“Where was he? Where was your husband and what was he doing?”
Adam heard Cynthia clear her throat. She looked at him. At first, he saw the tiredness in her eyes, the worry, and maybe even panic crouching quietly in there. But he watched all of this slowly give way to an expression of wintry calm, forged from something pale and hard. Like a time-lapse film of water freezing, thought Adam.
She turned to Bonnie Bickle. “Richard was down in a basement bedroom with a very young woman named Kathleen Welborn and they were engaged in S.E.X. Under the covers, somewhat. They were so involved, they didn’t even know I was there.”
“That must have been awful.”
Sky hissed something incomprehensible.
“It was for me,” said Cynthia. “Not for them. But what happened after was awful for everyone.”
“Which was?”
“I went home and got my gun, then came back to the party and shot him. Five times, up close. He was in the game room by then, playing beer pong. The first shot went through his heart and he was dead not long after he hit the floor, according to the coroner. Of course I didn’t know that, so I made sure. Five shots, total. I came that close to getting first-degree, because of the leftover bullet and the time between what I saw and what I did. Prosecutor said I was a manipulating wife and a calculating killer. Those lies hurt me more than the truth ever did. It came down to the judge. He felt sorry for me. And by then, he was probably sick of the whole pathetic mess. Wouldn’t you be?”
A long silence. Adam listened to the cars and the crows cawing over the trees and the mutterings of the crowd that had gathered.
“Wow,” said Bonnie Bickle. “So. Thirteen years in prison?”
“No, thank you, I’ve had quite enough,” Cynthia said politely. Adam watched her snug down her hat and slip on her sunglasses. He set a hand on her arm, which was trembling.
“Bonnie,” said Sky. “Maybe we could discuss extreme sports. Like this show is supposedly about.”
“Certainly, Sky. Let’s talk about Robert, and how the curse of the Carsons seems to be continuing.”
“Robert’s not a curse; he’s a blessing.”
“But can you take us back to the last Mammoth Cup ski-cross finals, when Robert—in the lead—lost control? We’re going to show that clip now, so you take over and call it for us, will you?”
Adam tried to watch the miserable clip. He’d seen it too many times. What if Robert was aware? Adam looked out at Highway 203 heading out of town, at the cars winding down the mountain, and an eastern sky untouched by smoke.
“You can see for yourself what happened, Bonnie,” said Sky. “What’s important is that Robert is a great man and a great brother. He is the finest ski-cross racer I’ve ever seen. So I’m going to win the Mammoth Cup in January for him. And he’s going to stand on that podium and help me accept the trophy. I don’t say this as a publicity stunt. It is a fact that you will witness.”
“Does Robert have a chance of recovery?”
“His doctors are, of course, utter fools. But Mom has been getting Robert out into the sun almost every day. We’re seeing that the stimulation has started to rebuild the damaged neural pathways in the nerve bundle. He’s already using his eyelids to signal certain … recognitions.”
“Really? Can he, like, blink once for yes and two for no?”
“We hope to be there by the fall.”
“Okay, Sky, you don’t want to believe in a Carson curse, but tell me about your half brother, Wylie Welborn. Most Adrenaline viewers know about Wylie Welborn, but for you people out there who don’t, Sky—your father, Richard, was Wylie Welborn’s father, too.”
“That’s insightful of you, Bonnie.”
“And your mother, Cynthia, as she just told us, killed Richard in a jealous rage—after catching him in the act of, well … creating Wylie Welborn. You and Wylie were born one hundred and forty-four days apart. Looks like the beginning of bad blood to me. In fact, you and Wylie have a history. You recently posted serious threats against him on social media. You called him a ‘demon bastard.’ That’s a quote, Sky. So tell us, is Wylie Welborn part of the Carson curse?”
“He is the curse incarnate. That’s why I’m going to beat him in the cup.”
“Wylie Welborn won the cup five years ago on his first attempt. You’ve won only one time in eight tries.”
“Oh ye of little faith. I’m training well. Eating well. I have a new girlfriend, Megan Brown, and she’s totally into me. I’ve cut way back on the partying. I’ll win. You can bet on it in Reno or Vegas if you’re so inclined. Robert and I will stand on the podium with our gold. Wylie Welborn will not.”
“What if he runs you off the course, like you claim he did in practice?”
Adam saw Cynthia’s look of calm come to her son’s face again. It wasn’t quite as strong or thorough as hers, but it spoke of the same resolve. Sky leaned forward toward the camera. “Chip, chip, chip, Bonnie—you’re part of the curse, too. And we Carsons are out of here.”
Adam stood slowly and readied himself behind Robert’s chair. His knees and back were stiff after sitting this long, and his sudden memories of Sandrine and Dave and those early days had left him wistful. Yes, he thought, I want to be young and strong again, but I cannot. So let Sky be young. And Robert. And Andrea. And Wylie. All of them. I have appointments to keep.
Camouflaged Cynthia came over and dug into the book bag hanging from the wheelchair handle. “I could have been an Olympic medalist,” she whispered to Adam. “But I chose to raise a family for your son instead. These half-wits understand nothing.” She got her folder from the book bag, extracted this week’s edition of The Woolly, and walked it over to Bonnie. The host smiled politely and gazed at Adam with a questioning look.
Maybe there’s some truth in the Carson curse after all, he thought. He’d had that idea before. And he’d wondered more than once, Have I made it better or worse?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Richard had more than his share of women, and this was no secret when I met him. Soon after, I found myself in the same condition that Kathleen would find herself in years later. But Richard wasn’t married when he made me pregnant. I lost the child later, but Richard had already committed to me—a late spring wedding here in Mammoth, then a long summer honeymoon in the Andes of Chile—and I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. He didn’t struggle much. We were happy. And hell-bent, as all good ski racers are. We had mountains to conquer and medals to win. Marriage? Oh, why not? We were young and talented. The Sarajevo games were coming.
So the idea of Richard straying from me was there from the start. I told him once, just once, that if he betrayed me, I would punish him. How, I didn’t say. But I was very clear as to degree—it would be serious. Extremely so. But the precise idea of doing what I did was never in my head until that night. And then it seemed like the only thing I could do. I didn’t agonize over the decision. I’ve taken longer deciding on a sweater. I just saw that I needed to do what I’d said I would. It was as if I had one line in a play and now it was time to step out and deliver it. Only then did I know what I was going to say.
Oh, and I was furious.
* * *
After Adam and I got Robert home from that difficult Adrenaline interview, we bathed Robbie and Adam left. He was very tired. I was buzzing with the energy I am known to have for long periods. Years ago, the meds were useful, but I’ve outlasted them. I really don’t like other people’s hands inside my head.
We who live on mountains learn never to waste one second of summer, so I went back out late that afternoon with my green camo still on, hat and all, and headed for the Welborn household, which is less than a mile from my condo.
I kept to the trees, of course, so as not to advertise myself. This is where the camo comes in. We have so many lovely old pines and firs in Mammoth, you can almost always find yourself a cool, fragrant pool of shade in which to rest and observe. That’s why we have so many fine bears. So I came
upon the Welborn household from behind and found just such a cool place in which to hunker, and so I hunkered.
Their home is an unremarkable wooden structure near downtown, off of Cornice Bowl, with a gambrel roof and dormer windows, painted pale green, very typical 1970s mountain construction. It sits in a little swale and behind it is a slope on which Robbie and Sky would occasionally ski with Wylie, I am told, during their brief détentes when they were all very young. You know how children veer from enmity to affection so quickly. I remember how in prison my body would recoil at the thought of my sons playing with my husband’s bastard child. It was a very raw feeling, and a helpless one. There is nothing that takes away hope faster than a cage. I very much enjoy the popular women’s prison show on TV now. It gets the crazy energy that cooping up people produces. It gets the fact of contraband and how the COs are not necessarily better than the inmates. They get some of it wrong, too, such as the fact that in a real prison, nobody inside thinks they deserve to be there. Every last one has an excuse or maintains innocence even with reams of evidence against them. The emphasis on sex is exaggerated, for certain, though I do remember three women—one small and the other two large and mannish—who were physically/sexually intimidating to the others. I messed up one of the big ones with the heel of my hand once, broke her nose like it wasn’t even there, stomped her, too, badly. They never bothered me again. I think they mostly had sex with one another, a deserved punishment, if you ask me. Personally, after I shot Richard, I never wanted to have sex again with anybody.
Today my timing is good, and from my spot here in the trees I see Wylie and his sisters come from the house and get into Wylie’s truck. That cute little wooden trailer is hitched to the back. They make the turnaround and swing right past me, but they don’t see me. I wear nothing reflective and I close my eyes as the windshield lines up with me, so they can’t see even a twinkle of light from my cornea. Watching is a lot like sitting in a cell, so far as your options are concerned. But I know I can stand up and walk away when I’m finished. Belle is pretty, like her mother. Beatrice is tall and still slender and she moves self-consciously. I suspect she lacks a solid view of herself. I know from my investigations that she is a near-regular at Helixon’s party house. Any seventeen-year-old girl with wobbly self-assurance entering Helixon’s place is marked for trouble. The party mansion where I shot Richard was just like it—same booze and drugs and reckless abandon you find anywhere there are promising young people and pandering leech-dilettantes living vicariously off them.
You would be right to ask what I’m doing here at the Welborn-Mikkelsen home, what I’m trying to accomplish. I have an answer: I am here because I am related to these people. I feel somewhat responsible for them, too.
Of the three most important things to learn in a life, I have managed only the first two.
I look my deeds straight in the eye.
I see what I have coming.
But that third, most important thing is the hardest by far and I have not learned it.
I have not changed direction.
This, because I have not forgiven Kathleen and Wylie Welborn for what they did. So I watch. And wait, related and responsible, looking for a way to forgive them.
* * *
I move on to Mountain High. I park short of the mansion by a few hundred yards, get out, and hike up to the house by way of the tall stands of conifers lining the road.
There’s a good evening lie for me on the southwest side of the house, recessed in the trees but about eye level with the spacious deck. I’m backed into it and pretty much invisible from the house. The partygoers have drinks and appetizers out here, watch the sunset. Tonight, I have jerky and an energy drink waiting in my satchel, along with my 10 X 32 bird-watching glasses. In the warmer months, such as now, Helixon’s guests stay on the deck well past nightfall and they’re easy for me to glass, illuminated by the fire from a big central pit built of stone and copper right in the middle of the deck.
Peering through the binoculars, I see the Mikkelsen sisters talking with Johnny Maines, and Jacobie Bradford approaching them right now in the orange-black flame shadows. As he draws near them, it’s easy to see how strongly the sisters dislike him, how they stiffen, determined not to back away, not back down, not let him push them around. I’m momentarily proud of them, given Gargantua’s multinational muscle versus a tiny coffee pub run by the two teenage daughters of an aging Mammoth Lakes party slut. I almost laugh at the symmetry here, slut and slutlings, history repeating. Jacobie hands each of them a drink with an umbrella in it, bows humbly, and gets guarded looks from them. I see this very clearly in the binoculars. Then the Mikkelsen sisters, in unison, hand their umbrella drinks back to Jacobie and walk away. A minute later, I see them and their two friends, way down on the street, getting into an old Chevy.
Sky and Megan come onto the deck from inside. He’s got a beer and she a glass of wine and there’s a sense of calm about Sky that I like. He’s every bit as up and down as I am, always has been, but he’s never given in to the meds idea, and I do not blame him. These days, he seems not too high and not too low. He and the girl have a nice thing going. I’ve never seen him focused so intently on anything as the Mammoth Cup. Ever. More to the point, he’s doing all the right things to get ready. Making commitments. Trying to follow through.
It’s interesting to watch your own children when they don’t know you’re there. Sky behaves differently with me than with the rest of the world, of course. He’s got more swagger when he’s away from me, and, oddly, more humility to go along with it. I like those things in a man. Richard was extreme swagger, but underneath it was a swamp of self-doubt. I knew what that meant, knew what he was asking for. Sky’s asking for it, too. They’re asking to be loved. And that’s how you get them to do what you want.
Later, I see Bart Helixon come out to the deck with a woman dressed as Tinker Bell. She spins off his arm and throws her fists toward the fire. Her hands open and the fire erupts into a swirling mass of bright green flame. When Sky goes inside, I get up and sneak from viewpoint to viewpoint, all around the perimeter of the house, moving higher and lower but always deep in the trees, hitting the good viewing angles through blindless windows and doors left ajar and sliders open to the fresh, cool air. When I can’t find Sky anymore, I’m on my way.
* * *
Town is quiet. I place some current issues of The Woolly in the stands for free newspapers outside the Do It Center and Let It Bean, then on to Mammoth Liquor and back around to Von’s and the Booky Joint, my favorite small bookstore. I note the police station across the street, where I spent some inglorious time after the shooting. I see that Gargantua is busy, even at this hour. They are staying open later and later, with light dinner items on their P.M. menu, and all manner of decaffeinated coffee and tea concoctions. They are clearly trying to run Let It Bean out of business and I think they will succeed. Maybe it would be good for the Welborns and Mikkelsens to make a fresh start somewhere else. They could find their own mountain. Quit dwelling on the past. This is a Carson mountain and always will be. And don’t get any big ideas: I may have been born a Boyle, but I can out-Carson any Carson. Ask anyone.
I head down Old Mammoth Road to Main and stop at the light. I see a man loading a bicycle into the trunk of a long, older car in the Do It Center lot. He’s in overalls and a beanie, bearded, and moves quickly and nervously, like he just can’t wait to get that thing into the hole and away. The driver’s a bearded guy, too, and he looks straight ahead through the windshield, as if nothing unusual is taking place. I read about these guys in The Sheet. They’ve been spotted stealing bikes around town. I’ve seen them before, too. I can’t make out the license plate number from here. Binoculars are no good in the dark.
Abruptly, their car lurches, makes a 180, cuts across the lot, and bounces onto Main without stopping, heading up toward the village. The cop house is less than half a mile from here, so these guys have some real stones. Or real stupidity. Of cour
se I must follow. I can’t run the red light with a Boar’s Head delivery truck lumbering down at me. When the light changes, I try to catch up, but by the time I make the signal at Minaret, I can’t tell if the bike thieves have gone right, left, or straight.
That’s okay, because I have an idea where they’re headed. I saw these two malingering behind a big empty house up near Canyon Lodge just three weeks ago. Up to no good, it looked to me. Their old boat of a car stood out in that tony ‘hood, I can tell you.
So I head up Main, cut through the village on Canyon Boulevard, cruise all the way down to Canyon Lodge, and sure enough, I see the old car pulling around behind the same home as before. Twelve Madrone. It’s a big river-rock and wooden Craftsman, two stories. Always one of my favorite styles. It’s got a FOR SALE sign out front. A light comes on inside. I drive past and around, and looking through the trees, I see the old car now parked in the garage of that big almost-mansion, and the garage door going down and one of the thieves lifting the trunk lid.
I loop back and park and watch for a few more minutes. Pretty soon the house light goes off and the garage door rises and the old car backs out. As it makes the slow reversing turn to exit, I catch, in the driveway motion-detector lights that suddenly spring on, a glimpse of the thieves. They look so different from the way they did just minutes ago, when they were stealing that bike. I rub my eyes and the old car rumbles back down toward town.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
On a Saturday morning in early October, in the fragrant interior of Let It Bean, Wylie knelt behind the counter to clean the inside of a lower refrigerator. It was something to do. The place was almost empty. Not only was presnow autumn the slowest time for tourists but Gargantua had launched Y-Not? Days, which meant half-off prices from 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M. “On Any Day That Ends in Y!”
Some of the locals were sticking it out with Let it Bean, but Wylie saw they were doing half the business they’d done in early summer, which was half of what they had done five years ago, when they were the most popular gourmet coffee shop and bakery in town.
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