The woman bent closer to the crack in the window. ‘Did you kill him?’
Daniel, bending close to hear the question, caught the scent of cinnamon on her breath. ‘No, ma’am, I didn’t. Revenge is a powerful lure till it’s time to pull the trigger. Then it’s thin justice, weak murder. Don’t get me wrong, now. I didn’t kill ’em, but I didn’t forgive ’em either. Well actually, I forgave the Bridger boy some. He was a tenderfoot, hadn’t grasped the fine points of the Code. He went on to be a genuine mountain man. Ol’ Gabe – that’s what he come to be called. Fitzpatrick, though, he stayed worthless, and unforgiven.’
The woman said, ‘When was this?’
Daniel squinted up at the moon. ‘Musta been eighteen forty-five, forty-six – sometime close.’
‘That was a hundred and forty years ago.’
Daniel smiled at her. ‘Only if you keep track real close.’
‘But you couldn’t have been alive then.’
Daniel squatted so they were at eye level. He said, with careless conviction, ‘Ma’am, I can be whoever I want to be as long as I know who I am.’
‘Get in,’ Jenny said, unlocking the door.
Daniel obliged.
Jenny watched him as he slid in and settled, then asked, ‘Do you know the DJ? Guy on the radio?’
‘Ain’t much for this modern stuff, but I did hear a guy named David Janus on a program called “Moment of Truth,” all about the mind, and this David Janus sounds like he lost his oars in some swift water, if you follow my drift.’
‘What did he say about the mind?’
Daniel, taken aback, was slow to reply. ‘Lots of things, but I guess the nut of it would be that the mind is everything you can think about it.’
Jenny nodded. ‘The DJ. When did you hear him?’
‘Let’s see. Two nights back, comin’ into Reno.’
‘I knew he was around,’ Jenny smiled. ‘I’m supposed to meet him at Jim Bridger’s grave in eastern Wyoming.’
‘You might find a Fort Bridger there around the Green River, but they didn’t bury ol’ Gabe where he belonged. Shipped his body home to Saint Louie. I don’t know, but I think it’d be hard to rest easy on city ground. All that bustle and traffic and chatter.’ This piece of information from his youthful reading had particularly moved him.
Jenny looked at him appraisingly. ‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘Name’s Hugh Glass, ma’am.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Jenny said. ‘Take off your foxy cap.’
Daniel removed it, turning to face her.
They looked at each other, both afraid they were going to start trembling.
Jenny said, ‘You’re a kid like me, barely twenty.’
‘My name’s Daniel Pearse.’ He felt light-headed speaking his own name.
‘I’m Jennifer Raine,’ Jenny said. ‘Susanna Rapp if anyone should inquire.’
‘Am I to take it we share outlaw status in the culture at large?’
Jenny cocked her head, smiling, the rainbow tassel on her hat sliding across her left shoulder. ‘And am I to take this radical change in diction and voice as an indication of candor?’
‘Please do,’ Daniel said.
Jenny said, ‘I’m not sure what I am. I escaped from a mental hospital in California and won about two hundred thousand dollars last night on three rolls of the dice and here I am, no longer sure where to go. But it’s odd – just before I saw you staring at the moon, I was thinking about what I am. Not who – I’ll be working on that one for a while – but what. What I am. For now I’m an apprentice poet and I’m a Lover of Fortune. Not a Soldier of Fortune. A lover. And I suppose that’d make me a borderline outlaw.’
‘You forgot something else you are,’ Daniel said.
Cautiously, Jenny said, ‘What?’
‘A mother. Unless you’ve kidnapped that child bundled in back.’
Jenny stared at him, stunned by terror and relief.
Afraid he’d offended her, Daniel said quickly, ‘If you’re offering me a ride – and I want you to – let’s agree to respect necessary secrets.’
Jenny reached over and lifted his left hand into hers, pressing it softly between her palms. ‘She’s my daughter,’ Jenny said huskily, ‘but Daniel – she’s imaginary. She’s my imaginary daughter. How can you see her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. He thought he would faint. She squeezed his hand harder. ‘I saw her swaddled in that lovely blanket when I got in the car and I still see her now. Certainly I have a strong imagination, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’ Then he remembered that he could see a spiral flame inside the Diamond when he was invisible, and added, ‘Well, there is one similar.’
‘You can imagine my imaginary daughter? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes. But probably only because you let me.’
Jenny released his hand and reached for her door handle. As she opened the door, she glanced back at Daniel and said, ‘C’mere, sailor.’
He followed her about twenty yards away from the car into the scrub-sage desert. She told him to stop. He did. She walked another ten yards then turned around to face him. She kicked off her four-leaf clover shoes. Took off her hat and shook her dark blond hair, the color of sugar just before it burns. She said, ‘Tell me what you see,’ and turned around, deftly unzipping her dress down the back, gracefully shedding it with a wiggle of her hips.
Over her shoulder Jenny said urgently, ‘Daniel, what do you see?’
‘I see,’ Daniel began, his voice quavering, ‘a scar at the base of your spine, shaped like a lightning bolt, and I see a beautiful woman, her shoulders wet with rain, who I want to hold in my arms so bad I can’t keep my voice from shaking.’
Jenny turned around.
If it weren’t for the Diamond’s weight, which seemed to be gaining an ounce every five minutes now, Daniel would have lifted off the earth. He watched her delicately touch herself, the moonlit whiteness of her exposed inner thigh, rain dripping from her tight nipples. He saw the nakedness beyond her flesh. Her eyes promised what they might know together: fearless hunger, fearless trust. He wanted to meet the offer with all of himself, heartbeat to heartbeat, breath to breath. Though he felt his assent with a serene clarity, light without shadow, he was speechless.
Jenny wasn’t. She nodded toward the Porsche and told him, ‘Bring Mia’s blanket.’
When Volta arrived home he cleared the living room of every stick of furniture except a long low maple-top table and a cushion to sit on while he worked. He put the goldfish’s bowl directly in his line of sight on the far side of the table. He finished listening to various messages – nothing urgent – and turned off the tape deck. He gathered a pen and pad of paper and began to compose his letter of retirement from the Star. The tiny goldfish was darting wildly around the bowl.
On impulse, Volta leapt up and ran to his bedroom. He returned a few minutes later, wearing only his old magician’s robe, indigo silk randomly patterned with small golden stars, the phases of the moon emblazoned on the back and up each sleeve. He sat cross-legged on the cushion and cupped the goldfish’s bowl in his hands. The goldfish was circling around the glass edge of the bowl, but now less frantically. The fish kept slowing as Volta watched. With a flick of its tail, it swam to the center of the bowl and stopped, suspended, fins barely shimmering. Volta could feel the Diamond grow denser in Daniel’s mind.
The mind is the light of the shadow it seeks.
When they finished making love, Daniel and Jenny rolled onto their backs on the blue silk comforter and let the light, warm rain fall on their bodies. Daniel had never felt so clean.
A half hour later, without a word, they began gathering their soaked clothes. Jenny shook the rainwater off her straw hat. The unraveled cascade of rainbow threads was plastered into a dull rope. She took the silk between her circled thumb and index finger and stripped it from soaked to damp with a smile that snared Daniel in its sweet contentment.