Gift of the Golden Mountain

by Shirley Streshinsky

  Hayes's car was parked near the breakwater. Her headlights caught him, standing alongside the car, the collar of his wind-breaker turned up against the breaking spray as the waves washed high on the rocks. She leaned to unlock the passenger door and he slid in beside her.

  Neither spoke. She thought: Yesterday belonged to Andy, today is Eli's. She wondered if their day would ever come.

  He ran his hand through his damp hair and began, choosing his words carefully. "I'm going to ask you to do me a favor, but first I need a promise." She said nothing, so he continued, "I need a loan, and I need it today. I can't get to my own money for about five days. I'll give it back to you then. But here's the catch—I need ten thousand dollars in cash, and most important, I need you not to ask any questions."

  "Eli," May said. "This has something to do with Eli."

  He shook his head and took both her hands. "May, please. No questions, not one. I wouldn't be asking you for this kind of a favor if there were any other way. There isn't, but you have to do it my way."

  "It's about Eli and the killings. Eli must need the money, he must be on the run. You wouldn't do this for anyone else."

  "Stop, please . . . don't say anything more," he pleaded. "Forget what I've asked—go back to Faith's, please . . . just forget it."

  "And you think that you can protect me, keep me from being involved, if all I know is that you asked for a loan."

  He was shaking his head. "Listen to me," she said, her voice fierce, "just drop the charade. I want to help, I want to be in it with you. It's too late for me to turn back, even if I wanted to—which I don't. But I have to know what happened. Tell me."

  In a voice drained of emotion, he told her what had happened in the courtroom, and then he said, "The police are looking for Eli, they think he helped get the guns."

  "Did he?"

  "One was registered to him. It was part of the Panthers' cache of weapons. But Eli would never have provided it for that kind of purpose."

  "He knew something was going on," May said. "I could tell by his voice, he sounded . . . desperate."

  Hayes said, "I talked to him for a few minutes yesterday morning . . . I wanted him to know about Andy. He said he couldn't talk just then, he said he'd get back to me as soon as he could. Any other time I would have known by his voice that some very bad shit was coming down, maybe I could have . . . I don't know, Eli was always struggling . . ."

  "How do you mean? What was he struggling against?"

  "The Panthers have factions, just like any other political group. There are guys that want to shoot it out, the 'black cowboys,' Eli calls them. He's not one of them; if he knew about the shooting in advance, he would have tried to stop it. I know that, May."

  "That was my next question. I can get the money as soon as the bank opens, and I'll give it to Eli gladly . . . as long as I know he tried to stop the killing. How do you know?"

  "I know Eli."

  She thought for a moment.

  "Then why not try to get him to turn himself in? We'll get him the best defense in town. Faith is an old friend of Colin Riordan— he'd take the case if she asked him. His father represented my dad—the Riordans don't lose . . ."

  "Eli is convinced he'll die if they take him in . . . he thinks the police . . . prison guards, someone on the inside will kill him. You know some Panther leaders have been gunned down in Chicago and Los Angeles. I won't ask him to turn himself in because I'm not sure he'd be safe—and I couldn't handle that . . . Eli's death, I mean."

  She took his hand and lifted it to her lips. "We'll help him get out of the country, and we'll do it together."

  "Jesus, May, I keep wondering where it will all end," he said, his voice breaking. "I didn't want to involve you," his hand caressed her hair, "but I'm not sure I can handle it without you, either."

  She left the Jaguar in the Safeway parking lot in the Marina and they drove in Hayes's car to the phone booth near a Chevron station on Lombard Street. They were supposed to be there by seven; at ten minutes past, the phone rang.

  "Can you get the money?" a voice asked.

  "We can have it by eleven this morning, maybe eleven-thirty."

  "In cash?"

  "Yes. But we have to see him."

  "No way."

  "Then no money. Tell him. He'll agree."

  "You and the lady he mentioned?"

  "That's right."

  "You wait. I'll call back in five, ten minutes."

  They sipped hot coffee from paper cups and waited.

  "You insist on going in with me?" Hayes asked for the third time. "Couldn't you just take my word?"

  "Of course I could take your word, and I would. But I want to see Eli . . . I just want to see him, to make sure he's okay, and because it could be a long time . . ."

  Hayes shifted his coffee from his right hand to his left, so he could caress her arm. His hand was warm from the coffee, his touch sent an electrical shower spraying through her stomach. "I care about him—for himself, and for what he is to you. It never occurred to me that I could be part of you without being connected to Eli."

  "He's the only brother I have left."

  "I know," she said as she watched a young woman in striped Ben Davis overalls approach the telephone booth.

  May was out of the car before Hayes knew what was happening. "Oh, excuse me," she said to the woman, as if she were out of breath, "I wonder if I could ask if you would mind awfully using another phone . . . we're waiting for an important call from the East . . . our phone is out of order and my mother is ill, the hospital said . . ."

  The woman's expression turned from annoyance to sympathy. "Sure," she said. "Sorry . . . hope it works out."

  Hayes's look made her laugh. "See how well I adjust to the circumstance?" she asked.

  "Your mother . . ." he said.

  "Mothers always work," she answered. "People understand about mothers." She grinned, so he would know she was aware of the irony. At that moment the phone rang.

  "Here's the drill," he told her as he turned on the ignition and the car roared to life, "we get the cash, put it in brown paper bags, and pile some groceries on top. At eleven-fifteen we are supposed to be at a phone booth out by San Francisco State. Someone will be watching us, to make sure we aren't bringing the police. If they find out anybody is following us, the dude on the phone said we'd be in an unlucky situation."

  "Unlucky?" she repeated.

  "He meant dead," Hayes said, his voice tight. "I don't want you to go, May. I think we'd better call this whole thing off."

  "Look," she told him, playing for time, "It's not even seven-thirty yet, we've got more than two hours before we can get anybody at the bank. I need to take a shower and clean up—I haven't even combed my hair—and maybe we can even get a little rest."

  She sat on the bed in the motel room combing out her wet hair. "Who could possibly be on to us?" she asked. "It isn't all that generally known that you and Eli are close, is it?"

  "He pretty much kept me separate from his Panther friends," Hayes admitted. "I'm on a lot of lists, I'm just not sure if I've been connected to Eli. It's hard to say how good the FBI really is. Sometimes I think they're inept. The Berkeley police would know about me and Eli, but I don't think the feds take them all that seriously."

  "Did anyone except Eli know you were at the beach house?"

  "No, my folks knew I took off by myself but I didn't tell them where I was going. They expect me back late this afternoon, to help plan a memorial service. The guy who is going to take over my apartment in Berkeley is there now, doing some painting. He knows about Andy, he'd tell them."

  She looked at him. "When is the service?"

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, next week some time I guess . . . it depends on what the folks want."

  She waited awhile before saying, "I didn't know you were giving up your place."

  He had been lying on the bed with his hands behind his head; now he sat up, his feet on the floor. "We
both know our timing is off, May. A period of separation is inevitable. You had to take the position with Dr. Obregon . . . I agree it was the right thing to do, and you knew it too—you didn't even have to stop and think about it. And I know, I've known for a long time now, that I have to get away. At first I thought I'd go to Washington, see how things worked close up, see if there is any way in the world I can work from the inside." He laughed, a harsh laugh. "Blasphemy, I know. But I'm tired of trying to scale the city walls with toothpicks for grappling irons." He frowned. "Now, with all this—Andy, Eli—I think I have to get out of the country. I'm not sure where, just away."

  "Europe?"

  "Probably."

  "Why not Asia?"

  He looked at her, thinking. "I want to go to the other side of the earth right now," he said, "as far away from the Stars and Stripes and Vietnam as I can get."

  Timidly, she asked, "Do you know for how long?"

  "Do you?" he came back.

  She shook her head and asked, "Will we be able to see each other?"

  He answered: "I sure as hell hope so . . . you're the only sane thing in my life."

  "So isn't it a little bit crazy . . ." she started to ask, but stopped herself.

  She was going with him to see Eli, she gave him no choice. "They are expecting two of us," she argued. "If I don't show up they'll suspect something is wrong."

  "I don't like it," he insisted. Before they left the motel, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him with great tenderness, her lips soft on his, and she could feel him relent.

  Hayes put in a carton of guacamole dip, some taco chips, and topped the bags of cash with loaves of bread and cartons of eggs.

  "Why guacamole?" she asked.

  "Eli's favorite," he answered.

  "Why eggs?" she wanted to know.

  "When was the last time you grocery shopped?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer explained that bread and eggs always go on top so they don't get smashed.

  They parked close enough to the pay phone to hear it ring. "I still can't believe it took you only twenty-five minutes to go into the bank and walk out with a shopping bag filled with cash."

  May laughed. "The poor assistant manager—I'll have to call and apologize to him. He started to tell me that I would need to give them so many days advance notice for that kind of a withdrawal, and I just didn't have time to be polite."

  "So how did you do it—how did you get the cash?"

  "Kit showed me how."

  "You talked to her this morning?" he said, alarmed.

  "No, another time I wanted to get some cash fast—I forget now what it was for, but some assistant was balking and telling me I would have to come back, and Kit made one phone call. To the CEO. He had the money delivered to me, as I remember."

  "Money talks."

  "Most of the time I try to keep the volume turned down, but obviously I'm capable of blasting it out if I have to."

  The ring sounded once, then again before they realized it was the phone.

  Hayes jumped out of the car, grabbed the receiver so fast he almost dropped it, and shouted "I'm here." Then he said, "yes," and "yes" again before hanging up. He made a few quick notes and returned to the car.

  "We have to do a little aimless driving on the Great Highway, so they can be sure we aren't being followed. Then we go to a house in Daly City."

  They drove in silence, May holding the bags of groceries on her lap. She could smell the corn chips, her stomach rumbled with hunger.

  Hayes heard and said, "We'll eat when this is over."

  It was a tidy little stucco house with a square of meticulously trimmed lawn in front, and a birdbath; only the birdbath distinguished it from all the other houses on the block. May followed Hayes up the red concrete walk and they stood—each holding one of the bags—on a doormat that said, "Welcome to our Happy Home."

  Hayes rang the bell. They could hear chimes echoing within. No one came. May whispered, "Wrong house? This one seems preposterous." He pushed the bell again. A young woman with a plain, freckled, uncomplicated face opened the door. A child, about two, was clinging to her skirts. "C'mon in," she drawled in what might have been an Okie accent, and stood back so they could push by her, into the tiny house.

  May glanced into the living room. A playpen took up most of the space. Beyond it, a young man with a thin blond beard watched television, the sound turned off. He did not look up at them.

  "That way, down the hall," the woman gestured, and we walked ahead, aiming for the door she pointed to.

  It opened and Eli filled the frame. He is too big for this went through her mind, He is just too big.

  His presence seemed to fill the tiny house. Tears rushed to her eyes. Eli pulled them into the room and closed the door. He stood, shaking his head as if he couldn't stop. "What a sorry mess," he said. "Andy . . . now this." His voice cracked. Hayes grabbed him, hugged him hard, and Eli reached to pull May into their embrace.

  The shades had been drawn, casting the room in an eerie, filtered orange light. The bed was covered with a pale blue satin spread, and a homemade pillow, heart-shaped and elaborately ruffled, was perched against the headboard. May's eyes scanned the room. It was, she guessed, the master bedroom. There was a framed wedding photograph on the dresser: bride and groom in front of a church altar, parents on either side, all of them smiling. May couldn't tell if the bride in the picture was the plain-faced girl who had opened the door for them; she couldn't remember what she looked like.

  The room was too cramped to move about. They arranged themselves in a small circle, May sat on the bed, Hayes and Eli in straight-backed chairs, their knees touching.

  "I couldn't stop it," Eli told them, "I tried, but I couldn't, and we all lost."

  In a voice so low she had to strain to hear, Hayes said, "Why not an anonymous tip, a warning?"

  Eli put his head in his hands. "Yeah—why not?" he answered, in an anguished voice.

  May reached to put her hand on his shoulder. "Where will you go?" she asked.

  Hayes broke in, "He can't tell you."

  "I can't, babe," Eli said, "but I thank you for saving my black ass—even if I'm not sure it's worth saving."

  "It's worth saving," Hayes told him.

  May had to ask, "Will you be all right?"

  "If they know what a basketball is where I'm going," Eli tried to joke, and stood to show it was time for them to leave. "Before you go," he said, "I want to say I think the two of you should be together, should hold on to what you've got. Can you do that?"

  May looked at Hayes. "It's what I want," she said, as if taking a vow.

  "It's what I want," Hayes repeated, solemnly.

  Two nights later she was packing books at two in the morning when she heard the knock on the door. One long, then three short raps.

  "I drove by about midnight and Karin's car was still here. I decided to try again . . . to see if by chance a light was on . . ."

  His eyes were rimmed in red, he looked haggard and worn. "I know," she said, wrapping her arms around him, laying her cheek against his chest, "I wish I could be with you all of the time."

  "The FBI questioned me today. I took a risk coming here, it would be bad if they connected the three of us and started investigating you . . . and found out about the cash withdrawal. God, I shouldn't have come May, but I had to see you again before you left . . . I couldn't sleep . . ."

  "Come sleep with me," she said quietly, and she led him up the stairs.

  They made love tenderly, touching each other with great care; slowly, to remember. He was breathing as a swimmer would breathe, evenly and deeply. She felt as if they were underwater, their bodies suspended in the wet warmth, gliding and turning easily, intertwined. And then they burst to the surface in a great gasp, laughing at the enormity of it, their immersion in each other.

  He slept, and she watched him, and then she watched both of them lying in a tangle of sheets, she watched from some point above, knowing that she wo
uld need this image in the months to come, this memory.

  May sat in the back of the Stanford Memorial Church, giving herself over to the Bach prelude and fugue. The organ music swelled and waned, resonating into the high beamed ceilings of the great dark chapel, entering her bones. She had not told Hayes she would be there.

  The family and friends of Andrew Diehl were in the front pews of the church; the rest were filled with students who had come to protest the war in Vietnam. It was clear they saw the memorial service as a platform from which to deliver a message against the war.

  Marylee Diehl turned to look back at the students packed in the pews. Her face had been ravaged by sorrow; now, looking at the crowded chapel, the sorrow was complicated by confusion. Hayes sat next to her, put his arm around her. He was explaining, May thought.

  Three students crowded in beside her, pushing her into the corner of the pew. "Jesus, this should be something," one of them, a young blond woman in overalls, said, as if she were looking forward to a theatrical performance. Several students in the pew ahead turned and smiled.

  May's face burned with anger. She leaned across two students to tell her, "No, this is not going to be 'something'—this is going to be a memorial service for a man who died too soon. If you didn't know him, or if you didn't come here to offer some comfort to the family that mourns him, then you should either be quiet or leave."

  The blond girl looked at her defiantly. May stared back, all of her pent-up anger focusing on this blond, blue-eyed girl. A fierce silence hung over the pew. Then May felt it, the sudden shift as the students next to her moved to give her more room—and as they moved, the music seemed to swell, as if J. S. Bach was scoring a victory.

  Hayes came to the podium. He stood, looking out at the sea of faces, tall and elegant in his sorrow, and May had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. He waited until the noise died and the students decided to listen to him.

  Into the profound silence that fell over the chapel, Hayes said simply, "My brother died in a war I did not believe in. But I believed in my brother.

  "Most of you who have come here today, to this memorial service, did not know my brother, Andrew Diehl. Andy. Many of you think he was wrong to have volunteered for this war, some of you think he was the enemy and you have asked if you can come up here today and state your views. Our answer—my parents' and mine— is that you can, if you are willing first to allow us our memorial."