By Way of Water

by Charlotte Gullick

  A half hour passed with Helen, Jake and Justy quiet, listening to the singing storytellers. And then the boxy blue car from the day before pulled in next to the Willys, and the sandaled woman climbed out, a red scarf over her hair today. A tall, thin man unfolded himself from the passenger seat. His blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail and his heavily bearded face smiled. Different colors of paint smeared the dirty white of his overalls.

  “Hippies,” Jake said.

  Helen said, “There’s more coming all the time. Harris keeps bringing them in. He sells more real estate than anyone in this county, and that includes Ukiah.” Helen shrugged. “These two don’t seem bad, though.”

  A wave of cool air swept into the room; Justy could feel it swirl around her ankles and up her pant legs.

  “Helen!” the woman said. The man wore a beaming smile.

  “How are you two?” Helen set the glass down she’d been cleaning and lit a cigarette.

  “Good, good,” the woman said. She walked behind Justy, who kept her eyes on the woman’s reflection. “Except for we’re going a little crazy, with the snow and all, and the tipi…” She shrugged.

  “It gets small some days.”

  Jake cocked his head at her, eyebrows raised. “Did you say tipi?”

  “Yeah. It gets small, like I said, but it’s pretty mellow.”

  Jake smiled at his beer.

  “Didn’t I see you yesterday, down in Madrone?”

  Jake’s smile slid away and he shook his head. The woman tried to meet Justy’s eyes.

  “Yeah, in the parking lot of Sullivan’s.”

  Jake watched the woman’s reflection, his brown eyes glittering.

  “My name is Sunshine Raven.”

  The woman held out her hand, but Jake did not turn.

  “Used to be Laura, but I realized it wasn’t warm enough.”

  “What can I get you?” Helen tapped her cigarette into an ashtray.

  “Couple shots of tequila would be great,” Sunshine said. She dropped her hand and swayed to the song, her eyes roaming. She bowed slightly to Paco’s picture, her hands pressed together in front of her. Helen watched this while she filled two shot glasses. Sunshine turned from the picture and pulled a wad of cash from a woven rainbow-colored purse. Jake watched the woman in the mirror, his face struggling to remain calm.

  “Thanks,” Sunshine said.

  She and the man took the shots, and then pool balls thundered through the tunnels of the table. She cleared the table in a matter of minutes, her hair falling over her shoulders. The man sat in a chair against the wall, smiling and watching her.

  Jake took a breath and said low, “Where’d they come from?”

  Helen didn’t look at him but said, “Berkeley. They bought part of the Hermitage, the piece closest to the Eel.”

  Justy looked at the people who’d chosen to live next to her river.

  “They working?” Jake asked.

  Helen shook her head. “Don’t seem to need to. He’s an artist of some kind, and her, she’s supposed to be good with herbs.”

  “Herbs?”

  “Natural medicine, she called it. I don’t know. Maybe a bruja.”

  They fell back into silence and the pool table spilled forth another crash. This time the man broke, his manner slow. Justy imagined him a turtle that liked to sleep in the mud or the sun.

  “Helen,” Jake said. She looked up from cleaning spotless glasses.

  “You figure there’s room in this trade for a few coins? I got to call north.”

  She raised an eyebrow and then walked to the cash register, pulled out some change and set it in front of him.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “No problema.” Helen watched Jake roll the empty glass in his hand. He caught her eye, and she poured another shot of whiskey, which he drank down in one swallow. Justy tried to make a third mark in the bar. Jake lined up the coins, glancing at Sunshine’s reflection every time she laughed. He tapped on each one, six quarters, four dimes, two nickels—presidential faces marching bodiless toward the wall. Every coin said “Liberty.” Justy tilted her foot back and forth, making the penny slide.

  ***

  Two more shots of whiskey, two more beers and Jake continued moving the coins. Sunshine and the man played game after game, shuffling their sandals on the linoleum. When Helen caught Justy’s eye and winked, Justy relaxed some.

  Helen left through the back door again and Jake stared at the money, looking up only to meet his own gaze in the mirror when he took a drink. He slid Washington after Washington in an arc, placing the advancing coin in the lead. Helen returned with three plates of enchiladas, setting the smallest serving in front of Justy.

  “No thanks,” Jake said, and tried to wave away his plate. But Helen set it near him.

  Justy waited for Helen to begin a story, but she lit a cigarette and smiled at Jake. He didn’t look at her. She cleared her throat and started telling them about when she and Juan used to live in Mexico, about how her mother used to test Juan to see if he was worthy enough for her beautiful daughter. “Yes, if you can imagine it,” Helen said. She went on and Jake began smiling at her tale, nodding at her Spanish phrases. Helen told them about Juan trying to make an impression by bringing flowers, but what he didn’t know was that Helen’s father was deathly allergic to bees and thought all flowers brought bees with them. By the time she got to the end of the story, Jake had cleaned his plate and was smiling fully.

  Helen knew how to keep people safe, and Justy wanted to walk behind the bar and hug her. After they had finished eating, Justy felt a stab of hunger from Dale. She turned the stool and watched Sunshine’s red skirt flow like water around her bare ankles. Then a truck’s lights glared through the window and stopped. Jeff Harris climbed out of his new red Toyota and walked in, his boots clunking; he dragged his left foot from a logging accident years ago. He flashed a smile at the bar, hugged Sunshine and shook the man’s hand. The three of them huddled together, then Sunshine laughed, long and loud.

  “A shot for our main man,” Sunshine called to Helen, who already had it on the counter. Harris walked over and grabbed Jake’s shoulder in greeting. Jake turned to meet his gaze. He seemed to smile at Jake from a faraway place, his mouth almost lost in his bushy red beard.

  “Hey, Colby. What’s shaking up on Red Mountain?” Harris reached in front of Justy for his shot and didn’t seem to notice she was there.

  “Not much,” Jake said. He turned his back to Harris. Justy thought about his wife, Mamie, the only other Jehovah’s Witness in Sequoia Valley. That’s what Jake and Harris shared, wives who’d fallen into a religion no one else at this end of the valley seemed to understand. Harris and his wife had twins, a boy and a girl, in Micah’s class. Justy liked Mamie, but something about Harris smelled wrong, and he never noticed Justy, like she was just another tree in the way of his view.

  “What’s with this change?” Harris said. Jake swept them into his palm and said, “I got to track somebody down.”

  “Well, you let me know if you ever get enough coins together to buy that land. I’ll take care of you.” Harris clunked away to Sunshine and the man.

  Jake shook the coins in his palm and said softly, “How can she do that?” He stood.

  Justy looked at him and knew Dale was now in Joella’s car, waiting to come home and see if Justy had kept Jake tethered.

  His dark eyes looked to the hippie woman, talking and laughing. Helen moved away to stoke the fire.

  Jake placed a firm hand on Justy’s head. “You don’t believe that stuff, do you? Luke coming by every month in that suit of his, trying to make me one of them.” He paused, and then said, “Micah, he seems to have taken to it.”

  Then he took his hand away and said, “Phone call.” Justy nodded and he walked to the door without looking at the pool table. Justy
watched Harris’s reflection. Dale and Mamie had found Jehovah, but Harris and Jake had not. She closed her eyes and checked again, but He wasn’t there.

  ***

  The cold plastic of the receiver felt good in Jake’s fiery hands. He didn’t know the number, but the operator found a K. Colby in Bellingham, Washington. She connected him and the phone rang. He tried to imagine what the room looked like, if Kyle still carried those three masks from Mexico, if he still hung them on the walls of whatever room in whatever town he found work. Jake leaned his forehead against the cool glass.

  On the sixth ring, a muffled hello.

  “Kyle?” Jake pressed his left palm to the glass.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Jake.”

  “Jacob. That you?”

  A brief silence, and then, “Yes.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. That’s the trouble.”

  “Dale?”

  “She’s fine,” and Jake flitted away from the memory of why Kyle had left.

  “The mine?”

  “Not yet.”

  Kyle waited and Jake shifted his weight, rolled his forehead on the glass.

  “There’s work here.”

  “You say?”

  Jake watched a moth dance outside the booth, eager for the light.

  “How many years, boy?”

  Jake cleared his throat. The operator came on and said, “Time’s up.”

  “Dad?”

  “Two weeks.” Kyle’s words hung in the air, then the connection was cut.

  ***

  Helen played a game of solitaire, smoking and casting glances at the pool players. Harris and the man were teamed up against Sunshine. Jake stood in the phone booth, head still pressed to the glass, the receiver hanging at his side. Sliding her sandals over the floor without picking up her feet, Sunshine moved to Justy and placed a hand on the bar next to her. Helen flicked her a look, then one at the door. Sunshine was warm, and Justy could smell oranges and something deeper, like the clean aroma of fresh dirt. Sunshine spun the bar stool around, her hand light on Justy’s arm.

  “What you doing, baby?”

  Her voice was smooth, like rain over stones. Justy looked into the woman’s blue eyes and Sunshine stared back, not smiling, not frowning, just there. Her face was brown from the sun, and wrinkles lined the corners of her eyes.

  “I got a little boy,” she said. Justy nodded, remembering his face from the day before.

  Jake walked into the bar, saw Sunshine bending over Justy. He stopped at the pool table and pointed at the man. “Jesus sandals don’t make no sense in the snow.”

  “The name’s Nolan,” the man said, and smiled.

  “Your mom’s pretty,” Sunshine said to Justy, but loud enough for Jake to hear. He walked close.

  “Let’s hit it,” he said. Justy moved off the bar stool, away from Sunshine and into the jacket Jake held. He placed the cowboy hat on his head.

  “Helen, I appreciate your understanding.”

  She waved her cigarette at him. “You got it, Colby.” Justy looked at Helen and snaked her a smile, grateful for the food and the story. She wanted to look at Sunshine but didn’t as she walked in front of Jake to the door.

  ***

  Justy leaned her head against the cool window, watching the white lines of the highway to make sure Jake stayed inside them.

  As the day edged toward late winter afternoon, she looked away from the lines every few minutes to check the progress of the mountains. The way they looked in the twilight felt like they’d come from her dreams—only silhouettes, suggestions. Soon they would be tall mounds of nothingness, the opposites of their daytime selves, places she could walk into and disappear.

  On this drive, Jake went outside the lines only in the tight curves, something he did even when he hadn’t had anything to drink. Still, Justy knew that one corner a little farther north had grabbed the wheel of a different truck before she was born. Coming home from a high school reunion, Jake hadn’t made a turn, and he and Dale and the truck had rolled down an incline covered with boulders, stopping halfway between the road and the river. Dale had been wearing a seat belt, but not Jake, and he landed on a boulder, a gash in his forehead that took sewing up. The Willys didn’t even have seat belts, and Justy tried to make it stay in the lines by not blinking.

  When they reached the dirt road and the fork that led to the backcountry of the ranch, Jake stopped and considered going after the fiddle. He looked at the gas gauge, decided against it for the moment, and then headed to the house.

  Dale, Lacee and Micah sat at the kitchen table, a plate filled with red strips of meat in the middle, next to the Folgers can. Two candles burned low, and the shadows they cast jumped as Dale cut through a hunk of flesh. Lacee salted and peppered the strips, and Micah unbent paper clips, then slid one end of each through the tips of the meat. In the hallway, one coat hanger was already full. Drops of blood fell to the newspaper below.

  “Hey,” Jake said. “Jerky, huh?”

  Dale gave a curt nod. “You smell like smoke.”

  “Hey,” Micah said, and smiled at Justy, who went to the couch and unlaced her shoes, careful to keep the penny inside. From where she sat, she couldn’t see the others but watched their shadows on the wall behind them. Jake stood there for a minute and then went to the kitchen sink.

  “What’s this?” His voice cut through the house, stopping Dale’s slicing.

  “Peanut butter.”

  Justy knew Dale didn’t look at him. “Mamie gave it to me today at meeting,” Dale said. Micah and Lacee exchanged looks, and Lacee stood and hung another full coat hanger.

  Dale cleared her throat and said, “It’s for the kids’ lunches, so they can go back to school tomorrow.”

  Jake rolled the can between his palms, the commodity letters disappearing and reappearing in his hands, the alcohol focusing in him. Lacee sat back down at the table.

  “Peanut butter.” His words were tight and clear. Blood dripped on the newspaper, and Justy imagined the black-and-white print, the gray pictures of people she didn’t know covered in a slow pool of red.

  “Where does Mamie get off giving us handouts? Her husband is the biggest dope grower in this valley, and they’ve got the nerve to apply for government aid and then give it to us?”

  “Yes, peanut butter,” Dale said. She ran her tongue over her teeth, thinking he might look and see that she’d finally eaten something. The taste still lingered and it made her warm—to eat legally—but she still didn’t look at Jake. Justy wiggled her toes and thought about Harris, his big beard and his funny smell, like summer tarweed. She took turns closing one eye, then the other, wondering how Dale and Jake each saw the world. Her left eye revealed the shadows of her family, the right eye the strips of meat hanging in the doorway. Back and forth between the shadows, the tension gaining power in her belly and making her want to run from it. The stain spread on the newspaper, the drip seeming to fill the house.

  The silver can of peanut butter sailed over the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room and hit the far wall with a solid thud. The can rolled toward Justy and stopped a few inches from her toes. Dale nodded at the bedroom. Micah and Lacee left, but Justy felt frozen to the couch.

  Jake leaned over the counter.

  “This goddamned government. It’ll hand me some peanut butter, but I can’t go out and feed my family.”

  Dale’s knife went back to work, shaking the table with her efforts.

  Jake spun toward her. Justy’s eyes moved to the reflection of a candle, stretching over the silver surface of the peanut butter can.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “Not really, Jacob.”

  She began using the salt and pepper on the strips. The couch beneath Justy was solid,
a place she could locate herself while their words swelled into her. Jake walked back and forth in the small space between the sink and the kitchen counter.

  “Dale. I called Kyle.”

  She stood.

  “He’ll be coming shortly.”

  “Jacob.”

  He faced her, the cowboy hat in his hands. “Gaines has work for two men.”

  She pulled at the end of her blond braid. Bits of deer flesh from her hands caught in her hair. She stepped toward him. “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

  He shrugged and wished for another drink. He looked at her a long minute and said, “Hell must have froze over.” He walked past her and out into the night. The truck started, and Dale wondered if he was returning to Hilltop. Don’t worry, Justy thought, he’s just going to get the fiddle.

  ***

  Jake drove the back roads for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, thinking about Kyle and their last fight. If only Kyle hadn’t gotten in the way and confused Jake, then Jake wouldn’t have hit Dale.

  Justy joined Dale at the table, working paper clips into the strips of venison. Time was marked by the sizzle of wood from the fire, dripping blood and the thick give of the meat when the paper clip edged through. In the candlelight, Dale’s eyes were dark and shadowy, nothing like the pictures of when she and Jake used to sing together, when her face seemed full of light. She didn’t look at Justy.

  At the cabin, Jake stumbled over the snow. His hands found the fiddle and bow where he’d left them, but the room felt crowded by things he couldn’t see. He walked back to the truck, turned off the lights and played a warped song of his own, free for a few minutes.

  ***

  The children readied themselves for bed and still Jake had not come home. When they were under the covers and Lacee had blown out the candle, Dale came to stand in the doorway, her silhouette sagging into the frame. The strips of meat hung behind her, curing in the heat. She walked over to the bed Justy and Lacee shared and sat near their feet.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice wispy and faraway. “For giving us this day and for feeding us.” Dale paused, cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “We hope that Jake will open himself up to the Truth. May we learn from your Word and apply it to our daily lives.” Again she hesitated, and the room shrank with her silence—then the joy she felt about Jehovah’s knowledge filled her and she struggled to share it.