by Hannah Tinti
Loo pulled her towel closer and padded across the living room, leaving a trail of footprints behind on the hardwood. She closed and locked the door to the bathroom. It had been open long enough for all the steam to leave. The mirror was clear again. She stared into her own face.
Outside in the yard, she knew that Hawley was cutting open the codfish. He was sliding the knife underneath their ribs, just as Captain Titus had done to the whale on the beach. Her father was clearing out the intestines and stomach and liver—gray and pink all mixed and spilling onto the grass. Next he would cut off the head of the fish and then he’d start scraping the scales. The seagulls always came and carried away the insides, but the scales would remain, flickering on the driveway, tiny chips of iridescent bone, until they began to rot and smell and Loo washed them away with the hose.
The bath had cooled but Loo climbed back in. She stayed there, shivering and thinking until the tips of her fingers became raised and swollen. Then she slid underneath the water and opened her eyes. Her mother’s shampoo and conditioner peered down at her from the ledge, two worn-out sentinels. Loo focused on the bottles, the shapes distant and blurred. She started counting.
As she counted, she pictured her mother at the bottom of the lake, the flesh lifting off her bones. It would be peaceful there, and dark, and quiet, with all the weight of the water above. There would be no room for air—only pressure, pushing through her ears and up into her nose, squeezing her lungs and then ironing them flat. Loo held herself down for another minute, feeling more alive than ever, pressing hard against the porcelain, until she heard Hawley’s fist pounding on the door, and her spine bucked, and she broke the surface, sputtering, choking, gasping—drawing the deepest part of the water back with her and turning it out onto the bathroom floor.
Bullet Number Six
THE WHITE NIGHTS IN ALASKA began in late spring. Each day grew longer, until the sun set for only five hours, then four, then three, leaving the sky a troubling, otherworldly gray. As the days stretched and lengthened, Hawley found he could not sleep. Nothing seemed to help—warm milk, hot baths, pills, even the blackout shades Lily had bought. He tossed and turned, and then he paced the house, and then he put on his boots and went for a walk.
The roads were unnaturally silent and deserted. Hawley considered walking to Cook Inlet but instead he went past the elementary school and along Old Sterling Highway. It was their first summer in Anchor Point, and for the most part, they liked it. The beaches reminded Lily of Olympus, and Hawley fished and gathered oysters, which he hadn’t done since his father was alive. Living in Alaska they didn’t need much, and Hawley had been able to stretch out the last of his money, but now the safe-deposit box was nearly empty and they had a baby on the way.
Hawley’s father had a set of rules for living in the wilderness. It was all about the number three. A man could go three minutes without air. Three hours without shelter. Three days without water. Three weeks without food. And three months without seeing another person before he’d start to go crazy. Hawley had gone longer than that, once or twice before he met Lily, hiding out in the woods after a job, and he still remembered the shock of returning to town, sitting in a diner drinking coffee while folks chattered around him. Maybe he had gone a little off, being alone that much. It always took a few days before he was able to speak to anyone properly. And even longer to shake what haunted him in the woods—that the world had been emptied of everyone and left him behind in that emptiness. It was the same feeling he got walking the streets during midnight sun.
Eventually he came to the bridge that crossed Anchor River. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching the current and his own breath cloud the air, thinking about his call with Jove the day before. Hawley had reached out looking for a job, and Jove knew of one in Cordova. The trick was it was working for Ed King.
The original hire had been a bush pilot, but the pilot had skimmed off the payment he was supposed to deliver, and King had him taken down one fine morning while the pilot’s girlfriend was making pancakes. The girlfriend was killed, too. Hawley had read about the murder in the papers. It was a real mess, the breakfast burning on the stove and the girl collapsed in front of the refrigerator, her blood mixed up with the milk. But it was also lucky because now another man was needed, and that other man was Hawley.
“This can’t get screwed up again,” said Jove. “I need someone I can trust.”
“King won’t want me anywhere near this.” Hawley could still picture the old boxer running after Lily’s truck, pie smeared across his suit.
“He told me to find someone who could handle it,” said Jove. “We just won’t tell him that it’s you.”
The plan was a simple exchange, cash for carry. Hawley would be gone for only a few days. He hadn’t told Lily yet. He didn’t want her to worry. He hadn’t worked anything like this since before they got married. But he was feeling restless, and they needed the money. At least this is what he told himself as he turned away from the river. And what he said when he told Jove he’d take the job.
Their front door didn’t make a sound as he slipped back inside the cabin. He took off his boots, hung up his coat and went to the bedroom. Lily was still sleeping, her black hair piled on the pillow, the comforter pulled up under her rounded stomach. The perpetual daylight did not bother her. Ever since they’d found out she was pregnant, she’d developed a knack for falling asleep anywhere, day or night, in a car or on a couch or even when they were eating, dropping her head onto one of her arms and quietly disappearing for a few minutes, her mouth open.
Hawley sat on the end of their bed. He smoothed her hair and kissed the back of her neck. Lily opened her eyes, rubbed her face and began to pick the crust off her lips with the edge of her fingernail. She was a drooler.
“Get my notebook,” she said.
Hawley opened the closet and rummaged around until he found Lily’s purse. Inside were her wallet and keys, a package of tissues, some shells from the beach and a small black notebook, with an elastic strap across the cover and a small pen that fit inside. He grabbed the notebook and brought it back to the bed. Lily yawned as she took it from him, then opened the pages and began to draw. In the old days she used to roll a cigarette when she woke up but she’d quit as soon as she’d found out about the baby. Without the nicotine she was irritable, especially in the mornings. She’d started a dream journal to keep her mind off lighting up.
“What was it this time?” he asked.
“A flock of birds. There were so many of them I couldn’t see the sky.”
She took his hand and put it on her swollen stomach. Recently, the baby had started to move. Whenever Hawley felt the fluttering deep inside his wife, it made him want to get in his car and drive.
“I think it’s asleep.”
“Wait for it.” Lily flipped the page of her notebook. She drew feathers and wings. “I always wake up too soon,” she said.
Too soon for what, Hawley wanted to ask, but he already felt like a fool for being jealous of the baby who had brought these vivid dreams, along with everything else that was upsetting their lives: the visits to the doctor, the boxes of diapers, the tiny clothes, the stretch marks on Lily’s skin. He still remembered that day in March when she got home from the doctor’s office. Hawley had been eating scrambled eggs in the kitchen when she told him the news. He’d held her, but the only thought he’d had was that his eggs were getting cold.
“There,” said Lily. “Did you feel that?”
Something rumbled beneath Hawley’s fingers. Like a clam tunneling deeply through tightly packed sand. He shook his head. “I must have missed it.”
Eventually the midnight sun turned into a true morning, and as soon as it did, Hawley closed his eyes and started to fall asleep. As he drifted, he was aware of his wife getting up and getting dressed, pulling up her maternity pants, sliding her breasts into a bra meant for nursing. When she tried to wake him, he turned over and groaned.
Lily
shook the car keys. “It’s the ultrasound,” she said.
“Do I have to go?”
Her hand fell and began stroking her stomach, as if she were working out a muscle that had just been pulled. “I guess not.”
She turned away from him and walked out of the room, and he could hear her in the kitchen, washing the dishes. Then he heard her gather her things and get in the car and leave. As soon as she did, he opened his eyes and picked up her notebook from the bed. The birds had necks like swans, twisted at odd angles, their beaks drawn to sharp points, their talons spread wide.
Since she got pregnant Lily’s mind had been full of monsters, and yet she never seemed bothered by her dreams—the three-headed dogs, the bulls with red eyes, the packs of man-eating horses. She drew them in her notebook and then they were gone from her life. But each time Hawley snuck a look at those pages, he felt like he was reading his future.
I’ll tell her the truth, he thought. As soon as she gets home.
—
HAWLEY SAID HE was going hunting. He told her that he’d be gone overnight, maybe longer. Lily tugged on her braid and didn’t say a word in return. She went into the kitchen and packed him a lunch with sandwiches and sodas and a thermos of coffee. While she did this Hawley got his duffel and went through his stash in the basement. He took the Colt and his father’s long gun and a SIG Sauer pistol. Then he packed bullets. Hornady InterLocks, A-Square Dead-Toughs and Winchester Silvertips. When he came back upstairs Lily was sitting on the front steps, the lunch bag resting on her knees.
“You’re not happy,” she said.
“I’m happy,” said Hawley.
Lily grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him close. He bent his head and inhaled the scent of her. For a moment he considered staying. She slid her hands into the back pockets of his jeans, squeezed his ass and then let go. She handed him his coat.
“Promise that you’ll call me tonight.”
“I promise.”
“You mean it?”
“I said I will.”
Lily watched Hawley as he loaded a sleeping bag, his mess kit, the food and his ammunition inside the cab of the truck. Then she picked up a rock and threw it at him. Hawley ducked but the rock still hit him hard—right in the soft spot underneath his ribs. He pulled up his shirt and touched the mark she’d made, bright red and smarting.
“You better be happy when you get back,” Lily said. And then she went inside and closed the door.
—
WHEN HE GOT to Anchorage Hawley walked into the bank and was led by the manager down to the locked rooms where the safe-deposit boxes were. The drop was there waiting for him. It was a small aluminum suitcase, with a handle and wheels. He zipped the sides open and looked at the money. The bills smelled of fresh ink and all the excitement of his old life. For a moment he thought of taking the case, going home for Lily and heading to Mexico. Then he remembered the pilot and his girlfriend, and he closed the lid, locked the handle and wheeled the suitcase out of the bank.
At Whittier he took the ferry to Cordova. By then it was early evening, but the sun was still bright. The boat was full of oil rig workers, drinking and playing cards. Hawley sat at a booth and opened up the lunch bag Lily had packed for him. Inside were two cans of ginger ale, a roast beef sandwich on white bread, a ham-and-cheese sandwich on marbled rye, some pickles wrapped in tinfoil and a note that said: It’s a girl.
The paper had been torn from Lily’s dream book and was folded in two, so that It’s was on one side of the crease and a girl was on the other. Hawley opened and closed the note several times, as if the content might change if he did this enough, but the handwriting remained solid, an indelible mark. He put the sandwiches and the pickles and the ginger ale back into the bag. Then he went to the canteen and ordered a beer. The ferry pitched into the wake of a crossing tanker, and all around him men held on to their seats and groaned.
It was the first alcohol he’d had in more than a year. Lily had never asked him to stop but it didn’t feel right to drink without her. Now whenever they walked past a bar, she’d say, “I just added another year to your life.” And for a long time the thought of all those extra years with Lily, stacked up in some vault of the future, had been enough to make him keep walking.
By the time they’d arrived in Cordova Hawley had nursed his way through four beers and half a bottle of whiskey he’d traded with one of the oil riggers for Lily’s pickles. He bought a coffee from the canteen before it closed and then made his way unsteadily down the stairs and waited in his truck for the deck hands to wave off the cars. Once he was over the ramp he drove straight through town and got on the Copper River Highway. After he passed Eyak Lake and the military base, the paved road turned into gravel and wove through a swampy forest, lined with spruce and hemlock. His truck swerved back and forth, kicking up dust. It was close to nine o’clock at night but still looked like the middle of the afternoon.
He passed a moose and a calf, munching weeds in a pond. Then up ahead he saw something dead in the road. Antelope or deer, maybe. It was too torn up to recognize. There was a young eagle ripping into the belly, spilling intestines onto the road. Hawley swerved around, and as he did, the eagle took flight. Hawley watched in the rearview as the bird circled, its wings spread like fingers, then the eagle landed and continued its meal.
He drove for an hour and never passed another car. Twice he dozed, waking up just as the truck was veering off into the brush. He drank more of the coffee and ate one of Lily’s sandwiches, and then he came to the bridge where the highway ended. Before he crossed, Hawley saw the sign for Childs Glacier. He took a left and followed a narrow dirt road along the south side of the river to a parking lot. There was only one car parked there under the trees, an old Chevy Silverado. Hawley slowed the truck and idled a few spaces away. There was no one in the Silverado, but the back was covered with bumper stickers. IT’S CALLED TOURIST SEASON: WHY CAN’T WE SHOOT THEM?; JESUS IS COMING—LOOK BUSY; and WHAT IF THE HOKEY POKEY IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT?
Hawley parked the truck. He found the bottle of whiskey under the seat and took a few more pulls. He read the bumper stickers again. If things went wrong and he had to kill the man who owned the Silverado, he could deliver the package, get his payment from Jove and still keep the aluminum case. With each sip of whiskey the idea took stronger shape in his mind, until he’d imagined every detail, from the grizzled lowlife no one would miss, to the moment when Lily laughed as Hawley dumped the money across their bed.
Hawley made sure his guns were loaded. Then he opened the lunch bag and took out the note. He’d folded and refolded it so many times on the ferry that the crease had grown soft, and now the paper came apart in two pieces, the one that said It’s and the other that said a girl. Hawley thought about Lily writing the words. He put the half that said It’s back in the bag. He took the half that said a girl and slipped it into his front pocket. Then he got out of the car.
The parking lot was deserted, so he made his way toward the marked trail. There were several signs about grizzly bears, and another that warned people about tidal waves. Hawley stepped from the tree line and down a deep slope. From there he could see the glacier, looming on the opposite shore.
He’d seen icebergs since moving to Alaska, but this was something completely different. This was where icebergs were born. The glacier was a giant, rippling wall of blue ice, over three hundred feet high and three miles long, with the Copper River churning at the base—a marvel of gravity, pressure and time. The shelf moved each day, bit by bit across the mountains, and eventually broke off—calved—into the water below, creating instant tsunamis. Hawley had read about a few lunatics who’d tried to ride the giant waves on surfboards. Two had been crushed beneath a chunk of ice. The Forest Service had cordoned off the river downstream but they never found the bodies.
There were two women waiting along the shore of the beach, dressed like hikers. They had boots and packs, a tent and walking poles—the kind peop
le used to climb mountains. One of the women had a camera set up with a zoom lens on a tripod, and the other was standing and watching the glacier with a pair of binoculars, her hair in pigtails. She was a little old to be wearing pigtails, Hawley thought. It made her look like a teenager from a distance, but as he got closer he could tell she was somewhere between forty and fifty. She was built, though. Thick shoulders and muscled, ropey arms. Skin weathered and toned. She looked like she’d lived her whole life outdoors. The other woman was young, maybe twenty, and had a military buzz cut and a tattoo of a crow on the back of her neck.
“Here for the view?” the woman with pigtails said.
“Nope,” said Hawley.
“I guess you’re meeting us, then.”
They were both carrying. Hawley could see the bulge underneath the tattooed girl’s shirt where the handgun was tucked into her jeans. There was a rifle next to the tripod, and the older woman with the pigtails picked it up and set the gun into the crook of her arm like it had been made to live there.
Behind them came the sound of thunder. A cracking and splitting of air. Hawley could feel the boom in his chest, the rumble of an approaching storm. He glanced up but the sky was clear. Not a cloud overhead or in the distance.
“We’ve been here for an hour,” said the tattooed girl. “There’s been some avalanching, but the glacier hasn’t calved yet.”
“It’ll break soon,” said the woman.
“I want to get a picture,” said the girl.
“You will,” said the woman.
She put her hand on the crow tattoo and rubbed the girl’s neck. The way she did this made Hawley realize they were lovers. Then the girl shrugged off the woman’s touch. She did it like she was trying not to, the same way that Hawley had pulled away from Lily when they’d said goodbye.
He felt for the Magnum in his pocket. He said, “Steller?”
“That’s right,” said the older woman.
“I’ve got your money.”
