Montana Rhapsody

by Susanna Solomon

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow he was going to have to introduce her to Daisy. Tomorrow, he was going to ruin everything.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sunday, mid-afternoon land

  E.B. AND LAURA

  Laura stared into a canoe half-filled with water. “E.B., this sucker’s full. I bet it won’t even float.”

  E.B. rubbed his face with his hands, still felt a little queasy, and wished he had some toothpaste. “Say again?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a cupful, and maybe a little sloshing around my toes would be okay, but . . . hey, if I get in, it’s up to my ass. Can you come over here, like right now?”

  “Give me a sec.” Most guests complained about wet feet, but Laura’s new tone, it worried him. She seemed different, somehow, far beyond angry.

  Standing up had never seemed so difficult. “Ooof.” He was a little wobbly. He cleared his throat. “I appreciate your helping us land. Sorry you got soaked.”

  “It’s not me you should be worried about. Go on, take a look.”

  E.B. looked at her. “Not at me, the boat.”

  “Oh.” He watched her march down the shore. Oh my God, what legs. What would Dad say? Laura must have picked up some pebbles because he heard her throw them in behind him. Plop. Plop. Plop. He walked over to the canoe.

  “See? Just like I told you,” she said.

  He gazed into the canoe; his bailers, the paddles, and all the gear were floating.

  “You’re right.”

  Plop, plop. “Damn.”

  Sploosh.

  He pulled out the two bailers, and stopped, midair. “No. I’ll do this.” First right thing he’d done all day. “While I bail, dry off. You look like a . . .”

  “A drowned badger?”

  “Just about,” he said and set to work. A few minutes later she sat on the beach, rubbing her hair. E.B. kept bailing, trying not to look at her. His mind was supposed to be on his work. Right. Dad used to say, “Ezra, you’re a dreamer. Concentrate on your studies.” But Dad had never laid eyes on Laura.

  She’d had a tough morning, but had done well. And she was trying. But God—he closed his eyes a sec—did You have to send me someone so beautiful? It was his fault they’d hit the snag. He shouldn’t have eaten that fish. He should’ve fought his way through the pain. He should’ve kept up. But, at least he felt a little better. Now he had to empty the canoe, fix the leak, and hustle to find Campbell and Francine before dark. They didn’t have much time.

  Twenty minutes later he’d made some progress and stopped to rest. While bailing, he’d stared at the water in the canoe, the river, the hills, the sky—anything but Laura. Trying to concentrate on canoe-type things. Trying to figure out where they were, where Campbell might be.

  But he couldn’t help it; his eyes kept wandering over to her. She just sparkled, muddy, wet, whatever. He was doomed.

  When the canoe was almost empty, she came over to help. She leaned down, facing him. He tried not to stare down the front of her sleeveless top. He’d never thought about Berniece like this when they’d been sharing chores at home.

  Working side by side for a while, they established a rhythm, dipping their juice cartons into the mix, their two streams of water flooding into one. When the water was almost gone, he flipped the canoe over. Water poured out onto the short sandy beach, and all their stuff with it.

  “This trip could be the best trip I’ve ever had.” Laura grinned. “I mean, the fun never stops, does it? What did you boys say, easy trip, easy as pie? Say, would paddling up Niagara Falls be a hard trip in your book? Where is everyone else, anyway?” She sat back and watched E.B. clean the canoe. “I didn’t sign up for this life-and-death business. I get that at work.” She remembered all of it, the thugs, that asshole Harry, Campbell just in time. E.B. would think she was joking.

  “You still cold?”

  She stared off into the distance, shivering. “A little.”

  He gave her his jacket. “Well, all right, then,” he mumbled. “I’ll patch the canoe. The others can’t be too far.” He sponged out the boat. “In five years canoeing this river, we’ve never been separated. Not like this, anyway. Campbell should have waited up.”

  “I knew it. The second I stepped offshore things were not looking too good.” Laura picked at some grass. “They all just took off.” But not the thugs, they had come after her.

  “They weren’t supposed to.” E.B. hunted in his duffle bag for his patch kit.

  “When is it supposed to be fun?” She paced the beach. The comforts of civilization, warm clothes, nice beds, streets, even street people, she missed them all. Even LA. And Stella. But not the club. Never the club. “You sure they’re no roads around here, E.B.?” Harry could catch them easy, with their boat disabled like this. “Can you pick it up a little?”

  “I have to find the hole, fix it as best I can.”

  “Where the hell are we? It’s lonely out here.”

  “That’s what makes it so beautiful,” he said gently.

  Laura sniffed.

  “No reason to be . . . concerned. I got this.” He wouldn’t use the word “afraid.” People in Montana never used the word “afraid.” Afraid was when it was forty below, dropping fast, with the cows dying. Even then, he shoved his feelings away. If there was a job to do, “afraid” played no part.

  He hunted in his duffle bag for duct tape. Tucked into the side of the hull, away from her, he ran his hands over the smooth surface, looking for a crack or a hole.

  “I’ll wait, then.” Laura filtered green and purple stones through her fingers. “Kind of pretty, aren’t they?”

  “Argillite. Red if the rocks had oxygen when they were forming, green if they didn’t. The only thing I know about geology,” he laughed. He listened to the beat of his heart pound in his ears. He knew she could hear it.

  His problem was not with the boat. His problem was with her. The boat—that he could fix. But his body, not so much. Now? Like eighth grade with Mrs. Harrison? Youngish, like Laura. Blonde, like Laura. Many days, when Mrs. Harrison had said, “Class dismissed,” he couldn’t stand up. Not then. And surely not now. At least now he had a seventeenfoot-long canoe to hide behind.

  “What’s with you?” Laura asked. “You look a little strange.”

  “Nothing,” he croaked. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “A little green? That your normal color?” She laughed.

  “I’ll be all right.” He focused on his work. With little boat traffic on the river, he’d have to do it right. He couldn’t fix the damn hole in the hull if he couldn’t find it. He’d been over the whole thing four times.

  “Aha.” In the middle, at the poor excuse for a keel—a ridge that ran the length of the hull—he found a separation between the ridge and the rest of the body. A hole. Big enough for a baby’s pinkie. “Got any gum?”

  “At a time like this you feel like chewing gum?” Laura was sunning herself on the beach, feeling better. She leaned forward on her elbows.

  E.B. wanted to tell her not to do that. Or to lean over more. Oh God. “Don’t be silly. Gum is used to patch the boat.” E.B. sat up. “And . . .” Whatever he said wasn’t going to help, but he went ahead and said it anyway. “Duct tape,” he added brightly.

  “What’s next? Spit? Underwear? Bananas?” She laughed as she dug into Beth Ann’s bag for gum. “Peppermint, spearmint, or Bubblelicious?”

  “Don’t be silly.” E.B. felt relieved Laura wasn’t still angry. “Any kind. Fiberglass canoes are easy to patch. They’re strong, light, and durable.”

  “How’s your stomach?” she asked, handing him the peppermint.

  “Much better, thanks.” As for the rest of me, I’m not telling. He paused, lifting his eyes to her. Big mistake.

  “Good.” She let her hair fly in the wind.

  Oh Jesus. Wouldn’t Mack at the Feed ’N’ Seed like that view. E.B. shook his head. And God, while you’re at it—E.B. smooshed gum into the hole—could you please make her a little
less beautiful? And me a little less desperate?

  Think! He laid a piece of duct tape over the hole. What about your truck? Think about the truck. When was the last time you gave it an oil change?

  Below his belt, his body wanted her close. He lay down another layer of duct tape. He wanted her breath in his ear, his hand smoothing her hair, just like he was smoothing the duct tape over and over. Five layers should do it.

  “Then we can go?”

  “Of course.”

  “At the campground, think they’ll have dinner ready? I’m starving.”

  “Should be there within the hour,” he choked.

  “Another promise or a threat?”

  “Campbell’s a pretty good cook, generally.”

  “Generally? Let’s hope. Hey, E.B., you said you’re from around here?”

  E.B. held a piece of duct tape in his mouth. Nodded. He pointed vaguely upriver, in the general direction of his ranch.

  “You get bored out here? I would. Nothing much to do.”

  His mother, a second-generation Montanan, would be incensed. She wouldn’t be so pleased at his physical state either.

  He flipped the canoe over, slid it into the water, and, holding onto the painter, watched it bob. “If you see any water inside, let me know.”

  She examined the canoe.

  “It’ll hold, you’ll see,” he reassured her. The canoe floated just as well as it did before they punctured it. She piled on more and more gear.

  “I don’t get up normally until eleven when the sun is warm,” she said. “That’s an old joke. How ’bout you?”

  “Me? Every morning I’m up at four,” he said, incredulous. “I milk the cows, use the cultivator, repair equipment, run a farm, dig out the road in the winter.”

  “Doesn’t it get cold around here?”

  “When it’s forty below, if you have a cup of boiling water and throw it in the air, not a drop reaches the ground. It vaporizes.”

  “No shit.” She thought a sec. “People say it’s cold in LA when it’s fifty.”

  “A positive?” E.B. asked.

  “They don’t say that’s a positive. They complain.”

  “Above zero.”

  “Oh.” She leaned her chin on her knees. “Do you ever get lonely?”

  He pushed the canoe down. Popped right on up. Good. He didn’t want to tell her how lonely. “Twenty below is a warm day. Way too cold for anyone from LA. He put a few bags in the canoe. “But you get used to it. It’s not so bad. You get used to everything eventually.” He’d never get used to an empty house. He could hear Berniece’s footfall everywhere he went.

  “It’s too busy in LA to be lonely,” she said, and stepped into the canoe.

  He looked at her, curious. “What do you do for a living, then?” he asked, pushing off.

  She ignored his question.

  “Hey, E.B.? I saw a sign at Fort Benton. A revival meeting. Coal something. It’s not far, right? Isn’t that where we’re going?”

  “In Coal Banks?” E.B. couldn’t believe it. “Revival in Coal Banks?” Berniece and that goddamn preacher? Maybe it was some other preacher. Maybe pigs could fly.

  “Yeah.” Laura ran her hands up and down the paddle. “Like in the movies. Elmer Gantry, remember? Should be kind of fun.”

  Fun? E.B. took a stroke, and another, faster and faster. If he tried hard enough, maybe he could forget what Laura had just said. Maybe. Oh God, not Berniece. Not that asshole Stanley Cornelius III. He paddled like crazy. He could never get away from her.

  “Hey! Slow it down! Slow down!” Laura called.

  As if he cared. He dug in again.

  “What’s the matter now?”

  The canoe felt like a slug. Water poured over his feet. He dug in hard and, with all his strength, maneuvered it ashore, slamming the boat onto a rocky shore.

  “We can’t sink, you said! Easy to fix, you said!” Laura threw her life jacket at his head, hitting him. “Asshole!” She took off up a bluff.

  E.B. sat there, gazing at her disappearing form.

  Gum and duct tape had always worked before. He climbed out and threw everything out of the canoe. Under his index finger, he found a softness. A long softness that went a ways down the hull. Good Lord. The goddamn boat had delaminated. Laura was right. It was fixable but not with anything he had. They were screwed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sunday, mid-afternoon land

  E.B. AND LAURA

  “Goddamn it!” Laura could deal with Harry and his pals, if there was a road, if they’d rented a four-wheel vehicle, if they knew where she was, if, if, if. That was a lot of ifs. But drowning in the middle of a river with a cracked canoe, that would be a sure thing. Damn that E.B. She grabbed her paddle—it would be her only weapon.

  Her flip-flops slipped while she fought her way up a muddy bank. Someone had to live out here. There had to be a shelter, a house, something, a phone. At the top of the bank she scanned the horizon and saw what looked like a wooden house in a field in a clearing just beyond.

  She raced over small shrubs and around rocks, and slid to a stop in front of the wooden building. It was smaller than she’d thought. A quarter-moon had been carved into the wooden door. She peered inside and slammed the door a second later. Damn. In this God-forsaken wilderness of nothingness, the only sign of civilization was a toilet?

  The wind blew up, pelting her face with grit, dust, and small pebbles. She squinted in the breeze, holding her hand over her eyes, straining to see as far as she could. Nothing but burnt dry grass and, above her, a huge expanse of blue sky, wider and bigger than anything she’d ever seen. The open space made her feel like a nobody. She’d give away everything she owned for a traffic jam, the sound of honking horns, impatient LA drivers on their way to somewhere.

  She was a nobody in the middle of nowhere. In the distance, nothing but empty hills, rolling away forever. Crows called overhead.

  She felt like the day Dad had driven down their driveway in his Buick for the last time. She’d been twelve. He’d been arguing with Mom for weeks. Months, years even, if she remembered right. For a month, she’d stood by her open bedroom window, waiting and watching. Mom had told her he’d come back. That she should pray. Fat lot of good that did. Neither of them had seen him since. The heck with him. The heck with all of them. She was on her own, like always.

  She looked all around her. If she could just get to the top of a ridge and find a road, then she could see where to go. She stepped forward as sharp grasses needled into her feet.

  “Laura!” E.B.’s voice carried on a breeze. What was he yelling at her for? If he wasn’t going to get them out of here, she would.

  “Shrik, shrik.” A call, high and sharp, filled the air.

  She stopped, standing quiet, listening. Grizzly bears? A hollowed-eyed monster? Wolves? She tried to think of animals she’d seen on Animal Planet. None of the shows had animal sounds like this. Not hearing anything more, she moved on. Annoying little noise.

  “L . . . a . . . uuuu . . . rrrrrr . . . aaaaa!” Again, E.B.’s voice, more faded now. Damn him. She wasn’t going back to the river now.

  In a few minutes his voice disappeared as she continued to climb. She heard some distant birds, the zzz zzz zzz of crickets in the shrubs, and the crunch of her flip-flops on gravel.

  Carefully stepping around small bushes as she climbed, she felt like she’d left the river far behind, until she stopped, looked back, and saw the wide expanse of water lapping at the shore. How far had she come? A hundred feet? Fifty? It was pretty much straight up and, for all her workouts, was wiping her out. How did E.B. stand this place?

  Grasping her toes tight around the rubber on her flipflops, she stepped carefully around broken chunks of hard earth, which made for hard going. Out here it was worse than 2:00 a.m. at the club when the few losers in the audience had passed out and all she smelled was stale sweat, spilled beer, and broken dreams. Worse even than the night after Stella was robbed in the parking
lot, came to her in tears, and asked for a gun.

  “Shrik, shrik.” Damn stupid noise. Louder now. What the hell was it? She raised her paddle and grasped her life jacket. Good for her torso but what about her feet? Her naked legs? Ticks lurked in the grass. Snakes, spiders, all kinds of shit.

  Get going girl, she thought. Move! But where?

  “Shrik!”

  She bent down, peering into the bushes and grass. “Come on out, you little dick!”

  No sound.

  “Coward.” She kept going. “If you had courage, you’d show yourself. Piece of crap.” She scanned the bushes and grass. Nothing.

  The top of the ridge was still a long way off.

  What the hell? Out of the corner of her eye something moved. In another direction, something else. “Shrik, shrik, shrik.” She whipped around.

  The thugs, hiding in the grass? Pretending to be goats? Weasels? Bug-eyed crap-eaters? Trying to scare the shit out of her? If they’d come this far, they’d have surprised her by now. Rats hiding in the grass? Maybe.

  She scanned the dirt in front of her toes. Any way she went, she had to go around bushes, wade through the tall grass, and meander around low boulders to get to that ridge. What about trails? Didn’t people around here use trails? Roads? Anything? She looked for a depression, a cut in the hill, something to indicate a road, and kept going.

  “Shrik, shrik.”

  She jumped. Hell, that one was close. Little Martian monsters? Badgers? Squirrels? She’d had a lunatic squirrel run up her leg in Griffith Park once. That sure scared the hell out of her. That was then. She wasn’t going to let some little pissant rat scare her now. You can do this, girl, she said to herself, and stood up straight. Ignore those little assholes, whatever they are.

  “Shrik, shrik.” “Shrik, shrik.” “Shrik, shrik.” The cries came from everywhere.

  A little face popped up in the grass. Then another. Another. Hundreds of them. A thousand hungry little devils. About to dig their pointy little teeth into her toes.