His hand came down on my shoulder, firm and consoling. “Colleen, you are beaten up and exhausted. So, I will ignore what you are now saying and advise you to do the same. Yes, you are, indeed, like a rock in many ways. You are stable, solid, dependable. Whatever happens, you can be relied upon to be where you are most needed. You are… an anchorage that the rest of us need.”
I sniffled. God, I actually sniffled. “Cal doesn’t need me. He just needs me to get out of his way. He makes a decision; I’m the one who’s gotta argue it. He comes up with a plan; I’m the one who’s gotta try to poke holes in it. You saw what happened just now. Shit, why couldn’t I just shut up?”
Doc chuckled. “Because you care. You care that we don’t get distracted-drawn off target, yes? As I said: you keep us focused. Calvin knows this as well as I do.” Something soothing seemed to ooze out of Doc’s voice- out of his fingertips-and fill my veins and arteries with warmth.
“You see, that’s just what I mean,” I complained. “You got this thing you do that just makes everything all right. The sky is falling and the world is crumbling and I hurt like hell and you say something and it’s all okay.”
Now he laughed. It was a free, natural laugh I’d hardly ever heard him use. “And you, Colleen, you have this thing you do, as well.”
“What thing?” I wanted to know. “What thing do I do?”
He didn’t answer me right away. Instead, he wheeled me to the door of my room, propped it open, pushed me inside and rolled the chair over to the bed.
I started to lever myself up out of the chair.
“Nyet!” he said sharply. Then he lifted me onto the bed, pulled a blanket over me, and perched on the edge of the mattress to look at me. His face, always neatly shaven, was all serious, solemn angles, hollowed out beneath the high cheekbones. He looked as weary as I felt, but there was an almost-twinkle in his eyes.
“The thing you do, Colleen, is to make things happen, not as our fears tell us they must, but as our hopes tell us they should. You defy all odds, you ignore all dangers, you acknowledge no defeat. If you did not do this thing you do so very well, neither I, nor Goldie, nor perhaps a single member of the Gossett or Beecher families would be alive tonight.” He put his hand over mine where it lay on the blanket and squeezed it. “Be a rock, Colleen. Because it is a rock we need.”
Tears leapt from my eyes, giving me no chance to call them back. Stupid. Weak.
He watched me for a moment, smiling this warm little smile he usually reserved for injured children. Then he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Spatyeh, boi baba.”
“What?” I murmured, already half asleep. “What?” “I said, sleep, tough lady.”
I seemed to have no choice but to close my eyes and let sleep carry away the tears.
FIVE
GOLDIE
Am I sure, Cal asks me, that I can find the Bluesman again?
I just nod and don’t mention that since I first heard it, I haven’t been able to get his music out of my head. Admitting that might induce Doc to medicate me after all, and I suddenly find the prospect unsettling. I’ve connected with the music-or it’s connected with me-and I don’t want to risk jamming the connection. So I look Cal in the eye and give an emphatic, “Yes!”
We ship out as soon as Colleen is ready to travel, which, for the record, is two days later than she says she’s ready. Doc has no patience with her macho sensibilities. Even at that, she heals up a lot faster than he expects.
We keep the horses, but leave the wagon with Dr. Nelson. Where we’re going, a vehicle that size will be a liability. Besides, it’ll make a dandy ambulance. Dr. Nelson and his staff display their gratitude in the form of food, clothing, and enough medical supplies to stock a small MASH unit.
Now we wander the wooded hills of West VA on horseback, trying to dial in the local blues station. We are not on the road long when I realize that my receiver has a bunged-up antenna. The music in my head is not much more than an echo-no, scratch that, a persistent memory. A memory that is almost as flaky as I am.
It’s high noon and we’ve been zigzagging through the
trees since daybreak when my radar finally kicks in. Oddly
enough, Colleen notices I’ve connected before I do. “Hey, Goldman,” she says. “You’re doing it again.” “I’m … what?”
“Singing,” she says. “You were singing.”
They all look at me.
I test the connection. “North,” I say, and we go north.
Two miles later I’ve lost it again. It’s like that all day- on again, off again-as we move north, then west, then north. I pretend confidence I don’t feel and they follow.
On one late afternoon rest stop we consult a map of the world as we once knew it-another gift from the folks in Grave Creek.
Cal says, “If we continue this pattern, we’re eventually going to meet the Ohio River.” He grimaces. “That is, if the landscape hasn’t shifted.”
Once upon a time, you could look at a map created the previous year and assume the landmarks would have stayed right about where the cartographer put them. Not so, in this kinky new America. The Ohio River may or may not be anywhere near the wiggly blue line on our map. It might no longer be blue. It might no longer contain water.
Cal gives the cartoon landscape another long look, then gazes off into the distance, his fingertips tracing the map’s blue line-up and down, up and down, like a blind man reading braille. The rest of us hunker in a circle, watching him. The wind sighs and hisses through the brush, and the leaves tinkle and moan-a sonata for theremin and wind chimes. I think I hear a dim fizz of static.
“Huh,” Cal says. “This is going to sound weird, but… I can feel the river. It’s still there. But… it’s different.” “Different, how?” Colleen asks.
“I don’t know. It …” He runs a fingertip over the river line again. “It’s spiky… or something.” He looks up at me. “Is that where we’re headed, Goldie? The river?”
“We could go that way,” I say.
His eyes hit me so hard I feel stung. “Could? How about should?”
Cal’s monumental patience is wearing thin. I wish I could say something that would reassure him, but the truth is, someone’s closed the door again and the music is just a memory.
“He seems to be angling toward the river, yeah.”
Colleen pounces on the ambiguity. “Seems? God-bless-America, Goldman! We’ve been weaving around these woods for the better part of a day and the best you can do is seems? Have you forgotten how dangerous these picturesque woodlands can be after dark?”
“I haven’t forgotten. Yeah, let’s head for the river.”
I sound less than convincing; a look passes between Cal and Colleen.
I stand, take up my horse’s reins, and turn my attention up the trail. The cold, green smell of running water is heavy in the breeze. Waning sunlight pierces the fluttering crystals and shatters into a billion separate fragments of glory. I let them dance in my eyes and try to fan the song-memory into something more, but it resists. I find the whispered harmony of the leaf-chimes intruding. It surrounds the memory, winds through it, and alters it somehow.
“Goldie, where are you going?”
Cal’s voice at my back stops me. I have started walking without realizing it-following something I didn’t even know I’d heard. My horse, Jayhawk, nickers and nudges me with his head, as if to ask where I’m leading him. I’m not sure, but at least I realize that the song is not just a memory.
“He left a trail,” I tell Cal. “I didn’t hear it before, but I think I can track it.”