Montana Rhapsody

by Susanna Solomon

  She nodded, grateful for his care, grateful for the sun. What would Stella say? Out in the storm with a sweet man and you’re not taking care of him? “You’re shivering. Take those wet things off, and wrap yourself in Tucker’s sleeping bag.”

  E.B. backed away. “No thanks.”

  “What did you tell me? Hypothermia kills, you said. What, are you immune to the cold? Take off your clothes and put on the sleeping bag. Get on with it, E.B.” She wasn’t going to lose him—not now.

  Laura watched clouds separate and drift away while E.B. changed. Taking care of him felt right. In a few minutes, he stood beside her, looking funny with the bag around his middle. He grinned.

  “Thanks.”

  His presence was solid, warm, comforting, direct—in a word, wonderful. She longed to touch him.

  He pointed out a narrow ridge way across the bluff, where a hole went right through the rock. The moon, rising, hung just inside.

  “Hole-in-the-Wall, with moon,” he grinned. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. Something was the way she felt with him so close.

  “Watch,” he said and pointed. “Not up there, down at the ground.”

  A squirrel ran across the bare clearing. The shadow of a hawk crossed its path. The squirrel bolted up the shelter’s walls and dove under the eaves, chattering loudly.

  “Lucky. Like us,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

  She tingled all over.

  “There’s more,” E.B. said. “Watch.”

  But Laura wasn’t looking, not where he was pointing. She had heard something, something different. This was no swish of a hawk or the cry of a mouse. This was a boat.

  “E.B.! He’s back. It’s him. It’s Tucker!”

  “I can’t hear anything.”

  “It was the clink of paddles. I told you we should’ve killed him.” Laura looked out the empty door. “We’re caught here, just like that poor mouse we saw before.”

  “It could be anybody.”

  “You can stay and wait for him.” She looked out at the barren campground with its pathetic little trees. “But I’m leaving.”

  “You want me to run in this?” he asked.

  “Sometimes, E.B., you make me crazy. I can’t wait any longer.” She took off.

  He caught up with her on a farm road, the ratty sleeping bag tucked around him awkwardly, her nearly tripping in her flip-flops.

  “Avoid the sand,” E.B. said. “And for God’s sake, don’t trip in the prairie-dog holes. Follow me!”

  She dashed between bushes, over a pile of cast-off logs, and up into the hills, following his footsteps. Weeds scratched her legs, and thorns dug into her feet. She kept slipping out of the flip-flops, and held them as tight as she could with her toes.

  At the top of a narrow rutted road, E.B. stopped in a small clearing.

  “All right. We can see everything from here.” He caught his breath. “You okay?” A white wooden shack stood nearby. Broken windows sparkled in the sun. “Get inside.”

  “Shit. I’ve lost one of my shoes,” Laura said. “I have to go back and get it.”

  “And risk him finding you?” E.B. nudged her across the porch and toward the door of the shack. “Not this time.”

  “What is this place?” She hesitated. It looked dusty, worn, history written in its broken floorboards and leaning windows.

  “It’s an old line shack, built by one of the early ranch hands. Now, hush.” He waved her inside as he kept his head back from the window. They stood between an ancient white stove, a metal cot, and a wooden chair. “Best to stay low. Now wait. Crouch down, and be quiet.”

  “Can you see him?” she leaned over his shoulder.

  “What do you want to do—be a target? First you leave your shoe, and now you peer out of the window. Come on now! Get your head down!” He pressed his hand on her shoulder.

  “Hey! Let me up.”

  “Stay there.”

  “Can you hear anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s disgusting down here!” She perched a foot from the wooden floor. She wasn’t going to go any lower. “The floor’s covered with trash and little brown pellets.” She held her bare foot an inch above the floor.

  “Mouse turds, Laura. Try not to breathe in too deep.”

  “Let me up!”

  He pressed harder on her shoulder.

  “Someone’s coming up the road,” he said. “Stay still.”

  She froze, hands suspended above the floor. She needed a weapon. She searched the shack. The chair was too far away and the bed too heavy.

  E.B. moved back from the window.

  Laura’s head was level with the bottom of an old chipped white enamel stove, the word Elmira written across the front. On the top was a small cast-iron skillet. E.B. closed his hand around the handle.

  She heard the crunch of gravel. She didn’t dare move. If Tucker attacked E.B. again, she’d find a way to slam his head into the stove.

  E.B. lifted the skillet.

  “You’ll kill him with that,” she whispered, seeing a tight concentration in his eyes.

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” He held the pan over his shoulder.

  Laura watched him, her breath shallow and quick.

  The crunch on gravel stopped. Laura held still.

  Silence permeated the shack while a gust of wind rattled the windows.

  Two more footsteps. Where the hell was Tucker? Just outside the door? Behind the shack? Could she surprise him from here? E.B. tapped her shoulder to keep her low.

  She held still.

  Another crunch on gravel.

  Silence.

  A footstep rung on the wood porch just outside the door.

  Laura closed her eyes and muttered, “God, please, please, oh please.”

  E.B. cocked his arm, tightened his mouth, and held his breath.

  “Hello?” someone called from outside the shack.

  That goddamn Tucker, trying to lure them out. Laura braced her legs.

  A man’s fingers appeared around the doorjamb. “Anyone there?”

  E.B. lifted his arm higher.

  A swing of arms and a pair of tan zip-apart pants appeared in the doorway. “E.B.? You in there?”

  E.B. hesitated. “Campbell?” His hand stopped in midair.

  Campbell stepped in and when he saw the skillet, his eyes went wide. “What’s the matter with you? What are you trying to do, kill me?”

  “Don’t sneak up on people like that,” E.B. said.

  “What are you guys playing at, cops and robbers? Cowboys and Indians? E.B., put down the goddamn pan.”

  E.B. relaxed his arm.

  Laura stood up and felt the urge to pee. More relieved that he wasn’t Tucker than that he was Campbell. Thank God! She wanted to rush over and hug him, but he looked as though he’d been through the wash. His face was sunburned, and his eyes were surrounded by dark circles. “Let me explain.”

  “Save it. We’ve all been worried sick,” Campbell said. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Here, there, in the river, on the river, a bluff. We got mugged,” Laura said.

  “Mugged? Out here? What, by a bunch of owls? A pussycat? Wolves?” Campbell’s face clouded.

  “Campbell, you were supposed to wait for us,” E.B. said.

  “Two days I’ve been out here looking for you! Killing myself paddling upriver! You must’ve gone on the other side of an island or something.”

  “We holed the boat on a snag.” Laura’s words came out in a rush. “That was the beginning of it. E.B. went inland for help, someone took pot shots at him. Meanwhile, while I was waiting by the river, this guy came . . .”

  “I said, save it.” Campbell looked them both over. “You’re wearing men’s clothes, Laura. And E.B., a sleeping bag? Don’t tell me you went swimming, while I was going crazy looking for you? Jesus Christ.”

  “But it’s true,” Laura said. “There was this guy . . .
”

  “I understand. Everything.” He studied the two of them. “Kind of cozy, don’t you think? Couldn’t stay in the shelter cabins, eh? Benches a little too narrow?”

  “That’s not it at all,” Laura said. “You’re missing the point. Try listening for a change.”

  “I don’t care. E.B, you don’t abandon people on the water. You of all people. Christ. It’s a stupid Class I river.”

  E.B. looked like he was stifling a smile.

  Campbell ran his fingers through his thinning hair, as if to pull out the rest of it. He strode out the door. “I’ll tell the others you’re here,” he said bitterly, and marched off, his sandals crunching gravel.

  Laura, fuming, watched Campbell’s figure shrink as he walked across the broad bluff.

  “You in trouble?” Laura asked. “I can tell him everything. Not your fault.”

  “It’s all right,” E.B. said, smiling now and stepping closer to her. “Once he sees the canoe, he’ll figure it out.”

  Laura wedged her one bare foot near E.B.’s and held him tight, their breath in unison. He was so warm. She wanted to tell how she felt.

  “It was so peaceful out here for a moment,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. “At least it wasn’t Tucker,” he murmured, placing his arm around her shoulder. “Feeling better now?”

  Laura rested her head against his chest.

  “I suppose we’ll have to tell Campbell everything,” E.B. murmured.

  “Everything?” Laura came closer, her mouth even with his.

  “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he mumbled.

  “After all we’ve been through?” she asked, pressing herself onto him.

  “I’m not very good at this.”

  “You weren’t so bad the last time,” she said and kissed him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Tuesday, morning

  Hole-in-the-Wall Campground

  E.B. AND LAURA, CAMPBELL, FRANCINE AND THE GANG

  “Time to get the show on the road. Ready, everybody?” E.B. asked. Campbell and Francine launched first, Francine in the stern. They drifted while Alice and Nia launched. Kris and Jane were arguing about who should be in the bow until E.B. gave them a shove and they were off. In a few minutes all the canoes were swept up into the current, everyone paddling hard except for E.B. and Laura. They were sweep, a position E.B. had requested. A position where he could dawdle as much as was allowed, which was not nearly enough.

  He had taken over the leadership role from Campbell, who was beat. All E.B. wanted to do was to turn around and head back upriver where it would be just him and Laura and the birds and the boat and the water dancing. He watched her expertly sweep her paddle through the water. She’d turned out to be a great canoeist. Time was falling away like the water on his blade, each stroke bringing him closer to the ranch and farther away from her.

  He was years and miles away from driving the combine, the deep gumbo mud that caked onto his tractor wheels, the seat hard under him, the constant buzz of cicadas, dust filling the air, the empty kitchen with the one wooden chair at the table.

  Laura was the first woman he’d let get under his skin, into his heart. He felt vulnerable and delicate and guarded, a new sensation. He tried to memorize the look of her face, the wide set of her eyes, the joy in her smile, the curve of her jaw, the tenderness of her ears.

  His feelings about Berniece had become as pale and ragged as the gingham kitchen curtains she’d always loved that now hung lifeless against the cracked kitchen window—while Laura was the coolness of night on the prairie, the sound of the coyote, the breeze through the cottonwoods. He took a long stroke and eased by a marsh. Funny, he’d never been the romantic sort before. He took another look at Laura. Just today, just the rest of today.

  Last night, they’d sat around the campfire over a welldeserved dinner of pasta, pita bread, and boxed red wine. E.B. told Campbell about Tucker, some of it anyway, and reminded himself to tell the BLM rangers about the guy tied up on an island near the Marias River. Campbell described how Francine had poled upriver and saved him, a real hero. They had a few more toasts until darkness set in hard and it was time to turn in.

  Campbell had shared his tent with Francine, and E.B. and Laura shared another. E.B. had slept well, next to Laura, whose warm, even breathing made him dream about her and what could be. Until about 4:00 a.m., when his dream involved Berniece, who was back in the kitchen, scolding him. He had woken in a cold sweat.

  Easing down alongside some tall rock formations, he held the canoe steady and skimmed his fingers along the rock. Smooth as his homemade kitchen table at home, which he’d sanded and sanded until it shone. Berniece had admired it, and Laura would too, if she ever saw it.

  “The cliffs—they just get bigger and bigger,” Laura said, interrupting his thoughts. “Hey,” she said, pointing ahead. “We’re falling behind.”

  “It’s okay. We’re sweep. We’re supposed to be last.”

  “Makes me nervous,” she said.

  “A lot?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she answered, humming to “Can’t Fence Me In.”

  E.B. clasped his lips hard. Dream on, bud. Not for you.

  “Great day, after all that hail.” She turned back and smiled at him. “I washed my hair with the girls last night—and bathed in the river. The water’s so murky you can’t even see your hands. I was so grubby. Hey, E.B., when I started on this trip . . . I rushed into it . . . I didn’t know . . .”

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Just about,” she laughed. “Nothing about the river, that’s for sure.” She paused, took a long minute to clear her throat. “You think those guys are still waiting for me in Fort Benton?”

  “If they are, I’ll arrest them. I’m deputized.”

  “No shit.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. The police chief, Erik Sorenson, is my best friend from high school.”

  “Small town.”

  “Loma, Montana, population, 92.”

  She laughed. “Brentwood, California, population, 51,343.” She was sure she’d seen the police chief at one of her shows. “You go away to college?”

  “Great Falls.”

  “You a traveling man, E.B.,” she laughed.

  E.B. fell in love all over again. “Anyway, soon we’ll pass the cable ferry, then around the bend it’s the long reach to Coal Banks. It’s not far.”

  “It’s so peaceful here.” Laura dragged her fingertips through the water.

  E.B. felt like he’d been out in the sun too long.

  “It’s just . . . I didn’t know. In LA, where I grew up, my brother kept bugging me to go camping, but I told him I wouldn’t sleep on the ground. If only I’d known.” She took a long look at the sky, at the river reaching beyond, calling her. “It’s as if my heart has been broken open.”

  E.B. smiled and kept his thoughts to himself. He was busy capturing magic.

  “It’s strange, how I feel. Like the land crawled up and captured my heart,” Laura said.

  “It’s the river,” E.B. whispered. Words jumbled around in his mind. Nothing sounded right. “Laura, I . . .” He paused. “I’ve had a good—no great—time paddling with you.” How much did he have to say? He thought he knew how she felt. And yet. He’d had the same feeling about Elizabeth Nowell in high school, but when he’d asked her out she’d creamed him with a no and a snort. Same answer from her best friend Molly. Years later, convinced he’d never get married, his mother suggested Berniece. It was convenient and easy and she said yes. He pulled over to shore and watched Laura stand up, her long legs going on forever.

  He tried not to stare.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, looking out onto the river.

  Your legs? She noticed him staring? “Uh . . . sort of,” E.B. mumbled.

  “You’re kind of quiet today. Cat caught your tongue?”

  E.B.’s heart felt fragile. “As a kid, I loved to wander, explore arroyos and ridges with Sparky, my m
are. Get up early before dawn and watch the sun rise. Head out to the barn, help new life see light. Then I got too busy.” He waited for more sweet words to come into his mind, but there weren’t any. Just Berniece, standing in the wings. Waiting for him. “There are times when the weather is just brutal.”

  “I didn’t like Montana when I first came.” Laura sat down and leaned her cheek on her knees. “But it kind of grew on me.”

  “It can be a tough place anytime of year, mosquitoes, heat, cold, rain, hail.” Damn why couldn’t he just stop talking?”

  Somehow he was falling and couldn’t stop. What could he say to her? I don’t want to live here without you? Please don’t go back to LA?

  “What’s got into you? Don’t you like it at all?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he sputtered. “I used to love the land, but that was a while ago.” He wasn’t sure if he fit here, anymore, or anywhere. Just with her, somewhere with her. Anywhere with her. “I just don’t feel the same way about the land that I used to. Not your fault.”

  She threw a bunch of rocks in the river. “If you hate it so much, why don’t you just leave? Say, move to LA, see how you like traffic, crowds, high costs, crazy-ass people looking for handouts?” She climbed back into the canoe, shoved off, and turned around slowly. “I was just trying to tell you, to show you, how much I’ve come to love the land and you went and ruined everything. Why is it that you have to ruin everything, E.B.?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Tuesday, afternoon

  Coal Banks Landing

  DAISY

  The sun crested a hill, flooding the campground with light. A few children played Frisbee on the lawn, their high-pitched cries and laughter filling the air. Campers, lost in dreams of fishing or canoeing or just sitting on the bank, watching the river, eyed the children and went back to swapping stories and sipping coffee. At the back of the campground, Daisy stepped outside the RV and blinked back grateful tears.

  She’d had only four hours of sleep, not at all what she was used to, but it felt like eight. After spending the night with Cornelius and Marcy and Berniece, Daisy’s knobby knees still ached from kneeling on the floor of the RV, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t felt this happy since she’d won first place in spelling in third grade at PS 60.