by Craig Lesley
"Well, it's not quite up my alley, you see. But when I was at the police academy, I did take an art appreciation course at the women's college nearby. We had to take something in the humanities, and frankly—art class—that's where a lot of the most attractive women were, so it was a popular elective among the cadets."
Mom smiled, but I could tell by the way her brow furrowed she was worried.
In Grady's hands the teacup seemed fragile. "Most of the art game went over my head. But I did like Monet. All those haystacks. You see, I grew up on a ranch, and they really do look different in different light, the way the shadows are..."
My mother twisted abruptly and set her teacup down. "He's dead, isn't he? That's what you've come to say. Did your people shoot him?"
Grady stiffened. He seemed genuinely puzzled. "Jake? No, he's fine." After a moment he said, "Oh, you mean Riley Walker, your husband." He set his cup down and leaned forward, his big hands resting on the thighs of his blue polyester uniform. "The reason I came by was just to check. The railroad authorities keep pestering me ... so I wanted to ask if you've heard anything from him. It's just routine ... my asking."
"Not for me," she said, her voice brittle. "It's nothing like my usual routine." She squeezed her eyes tight and rubbed her forehead with her thumbs. Her eyes remained closed as she said, "He hasn't called for weeks. Not since that unfortunate business in Griggs. No, I don't have any new leads for you."
I didn't say anything when Grady glanced at me. I tried to swallow but I couldn't work up enough spit.
"I'm sure you haven't," Grady said. "No doubt he's lying pretty low right now, maybe staying with friends or relatives. The railroad officials have checked his possible contacts, at least the ones they know."
My mother opened her eyes. "I imagine they're very thorough."
"Yes," he said. "I was just wondering about southern California. Do you know anybody there he might look up? He was in the service, wasn't he? Maybe an old Navy buddy."
"I can't think of a soul," she said. "Don't you people have anything better to do than hound that poor man?"
Grady took a pair of reading glasses out of his shirt pocket, slowly unfolded them, and put them on. When he removed a postcard from his jacket pocket, my blood turned to ice.
"This card was addressed to the boy at the store. The postmaster turned it over to us." He studied the card a moment. "Sure, I recognize that place. Disneyland. Took the grandchildren there one summer and waited in line over an hour for the Matterhorn. They're growing up fast. The time just slips by."
"Perhaps you can take them again," my mother said. "May I see that card?"
"That's a good thought," he said, handing it to her. "You can see the card's not signed. But I expect it's Riley's handwriting."
"Not a doubt," she said after a minute. "He doesn't say much, but then he never did."
She handed the card to me. I could tell it was Riley's handwriting all right, but my eyes wouldn't focus.
"I'm sure you don't know anything about this, do you, Culver?" she asked.
"I've always wanted to go to Disneyland," I said, half smiling. "No, it's news to me."
"You haven't received any other cards, then? Or had any phone calls?" Grady glanced at the canary yellow phone Mom had installed to match the love seat tapestry.
"Not a single word," she said. Her eyes flashed indignation. "That postmaster should be ashamed for reading people's mail. We might as well live in Russia. Who ever thought we'd have the police barging into our lives at all hours. I've got half a mind to get a lawyer and stop this harassment."
Grady scooped up his hat and stood. "I didn't mean to get you upset. It's just routine, like I said, nothing personal. I thought you might know something more that could help us."
"And if I did, who's to say I'd tell you? A wife needn't testify against her husband or have you forgotten that?" She shook her head. "When you think about it, what's so terrible about burning down a crummy railroad siding? I wish I had a big enough torch to burn them all down—squalid little eyesores. Sometimes I wish I had done it myself, I truly do, the way those railroad people shoved us from place to place like a bunch of damned gypsies. Anyway, no one was actually hurt."
After my mother's outburst Grady tried to say a few words about the potential danger of the arsonist, but he was no match for her and soon left, still carrying his hat. Closing the door behind him, she leaned against it, as if bracing for wind.
"Culver," Mom said later, after drinking two cups of tea with generous measures of rum and sugar, "I want you to promise me something."
"What is it?"
"Even if you get truly desperate at times, promise me you won't burn down a railroad siding and get yourself into this kind of jam."
"All right," I said. "I won't, then." It seemed an easy kind of promise to make because at that age, desperation seems unlikely.
"I'm glad that's settled," she said, draining the last of her tea. "Now I'm going to bed."
I stayed up a little, trying to watch something on television, but all the situations seemed too contrived and my mind wandered. This entire business with Riley kept hitting me off guard. Of course, I should have realized he'd be back in touch, like a bad penny showing up. It wasn't too likely a man would live with my mother for eight years and then just vanish.
But what puzzled me was her reaction. She seemed to be sticking up for him now. I didn't know much about love, but I suspected she might have fallen in love with him after these strange events. I didn't believe that she had loved him earlier, but something about that desperate act of burning down the siding had demonstrated the strength of his desire for her, and perhaps she had succumbed to it, somehow. Maybe his act had even burned away some of the residual love I thought she carried for my father. I believed he had always stood like a shadow between them.
Thinking of that shadow, I realized finally what Riley's remark "darkness over Arizona" had meant. It involved one of the weird news articles from my mother's gossip magazines. In the account, a man's wife had left him because he was spending too much time at a tavern, not paying her enough attention. This was in the Southwest, and they were both Catholics, as I recall. Distraught over the abandonment, he had himself crucified on a wooden cross in the desert to show his desperate love for her. A couple of women from the tavern, casual acquaintances according to the article, helped by pounding the nails through his hands.
It wasn't a complete crucifixion though, because he stood on a ladder so as not to suffocate. The women kept climbing the ladder, bringing him beer, pretzels, pickled eggs, hot sausages, and other bar foods to help ease the pain and keep up his strength.
I remembered Riley finishing the article and slapping the magazine against his knee. "Craziest story I ever heard. Bunch of damn nuts, the lot of them," he had said.
But it had worked. A newspaperman wrote up the guy's plight and the story got syndicated. The wife read about her husband and went back to him when she realized the depth of his love.
She took an ambulance rescue unit out in the desert to save him, but the attendants were afraid to remove the nails without a doctor, and the cross wouldn't fit into the ambulance. So she returned to town, hired a flatbed truck and got him to the hospital that way. A few days later he was released, and they renewed their marriage vows. So the guy's plan worked, crazy or not.
"Can't you go to bed? The TV's bothering me and I've got a headache." My mother stood in the doorway.
"Sorry," I said. "Still unwinding from this goofy day." I turned off the set.
"You said it. Disneyland. That about takes the grand prize." We both moved to the kitchen table and she began picking at the leftover cheese muffin. "What's next? Knott's Berry Farm? If I wrote this to 'Dear Abby' she wouldn't believe it. And she's heard just about everything."
I watched her across the table. "I think he did it for you, Mom. Burning that place down was Riley's way of showing love."
She stared at me as if I were an alien. "Do you know what you're
saying? What kind of crazy talk is that?"
I took a breath. "Riley wanted to show he loves you. Maybe you love him."
She fixed her burning eyes on me and there was a long pause. Then slowly, as if thinking of the right words, she said, "I understand what it means to be pushed to your limit. To be shoved from pillar to post. That's all." She stood abruptly. "But I am not one to squander my opportunities. Now let's get some sleep."
I watched my mother retreat down the hall, a small figure silhouetted in the doorway, holding herself straight.
5
MOM WENT to Minneapolis just as she had planned, but first she warned me to notify the police if I heard anything at all from Riley. I promised I would, but kept my fingers crossed. I just couldn't betray him like that, and deep down, she wouldn't have wanted me to either. Maybe she was worried about kidnapping, even though she didn't say it, but I was too old for that. Anyway, his first call had sounded pretty distant, although it could have been a lousy connection.
I started taking my meals at the Oasis Cafe with Jake, and I got a kick out of it because he knew everyone in town, and they swapped extravagant yarns or told off-color jokes in low voices, raising the punch lines just loud enough for the waitresses to catch. One named Doreen had her eye out for Jake and usually traded the others for our table. She wore several pieces of turquoise jewelry and kept the top two buttons of her uniform undone. She called us Big Sweetie and Little Sweetie, and always smelled like Doublemint.
Nearly everybody in the Oasis had a nickname labeling their coffee cups, which hung on wooden racks behind the counter. I enjoyed trying to match the customers with their colorful monikers: Big Joe, Babe, Grasshopper, Heavy Duty, Short Stack, Skook. A few cups were turned upside down, honoring the patrons who had died. Although I didn't have a cup, Jake introduced me to the others as Shotgun, because I was always riding with him now. If we were talking to some of the local cowboys, he called me Number One Rowdy, the guy who hangs out behind the rodeo bucking chutes and cheers on the riders.
The cops ate in the Oasis too, usually sitting at the counter for sandwiches and coffee, then swiveling half a turn on the stools as if to survey the diners for suspects. Grady was in a few times and Jake nodded toward him, but you could tell things were cool. Mom had told Jake about Grady coming over, and the next morning when he stopped by the store for coffee, Jake told him off, concluding with the warning "Election's coming soon." After that, Grady stayed out of the store, although some of the other policemen came in to buy fishing gear and tennis shoes. To tell the truth, it made me a little jumpy to see them. They might have traced Riley's call, although I don't think I broke any laws by keeping quiet.
Mom called a couple times, telling me the seminar was going well. Once she was particularly excited. "After our training session for the day, we got to ride a riverboat down the Mississippi, a big old stern-wheeler, just like Mark Twain wrote about."
"That's great, Mom. Are you sure it was the Mississippi? I thought it was farther east."
She clucked her tongue. "What are those schools teaching you? Don't you learn any geography? When I get back we're going to put a big map of the U.S. in your bedroom."
"I was just kidding, Mom," I said. A map would look horrible alongside the pictures of basketball players I kept up there.
"I haven't told you the best part," she said. "There was a dance band right on the boat, and I had several dances with one of the men from the seminars." Her voice got a little lower, taking on a confidential tone. "Not one of the participants—most of us are women. He's one of the actual directors, a big muck-a-muck who works right here in Minneapolis."
"Don't let him sweep you off your feet, Mom. Winters are pretty cold back there." I tried to picture him, a blond, no doubt.
"Don't you go worrying. He's not really my type. But it was fun, and it's nice to know a little bloom's still left on the rose."
"You haven't lost a thing, Mom," I said, and she seemed pleased with the compliment.
"Everything all right there? You eating okay? Be sure to get enough vegetables."
"I've got it covered, Mom. Don't you work too hard."
"I won't, but I'm ringing off for now. Got to run for class. Just one more thing. Any word of Riley?"
I shook my head. "Not a bit, unless the post office is keeping his cards tacked up with the Most Wanted posters. I haven't looked."
Her voice got lower. "Don't even kid about that. This is a dorm phone and I don't want anyone to know we've got the law mixed up in this. It's a sorry business." She paused. "Well, love you." She hung up, as usual, without pausing to say good-bye, as though her thoughts had already outpaced the conversation.
***
Three days after my mother had left, a tribal policeman driving a white pickup with the reservation insignia stopped by the store. Getting out, he seemed huge, solid and tall, like an upright freezer.
Jake introduced us. "You haven't met my nephew, Culver. He's riding shotgun around here now. Number two man. This is Billyum Bruised-Head. His people were from Alberta, but moved out here. We go back a long way—high school football."
"Jake was the slowest halfback Gateway ever had," Billyum said. His hand was calloused and rough, but he shook lightly, the Indian way.
"I thought I was half fast," Jake said, pronouncing it like "half-assed."
"Not anymore," Billyum said. "You should see how you look from behind. Two hogs fighting under a sheet. Aaay." Turning to me, he said, "This boy's a lot better looking."
"Takes after his father." Jake pointed to the picture above the cash register. "Culver and his mother moved to town three weeks ago."
Billyum squinted at the picture a moment, then motioned us to the back of the store.
Jake poured three coffees and turned over an ammunition box to sit on. He pointed Billyum to the good chair. "Take a load off."
When Billyum sat, I saw he was wearing black cowboy boots with silver toeplates.
The two men talked about high school football, fishing, the progress of building the dam on the Upper Lost. I sipped my coffee and waited. Their talk seemed casual, but something about the way Billyum acted made me realize he was here on business. Jake knew it, too, but just waited politely until Billyum got around to it.
Eventually, he put his coffee cup down on the workbench and examined the Snap-On Tool calendar hanging above the bench. Miss June was holding a crescent wrench and wearing an orange bikini. Billyum pointed to the calendar's words. "Make your tool a Snap-On," he said.
"I'm always afraid mine's going to snap off," Jake said. "I'm way past the warranty"—and we all grinned.
Then Billyum got down to business. "Twenty-eight days is what I'm thinking. Kalim Kania's been in the river twenty-six days now."
Billyum sat down again and took out a small pocketknife. He began trimming his nails, picking each small sliver off his whipcord trousers and placing it in his olive shirt pocket. "His people want that boy back. Old Sylvester Silvertooth went down to the water and chanted. His grandmother threw in a medicine bundle."
"You think he's about ready to pop up, then?" Jake asked.
Billyum nodded. "Sure. After twenty-eight, twenty-nine days. He'll come up all right."
"Medicine works every time, doesn't it?" Jake sipped his coffee. "Pretty darned slow though."
Billyum shrugged. "Everybody's not in a hurry. But we need to start looking for that boy again, and I was hoping you could help."
"I'm full up with guide trips," Jake said. "This is my peak season." He spread his hands and shrugged. "Sorry, I'd like to help..."
"Suit yourself," Billyum said. He snapped the knife closed and put it in his pocket. "Did you know Kalim's aunt was Juniper Teewah? She might come back for his funeral, if we find him." He sipped his coffee and studied Jake.
My uncle put down his cup. "I didn't know that. She still in New Mexico, or what?"
"Albuquerque. Going on two years now. Hanging out with fancy artists. I hear she's part ow
ner of a gallery." Billyum carried his cup to the sink and washed it out. "Well, I better go see about rounding up some more help."
"Never mind." Jake pushed aside some broken reels and a couple of snapped fly rod tips. He spread a map of the Lost River Wilderness Area on the workbench. "Lots of water to search, but most of them get found eventually, once they float."
Billyum traced a stretch of the river with his large finger. "I'll take some of the reservation boys and cover Whiskey Dick's down to Bakeoven. We got good access there from the reservation back roads."
"All right," Jake said. "I'll cover the stretch between Bakeoven and the Bronco."
"Think you can watch the rapids and the shore both?" Billyum asked.
"I'll row. Shotgun here can keep his eyes peeled. We won't let him slip by."
"No we won't," I said, excited about the prospect of a river trip with Jake.
Billyum studied me. "Your father had great eyes. He could see a doe's ear flick in a juniper flat. You got good eyes?"
"Pretty good." I was curious about this talk of my father and won dered how Billyum had known him. And I was also curious about the woman Juniper.
"You're both hired, then," Billyum said. "Double trouble."
"It's a deal," Jake said. "How much you paying?"
"Same as the last time. Next Ceremonial Days, you can eat all the salmon and elk you want."
"I'm afraid I'll jump an income tax bracket," Jake said.
"That's only a problem for you white guys." Billyum stood and put on his cap. "Well, better get back to the rez. Stop the damn crime wave." He touched my shoulder. "Good meeting you. I won't hold Jake against you. A man can choose his friends, but gets stuck with his relations."
"We'll be on the river in two days," Jake said. "I've got to call old Jed to cover the store. He's a retired salesman, but he'll help us out."
"I'm stopping by to tell the sheriff," Billyum said. "He should put a boat on the water."
"Tell him if you want, but there's not much point," Jake said. "Grady couldn't find his butt in the bathtub."
