She slammed the door. The two men raised their eyebrows, I shrugged, it was a male bonding moment, all good, but more important it let me pull myself up. Kind of reined me up short and put a loud period on my rambling.

I heard the slam and stopped stock still and thought Jesus, Jim, get a grip. You are a cooler cookie than this. Take a breath. I did. Went to the sink at the west end of the counter, put my back
to them, and rinsed out some cups, covered myself, my loud thoughts, with the running water and the clatter of ceramic and thought, Slow down. You were here all night, sleeping the sleep of the dead, not the dead, Jesus, the newly rained on, the sleep of the new monsoon, and if your fishing vest is spattered with blood and hanging there right by the front door, well. No big deal. When you let them back out, lead them away from the vest to the French doors in the south wall, follow them around the house to their cars, you go out that way all the time, it is a natural motion to exit out toward the big view, the mountain, talking the whole while about how you haven’t seen the foothills this green since June. That’s what you will do.

I gave Sport the elk mug. A bull elk in the fall in a tawny field, yellow aspen losing leaves, overcast about to snow, he is lifting his head to bugle and from his muzzle a stream of fog in the icy air. Seemed right.

“You get the elk,” I said. I was going to say bull but I didn’t want to encourage him. To the deputy I said, the NASCAR cow or the loon? The NASCAR cow coffee cup said w
ISCONSIN
and had the head of a happy looking Holstein framed by a border of what looked like black and white racing checks.

The deputy grinned. He was a beefy kid with a fade and flattop, probably played high school ball for Delta and was the luckiest man in the universe when he landed the job with the county. Could tell he was the type who appreciates what’s appreciatible, really loved his wife, etc., which I admire and like in a man, in fact liked them both and had the circumstances been different I would have relished pouring the two coffee and sitting down to bullshit.

“NASCAR cow every time,” said Dan the deputy.

There was no stool on this side of the counter so I stood, leaned back against the drawers next to the stove said,

“Anything in those? Sugar?”

Sport said, “If you have cream and honey, otherwise fine.” I smiled at him. Because it was clear that he was getting me in the habit of getting him what he asked, the more specific the better. Honey. Exactly what I took in my coffee. The kid shook his head. Polite. A blunt instrument. Hadn’t learned the use of subtle tools yet, probably never would, it would probably fuck up his general sense of gratitude. I am not at all a simple person but I like simple people, I admire them.

I put out the half and half and honey, took mine, alternating with Sport, our spoons tinking in happy duet, picked up my Ugly Mug and leaned back, crossed my arms. The mug by the way is a bad picture of an ocean liner, don’t ask me. I was awake now, felt ready. Sport sipped, nodded, smiled, said,

“You often fish in the middle of the night?”

This time I did not let myself get thrown. I did not babble. I took a long sip of strong coffee looking at the greening base of the mountain out the window and thought, Virga. Not last night. Last night the rain reached the ground with a will, furious. Furious and glad. The way I would be feeling right now if Sport didn’t scare me. Well. Don’t be scared. Be yourself. Be honest. About the things you can be honest about.

“Yes. Once in a while. My daughter and I used to do it pretty often. When there was a moon.”

“Where’s your daughter now?”

I put down the Ugly Mug.

“She was murdered.”

Sport’s mug stopped halfway to his mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

“She was fifteen.”

He nodded. He drank, didn’t say anything. We all looked into our mugs.

“There was a moon last night before the rain?”

“I guess there was.”

“Did you go fishing last night?”

I shook my head, sipped. “Last night I slept.”