She gestured with a slight incline of her head. “Yes.” I looked up, but as soon as I smiled, the warriors and their horses and the woman standing in the saddle disappeared.
Mari laughed, and it was stunning. It lingered in a luxurious moment, and I studied the little laugh lines at the corners of her mouth; they were like friends I had forgotten. I watched her talk and felt like I was being towed backward through heavy water.
She stepped forward and took my hand in hers. She was so beautiful, I could not breathe. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s the matter.” Her free hand rested on my shoulder. Her fingers were warm, and a fingernail flicked across the hairs at the back of my neck.
She pulled my face down. “It’s okay.”
I suddenly felt off balance. Her head had tilted to the side to escape the brim of my hat, and I could feel her breath against my chest as she went up on tiptoe. “Sorry, I’ve got something in my throat or something.”
“It’s okay.”
Her face came closer, and all I could see were those huge brown eyes that made me feel as if I were walking in mud that squeezed up between my toes. I was still falling, and the background slid away from me as she made tentative contact with my lower lip. There was still something caught in my throat. “This is getting embarrassing.”
“It’s okay.” She smothered my mouth with hers and blinked. Her hands were now on either side of my face and were holding me as I looked into gold bottle rockets shooting into the darkness of her pupils with contrails of iridescence, but the colors changed suddenly and tarnished, and I felt very cold. My back bent, and I felt it arch against a hard surface.
I still felt her lips on mine. I felt the warmth and the desperation as her hands covered the rest of my face and refused to let go. I rolled to the side, and the pressure in my head lessened as I coughed and breathed with a ferocious intake of air. I felt as though I was being beaten with a hundred broom handles. I blinked, but my left eye didn’t seem to cooperate, and my right one felt like it was about to fall out.
She was still there in my blurred vision; she sat on her knees and held on to the lapels of my jacket. Somebody was there with her, just to the side, some kind of monk with a hood pulled up around his face, and another person I couldn’t make out. I could almost swear the monk had a hatchet. He shook almost as badly as I did, and I was afraid he might drop it on me.
She pulled me up by my collar, held me there, and I could feel her sobbing against me. Her grip was strong, and she pulled my head into the crook of her neck and rocked me. I could feel her pulse as she pressed me against her throat. The trembling in my own body refused to subside. I tried to move, and my head rolled back just enough to see her face. Her fingers slipped, and my head bounced on her warm, soft lap.
There was a time, a time I remember when people would show up and sit on the hillsides, and the professional diver would come to town from Casper. I was a child and sat on my mother’s lap and watched in wonder as he put on his cumbersome diver’s suit with the military-surplus, two-hose regulator. He would disappear into one of the small ponds to retrieve the little white balls. Every time he would reappear with a rush of bubbles, the assembled crowd would cheer and whistle. I asked my mother why it was that everyone applauded whenever the diver reemerged with the basket of ten-cent golf balls. I looked up at her blond hair and the translucent blue of her eyes where the angle of the sun shone through her pupils, and she smiled and squeezed my hand. “Small mysteries solved.”
I took another breath, and the tremors became so great that my teeth felt like they were going to break off in my mouth. I started to rise, but her other hand held me against her lap. I tried to smile, but instead bit my lip and breathed out a liquid belch.
My hands fell to the side, and I must have loosened my grip because the golf ball that I had been holding slipped from my grasp and rolled across the ice.
She reached out and pounded my chest in a fury with her fist. There wasn’t much feeling there, and the only reason I could tell she was striking me was that my head jarred a little with each blow. She beat on me until I feebly raised my hands in surrender. Her tears struck my face. “You stupid fucking son of a bitch!”
14
“We think it was the extra layer of fat that saved you.” We were seated on the table in one of the examination rooms and were still waiting for the report from the eye doctor. Henry was sitting on my right because he knew it would irritate me. “A man with a normal amount of fat would have perished.” I sighed, trying not to think about how bad my face hurt and instead fingered the little plastic band they had attached to my wrist. The band had my name, age, blood type, and two bar codes, one for my meds and one for my lab, but I wasn’t planning on being here in another fifteen minutes so the whole system would become academic.
“You are lucky your coat snagged on the tree branch, or we would have never found you.” I fingered the tender spot at my side and stared at the floor with my one eye. “We argued over who had to give you mouth-to-mouth, but since I was the one who pulled you out, Vic did it.” He nudged me with an elbow. “I think she enjoyed it, or would have under different circumstances.” I felt him shift his weight and then hold something far out in front of me so that I could see it. “I thought you would like a souvenir from the briny deep.” He dropped a golf ball into my outstretched hand.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” Simple and honest; no one accepted praise with the grace of the Cheyenne.
“How’s Sancho?”
“I think he was more ashamed than hurt and is up and walking around even though his feet are sore.” He watched me. “I think he is embarrassed that you had to save him.” He was still smiling. “I told him you have saved lots of people.”
I nodded, and it was quiet for a moment, so I changed the subject. “How deep is Clear Creek?”
He slid off the table and walked around to where I could see him. He still had the Vietnam Special Forces tomahawk in an oxblood sheath at his belt. “Usually three to four feet.”
“Then why is it we have the Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench out there?”
He was trying not to smile. “You picked the part that used to be the old reservoir.”
“I didn’t pick it, Leo Gaskell did.” I looked up through my one eyebrow. “How deep is that damn thing?”
“Twelve feet where you went in.”
I looked up at the clock in the examination room: 11:23 A.M. “I have to get out of here, where the hell is the damn doctor?” I started to reach up to my ear, but he slapped my hand.
His eyes stayed steady with mine as he slowly shook his head. “You are a horrible patient.”
I bounced the golf ball off the floor. “How are Lana and Cady?”
“Still asleep. They had a late night after we brought you in. Their door is locked, and Jim Ferguson is sitting in a chair outside it.” He dipped his head for a better look at my one eye. “Is that Cady’s Chief ’s Special?”
I bounced the ball again. “I loaned it to her.”
He nodded. “There were a lot of guns being scattered about last night.”
“Anybody find the shotgun?”
He stood up straight and flipped his hair back. “I did. I also found Saizarbitoria’s Beretta and your hat.” He gestured toward the offending article on the chair beside the door. “I like him.”
“Who?”
“Saizarbitoria.” He thought about it. “He is tough. He outran me last night, barefoot.”
It was as good a scale as any. “He’s also half our age.” I waited a moment. “How the hell did Leo Gaskell get away?”
“Perhaps Leo Gaskell is tougher.” Henry’s turn to sigh. “That, and Joe Lesky’s car has been stolen.”
I waited a second to make sure I had heard him right. “What?”
“He must have doubled back to the hospital parking lot and taken the car which, lucky for Leo Gaskell, was unlocked and had the keys in it.”