West Of Here Part 11

setting free the wild JUNE 2006 2006.

Bringing her mother had been a mistake. So had wearing khakis and a sweatshirt. Of course Beverly would disparage the place. Of course she'd focus on the negatives, batting her heavy eyelashes like Gloria Swanson as she commented innocuously on the overabundance of shade, puckering her bee-stung lips as she benignly observed the northern exposure or the proximity of a precarious alder to the carport. No matter, the roar of the river and the rugged mountain seclusion. Never mind that the place was a steal at $78,500, with owner financing.

"But Hill, honey, it's not even a cabin," observed Bev, standing beneath the shade of the badly weathered gazebo. "It's a trailer."

"But, Mom, the river. Just look at it."

"Isn't the river dead? Isn't that what you're always telling me?"

"All that's gonna change, Mom. That's what I've been telling you. Once the rehab starts, things will be -"

"If the dam comes down." the dam comes down."

"The dam's coming down, Mom."

"That's not what the Register Register thinks." thinks."

"The Register Register is owned by a bunch of cronies trying to sway public opinion, Mom. As soon as the feds buy the dam, they'll decommission the whole ..." Hillary trailed off when she noticed her mother wasn't really listening but looking in her compact. is owned by a bunch of cronies trying to sway public opinion, Mom. As soon as the feds buy the dam, they'll decommission the whole ..." Hillary trailed off when she noticed her mother wasn't really listening but looking in her compact.

"Honestly, Hill. You and your causes."

Bev puckered her lips, and stepped cautiously down from the gazebo into the long gra.s.s. "It's still a trailer, Hill. What's wrong with your apartment?"

"It's an apartment, Mom. For starters, I don't own it, and on top of that, people walk on my ceiling. It's claustrophobic."

"Well now, Hill, this little ... place place can't be over four hundred square feet." can't be over four hundred square feet."

"Yeah, but look around you."

Beverly cast a vague look around. "Is there electricity?"

"Of course, there's electricity."

"What about after the dam?"

"The dam isn't a public utility, Mom. It has nothing to do with my electricity, or anyone else's. And the truth is, I don't even care if it has electricity. I want want to diminish my carbon footprint. I to diminish my carbon footprint. I want want sustainability. I sustainability. I like like that it's rustic." that it's rustic."

"Your great-grandfather's homestead was rustic. This is a trailer, Hill. It's got no resale value. And just for the record, I know all about green living, dear. I don't buy anything at Wal-Mart except for plants - Rory's is just too d.a.m.n expensive, and I don't want to haul pampas gra.s.s all the away across town in the Suburban. So don't think that I don't know a thing or two about the environment. Listen, Hill, I'm not here to talk you out of this, but the trailer's a teardown, and there's a good reason why the lot is so cheap - it's ten miles from town."

"That's what I want."

"Oh, Hill, all this stubborn independence, all this feminine self- sufficiency. Have you really thought this out? How are you supposed to meet people? How are you supposed to entertain? Tell me you haven't given up on men completely. Trust me, honey, you can learn to love them."

"I'm not gay, Mom."

"It's okay if you are, Hill. The point is, you can learn to love them. The benefits of a -"

"I'm not not gay." gay."

Doubtfully, Bev looked at Hillary in her square-cut khakis and sweatshirt, then over her shoulder at the muddy Silverado parked in the driveway, a mountain of filthy five-gallon buckets and a two-cycle gas genie heaped in the bed.

How was it possible that her own mother still wouldn't believe her? No, Hillary hadn't had a steady boyfriend in eight years or paid sixty dollars for a haircut. No, she didn't wear makeup. Yes, she was self-sufficient. Yes, she drove a pickup. Yes, her work clothes deemphasized her figure. But you try scrambling up riverbanks in a skirt and heels, you try navigating Forest Service Route 2880 in a Miata. Sometimes Hillary thought her mother was merely symptomatic of a bigger problem: Port Bonita, with its willful ignorance, and lack of imagination, its stubborn backwoods resistance to progress of any kind. Even the fashions arrived ten years late. Port Bonita, where orange juice was still just for breakfast, where mixed marriage was still divisive and gay marriage was a scourge, where any guy with an earring was a f.a.g, where any woman who drove a pickup or cropped her hair short or embraced utility over design was a lesbo.

In a way, Hillary felt sorry for her mother. There was something admirable and sad in the way her mother strove so hard to resist the inevitable. Hillary could scarcely imagine the sheer force of will or the leap of imagination required to outrun a truth as pervasive as middle age, to convince oneself that dating a twenty-eight-year-old Motocross enthusiast, wearing seamless panties, or pumping your chest full of saline, made any sense at all, when you were three years shy of Social Security, and osteoporosis was just around the corner.

"Look, Mom, if it will make you feel better, I've got a date Sat.u.r.day." Beverly perked up. "With a guy?"

"Yes, Mom. With a guy."

"Who is he? Where did you meet him?"

"I haven't. Genie set it up."

"DeMarini?"

"Of course."

Bev fought off her disappointment at this news and kept the smile tacked to her face. She'd always suspected Genie DeMarini of being a lesbian. "Well, that sounds hopeful."

"Trust me, it's not."

"Oh, Hill."

"Mom, there's more to life than men," said Hillary, immediately realizing she was not helping her cause. "What I mean is, just because I'm not with somebody doesn't mean I wouldn't like to be with the right person. I've just chosen not to make it my life's work."

"Well, you could at least try attracting attracting someone, Hill." someone, Hill."

Hillary knew that the comment was not intended to be cruel - there was the note of well-intentioned suggestion to it, which made it all the sadder to her ears.

"You hate it, don't you?" Hillary said. "This place."

Bev waved at a mosquito and looked around vaguely, her eyes landing on the Silverado in the driveway. "Oh, I don't hate it, Hill. I'm just not sure it's a good investment, dear. I just think you should look into something closer to town."

incomplete JANUARY 1890 1890.

Thomas remained on the ground for a moment and listened to the footsteps of the dark Makah receding. Groping in the mud all about him, Thomas dredged the broken mirror out from beneath the boardwalk. He tried to wipe the reflection clear with the palm of his bleeding hand but succeeded only in smudging the gla.s.s still further. The tool had been rendered useless; the world it revealed was cracked and muddy and bleeding. But the boy continued to clutch it anyway as he clambered to his feet. In spite of an instinct to flee, Thomas felt the stronger pull of his hatred. The boy's heart was still racing as he followed the Makah's path to the far edge of the Belvedere and down the alley. His breathing had quieted by the time he reached the head of the alley, at which point he could hear Stone Face talking to his companion, the little one, whom Thomas recognized as the one called Small Fry. A third man's voice silenced them both. Thomas could not decipher his words. Ducking under the building once more, down among the pilings, he drew closer. He could see two sets of legs at the base of the steps. The third voice came from above, from the top of the steps. He could hear it now. And he recognized it as the Belvedere Man.

"You best have the same idea of taking care of something that I do. If this comes back to me, you're finished. Do you hear?"

Stone Face consented with a grunt. The two sets of legs walked away. Bottles rattled and clinked in the wooden box. Thomas crawled out from beneath the building and hurried after the two Indians. They trudged the length of town along the base of the muddy hillside, with Thomas trailing them at a safe distance. The wind kicked up, and it began spitting rain. The tar paper roof of the Olympic Hotel set to flapping here and there.

When the boy drew too close, his footsteps - ginger though they were - finally betrayed his presence. Stone Face stopped in his tracks and swung around.

"What's that?" he said, to Small Fry.

"What's what?"

"Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Shhhh."

Thomas was flat on his belly in the mud. The grit of soil was on his tongue, and the lingering taste of blood. He was still clutching the tool, reflective side down, in his outstretched hand.

Stone Face started creeping back in Thomas's direction.

"It was nothing," said Small Fry, holding the box of bottles.

"Shhhh."

Stone Face crept closer still.

"This is getting heavy," said Small Fry.

"Shhhh."

"It was only the wind."

Stone Face stopped abruptly and stood perfectly still not twenty feet from where Thomas lay. The wind was blowing fiercely in the treetops up the hill. Limbs clattered in the understory. The roof of the Olympic Hotel flapped its intermittent signal.

"Told you it was the wind," said the little man. "C'mon. You carry this."

Satisfied, Stone Face turned around and rejoined his companion. When they reached the base of the hogback, the two men hunkered down in the mud, leaned against the hillside, and uncapped one of the bottles. Stone Face drank greedily. After a few pa.s.ses with the whiskey, the two Indians rose to their feet, and Stone Face hefted the box of bottles. Thomas could see the difference in their comportment almost immediately as they proceeded up the hogback. They b.u.mped each other occasionally as they shuffled along, and the bottles jumped around in the box. They said nothing, as they trudged up the hill. Thomas did not venture after them until the two men had crested the rise on the colony side, at which point he made a mad dash up the hogback. By the time he crested the hill, he could see the shadowy figures of the two men cutting behind the boat shed toward the strait.

Thomas caught up to the men just as they began hiking through a field of long gra.s.s. He squatted low, listening to their whisking progress. Now and again, he sprang to his feet and shot forward through the gra.s.s in bursts like a jackrabbit.

The two Indians arrived at the sh.o.r.eline a half mile east of Hollywood Beach, at which point they turned back toward the distant fires, ambling along the water's edge in a stiff wind, pa.s.sing the bottle back and forth.

"Why did we take this way?" Small Fry wanted to know. "This is a circle."

"Because, stupid. This way we came from somewhere else."

Thomas found little need for stealth, as he followed the two men with the bottles at a distance of a hundred feet. They were blinded by whiskey. Small Fry was laughing a lot and began to spin in circles as he walked.

"Shut up," said Stone Face. "Quit playing."

A quarter mile from the nearest fire, the two men followed a narrow trailhead up the slope. Thomas followed them at a short distance. Small Fry started humming a white man's song.

"Quit singing stupid songs."

"You quit."

"I'm not singing, stupid."

They paused yet again along the trail to set the box down and uncap the whiskey. As he brought the bottle unsteadily to his lips, Small Fry began to retch, and Stone Face seized the bottle from him, just before the small man dropped to his knees and retched again. Stone Face wiped the rim of the bottle with the sleeve of his shirt. He looked at the rim disgustedly before sipping from it. After he put the cap back on, he kicked his slumping companion.

"C'mon," he said, and picked up the box.

But Small Fry didn't get up. Instead, he lay down on his back in the wet gra.s.s.

"Get up."

Small Fry only moaned.

Stone Face jostled him with a foot. "Stupid pig. Get up."

When Small Fry failed to comply again, Stone Face simply left him there on the ground. "Stupid Indian," he said, proceeding up the trail.

Thomas stepped right over Small Fry, who rolled over with a groan and looked up at him with lolling yellow eyes. And reaching up as if to touch Thomas, he moaned.

A quarter mile further on, the Makah left the box of remaining bottles in a small clearing by the side of the trail. Grasping his own half-empty bottle, he approached within mere feet of Thomas squatting in the brush and began to urinate, swaying considerably as he emptied himself near the boy's feet. He laughed at the unwieldiness of his own body. Thomas clutched the mirror in his sweaty palm, as Stone Face gathered himself and fastened his pants and squatted down on his haunches about ten feet in front of the boy. He began to hum the same white man's song that Small Fry had been humming.

Thomas crouched in the brush in perfect silence. If he was still enough, he could forget where he was, and if he could forget where he was, he could turn invisible. That's how invisibility worked. Soon a chaos of hushed voices converged on the trail in front of him, both male and female. Thomas soon recognized them as Klallam voices, and among them he thought he could discern the dry, aching voice of his grandfather.

"Shush. Over here," said Stone Face.

They congregated around the box. Six in all, two women among them. The Indian from Port Gamble was there, the one who sometimes pa.s.sed out beneath the boardwalk.

"Be careful," his grandfather said.

"Give me that," said Stone Face.

A bottle dropped to the ground and shattered in the gra.s.s more like an egg than a bottle.

For an instant, everybody froze. Then, like a bolt of lightning in the darkness, an arm shot out, striking his grandfather square in the face. He cried out and fell to his knees.

"Look what you did, old man," said Stone Face. "Now you've got none."

The Indian from Port Gamble laughed, and one of the women laughed. Clutching his nose in his hand, the old man reached for the box, but the Indian from Port Gamble kicked his arm away and laughed once more. This time everybody laughed. They uncapped their bottles and gravitated to neutral corners and squatted. There were only four bottles. One of the women shared with her man. The old man scrambled on all fours over to the other woman, who pushed him away.

"Get out."

"Please," he said.

"Get."

The old man slunk over to Stone Face and reached out to him hopefully. "Just one."

"None for you, old man. You've had enough."

"Just one. Please, just one."

"Okay, just one." Stone Face held out the bottle. But when the old man reached for the bottle, he slapped his hand away. "Go."

He began to writhe in agony. "Please," he kept saying.