by Rye Curtis
I got up and beckoned the little kid goat to come along and went to the fire. After some time it inched closer and lay by me. I was up the night watering it from the palm of my hand and stroking its fur. I spoke to it and named it Erasmus, because I supposed it was a male and that is a good name. The goat seemed to get better and calmer the more the night went on and the more I talked to him. I told him about the airplane going down and Mr. Waldrip and Terry and how I had managed to survive for so long with the help of the masked man.
I fell asleep for a spell before daybreak, and when I awoke, Erasmus was up on his tiny hooves cropping the little grass that grew from the cracks in the rock. I bade him good morning and he seemed to know what I had said and he came to me and lay down again. I had occasion for the first time in some days to recall that my name was Cloris Waldrip and that I had been married for many years to a mighty good husband and that I had had a life elsewhere very different to the one I had then.
This portion of my account that I am about to commit will have a number of folk taking the stump in noisy judgment over my soul, but that does not matter a mite to me now. In truth we will all be fiction soon enough and people yet to come can decide what little truth and goodness there was in any of it. So, I was acquainted with a woman named Carol Sanders for some years. I met her at a bake sale for Clarendon Elementary. I liked Carol and she would come over and we would visit on the back porch and watch from afar as our husbands hunted quail, their orange hats bobbing through the grass. But after a while I understood that there was something terribly wrong with the way Carol talked about other people. She could sure talk about herself until there was not a gust of wind left in Texas, but when she spoke on someone else, even her children, she did not care to go into much detail.
Some people do the bare minimum to show up like they care for those they say they care about. But when it comes right down to it all they want is to get what they want out of people. A mighty fine psychologist I have met with, Dr. Ungerstaut, has told me that it is called sociopathy. I do not know if that word works for what Carol was, and I worry we are all some of it some of the time. It eventually came out that she was burning her children with lightbulbs. Thinking about her in that cave next to little ole helpless Erasmus, I had an awful notion that God was like Carol Sanders, only Carol definitely exists because I have seen her name in the phone book. I have always been a faithful Methodist, but today I do not know what to say with any certainty about the nature of God. However I sure can say a lot about the nature of Carol Sanders.
I looked down at poor little Erasmus. He did not look at me, but I did not expect him to. I took a flat piece of flint that I had worked into a cutting implement for the bats and I held him by the horns and cut his throat. It was a warm day and the blood dried quickly on the stone plateau and I rolled Erasmus aside in the shade to have for supper that night.
I decided that I would use the daylight to put up a signal fire with black smoke and to tie ribbons torn from the bottom of my shirt throughout the woods. By the time I had finished making the ribbons, the shirt was like the kind our grandniece used to wear, showing the little blue ball she kept in her navel. I tied the ribbons in a perimeter around the cave and burned some damp logs that made a great deal of smoke. By now I had survived my ordeal in the Bitterroot for some nearly six weeks.
Two days or so went by and I had eaten all of Erasmus and burned his bones. I wore his fur around my neck as a kind of stole. It did keep me a good deal warmer. I have since had it made into a pillow and it decorates my bed here at River Bend Assisted Living.
I had gotten to where I could stand without the walking stick for longer and I hobbled around and burned heavy signal fires all day and all night. Then on a warm afternoon I heard footsteps in the woods. I hollered out my name and that I was lost. The footsteps drew closer. No answer came, but I had a good hope about who it was.
Unclothed, Lewis sank up to her chin in the hot tub. The crown of her head steamed and she steadied bloodshot eyes beyond the deck on mountains like tsunamis petrified, towering blue in the dark. A full moon wheeled over them. A ways off two flashlights swung through the trees and she could hear voices. She figured it was Claude and Pete searching for the ghost of Cornelia Åkersson.
Goddamn goofballs, she said, and she shook her head. The dead skunk was yet stuck in the tall pine and she sniffed the air for it but could smell nothing save chlorine. She turned back to the white cabin.
Jill had come out and sat on the edge of the hot tub, her back to the water. She lit a cigarette and shivered and pulled an arm inside her sweatshirt and held the cigarette in her bandaged hand. Wind raised her curls and stole the smoke from her mouth.
It’s cold, Lewis said into a near empty glass. You ought to get in.
I’m not going to get naked.
I didn’t say get naked.
Why are you naked?
I don’t know, Jill. Maybe had too much merlot. I apologize. It’s inappropriate.
Jill finished the cigarette and flicked the butt over the deck railing. She stripped to her brassiere and underwear and slid in. She held above the water her bandaged hand.
Lewis sucked at the last drop of merlot in the bottom of her glass, then set it aside. The flashlights moved in the trees and she brought up a hand to the air and watched her fingers steam. I don’t figure I’ve ever had an orgasm.
The girl said nothing for a moment and then said, How do you know?
I expect I don’t.
Me neither.
My guess is that means we never had one, Lewis said, and she took up the empty glass and tried to drink from it.
Bloor, in the kitchen washing dishes, watched them from the window.
Some women have them, Lewis said. I know that. You see it in the goddamn movies. A girl I knew in high school swore she had them with a trombonist named Hamin. Goddamn embouchure. But I can’t do it. No matter how hard I try.
Maybe no woman has. Maybe it’s a conspiracy to keep us having sex.
Your dad really doesn’t give you enough credit, Lewis said. I figure it’s just cause I don’t get caught up in the moment. I can’t even watch a goddamn movie without I keep an eye out for the camera in mirrors. I can’t just enjoy somethin for what it’s wantin to be.
Me neither.
I figure everyone else can get caught up just fine. Must be what you need to do to get along with all the goddamn people. Maybe it’s even what you need to love them.
There’s more to it than that, I think.
On the rare occasion I do get caught up I get carried away, Lewis said. I do somethin out of hand. I let it all get out of hand.
Is that why you’re naked?
Probably. It’s hard to know why we do what we do.
I get carried away too.
I expect I’ve had too much merlot.
It’s fine, the girl said.
Maybe it’s a good thing we came across each other.
Do you care about me?
I expect I do.
Do you think you’ll ever learn how to get caught up when you want to get caught up?
Lewis shook her head. Too goddamn old already for that. But you still got a chance. Then she leaned over and vomited on the deck.
Lewis was on the upstairs terrace. She stood at the railing in the shadows and watched Jill in the hot tub below. The girl sat yet in the water, small and pale behind the steam, and stared off beyond the deck and the dead skunk, sparking cigarette after cigarette. The flashlights had shone for hours in the trees behind the cabin and now they scanned in the direction of the road.
Bloor came through the sliding glass door and joined Lewis on the terrace. He held out before him his chalked hands. He turned them front to back and studied them under the moon. The motion light was off. Are you going back out there to that shelter tomorrow?
Lewis nodded. The FBI are sendin a chopper.
It’s funny how when you look for one thing you find another, Bloor said.
We didn’t find anythin. All they told Gaskell was they wanted me to show them the shelter. I’ll clean off your deck tomorrow. Sorry about that.
I was talking about us.
What about us?
You know, you’re a fascinating woman, Ranger Lewis. I came up here to find a downed plane and I found you. Don’t you want to come in? It’s cold.
Not yet.
Bloor rubbed his hands together and breathed on them. Tomorrow, he said, tell them to look under the floor. Koojee. You could’ve been sleeping right on top of that missing girl.
It wasn’t the girl.
Bloor shook his head. You know, my wife always told me everyone’s a wasp in a curtain, panicking to get out of something they can’t hope to ever understand because it’s too far beyond their realm of comprehension.
Lewis watched Jill and the smoke she made.
A wasp doesn’t know what a curtain is, Bloor said.
All right, goddamn it.
And she always told me to get what I could get while the getting was good.
Lots of goddamn people say that one.
Bloor smiled. Not the way she said it. He took Lewis by the shoulders and kissed her. What would you like me to do for you? he said.
Sorry?
What do you want to do?
Whatever.
Bloor leaned on the railing and looked down. Lewis figured he watched his daughter below. He had a small erection between the slats of the railing. He turned to Lewis and brought his eyes to hers and exhaled. I love you, Ranger Lewis, he said.
Lewis waited before dawn at the airfield down the mountain. She drank a cup of coffee in the Wagoneer and filled the thermos from a bottle of merlot. She watched the highway.
It was 5:16 a.m. by the dashboard clock when a black sedan pulled up with three men in windbreakers. Lewis licked a flattened palm and smoothed her hair. She put on the campaign hat and got out of the Wagoneer into the cold. A mustached man shorter than the other two cradled an arm in a sling and introduced himself as Special Agent Polite. He introduced the others as his colleagues, Jameson and Yip. They did not speak except to nod and mutter, their faces like those of sullen children, turned away to the mountains.
The group boarded a helicopter and flew out to a clearing near the Old Pass and followed Lewis into the forest. They found the shelter as the sun came up. Jameson and Yip drew their sidearms and Yip pushed open the door and went in slow. Polite followed, his hand under his windbreaker on the butt of a pistol.
Lewis drew the revolver from her hip and went in after the men. The shelter was as she recalled leaving it. The striped socks yet hung from the clothesline. The spiral she had drawn in dust was still on the table.
These the socks in your report? Polite said.
Yes.
One of the men raised a camera from around his neck and photographed the socks. The flash wheezed and he went to the table and photographed the spiral.
Is this how you found it?
Yes. But I made that.
Why?
I don’t know. You ever do somethin you don’t know why you’re doin it?
Polite looked at her. Anything different since you left it?
I don’t think so.
Take a good look.
It’s the same.
Polite walked around the place and stood near the pair of socks. He looked down at the book on the table and read aloud: The Joy of Lesbian Sex: A Tender and Liberated Guide to the Pleasures and Problems of a Lesbian Lifestyle by Dr. Emily L. Sisley and Bertha Harris. I think this is a dead end. Unlikely he would be this far out. This appears to be the work of alternatively inspired people.
It’s Cloris.
What is Cloris?
Cloris Waldrip survived a plane crash not far from here about five weeks ago, Lewis said. She holstered the revolver.
What kind of name is Cloris? Dutch? Irish?
I’m not sure.
Sounds Irish.
I just don’t know.
How do you know she survived, Ranger Lewis? Where is she?
She’s lost. She carved her name into a goddamn stump twelve miles west of here.
A stump?
Yes.
Cloris?
Yes.
Well, maybe she did stay here, Polite said. He was surveying the room. He passed his good hand over his mustache. She’s not here now. I can’t see much here that interests my investigation as of yet. Jameson, make another picture of these socks.
Yessir. Should we bag them?
I don’t see why we would. Did your Cloris Waldrip wear socks like that, Ranger Lewis?
I don’t know. I don’t figure her for wearin socks like that, no.
Did she read literature on alternative lifestyles?
I don’t know. I don’t expect she would.
Well then, I guess this is a dead end for the both of us.
There’s blood on the floor, sir, Yip said, and he took a photograph of the floor.
That’s from a member of my team, Lewis said. She injured her goddamn hand when we were here last Tuesday.
That’s a lot of blood, Polite said. Did she lose the hand?
No. She poked it. She’s all right.
Did you or any member of your team do anything else or leave anything else behind while you were here last Tuesday that we should know about?
Like I said, I drew that goddamn thing on the table.
Anything else?
There’s a thing, a sculpture of a goddamn eagle out there layin in the dirt. That’s what she poked her hand on.
You brought a sculpture up here?
No. It was here.
Well, you see, I just don’t know where to place that in the situation at hand, Polite said.
Lewis went to the bunk beds on the far wall. She put a palm to the bottom cot and plucked up a strand of hair and held it up between two fingers to the morning light at the small window. Then she let it fall to the floor and went outside. She took from her pack the thermos of merlot and drank in the mist and the trees.
Polite came outside and stood alongside her. He stroked his elbow through the sling. Are you all right, Ranger Lewis?
Yes. Why?
It would appear you are drinking red wine from a vacuum container.
Lewis screwed the cap back on the thermos and held it down at her side.
Anything I can do, Ranger Lewis?
I don’t expect there is.
Why don’t you try me?
Lewis glanced at the man. He had a tired face. She unscrewed the thermos cap and they stood there listening to the flashbulbs snap within the shelter. You ever notice you can’t get intimate to yourself, Lewis said, let alone another person?
I know that I have noticed that before, yes. Can I tell you something? I went on a Caribbean cruise last summer to meet new people, and I only stayed in my cabin by myself and read fifty-seven issues of Life magazine. Hated myself even more than before we pulled out of the harbor.
I expect I’m what you’d call a wino.
Too much drink can be a problem. On the cruise I had too much drink. Too much. Nobody saw. Had the chain on the door.
Lewis drank from the thermos. I figure I’m wantin to get closer to someone, but I don’t know if I ought to do that with this person. Might be inappropriate for me to pursue. I can’t tell what kind of closeness it is.
Why not?
Goddamn. I’m sorry. This is goddamn unprofessional.
I asked. Here. Can I tell you something else? On the last day of my cruise I was intimate with a woman who was bound to be the most unattractive woman on the ship. Maybe on any ship. She had a portrait of her stillborn son tattooed on her lumbar region. Right here, you see. It was one of the most miserable things I ever saw. Colton, she named him. Bad name too. That’s nothing you want to look at when you’re, well, you know.
I expect not.
Agent Polite sighed and smiled. It’s good to talk to someone. Can I tell you something else about myself I haven’
t told anyone? I dislocated my shoulder in an automobile accident resultant of too much drink. Left the bar, drove head-on into a statue of an honored astronaut. Bad thing. All anyone else thinks is that I did it to keep from hitting a dog.
Thanks for sharin that story. I figure we ought to get back in there.
That’s right. Right. I don’t envy you being interested in someone you cannot or will not pursue. But you only got to decide how much you want to be governed by either impulse or regret. You do something and it may or may not be the right or the wrong thing. Maybe it turns out it is the right thing. But how do you ever know if it was? You see, maybe it turns out we’ll never know right from wrong because we can’t see all consequences to all possible actions and that’s why some middleaged people go on cruises.
I’m just goddamn dissatisfied.
Agent Polite nodded and retrieved from a pocket in his windbreaker a cocktail sword and chewed it. He looked at his polished shoes and then at the sky. I don’t have much to say about that part of it, Ranger Lewis. Except that I’m dissatisfied too.
The helicopter took off from the clearing as the sun fell and Lewis, lips purpled and tight, sat in silence beside Agent Polite while the night draped over the mountains a senseless fog, and the wilderness entire dimmed beneath. She drank from the thermos and wiped on a sleeve a clowncolored mouth. She could see in the window glass the whites of Polite’s eyes flash over her.
When they reached the airfield she stumbled from the helicopter and vomited into a garbage can. She figured that Polite would not let her drive home. Yet he did, and she did, up the mountain in the dark, sweeping before her white headlights across the dewed black road and the roadkill there opalescent like broken glass. She drove with one hand on the radio tuning the static for a signal, eyeing now and again the passenger’s seat and the weatherworn book there: The Joy of Lesbian Sex.