Heart Mountain

by Ehrlich, Gretel;

  “Buenas—” he said.

  They drove on and parked the car on a cliff. From there they could go north into California or south over the top of Ensenada toward the ranch their father had once owned.

  “Want to go look at it today?” McKay asked, looking down the coast.

  “Naw … let’s get ourselves a decent drink and some American girls in San Diego,” Champ said and shook out two white pills into his hand.

  “What are those?” McKay asked.

  “These are my forget-me pills. You gotta take them to forget those army nurses,” he said, swallowing them with his beer.

  “That bad …”

  “No, good.”

  McKay grinned.

  “They make it worth a man’s while to get wounded … but a foot-wound would have been handier.…”

  “You’ll heal.”

  “I need some of that pecker medicine Bobby brews up.”

  “He sent some. I threw it away about two thousand miles ago,” McKay said, and Champ laughed.

  At the border the customs agents looked in the front seat, under the hood, in the trunk, then waved them on.

  “Hey, let’s stop at this little joint,” Champ said. It was a white adobe building with a red tile roof. “They know me in here,” he said, climbing out of the car.

  They sat at a bar and ordered whiskey. The bartender was voluptuous in a low-cut peasant blouse and wore a poinsettia behind one ear.

  “Well, well, well,” she said, looking at Champ. “Where’d he ride in from?”

  “Wyoming, ma’am,” McKay replied. Then he pushed his hat back on his head and downed the whiskey.

  Two young women slid onto the stools next to the brothers. Champ threw his arm around the one nearer him. Her black hair hung to her waist. He bought them drinks, then lifted his shirt to show them the top of his war wound.

  “How’d it happen?” the one with the long hair asked. She spoke with a lisp.

  Champ told them how he was on an island in the South Seas and had climbed a coconut tree with his gun slung over his shoulder and had fired down on the enemy when they landed on the beach. But one got away and fired up at him. A bullet hit a coconut at the same time, and as he fell he remembered his face and chest were washed white with milk, and the next thing he knew he was being carried across water by one of his men.

  The girls giggled. Champ shook out two more white pills into the palm of his hand, and the other girl brought him a glass of water. McKay ordered food: a platter of tacitos, shrimp cocktails with limes, and four beers. Then Champ directed McKay to another bar.

  This one was filled with servicemen and had plush chairs and soft music. From his seat, McKay could see out over San Diego Bay and the gray masts of battleships, like crosses, rocking on the incoming tide.

  “What’s it like?” McKay asked finally, after they had sat in silence. Champ ordered a martini.

  “You mean fighting or getting hit?”

  “Whichever …”

  Champ picked the olive out of his drink and rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other, then bit into it, chewed, and swallowed.

  “First, you’re not scared. Not at all … It’s spooky, in fact. You just go along like something was pulling you up a terrible steep hill, like you’re dreaming or something, and you can only think about crazy things like who in Luster has had sex with a sheep, or the way that horse of mine rolled in the waterhole with my saddle on, or opening up a girl’s legs, or the smell of the grocery store. You think these things because you’re not really thinking at all the whole time; you don’t ever really think about what’s happening, and then when it gets real bad it’s like being on a big stout buckin’ horse who kicks and squeals and turns midair, and you know you were scared a minute before, just as you pulled up the cinch and stepped on, but you’ve lost track of all that and then you’re just flying.… It’s dark, like some damned rockchuck hole—real dark—and you’ve forgotten that you’re scared because you’ve forgotten to think, and everything gets darker.… Then you wake up and a lot of pale-faced strangers with delicate hands that haven’t ever done no irrigating are leaning over you, and your mouth tastes awful and dry and they won’t give you any whiskey for it, and then you know all that was fear.”

  McKay ordered another round. He rubbed his knuckles and looked at the swaying masts again. A destroyer glided up the channel between all the other ships and McKay thought how the wild ducks on the lake at the ranch did maneuvers every summer with their hatchlings, and wondered if militarism was perhaps a natural thing.

  Champ took a deep breath. “How’s that hand?”

  McKay dropped his right fist into his lap and looked away.

  “Well, Christ … I’m not still mad at you,” Champ said.

  McKay looked at his brother ruefully. “You were right. That’s what I’ve been thinking all year. I don’t have what it takes. I—”

  “Bullshit. I’ve seen you ride colts a sane man would plumb run from.”

  “That’s different—”

  “It’s still guts.”

  “But I’m not trying to kill the colt. I’m trying to be his friend.”

  Champ looked down at his damaged legs. “… Hell.”

  “I’m sorry for sounding like a goddamned Quaker. It’s not quite that way either, it’s—”

  “Look. I fought without believing. What’s there to believe? You go to the front with all that shit in your head and it doesn’t mean a damned thing anyway. I just went and hoped to hell I was up to whatever came my way.”

  “And you were, weren’t you?” McKay said.

  Champ twirled his cane under his hand. “I don’t know. How the hell would I know?” He lifted his martini. “Here’s to—”

  “Oblivion,” McKay interrupted. “Oblivion is the cocktail of the people.”

  Champ grinned. “Gin with a dash of oblivion and a twist of oblivion, and two green olives.”

  “Rum and oblivion on the rocks.”

  “Whiskey and an oblivion back.”

  “Whiskey straight up with a side of oblivion.”

  “Whiskey and oblivion ditch.”

  They drained their glasses.

  “God, I’m pie-eyed,” McKay announced loudly. In the harbor, a second destroyer filed in and the wake from the ship made the gray masts swing harder. McKay stood and fell sideways. “The fuckin’ tide’s coming in,” he said to a Navy man on the bar stool in front of him.

  “You bet it is, pal,” the man said, laughing.

  Champ took a deep breath, eased himself to his feet, and, bent like an old man, limped out the door.

  It was dark when they reached the bungalow. McKay thought he had never felt air so soft. It was still low tide and the wet sand shone. Two children approached, selling shells, just like the ones at their feet. Champ bought two sand dollars, then dropped them as soon as the children walked away.

  Carrying their shoes, the brothers sat on the beach and let the water wash over their ankles.

  “That island where I was shot,” Champ began, “just before, I had seen a Jap on the beach. I was by myself and so was he. He looked to be kind of an older fellow. Had gray hair. Well, I’ll be damned if he didn’t take off his clothes and go swimming. Jesus, we were landing troops on the other side of the hill. I hid in these bushes and watched him. He walked into the water like there wasn’t a war on and stood waist deep and splashed himself and wiped his face and hair. Then he swam out a little ways and floated on his back. Christ, one of our planes flew over him, but he didn’t duck or hide. He just lay there, his arms stretched out. The ol’ pilot dipped down and took a look, then flew on. That struck me funny, too. Why didn’t he shoot? Then the guy swam back in and stood on the beach for a long time rubbing his head. Naked, out there while we were making a landing on the damned place. The thing is, I had my gun but I couldn’t … I kept thinking … Ah shit—”

  McKay looked at his brother. Champ stood and walked toward the water. He had taken his shoes
off, but he had all his clothes on. A wave broke and the water rose up around his waist, then dropped.

  “Come on, you landlocked sonofabitch, get your ass wet,” he said and McKay followed.

  They swam out. A wave came from a long distance away and they rose in its swell and watched it crash just beyond. Another wave came and another, followed by a lull, then a ripple of swells and they dove into the next wave’s thick middle and emerged laughing. McKay circled Champ.

  “God, this feels good,” Champ said. “I don’t limp when I’m swimming.”

  “Neither do I.”

  McKay saw that his brother’s whole body was tanned bronze. Champ was shorter and thicker and the muscles in his arms were strung on bone like hardballs, and an arrow of dark gold hair ran from the top of his buttocks halfway up his spine.

  “So who have you been screwing?” Champ asked, treading water.

  McKay lay on his back, floating. “Someone you don’t know,” he said.

  “Hell, I know ’em all.”

  “Not this one.”

  “Did you ask?” Champ said, smirking. “If she knew me—”

  “Yea. That’s always my first question.”

  “Who is it, then?” Champ asked, grabbing his brother’s foot and pulling it down. McKay went under water for a second.

  “Mariko Abe,” he said, then dove.

  “Who?” Champ yelled down into the water.

  McKay emerged.

  “What’s that?” Champ said.

  “Her name.”

  “I asked whose pants you’ve been in … God almighty, there must be a lot of choices with everyone gone.…”

  “I told you,” McKay said.

  “What do you mean?” McKay started to say the name again. “Never mind.”

  “Mariko?” Champ said incredulously. “A Jap? You have the whole country to pick from and you’re screwing a Jap?”

  “Hey—” McKay started.

  “You mean from that Jap Camp up there? Jesus, fucking Christ, McKay—” he yelled.

  McKay swam away from his brother. He knew the look and the tone of voice. He knew what was coming and he didn’t want that again.

  “You lousy stinking traitor!” Champ yelled over a breaking wave, then swam hard after McKay.

  The wave broke on Champ’s back, pushing him down to sand, and when he surfaced again he let the next wave carry him to shore. Out of the water, he staggered to his feet. He picked up his clothes and cane and walked toward the bungalow. “Come on, come out of there …,” he yelled.

  A light in one of the houses down the beach went on and Champ saw the door open, then close and the light go out again. Champ opened the louvered side door of the bungalow. Inside, McKay stood naked. Champ looked at him, and the smell of wet straw and salt and mold filled the room.

  “Did Bobby put you up to this?” Champ asked coolly.

  McKay went at his brother, then stopped, holding his scarred fist with his other hand. “Don’t you ever say anything against Bobby, goddamn you, don’t you ever say his name again.”

  McKay towered over his brother, who held one hand to his groin and the other out to fend McKay off.

  “So you came all the way to San Diego to tell me about your Jap girlfriend—” Champ began with a derisive smile.

  “No,” McKay said quietly.

  Champ jackknifed with pain and stumbled to the wicker couch. McKay looked at him, turned.

  “I have to get my clothes,” he said flatly.

  “Don’t run out on me, brother.…”

  When the door closed, Champ lay in the dark. He grappled with the cork in a bottle of tequila and took two more pills from an army envelope on the glass table.

  When McKay came in, he turned on the light. In another room he put on a fresh shirt and jeans and brought the same out for his brother.

  “Thanks,” Champ said, taking the dry clothes, and after he had struggled with the wet pants, McKay had to help him.

  “Where’s the hooch?” Champ said.

  McKay uncorked the bottle.

  “You’d make a shitty nurse,” he said, glowering and drinking. Then he handed the bottle to his brother.

  A few months before, McKay had dreamt there was a tidal wave and he had saved Champ from drowning. He had awakened feeling an unaccustomed tenderness toward him. That was gone now.

  “I didn’t think you’d care,” McKay said, “who I slept with, as long as it wasn’t one of your—”

  Champ broke out laughing. He had taken off his wet shirt. The long scar that began at the base of his groin was red and purple, and the skin on each side of the stitches looked sore.

  “I don’t,” he said bitterly. “I really don’t.” Then he laughed again. “Here, Goldilocks, drink,” he said, handing McKay the tequila.

  McKay looked at Champ over the bottle and exploded with laughter, spraying booze all over the table. Champ bent forward, laughing. He held his incision, but when he looked up his face had gone pale.

  McKay put the bottle down. “What?” he asked.

  Champ’s eyes moved down and McKay looked: the incision had split open.

  “Put your hand on it,” McKay ordered. Part of Champ’s intestine showed. McKay went to the phone. “Por favor, ambulancio … hurry, please. No! Pero … Sí, sí, taxi … Gracias.”

  McKay helped Champ lie back on the couch. He tore a clean sheet off one of the beds and held it firmly to the open wound. Champ’s eyes were deep-set and he stared at the ceiling like an owl. A cockroach climbed the wall behind, then fell onto the couch. McKay flicked it away. Champ looked at him. His eyes were dry and vacant.

  “Hell, I’ve done better sewing jobs on cows blind drunk,” McKay said.

  Champ smiled. “Feels like my guts are going to fly outta me.”

  “I won’t let them,” McKay said.

  Champ grinned. “It feels funny, that’s all.…” His voice trailed off.

  “Hey, Champ … here, want a drink?”

  Champ’s eyes brightened, and McKay put the bottle in his hand.

  Finally, there was a knock on the door. “Venga,” McKay yelled, and two men, one the proprietor, one the cabdriver, hurried in.

  “Where you want to go?” the hotel owner asked.

  “The hospital, San Diego. Now, please … it’s serious. Five hundred pesos plus tip. Okay?”

  The three men carried Champ to the backseat of the cab. It was an old Ford with rosaries and crosses and madonnas stuck to the dash.

  “Ciudado, please. Mi hermano.”

  The driver pulled out of the hotel blasting his horn all the way. Champ lay motionless, holding his wound. His head bobbed as the driver took the long hill up out of Ensenada.

  “I saw that once,” Champ mumbled.

  “Saw what?” McKay asked. His voice was gentle now.

  “Saw the guts come out of someone. See, the Japs shot my best friend. Shot him down right next to me, and the next thing I knew his guts were—”

  “Here, have another swig,” McKay said.

  “You think of everything, don’t you?”

  “Yea, I’m sharp as hell,” he said sarcastically.

  “I like this driver we’ve got. Give him a hell of a tip,” Champ said.

  “What do you need?”

  “More of that hooch à la Mexicana.”

  McKay held the bottle to Champ’s mouth. “I should have brought one of those big black nipples Pinkey uses—”

  Champ wiped his chin where the tequila spilled. “Christ, why do I put up with you?”

  “Who said you did?”

  After he paid the cabdriver, McKay waited in the hall while the doctor on call examined Champ’s torn incision.

  “How’d this happen?” the doctor asked.

  “I was laughing at my kid brother,” Champ said. “See, here I go off to this war and my brother gets himself an agricultural deferment to stay home and mind the ranch, and what does he do but start screwing a Japanese girl … can you believe—”
<
br />   “How much have you had to drink?” the doctor interrupted.

  “Not enough.”

  “We’re going to have to give you a local then, while we sew this up.”

  “And with all those horny women around,” Champ continued, “and he goes and screws a Jap. They ought to cut a man’s dick off for that—”

  “Mind your language,” McKay heard the nurse say sharply. Then she closed the door.

  25

  Even at night the trip home across the desert was staggeringly hot and McKay felt drugged and heavy, but at the same time, as if he might break like eggshell. What had healed over or been put aside with his brother had come back, and it corrupted everything. McKay’s idea of himself, his isolation, became fixed. As the train roared east on the same tracks that had brought Mariko to him and would take her away, his desire to see her redoubled. He thought of his brother’s stitches bursting apart, everything inside unraveling.

  Pinkey met him at the station. The cows were fine, Madeleine was sick with “some woman problem,” Bobby’s two hundred irises had bloomed, and a letter from Ted awaited him. Pinkey didn’t have to ask how it went with Champ. He could tell by the look in McKay’s eyes.

  “I knew you two would quarrel. You’re like a couple of sheepherders come to town.”

  The next day a cold front came through like a foreign visitor. McKay called the Camp and he was told no passes were being issued. The clouds took Heart Mountain from sight that same day, soft and thick and clinging, and did not relinquish their hold. When the rain changed to wet snow, a coat of frost bent green trees down. McKay felt the wrongness of everything. Day after day he looked for the mountain, even in his sleep, and when it showed, the midsection was gone, taken by fog.

  When the mist lifted, a long, single cloud arced over the state like a bowed tendon. McKay looked through the mail that had stacked up. There was a card from Mariko.

  McKay—

  Kai says that passes will be lifted soon. Come for me on July 24, 1:00 P.M.

  Mariko

  “What day is it?” McKay asked.

  Bobby looked at the calendar. A girl in a bathing suit sat in a brand new John Deere tractor. “July 7, 1943.”