“Yes.”
“And no police, and no angry mom, and no friends in Lombard who think you were in love with me and running away from Jessie. Right? Everything fine, the evening fine, the sky the color of a dark blue crayon, and the wind picking up because it’s October, and it’s the mountains, and it was all more beautiful than anything our girl had ever seen, right?”
She nodded at the floor, then looked up at him. “His wife is sick?”
“Very sick.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
He looked down at his chest. “No,” he said. He took her hand and opened her palm and pressed it to him. “Feel how warm.”
“Me too.”
“I know it. You’re sunburned. And Tommie, dear. Will you look at me? Can you see me?” She looked up.
“Didn’t we say this was going to require being a lookout, protecting each other? Didn’t we say this was unusual?”
“Yes.”
“I know we did. We shook on it. And you’re a girl who keeps her word.” He reached for the handkerchief and wiped at her tears. “It just breaks my heart to see you crying.”
This renewed her tears some.
“Say you forgive me. Say you understand.”
“I forgive you. I understand.”
“But do you mean it?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Oh, Tom.” He opened his arms. “Come. Will you hug me? Will you let me hug you?” He wrapped his arms around her. “You’ve washed up. But I’m all stinking and sweaty.”
“I only washed my face,” she said over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry about the cow shit.”
“I don’t think it was cow shit.”
“Your body feels very warm. Do you think you have a fever?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does your body hurt?”
“A little.”
“Ache from hiking or ache from fever? Can you tell?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Well, it’s probably both.” He held her thirty seconds, a minute, two minutes during which they did not speak or move. “Tom.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’m not a bad guy. Do you believe me?” He put his hands to her shoulders and pushed her away a little and looked at her, holding on to her.
She nodded.
“This is something I’ve been keeping from you, okay? And we said we’d share everything, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
He put two fingers beneath her chin and drew her face toward his own. “In Iowa we said we weren’t going to do this. Do you know what I’m referring to?”
“I think.”
He made a troubled face. “Tommie. I’m sort of out of familiar territory here. Do you understand?”
Nod.
“You feel a little bit the same way, don’t you? Please say yes or no. Please do me that courtesy.”
“Yes.”
“Yes you do?”
“Yes I do.”
“Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“I think so.”
“You think so. Okay.” He held her, her head in his hand. She sat sideways on her knees. “I don’t know what to do here, Em.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He laughed. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”
She stared at him. He lifted her face again, close to his own. Her eyes were the largest he’d ever seen them. And here’s the truest statement anywhere about her: she was the loveliest, the most perfect creature he had ever had the honor to touch beneath the face, to take up in his arms. He pressed his mouth lightly to hers—it was very small and chaste. A fatherly kiss. Then he pulled his head back a little and surveyed her face in the dark. “We said we weren’t going to do that, didn’t we?” His voice was raspy. His breath smelled just faintly of beer. “But we both sort of wanted to, didn’t we?” She nodded, and he pulled her in and squeezed her then let go again. “Does this feel scary to you?”
Shrug.
“Does it feel like we’re doing something that isn’t allowed?”
“Sort of.” She was barely audible.
“Because I kissed you or because I’m older than you.”
Shrug.
“Don’t shrug on this one, Emily Tom. We need to look at this from every angle. We need to confront it, right? Is it because you’ve never kissed anyone before? Or because I’m a little older than you are?”
She nodded.
“Both?”
“Both,” she said.
“Good. I need to hear that. Let me tell you something about age, okay? When you get older, you begin to appreciate how short life is. I mean really short. I mean you really get to know it. Like in your bones. And what happens then, is everybody becomes a little ageless.”
“Oh.”
“Does that make sense?”
“A little.”
“Tell me something. Doesn’t Jessie ever kiss you good night?”
“No.”
“And no uncles? No grandfathers?”
“No.”
“So this would seem a little odd, wouldn’t it? Even though it’s a normal expression of affection.”
Nod.
“Do you think it doesn’t feel good to give you a kiss like that?”
No response.
“Let me say that another way. Do you think I’m trying to hurt you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I’m not. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes when men and women kiss and are … you know, like that with each other. Sometimes people get their hearts broken, right? People sometimes get hurt. That’s how it’s said. Right?” He held her close. She was like a little furnace. He drew her up onto his lap. “Maybe that’s what happened to Sid? Or to your mom, right?”
“When Sid’s cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut up her arms with a fork.”
Lamb made a face. “Because her heart was broken?”
“I think so.”
“Oh, Em. Promise me you’ll never do anything like that.”
“I would never.”
“I know you wouldn’t. You love life too much. It’s partly that love of life that I saw in you that day in the parking lot.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. And I want you to know there are ways we can keep our hearts safe. There are ways we can keep your heart from breaking, and mine.”
“There are?”
He laughed a little in the dark. “Of course there are. And that’s exactly what we’re doing by talking about this. And that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do. Do you understand?” He looked down at her.
“You will. I promise. When you’re twenty and I’m dead and gone and you look back on this night, you are not going to feel heartbroken. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to put your head in my lap and just sit here a little while?”
“Okay.”
“Here you go. Let’s just sit here a minute like this. And look down at your face and see if you look like you have a fever. We’re not going to sleep on this hard floor. We’re just resting together.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“You’re comfortable. No you are not.” He moved his fingers in small circles in her hair, in her scalp.
“That feels good.”
“I know it does. Was it a pretty night out there?”
“I was too sad.”
“Was it even more sad because the night was pretty?”
“Yes.”
“My heart is just like yours. Did you know that?”
“It is?”
“It is.”
“That’s how we knew to go back to the parking lot.”
“That’s right.” He laughed. “That’s right.” They lay still. “Em?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to rest on the bottom bunk awhile? And I can check you
for a fever until morning? This floor is killing my old bones.”
She pressed the back of her head against his blue jeans, looking at him, and he lifted her onto his knee and pulled her up. She leaned her head against his shoulder. He kissed the cheek, and kissed the jaw, and kissed her mouth. “Okay?”
She nodded.
He stood up, still holding her, supporting her bottom on his hip and arm. She draped her arms around his neck like a child. He took her into the little bunk room. “Do you want some cool water?” He felt her shrug. “Are you just going to shrug now all the time?”
“Maybe I am.”
“Stubborn girl.”
She shrugged again. And our guy told her it would be his understanding, from here on out, that whenever she shrugged, it would mean she was saying how much she liked him. It would be her way of saying yes.
He set her down. “Are you too warm in those clothes?”
She looked down at her blue jeans and shirt. “Not too.”
“We should at least take off our socks. So we don’t inadvertently plant a grasslands in the sheets. Careful. Those little seeds are sharp.”
They sat beside each other on the bottom bunk and removed their socks. He laid them neatly over the back of the metal chair. “Good,” he said. “Can you stand a minute? I’d like to turn down the bed for you, dear.” He pulled back the blanket and sheet, folding the wool blanket into quarters at the end of the bed, unzipped his sleeping bag wide and laid it over the top, then held it all open for her. “Go on,” he said. “Climb in.”
When they were both in, he pulled her up so her head was on his shoulder, her tiny arm over the great barrel of his chest, and he turned his head down a little to see her face.
“Em. Does this remind you of anything? A movie? A TV show?”
“What?”
“This. Now. This little house, and the shop, and you and me in it, and nothing else around. The things we’re sharing. Did you ever see a TV show like this or a movie or something?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think hard.”
“I am.”
“Think of all the movies and songs and books you know. Are any of them like this?”
“No.”
“You’re sure? Double sure?”
“Double sure.”
“Isn’t that good news?”
“I guess.”
“Remember when we said if we went back far enough in time, the planet would be flooded with seawater, and we’d have to reinvent the world from scratch?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember we said this time, we’d get it right?”
“I remember.”
“That was just pretend, right? But Em”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“I think we’re really doing it. Because no one’s ever had this before. Do you understand? No one gets to have this, what we’re having. No one ever has. We’re inventing it.”
“Gary.”
“Yeah.”
“What day is it?”
“A Thursday.”
“What day in October?”
“Do you want to say two more days? We’ll stay two more days?”
“Okay.”
“We can revise as we go.”
“Okay.”
“You’re such an empathetic little body.”
She looked up at him.
“It means you’re good at imagining how other people are feeling.”
“Oh.”
“I wish I could give you this and home with your mother at the same time.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll try to think of a way.”
“For both?”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I know you do.”
They were both up in the night, the girl with a fever, her face burning, Lamb filling her canteen and holding her head and tipping it into her mouth and feeding her broken aspirin. Helping her up and opening the little metal side door so she could piss outside in the dirt. They did not sleep when she was burning up and her clothes hurt her skin and her bones were cold and then her bones were hot and it hurt to breathe. Her eyes were burnt, she said, and dirt was stuck to the insides of her eyelids.
“Sunglasses,” he said. “I should have bought you sunglasses.”
He laid the edge of his hand at the hip of her jeans, his head filled with fire. Dark early morning hour. No crickets, no coyotes, no sound but their breath, their whispering, as if even here they did not want to be overheard.
“Is it better or worse?”
“Better.”
“Should we fold back the blankets?”
“Please.”
He climbed out of bed and rolled everything back to the metal frame at the end.
“When’s the last time anyone held you like this? Or was beside you in bed like this?”
“That day.”
“What day?”
“That day you threw me in your truck.”
“Did I throw you?”
“I hit my head.”
“I’m sorry, Em. Do you forgive me?”
“I forgive you.”
“Who held you then?”
“Mom. When she got home from work.”
“Tell me how it was.”
“I was in bed already.”
“What time was it?”
Shrug.
“No, Em. You have to tell me exactly how it was.” He pushed her by the shoulders a little away from him and looked at her. “Look at my face and tell me the story.”
“It was six or something.”
“Still light out?”
“Yes.”
“You were upset. I’d upset you. Say it. Say: you upset me, Gary.”
“You did.”
“That’s good for me to hear. Tell me. Mom was worried about you? She thought you were sick?”
“I guess.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked if I was sick and I said a little.”
“And she sat on the edge of the bed with you?”
“She brought us a snack in bed.”
“What snack?”
“Milk and strawberry toast.”
“That’s a good snack.”
“I know.”
“And she gave you the snack and went off with Jessie?”
“She stayed with me.”
“For a little while?”
“For the whole night.”
“What did Jessie do?”
“TV I guess.”
“You were crying in bed?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’d scared you.”
“And because my friends. They wouldn’t answer when I called. Their moms said they weren’t home. But I knew they were.”
“You were shaken up.”
“I don’t know.”
“But you came to find me the next day?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought things weren’t so good in that apartment.”
“Sometimes they were.”
• • • • •
Picture the black dawn. The spray of stars overhead. Alison Foster, poor old son of a bitch, limping back up the dirt drive of the old Calhoun place with his red Maglite, gray head trembling, eyes impossibly small and hard and squinting ahead as if he could see David Lamb and the child in the dark. As if he knew. As if he’d catch them at it. As if Lamb didn’t know Foster was out there prowling around and peering in the cabin windows. Thinking what?
Foster didn’t get it that when Lamb drives her in his truck off the paved roads and into a place bright and stark and sere, beyond the humid Midwestern acres of hog feed and furrowed till, the girl—his girl, Lamb’s girl—is perfectly okay. Foster didn’t get that it’s a favor, a gift, say, taking her beyond the miserable reaches of prairie restoration reeking of sewage processing plants and cornstarch factories. That she rode along in the passenger sea
t with her eyes half closed and fixed upon Lamb as though he were the handsomest, wisest, most beneficent man on planet Earth.
Besides, Foster wouldn’t have found them in the cabin. Runny moonlight cast long, bent shadows across the concrete floor of the bunk room, though Lamb had tried to cover the windows with squares of a stiff and mildewed drop cloth he found folded beneath the workbench. Faint smell of woodsmoke, fire snapping in the iron stove. Outside the shop the north fork of the river running black past a stand of narrow-leafed cottonwoods just beyond the county road. A spectral mist hung rib-high among the water birch along its banks. A single box elder clenched its branches against the cold.
And his girl was sleeping beside him, her wonderful blue-and-white flowered nightgown twisted up around her bare, freckled waist. Soft belly rising a little with each breath, her warm damp head resting on Lamb’s outstretched arm, sweat shining at her temples, her mouth open, her little lips open—Christ, she was small—and he was swearing mutely into the space above him that this was good for her. That as long as he was honest and approached this thing from every possible angle, everything would line up and fall into place of its own accord, like atoms helixed and pleated tight within the seeds of cheatgrass needling the hems of her tiny blue jeans: fragile, inevitable, life-giving, and bigger than he. Such was his faith in the forces that had given rise to the girl herself, to the rapid trills of violet green swallows up the mountain, to the spoon-shaped leaves of prairie buttercups they’d seen blanketing the roadside in eastern Wyoming.
Lamb was just a man in the world. He’d fed her well and told her stories and loved her up all the way through the dim-lit outskirts of Rockford, Iowa City, Omaha; across the national grasslands, stiff and pale in the increasing cold; over the continental divide as the sky shed itself in falling snow, and up to where there were no trees, no birds, no life but the slow force of rock rising up from a thin and frozen crust of ground. Say this was all in hopes of glimpsing something beautiful. And is there anything wrong with that?
The next morning was just like all of their mornings: three little silver pans going at the tapered end of Tommie’s trapper fire. Coffee and canned meat and beans and toast with jam and four eggs.
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