“Oscar says you can have it for one fifty, but not to tell Corrine. Wrap it up?”
Junior slid it onto his left pinkie finger, where it fit precisely. “I’ll wear it.” He looked for bills in his wallet and thanks to Corrine, had to resort to the credit card. He wandered over to Oscar, who sat behind the counter with a soldering gun. “Thanks for the square deal.”
“I’m curious, Mr. Big-pants Jeweler. What you plan on doing with that ring?”
“For now,” Junior wiggled his little finger and glanced down, admiring the stone, “wear it. Nice chunk of Lander, however. Begs to be reset.”
“Won’t get no argument from me. Certain people have had an eye on it for some time.”
“Certain people?”
“Well, one in particular.”
“I’m getting the idea this particular certain person is someone I know.”
Oscar soldered a broken hinge back onto a heavy concho belt, waited for his work to cool, then handed it over to Junior to inspect.
“Hoo, you always had the touch for fixing things. You’re the man. You’re talking about Chloe, enit?”
Oscar pushed his glasses up his nose. “She tried it on a bunch of times. It fit her ring finger.”
“Why didn’t she buy it?”
“Price scared her off. I got the feeling she don’t ask for stuff like other women. Can’t do it. That’s a rare thing among women.”
Junior thumbed the band from underneath. “I guess.”
Oscar set down his equipment and faced his friend. “They was doing pretty good before you came along. Don’t mess up their life just to scratch the itch, you know?”
Junior studied the stone a while, its speckled blue surface featuring the slightest dent, like an egg with a slight blemish. “Itches go away. This goes deeper.”
Oscar sighed and picked up his soldering gun. “Buddy, you can get along without, I heartily recommend avoiding the tangle.”
Junior pulled up to the curb outside the mortuary, looking at the reflection of his red car in the window, the engine idling. Plain gold letters announced the serious business of laying the dead to rest. All he had to do was walk in and tell them his name, claim the ashes, drive a couple hours, throw them over the edge. Then he was done with Jimmy Whitebear forever. Instead he gunned the engine and drove across town to the elementary school. School wasn’t out for a half hour. There was time to see his horse.
Sally lipped his bare fingers, nickering softly, delivering horse kisses so sweet and tender it only made things worse.
“Hey, Sally. You craving a foal this spring? You miss Chloe, don’t you. I guess that makes two of us.”
The mare butted her massive head against his chest, rubbing her winter coat, complex with its own itches, against the fringe of his jacket.
Junior kissed her muzzle, inhaling deeply. “Spring,” he promised. “We’ll ride again. After that, let’s start looking for a boyfriend for you.”
Inside the classroom children were working quietly in groups, four of them clustered around the aquarium, several in a circle of desks, and still others in the rear of the classroom, using primary colors to paint on butcher paper tacked to easels. Hank had two kids in chairs at his desk, where the subject seemed to be spelling. Dog was one of them. He sat in the tiny chair, looking down at his hands. Hank said, “Another way to look at it is you got two right, Dog. Come on, lift up that handsome chin. One way or another, these words still have to get spelled.”
Chuey Alberto poked Hank’s arm. “Hey. What for we got to spell this crap when most the time we spend is talking?”
“Or if you be an artist,” Dog offered eagerly. “Artist don’t got to spell nothing except his name.”
Hank looked up at Junior, who had unobtrusively entered the classroom and now stood behind the boys. He nodded acknowledgment, then focused his attention back on his charges. “Someday you boys might need to write a very important letter,” Hank said. “Or want to write down a story for your kids. You might have the kind of job that depends on your spelling words right, or costly mistakes will be made. Spelling’s hard work, I know. I can’t spell very many words in your language. Why don’t you practice writing down these five words that you missed. Three times each ought to be enough. I’ll come back and check on you in a few minutes.”
The boys’ dark heads bent to their task, and Hank came over to Junior. They watched two girls painting at the easel. Hank said, “We don’t have any budget at all for art. I’ve had to dilute the tempera so much they might as well be painting with watercolors.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me.”
“Yes, I do. This isn’t the level of teaching I’m capable of offering. There are days it makes me ashamed. Today happens to be one of them.”
Junior retrieved a brush one of the children dropped and exclaimed over her broad strokes on the paper. “A lot of energy going on with the yellow in there. Keep up the good work.”
“Volunteers are always welcome.”
“Why don’t I buy you some art supplies?”
“I’m sure the children would be grateful.” Hank glanced up at the clock. “Already time to get them in their seats and cut them loose.”
“I’ll stand in the back here. Don’t let me rush you.”
At Hank’s request they quickly sponged up spills and put away supplies. The girls sat in their seats with folded hands atop desks and the boys, bowing to the unspoken rules of masculinity, settled for sitting somewhat quietly. Hank stood in front of the world map, and together they watched the clock. As soon as the minute hand ticked over to three, everyone rose quietly and lined up. He walked them out the door, and Junior caught his son by the shoulder.
“Hey, Walter. Today’s our day. On the way home, I thought we’d stop for some fries. Your favorite, right?”
Dog’s smile was cautious. “Can I ask Chuey to come along?”
“Sure.”
Dog ran to catch up with the boy, and Junior watched as his son received an instantaneous rebuff. Chuey went off laughing with his friends. Junior’s heart cleaved for the boy.
Dog’s lower lip trembled, but he managed to say, “Had to go to his grandmother’s.”
Junior patted his back. “Another time he’ll come. You’ll see. Let’s go. You’re going to have to help me eat the fries. I need serious help, Walter. Then how about we pick up some groceries, surprise your mom by starting dinner?”
“I don’t know cooking.”
“All the famous chefs are men. I’ll teach you.”
“Okay.” Dog stuck the tie on his jacket hood in his mouth. They drove onto Main, the radio blaring KTNN, giving the Mormons and the picture takers a blast of words nobody had bothered to spell at all until white people decided they needed a dictionary.
Even on this cold day, the lure of the open road was palpable. After stopping at the bank for cash, Junior gunned the engine and Dog cheered.
“Junior? Can we drive all the way to Phoenix?”
“Some time, sure. Just not today.”
“Why not today?”
“Your mom wouldn’t have any reason to eat dinner if her boy didn’t come home.”
“She never eats the dinner. Just me and Oscar do.”
“You think she’s feeling okay?”
“Maybe. She says Coke settles her nerves and not to bother her.”
They ordered the fries and stood waiting in line. “Coke’s not real good for you, Walter. It’s okay once in awhile, but the best thing for a man is water. Six glasses a day at least. Lots of good, clean water. The same holds true for—”
“Can I have a quarter for the video game?”
Junior handed him one. That will teach me to lecture to an eight-year-old, he thought. He pictured the streams that ran through Canyon del Muerto. They would be frozen now, little more than icy ribbons, glinting silver with promise. But come spring, water would course down from the Chuska Mountains, torrential at first, almost angrily fingering their way thro
ugh the sandy soil. Given all that had happened in the canyon, the water had every right to feel acrimonious. For three seasons the streams would flow steadily, just as they had over the past fifty million years, cutting their truths deep into the sheer-walled canyon, into land as unfathomable as Jimmy Whitebear’s heart.
18
The little girl outside the drugstore looked nine, maybe ten years old, and God alone knew what possessed her to sit in thirty-degree weather, clutching a cardboard box. It was early Sunday morning, the day Kit would fly home, but there were hours yet until they had to leave for the airport. Kids this age were home watching cartoons or trying to gather enough of the thin snow in their hands to put together a halfway decent snowman. “Excuse me?” she said, aiming her words in Chloe’s general direction.
Chloe didn’t need Hank to give her a mythic example on leaving well enough alone. A year ago, when they were still getting to know each other, when life seemed manageable, occasionally even simple, she’d been curious to learn he taught mythology at the community college. From folklore to legends to crazy old sayings even she herself used, Hank knew the meanings behind them and more. Pandora’s box, she’d asked him once. What’s the deal there? Sexual innuendo, like pretty much any story to do with women? At first he gave her the short answer. Basically it’s death and rebirth, with complications. News flash. And now that she gave it some thought, she could almost recall the particulars—something about the box having originally been a vase for storing honey.
That’s right, in the blink of a tired translator’s eye the womblike vase filled with blessings had transformed into a box of curses unleashed upon the world because of woman’s curiosity. The only good that had come of that was hope, lying at the bottom of the chest like a consolation prize. No wonder those male scholars had so much to write about.
She knew she should avoid eye contact, ignore the child like the cookie-pushing Girl Scout she probably was, run in the store, get her medicine refilled, and drive straight home. But someday Reed could be this wide-eyed, shabbily dressed white kid with a mission so important it kept her outdoors on a cold winter morning.
“What are you selling?”
The girl reached her mittened hands inside the box and brought out a puppy. “One left.”
“Oh,” Chloe said. “I was expecting Thin Mints.”
Big brown eyes blinked at her. “He’s free.”
“Nothing’s free. I’ve already got a dog.”
Her eyes clouded over. “I’ve got to find him a home or my dad says he’ll have to drown it. Don’t you know anybody who could use a dog?”
Oh, damn, damn, and ten miles down the road past damn. Motherhood had tipped her over from feeling fiercely protective of her own canine to wanting to save them all. In Indian country everyone seemed to believe the animal world took care of itself. Animals that didn’t get flattened on the highway survived, but was survival all they deserved? Did every horse have to ride out the winter with barrel-stave ribs? Was the best folks could do for their dogs was to let them run the streets, dig through trash in an effort to fill their bellies? Domestication was man’s responsibility; it wasn’t as if a person could untie the bond of ownership when a dog got old, bit a mailman, or, left unspayed, gave birth. Chloe didn’t have the dinero to buy every single homeless pooch a bone. Drowning—it made her so angry she wanted to hold this kid’s father’s head underwater in the stock tank, let his world grow dim at the edges, hear him choke on the last of his hope. Then she’d yank him up by the hair and ask what he thought of his prairie solution.
“Let me take a look at him.”
The kid held the pup out for inspection.
Chloe removed her glove and eased her hand under his abdomen, feeling for the telltale bloat that indicated parasites. A hard, round, warm belly pushed against the ribs that met her fingers. The little guy shivered with all his might, and Chloe knew however better or worse his siblings had fared, she was holding the runt of the litter. Girls this age had good reason to favor the pup most likely to be drowned. They were beginning to realize, as Kit recently had illustrated to her, just what lay in store for them as members of the second sex. Pup probably needed a hundred dollars’ worth of veterinary attention. At home in California her buddy Gabe Hubbard could have taken care of it gratis. Here, vet care took real money. She tucked the puppy inside her jacket and zipped it to her chin. “You can relax. He’s got a home now.”
The girl stood there mute.
“Here’s a dollar. Go buy yourself a chocolate bar. That’s all I can spare. I have to buy medicine. And dog food.”
She clutched the money and ran off, leaving the box behind.
Wearily Chloe picked up the box and took it to her truck. Inside the store she cradled the puppy as she walked down the baby aisle, wondering if Reed had bottles decorated with cartoon characters, she might experience happier nights. She picked up a small bag of puppy chow. Baby food and estrogen: Witness the basic elements of my life, the cow and the caretaker. The clerk handed her the prescription. What would happen, she wondered, if she swallowed the entire bottle all at once? Would it deliver her a gush of motherly instinct so she could take better care of Reed, properly counsel Kit? Tell the truth? Walk away from Junior? Bring up a dog who didn’t on principle innately distrust men? Would it make her read the letter from her own—say it—mother? It sure enough wouldn’t convince Iris of anything. Poor Iris. How long would she last? When his mother died, Hank would fall apart. Chloe couldn’t help with that. Not even Reed could help. Oh, the hell with everything. Poor all of us, including this pup.
In the truck, she set the puppy into the cardboard box, tore open the kibble and offered a few pieces. “We’re a one-dog kind of household, little guy. But I think I know somebody who could give you a home.”
She drove to the motel, knocked at the door she knew was his. After waiting a reasonable amount of time, she used her laminated California driver’s license to jimmy the simple lock and let herself in.
Junior was a belly sleeper. He had one arm flung over the edge of the queen-size mattress. Either he didn’t move around much or he’d only just gotten to bed, because the sheets were still neatly tucked. The bed pillows were stacked on the only chair in the room, their covers crisp, white, and obviously unused. Chloe set them on the table. She pushed the chair over to the bed, then let the puppy loose in the sheets and sat down. At once it began making those compelling little grunts and whines nature, in order to assure adoption, purposely encodes onto puppy DNA.
Husky mixed with shepherd? He was a little large and skinny for that. Too small-boned for a malamute. The little brown face had black markings on the muzzle. His eyes were peculiar in color, or perhaps it wasn’t the color at all but the piercing way he stared out of them. His tail couldn’t have been any bigger around than her little finger, and it had a definite crook, as if it might have gotten broken during the birth process. The tail wagged madly now that he’d discovered Junior’s hand. He began nipping and licking the long, tapered fingers. She noticed Junior removed all his jewelry to sleep. He hadn’t the night at the Pony Soldier. Here on the dresser were his rings, his bracelets, the intricately tooled watch. Part of her was dying to go try it all on, to see how it felt to carry around all that weight of his own making. If she did, and he woke up, he would look at her hands and make all kinds of crazy assumptions.
Junior’s hands were the first part of him to awaken. The long fingers began stroking the dog, attempting to soothe him long before his brain embarked on the quest to understand what new companion shared his bed. That meant he’d had a lot of women. Chloe’d bet money if someone held a gun to his head, Junior couldn’t recall all their names. His scorecard had to top the hundred mark, easily. Calluses all over his equipment. Probably one of those guys who had to exercise the steed daily or eternally question his manhood. Junior pulled the pup close, and for a moment it snuggled up to his heat, but the crackle of sheets and intriguing shapes beneath them offered so many o
pportunities to pounce and wrestle that the dog wriggled away. Chloe reached out to keep the pup from leaping off the bed. Junior caught her wrist.
“Hmmm.” His voice was husky with sleep. “I like this far better than my usual wake-up calls.”
“I’m so glad you feel that way. In fact, I brought you a present.”
He turned over. The pup nipped at her shirttail, and she directed him back to Junior. His long hair was loose from its braids, spread across his shoulders like streaming black water. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and squinted at the dog.
“There’s wolf in that pup.”
“I thought that was a fable, crossing wolves with dogs.”
“Nope.” He yawned. “It’s a dumb idea, people wanting to possess something that wild, but they pull crap like this all the time. Breed something that can’t make it in either world. There’s massive appeal, particularly to fools who can’t tolerate differences in their own species. Yeah, look at his eyes, Chloe, his conformation. Won’t be easy to train. I don’t suppose you brought me any coffee?”
“Sorry. The kid giving him away said her dad would drown him if she didn’t find a home.”
Loving Chloe Page 23
