Crazy Blood

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “I’m sorry, Sky.”

  “Just get out,” said Sky without turning around.

  “Yo bro,” said Johnny Maines.

  “You get out, too.”

  “I want Ivan,” said Megan.

  “Take him. Go. All of you.”

  “I tried,” said Megan. “But the Sky Carson show just wasn’t working for me, once I saw it a couple of times.”

  “It’s the best I have. Leave your key.”

  “Can you at least turn around and look me in the eyes?”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “Don’t blame you, dude,” said Maines. “See you around. I’m all about you for the cup.”

  “Yes. Godspeed, you regicidal toddlers.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Five-fifteen A.M. October air cold and thin, mountain darkness close.

  Wylie unlocked the front door of Let It Bean, to find April Holly waiting outside in that darkness.

  “I’m ready,” she said. “Sorry for the short notice.”

  His heart hopped to. “Come in. I need to do some things.”

  “We should be fairly quick about this.”

  At the counter, Wylie wrote his address on a napkin, sensing eyes from the kitchen on him. “Park under the blue tarp by the pastry cart. It’s up Main, left on Mono, then left on Cornice. Put all your stuff on the deck. Steen will help.” She took the napkin and her eyes searched his face as they had done before, and in this Wylie saw fear and determination.

  “Please hurry,” she said.

  “I’ll be there soon.”

  His sisters and mother were in the kitchen, at work in glum silence, the girls dressed for school, the radio low. Since Gargantua had begun opening at 5:30 each morning, the Let It Bean staff was getting up half an hour earlier to open at 5:15. At 4:00 A.M., those thirty minutes of sleep were sorely missed.

  Wylie told them he was taking off for a few days; not to worry, Steen would be here by 7:30. All three of them gave him knowing looks. “If that was April Holly’s voice,” said Belle, “then that must have been April Holly.”

  “Where are you two going?” asked Beatrice.

  “Solitary,” he said. “Madman.”

  “Adam, too?” asked Belle. “For your birthday, like you used to?”

  “We’ll see, with the short notice.”

  “I’d go with April Holly on no notice,” said Belle.

  “Happy birthday almost, Wylie!” said Beatrice.

  A moment later, the girls hugged him and his mother handed him a paper bag. Wylie hustled across the parking lot in the cold dark, slipping and sliding on the ice, risking a half lutz as he got close to his truck, landing the jump nicely.

  * * *

  April said nothing as they charged toward Highway 395 from Mammoth. She kept her eyes on the side-view mirror, and Wylie felt her nerves. They ate the pastries and drank the big coffee drinks. He was surprised how small the cab of his truck became with her in it. Much smaller than with a sister or Mom or even Jesse Little Chief aboard.

  He used the phone just once—it was going to take Adam and Teresa two days to get up there. This gave Wylie the thrill of having April Holly to himself. To himself! He would be cool and courteous. He would be April Holly’s host. Her driver, guide, protector, and companion. He would be Helene and Logan and Clean Cut and himself, all rolled into one. That was funny.

  This late in a snowless autumn, the faint two-track path was easier to find and follow. Wylie happily goosed his truck up the front side of the Sierras. Aspens shivered against the gray flanks of the mountains and gold medallions rained down. The gorge was a furnace of red and orange flames in a cloudless blue sky, the breeze-blown leaves swirling like embers. Jays squawked at them while two big hawks circled in the updrafts precisely as clockworks. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Wylie cast an appreciative eye at the MPP, then let his gaze linger on April’s profile.

  Her voice was faint and seemingly distant. “Last night they arranged to have Tim stroll in with an armful of red roses and tears in his eyes. I’m not a hard person. I’m not. But I’m furious because … I’m just furious.”

  “I understand.”

  “Please don’t. I’m exhausted by it. I hope I brought the right stuff for out here. I used to camp, but it’s been years.”

  “We’ve got everything.”

  “Where will I take a bath?”

  “Breakfast Creek. You’ll be clean and very awake. We’ll heat up water on the fire.”

  “Let’s not talk about a single thing.”

  “Okay, not one.”

  “I’m never sure if you’re making fun of me.”

  “Sometimes I am.”

  “Can I be not me for a few days?”

  “I’ll call you Mae. I like that name.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. Sure. Old-fashioned, like me. Twenty-one going on ninety.”

  “Not talking might be good.”

  “Don’t you shush me.”

  “We’re going in circles, April.”

  “Triple corks.”

  “Always imaging.”

  “Snowboarding is the only thing I’m not sick of. And I don’t want to know what that says about me.”

  * * *

  They parked in the middle of Solitary, away from the canyon walls so the sun would be on them, but not too far from the young tree upon which he’d been hoisting the food away from the bears. Wylie got out and threw open the door of the MPP and the tailgate of his truck. April walked off.

  Wylie arranged the folding chairs facing each other across the fire pit, set his ground pad and sleeping bag on a flat spot near the tree, propped the skis and boards against the trailer tongue. Kept an eye on April. He wrestled the MPP off the hitch, then leveled it, cranking and uncranking the handle until the bubble was exactly equidistant between the level lines. He watched April walk into the meadow and stand in the waning wildflowers, looking up at Madman.

  Wylie was suddenly unsure of what to do. He rechecked the level of the MPP. He fussed over the boots and bindings and poles and snowshoes, arranging them under the tree twice. Back at the trailer, he carefully wiped the road dust off the portholes. Short of counting the change in his pocket, he was out of ideas. So he rearranged the stones in the fire pit. April was still out there catching the sun, sitting on a round boulder, a singular woman alone in the world. Let her be, he thought.

  Two hours later, they stood panting on the precipice of Madman, snowshoes fastened to their backs, ski and board tips in the air. “Take this first one slow,” he said.

  “My heart’s beating everywhere.”

  “Good luck.”

  April launched. She vanished in freefall, then landed with a hard rasp and carved right. Wylie dropped in and went left, gained speed, made a wide turn back toward the middle and crisscrossed April coming the opposite way. The snow was softened by the afternoon sun, but it was last year’s snow and far from powder. He heard the edges of his skis cutting into it, felt the surge of speed when he ran through tree shadows and shot into sunlight near the right side of the slope. He swung back and they crossed in the middle again, Wylie letting out a war whoop and April opening her hands in a bring-it-on gesture as she flew past him.

  They essed down the mountain in a loose weave, each holding back, feeling for the ice and the softer holes. Wylie was truly impressed by her ease and economy of motion, her lightness and promise of speed. Such easy transitions from goofy to conventional, he thought. Fluid. Thoughts played out on snow. How does she do that? He put his weight into the turns, legs powerful from the miles on Highway 203, upper body staunch from splitting cords of wood. On the last few hundred yards, he pulled up next to her and they fell into a rhythm determined by the course, reading the snow, anticipating and approximating each other. They stopped at the downslope end of the natural out-run, both breathing hard, Wylie’s poles dug in for stability and April with a hand on his arm for balance. “Oh. My. God.”

  “I thought you’d
like it.”

  “Planet Amazement. Again?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Their second run was freer and faster, Wylie out ahead, coursing through late-afternoon shade and sunlight, trying to find that place where he was present but absent, where his body skied while his mind oversaw. Maybe it would come. He was strong enough, but he didn’t feel limber. Power without feel. Twenty-six years old tomorrow. Not twenty. Not bad. Just different. They figure-eighted down, two signatures on one mountain.

  * * *

  At dusk, they made a fire, using good split wood brought from home, then put on the steaks, asparagus, and rolls they’d picked up in Big Pine. The folding chairs were actually comfortable. Wylie poured her a very small bourbon in a coffee cup, which she casually sipped, then spit into the fire. “That’s just awful.”

  “Practice.”

  “Forget that. I like red wine.”

  “Let me check the cellar.”

  He got a bottle from under the sink and a wineglass from the tiny yachtlike galley cupboard. He felt worldly and important as he handed her the wine. He saw the flames flickering in her eyes and the dusting of freckles on her cheeks. He checked his watch, then turned his attention to the steaks, touched one of them with a fork. Four minutes. Asparagus and rolls, aluminum-wrapped and off the flame, would be ready about then. He sat down across the fire from her.

  “This is the only part of the trip I’ve been dreading,” she said.

  “Yeah. It’s dark by five and there’s really nothing to do.”

  “You read a lot?”

  “Sure.”

  “I was impressed when I saw a book of poems in your trailer that first day I met you.”

  “It’s in there, if you’d like to try some.”

  “Maybe. The wine’s good. My trainers say one glass a night, max.”

  “That’s reasonable.”

  “What about you?”

  “Overall, I shoot for somewhat reasonable.”

  “Your definition of somewhat reasonable.”

  “Of course!”

  Wylie got the food onto two plates and the plates onto the small table in the trailer. With the door and windows and portholes open, it didn’t feel cramped. The screen door kept out the bugs, which were few tonight. A squat votive candle burned between them. He had pictured April Holly sitting across from him in the MPP, but his imagination paled against the real thing. In his imagination, she hadn’t been this close.

  “I’m still waiting for the terrible awkwardness to arrive,” she said.

  “Me, too. I imagined you here, so maybe it’s helping.”

  “I imagined myself here at this table.”

  “We could say things like ‘Pass the salt.’ Or get more serious, like ‘That next government shutdown could be a bad one.’”

  She smiled and drank more wine, her shoulders forward in the small space and her voice a leafy rustle. “Or I could say ‘How do the planets look through the portholes?’”

  Wylie’s turn to smile. “And then I could say ‘Mars rocks, but Venus is always my favorite.”

  “But then I’d think you were flattering my gender.”

  “And you’d be right.”

  “So then I might say, to distract you, ‘Great asparagus tonight, Wyles.’”

  “This conversation just keeps getting better and better, April.”

  They were leaning toward each other, and Wylie could feel the heat from the candle. Her lips were red from the sun and dry alpine air. Golden hair. Her eyes were blue, with little orange flames in them, and they considered him side to side, skeptically, searching again.

  “I like our conversation,” she said.

  “I like you.”

  “It’s awfully hot in here,” she said. He blew out the candle. “That won’t make a big difference.”

  He leaned in and kissed her lips, lightly, briefly. She did the same back. “Walk me to the creek.”

  “It’s going to be cold.”

  “Hot, cold,” she said. “Let me get a few things. Could you put some more wood on the fire?”

  * * *

  April got into her duffel bag in the bed of his truck and came back with a bundle of clothing, a bath towel, and a lidded plastic box. Wylie set three big logs on the fire, then found a towel and a bottle of body wash. He led the way through the aspens to the creek, holding back the branches. Yards apart along the stream, they stripped down and spread their clothes on the boulders.

  “Fast in, faster out,” he said.

  Wylie felt the shock of the water, heard April gasp. In the good moonlight, she was pale and solid, like ivory or alabaster. Wylie was impressed that she waded in, squatted down, and went under to her neck. She held up her hair with one hand and splashed her face with the other, then rose dripping silver beads. Under the water, he rushed his hands through his hair and under his arms, came up and got the body wash lathered up. The cold went from skin to bone in seconds.

  “I’ve never been in water this cold,” she said. “You wonder how anybody gets used to it.”

  “I’ve got this body rinse stuff.”

  “I’ve got soap, but I think it’s frozen solid.”

  A few minutes later, they were standing as close to the fire as they could get, hopping in place as they dried off, teeth chattering, skin raised with goose bumps. April ran into the MPP and came back heavily dressed. Then Wylie went in, put on clean clothing and a good fleece jacket, stowed the dining table within the benches. He looked out at April shivering by the fire. He smiled to himself while folding out the bed and unzipping the two-person sleeping bag. You are Wylie Welborn, he thought: protector, provider, lover, luckiest man on Earth.

  “All yours in here,” he said, stepping out. “I’m going to hang the food so the bears don’t get it.”

  “Where are you sleeping?”

  His heart stumbled, but his words did not. “By the fire. I do it all the time.”

  “But that’s a two-person bag in there.”

  “So let me know if it gets lonely.”

  “Oh, it won’t. I’m a sprawler. Need help hanging the food?”

  “I’ve got it, April.”

  Wylie washed the dishes in the creek, then packed them with the food and lugged the canvas bundle over to the lodgepole pine. He got the rope up and over the right branch, third try, tied the bundle tight, and hoisted. His spirit had fallen with April’s sleeping arrangement and he felt rejected and ashamed of the rejection, then angry at the shame, but at least he could be man enough not to show his disappointment. He tied the rope fast to the trunk, smacked his cold, stinging hands together. Wylie Welborn, he thought: Man.

  Back at the MPP, Wylie knocked, then stepped inside. It was dark. He opened one of the storage hatches to fetch his single sleeping bag, which he had anticipated needing. The self-inflating bedroll was there, too. He could smell the soap she’d used, and the faint aroma of her much-advertised shampoo. In one of the commercials Wylie had seen, April smiled and shook her head—after shampooing, it was implied—which threw her hair into curls that stretched and retracted in slow motion like golden springs.

  “Good night, April.”

  “Good night, Wylie. Four hugs today?”

  “Three. Mom, Beatrice, and Belle hugged me when I left Let It Bean.”

  “You’re one short. So get in here!” He heard the soft rustle of her laughter, a laughter that seemed to Wylie to hold no malice at all. “You didn’t really think I’d take over your bed without you in it, did you?”

  “You had me going, all right.”

  “Hurry up, please—my teeth are still chattering and I’m extremely naked.”

  In the darkness, he could make out the shape of her lifted arm, the pale fold of the sleeping bag waiting open. He undressed in record time and got in as lightly as he could. She turned into his arms.

  “Does the beard keep your face warm?”

  “It froze off once.”

  “Do I get to see the hidden face someday?�
��

  “I don’t know if you could handle it.”

  He felt her fingers cold and small on his face. They kissed. He felt his clarity diminishing and thought, Onward. All he knew for certain was the immediate pleasure that was April Holly—the taste of her, the slick bumps of her teeth, her hot tongue prodding his own. He slowly ran his hand down her smooth, warm flank and onto one haunch, still oddly cool, then back up again. He spread his fingers on her cheek and drew her face even closer and she shivered and groaned and they kissed deeply and long.

  April rolled back and Wylie climbed on. “I have raincoats,” he croaked.

  “Let it rain. We don’t need them.”

  He entered her slowly. He ordered his sensations to check themselves, which didn’t quite work, so he bit the tip of his tongue sharply and thought of their first run that day.

  “Does it bother you that you hardly know me?” she asked.

  “I love that I hardly know you.”

  “What if we’re different?”

  “Please be very different.”

  “You got inside me weeks ago. Now you’re inside me for real. Where’d your lips go?”

  Wylie kissed her again and, without willing it, everything went big picture: Earth from space, turning on its axis, jet stream white and wispy left to right above rugged land and vast blue sea. Next he was falling dizzily, North America rushing up at him as he steered west, angling for California, coming in fast now, the northern and southern counties peeling from his vision, which left him hovering right here over this meadow, almost close enough to touch the cute little trailer sitting not far from a creek that looked good for trout, beneath a steep chute of snow carved top to bottom by human beings who, by the look of the tracks, must have had a really good time making them.

  Then, there was April Holly again. He felt the clenched commotion in her, wave upon wave, then her release. Followed by his own, crazily, electric and full, and announced with a roar. After a brief, shallow doze, they roused each other again, and this time things were longer and slower and Wylie proudly outlasted her five to his one by his count. His whole body trembling, he withdrew and rolled over. He felt like a rubbery tortoise that would never be able to right itself. His heart began to slow. She ran a finger over his face for a moment. Then she worked herself out of the bed, brought a jacket to her chest, and jumped up and down, counting out loud to twelve. Wylie looked up at the bouncing girl, pale flesh, arms and elbows and her crown of curls unfurling to just short of the laminated ceiling of the MPP. She smiled down at him, then tossed the jacket and landed hard on the bed, crawling quickly back under the covers.