Crazy Blood

by T. Jefferson Parker

  The next break in the bank was a shallow mud wallow, so he cut inland around it, busting through the brush, only to see that the trail would soon end at a gravel bar and a pool too deep to wade across. Once upon the bar, he dropped his phone to the rocks, lifted the rod skyward, and threw himself into the pool. He was instantly heavy and cold. Using one arm, he pulled himself forward, barely staying afloat in the deep, still water. It rushed over the top of his waders, trying to sink him. His boots were eerily heavy. The cold made it hard to breathe. Through the rod he could still feel the faraway fish muscling along with the current.

  He tried to do the same, scooping himself with one hand toward the river proper. The current finally took him and he buoyed upright, running without his feet touching, as in a dream. Then he found bottom, a blessed rocky slope up which he clambered, pulling himself onto a shallow riffle, where he got his feet under him and renewed his trudge downstream. His heart was pounding, but he was breathing steadily and deeply and this was his mission. He retrieved the backing and a few turns of line.

  Which was when the line jumped back at him, then went slack, the distant weight of his fish vanished. Wylie dropped to his knees, bellowing in agony, his voice puny in the world.

  Adam caught up with him a minute later. He waded out onto the gravel and stood not far from the still-kneeling Wylie, whose teeth were already chattering. “Good effort,” said Adam. “You did everything right that I could see.”

  “I’m not going to go until she asks me to.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “The only thing on Earth I’d trade April Holly for is that fish.”

  “Of course.”

  “Shit. Man. Christ.”

  “Well said. I picked up your phone.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Later that same day, Wylie looked through the Let It Bean window and saw Jacobie Bradford III traipsing across the lot in full fly-fishing regalia—waders snugged with a wide padded belt, gaitered boots, a rain jacket over a fleece, a thousand-pocketed fishing vest with gear dangling. He wore a light blue buff around his throat and a cap over his bald head. He stopped and patted the MPP possessively, like fingernails on a chalkboard to Wylie. Bradford then looked toward Let It Bean and marched forward.

  “Look what’s coming,” said Beatrice.

  “One-hundred-proof evil,” said Belle. “Can’t an avalanche just take him?”

  Jacobie swung open the door and walked in, his cleated boots clicking loudly on the faux-wooden floor. It was three o’clock and Let It Bean was nearly empty. “Wylie, I’d like to have a word with you in private.” He looked at a few of the customers to make sure they’d heard him. Belle turned her back on him and Bea marched away into the kitchen. Jacobie watched them, eyes on their butts in frank appraisal. “But first, whip me up a nonfat latte. Small. I should know what the competition is up to.”

  Wylie battled his desire to fling the man from his establishment. He remembered the Trout Derby pool, wished it was handy. “How’d you do today, Jacobie?”

  “Stuck a sixteen-inch brown up in the Long Years section. Last fish of the day. And a bunch of little ones. You?”

  “I farmed a big rainbow down on Hot Creek.”

  “Nothing worse than farming troutzilla.”

  “Some things are quite a bit worse.”

  “That sixteen-incher was my two hundred and forty-eighth trout in exactly ninety-two days of fly-fishing. Half days, mostly. So I’m averaging two point six-nine fish per day. Not bad for a beginner.”

  “That’s a hundred dollars a fish, with the guide fees you’re paying.”

  “A hundred dollars per fish. Guide fees. Gossip sure flies on this little mountain.”

  “It’s not every day that someone exciting as you comes to town.”

  “True. And I’m happy to support the local economy. Because without my guide, I’d be out there flailing and untangling gruesome knots all day. But instead, I’m catching fish. I’m a real angler. Like you, Wylie.”

  Wylie finished making the coffee drink and one for himself, grabbed some napkins, then led the way outside. They stopped near the MPP, and Wylie used the napkins to wipe where Jacobie had touched. The storm was closing in and he could see the early darkness towering immensely in the north and west. The breeze was slight but cold. The streets were busier now than earlier, skiers and boarders coming into town for the first big snow. A commercial passenger jet eased down toward Mammoth/Yosemite airport. He could see his sisters’ faces at the Let It Bean window, smudgelike.

  “They’re cute,” said Jacobie.

  “Fifteen and seventeen. Illegal.”

  “I wasn’t even going there. Why would you think I was?”

  “The way you look at them.”

  Jacobie shrugged. “It’s the way I look at everything.”

  Wylie sipped the drink.

  “You make a good product, Wylie.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Too bad Let It Bean can’t compete.”

  “No. We can’t.”

  “Which is why I have some very good news for you.”

  “I’m ready for that.”

  “Gargantua wants to buy you.”

  “Mom and Steen would never sell to you.”

  “I told my superiors that maybe you could sway them.”

  “What’s your offer?”

  “One quarter of a million dollars cash buyout, and we’ll take on fifty thousand in debt. That’s enough for your family to make a clean start, maybe buy a Winchell’s franchise. Of course, good carpet cleaners are always in demand in alpine climes. I only half jest.”

  Jacobie walked halfway around his black Range Rover, defensively considering Wylie from across the spacious black hood. “There’s a personal component to the offer. Just between us. Because I like you in spite of our differences. If you take our deal, Grant Bulla won’t ever know what I saw when I got to twelve Madrone that day. Which, just to refresh your memory, was you attempting to leave a garage full of stolen property and Belle hightailing it away in the snow. I think Grant could run far with that little tip. He told me he’s lifted quite a few latents off that stuff. He’d certainly take yours and Belle’s fingerprints for comparison. See, with prints, people think they wipe them all off, but they never do. I learned that on the cop TV shows I watch too many of.”

  “You are a pestilence, Jacobie.”

  “I try.” He climbed into the SUV and the dark passenger-side window went down half a foot. “Just FYI, Wylie, Gargantua is known for its aggressive acquisition stance. The quarter mil is nonnegotiable, just to save us all some time. So give the offer serious thought. Talk to your tribe, pass around the talking stick, pick some fleas off one another’s backs. You’ve got forty-eight hours. Oh hell—I caught fish today, so make it seventy-two.”

  * * *

  The Welborn-Mikkelsen clan closed Let It Bean at the usual time, then convened, at Wylie’s suggestion. Steen got the fire going strong and they pulled five leather chairs into a semicircle in front of the fireplace. Wylie told them of Jacobie’s/Gargantua’s offer, minus the stuff about twelve Madrone.

  Silence.

  Glancing through the windows, Wylie saw headlights far down Highway 203, and the steady stream of tourist vehicles pouring onto Old Mammoth Road. The snow had started, light and dainty, swirling capriciously in the down beams of the streetlights. To him, the snowfall from the first good storm had always been a fine thing, not quite sacred, maybe, but certainly to be beheld and thanked for. He looked at the flame-lit faces of his family and knew they all felt the same way. Or at least they used to. But he’d also known—almost since first walking back into his boyhood home ten months ago—that things were changing. And they knew it, too. There was always a point at which you had to move on.

  Belle shook her head. “No way.”

  “No way for me, either,” said Bea.

  Steen sat up straight, as if someone had slapped his face. “That is not a fair amount for
Gargantua to pay for a business that is strong. Or was strong, until Gargantua came here. Yes, it would pay off the eleven thousand dollars for the new ovens and walk-in of two years ago. As well as the time and materials for the Pastry Shed. And give us two years of the good profit we used to make and enough to pay for the new roof at home. But in those two years, we would have to create another business for supporting our family. We have seen how difficult this is. Our coffee and pastries are well known for quality in Mammoth Lakes, but still we do not make much money.”

  Kathleen had taken her work cap off, and now her face was shadowed by thick black hair. Wylie saw the gleam of her eyes within. “No. I won’t take it.”

  “Good, Mom,” said Belle.

  “Way to go, Mom.”

  “Wylie?” asked Kathleen.

  He looked outside again. The snow was coming down faster now, and the people on the sidewalks were hunched tighter in their caps and coats. He saw good things on this small-town street—community and progress and the passing of years. The streetlamps seemed to connect it to a previous age, though maybe this was just his young man’s sentiment, but right now even the damned Gargantua banners with their inanely humanized gorilla faces seemed no worse than comic relief. What I was born into, thought Wylie, and what I am. But now what?

  “Come on, Wylie,” said Belle. “Gargantua can’t do this to us. We’re human beings and they’re apes. I will not have Jacobie Bradford sitting in this chair in front of this fire a month from now, plotting his next move. I’ll chain myself to the stove. I’ll burn the building down. I will not allow this to become his.”

  “So totally,” said Bea.

  Wylie stood. “I need a moment with you girls. Back in the kitchen. Mom, Steen, we shall return.”

  He led them far back into a kitchen corner, where the walk-in hummed and the chill was heavy. They looked at him anxiously. He told them that Jacobie would go to the cops about twelve Madrone if they refused Gargantua’s offer. The cops had taken fingerprints from the stolen property and a comparison would identify them. He’d read in The Sheet last week that the town council was publicly pressuring the PD for an arrest. Some of the council members were not fans of the chief to begin with.

  Wylie crossed his arms and leaned against one of the stainless-steel prep tables. Beatrice had tears in her eyes. “It’s our fault.”

  “My fault,” said Belle. “My idea.”

  “I stole as much as you did.”

  “Think for a minute,” said Belle. “The way things are right now, we can’t say no to Jacobie. If we do, all three of us will be arrested and sit in jail until bail is set. After that, the criminal justice system will pauperize us with legal fees. Meanwhile, Let It Bean is still being strangled by Gargantua. And there’s no staff. And Wylie gets DQ’d from the Mammoth Cup because of his arrest. Right, Wylie?”

  “That’s the rule for a felony arrest.”

  “But we would clear you,” said Bea.

  “It wouldn’t be up to you,” said Wylie. “My not reporting the crime is a crime, too.”

  Belle put a hand on Wylie’s shoulder as she walked to the rear door and pulled it open. A flurry of snowflakes eddied in, and Wylie saw the silent, steady fall of snow and his little sister looking up at it, and she was him ten years ago, standing in that same doorway, holding the same door open, wondering what the first big storm of that season would bring to the mountain.

  Belle looked out at the snow for a while, then closed the door and turned to her brother. “But there is one way we can tell Jacobie to shove it. And to pay a lesser price to keep our bakery. Wylie, back at twelve Madrone, you said Bea and I needed to go down to the cop shop and tell them what we did. You were right. It’ll kill Mom and Dad to have raised criminals, but they won’t have to sell for so little, just to cover us. And Wylie, you won’t get caught up with what Bea and I did.”

  Bea looked pale and uncertain, as almost always. She stared at her sister for a long moment, then turned from Belle to Wylie. “I know I’m always, like, agreeing with people instead of thinking for myself, but I really do think Belle’s right this time. You can stay focused on your race, Wyles. You can win the thing and shut Sky Carson up. We’ll have a good snow year and Let It Bean will make it. Maybe we can borrow money for the roof. And maybe, because we didn’t sell any of the stuff we stole, the owners can get it all back. And if we fully confess, maybe we get off with less punishment. And—”

  Belle opened the door again and the three of them watched the snow, lessening now, smaller and sparser. It looked like she was saying good-bye to it. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad,” she said. “But first, I’ll need a cigarette and a blindfold.”

  Wylie closed the door and brought them in close and they locked arms and bowed their heads together.

  * * *

  After dinner at home that night, Belle did what she’d said she would, even without a final cigarette or blindfold. “… you have raised two felons, but we’re still good people,” she concluded.

  Kathleen stared at her daughters, mouth open and ready for speech, but no words came forth. Steen looked as if he’d been slapped and couldn’t believe what had just happened. He poured another aquavit.

  Wylie explained how it had all come to a head because of Jacobie. In the very long silence that ensued, Wylie listened to the syncopated plip-plop of melting snow hitting the three buckets that were now stationed in the living and dining rooms alone.

  The girls and their parents commenced arguing about the best way to give themselves up. Steen suggested they hire a lawyer first. Kathleen vetoed it as a needless expense. Belle wanted to post the whole thing live on social media, maybe do a Kickstarter campaign to raise defense and new-roof funds. Bea hated that idea.

  Wylie excused himself and went to the living room couch, where he checked his phone and found out that his beloved MPP had received a bid that doubled the existing high offer to twelve thousand. After paying Jesse, that would leave him $9,800 toward the new roof, on which work was set to begin in two days’ time. He didn’t know whether to raise a fist in victory or gnash his teeth.

  Either way, it was adios, MPP.

  He put more wood in the stove and used the bellows to stoke the flames, leaving the door slightly ajar. The fire popped and spit and lapped at the inside of the smoke-grayed glass. He wrote a text to April—“luv u miss u,” wondered what a true poet would think of such an atrocity, then, before sending it, rewrote it as:

  < 3 AM, the night is absolutely still;

  Snow squeals beneath my skis, plumes on the turns.

  ➢ That’s beautiful, Wyles.

  < Rexroth. I do love and miss you.

  > Then where r u?

  < Tending to criminal females.

  > Time for 1 more?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  In the afterglow, they lay splayed and panting. Wylie lolled his head for an unforgettable view of April’s moonlit buns protruding from a sheet. He pictured skiing down one. What a fall line that was. Looking out a high window, he watched breeze-scrubbed stars flickering in the sky. His Saber Fives stood propped against the wall, gleaming slightly, and Wylie thought he had everything in life he wanted. He crawled over and lay alongside April. She told him their lovemaking had allowed her to successfully image a back-side double-cork 1080 she was thinking about trying for the first time at the Mammoth Cup. It had never been landed before in a USSA competition, though there was an Austrian girl, nineteen, who had done one late last season in a FIS-sanctioned event. It would all come down to amplitude and good conditions. She had landed it in her mind just now.

  Wylie fished his pants off the floor, opened his wallet, and handed April a neatly folded piece of white printer paper. “I wrote this for you.”

  She dropped her jaw histrionically and widened her eyes. “A poem?”

  “A haiku.”

  “I love Japanese food!” She scrambled back against the headrest and pulled up the comforter. Unfolding the paper, she flattened it agai
nst her raised thigh and glanced once at Wylie. Then she read the lines out loud in the dry whisper of voice that he had come to love:

  “The doors you open

  And the rocks you lift reveal

  Creatures made of gold”

  She read it again to herself. “It’s beautiful. The rhythm keeps its weight forward, like a boarder down a slope. It’s about courage in dark times and me nailing that back-side ten-eighty! And winning gold medals!”

  “Precisely.”

  Wylie’s phone rang. He swept it from the nightstand, sat up, and saw a restricted number.

  “Yeah?”

  “The south parking lot holds a reason for you to take me seriously.”

  “Damn you, Sky.”

  Wylie looked to the curtained south window and saw a faint glow beyond the fabric, something small and round, like an orange wrapped in gauze or a distant campfire. He ran to the window, threw open the curtains, and saw the MPP roiling in flames in the parking lot below.

  He told April to call 911, jamming into his jeans and a hoodie and a pair of shearling boots. He took the stairs down to the living room three at a time and ran to the front door. By the time he got to the MPP, the flames were high and bright, the smoke was black, and the smell of burning gasoline and resin was noxious. He threw open the propane hatch at the fore of the trailer and knelt to unscrew the fitting. He could feel the heat thrashing around him and smell his hair burning. When the fitting came free, he wrestled out the tank and flung it far into the lot. On his knees, he unhitched the trailer from the truck, then stood and backed away from the coiling heat to dig the truck keys from his pocket. It seemed to take much more than enough time for the truck gas tank to blow. Luck held. From the driver’s seat, he could see the flames leaping in the rearview as he jammed down on the gas pedal and the truck screeched free, swerving on the slushy asphalt.

  He got the fire extinguisher from the crew cab and charged back. Rounding the trailer to the windward side, he crouched and blasted away. It was a blessed standoff, flames versus retardant, and he saw there was true hope, but then the extinguisher huffed and spit and dribbled out, while the fire redoubled and took back lost ground.