And go where? “I’ll stay,” Nita said.
“I’m glad.” Dan reached for the mug. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m not sure I could handle a trip to the sink yet.”
“Ignacio was always getting into fights,” Nita said. “But never this bad.” Her older brother had translated Mama’s bitter anger into violence. Nita took the empty mug from him, frowning. She had never asked Ignacio if he felt people the way she did. By the time she had understood it enough to ask, Ignacio was gone, driven down the road by his angry darkness.
Rachel had worked her way to the edge of the quilt and had started to complain. Nita went to scoop up her daughter, detouring into her room. “This will help,” she told Dan when she came back. She plopped Rachel onto the floor again, opened the small plastic jug she had brought. “I’ll have to find another hive before I can make any more,” she said as she poured golden liquid into Dan’s mug.
“What’s this?” Dan’s eyebrows rose as he sipped.
“It’s honey water. I ferment it, so it’s got some alcohol in it. It’s good if you’re sick and it helps if you’re hurting.”
“Maybe you could hunt bees around here.”
“I haven’t seen many. They’ve been dying.” She capped the bottle. “David said it must be some kind of disease. That’s why he . . . had to go find a job.” A hard lump clogged her throat and she looked away, fixing her eyes on the pictures. Most of them showed a river, full of water and edged with green, like pictures Nita had seen in old books and videos. “Is that the Columbia?”
“Yep. Jesse — the woman who used to own this farm — painted those pictures. She could remember water in the riverbed, back before they finished the Trench Reservoir and built the Pipeline.”
“She must have been old,” Nita said, her eyes on the blues and grays and greens.”
“I thought so, the first time I saw her.”
Nita felt Dan’s smile and realized suddenly that Jesse had been his lover. He was remembering her and the echoes of their lovemaking tickled her, softened with his sadness. She had thought David was old when she had first met him. He had been nearly forty, ancient to her young eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing without his telling her that Jesse was dead.
“Me, too.” Dan sighed. “She was part of the reason I stayed.” He stared at the ceiling. “Sometimes I think Sam dropped me on Jesse’s doorstep on purpose — that he figured we needed each other. He had a lot of insight about people — he cared, and he cared about keeping the community alive. When he died, there wasn’t anyone to take his place. I discovered . . . that I couldn’t walk away. I couldn’t let what he did go for nothing. I guess I still can’t.” He turned his head to give Nita his lopsided smile. “I’m levering you again,” he said. “Or maybe it’s this business with the Corps. It makes me ask myself why the hell I’m still involved. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Nita said. “My father lived here. He was who he was, and I guess I’d better get used to it.” Rachel whimpered and Nita picked her up. “The Valley’s an ugly place,” she said softly. “Salt from the water creeps up out of the ground and coats the bushes with a white crust. The dust stings your eyes and makes you cough. Nothing grows except the bushes. You have to go way up into the mountains to find any flowers.”
“We’re making things worse,” Dan murmured. “We’re running so hard to keep ahead of this damned drought that we can’t stop. We’ll never be able to go back to the way it was, even if the rains start tomorrow.”
David had said the same thing. The bushes didn’t need bees and the salty Valley had scared him. We scared him, too, Nita thought and settled her fussing daughter onto her hip. “The soaker hoses in the south end of the field are plugging up. If I don’t get them cleared, the beans are going to wilt.”
“Could I ask you to do me a favor?” Dan asked. “You can drive, right?” Would you take the truck and go over to Sandy Corbett’s place later? I need to talk to her, but I think she’ll have to come here.” He grimaced. “I’ll draw you a map. The Coalition needs to start dealing with yesterday’s mess.”
“Sure.” Nita picked up the mug. The honey water had blurred away some of his pain and he was sinking into sleep. She needed to get out of this house. Her father had sat at the table in the kitchen, had looked out the window at the dry riverbed. Maybe I will leave, Nita thought, but there was nowhere to go. “I’ll go give Sandy your message as soon as I get the hoses clear.”
The Corbett farm lay west of The Dalles, on a bench of level land above the riverbed. Nita found the gray-haired, stocky woman out weeding beets, shaded from the afternoon sun by a handwoven grass hat.
“What got into that fool colonel?” Dirt-stained hands on her hips, Sandy glared when Nita told her about Dan’s beating. “Dan’s the best ally that idiot has. Is he trying to cut his own throat?”
“Carter didn’t do it. He brought Dan home.” Nita caught the speculative flicker of Sandy’s curiosity, heard the defensive note in her voice. “That’s what Dan told me,” she said in a calmer tone.
“Dan’s too quick to forgive. Of course, that’s not a bad trait, considering that he’s usually smack in the middle of things.” Sandy wiped her hands on her dirty jeans. “The man just can’t say no to folks’ needs. Your father was like that, too.”
Not this again. Nita pressed her lips together, pretending to adjust Rachel’s sling.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re staying out there. I worry about Dan. He takes too much on himself.”
“He says that you need to meet, that you’ll know who to tell.”
“Oh, I’ll round ’em up, although there’s a couple I’d like to leave out of it,” she grumbled. “I’m afraid we’re in for real trouble, no matter what miracle Dan thinks he can pull off.” Her weathered face crinkled into a sudden smile and she stuck out a finger for Rachel to grab. “Come sit and have a drink. I’ve got some scones left over from breakfast, too. No sense going back there hungry.”
The house turned out to be three battered mobile homes parked in an open-sided square around an ancient maple tree. A decrepit wooden barn sagged out back. The trailers squatted on their concrete-block foundations, scabby and settled, as if they’d been there a long, long time. A thick layer of old leaves carpeted the space beneath the tree.
“Sit down. I’ll bring stuff out. The place is a mess, as usual.” She waved vaguely at a few old yard chairs. Old baling twine, bleached to a pale orange, had been woven into seats and backs over the battered frames. Nita spread Rachel’s quilt on the crackly leaves, put her daughter down on her belly, and gave her a string of wooden beads to play with.
“Here you are.” The gray-haired woman reappeared with a pitcher and two glasses clutched in one hand, a plate of thick, golden cakes in the other. “The boys are down in Bonneville, buying some new hose for the east field, and Cathy’s teaching at the co-op school this week. She’s got the whole brood with her.” She handed Nita a glass and sat down. “I’ve got the place to myself today.”
Nita nodded, not sure what to say, and covered her confusion with a bite of the crumbly, biscuit-like cake. An upright piano was visible through the open door of the trailer. “Do you play?” she asked.
“Some.” Sandy sighed. “My hands aren’t as nimble as they used to be. When I was a kid, I was going to be a concert pianist. I had it all figured out — I was going to get a scholarship, be another Van Cliburn, or Horowitz, or Huang. Oh yes, I did have dreams.” She shook her head and laughed gently. “I taught your mom to play, you know.”
“My mother?”
“Uh-huh. Back before she and your dad were even married. Maria loved music. She had a beautiful voice, too.”
“I didn’t know that.” Nita looked down at the glass in her hand, trying to imagine her mother singing.
“She quit taking lessons when Alberto was born. She said she was too tired, and I guess she was, with the farm to work and all.” Sandy shook her head. “You don’t hear music
so much anymore — not even in church. Art, music, poetry — what’s happened to it? I asked Sam that one time. He said we’d had it too easy. We thought we could fix anything, that we had it all under control with our science and such. When we couldn’t fix this drought, it broke something in us — our spirits, maybe. I don’t know. Sometimes I think our souls are dying out with the land.” Sandy shook her head, forced a smile. “You look like your dad,” she said. “Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yes.” Nita crumbled the last of her scone between her fingers. “Look, I don’t remember . . . my father.” How many times was she going to have to say this? Nita met the older woman’s eyes. “Life was hard for us after he died. That’s all I know.”
“You sound a little like Maria.”
“I don’t blame him, if that’s what you mean.” Nita pressed her lips together. “Everyone wants to tell me about him. They all expect me to think of him as some kind of hero and I don’t. Is that wrong?”
“Wrong?” Sandy sighed. “Maria was right in a way. Sam did put the community ahead of his own life, ahead of his family. He used to say we wouldn’t make it — any of us — unless we stuck together.” She poured more water into Nita’s glass. “He wasn’t a hero,” she said, “And you’re not wrong. He was just a quiet man who saw what needed to be done. He was perceptive, Sam Montoya. Sometimes you could swear he knew what you were thinking.”
Dan had said that he had . . . insight. Nita’s checks went hot, then cold. “I have to go.” She got quickly to her feet. “I have to get back. Thank you for the water and the scones.”
She drove back through The Dalles automatically, her eyes registering the road, her brain churning. Rachel fussed irritably on the seat beside her. You could swear he know what you were thinking. Sandy Corbett had said it so casually. “Did you do this to me?” she whispered. A mutation, David had said. In her. But what if he’d been wrong? Nita touched her squirming daughter lightly. Father to daughter to granddaughter? “No,” She whispered, but the word sounded so feeble.
When they reached the turnoff to the Corps base, Nita swung the truck suddenly onto the road. The guard at the ugly gate watched her as she parked the truck. He carried a rifle and his lust and hostility pricked at her.
“I don’t see your name on the list,” he said when she asked for Carter. “I’ll see if I can contact the colonel.”
Rachel started to cry. Teething? Or reacting to the guard? Teething, Nita told herself. She hadn’t been fussy until lately.
Nita squatted in the shadow of the truck, holding her daughter tightly. “I don’t want you to be like me,” Nita whispered. She pulled out Rachel’s string of wooden beads and dangled it above her daughter’s groping fists. She would feel the anger, the lust, the broken bones. One day she would look into a lover’s eyes and feel his fear. She looked like David, more like him every day. Nita blinked back tears, jumped at the clang of the gate. Carter. Nita got slowly to her feet.
“What do you want?”
“You can be angry at me.” Nita straightened her shoulders. “Maybe I deserve it. But you’re angry at Dan. And you shouldn’t be.”
“You don’t know how I feel.”
A thread of hurt lurked beneath his anger. “Will you come for a walk with me?” She spoke to that hurting. “Please, Carter? I need to tell you . . . about why I left.”
“I can give you a few minutes.” He was struggling inside, wanting to hear her, wanting to hurt her with his anger at the same time.
Nita tilted her head, hearing a hum of contentment on the hot breeze. Bees! “Here.” She shoved Rachael suddenly into Carter’s arms and walked away from him, following the gentle note of the nest.
A rock outcrop sheltered it in a cool crevice. Nita hummed the comfort-song to the swarm as the bees swirled up around her head. She could just get her hand into the space. Carefully she broke off a bit of sticky comb, feeling to make sure she wasn’t killing brood.
“Nita, what are you doing?”
Carter’s voice, and there was fear in it. Fear for her, in spite of his anger? Pain clenched in her belly and the bees felt it, their song rising and sharpening. Gently. She hummed it to them as she got to her feet. Calmed by her song, they trailed away as she walked back to the road. By the time she reached Carter and Rachel, only a few stragglers clung to her shirt and hair. Absently she brushed them away.
“Are you all right?” Carter jumped as a confused worker circled his head. “My God, half these wild bees are killers, Nita.”
“I can tell killers from honeybees. Here.” She broke off a piece of golden comb, handed it to Carter. “I only took a little. It’s not a very big nest. Chew it.” She lifted Rachel from his arms. “Spit out the wax when the honey’s gone. The bees will find it and take it back.”
Hesitantly, still angry, Carter bit into the dense, sticky chunk.
“I miss the bees.” Nita dabbed a bit of honey on her daughter’s lips, smiling at Rachel’s chuckle of surprise and pleasure. “When the rains come, everything blooms in the hills. You have to look for the flowers, but they’re there — down in the crevices where the rocks protect them, at the bottom of the old streambeds. I was like the flowers.” She looked up at Carter. “I hid down in the cracks, wounded, afraid of the world. I was fourteen when I met David. I hadn’t talked since I was five, and my family thought I was retarded. It was David who found me,” she said softly. “He gave me space and time to grow up, to find myself. He sheltered me and . . . he loved me. It wouldn’t matter, if I didn’t care about you.” Her voice trembled, and she shook her head. “It wouldn’t even matter that I was sleeping with you. But . . . I do care, Carter. Don’t you see? And I love David and I owe him for my life, and I don’t know what happened to him. I have to find out, Carter. I need to know for sure if he’s dead . . . or alive. I didn’t betray you, Carter. I didn’t.”
“I never said you did.” Carter’s voice was unsteady and his anguish clouded the air.
“I didn’t know Dan until a few days ago. I’m not sleeping with him.” She winced at Carter’s reaction. “He really is trying to help you. Don’t mess things up just because I hurt you. Dan’s not part of that.”
“I didn’t ask you if you were sleeping with him.” Carter looked away, all muddy and mixed up inside. “I’d like to trust Dan, but there are a lot of men and women living on this base. They’re the ones who are going to pay if I make a mistake. How well do you know Dan Greely, Nita? You’ve known him what — a few days?”
“He’s on your side. Carter, he is.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” He looked back at the gate, giving in to his need to escape her. “I’ve got to get back. I’m sorry.” His eyes avoided hers. “About the misunderstanding.”
“Carter?” She closed her lips tightly. He wasn’t really hearing her. He was trapped by his responsibilities, just as Dan was trapped by her father’s ghost. He was walking away from her, back to his gate and the crushing weight of that place.
She could call him back. She could tell him how she knew that Dan wasn’t an enemy.
Rachel started to cry, and she turned her back on the gate. I’m trapped, too, Nita thought bitterly. In her sling, Rachel kicked and fussed. “You don’t feel me.” Nita scooped her into her arms as the walked back to the truck. “You’re David’s daughter, sweetheart. He’ll get here sooner or later and it’ll be all right. We’ll leave, go somewhere else.” The words brought no comfort, none at all.
They had almost reached the truck. Nita gasped as the dusty ground suddenly shimmered. Something was wrong. She clung to Rachel as colors brightened around her. Grass? Stunned, Nita stared at the vivid green blades beneath her feet. Tiny droplets of water glinted on their tips, and the fuzzy yellow flowers swayed in the gentle wind. Spindly young trees scattered white petals across the grass and more yellow flowers swayed on long stems. Nita had seen pictures of flowers like that, tried to recall their name but she couldn’t She clutched Rachel, frozen with terror and awe.
Beyond the grass and the yellow flowers, water filled the riverbed.
There wasn’t that much water in the whole world. There couldn’t be. Nita took a stumbling step toward it. It stretched away from her in a wrinkled gray sheet, streaked with white. The hills on the far side looked miles away and the water foamed at the foot of the dam. She saw no sign of the base.
“Carter,” she cried in terror. They would be dying, all of them, buried under that gray water, drowning, for God’s sake. She tried to run, but the access road had inexplicably moved and the ground wasn’t where her eyes told her it was. Unseen humps and hollows jarred her. She stumbled, fell, twisting desperately to protect Rachel, ground slamming the breath from her body, bruising her hip. Her face was full of invisible dust and Rachel was screaming, her terror a beating wing in Nita’s head. Breathless, Nita hid her face against her daughter’s struggling body, surrounded by grass and flowers, wondering if she was going crazy, wondering if the world was going crazy.
Footsteps thudded on the ground. “Hey, are you all right?”
Worry pricked Nita and hands touched her shoulders.
“Are you hurt?” The hands had shifted to Rachel, as if to take her from Nita’s arms.
“I . . . I’m all right.” Nita forced her eyes open, then shuddered at the sight of the green grass. “No, I’ve got her.” She clutched Rachel to her.
A man bent over her. A tail of blond hair hung down over his shoulder and his vivid blue eyes reflected his concern. Nita shook her head, not trusting her voice, wishing he would go away and leave her alone. She stretched out her hand. The grass stems didn’t bend or flatten and she felt only dust and sharp gravel beneath her palm. She clenched her trembling fingers into a fist.”
Water Rites Page 23