Walk in Beauty

by Wind, Ruth

  He swayed upright and managed to find his feet. Up close, he smelled bad. Jessie caught her breath as she steadied him. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “Hey, baby,” he said, reaching for her, “mebbe—”

  Jessie shook her head, intersecting the grasping hand before it did any damage. “It’s cold,” she said, urging him along.

  He wasn’t tall and that made it easier. She flung his arm around her neck and walked him toward the house, feeling a moment of doubt as she saw the darkness all around. Finally she opted to go in the back door. They were less likely to awaken anyone that way.

  Once she rounded the house, the youth mumbling incoherently beside her, she saw the kitchen light was on, and Mary Yazzie was visible through the window. Good—she would have some help.

  “Come on,” Jessie said. “There’s stairs here. Careful.”

  But in spite of her warning, the boy went down, cracking his head against the concrete. He made a sharp noise of pain. Jessie swore, realizing she should have seen it coming.

  The back porch light came on, and Mary came outside. In the yellow light, Jessie could see blood gushing from the wound on the youth’s forehead. She also realized who it was—the quiet friend of Mary’s fighting son.

  In a harsh voice, Mary said, “Let’s bring him inside.”

  “What’s his name?” Jessie asked as they propped him in a chair.

  Mary’s lips were tight. “Rudy Salazar. He’s one of my son’s friends.”

  “I remember seeing him this afternoon.”

  Jessie wet a dishcloth with cold water and pressed it to the bleeding cut. Rudy knocked her hand away with a profane curse.

  She lifted her hand and bent close. In a dangerous voice, she said, “If you do that again, I’ll drag you back outside and let you freeze to death.”

  He glared at her, but didn’t move when she pressed the cloth to the cut again. Jessie looked at Mary. “We need to keep him here. He may not be acting alone, but he’s one of the ones disrupting the project.”

  Mary nodded. Her gaze slipped away, and Jessie guessed her thoughts. If this was one of her son’s friends, was Joaquin responsible for the leak of information that made it possible for the culprits to undermine the project?

  Respecting her privacy, Jessie said nothing. She lifted the cloth from Rudy’s head and saw that most of the bleeding had stopped. “Pretty nasty cut, but I guess he’ll survive.”

  “He’s lived through worse.”

  Jessie looked at him, feeling a pluck of sadness that one so young should have such an intimate knowledge of that “worse.” His face was dirty, but in the midst of all the grime, his mouth was young and vulnerable. It made her sad.

  Mary brought in a sleeping bag and dumped it on the floor. “I’m going to go back to sleep,” she announced, leaving Jessie alone with the youth.

  Jessie kicked the bag into a semi-straight line, hanging on to Rudy with one hand so he wouldn’t fall over, then tipped him forward in the general direction of the bag. He landed more or less straight and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes closed.

  Suddenly weary, Jessie sank down in the chair and glanced at the flower-shaped clock on the wall. Three a.m. In a few hours, it would be light and the house would be stirring. She wondered if she ought to go back to the truck and try for a few more hours of sleep or just sit here, in case.

  She heard her thoughts with a slight shock. In case of what? She stared at Rudy.

  In case his breathing stopped. In case he started to be sick and wasn’t turned the right way. In case—

  With a crushing sense of depression, she buried her face in her hands. Would she never learn?

  How often had she led her mother quietly to her room, washed her face, taken off her soiled clothes and put her to bed before her father got home? How often had she done it for Luke?

  All at once she realized she had thrown on her clothes without undergarments, and her feet were stinging with goat heads. She should go back to the truck.

  No.

  The expression on Luke’s face had been terrifying. She didn’t want to face him right now, didn’t want to hear what was behind an expression like that. No. She would slip into the other room and stretch out on the couch. It was the best solution—she wouldn’t wake up with Luke, and she could keep an eye on this boy, too.

  A school counselor had once told Jessie she couldn’t stop her mother from drinking, no matter how hard she tried. Jessie accepted the advice and went to the next step—she took care of her when she was drunk. It wasn’t a job most people wanted, but Jessie always found a sense of relief in it. It was something real, something concrete. No, she couldn’t keep anybody sober, but she could tend them when they were drunk. She knew what to do, how to minimize the damage drinking wrought.

  Co-dependent. The word whispered through her mind as she crept through the sleeping bodies in the other room and fell into a vacant chair.

  Co-dependent. That’s what they called it. But did that word still apply to her? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anymore how far she’d go in trying to shoulder the pain of an alcoholic she cared about, since it had not been an issue in so many years. She felt her actions tonight had been simply compassionate—who would leave a young man outside to freeze to death?

  Shifting restlessly in the chair, she crossed her arms over the ache in her belly. Co-dependent actions or not, it was far, far better to stay here and make sure some young man didn’t die in his alcoholic stupor than go out there and face Luke, who knew her, who needed her, who would engulf her tonight if she went to him.

  It was better this way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Luke went to the house a little before dawn broke and saw Jessie slumped in the chair. Her hair, mussed from their lovemaking, tumbled around her like a wild cape, chestnut and gold, with tendrils that clung to her porcelain cheek. Her feet were bare and reddened in spots from her run through the field. Below her sweater, he could see she wore no bra, and the gentle slope of her breasts, so vulnerable to other eyes, made him take a blanket from the couch and toss it over her.

  His past drinking weighed heavily on him this morning. He had been a traitor to his people, to his family, to himself. But most traitorous of all had been his betrayal of Jessie’s need to believe in someone. He, unwilling to bear that burden, had retreated into a comfortable world where no golden eyes would ask more of him than he could give.

  He wished fervently now that Daniel had taken this woman to be his wife, that when at last Luke had learned of his daughter and the woman he had never forgotten, Jessie would have been safely and securely married to his childhood friend. With Daniel, she would have faced no betrayal.

  A knot of despair tightened in his chest as he went to the kitchen, looking for coffee. There on the floor was the youth from the night before, still passed out. At the table sat Mary, her face haggard, staring at the youth as if she could make him disappear. “There’s our witch,” Luke said. “Will it help, do you think?”

  Mary shrugged and stubbed out a cigarette. “Joaquin is gone this morning. I’m so ashamed of him. He sat through our meetings, knew exactly what we were doing.”

  Luke touched her hand. “The things they did weren’t serious. I doubt anyone will even press charges as long as they agree to stop.”

  She shook her head, and the heavy earrings she wore swung against her neck. “Joaquin will pay for the sheep he killed. It’s the right thing for him to do.”

  “That’s fair enough.”

  “I’m going to send him to his uncle. If he works hard for a while, maybe he won’t be so bad.”

  “Maybe.” Luke ducked his head to avoid her gaze.

  “What else can I do?” she asked. “Maybe you know a little about boys going bad?”

  Luke glanced at the dirty face of the youth. He sighed. “I do.”

  “Tell me, then, what should I do?” Strong emotion sounded in her voice and she paused, lifting her eyes to the window and the vast expa
nse of mesas and fields beyond. “I have no more answers.”

  “Maybe there are none. Maybe,” he said, raising his eyes, “you just have to let him fall.”

  Mary measured his words for a long moment. “Maybe I do. But I’ll try his uncle first.” She straightened then, as if girding herself. “Let’s talk about the project. I want to tell you about some of the women who will be there today, so you know who you are talking to. They will listen, but you must talk to them in their way.”

  In spite of his feelings that he was not the best choice for this job, Luke listened carefully. There wasn’t anyone else. He would have to do what he could—for Mary and the memory of his mother and for all the other weavers who deserved more than what they were getting.

  When Jessie awakened, slowly, she was exhausted. And in spite of the clear morning, with its bright sunshine and blue sky, she felt a dragging sense of depression.

  Almost everyone was gone already into town for the meeting, and she rushed through washing her face and changing her clothes, only going to the kitchen for a cup of coffee at the last moment.

  The youth from the night before sat alone at the table. His long hair was tangled, but he’d washed his face and hands. He still smelled as if he’d been sleeping with goats, and his eyes were bleary red with his hangover, but Jessie felt a rush of relief, anyway. He was, at least, alive.

  When he saw her, he turned his face away sullenly. Jessie hesitated for a minute. His mouth was vulnerable, very young, and she saw the wounded self-respect in his pose. She wanted to sit down with him, to talk. Talk some sense into him or make him feel better.

  She wanted to tell him tomato juice would put back the vitamins he’d lost, and that a couple of aspirin would open the blood vessels constricted by alcohol. That was what gave him the headache that almost visibly pulsed around him—a lack of oxygen to his brain.

  Instead, she poured herself a cup of coffee. “Mary has some aspirin if you want it,” she said.

  He glanced up at her with an expression of such feral hatred, she backed away. “Are they gonna take me to jail?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on what you’ve done.”

  “I didn’t do it all.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “Told your boyfriend already—the Meeker Galleries.”

  “What?” The string of Southwestern galleries, run by a rich family out of Albuquerque, had pretended to take a solicitous interest in the project. She sighed. “Terrific.’,

  Luke came in through the back door, and Jessie glanced up guiltily. He looked haggard. “Jessie,” he said. “Good. I came to see if you were up.”

  “More or less.”

  He looked at the youth. “She tell you her hangover cures?” he asked without smiling.

  The youth said nothing.

  “Tomato juice and aspirin.”

  Jessie lowered her eyes, painfully embarrassed.

  Luke’s voice was bitterly ironic as he continued. “She’ll even tell you why it works if you want to know.” He shot her a veiled glance. “Right, Jess? You’re the expert on hung-over alkies.”

  Jessie winced at his harsh words, but put her cup aside. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “In a minute.” Luke leaned on the table, close to the youth. “You like waking up like this? You like comin’ to and not remembering how you got there?”

  The youth’s chin jutted upward and his eyes turned to flat slits. “Get outta my face, man!”

  Luke straightened. “It makes me sick to look at you. Go wash up. You smell like a goat.”

  Appalled, Jessie almost protested—until she saw the fine tremor in Luke’s hands as he whirled away. As they stepped outside into the bright fall day, she reached for his arm. “Luke—”

  He yanked away violently. “Damn it, Jessie, just leave it alone, will you? You don’t have to take care of me anymore.”

  His words seared her. “Don’t take it out on me.”

  “Why didn’t you come back to the truck?”

  She looked away. In the rough pen, sheep bleated quietly and a goat, seeing the pair of them standing there, trotted over hopefully. “I don’t know.”

  “I do.” His mouth twisted. “You were in there playing Florence Nightingale, right?”

  Jessie swallowed, drawing back a little from the fury in his voice, the bitterness she had never heard before. It startled her into telling the truth. “I was afraid to be with you, the way you looked.”

  “It’s easier to deal with a drunk, isn’t it?” His voice was dangerously controlled. “A drunk who can’t talk or get through to you, rather than a man who might really need you, who might really ask you to be honest.”

  Jessie stared at him, clinging to the shreds of her collapsing defenses. “That’s crazy,” she whispered.

  “Is it?” He stepped forward. “It was always easier for you to take care of me when I was drunk or hung over than when I was just loving you. You couldn’t take it.”

  “You’re right!” she retorted, giving in. “I didn’t know how to love you the way you were. You were so good and so strong and so beautiful and I knew—”

  It was this weakness in her that she feared more than anything else, something in her that didn’t heal people who were alcoholic, but encouraged their disease.

  In horror, she backed away from him. “I always thought that if you hadn’t been with me, maybe you wouldn’t have fallen over the line.” She struggled with her emotions, but too much had happened too quickly, and they were exploding out of her. Tears washed over her face. “And when I left you, you got sober, didn’t you?”

  “Jessie—” he said, reaching for her.

  She dodged, struggling to calm herself. “We have to get to the meeting.”

  He grabbed her just above the elbow. “Wait a minute.”

  “No,” she said violently and tried to pull away, but his grip was fierce and unbreakable. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Too bad. We’re gonna get it all out in the open right now. You listen to me.”

  Jessie sighed and turned her face away, letting him hold her elbow. Passive resistance, that was the key.

  But Luke wasn’t having it. With his free hand, he took hold of her chin and turned her face gently but firmly to his. “Look at me, Jessie,” he said when she kept her lids lowered.

  When she ignored him, keeping her gaze focused loosely on the white buttons of his chambray shirt, he warned, “I’ll stand like this all day if I have to. You know I will.”

  In defiance, she closed her eyes. But when he simply stood there, she knew she would give in a long time before he did. His stubbornness was patient, hers impulsive. She raised her eyes.

  “That’s it. Now listen closely.” He looked at her intently, bending his head toward her. “I’m an alcoholic, Jessie. I started drinking a long time before I met you, and I knew better. Sooner or later, I was headed for a fall. You being there didn’t make a difference one way or the other, except that you made me more comfortable when I’d get sick.”

  She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he held up a hand. “You didn’t have anything to do with your mother, either. You know it, too, when you’re thinking clearly.”

  Jessie shifted, trying to pull away in discomfort, but Luke held her steadily, firmly. “Are you finished?” she asked.

  “No.” His mouth tightened for a brief instant, and he shook his head. “No child should have to go through what you did, Jessie. I know it hurt you and that there are things you’ll never get over, but I wish you could see yourself the way I do. I wish you could see how strong you are now. Even with that kid in there—”

  “I didn’t do anything this time,” she protested in self-defense. “All I did was make sure he didn’t freeze. Anyone would do that.”

  “No, not anyone. But that doesn’t matter. I can’t tell you anything—you have to work it out on your own.” He stepped closer and brushed the tips of his fingers over her cheek. “But I want you to know th
at I love you. You don’t have to do anything or act a certain way or pretend with me. Just being Jessie is enough.”

  She swallowed and looked away, unable to bear the straight penetration of his liquid gaze.

  “Jessie,” he said.

  “I can’t do this, Luke.”

  “We’ll stand here until you can.”

  Reluctantly, she looked at him again.

  He smiled softly. “There’s nothing I would like better than to be with you for the rest of my life, to have more babies and make love every night and eat supper with you.” He touched the crown of her head and smoothed a lock of her hair over her shoulder, his gaze following the movement of his hand. He took a breath and looked into her eyes again. “But I’m through giving you everything just to have you throw it back at me and run away. If you think you can come to me with a whole heart, then come. Otherwise, I’m gonna get on with my life.” Very tenderly, he bent and pressed a kiss to her lips, almost as if he were saying farewell. “It’s time.”

  He let her go without another word and headed for the truck. After a moment, Jessie followed. They rode in silence to the meeting house.

  Outside, Giselle ran in circles, playing chase with a gaggle of other children. With a start, Jessie realized how much freedom Giselle had here, under the watchful eye of so many. Everyone watched the children, from slightly older children to the old men sitting on a bench outside.

  Still, to delay going inside for a minute longer, Jessie whistled. Giselle peeled away from the group. “Hi, Mom!” she cried, and hugged her.

  “You look like you’re having a good time.”

  “I am!” With another quick hug, she let go. “See you later.”

  Jessie watched her go with a small sense of sadness. Giselle was no longer her baby. She caught Luke watching Giselle carefully, with no expression, and shrugged. “She’s growing up.”

  He nodded, a distant expression in his eyes. With a pang, Jessie realized he meant it this time. The ball was in her court.

  And she knew she would have to choose not to play. A vision of the future, dry and dun-colored as the desert, flashed over her imagination, giving her a hollow feeling.