Eventually they managed to complete their task without killing each other. Only then did they celebrate, and their cheers reverberated up and down the valley walls.
* * *
Cheryl O’Dey was a skinny redhead from Chicago. Beside catching endless grief for her last name, O’Dey made Colin look like Daniel Boone. She had all the woodcraft of a cow with buckets strapped to her feet, but possessed limitless energy and enthusiasm.
She was only half the size of Mathias or Colin, but was as much a leader as either of them.
Her group, the Blues, was in the woods west of the athletic field. There stood a ten-foot wooden construct known simply as “The Wall.” The object was to see how long it would take to get all team members up and over.
A little green-eyed Minnesotan fireball named Jessica Range received an enormous wedgie when her teammates grabbed her overalls in an effort to haul her over the top. Jessica shrieked, but bit her lip and just sucked it up, scrabbling until she got to the platform at the crest. Only then did she give vent to her feelings, crying and laughing as she shook her fists at the sky. Cruelly, (but also predictably,) the Wedgie Wall is what they called it for the remainder of the camp.
The lazy summer sun cooked the teams as they swam and played water games. When swim time was over they brought canoes and little motorized bumper-rafts out of the lakeside boat house, and played under Denise’s watchful eye.
When the afternoon cooled, they retreated to their cabins and played spin-the-bottle, which the counselors found refreshingly retro. From one camp to the next, you were never sure whether you’d have to sweep the woods for lovers every half hour, or force the boys to dance at gunpoint. You just never knew.
65
MONDAY, JULY 2
Patrick awoke to the beep of his ten-dollar digital watch. Five o’clock, still dark, but time to get up. He stretched and yawned, the pain in his side and leg a dull, throbbing reminder of his brush with death. Lying in the darkness, it was hard to believe that he was actually free of Claremont, out of Washington, out of everything he recognized as his life. Here, guilt and pain and fear were increasingly distant memories, and there were whole hours at a time when he could forget the dead melon weight of his father’s head in his hands.
He slipped on his pants and shoes, and awakened Frankie, who simply opened his eyes and sat up, going from dream to full alert with the speed of a combat veteran. They awakened Bucky and dressed, grabbed a blanket and slipped outside in time to meet Destiny, Jessica and Courtney. Courtney wore a green sweater, her shoulder-length blond hair ruffled by the cold morning wind. Her arms were crossed, pressing a folded green blanket against her chest. Destiny smiled at Patrick, and gave him a brief, sisterly hug.
Keeping silent, they walked up the path, moist stones turning beneath Patrick’s feet, his flashlight beam reflecting from dew-spackled spiderwebs. It took fifteen minutes to climb to the top, and they had just settled onto their blankets, shoulders touching, as dawn’s first pale fingers stretched up from the east.
Frankie seemed transfixed. “It’s like I never saw a sunrise before,” he whispered.
“Everything is special here,” Destiny said. “Can you feel it?”
Frankie’s thin shoulders trembled. “I felt like I’d lost something. Everything. That my friends and family were all gone. When you guys started that club and wouldn’t let me in…”
Patrick felt a pang of remorse. The veterans of Claremont preschool were outcasts, but Frankie had been pushed even further from the light, denied even the company of his own kind. Patrick had to accept his share of responsibility for that. It made him feel like a small, mean thing. Before he could speak, Frankie shushed him.
“I know. It was Lee and Shermie. I don’t blame you. But it hurt.” His voice was low and sad, but not accusing. “But here, it’s like there’re fifty brothers and sisters that I’ve always had, but never met. Does that make sense?”
“It does to me, man,” Bucky said. “And you’re in my club. And you don’t ever have to leave.”
Maybe Frankie made a sound, but they couldn’t tell. He turned his face away from them, gazing off into the woods, perhaps. Destiny reached out and touched his arm. Patrick watched as her fingers knotted around Frankie’s, no slightest trace of jealousy in his heart.
Frankie gripped at her for a minute, then slipped his hand free. He let out a great sigh, and turned to watch the sunrise again. With that sigh, Patrick felt a weight lift from his own shoulders. This is a healing place, Patrick thought. I wish I never had to leave.
No further words were spoken as the sun made its ascent. And when it was time for them to gather their things and head back down the hillside, they still didn’t speak, as if the very act of talking might somehow steal the magic from the moment.
* * *
Ten A.M.
Breakfast had been eaten and cleaned up, and the morning sports begun. The Whites were in art, the Reds were practicing kicks and punches, and the Greens were on the athletic field, cheering as three archers stood poised before their targets. The targets were set twenty yards from the line of kids, paper bull’s-eyes pinned against bales of straw. Destiny stood tall and straight between Heather and Bucky, drawing her bow with two fingers and a long, slow intake of breath, maintaining single focus. Her bolts were truest, flew most often to the target’s crimson center. Her tribe mates stamped their feet and whistled as she discovered a skill she had never known she possessed.
She didn’t exactly aim at the bull’s-eye. That was too direct. It had more to do with finding the right set of feelings. If her posture and her mind and feelings were all sort of lined up, everything went great. That was all it required. And of course, there was a need to use proper technique, to meld breathing and posture and alignment into a coherent whole. But there was something clean and basic about just viewing the target, projecting herself into the bull’s-eye, drawing the bow with a single dynamic inhalation, pausing for a long sweet instant …
And then letting it go.
Ahhh …
There was no doubt about it any longer. In the camp’s final archery competition, Destiny would be the Greens’ representative.
66
After a long and eventful day, Patrick was up at Charisma Lake, enjoying the camp’s first overnight expedition. The hike had been tiring and circuitous and his side ached as he marched along the nature trail up through the hills, looping around through the forest and then heading back south from north of the lake, just in time for sunset. Del and Diane Withers were waiting for them with hot dogs and foil-wrapped ears of corn. Marshmallows, graham crackers and squares of Nestlé’s chocolate were melted into s’mores. It was the most delicious meal Patrick could ever remember eating.
The kids sang the Apache horse-stealing song back to the counselors. He had never particularly enjoyed singing in groups before, but now the twining harmonies were exciting. Their voices blended into an odd and mellifluous groove, altos and young baritones and contraltos flowing together as if they had practiced for months, producing a choral quality so excellent that it startled him. To Patrick’s delight the teams no longer competed with each other, reaching beyond the boundaries of Blue, Red, Green and White to create a truly tribal sound.
There in the moonlight, they shared an unconcealed, unalloyed delight in their unexpected and newfound proficiency.
After the song Ocean rendered another spooky story, this one about a creature called “Pumpkinhead.” It was perfect fireside fodder: a gory, oddly moral tale of Ozark vengeance. Patrick snuggled up between Bucky and Mathias, sleeping bags circled against night ghoulies as Ocean capered and pranced through the story. When he was finished he was rewarded by sleepy applause, and Pat had no strength to protest as Janie called it a night.
* * *
Vivian sat by herself, her back against a tree. She hadn’t spoken three words in the last hour; she had been exhausted by the day’s work, entranced by Ocean’s story, and enraptured by the singing.
Now she allowed the first tiny threads of loneliness to creep into her mind. She watched as Janie and Ocean unrolled their sleeping bags side by side. Please, God, don’t let them zip those bags together.
They didn’t, but their easy companionship still gave her a jealous pang. The two sat five feet away from Vivian, and Janie produced a thermos of coffee. When she poured Ocean a cup, his hand shook a bit.
“Something wrong?” Janie asked quietly.
“Just nerves,” he said.
“What do you make of all this?”
“It’s like we’ve got twenty-five sets of twins,” Ocean said. He turned to Vivian, who watched them, pulled deeply back inside herself. “Can I ask you a question, Mrs. Emory?”
“Vivian, please.”
“O.K., Vivian. Was your husband ever in trouble with the law?”
Her shoulders tensed. “No.” Just a couple of drunk and disorderlies. I bailed him out before morning, and Patrick never even knew. “Why?”
“Probably nothing,” he said, and seemed somewhat embarrassed to have asked. “Patrick told me that he died a week ago. I’m terribly sorry.”
Vivian’s eyes stung, but she blinked hard. I’m not going to cry. “We were separated, but … I don’t know. That doesn’t make it any easier.”
They were quiet for a time, Janie and Vivian sipping coffee in silence. Ocean turned away from them, as if he was embarrassed by the sudden revelation. Instead, he watched the kids, who were clustered in their bags, quiet now except for a few burring snores. He watched, glanced at his watch for a few moments, then watched again. “I think you better take a look at this, Janie,” he said uneasily.
“What is it?
“Can’t you hear it?”
“Hear what…”
And then she understood. All fifty kids were exhaling and inhaling to the same precise rhythm. Not a single one out of step, all blending together so that there were momentary hushes, followed by a rush of air. A hush, and then an inhalation …
“Shit,” she said, nerves tingling.
She watched them, then stood carefully and walked around the periphery of the camp. Shook her head, then found herself a tree stump to stand on, so she could look down on them from above.
She immediately felt a sense of dislocation, as if she had stumbled directly from wakefulness into dream. What she was witnessing simply wasn’t possible. Without apparent forethought or organization of any kind, the kids had arranged themselves into a pattern nearly as precise as a snowflake. As she watched, Colin rolled over in his sleeping bag. There was a brief interruption of the flow of breathing, a few sleepy grunts. Then as campers fell back into the groove, the entire pattern fluctuated like a kaleidoscope, and another pattern appeared. It was like a Busby Berkeley water ballet, or an aerial star created by a group of crack skydivers. Delicate. Complex. Impossible.
* * *
Patrick dreamed. And in his dream, for the very first time, he was not alone. He couldn’t exactly see the others, but knew they were there. He walked through the abandoned streets of the mobile home park, but it was more than that. This was a reservation, a barrio, a ghetto. It was the Bronx, it was Bedford-Stuyvesant, Cabrini Green, the slums of Honolulu. All at the same time, and all the faces were his face. He was running, and something was coming after him. The air swirled at his feet, lifting a scrap of paper which burst into flames as it swirled up, like a leaf in a spring wind.
He looked over his shoulder, and caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, of a flaming, churning tower. Without seeing them, he could hear other voices, frightened voices, but couldn’t see them, couldn’t see them—
* * *
Patrick awakened from the dream, beads of sweat burning at the corners of his eyes. The counselors were asleep, but three of the other kids were awake. Their eyes were wide, faces taut, shoulders hunched up. They trembled like small, frightened animals.
“Did you have a dream?” he asked.
The largest of them, a blond named Lizzy, nodded her head sharply, fear and uncertainty chopping five years off her age.
“Was there fire?” he asked.
She stared at him without speaking, exchanging glances with the other kids. She and one of the others lay back down quietly. The third was Aylana. She breathed shallowly, nervously, eyes too wide. Very slowly and carefully, she nodded her head. Then she sank back into her bag.
Hadn’t Ocean’s Pumpkinhead story contained a sequence of flame and death? Surely that image had invaded their dreams, had driven them all from the arms of sleep.
He just rolled back over, and stared up at the sky. He didn’t want to sleep. He would wait to sleep …
But didn’t. He was fast asleep in minutes, and had no disturbing visions for the rest of the night.
67
Over the last month, Renny Sand had checked his story a hundred different ways, seeking comment and verification without ever letting anyone know exactly what he was working on. It had been torture: he burst to tell someone what he now knew, was dying to crow to the heavens that he had within his hands the ability to destroy a cherished memory, to create his own new life.
So far, he had suppressed the urge, but the very pressure of that restraint had given him some kind of aura, some bizarre new attraction that had everyone at the office trying to be his friend. He had received more lunch invitations, more subliminally seductive conversations, more general meetings (“So, Renny—any ideas for a feature story? Anything interesting germinating in that mind of yours?”) than at any other period of his life.
It felt good.
Because of the need for caution, it had taken weeks to trace down former secret service agent Kelly Kerrigan, finally locating her in a tiny tourist trap called Diablo, Arizona, where she owned a B&B called the Kerrigan House. He’d called the Diablo Chamber of Commerce and reserved a room, packed a light bag and left at four in the morning, driving out the I-10 to Arizona. He figured he’d have a better chance of getting her to talk to him if he was a face-to-face cash customer, and not just another voice on the phone.
Diablo was a hundred and fifty miles southeast of Phoenix, down a little turnoff road indicated by a single worn-out sign promising WESTERN SHOWS, WESTERN FOOD, AND GENUINE INDIAN CURIOS.
The heat was incredible, a hundred and twelve degrees as he passed the California/Arizona border, and hotter every minute. His air-conditioning was pumping double-time, but the sun was trying to claw its way through the windshield. He bet he could melt off his fingerprints just by touching his hands to the glass.
Finally reaching a faded WELCOME TO DIABLO sign, he drove the tourist drag searching for the Kerrigan House. It seemed that he’d driven through a time warp: cowboys swaggered the street, saloons with swinging double doors roared player piano music, and stage coaches rolled slowly past, blaring tourist spiels.
He pulled up to Kelly’s white, two-story, trellised house at about three o’clock, and found parking shade beneath an ancient, spreading oak. When he opened the door, the dry, dusty air, skillet-hot, seared the oxygen from his lungs. It was like sticking his head into a kiln.
Sand reeled, then steeled himself. He grabbed his bags and hoisted them into the house, praying he wouldn’t have a heat stroke along the way. The door was answered by a tall, tanned man in his seventies, his face weathered enough to hold a half cup of water. He wore a red NRA cap, and Sand had a feeling that he was bald beneath. In a voice that was pure Texas, the man introduced himself as Bobby Ray Kerrigan. His warm smile didn’t entirely mask some deeper discomfort, a secret pain.
“I’m looking for a Mrs. Kerrigan?” Sand asked, praying to be invited inside before he died.
Bobby Ray’s face lightened a bit at the mere mention. “Kelly’s out and about. Home in maybe two hours.” He pulled the door wider. “You Mr. Sand?”
“I’m almost too hot to remember.”
“Come on in, sit a spell. You like lemonade?”
“By the bucket.”
Bobby Ray
chuckled. “Then take your bag upstairs and meet me in the kitchen. I believe I got a bucket with your name on it.”
Renny did just that, taking his luggage to a room with a queen-sized bed with a white canopy. The room had an arched ceiling and pink floral decoration, with a leisurely rotating fan on the roof. Hot. He decided that he’d spend as little time as possible there during the day.
Down in the kitchen, Bobby Ray met him with a jelly jar filled with pale yellow lemonade. By the second swallow Renny was deliriously happy to realize that this was real lemonade, unadulterated by artificial flavors, colors or additives. Maybe it was just the excruciating drive, but he swore it was the best damned lemonade he had ever tasted in his life, and said so.
Bobby Ray chuckled. “Ain’t it? That’s Kelly’s doing—and it’s famous for miles. She wins every bake contest that I don’t enter, too.”
“You bake?”
The older man sipped deeply from his own glass. Renny caught a faintly alcoholic scent, and suspected that Bobby Ray had augmented his own drink before the reporter appeared. “Damned skippy. Helped my ma raise eight kids, all boys. Bake, sew, clean windows. Couldn’t wait to get into the Navy.”
Renny had a second glass, and half of a third, exchanging pleasantries as he did. Bobby Ray finally said it was time for his favorite game show, and invited Renny to join him in the living room. Renny declined, excused himself and went a-wandering through the tourist shops along Main Street, struggling to stay in shadows whenever he could find them. He bought a frozen cherry slushy from a chubby Pinal tribes-woman at a sidewalk stand, and took a stagecoach ride around town.
The gravel-voiced old coot of a driver pointed out the house of Diablo’s first sheriff, a place where Wyatt Earp had supposedly nailed one of the Clanton lackeys responsible for his brother’s death over in Tombstone, the former whorehouse turned restaurant (“where you can still get a hot piece of meat. I mean a damn fine steak, a’ course!”) and the boarded-up entrance to a long dead silver mine. Apparently, its collapse had taken four miners and half the town industry with it.
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