Where am I supposed to be? he answered.
It’s Friday night—go to the Cactus and meet a nice woman.
Pick up a barfly, you mean, and engage in a meaningless one-night stand.
Better than feeling sorry for yourself while the mosquitoes drink you like a cocktail.
You’ve got a point there.
Sam turned back and let his gaze wander to Charly’s back porch.
She was gone.
You know, his dad told him, some people call what you’re doing stalking.
I bought up the lots, didn’t I? Don’t I have a right to inspect them?
You’ve inspected them four nights this week. That’s stalking.
“So I’ll bring my binoculars next time,” Sam said. He cut across the lot labeled EIGHT until his boots met gravel. From there he made the short trip back to his pickup truck. The blue exterior was coated with dust, the tires spattered with old mud. Sam took out his George Strait keychain, opened the door, reached in and fired the ignition. He’d stand out here awhile so the dually could cool off.
He almost convinced himself he wasn’t just hoping for another glimpse of Charly.
Charly thought, If Jake doesn’t stop screaming soon, my eardrums are going to burst. He’d been cranking since morning, and it was what time? She paced the floor again and checked the clock on the nursery dresser: 9:37.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if she could’ve trusted Eric to brush the girls’ teeth and read to them, but that would require his leaving the basement—his man cave, he called it, a phrase that sent chills of irritation down her spine. What he did down there she had no idea. He claimed he was watching game film, but every time she walked in on him he was either on the phone or visiting some fantasy football website.
He made good money, yes, but couldn’t he donate just a little of his time as well? My job is to provide for this family, he’d declared on multiple occasions. Your role is with the house and the kids.
Saying kids like an afterthought.
Jake’s wailing broke off a moment, and Charly held her breath, hoping the hurricane had passed.
Then he erupted again in a voice loud enough to make her eyes water.
“Please, Jakers, please,” she said. “Please let Mommy have a break.”
Jake thrashed in her arms, his little eyes brimming with tears.
Oh, where the hell was Eric? When she was on the phone with someone, he could hear every word; he often grilled her after she hung up just to make sure she wasn’t talking to some man. But when Jake was screaming or one of the girls got hurt, Eric was as deaf as a stone.
And tonight he’d insist on sleeping in separate rooms. The way you get in and out of bed to check on the baby drives me nuts, he often said.
A damning voice spoke up within her: Then why don’t you confront him, Charly? Stick up for yourself instead of being steamrolled?
What am I supposed to do? she asked weakly.
Give him an ultimatum, came the answer. Be a man and raise your family or get the hell out.
But he makes the money.
Of which you’ll get half.
But—
No buts! He’s got himself a fine situation, doesn’t he? You give him free cooking, free housekeeping, free sex—
Not every time.
Most of the time. And he gets to remain a perpetual adolescent. Hanging out with his buddies. Doing God knows what on recruiting trips—
Please stop.
Staying in hotels with his female assistants—
Charly shook her head, Jake’s wails escalating.
You try to run from it but you can’t.
No.
The kids are young enough. He’s barely a factor in the girls’ lives.
Please stop.
Divorce him, Charly.
He won’t let me.
You coward! You measly, mewling, spineless excuse for a woman!
Charly rushed out of the nursery, Jake braying into her shoulder.
You’re ruining four lives, and all because you can’t face him, can’t do what needs to be done.
Charly flipped on the bathroom light, placed Jake in the little blue baby chair. His beet-red face fixed on hers a moment, incomprehension plainly stamped there. Then he let loose with an anguished, trilling cry that reminded her of a deranged chipmunk.
“Please, baby, please give Mommy a break.”
She tore open the medicine cabinet and knocked a pair of orange prescription bottles into the sink. Neither was the one she sought. She scanned the remaining three bottles on the top shelf and spotted the one she was after, the sleeping pills her doctor had prescribed.
She threw a glance back at Jake and sucked in air. He’d twisted in his chair so that one leg was dangling over the edge, his red face mashed in the fabric.
Should’ve buckled him in, her conscience admonished.
“I know,” she said, teeth clenched.
She wrestled Jake back into place, clicked the white buckles, and looked in the mirror.
The haggard face staring back at her looked like someone else’s.
Grimacing, she shook out a couple pills, hesitated, then tapped out two more.
Oh that’s smart, her conscience said. Why don’t you smoke some crystal meth and really screw the kid up?
“Go to hell,” she said and popped the quartet of lozenge-shaped pills into her mouth.
Maybe you’ll choke, the voice said merrily. Then your children can be raised by their devoted father!
A horridly vivid image imposed itself in her mind: Eric playing a video game with his buddies while Kate and Olivia fed Jake bits of carry-out pizza.
Charly leaned over the toilet and let one of the sleeping pills plop into the water. Then, giving herself no opportunity to change her mind, she filled a plastic cup and downed the remaining three pills at a gulp.
Fantastic! Now you’ll only be out cold for twelve hours instead of sixteen! But I’m sure good old nurturing Eric will make sure Jake gets his breakfast.
Tears stinging her eyes, Charly bent over the chair, unbuckled Jake and lifted him. He was still crying, but his demeanor seemed slightly less frantic. Probably wore himself out, she thought. Patting his round rear end—definitely overdue for a diaper change—she returned to the nursery, where she slumped in the nursing chair and drew up her shirt. As Jake latched onto her breast, his blue eyes rolling white in ecstasy, she caressed his sweaty head. The pills won’t be in my milk yet, she thought, and on the off chance they are, maybe they’ll help you sleep.
Charly stretched out a leg, hooked the footstool with her toes and dragged it closer. She propped her feet up and leaned back. Jake’s warm body had mostly stopped shuddering, his drags on her nipple long and forceful. It relaxed her too. Charly closed her eyes and put Eric out of her mind. She supposed Kate and Olivia were still waiting on their bedtime stories, but the girls were sympathetic toward her plight. Though she made sure never to badmouth their father in front of them, Charly was sure they sensed the injustice. They saw who fed them, who tended to their needs. They could do without reading for one night…they could see that their teeth got brushed…they would be fine…
Charly awoke with a start. She’d been snoring. She opened and shut her mouth, a foul taste slicking her tongue.
She remembered Jake.
Gasping, she looked down and discovered him sleeping cozily in her lap.
Charly blew out a quavering breath. Good lord, she could’ve dropped the poor child. It was pure luck that had prevented a serious accident.
What were you saying about being such an amazing mother?
Charly peered across the room and saw by the digital clock it was 11:06. Yawning, she carried the baby over to his crib and gently laid him inside. She remembered the baby seat in the bathroom earlier, Jake nearly writhing his way out.
“My strong boy,” she said, patting his hindquarters.
Charly checked to make sure the red light of the baby monitor was o
n, then she went out, shutting the door as quietly as she could.
Chapter Five
Jesse was sweating his balls off. The heat within the tent was equatorial, the scorched air stagnant and rank.
Worse, he hadn’t brought anything to cover his arms and legs, so even if he did decide to escape from this stinking sarcophagus Linda passed off as a tent, he’d be eaten alive by the mosquitoes. Could a person catch malaria in Indiana?
Jesse breathed through his mouth, but the odor still made his eyes water.
The smell of these tents always reminds me of the forest, Linda Farmer had said.
Sure, Jesse thought. A forest filled with decomposing bodies and dog shit.
Whoever had set the tent up possessed quite a sense of humor too. Outside, the ground looked uniform enough, but the area under Jesse’s tent resembled the surface of the moon. Divots and mounds near the door, the ground near the window a horror show of rocks and shards of what felt like broken glass. And that didn’t even take into account the heat. If he didn’t get outside soon he’d combust.
Jesse struggled to take in air, willed his bladder to stop complaining. He’d already gone outside to piss three times. Emma thought little enough of him as it was; if he kept making trips outside she might add incontinence to the reasons why she’d never sleep with him.
Footsteps sounded outside his tent. Jesse sat up, listening.
Emma? Unable to sleep and wanting company?
Not likely.
Colleen, then? What would she be doing at—he checked his watch—a quarter of midnight?
Probably the same thing you’ve been doing. Better not disturb her or you’ll get one heck of an eyeful.
Jesse pictured Colleen’s manly body squatting in the weeds and shivered.
“Hey,” a voice outside whispered. “You awake?”
The voice was male. Jesse crawled to the window and strained to see who it was, but the figure stood just out of his vision.
“Hey,” the man said again, more urgently this time. “You up?”
Slowly, the familiarity of the voice coalesced into a mental picture.
Marc Greeley, the professor’s handsome assistant.
Sniffing around Emma’s tent.
No!
Jesse clambered to the door, but the tent zipper caught. As he struggled with it, he heard Emma’s voice, drowsy with sleep, respond, “What’s up?”
Was she annoyed? Or was there the merest come-hither lilt in her tone?
He wrenched the zipper loose and raised it another few inches before it stuck again.
“That you, Jesse?” Emma’s voice called.
He wiggled the zipper, but it was stuck fast. Damn it! He’d always been terrible with zippers. From earliest childhood, give him a coat to zip up, and he’d have that sucker broken in five minutes. He remembered a time he’d pissed himself in elementary school, six inches from the urinal and unable to open his fly.
“Come on out,” Emma said.
She sounded sincere enough. Unsurprisingly, Greeley didn’t encourage him to join them. Jesse grinned. Don’t want me honing in on your new prospect, do you? Well, I’ve got news for you, buddy. She’s not the one-night type. And I’m not gonna let her go without a fight.
Emboldened by Emma’s invitation, he endeavored to slide an arm through the gap at the bottom of the tent door. It looked about a foot-and-a-half tall, but when he sought to push through, his body caught fast, only the top of his head and one arm poking out. Jesse’s grin shrank. He drew his arm in and made to push his head through the gap. He could only imagine how ridiculous he must look. Like a crowning newborn, replete with the world’s curliest head of infant hair. This time he got his face all the way out, but his shoulders lodged in the opening. His chin upthrust, he smiled at them in the guttering firelight. Emma looked amused, but Marc Greeley watched him with unconcealed disdain. Jesse pushed forward, the fabric of the tent stretching.
“Need some help?” Greeley asked.
“I’ve…got it,” Jesse grunted.
Drawing his arms as close to his body as he could, he gave one last push with both feet and tore loose from the tent.
Jesse flopped out and lay gasping in the dirt.
“That was impressive,” Marc Greeley said.
Suck it, Jesse thought. He got to his feet and dusted himself off.
“You okay?” Emma asked. She was eyeing him with a mixture of sympathy and mirth. He permitted himself a quick glance at her body. She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on earlier. No cut-off shirt or low-cut panties. One mystery solved, he thought.
“Splendid,” he answered. “So…what’s going on?”
Greeley regarded Emma. “I was having trouble sleeping. You know, all that noise…” He smiled, his white teeth gleaming. “…and I wondered if you wanted to walk a little.”
Emma regarded him neutrally.
“I’m up for a walk,” Jesse said.
Greeley arched an eyebrow at him.
“Might as well,” Emma said. “I’m awake now.”
They started toward the paved road, but Emma stopped. “What about Colleen?”
Greeley gave her the dazzling smile. “She looks like she can take care of herself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Greeley started. “Oh, I only meant…well, she has a steely demeanor, doesn’t she? She’s not the type to get pushed around.”
Jesse studied Emma’s face to see if Greeley had wormed his way out. She looked skeptical, but her anger seemed to abate. They continued across the road toward the sound of bubbling water and started down a dirt path.
Emma asked, “How long have you been a TA?”
“Technically,” Greeley said, “I’m an associate professor.”
“What’s the difference?” Jesse asked.
“The difference is that I’ll be a full professor in a year. Two at the most. Clev will be retiring about that time, so it should be an interesting phase for the history department.” Greeley glanced at Emma—to see if she was impressed, Jesse was sure—but she appeared lost in thought.
The tree-lined path led to a river Jesse estimated to be about sixty feet across. Around them the winding drone of the cicadas filled the forest.
Standing on the shore, Greeley went on, “Of course, history is only one of my interests. My real love is disasterology.”
Emma glanced at him. “You made that up.”
“Not at all,” Greeley said. “There are professors of natural disasters at many major universities, and though my chosen field is Native American History, I take the study of disasters and their effects on various peoples just as seriously as do those with the title.”
For the first time, Jesse spotted the glowing red eye of the Dictaphone poised at Emma’s side. If Greeley had noticed it, he wasn’t letting on. Jesse paused, looking around. Beyond Emma and Greeley, the moonlight reflected on the moving water and tossed brilliant white spangles into the air. Jesse’s gaze moved over the river’s surface, along the trees that had been inundated by the high water. From downriver some enormous bird came winging in Jesse’s direction. He glanced down the bank at Emma and Greeley, but they were lost in conversation, oblivious of the huge shape winging their way. Jesse squinted into the darkness, amazed at the bird’s size. Its wings looked ten feet across. Maybe even fifteen. Just when Jesse began to worry it would swoop down and snatch one of them into the night sky, it rushed over them, veered west and headed upstream.
Jesse watched after it, uneasy. The damn thing looked prehistoric. Chilled, Jesse hurried down the bank after Emma and Greeley.
“Kind of an odd pairing, don’t you think?” he heard Emma remark. “Native American History and disasters?”
Greeley permitted himself a grin, as if relishing some secret. He said, “Ordinarily I’d agree with you, Miss Cayce, but in this instance I find the two share a rather fascinating…convergence.”
“And what is that?”
He favored h
er with a speculative look. Bending over and picking up a smooth stone, he said, “Much is made of the systematic extermination of the Native American peoples. Westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, the Trail of Tears.” Greeley paused and glanced down at Emma’s Dictaphone. “Can that thing pick up what I’m saying?”
“It can.”
He nodded. “Good. Now, popular thinking places blame on the white man. Europeans raping the virgin forest, killing indiscriminately, destroying the idyllic existence of the natives.”
“You disagree?”
“Not at all, Miss Cayce. To the contrary, our nation’s treatment of Native Americans is far more reprehensible than even the most graphic accounts have depicted.”
“So you’re categorizing the genocide as a natural disaster.”
“Oh, it was a disaster all right, but hardly a natural one. No, utterly preventable, which makes it all the more tragic.”
“Then I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.”
“Have you ever asked yourself,” Greeley asked, rubbing the wet sand from the stone until it gleamed in the starshine, “whether or not it was all really attributable to the white man?”
“Of course. Are you denying it?”
Greeley shook his head and skipped the stone along the surface of the water. It deflected three times before sinking with a muted plop. “No, Miss Cayce. Let’s take the Algonquin tribe that migrated here and tried to make its home on this land as an example. Because the abhorrent treatment of the Algonquins was so endemic to that period of time, everyone assumes that the people who inhabited this valley were subjected to the same treatment.”
“Weren’t they?”
Greeley became animated. Raising an index finger, he said, “There isn’t one account of an Algonquin being mistreated in Peaceful Valley. Further, there isn’t a single recorded battle between settlers and the Algonquin people within a fifty-mile radius.”
Emma shrugged. “That was a different time, very little technology. Word traveled slowly.”
Greeley smiled and nodded as if he’d expected that. “Yet in every other ‘forced resettlement’, there were numerous eyewitnesses and second-hand accounts of skirmishes, scalpings, wholesale violence. So why,” he asked, eyebrows lifting, “is there such a paucity of evidence with regard to what happened here?”
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