West Of Here Part 20

Upon the second morning following their departure from the Devil's Backbone, the party broke camp from the narrow wooded bottomlands of the first hollow. The steep valley was bitter cold, receiving only scant hours of sunlight each day. Ahead lay a convergence of ranges, a sort of eruption in their path resulting in two giant clefts running west and southwest respectively.

Reese, who in recent days had become quite friendly with his former nemesis, the mule, was pulling up the rear with Dolly's lead firmly in his clutch, as the party ascended the rise past the tree line, past the last stunted firs, and onward toward the next ridge.

"Hope you know where you're going," Reese shouted. "Because I sure as h.e.l.l don't!"

Gathering all the spirit he could muster, Mather looked over his shoulder and, raising a fist, broke into a bearded grin. "Straight down the gullet of Thunderbird, gentleman!"

Only Runnells laughed.

The truth was that Mather did not not know where he was going. Throughout the previous afternoon, he had been pondering the two ma.s.sive clefts that lay ahead and knew that within two days' time a decision would have to be made as to which direction to cast their fates. In spite of the levity he projected for the benefit of the party, Mather understood all too well the gravity of this decision. The stakes did not get higher. Stores were dangerously low. The weather and the terrain were growing increasingly hostile. The decision could well mean the difference between success for the expedition or the death of the entire party. Never along the Mackenzie had Mather agonized thus over his course. With the Mackenzie, decisions had been rather clear. The river had been his guide in most cases. In this case, the Elwha seemed to offer no clear guidance; this was not the wide river they'd come to know but rather a narrow and circuitous channel dashing their expectations at every turn. Neither did the mountainous terrain suggest a logical route through the high country. know where he was going. Throughout the previous afternoon, he had been pondering the two ma.s.sive clefts that lay ahead and knew that within two days' time a decision would have to be made as to which direction to cast their fates. In spite of the levity he projected for the benefit of the party, Mather understood all too well the gravity of this decision. The stakes did not get higher. Stores were dangerously low. The weather and the terrain were growing increasingly hostile. The decision could well mean the difference between success for the expedition or the death of the entire party. Never along the Mackenzie had Mather agonized thus over his course. With the Mackenzie, decisions had been rather clear. The river had been his guide in most cases. In this case, the Elwha seemed to offer no clear guidance; this was not the wide river they'd come to know but rather a narrow and circuitous channel dashing their expectations at every turn. Neither did the mountainous terrain suggest a logical route through the high country.

The very morning of the impa.s.se, while eating his cold stack of gillettes by the weak fire - the last gillettes he would eat for the remainder of the journey - Mather pondered the decision still.

"You ain't said two words all morning," observed Reese, on his haunches by the fire.

"Just putting some coal in my belly," he said, producing a half smile.

Indeed, there was coal in Mather's belly, and it was a slow burning panic. Was it fear that had him leaning toward the west? Fear that the southwest route would be the longer crossing and that food scarcity was more likely to catch up with him and his men? Or was it recklessness that drove him west? The courage to lower his shoulder and charge straight at Olympus, just as he'd charged up the gut of the Elwha. An honest accounting of himself that morning by the fire yielded the unsettling suspicion in Mather that it was the former. And had he given his own doubts the power, had he been able to summon any pa.s.sionate response whatsoever to the journey ahead, it might have been one of mortal fear.

After an hour march up a pristine snowfield - the last visible thing approximating a gentle rise - the party arrived at the base of the wedge-shaped collision of mountains that formed the junction of the two valleys, one running southwest to the head of the Elwha, the other due west toward Olympus. Mather stopped in his snowy path until the others pulled nearly even with him. The wind was whistling on the plateau, swirling with snowflakes, stinging the men's faces.

To be heard over the blow, Mather was forced to project his voice. "Well then, here we are," he said.

"And just where the devil is here?" said Cunningham, uneasily.

"In the thick of it," was Mather's reply.

Reese was scratching Dolly's neck, though the beast was disconsolate. The skin of her legs was sc.r.a.ped clean below the knee. Her forelegs festered. She wheezed for breath in the thinning air and did not bother to narrow her eyes against the windblown snow, as Reese tried to give her comfort.

"What have you got in mind?" said Haywood.

Mather had both options in mind. "I suspect west will get us where we're going more directly," he said. "Does anybody reckon differently?"

n.o.body reckoned differently - at least, not out loud - that the westward route was not the right choice.

1 March 1890 I fear that leaving the Elwha, rather than rejoining her on her southwest journey, will prove to be a fatal mistake. Given the state of our fortifications, it is madness to proceed due west. I held my tongue only for fear of dividing the party, and I strongly suspect I shall regret not saying my piece. We'd be infinitely wiser to follow the Elwha as originally planned. All things considered, this broad valley has been good to us, and I suspect she would offer more of the same eventually. There is a wisdom to water, and I would sooner follow this wisdom than put my trust in the instincts of men. Especially not the James Mather we've come to know in recent months. Though perhaps it bears mentioning that I have doubted Jim's judgment in the past, and he has proven me wrong. For this reason, alone, I consent to go west.

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN years later, even with the benefit of Haywood's grim accounting of the fateful decision, Timmon Tillman, standing tall upon the same gentle incline - though it was bare of snowpack in high summer - would make the exact same decision as Mather and head due west straight at Olympus. years later, even with the benefit of Haywood's grim accounting of the fateful decision, Timmon Tillman, standing tall upon the same gentle incline - though it was bare of snowpack in high summer - would make the exact same decision as Mather and head due west straight at Olympus.

looking back JULY 2006 2006.

Already, Hillary could feel the full force of her hangover approaching, a beating of blood in her temples, a fog of juniper rising up out of her throat. Beside her on the bed, flat on his back with the sheet pulled back, exposing the springy gray hairs of his chest, Franklin snored calmly in long, even measure. With her head propped on two pillows, Hillary stared straight ahead at the window, where the flashing neon of Bonita Lanes played upon the Levolors. Maybe it had been a little different with Franklin, maybe Franklin was gentler than most, a little more generous and attendant with his physical offerings, but now that it was over, she only felt dull and remote, like a stranger in her own body.

Hillary crept from beneath the covers and padded to her heap of clothing at the foot of the bed, where she dressed in darkness. When Rupert began to whimper, she stroked his big square head to settle him down. Franklin sputtered briefly, rolled over onto one shoulder, but didn't awaken. Tiptoeing out of the bedroom, she closed the door behind her without latching it, crossed the living room, and slunk into the night, clutching her high heels.

The night was unseasonably cool. A thick marine layer was rolling off the strait. At the bottom of the steps, she fastened her heels, wobbled a few steps across the parking lot, and nearly tripped in a pothole. Wrestling the shoes off, she threw them aside disgustedly and proceeded barefoot across the lot. She never was comfortable in heels. Heels were frivolous. So much of being a woman seemed frivolous to Hillary. By tenth grade, she'd stopped cultivating her feminine mystique altogether. She started wearing shirts instead of blouses, chose wood shop over home ec. When she double-lettered in soccer and volleyball, a few of the boys started calling her Lesbo.

But her crowning moment of humiliation came junior year, when Kip Tobin asked her to the prom. For about eleven minutes, she was foolish enough to believe that Kip actually saw something in her, until she intercepted a hushed confidence in front of Dave Gubb's locker. That was the end of innocence for Hillary.

Going to that prom was probably the last courageous thing she ever did. She drank rum and root beers in the parking lot by herself beforehand, and showed up a half hour late. Kip and his friends seemed surprised to see her at all. Kip was not complicit at first. The punch line had already been delivered, as far as he was concerned. But Hillary grabbed Kip's hand and dragged him onto the dance floor, where, finally, after a little encouragement from his wrestling buddies - Lauridson, Gubb, and Gasper, mostly - Kip began playing his role to full effect. And all night long, Hillary obliged, playing the fat oblivious Cinderella to Tobin's leading man, as he spun her in circles on the dance floor, winking not so covertly at the jeering student body gathered round them. Hillary smiled through it all, until, finally, the joke got old, and apparently it no longer felt like sport to Kip. He was actually contrite by the end of the evening, or at least willing to let Hillary suck his d.i.c.k in the parking lot after a half-baked apology. Of course, it didn't hurt that Hillary had been pushing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s up against him on the dance floor all night, while the Lonesome City Kings maligned everything from "s.p.a.ce Cowboy" to "Thriller."

But she showed Kip Tobin, didn't she? She brought him to the knee-buckling edge of climax, and right when the flash pots were due to explode, right when his eyes started rolling back in his head, she bit into him as though he were a celery stick. Sure, he gave her a lump on the head, and a shiner, and rekindled his campaign of humiliation with a new fervor in the coming weeks. But who got the last laugh that night? And who got the last laugh the night of their ten-year reunion at the Seven Cedars Casino, when everybody was still calling Kip "Happy Meal"?

Somehow, though, that last laugh never redeemed her. Even now, twenty years later, barefoot and fogbound in the parking lot of Bonita Lanes, the sting of humiliation couldn't have been fresher had Franklin Bell delivered it an hour ago.

nothing personal AUGUST 2006 2006.

When his nine o'clock still hadn't arrived at ten after the hour, Franklin anxiously checked and rechecked his schedule. Randall Hobart: a.s.sault with a deadly weapon, two counts aggravated a.s.sault, resisting arrest, a string of drunk and disorderlies, and a history of domestic calls. The thought of losing another one made Franklin momentarily queasy. After a final glance at his watch, he was relieved to discover a lean tattooed figure standing defiantly in the doorway.

"Hobart?"

Hobart nodded his shaved head, just barely.

"Step inside. Take a seat."

Hobart took a seat, sitting low in his chair.

Franklin s.n.a.t.c.hed the file off the desktop, and scanning it momentarily, began absently humming "Night Moves." "Okay, Randall," he said, at length.

"n.o.body calls me Randall but my mama. It's Randy."

"Well, you're ten minutes late, Randy."

Randy narrowed a snake-eyed gaze at Franklin. "Yeah, well what can I say? s.h.i.t happens."

"Not on my clock. And just what s.h.i.t would that be, anyway, Hobart? What could possibly be more important than your parole status? You like it on the inside, is that it?"

"h.e.l.l no. My s.h.i.t is all f.u.c.ked up."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"For starters, it means my old lady's kid got himself locked up in psych ward. Cops picked him up high on acid or some s.h.i.t. But not before he jacked a hundred bucks from my wallet."

"This happened this morning?"

"A couple days ago. But she was supposed give me a ride. Instead she's down there at the loony bin. So I had to take the shame train. f.u.c.kin' thing was twenty minutes late."

"Always somebody else's problem, ain't it, Hobart?"

"f.u.c.kin' a."

"Always somebody else f.u.c.kin' things up for you, ain't that right? Somebody always makin' your road tougher, right, Hobart? Isn't that how it goes?"

"Just a-f.u.c.kin'-bout."

"Let me ask you something, Hobart. What do you do for fun now that you're sprung? No, wait, let me guess. I'll bet you like to go down to the bar and have a few beers with your old lady, or maybe just solo. I'll bet you like to feed a few crisp dollar bills into the jukebox and play some pool. And I'll bet you're pretty decent. Bet you run a table now and then. Bet you hardly ever lose - at pool, anyway. And I'll bet you're feelin' okay for the first three beers or so. But maybe as the night wears on, you start feelin' a little restless, like you been there before. Sorta stuck, am I right?"

"You ain't wrong."

"I know how it is, Hobart. You think I don't know how it is? It's cold out there. You find a little comfort, you stick. That's human. We like that. We like to stick. Let me tell you about stuck, Hobart."

But even as he began telling Hobart about stuck, Franklin knew two things: (A) that he already had this kid dead to rights and (B) that he couldn't care less what became of Hobart as long as he didn't break parole. There was no light in Hobart's eyes. Hobart wasn't the kind you inspired - too lazy and unimaginative. And dumb. Hobart was the type you cajoled into submission by dotting his i i's for him. You facilitated Hobart's dependence by scaring him with paperwork, by convincing him, finally, that keeping your nose clean and following a few simple rules was easier than negotiating the intricacies of the state, should he fail to comply. Hobart was one of the ugly victories you ground out in the fourth quarter from the stripe, not the harrowing victories that distinguished the sterling record above all else. The kind of victory Timmon Tillman might've been. Tillman had potential. Tillman wanted something better for himself. The guy read a lot of books - obviously, he was looking for answers. Maybe Franklin had asked the wrong questions. Maybe his pep talks had sounded disingenuous in the end. Where had he lost Tillman? Was it the second meeting, when Franklin had decided against his better judgment to keep Tillman on a steady diet of optimism?

"So you're sayin' it doesn't matter s.h.i.t about my past?" Tillman had said.

"h.e.l.l, no. That was then. All you gotta do is take the initiative, son."

Why had he called him son? He'd never in a million years call a guy like Hobart son. So why Tillman?

"Bulls.h.i.t," Tillman said, halfheartedly.

That's why, the halfheartedness. Because somewhere in him, Tillman wanted to believe in something, wanted his gla.s.s half full. Franklin could see in Tillman's eyes the potential for decisive action, the determination to make some great leap in the face of lousy odds, the sort of reckless heroism that could drive a man to extraordinary acts.

"Look, we both know I'm stuck with the record," Tillman had pursued. "Which means I've got s.h.i.t for opportunities on the outside. It doesn't matter what kind of high-minded bulls.h.i.t I fill my head with - trust me, I've read books, hundreds of them in the klink: poets, philosophers, you name it. None of it means s.h.i.t on the outside when it comes to getting ahead. The only thing that means s.h.i.t out here is my record."

"That's where you're wrong, Tillman. But first things first: Stop sayin' 's.h.i.t' every other word. Because the man who says 's.h.i.t' every other word ain't the man that's gonna get ahead."

"Ain't's not a word."

"I ain't ahead," said Franklin, pausing to sip reflectively from his eggnog container. "Ever think maybe I'm just talkin' to myself here, Tillman? Maybe you and me, we're not so different. What you need, son, is a plan."

"Yeah, and what plan is that?"

Franklin narrowed a steady gaze at him. "Got me. And it wouldn't do you a d.a.m.n bit of good if I told you. It's gotta be your plan, on your terms. And plans you don't talk about. Any fool can talk about 'em. I reckon you could go down to any bar on Front Street and find somebody willing to give you an earful of plans. I'll bet you heard all kinds of plans in the joint. I'll bet you've heard the same plans three, four times from the same guys. Real plans ain't like that - and d.a.m.n it you're right, I gotta stop sayin' 'ain't.' Plans you decide. Plans you act out, Tillman. Slowly. Steadily. Plans ain't - aren't aren't - gonna happen overnight. Rome wasn't built in a day." - gonna happen overnight. Rome wasn't built in a day."

"Burned down awfully quick," observed Tillman.

"True enough, son. Takes longer to build a life than destroy it."

Tillman was a smart kid. A few warts on his personality, but nothing like Hobart. Kid like Tillman just needed a break. When the second session with Tillman wound down, Franklin had walked the boy to the door, and they'd talked about hobbies and interests with the sort of familiarity Franklin never shared with his parolees, because familiarity undermined his authority and sent the wrong message to guys who were always looking for access, particularly when it was easily gained. But with Tillman, Franklin had been familiar. He'd set the tone himself. He'd elicited familiarity. Tillman had said he liked camping. He'd said that it nearly drove him crazy in the joint not being able to camp. He said at night he would sometimes lie in his cell and stare up into the darkness, trying to summon the smell of a wood fire, a smattering of stars through the treetops, the grit of fish skin on a cast-iron skillet. Timmon was a poet when he talked about camping. And he didn't say "s.h.i.t" once.

"What about you?" Tillman wanted to know.

"Oh, no. Not much of a camper myself."

"How come you never see black people camping?" Tillman wanted to know. "I've been camping two hundred times at least, and I don't think I've ever seen a black person camping."

Franklin laughed, and gave Tillman a warm, almost fatherly pat on the back. "Son," he said, "we been campin' our whole lives."

"SO, WHAT'S THE deal?" Hobart wanted to know. "Can I leave now, or what?" deal?" Hobart wanted to know. "Can I leave now, or what?"

"Yeah, you're free to go. And you best be on time next time, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it."

Watching Hobart leave the office, with a sneer and a nod of his blue shaven head, Franklin knew Hobart would be back. Probably even on time. Guy like Hobart wouldn't have the b.a.l.l.s or the ambition to jump parole. Guy like Hobart would keep f.u.c.king up time and again but never on purpose.

no handmaid AUGUST 1890 1890.

The b.u.mpy progress of the carriage inspired giddiness in the child. The world was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with endless quant.i.ties of sunshine - indeed, it tickled her face around every corner, set her eyelashes to fluttering. All around her were the stirrings of possibility, darting spritelike in and out of the shadows beneath the sunlit canopy. Whether or not she was coming or going anywhere in particular did not occur to the child. She had no thought of the future, no thought of the past. She was simply afloat in the sun-drenched forest.

Hoko stroked the child's forehead in a way she had never stroked Thomas as a baby - gently with the backs of her fingers. Minerva gave a coo and a giggle and flashed a wealth of pink gums. Her front teeth had broken through at last.

As though the child's mirth were some cue, Eva set aside her notebook - in which she'd been distractedly scratching out another false start on her story-to-be - and reached across the narrow aisle to scoop Minerva out of Hoko's lap. Holding the girl aloft like a mirror, Eva felt the tears welling up once more and promptly manufactured the smile of a young mother. This was just temporary, she told herself, a few weeks at most.

"And how is Mommy's big girl? Does Mommy's big girl like carriage rides?"

As the child began to fidget in her arms, Eva quickly exhausted her store of placative measures: the tummy tickle, the nose rub, even the aching promise of the nipple, from which she'd recently weaned the child. But Minerva would have none of it.

Something hardened in Eva's stomach as she pa.s.sed the infant back to Hoko, and the child calmed down immediately. Retrieving her notebook from the berth beside her, she set it in her lap but did not resume her writing. Instead, she looked distractedly up at the wooded hillside, as the valley unfurled behind them. One cannot provide what one does not have to give, she reminded herself.

They came to the wide-plank bridge spanning the swamp. A single winter - the crossing of perhaps three hundred ox teams dragging a thousand chains, countless lengths of timber, a seemingly endless procession of carriages heaping with fortifications - had taken a toll on the crude structure. In a year's time, the bridge would be replaced by a much larger bridge, one built of concrete. In a year's time, steam would come to the forest, and the ox would become all but obsolete.

The clearing at the head of the canyon had grown exponentially since Eva's last visit, exposing stubbled hillside all around. The far bank of the chasm had been blown open well below the lip, and the canyon was now a good deal wider at the top. A huge timber scaffold was being erected up the canyon wall. The little valley was filled with voices. From a distance, Eva spotted Ethan among a small gathering of men. He seemed to be drawing elaborate plans in the air in front of them.

The chaotic crisscross of furrows carved into the soft terrain by wheel and hoof and heel had hardened into gullies in the flat expanse of dirt that had once been the meadow. As it now stood, the clearing had the look of a battlefield, right down to the pitted earth and the smoldering stumps strewn along the edges.

Taking the baby back from Hoko, Eva navigated the rutty terrain carefully on foot, clutching Minerva tightly against her chest in spite of the child's protestations. Ethan was apparently unaware of their approach, standing near the edge of the chasm like a general, pointing this way and that, issuing directives, outlining stratagems, mobilizing his troops. But Eva knew the truth. He wasn't really mobilizing anything anymore. They They were, from a boardroom in Chicago, cigar smoking men, leaning back in their chairs with their bellies pushed tight against the waistline of their suit pants, men like her father, fat with prosperity, not babies, saddled with destinies, not diapers. And this, Eva was taught her whole life to believe, was her destiny: to marry right and bear children, to be a loyal unquestioning daughter, sister, mother, and wife. To subordinate her every whim and ambition. All of this strengethened Eva's resolve as she marched toward Ethan. were, from a boardroom in Chicago, cigar smoking men, leaning back in their chairs with their bellies pushed tight against the waistline of their suit pants, men like her father, fat with prosperity, not babies, saddled with destinies, not diapers. And this, Eva was taught her whole life to believe, was her destiny: to marry right and bear children, to be a loyal unquestioning daughter, sister, mother, and wife. To subordinate her every whim and ambition. All of this strengethened Eva's resolve as she marched toward Ethan.

TO HOKO, THE little cabin on the bluff seemed small and homely amid the ravaged valley. The huge timber scaffold straddling the gorge made her uneasy. It did not belong there. The very proportions of it were troubling. That the white man believed himself the master of the river was no small conceit. Hoko knew that eventually he would learn otherwise. little cabin on the bluff seemed small and homely amid the ravaged valley. The huge timber scaffold straddling the gorge made her uneasy. It did not belong there. The very proportions of it were troubling. That the white man believed himself the master of the river was no small conceit. Hoko knew that eventually he would learn otherwise.

She found Indian George on the stoop of the cabin. His yellow scarf was filthy, his small-brimmed hat misshapen. He did not seem his usual self, the way he sat with slumping shoulders and his calloused hands at rest in his lap, as though they'd given up on something. He nodded but did not smile upon Hoko's approach. Never had Hoko seen George in such low spirits. She took a seat beside him on the stoop, where they sat in silence. Hoko took a slow panoramic inventory of the busy valley, fraught with tiny workers. They scurried around like ants - thoughtlessly, yet purposefully - bearing burdens bigger than themselves.

"If the river were meant to be stopped," she said, "then it would not be a river."

George nodded his affirmation. "That is true," he said. "But a river is easier to stop than a white man."

They both fell to silently watching Eva cross the rutted clearing toward Ethan.

"How is the boy?" George said, at last.

"The boy is in Jamestown."

"Abe Charles thinks the boy is a prophet."

"Abe Charles believes what he wants to believe."