Somewhere in their bickering Harris decided to cut back, to exercise a grown man’s discipline. But what was once discipline had over the years become mindless routine, four smokes a day: morning, after lunch, midafternoon and sundown. His cigarettes helped mark the passage of time, especially on days that seemed all sun and sky, when he scolded poor Milo just to hear the sound of his own voice. The dependable dwindling of his cigarette supply reassured him that he hadn’t been left out here, that eventually he would have to ride into town and things would still be there, that the world hadn’t stopped whirling.
Magda was awake now, and he could hear her shifting on the couch. He rubbed his cigarette out on the side of the Folgers can he kept on the porch and dropped the butt inside. In the living room, the sun was filtered through the yellowed paper window shades, lighting the room warmly. Harris let the screen door swing shut behind him. Magda’s lids lifted at the soft schwack.
She arched her back, stretching catlike. “Morning,” she said.
“Coffee?” he said.
She made a face and pulled the old quilt up under her arms. She’d slept in her clothes. “Mind if I shower?”
“We should get you back.”
“Come on, Bud. I reek.” She looked up at him, smiling sweetly. “You don’t want to ride in that cab with me.”
It had been a long time since a woman had tried to convince him of anything. “Be quick,” he said. “Hot water don’t last but twenty minutes. Pump leaks.” She shuffled down the hall, still wrapped in the quilt. He called down after her, “I apologize for the hard water.”
“It’s all right,” she said, poking her head out the bathroom door, her shoulders already naked. “We got hard water, too.”
Steam soon billowed from underneath the door, thickening the air in the hall. Water beaded on the metal doorknobs and hinges. Harris heard the squeak of her bare feet pivoting against the porcelain. From what he’d seen of her while she slept, it wasn’t difficult to imagine the rest. He busied himself cleaning the coffeemaker and filling Milo’s water dish, though the dog preferred to drink from the toilet.
Eventually, the pipes squealed closed and the bathroom door opened. Harris turned to see Magda standing in the doorway, one of his thin maroon bath towels tucked around her like a cocktail dress, her hair wet-black, curling at her shoulders, her bare collarbones. She held her dirty clothes in a wad under her arm. Milo limped to her. The girl bent and scratched the dog under the chin. Without looking up, she said, “Mind if I borrow some clothes?”
Harris was uneasy at the idea of her pilfering his drawers, her fingers running over the flecks of mica among his graying underwear. But better that than him choosing clothes for the girl. “Go ahead,” he said. “Bedroom’s on the left.”
“Bud.” She turned, smiling, strands of wet hair clinging to her skin. “This house’s got four rooms. I been in three of them.”
When Magda emerged from the bedroom she wore a black T-shirt, a pair of tall white socks pulled to her knees with the heels bulging above her ankles, and Bud’s royal blue swim trunks. They were old, like everything in this place—except Magda herself—with yellow and white stripes running up the sides. They were short, even on her small frame. She must have hiked them up.
She stood in the doorway dipping the pad of her middle finger into one of his dented pots of Carmex and running the finger over her lips until they glistened.
“What are we doing today?” she said.
“Doing?”
“Let’s go swimming,” she said. “Bet you know all the hot springs.”
“Swimming? Sweetheart, this ain’t sleepaway camp.”
She sat cross-legged in the recliner, setting it rocking and squeaking. “You’re too busy?”
The only thing he’d been busy with in two years was her. “Somebody’s bound to be looking for you.”
“Nobody’s gonna come looking for me,” she said. She got up and walked out the door.
Harris wished something painful she was right. He wiped his hands dry on a dishrag and followed her out to the porch.
“Come on now. We have to get you home.”
“I’m not going home.”
“Why not? Because you did something dumb? Because your novio’s a son of a bitch? That don’t mean nothing. Plenty of girls your age get into this situation.”
“Bud,” she said, turning to him and squinting in the sun.
“What about your parents? They’re probably scared out of their minds.”
“Bud,” she said again.
But he went on, partly because she needed to hear it and partly because he didn’t at all mind the sound of someone else’s voice saying his name over and over again. “Shit, kid, if I was your dad—”
“You’re not.”
“I’m just trying to say—”
“Bud, you’re a fucking idiot,” she said, laughing that mean laugh into the open expanse of valley. “You think I’m worried about my boyfriend? The Mormon virgin?” She laughed again. “I told Ronnie we got pregnant by taking a fucking bath together. Want to know what he said? ‘I heard that happens sometimes.’” She lifted the T-shirt and swept her hand across her belly, her bruise, the way a person might brush the dirt from a fossil to expose the mineralized bones underneath.
Harris said, “Who, then?”
“Don’t ask me that.” She put her middle finger into her mouth and scraped some of the black polish off with her bottom teeth. “Please don’t.”
They stood staring a long while, her at the valley and him at her. He watched her come right up against crying, then not, instead saying, “Fuck,” which was what he wanted to say but his mouth had gone dry.
“It’s all right,” he said, finally. “Let’s go for a swim.”
She looked to him. “Really?”
“I’ll get you some shoes.”
They left Milo behind and took Route 40 in the direction of town for fifteen miles, and even though Harris kept saying, “It’s all right,” he could tell Magda didn’t trust him. She sat stiff, with her right hand on the door handle, and wouldn’t look him in the eye until he took the Burro Creek turnoff and Gerlach began to shrink behind them.
Some heifers were grazing on the long swaths of bluegrass and toadflax that had sprung up on either side of the spring, bright plastic tags dangling from their ears. The truck rolled to a stop at the edge of the alkali field, and a few of them lifted their heads to notice, but most kept their mouths pressed to the ground, chewing the dry grasses. Harris shut off the truck. “Here we are.”
“It’s beautiful, Bud. I didn’t even know this was out here.” Magda got out of the truck and shuffled through the tall grass in Harris’s bed slippers. Harris followed her to where the water ran downhill from the spring to a clear, rock-bottomed pool.
“It’s Indian land,” he said. “Technically.”