Eve's Men

by Newton Thornburg

  Charley then saw Eve on the catwalk, peering around the corner of the cabin and looking every bit as alarmed as Charley had felt a moment before. But catching her eye now, he gave her a look, a shrug, of reassurance. Then he turned to Brian again.

  “Well, if you’ll get off the goddamn ladder, I’ll come down,” he said.

  Brian did so in a single move, jumping off. Charley quickly followed, not wanting to give the little cowboy his back any longer than he had to. As he turned to the two of them, Brian laughed out loud.

  “Hey, man, you should see your face. You look like you’re about to shake hands with a rattlesnake.”

  Exactly, Charley almost said. Only he wasn’t about to shake the man’s hand. Instead, he just stood there absently looking down at Chester while Brian explained how the little cowboy happened to be there, how two days before, he and Beaver had noticed “this little bum” loitering around the gate.

  “Well, we go to investigate, and who do I find but Chester Einhorn in the flesh! Been hitchin’ and hikin’ all the way from Colorado, lookin’ for the Seagull, thanks to your advice. And by God if he didn’t find us, and in short order, I might add. Figured we just didn’t know how to spell seagull, right, Chester?”

  “Yessir, that’s about it,” Chester said. In his stocking feet, he looked smaller than ever, yet somehow just as menacing. And his lipless grin did nothing to add to his appeal. “Well, old Charley!” he said, forcing a laugh. “You really did me, din’tcha? I shore didn’t know you was that stout, no siree. Picked me up like some kinda mutt and sent me scootin’. Like to kill me, you shore did.”

  “You didn’t give me much choice,” Charley said.

  Chester wagged his head. “Man, I thought I wasn’t never gonna reach bottom. That was some mountain, lemme tell ya. Like I told Brian, I went skiin’ is what I done, only without no skis. And without no snow.” Again he laughed and shook his head, as if he really admired the way Charley had almost taken his life.

  Meanwhile Eve had come out from behind the cabin. Moving cautiously, she came up behind Charley and laced her fingers through his.

  “Well, it’s all in the past now,” Brian said. “No reason you two can’t be friends, same as me and Chester.”

  The cowboy nodded agreement. “That’s a fack. Charley was jest doin’ what he had to do, and I was doin’ what I had to do. No reason we cain’t bury the hatchet.”

  “For now, you mean,” Charley said.

  “Naa, fer good. Hell, Brian ’splained it all to me, how what happened to Belinda was her own damn fault much as anybody’s. And then trickin’ me the way he done, he never figgered I’d shoot the bastid, didja, Brian? So it’s all over and done. Right now all’s I care about is helpin’ him git his own back.”

  Brian laughed. “Whoa there now, Chester! You don’t want these nice people to get the wrong idea, do you? I’ve already ’got my own’ back, remember?”

  Charley looked at his brother. “You better have. Otherwise, we’re jumping ship.”

  Brian’s grin was doleful and wry, as if it were an old cross he bore, dealing with unbelievers. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  Earlier, after the Seagal had gotten underway, with Charley and C.J. up on the bridge, Brian had taken Eve by the arm—not very gently—and ushered her into the main cabin, closing the glass door behind them. He took off his sunglasses and cowboy hat, sailing the latter across the room.

  “Okay now,” he said, “let’s get down to business. What the fuck is going on?”

  Eve was steeling herself, telling herself that for once she wasn’t going to let him get to her, wasn’t going to let him intimidate her or seduce her.

  “I think you know,” she said.

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  She felt vulnerable standing there with him directly in front of her, half-naked, so goddamn powerful-looking. She edged onto a bar stool and lit a cigarette. “Well, after you took off with your teenage sidekick, I didn’t know what to do or where to go.”

  “So you called Charley.”

  “No, that’s not how it happened. He’d got Stephanie’s address from one of your old friends. And he showed up just after you’d left for Greenwalt’s place.”

  “And since then?”

  “Well, he thought I should go to the FBI. Turn myself in. He would have gone in with me. I knew it made sense, but I just couldn’t do it. And I still can’t.”

  “So you tell him about Aunt Maureen’s, and he takes you there.”

  “Well, she’s in Europe. I couldn’t think of any other place. God knows where you’d gone, you and little Terry. And after the Greenwalt thing, I figured I probably wouldn’t see you again until you were in custody—which didn’t seem to bother you all that much—I mean, carrying out your vendetta with no thought as to what it meant for us.”

  Brian put his fingers to his temples, as if he’d been presented with a daunting intellectual challenge. “Just what is this I’m hearing? Let me think. You know, it sounds oddly like some kind of rationalization, don’t you think? Like someone did something wrong, and knows it, but is trying real hard to make it sound okay. What could it be, I wonder.”

  “You ought to know,” she said, “you being such an expert at it yourself.”

  “Well, maybe I’m just thick this morning. Why not just tell me? Just spit it out.”

  “I think you already know.”

  Brian sat down in an easy chair, throwing out his arms and legs like a teenager. “Well, let’s see. I know you and Charley were together in Santa Barbara for three or four days, right? And I found out from the desk clerk at the Olympic that you were staying in the same suite, registered as Mr. and Mrs. Charles Poole, I think he said.”

  “So?”

  Brian jumped up then, coming over and taking her jaw in his hand and turning her face so she had to look at him. “So what’s going on, baby? Just what the fuck is going on?”

  Eve forced herself to continue looking straight at him. “We’re in love, Brian. Charley and I are in love.”

  Brian let go of her face then and stepped back, just standing there for a few moments, looking at her and frowning, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “In love! What the devil are you talking about? The last I knew, it was me you loved. That last night at Stephanie’s, isn’t that what you told me while we were fucking? Isn’t that what you said for the ten thousandth time?”

  Eve did not answer.

  “And then there’s dear old Charley. I seem to recall he has a wife and kid—he bother to tell you that? When he’s putting the wood to you, I take it he don’t talk much about old Donna, huh? Or his asshole kid Jason? Huh, babe? Come on, I can’t hear you. What about them, huh?”

  Eve managed to nod. “Yes, I know about them. And I’m sorry about them. But that doesn’t seem to change anything.”

  “Why, Christ no! Why would it? A primo dish like you up against that cold bitch Donna? Old Charley must think he’s died and gone to heaven, right?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  “So that’s it, huh? I’m on the run from the feds, and you get itchy, so I’m history. Is that it?”

  Eve was grateful for the phrase. Brian loved to sound hip, whereas Charley would rather have taken a beating than use those same words, so I’m history.

  “I didn’t say that,” she told him. “All I know is that Charley and I are in love. And while I still love you too, Brian, it’s not the same anymore.”

  “Oh, I see. Now that Charley’s in the picture, you love me the same way he does, like a brother. Is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He went back to the chair again and sat down, this time dropping into it, as if he were exhausted. “Jesus, Eve, I can’t believe how much this hurts. I know I’m a flake and that I’ve put you through an awful lot, but I always just accepted it that you’d be there for me, that you loved me no matter what. And now…” He shook his head in despair. “Jesus, I
feel like someone cut out my heart.”

  By then Eve’s eyes were streaming. She got off the stool and went over to him, getting down on her knees, the only way she could put her arms around him and hold him. “Brian, I’m so sorry. We never meant to hurt you. It just happened, you know?”

  He didn’t respond to her embrace. “Don’t bother,” he said. “You’re Charley’s now. And I don’t cheat on my brother.”

  As soon as Charley was able to get Eve alone, he asked her how things had gone with Brian.

  She shook her head. “Not so hot. I wish he’d gotten mad and called me names, or even slugged me. Instead he was nice about it, in the end anyway. Nice and brokenhearted.”

  They were on the catwalk at the time, reasonably private. Charley took her in his arms and kissed her. “What did you expect?” he said. “If I lost you, I’d wrap the anchor chain around my neck and go for a swim.”

  She looked at him, still unhappy. “I just hate coming between the two of you.”

  “You haven’t, Eve. There’s always been plenty of stuff between him and me—chasms for one. So don’t blame yourself. I don’t figure I’ve lost him, I’ve gained you, as in-laws say. Or at least I hope I have.”

  “What does that mean, you hope you have?”

  “Just that.”

  “Jesus, Charley, I think you’d be sure of me by now.”

  “God knows I want to be. But I can’t help it. I keep thinking of my one week with you, balanced against his three years.”

  She said nothing for a short time, just leaned there in his arms, her pelvis tight against him, her beautiful face solemn, the lovely green eyes gravely regarding him. “I keep thinking my real life began this week,” she said.

  Grateful for the words, Charley embraced her tightly and kissed her again, slowly, deeply. “I do love you,” he said.

  Smiling now, she gently pulled away, in the process giving his erection a playful squeeze. “I love you too. But you’d better lose that before you join the others.”

  “I’ve got a suggestion,” he said.

  She laughed. “Big surprise. But if I take you up on it, it’ll have to be up front, on the bow, where the whole world can watch. I’m going sunbathing.”

  Charley watched her as she moved toward the bow, swinging her hips provocatively. “Sometime today,” he croaked hopefully.

  In answer, she just raised her hand and waved a casual bye-bye, his absolute ruler.

  Charley returned to the bridge just as Beaver was giving the wheel over to Chester, who lasted about thirty seconds before he jumped up, shaking his hands as if they had caught fire.

  “I jest cain’t do it!” he bawled, giving the wheel back to Beaver. “I jest cain’t! I ain’t cut out for water and that’s all there is to it.”

  Brian naturally had a bit of fun with this, teasing his new little buddy. “Maybe if we got you a saddle to sit on, or if we smeared some cowshit on the wheel—maybe that would help.”

  “It jest might. You never cain tell.”

  Once out of the Seattle harbor, Beaver opened up the throttles and pointed the Seagal north. He said that they were going to take the Saratoga Passage, a protected waterway between long Whidbey Island on one side and Camano on the other. The engines, two Cat diesels, produced almost as much noise as they did power, making conversation almost impossible outside the cabins. So Charley had to wonder in silence what the big hurry was, considering that they were supposed to be out for a mere spin into the Sound.

  Still, he had to admit that despite his misgivings, he was beginning to enjoy himself. Under the pleasant onslaught of the sun and sea, his worries and anxieties seemed to slip away. Even the air conspired against him: not winelike, according to Beaver, but margaritalike, intoxicating and salty at the same time. Above all, there was much to see, especially later, after they had made their way through the white water of Deception Pass and continued north into the San Juan Islands: solitary beaches and rock walls rising sheer out of the water, with pine and fir and cedar running along the top, and old settlements at the mouths of harbors and half-hidden coves so beautiful they looked as if no man had ever dared enter them. On the more distant islands one could see upland meadows and farmland and small mountains, and beyond that, far to the east, the long white ridge of the Cascades, with Mount Baker towering over the rest, and described by Beaver as being “out today,” as if it were on a par with the sun and moon.

  With each headland they passed, there were bald eagles watching from the dead branches of the highest trees. Every now and then one of the birds would swoop down and have a look at the Seagal and then indifferently drift off into the sky. There were also Canadian geese and great blue herons and countless gulls as well as tiny flotillas of ducks: mothers leading their young through the shallows in flawless formation.

  And finally there was a family of sea lions that spilled off some rocks at the boat’s approach and within seconds came swimming alongside, rolling and frolicking in the water. When Terry first saw them and called out from the bow, everyone hurried to the railing to look, everyone but Chester, whose interest was of a different order. But Charley and the others were watching the sea lions and had no idea what the little man was doing until they heard the deafening report of his magnum pistol and saw the lead mammal shudder in the water and plunge, trailing a cloudy streamer of blood. By the time Charley turned in shock to look at Chester, Brian was already on him, pulling him from the railing and slamming him against the cabin wall so hard his gun clattered to the deck and slid off into the water.

  “What the fuck you doing?” Brian bawled at him. “You crazy?”

  Chester’s eyes had bugged and he was shaking. “It was jest a seal!” he explained.

  “You want to bring the law down on us? You like the idea of prison, do you?”

  Chester blubbered that he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant any harm, that it was just a way of life back home. “A man’s s’posed to shoot critters,” he said. “It’s jest our way.”

  Finally Brian let him go, and the little man sagged against the wall. Looking down from the bridge. Beaver pedantically informed him that the animal was a sea lion, not a seal, and that in any case they were both protected by federal law, that it was a felony to kill one. But Chester was not listening. By then he had gone back to the railing and was staring down into the water as if he expected his magnum to come floating to the surface.

  “That piece cost me a bundle,” he complained. Then he looked up and saw Charley, Eve, and Terry watching him. “What y’all starin’ at? What am I, some kinda movie star or somethin’?”

  When none of them said anything, he turned away in disgust and went into the cabin. Giving the others a shrug of resignation, Brian followed him inside. And Charley was puzzled by what he observed then through the cabin window: Brian crowding Chester into a corner and talking earnestly to him, as if the cowboy were a delinquent schoolboy, and Chester accepting it as his due, nodding in eager contrition, his squinty eyes filling with tears. Finally, he capped off this odd little performance by taking hold of Brian’s arm, almost embracing it. as if Brian were some sort of exalted leader, a king he had failed.

  Charley looked at Eve to see if she had witnessed the scene, but she was still staring down into the water for some sign of the wounded animal.

  “Well, so much for sea lions,” she said. “I guess they’re no different than movie directors.”

  There were four or five other boats in the broad channel between the islands, and Charley wondered for a time whether their crews might have heard the shot and would be coming closer to investigate or lend assistance. But none changed course. Eve meanwhile went back to her blanket on the bow, still wearing her windbreaker and shorts despite the brightness of the sun. Charley sat down next to her.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Do you still believe we’re out on a little afternoon spin?”

  “Why? You think we’re heading somewhere?”

  “At about thirty miles an hour, yeah
.”

  “Did you ask Brian?”

  “Earlier, yes. And I’m about to again. But you know what he’ll give me—the same old bullshit as before.”

  In midafternoon, Beaver put in at a small resort at a place he called Obstruction Pass. While he was having the boat fueled, Charley, Eve, and Brian went ashore to stretch their legs. Indifferently, not expecting any real answers, Charley quizzed his brother.

  “Well, here we are, almost to Canada, I’d say, and you still maintain we’re out for a spin?”

  Brian threw up his hands. “Hey, man, look around you. Smell the roses. How can you beat this? On a yacht in the San Juans on a day like this? This is living, man.”

  “Well, I’m just a mercenary old stick-in-the-mud. I seem to remember some promises about my forty thousand.”

  “And you’ll still get it. But on the way back, just like I said.”

  Charley turned to Eve. “What’d I tell you? Ask and it shall not be given unto you.”

  Brian laughed. “My God, what’s that? Sounds like we’re back in Sunday school. And of course Charley was always the star there too. Show her, man. Quote some more holy stuff for us.”

  “Jesus wept.”

  “Oh come on, you can do better than that. How about this? Thou shalt not steal thy brother’s ass, or his manservant—or his girl.”

  “What’s that from, the Book of Brian?”

  “That’s enough,” Eve said, turning and heading back for the boat.

  When they got underway again, Brian spelled Beaver at the cabin helm for a time, while Terry served a lunch of cold cuts, bread, and potato salad. There was also a plentiful supply of soft drinks and liquor as well as beer, which Brian, Beaver, and especially Chester went at with steady gusto. After everyone had eaten, Terry dutifully put the food away and without a word went down the spiral stairs, either to the head there or to the main stateroom. Because the girl looked so troubled and unhappy, Eve followed her down, into a vestibule with doors fore and aft: the front one leading to the engine room, the rear one to the stateroom. Eve knocked on the stateroom door, and Terry asked who it was. Eve gently opened the door. “Just me,” she said. “Are you okay?”