No Harley out front when he got home. He led the dog up the stairs and let him in. It looked like Megan had had a party — cans and bottles and open bags of chips everywhere. A sleeping bag lay on the floor beside one slip-on canvas sneaker. He looked into the bedroom, cringed when he saw the unmade bed with the sheets all twisted up and every pillow on the floor.
He sat down on the bed with his back to the door, looking out the window to the sharp peaks of the Sherwins. The Black Not, never fully absent, piped up: Of course she’s with Johnny Maines. Cat away. Probably learned it from you. What did you expect?
He heard the pounding of someone starting up the outside stairs, soon joined by a second person. Ivan launched into a tirade of barking and ran to the front door. Sky heard voices, male and female, something being discussed, the male voice louder and more forceful but the female agreeing. The front door opened and shut and a moment later he felt eyes on his back.
“I’m sorry, Sky.”
“Just get out,” said Sky without turning around.
“Yo bro,” said Johnny Maines.
“You get out, too.”
“I want Ivan,” said Megan.
“Take him. Go. All of you.”
“I tried,” said Megan. “But the Sky Carson show just wasn’t working for me, once I saw it a couple of times.”
“It’s the best I have. Leave your key.”
“Can you at least turn around and look me in the eyes?”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“Don’t blame you, dude,” said Maines. “See you around. I’m all about you for the cup.”
“Yes. Godspeed, you regicidal toddlers.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Five-fifteen A.M. October air cold and thin, mountain darkness close.
Wylie unlocked the front door of Let It Bean, to find April Holly waiting outside in that darkness.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Sorry for the short notice.”
His heart hopped to. “Come in. I need to do some things.”
“We should be fairly quick about this.”
At the counter, Wylie wrote his address on a napkin, sensing eyes from the kitchen on him. “Park under the blue tarp by the pastry cart. It’s up Main, left on Mono, then left on Cornice. Put all your stuff on the deck. Steen will help.” She took the napkin and her eyes searched his face as they had done before, and in this Wylie saw fear and determination.
“Please hurry,” she said.
“I’ll be there soon.”
His sisters and mother were in the kitchen, at work in glum silence, the girls dressed for school, the radio low. Since Gargantua had begun opening at 5:30 each morning, the Let It Bean staff was getting up half an hour earlier to open at 5:15. At 4:00 A.M., those thirty minutes of sleep were sorely missed.
Wylie told them he was taking off for a few days; not to worry, Steen would be here by 7:30. All three of them gave him knowing looks. “If that was April Holly’s voice,” said Belle, “then that must have been April Holly.”
“Where are you two going?” asked Beatrice.
“Solitary,” he said. “Madman.”
“Adam, too?” asked Belle. “For your birthday, like you used to?”
“We’ll see, with the short notice.”
“I’d go with April Holly on no notice,” said Belle.
“Happy birthday almost, Wylie!” said Beatrice.
A moment later, the girls hugged him and his mother handed him a paper bag. Wylie hustled across the parking lot in the cold dark, slipping and sliding on the ice, risking a half lutz as he got close to his truck, landing the jump nicely.
April said nothing as they charged toward Highway 395 from Mammoth. She kept her eyes on the side-view mirror, and Wylie felt her nerves. They ate the pastries and drank the big coffee drinks. He was surprised how small the cab of his truck became with her in it. Much smaller than with a sister or Mom or even Jesse Little Chief aboard.
He used the phone just once — it was going to take Adam and Teresa two days to get up there. This gave Wylie the thrill of having April Holly to himself. To himself! He would be cool and courteous. He would be April Holly’s host. Her driver, guide, protector, and companion. He would be Helene and Logan and Clean Cut and himself, all rolled into one. That was funny.
This late in a snowless autumn, the faint two-track path was easier to find and follow. Wylie happily goosed his truck up the front side of the Sierras. Aspens shivered against the gray flanks of the mountains and gold medallions rained down. The gorge was a furnace of red and orange flames in a cloudless blue sky, the breeze-blown leaves swirling like embers. Jays squawked at them while two big hawks circled in the updrafts precisely as clockworks. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Wylie cast an appreciative eye at the MPP, then let his gaze linger on April’s profile.
Her voice was faint and seemingly distant. “Last night they arranged to have Tim stroll in with an armful of red roses and tears in his eyes. I’m not a hard person. I’m not. But I’m furious because... I’m just furious.”
“I understand.”
“Please don’t. I’m exhausted by it. I hope I brought the right stuff for out here. I used to camp, but it’s been years.”
“We’ve got everything.”
“Where will I take a bath?”
“Breakfast Creek. You’ll be clean and very awake. We’ll heat up water on the fire.”
“Let’s not talk about a single thing.”
“Okay, not one.”
“I’m never sure if you’re making fun of me.”
“Sometimes I am.”
“Can I be not me for a few days?”
“I’ll call you Mae. I like that name.”
She sighed. “Yeah. Sure. Old-fashioned, like me. Twenty-one going on ninety.”
“Not talking might be good.”
“Don’t you shush me.”
“We’re going in circles, April.”
“Triple corks.”
“Always imaging.”
“Snowboarding is the only thing I’m not sick of. And I don’t want to know what that says about me.”
They parked in the middle of Solitary, away from the canyon walls so the sun would be on them, but not too far from the young tree upon which he’d been hoisting the food away from the bears. Wylie got out and threw open the door of the MPP and the tailgate of his truck. April walked off.
Wylie arranged the folding chairs facing each other across the fire pit, set his ground pad and sleeping bag on a flat spot near the tree, propped the skis and boards against the trailer tongue. Kept an eye on April. He wrestled the MPP off the hitch, then leveled it, cranking and uncranking the handle until the bubble was exactly equidistant between the level lines. He watched April walk into the meadow and stand in the waning wildflowers, looking up at Madman.
Wylie was suddenly unsure of what to do. He rechecked the level of the MPP. He fussed over the boots and bindings and poles and snowshoes, arranging them under the tree twice. Back at the trailer, he carefully wiped the road dust off the portholes. Short of counting the change in his pocket, he was out of ideas. So he rearranged the stones in the fire pit. April was still out there catching the sun, sitting on a round boulder, a singular woman alone in the world. Let her be, he thought.
Two hours later, they stood panting on the precipice of Madman, snowshoes fastened to their backs, ski and board tips in the air. “Take this first one slow,” he said.