He drove away from Terramac. By the covered bridge he stopped, walked to the stream, a real one, pulled off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants, squished through a muddy bank, sat on a rock and soaked his feet. He watched as a mosquito landed on his arm, searched out a tender spot, stuck her dagger in. Her saliva diluted a drop of blood. She syphoned the solvent away. Her body bloated ruddy. Mot suddenly appeared, gliding a shiver down Carney’s back: Watch your front, rear, sides, said Mot. The mosquito tripped through Carney’s forearm hair, stumbled, her wings flapped. She was too full to fly. Culex pipiens, he thought, and squished it flat.
•
The image of the overdrunk mosquito delighted Lola. When she left she was in the best of moods. But not when she came back. Her lips crossed her face as a straight line, and her eyes had gone too dark for the day. “What?” I asked.
“Edsel and Helen and Dante,” she said.
“What about them?”
“They’ve officially warned me.”
“About coming here?”
“Of course.” She glowered in the direction of the Near Nimbus.
“But you’ve been so careful.”
“Damn right! Barely a quarter of my time.”
“Didn’t you say—”
“Of course. Still complaining.” She shook her head hard. “Yeaghghgh!!” She shook her fist toward them. She collapsed onto the cloud-fluff. “What’s happening in the down below?”
•
5.
In the late afternoon Carney spent a couple of hours at Richmond’s library, reading back issues of The Patriot. By the time the place closed he’d gained insight into local views of Terramac City. The newspaper, a supporter of the project, took what he’d learned was Cochan’s own line: change in Merrimac County was inevitable but such change could be directed by those it would most affect. Letters offered other opinions. None from Theresa Magnussen.
Back at the Grange for supper, he parked between the van and a Ford sedan. From inside the house, Theresa’s voice: “Bastard! Keep off this property!”
The object of abuse, now a few steps from Carney, was a narrow-chested tall man wearing a suit, yellow shirt, and skinny tie. He tapped a manila envelope against his left palm.
Milton’s voice: “For heaven sake, Theresa! He’s only acting on his orders.”
“Not on my porch! Get that poodle-puke outta here!” Her voice remained disembodied. The gray man hid the envelope behind his back. His body swayed as in a breeze.
Then Milton’s large form filled the doorway. “You better go to your car. She’s gone to get—” He saw Carney. “Sorry, Carney. Jed’s just leaving. Come on in.”
“It don’t make no difference, Milton.” Rich Vermont accent. “Not me, somebody else.”
A squeal of brakes. “Get off the porch!” A shotgun barrel poked at the screen.
Jed nodded, found the handrail. Watching the doorway, he stepped backward down the ramp, turned, headed for the Ford, got in. And sat there.
Milton screwed the shotgun out of his wife’s hands. “He’ll get bored.”
“Just doing his job,” Theresa repeated. “Another of civilization’s lesser bastards.”
From inside Carney glanced out the window. The sedan stood still. “What’s that about?”
“Oh, Cochan,” Theresa muttered. “Another threat or offer.” She shouted at the sedan, “Keep that thing out of this house!” She glanced out the window. “Some bird-shot over his roof, that’d get him moving.” She flicked her wheelchair motor on. “Where’d you put my shotgun?”
“Never mind.” Milton, his voice soft. “He’ll leave soon.” He clicked the chair’s motor off.
Carney glanced over to the Ford. “Who is he?”
“Works for Henry Nottingham.” Milton’s head shook, weariness in his eyes. “Henry’s our Sheriff here, got an investigation agency on the side. Jed’s his man and Cochan uses the agency.”
Theresa said to Carney, “Henry used to be a good man.” She slumped back in her chair. “Cochan keeps on harassing us. He’ll kill me.” She frowned. “Unless I kill him first.”
“Enough, Tessa. She enjoyed the stroll through the garden yesterday, Carney. She likes talking with you.” Milton smiled. “Feasie and Ti-Jean said to tell you so long, come back any time. They’re spending the night at his mother’s place, she’s feeling poorly.”
“Sorry I missed them.”
“Take Theresa around again, till dinner’s ready. Do her good.”
“Don’t treat me like a little old woman.”
Carney said, “If you promise not to explode I’ll tell you about my visit to Terramac City.”
Milton said, “Carney—”
“I will be very calm, and so will Theresa. Right?”
Theresa scowled. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Out to the orchard. Carney told her what he’d seen—the minirail tracks, the domes, the condos. The outlying sites with evidence of recent blasting. “The explosions happen regularly?”
“The little ones, sometimes once a day, usually at night. Sometimes a few days of peace. The big ones, there’ve been four-five of them over the last month or so.”
“Look, I think you’re right, I think the blasting is deep underground.”
From her stare at him he couldn’t tell, was this wonderful news, or terrible news. She only said, “Okay,” and thought, and muttered, “Yeah.”
“But it’s impossible to tell where, or why. Nor explain why he’s trying to buy you out.”
“Look.” Theresa stopped the chair. She pointed.
The Ford was driving away. Milton walked from it, a manila envelope in hand.
“He wouldn’t!” She pushed the lever to high and rolled fast as running toward the car.
“Theresa!”
She was shouting: “And so do thund’rous legions cry, embracing hope upon the fields of danger, the ancient gods rejoice—” The whine of her motor drowned the rest of her words.
Carney sprinted across the grass after her. Milton saw them coming, grabbed at the chair as it swept by, set himself against the built-up thrust. It turned sharp, flung Theresa forward. He grabbed her too. He shoved the bar to Stop, pushed her to sitting upright, held her tight.
Carney caught up. He felt strangely winded.
Theresa’s white forehead, puffy cheeks, sweat—
•
Lola breathed, “No!”
•
“Theresa?”
“Please—?” Theresa reached her hand over.
Carney took it, a heavy thing.
“Carney help—us—?”
6.
John Cochan waited for the dust particles to settle. Trembles of awe twitched at his guts, the exalted joy of discovery. He stood framed in the seven-foot opening in the rock, and stared.
Yak said, “A true stalactitic chamber, Handyman.”
As if Johnnie didn’t know. Four-hundred-watt beams probed the dim space. In the distances spread a cavern blessed with soaring arches and smooth dripping walls. From the arches, massive and medium and tiny stalactites hung like icicles in dripping reds, greens, purples, some already joined to their basal stalagmites, some still growing into each other with the drippings of millennia. Cone-shaped stalagmites stood in clumps, the beams playing brilliant chaos onto their glistening stone. Johnnie felt the calcareous water seeping from hundreds of pores, thousands, cool water dripping. He saw and heard the water, its plunks and burbles, and smelled rock so rich with carbonate of lime he all but tasted it. Here was an infinity more than living space, commercial space, entertainment space. Here was magic. A fairyland!
Yak said, “Our own little Carlsbad Cavern.”
“Not so little,” said Johnnie.
“If we redirected some of the water, we could grow our own stalactitic forms.”
Why Johnnie loved Yak: these surges of energy, the hope, the vision.
“And, see, it’s fantastic! The ground where the stalagmites rise; it’s l
ike slate it’s that flat. No calcium in the lower rock. What we thought, it’s true, it’s two separate formations. It’s clear here: they never got together. A strata of nothing. We were absolutely right.”
“You were right, Yak. You figured it.”
“We, Johnnie. Both of us.”
Johnnie felt a great contentment. He had located Benjie’s ultimate resting place. “Okay.” He closed his eyes, his mind reached, further— No, nothing.
“I see the near part as slides and water-chutes, moulded from the same rock. Where it’s imperfect Harry can figure a way to blend cement to get the rock texture, make it look like nature herself formed the whole playland for us. Incredible, huh?”
Johnnie smiled. Like a kid, Yakahama. “Incredible.” And so much to do now, out of business and love. Figure where precisely to place Benjie, to let him rest eternally. Damned trip next week. “We’ll get to planning soon’s I get back.”
“Back?”
“From Lexington. First National’s had to refinance their Guadalajara loan, now the bastards want a full half point more. You know how it is.”
“Yeah.” Yak shrugged off disappointment. He preferred his life here, in the field it was better every time. If he could protect Johnnie from the handshaking, the lunches, the reports— But John Cochan’s strength lay in the power he brought to this personal interchange, the huge authority he took from it. With his amiability he made such moments his own, the finesse leading to Intraterra’s extraordinary growth. Though here too lay the soft edge of their projects, areas Yak didn’t want to understand, and felt uneasy with. The hallucinatory edges, he’d once joked.
Johnnie had said, “You don’t know hallucination, that’s bad stuff, stay away.”
Yak did; often bringing Johnnie out to real daily things. Like now: “But listen, there’s more. Over to the right and across there’s some kind of fissure. Where I sent the probe before the blast, it’s two hundred feet anyway. And the vibrations suggest water rushing down there.”
John Cochan clicked his tongue. “Long as it doesn’t get into the system.” Full annihilation of bugs might not be possible but water impurities he would control.
“Nope. It can’t flow up. Our systems are safe.”
“I’ll worry it through with you soon as I get back. First thing. Promise.”
“Okay.” He waited, but had to add, “Listen, Handyman, I’m pretty sure part of the cavern is under the other land. The Magnussen place. As we feared.”
Johnnie stared into the distance, and shook his head. “No. Not far enough east.”
“I don’t know, man.”
“Don’t concern yourself about it.”
“Okay, whatever.” But Yak worried. The law was murky, and the way Johnnie played it—
“Anyway it doesn’t matter what it’s under. We’ll get that land too.” Johnnie smiled.
“Yeah? They’ve accepted?”
“I’ve made another offer. Delivered today. And the lawyer daughter’s coming in when I get back. It’s a good offer. More than fair. They won’t turn it down.”
“More than fair.” Yak watched Johnnie’s head nod. “Great.” Light caught the few white hairs at Johnnie’s temples. “In fact, fantastic, because—you ready?”
Johnnie couldn’t keep from grinning. “What else?”
“Looking mostly ahead, just a bit to your right.” Yak played the beam against a far wall.
“Near where the fissure comes in?”
“Not so far right. Come back maybe twenty degrees.”
“Okay.”
“The sonar says there’s another space back there. Huger even than this one. If I’m right, by itself it’s maybe a quarter as big as everything we’ve already found.” He stopped. “Except this for sure is under their land.”
The perfect smile spread across Johnnie Cochan’s face, cheeks, neck even. The pit of his stomach warmed. A voice, sweet, confident, whispered: It’s yours, yours.
But it was answered from the sour juices of memory: Yours, Johnnie? Yours like what you dare not lose?
•
“What?” asked Lola.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
•
Johnnie shook his head. He leaned toward Yak. The smile was gone. “The land is ours.”
LAND
In the roar of a moment, balance leaves
nature and time.
The trout are going, and the beaver.
Moose, hawk, rabbit, moth.
The summer’s silent drain.
Wind, pond, trees, sun.
And sour rain.
In the end, will the soil, too, grieve?
R.F., April 11–12/03
Nine
DIVIDED KINGDOMS
1.
They were there, male, female:
Her scent drew him on. His head swam. He understood only one direction, ahead. Where she waited.
She sensed his approach on her legs and on her hair.
They faced each other, reached out, closed the space. Their bodies passed a message, you, me. Electricity sparked through each. And out to the other.
She needed more.
He turned, showed her his back. She approached, closer. His glands were ready, she would be his release. His scent called to her, whispering. She climbed on his back. Just—so. She lay there, licked at his scent, at its juices, its stickiness, the viscous chemical taste. Her sex opened, a wide crescent, ready for him.
He, still beneath, pushed rearwards, his back to her sex. She licked him again, along the back, then higher. She licked and his genitals extended, rose, pushed up toward her, grasped her hook-like, gripped her crescent. They held each other, a tight clasp.
Slowly, to one side, he pulled himself from under, connected to her he turned, turned in, more, clinging, and now they faced away. He held her tighter. New hooks entwined her, full penetration. Slowly the organs slid, strafed, tiny pulsations, the barest pull, push, pull and the discharge began, went on, on, on, on, and on, on. Minutes of orgasm, ten, thirty, longer—
His seed was launched, she its receiver. Both were content. The moment of linkage was their lives’ one splendid act. The seed would burst soon into new life.
A thousand times, in millions of households, in as many alleyways and fields, the act was repeated, and repeated.
•
Lola said, “Neat.” She stroked the robe on her thigh.
“In the hidden places,” I continued, “the coupling of cockroaches.”
“Oh.” She flicked me a grin, but it fell away. Something was troubling her, a lot. Near as much as Theresa’s stroke, it felt like. But she didn’t say what.
•
The ones Carney could see:
Out of the corner of his eye, kitchenward, across a chalk line, in the shadow between the stove and the sink cabinet, movement. In the half darkness, four of them, two pairs, huge, back to back, antennae swaying. He got up, eased his way to the kitchen switch, flicked it on. They and he stood frozen. He charged.
Off they scrabbled toward the cabinet; in a second they found the slit under the sink, their private chasm, and down they wiggled. He tore open the lower door. The light hit dozens of them diving for cover. He slammed at them bare-handed and crushed three as they tried to evacuate. From the survivors, was that laughter?
He washed his hands. He stared at the chalk line. No, the roaches hadn’t crossed it.
Three hours ago Milton had offered Carney his choice, a couch in the Magnussen living room or an apartment in downtown Burlington. “Sorry, we’re not set up for guests. Not like in the Grange days.” The apartment belonged to Natalia Bewdley, a colleague of Theresa’s, off on a summer-long field trip researching west coast redwing blackbird family structures. Milton watered Natalia’s plants. Use the place to bed down any visitor you can’t stand having at your place, she’d told Theresa. So Carney chose privacy. Tonight for the first time in years he would, in a manner of speaking, sleep in a woman’s bed.
Milton had shown Carney the apartment and told him about the roaches. “Nat and the bugs share the place. They live under the sink. Don’t worry, they’re trained.”
“I can see.” Wonderful. Only in Vermont would roaches understand chalk.
“Organized them herself. At night you draw a chalk line, five feet this side of the stove. They stay over there. You stay here.”
Not like his New York City roaches. Back in New York, Thea had needed garlic. But those had been tough roaches.
Seven hours ago Milton and Carney had lugged a mattress to the van and slid it in back. They’d lain Theresa flat and covered her with a couple of blankets. Milton sat with her, his hand light on her shoulder. Carney sped them into Burlington. Theresa muttered, “I feel cold, it’s—too cold.”
Milton covered her with a third blanket. “Better?”
“I’m cold—right through.”
The duty nurse wasn’t Pat but everybody knew Theresa. Now in a hospital wheelchair, she complained she couldn’t reach the stick, couldn’t move herself forward.
“It’s a different chair, Tessa.” Milton stroked her arm. “We’ll push you.”
“Where?”
“Wherever we need to go,” said Carney.
“I can’t see where.”
“We’ll take you,” said Milton.
“The light’s …very bright.”
Milton put his hand on her forehead, and let his palm slide over her eyes.
“Harsh. Very …cold.”
“Close your eyes for a bit, Tessa.”
“Where are we?”
An orderly took her off. Carney and Milton waited. Milton stared across the room, down at the floor, out again. Neither spoke. What to say? Again and again Milton took his lower lip tight between his teeth and sucked on it. Sometimes his head shook.
Carney said, “Shouldn’t you call Feodora, or one of the others?”
“Yes,” said Milton but didn’t move.
“You want me to call?”
Milton said nothing.
Carney went out. Milton sat alone. An hour and a half later they were allowed to see her.
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