Kay and Baxter have something going. Maybe they had something going all along but had to keep it secret till Adeline died. Or maybe it’s new. Who knows?
That hippie guy, Ed, he has his bees out here and sometimes he stops by and we talk. I never knew anybody like Ed, exactly. I think he’s lonely. I think he gets sad. I think he needs a friend like I do. He just comes by to hang out and that’s weird because I know I’m just not all that interesting.
Derek and me broke up. It’s hard to be so alone. Clark stopped by once.
I miss you.
Nobody ever talks about this: how you need someone. And how that fact makes all your decisions for you. Everything you do is based on that fact.
I will do fucking anything to have somebody around. I don’t even care if it’s love. I just need somebody.
I don’t know why I can’t be alone.
I can’t.
I’m trying. I can’t.
Tess, you took two suitcases and said, ‘I just need to get out of here for a while.’ What does that mean exactly?
There’s a girl coming up from Mexico. She’s pregnant. She’ll have the baby here. It’s called an anchor baby. It will have rights here. Miguel’s going to marry her anyway, though. You should pick her up, Tess, if you said you would. Remember how sick you were during those first months? What if you were that sick and escaping your country at the same time? And what if nobody picked you up?
I looked on the map for Oaxaca. It’s so far away. Miguel says that the border is a place of intense evil and intense good, side by side, which makes it one of the most interesting places on earth. Oaxaca, border, Durango, here. Or start here, then Durango, then border, then Oaxaca. The world keeps zooming in and out on me.
Why do I keep hoping you’ll come home? Just tell me that you won’t and then I’ll quit hoping. Just tell me what’s going on in your heart and then I won’t have to wonder, and I won’t have to feel like I’m zooming back and forth, and I’ll feel settled.
I leave Amber in the car while I run into the post office. I plan on dropping the letter in the slot, except the mail carrier is there and I don’t want him to see me dropping in piece of paper with no address, a letter that we both know will get nowhere. So I just keep the letter in my hand and walk right back out, as if I know where I’m going. As if I’m not feeling a little crazy, like maybe I’m starting to crack apart.
THIRTEEN
“Interesting procurement methods,” Clark says after I take my hand off the steering wheel, hand him a beer, and tell him how I got it. He says the word procurement like he knows I’m not smart enough to know it and he wants to teach it to me.
So I say, “Yeah, I procured it illegally.”
“Well, I might have to tell Frank about his fine employee, stealing beer.” He winks at me and then leans over to jab me with his elbow. “What you going to do to keep me quiet?”
“I’m going to give you a beer, that’s what I’m going to do.” I don’t tell him that Frank already knows about his fine employee; I’m not ready to tell him that part of the story.
“A beer’s good enough, I guess,” he says.
We’re heading out for a picnic. Amber’s with Arlene, who agreed to watch her for the evening, since it’s Sunday and that’s when the store closes early. I think maybe Arlene has made enough mistakes in her life that she doesn’t feel ready to judge anyone else, which is why I called her. And Amber seemed happy enough, when I dropped her off, waving her arms in slow motion like an astronaut in space. The way she moves makes me think that’s how it would feel to live in the sky. For a second I felt sorry for being pissy around her all day, but she was fussing and is it too much to ask to have a minute to yourself? What a relief it was to have someone take her from me. But now I’m feeling bad: I didn’t even kiss her goodbye.
I did the chores at Baxter’s this afternoon, except for the irrigating, which some other rancher is doing. And Miguel offered to do chores tonight, and since everyone seemed willing to help, for once I’m going to take them up on it, and I’m going to find out something about my sister.
Ed said we should all be living more dangerous lives. I want to find Tess.
I want to find someone for me.
I want a new first kiss.
I can’t take doing nothing anymore.
I’m not like Tess or Kay—I’m not going to be with just anyone—but on the other hand I might as well try to start looking. Anyway, the only connection I got to Tess is Clark. Plus I remember that look he gave me. Plus he could be all right. Plus there’s not that many other choices.
So I called him up and said, “Hey, I was thinking about going to the dam for a picnic, want to come?” And there was a pause, and then he said, “Sure, I got nothing else to do, but not the dam, because I got a better place.” And in his voice was already some sort of hope, or uh-huh, here we go, and I said, “Fine, let’s do it then,” and he said, “Okay, then come get me at Sammy’s Garage in Lamar.”
He looks like he doesn’t belong in my car—he’s so big that his legs are bunched up even though he pushed the seat back as far as it’ll go. He looks like the kind of guy who should always be driving a big truck and anything else just isn’t going to fit him right. He’s wearing the same Rockies ball cap he always wears, with his black hair sticking out underneath, and he’s chewing on a toothpick.
We’ve already talked about the weather, and that’s about it. I kept the conversation off Amber, since me being associated with a kid is the last thing I want, at least right now. I want him to see me. I also kept the conversation off my job, since I don’t have one any more, and I noticed that he kept the conversation off himself completely except to say that he’s been real busy.
Now there’s a silence. We’re driving south from Lamar and there’s lots of pale green and blue sky and too much heat being held between the two. I’m just going to say something about the heat when Clark starts talking first. “So, you heard from your sister?”
“Yeah, sort of. She sent a letter. But it didn’t say much. It didn’t say where she was. It just said she was moving.” I glance at him, because I know there’s a truth he could tell, and I’d like for him to tell it.
But all he says is “Yeah,” and he doesn’t say it like a question, he says it like it’s information he already knows. “I’m delivering some alfalfa in Durango next week. Maybe I’ll run into her.”
“In a town like Durango? You’ll just run into her?”
He shrugs. “It’s a possibility.”
“Clark, can I just come right out and ask you something? And be real honest? Because I need to find her. Amber’s father wants to take her from me, and there was a message on our answering machine from a lawyer. I haven’t called him back. Kay says we got to use delay tactics till we find Tess. I never got Amber legal. And maybe I will give her up—I mean, I don’t know what to do. I need to talk to Tess. To see what she wants. So you see, I really, really need to find her. Can you tell her to call me?”
“If I see her.” But his voice is hollow and distant, so I know he doesn’t mean it.
“Tell her it’s really important.”
“I will.”
“All she has to do is call. Please.”
“What are you going to give me?” He laughs and stares at me. Then he shrugs the moment away. “I’ll tell her. If I see her. I was a little in love with your sister, you know. She just pulled me in. She has a way of doing that.”
“Yeah? That’s true, maybe.”
“I’m over her now,” he says, looking at me. “But if I see her, I’ll pass on the message.” Then he looks out the window. “We’ll have our picnic at this ranch. Good arrowhead hunting around these parts. That’s what we’re going to do. This rancher lets me on his property as long as I shut gates and stay away from the animals.”
“What do you find?”
“Arrowheads.” He says it like it’s a dumb question. “Well, and scrapers, couple of shards of pottery. I’ve found a few
big caches. One of these days I’ll make a display with black velvet.”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell someone if you find stuff like that?”
“Naw, they don’t belong to the government of Colorado, or to some dumbass professor sitting in an office, contrary to what they’d like to believe. The guy from Colorado State tells me that he frowns on that type of collecting, all that information lost. He tells me they take twenty-seven measurements for every artifact they find. I called him in good faith, wanting to tell him what I’d found. But all he did was be condescending to me. He’s never going to get his ass out here and wander across all these ranches.” He finishes his beer and sets it on the floor of my car and smashes it with his boot. I hand him another. “Turn here.”
I turn off the highway onto a county road, then through a gate. Next to the bumpy road, a prairie dog colony has turned the pastureland to dirt.
“Assholes,” Clark says to the heads poking out of the holes as we drive by, and then he flings an empty beer can at one of them. He searches in the car for the other empty cans we’ve produced and wings those out too.
I finally say, “A friend of mine, Miguel, helped me fill out some applications. To the community college. I could become a nurse.”
“Which hospital you want to work at?” he asks.
“There’s only the one in Lamar.”
“Well, that’s what I’m asking. Whether you had plans for, say, Denver or New York or whatever, or if you planned on working here.”
“Here, I guess. Well, no. I’ve always pictured living somewhere else, but I don’t know where.”
“Your sister sure hated it here. I like it, though. Not too many people, cheap to live, lots of sky.”
“Tess ran away a few times. Once she met a guy and his girlfriend, on their way to California. She just asked to go along. Can you believe that? She’s always been brave. She was only fifteen. When Kay found out where she was, she drove all the way out there and brought her home. Kay told her to stay until graduation and then Tess could do whatever she pleased. And Tess always said that the minute she was done with school she was out of here forever.”
“She told me the same story,” Clark says. “She said she was glad Kay came and got her. Because when she got to California she realized she had some thinking to do, to figure out how somebody makes it on their own. Because you’ve got to be smart about that. Have a plan. Maybe all this time, she’s been thinking.”
“I guess so.” After a while, I say, “Kay would freak if she knew I was with you. I know it’s not your fault, but she still wants to beat up the guy who drove Tess away. I won’t tell her about you, though.”
“I’m obliged.” He leans over real close and whispers, “I like being a secret. And speaking of, where’s Derek? How come you’re not going out with him?”
“We broke up.”
“Ah, Tess guessed right, then.”
“I’m happy. It’s for the best.” I smile at him and then look out the car window. “It’s Tess that I miss.” Who knows why I say that, and now it seems like I’ve got to say more, so I add, “It surprised me, you know, her leaving the day she got out of the hospital.”
“I bet it did.”
“It was so soon and all.”
“She asked me to get her out quick. At least you’ve got her baby.”
“That just makes me miss her more. That baby wears me out, sometimes. I don’t know how to say it.”
He says, “Drive down into that draw there. Love is hard work, isn’t it? I had a girlfriend who said that to me. She said, ‘Clark, we’re not meant for each other, because you’re basically lazy and love requires hard work and, you know, you’re not up to it.’”
I smile “Naw, love’s not hard work. Otherwise it’s not love. Love is magic, that’s what I think.”
“Nope. It’s work.” He gives me a look like I’m dumb. “Every kind of love is work. I love arrowhead hunting, for example. It’s work, but I love it. I like the thought it takes, the challenge. You got to read people, even though they’re long dead. It’s like figuring out where somebody is. Like, where was that Indian when he left this arrowhead? It’s like people are hiding, and it’s my job to hunt them out. It’s a rush, man. Probably you could care less about this shit.”
He looks at me like he’s pissed off, even though I didn’t say anything. I know what he’s thinking: that I’m one of those people who are easy to figure out—not as complicated as arrowhead hunting, for example. He’s bored with me, and he wants me to see that. It’s sort of like a challenge.
I shrug and look away. It hurts to feel people decide that about you, that’s a fact. I’m not Tess, after all. I have nothing to hold a guy long enough to show him who I am. Maybe that’s what beautiful people have going for them—a few extra minutes of attention to announce themselves.
“Actually, I am interested. And I bet it’s harder than people think, isn’t it? Everything looks simple from a distance. Then, the more you look, the more you see. And that’s when you have to rise to the challenge. Isn’t that right?”
Squint and shade my eyes. That’s the first thing I do when I step from the car, and the first thing I notice is the buzz. Maybe it’s some kind of insect, but it seems more like it’s the land itself, buzzing with heat.
Dry land stretches to the west, pretty much nothing except sagebrush and short grass, and the only thing that interrupts the view is a windmill and a watering tank and a cluster of cattle. But to the south, about a mile away, are green trees bordering the Arkansas River and I follow the green line with my eyes until the land dips down and blends in with the horizon.
Clark stands there looking around for a minute, too. “Pretty, huh?” He kicks at the dirt. “It’s windblown here, so it’s a good place to find stuff. The ground gets exposed. Indians would’ve camped up high, on a south-facing slope with water nearby, which this is. See, here’s a dry creek bed.” He points to a sunken spot in the earth. “It’s got water in the spring.” He starts walking in the direction of the river. “Now’s a good time to look because it rained. Things get washed up. Look on ant hills or prairie dog mounds, too. Clues everywhere, if you know how to look.”
I walk alongside him. We’re looking at the ground, and I’m wondering how my eye is supposed to pick something out of all these rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, pebbles, clumps of hood-in-needle grass, yucca, cactus, and more rocks.
Every once in a while, I glance up at him. Sometimes when I do I find him looking back at me. Maybe he’s not so bored with me after all.
Derek’s the only man I’ve slept with. I don’t know whether or not I want this thing to be in the air. Clark doesn’t quite seem like the one. But I want something. And maybe I should give him a chance. Wobble, wobble, all over the place. I feel myself getting nervous, like electricity’s in my stomach and it’s shooting out everywhere.
“The trick is looking for shiny rocks,” Clark says. “Could be any color, anything from red jasper to brown to quartzite. But, see, rocks that make good arrowheads are similar to glass, chemically, so they shine in the sunlight.” He stops to pick up a piece of rock and then throws it sideways into a bush, and throws his beer can right after it.
I’d like to go pick the beer can up, which is something Ed would do, but on the other hand Ed would say you gotta live life, take chances, move forward, and anyway, I don’t want Clark laughing at me, so I just say, “Shiny in the sunlight.”
“You wanna learn something? Conchoidal fractures.” He looks at me hard and raises his eyebrows. “Certain rocks make conchoidal fractures, just like glass does. You know how a glass fractures when you shoot a BB gun in it?”
“Why would I shoot a glass with a BB gun?”
“On the close side, you get a hole the same size as the BB. But on the other side will be a perfect cone. Because the glass fractures conchoidally.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I never thought before about how rock shatters, or even how people
have known for a long time which rocks to break, and how. There’s so much I don’t know.
As I walk alongside Clark I finally try to talk about the other thing that’s making me nervous. “Clark? Don’t get mad, but I know you and Tess are running ilegales. I know she was supposed to pick up some people and she didn’t. I know all that. But that’s all I know. I really need to find her.”
He stops walking and stares at me. “Goddamn. How come people can’t keep their mouths shut?”
“Tess didn’t tell me.”
“Who did then?”
I’m not letting Ed’s name out. “Just people, you know. Who are expecting some guys. And who put two and two together.”
He walks up to me and stares at me, hard. “How can I impress on you how dangerous this is? If Tess or me get caught, we do jail, big time. It’s a felony. Felony. It’s supposed to be a fucking secret.” He picks up a rock and wings it hard into the distance.
“I can keep secrets! I don’t want Tess to go to jail, for one thing. Clark? I don’t care what you’re doing. But I really, really need to talk to Tess. Just about Amber. Please tell me where she is.”
He considers me for a minute, and he’s calming down. “No. But I’ll tell her to contact you.” He pokes at my shoulder and we both see how the skin goes from red to white. “You’re getting burned.”
I know I am—I can feel my skin tingling with too much sun. “I forgot sunscreen. Clark, Kay called the police. If the police get involved, it’s going to get bad, isn’t it? But Kay doesn’t know about the ilegales. She’s just looking for her daughter. Now there are police looking for Tess. I wanted to tell you that. You should know that, right?” He looks angry again, his face still and red. “Look, tell her I need for her to come help me get Amber legally and then I’ll let her go. Just ask her to do this one last thing. Don’t let the police find her.” Still he doesn’t say anything, so I say, “Was she supposed to pick up a group, and she didn’t? Are you mad at her? You seem mad.”
Sky Bridge Page 17
