In The Heart Of The Canyon Part 14

"We're not trying to p.a.w.n the dog off," JT told the women.

"Oh yes we are," said Dixie.

JT did not want to get into any more confrontations today-even with Dixie. Or especially with Dixie.

"No way way did I do that," Abo was protesting to his woman friend. "You are such a liar. Don't anyone listen to her." did I do that," Abo was protesting to his woman friend. "You are such a liar. Don't anyone listen to her."

"Are you Abo's girlfriend?" Sam asked.

Abo looked up. "Sam, you're way too young to be asking those kinds of questions."

Sam whispered something to Matthew, and Matthew shoved him.

Another woman was watching Lloyd as he stood in the shallows, washing his face. "I ought to tell my grampa to do this trip," she said.

"How olds your grampa?" said Abo.

"Older than that guy"

Lloyd finished washing and groped about for his towel, which was floating in the shallows. JT went over and picked it up, wrung it out, and handed it to Lloyd.

"Thank you," said Lloyd, blotting his face.

"No problem," said JT.

"My wife is in love with you, you know," said Lloyd.

Alone in the filtered light of the tent, Ruth unwrapped the Ace bandage, dreading what she would find. Yesterday it had seemed that their careful ministrations might pay off, for the wound had calmed down noticeably. But today it had begun throbbing again, burning hot one minute and ice cold the next; she'd gotten to the point where she wanted to just rip the bandages off and stick her whole leg in the river.

She peeled off the last layer of gauze. Sure enough, the wound was red, slick, cheesy with pus.

Oh, the value of 20/20 hindsight! Regretting her earlier decision to hold off on the Cipro, Ruth frantically pawed through her day bag for the medical kit in which they kept an oblong blue pillbox with the Cipro and all the other just-in-case medicines. If she could take a Cipro right now, then she could tell JT-who was sure to come snooping around any minute-that she'd already put herself on antibiotics.

But when she finally found the canvas kit and unzipped it, there was no pillbox.

She knew she had packed it because she'd taken a muscle relaxant the first night. She emptied her day bag, thinking that maybe she'd simply failed to put the pillbox back into the canvas kit. No luck. She twisted around and emptied Lloyd's day bag. No luck again.

Now Ruth felt a twinge of panic, for there were a lot of important medicines in that pillbox, not just Cipro. Had she left it back at their first campsite? Stuck it in someone else's bag? Had Lloyd taken it? She peeked out of her tent and saw him walking toward the tent, shaving kit in hand.

"Do you know where the blue pillbox is?" she asked when he came crawling inside the tent. He smelled of peppermint, and old coins.

Lloyd looked at the mess strewn all over the tent floor. "Who did this?"

"I did," said Ruth. "I'll pick it up. But I'm trying to find the pillbox. The blue pillbox, with all the little compartments. Try to remember. You said you had a headache yesterday. Did you take some migraine medicine?"

"I don't get migraines," said Lloyd. "You get migraines."

Lloyd had had a migraine two days before they left Chicago. Ruth didn't think it would be helpful to remind him.

"Well, I'm trying to find the pillbox, and I can't," said Ruth. "Do you know where it is?"

"Check with Becca," said Lloyd.

"Lloyd!"-for now she was getting exasperated-"Becca's not on this trip! It's just you and me! And I need the pillbox!"

"Are you saying someone stole it?"

"No, I-"

Lloyd wagged his finger in front of her face. "That's the trouble with you, Ruthie. Always jumping to conclusions."

Ruth told herself to drop the issue. What good would it do to point out that a few mornings ago, he'd been the one jumping to conclusions over his stethoscope?

"I come home late, and you think I'm canoodling with Esther! The teacher doesn't frame David's finger painting, and you think David's flunking out of kindergarten! You have to stop jumping to conclusions all the time!"

Ruth looked away. She was not, absolutely not going to cry.

"I just wish for once you'd get all the facts before you make an accusation," Lloyd said, pulling on a flimsy white T-shirt. It was inside out and backward, so the label curled into the hollow at his throat. "And I don't want another baby until you calm down with all this drama."

Ruth was taken aback by this. She was accustomed to watching Lloyd slip into the past, but for him to raise this particular issue, in this new light? When David was five, Ruth and Lloyd had indeed disagreed over whether to have a second child. Lloyd, busy with his growing practice, wanted to wait. Ruth, on the other hand, didn't want a large age gap between children. But while they'd disagreed, it had never focused on her so-called dramas, as he now put it. Had she really been so irrational?

Ruth liked to think that theirs was a successful marriage. But it had always been a quiet marriage, one without a lot of shouting. Disputes were resolved mostly by the pa.s.sage of time, as each came to understand, as if by osmosis, the other's position. Loud, accusatory fights made them both uncomfortable, for they knew that things said in the heat of an argument were often said more to inflict pain than to instill truth.

But now, as she listened to Lloyd rant, she wondered if perhaps they'd been too reserved all this time. Maybe they should have occasionally had it out had it out, as Becca would have put it when she was in college. Maybe they would have understood each other better.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded.

She didn't realize it, but she'd been staring at his face. He'd missed a dime-sized patch of stubble on his chin, and a few dark hairs poked out of his nose.

"I'm looking at you, Lloyd," she sighed.

"Oh." He seemed to contemplate this, and, sensing a window of opportunity, Ruth placed her palm against his cheek, for touch always seemed to bring him back to the present. His bloodshot eyes skittered through the years.

"Are you having a good time on this trip?" she asked him.

"Of course I am. I couldn't survive without this trip every year."

"Me, either," said Ruth.

He leaned forward to kiss her. His whiskers tickled. "You look pretty cute," he said gruffly.

Ruth smiled.

"Want to fool around?" he asked. "Come on! Who will notice? Becca's out there flirting with the guides and David's got his nose in his book. A little hanky-panky with the old man? A quick roll in the hay?"

Ruth did not remind him that the little blue pillbox had a compartment for v.i.a.g.r.a, without which there would be no hanky-panky.

"Tonight," she told him.

"Better keep your word," he warned. "Don't get my hopes up." He leaned over and kissed her again.

"You always had a beautiful smile, Ruthie," he said. "But now I'm going to go and have a beer. Want a beer?"

"In a bit," Ruth said. "After I tidy up in here."

When he was gone, she lay down on her mat and covered her face with her forearm and wept.

She was still lying on her mat when she heard the swish of footsteps in the sand.

"Ruth?"

It was JT. Hastily she smoothed her hair and sat up.

"Are you busy? Because I want to take a look at your leg before we start the dinner circus."

"I'll take care of it," Ruth called out. "If you could just bring me whatever bandages you have."

"Well, I'd really like to clean it myself," said JT. "Are you decent? Can I come in?"

She heard his knees pop as he knelt and lifted the tent flap. "Need a hand getting out? Let's take a look at it in the sunlight. Dixie's got some hot water ready. Aiy," he said as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. "Ruth. What happened?"

"I don't know."

"It wasn't like this at breakfast?"

"I didn't look at it this morning. And at lunch you had the dog to deal with, and Mitch.e.l.l and all. It's not that bad," she said.

"With all due respect, ma'am, if I took you into a clinic right now, they'd have you on antibiotics before you could blink."

"That's just it," Ruth said. "I have some Cipro with me."

"Cipro? As in Cipro?" Cipro?"

"We always carry Cipro."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because," she began, "because," but she couldn't come up with a reason.

JT sighed. "Okay. So. Have you taken one yet?"

"I can't find it."

JT dropped his head. Ruth didn't think such melodrama was necessary.

"I'm sure it's around somewhere," she said. "I'll check with Lloyd."

"What are we looking for? A prescription bottle?"

"A blue pillbox. About this long, with separate compartments for each day of the week."

"Any chance Lloyd might have lost it?"

It was his emphasis on the word "lost." Obviously he knew. She looked into his clear, blue eyes, then looked away.

"Does everyone know?" she asked evenly.

"Some might. Ruth," he said, "I wish you'd said something."

"The people back in the office might not have let us come."

"But you could have said something to me, once the trip was under way."

"I'm sorry," said Ruth. "Don't be mad."

JT sighed. "I'm not mad. I'm just worried about your leg. And if we have to evacuate you, we'll have to evacuate Lloyd too," he said.

The word was sharp, sudden, unexpected. Evacuate? This wasn't a rattlesnake bite or a broken bone-it was merely a cut, a cut that would heal if she could only find the Cipro.

"Don't say that word," she said angrily.

"Ruth," he said, "I have to do what's right."

"But you can't evacuate us! That wouldn't be right! It's our last trip! Do you know what it would do to Lloyd? Do you know? It would kill him," she said. "One helicopter ride, that's all it would take to erase everything."

"But your leg," he said. "If it gets worse-"

"It's not going to get worse," she said. "Well find the Cipro, and it'll get better. Stop thinking like that."

"He needs you to be well," said JT.

"He needs to stay on the river!"

"At the expense of your leg?"

"You're not listening," she said. "My leg is going to be fine."

JT ran his fingers through his hair, and despite her anger, she felt a maternal protectiveness toward him. Of course he was worried. Of course he would be thinking about an evacuation. But he didn't know what it was like to be old, to be facing death square in the face, constantly aware of every event possibly being your last: your last Christmas, last time on an airplane, last trip down the river.

She didn't fault him for not knowing this, but she wasn't going to allow the word "evacuate" to be spoken in any form down here in the canyon. Not in her tent, anyway. She scooted toward the door flap, then motioned for JT to go ahead of her.

"Help me up," she said. He gave her his hand, and she pulled herself up. The light was pink; golden dust flecked the air. Down toward the river, where they had set up the kitchen, people stood at the prep table, chopping vegetables. JT led her to a log, where she sat while he went and got the first aid kit, along with a pan of hot water.

"We've had a good marriage, JT," she said when he returned. "We've been good to each other."

JT knelt and pulled on a pair of gloves. "Well," he said, wringing out a washcloth, "not many people can say that."

"And I know what lies ahead." She winced as he dabbed at her leg. "I know it's not going to be pretty. I read the books. I go to the support groups. Sometimes I wish he'd just have a heart attack in the night."