I looked at her.
She smiled.
I said, “Not even close.”
She leaned over and kissed my neck, her lips staying on the skin for a moment as if she was drinking there too.
I turned and kissed her. She tasted like toothpaste and beer.
We kissed for a minute on the end of the bed, still holding our drinks. Then she took my beer out of my hand and set both of our bottles down on the table. She stood and leaned over me. I was sitting, and we kissed harder now, McKenzie pressing down into me. I put my hands on her hips, feeling the skin just above her waistband with my thumbs. Her hipbones. I ran my hands along the tops of her legs, felt her long, thin muscles flexing against my hands.
She said, “You smell like pine needles and dirt.” She laughed. “I like that.”
I pulled her into me. We kissed harder. Her tongue. Her breath faster.
She pushed me down onto the bed. Kneeling above me.
I was hard underneath her, on the bed, and she pressed down. Pressed and moved.
I ran my hands up her tank top. She stopped kissing me and peeled off that shirt, showing a crisscrossed white bra.
I put my hands there, on her high breasts. And we were kissing again.
• • •
When I awoke, she was turned away from me. Late evening, light coming through the window. I looked at the straight line of her spine and the curve of her hip. The covers had slipped down to the bottom of her back. It was warm in the room and she didn’t move in her sleep. I wanted to be inside her again, but I didn’t want to wake her.
My head felt like tree pollen. Floating. I knew I should leave. I considered waking her and saying goodbye but I didn’t know what she would say. What I would say.
I slid out of bed and put on my clothes. Tried not to make any noise.
She’d left $200 on the nightstand, and a paper note that said my name. I stared at the money. Then I looked at her sleeping. I didn’t take the money.
I wrote on the bottom of her note: Thanks for lunch.
The door clicked as I closed it, so I jogged to the stairs and down the bottom hallway. I walked through the boulders behind the hotel, toward the caves. I saw no one near the trail. No one at the caves either, camp quiet. I’d stashed the borrowed climbing gear in the bear box at the parking lot and I went back to get it. I returned the gear to the group bins, then went to my cave.
I lay down on my sleeping bag and tried to read. But I stayed on the same page, staring off as it got dark.
CHAPTER 12
The seventh year. Plenty and famine. Seven a holy number. The cycle.
The rule of the seventh year: the acorns will not fall heavy and berries fruit a short season. Animals wander in search of food. Bears eat thin meat in the fall, not fattening before hibernation.
The people ration stores. Count the days to a new season. Mark the door pole.
At the end of the seventh year, there is a year of plenty. You must look for this. Berries on the ground in piles like ready jam, fermenting before they can be eaten. Acorns scattered at light green, the squirrels heavy-bellied. The fish in the river come fat in spring as if mayflies hatched through the winter.
Your people store in preparation for long snows, years when the white drifts crest the banks of the Merced in April, when creeks run off to drown.
Wovoka knows all of this. He whispers truths in his dreams, men bending their ears to his lips. And Nevada, 1889. Wovoka speaks in the mountains on New Year’s Day, during a full eclipse of the sun. He says, “When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God.”
I held my thumb up for an hour as I walked down the Merced toward El Portal. I was near the 120 Junction when an old car pulled over in front of me. The driver leaned across and popped the passenger-side door open. He said, “Get in, man. Get in.” He had a blunt between his front teeth.
“Thanks,” I said. I sat down and closed the door. The car filled with smoke.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“Merced. But any ride in that direction’s great.”
“Cool, cool. I’ll see what I can do. This old baby’s been dying all afternoon though.” He patted the dash, then he puffed on his blunt. He said, “Something wrong with her alternator.”
We didn’t make it to the park boundary. We made it a mile, maybe. The dash lights turned on and the man jerked the car onto the gravel shoulder. He said, “Got to get her off the road quick ’cause that power steering holds her straight like a motherfucker.”
We got out of the car and the man popped the hood. “Maybe we can get another jump,” he said. “What did you need to do in Merced?”
I said, “See somebody in the hospital there.”
“Oh, damn. That’s not good. Sorry about this car, man. She really is a piece of shit.” He puffed on his blunt and waved his arms at a passing car. It didn’t slow down.
We waved at cars for half an hour until someone stopped to give us a jump. Then we drove another mile before the car died again. This time, it got dark without anyone pulling over to jump the vehicle. The man said, “Want some of this splif?” He’d started a new one, his second.
“No thanks,” I said. I sat next to him on the embankment while he smoked.
“Yeah, sorry about my car, man. She really doesn’t care about what a man needs, you know?”
“Right,” I said. I stood up and stretched. “I think I’m going to walk.”
“A hundred miles to Merced?” The man laughed.
“No,” I said. “I’ll walk back to the Valley.”
The man held in a deep breath, then exhaled smoke. “That makes more sense,” he said. “Hell of a lot more sense.”
I was reading about the debate in the Chronicle. Protesters in the city, on Market Street in San Francisco, as a symbolic gesture. I wondered that there weren’t any protesters demonstrating here in the Valley.
The insects scrabbled, and the cars shuffled like pinacate beetles through the lot, edging forward into parking spaces. Putting their back hatches up. Easing their scents.
I was standing at the T of the North Loop and Ahwahnee Drive, watching hundreds of cars pass by. The infestation growing toward July 4th.
• • •
I hadn’t seen McKenzie for a week when I ran into her at the ranger booth in Camp 4. Late morning.
She hugged me. Said, “Hi, Tenaya.”
I felt her body against me. Remembered the swell of her breasts, her nipples in my mouth. The smell of coconut lotion on her shoulder blades.
She said, “How are you?”
“Good,” I said. I wanted to taste her. Put my hand on her throat. I crossed my arms.
She said, “Thanks for leaving a note. And you forgot to keep your money.”
“We agreed to climb for fun,” I said, “remember? But I’m sorry I had to leave so quickly.”
“No, really, it’s fine.” She touched my forearm. “Although I was pretty sure I’d have to buy another climbing lesson just to see you again.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t need to.”
She said, “I’m kidding. You didn’t even take the money the first time.” She laughed.
I said, “What are you doing in Camp 4?”
She pointed to the booth behind me. “I was just leaving a note for you on the message board.” She read it aloud to me. “A girl named McKenzie seeks a climbing instructor. He must be roughly six-feet-two inches tall with wide shoulders, dirty hands, long black hair, a scar next to his eye, smelling like pine needles, and preferably named Tenaya. If interested, call this number.” She handed the note to me.
I said, “You want another climbing lesson?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Okay. But we’ll just climb again for fun. No lesson this time either.”
“Unless you need the money,” she said, and pointed at my T-shirt. It was dirty and had one sleeve torn off.
“No,” I said, “I think I’m good.”
•
• •
We bouldered in Swan Slabs for three hours. I showed her my favorite moderate problems on the Bridwell Boulder and the short cracks, and she climbed well. I didn’t teach her many techniques because I could tell she liked to figure things out for herself.
In the late afternoon, she said, “Want to get some food?”
I shook my head.
She said, “Let me just buy us a little food. Please. It’s a lot cheaper than a $200 climbing lesson.”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine. You don’t have to buy food.”
She was tying the laces of her climbing shoes together. “Look,” she said. “I’m going to buy extra food, and I’d like you to hang out with me while that extra food is just lying around.” She squinted and wrinkled her nose. Waited.
“Okay,” I said, and we walked back to the parking lot.
McKenzie said, “I know climbers don’t eat at the Ahwahnee Hotel. So where do they get their food?”
I didn’t want to explain scrounging at Curry, how dirtbags ate unfinished food at the Lodge, or out of dumpsters, so I said, “All different places. All around. Housekeeping?”
“Housekeeping?” she said.
“There’s a cheap store there.”
We drove in her rental car over to Housekeeping, across from the LeConte Memorial. Inside the store, I showed her the 99-cent microwave burritos. Free hot sauce.
“I know I’m not paying for the climbing lesson,” she said, “but I can at least pay for this fancy meal, right?”
“Yeah. That’s fine,” I said. I didn’t have any money with me anyway, and I was hungry. I’d been planning on making an excuse not to eat, but I gave that up.
McKenzie bought four microwave burritos and a six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft cans. She said, “Look, it’s Genuine.”
“Whoa,” I said, and held up my hands.
We microwaved our burritos using coffee filters as plates, and took our lunch down to the Housekeeping beach. Tourists were gathered at the turn in the river there, taking pictures of a black bear. The bear was sitting on her backside in the sun, looking confused.
McKenzie set the food down and said, “I should get a picture of that bear. He’s huge.”
I took a bite of burrito and burned my tongue. I said, “She.”
“She?”
“The bear,” I said. “She’s a female.”
“Oh,” McKenzie said. “How do you know?”
“Narrow head,” I said, “and bigger ears.”
“Oh. Well, she’s pretty close to us.”
“Yeah,” I said. “If she came after someone, a social bear like that? What if she wanted our burritos? Have you ever seen a bear rip a car door off its hinges?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, it’s incredible. They’re three times as strong for their weight as humans, so that bear right there is like a 900-pound person who’s not obese. Just muscle strong.”
My burrito had cooled, and I took a bite without burning my mouth. McKenzie cracked two cans of beer and handed one to me. The bear walked off and the crowd dissipated.
We ate our burritos and drank our beers. We were at that turn of the river by Housekeeping, where the old floods stacked downed trees on the north side. The water cut on that far side, and the bottom fish congregated under the fallen logs.
McKenzie said, “Do you like it here?”
“Yeah,” I pointed at a swirl in the current. “See the bottom fish?”
McKenzie sighted down my arm. “Oh. I didn’t see the fish at all.”
I said, “I used to catch them right here in the fall.”
“Wait,” she said. “How long have you been here in the Valley?”
I took a swig of beer. I said, “A long time.”
“And always camping?” she said.
“Yep. Always camping.”
We watched that black-green pool for the flashes of the foot-long bottom fish, for the quick break from the school, then the drift to white and the return.
We drank our second and third beers, then went back to McKenzie’s room at the hotel.
• • •
We were in bed afterward. I was thinking about the protestors I’d read about in the Chronicle. I said, “Do you know about Multi-Corp?”
McKenzie lay on her side next to me in bed and she pulled the covers up to her throat.
I said, “The big corporation. They want to develop here in the Valley. Tie everything together.”
“Oh,” she said. She rolled onto her back and straightened the sheet. “Which company is that again?”
“The parent company to Thompson Food. Have you ever heard of it? I don’t know how much people talk about it away from the Valley.”
McKenzie said, “Yeah, yeah. Thompson Food. The new concessionaire. I’ve heard of that.”
I said, “They’re here in the Valley.”
She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. “You read about a deal?”
“Yes. I’m just trying to remember what I read.”
She said, “I’ve heard that negotiations are going on.”
“Negotiations and protests,” I said.
“The protests in San Francisco?”
“Yes. And I think they’re pretty big now. Three thousand students and young people sleeping on Market Street. People bringing them food to support them. And that crowd is growing.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Sounds intense…and complicated.”
I said, “How so?”
“Well, these deals bring a lot of money into the Valley, fund a lot of conservation in a national park,” she said.
“But they destroy so they can conserve. It doesn’t make sense.”
She said, “Maybe they destroy 1 percent to save ninety-nine. Then it would make sense.”
“No,” I said, “it’s worse than that. You have to spend more time in this Valley. See the traffic jams. Watch animals get put down. See people throw candy wrappers in the river.”
She said, “So you agree with the protesters?”
I said, “I’m pretty sure they’re right.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Are you serious?”
She said, “But if Junior’s won the contract instead, it’d be worse.”
“Junior’s?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“If Junior’s and its motel chain won that contract, to put motels here in the Valley, it’d be much worse. There’d be branding everywhere. Junior’s signs. Renaming: The Junior’s LeConte Memorial Museum. Junior’s El Capitan. Junior’s Half Dome…”
“Wait,” I said, “I’ve never heard of Junior’s.”
“That’s the competition.”
“Multi-Corp’s competition?”
“Yes.”
“But what if nobody got the contract? What if everyone was told no?”
“Everyone?” She laughed. “That’s never going to happen. Progress will progress. Development will happen in this Valley. That’s inevitable.”
CHAPTER 13
Wovoka waits in the Sierra Nevadas. People arrive from the east, representatives seeking the prophet. He was raised Jack Wilson, Bible-reading on a western Nevada ranch, but he is Wovoka now, the Paiute Messiah, and people will wait for weeks to hear him speak. He preaches the Ghost Dance, peace, and continental disappearance.
A Sioux messenger rocks back and forth on his feet. He looks away, his attention captured by a coyote on a rise. Two coyotes. Then the way the wind sounds coming through the branches of a nearby juniper. The raven on a branch, cleaning its talons. The messenger does not hear all of Wovoka’s words. He hears only the Ghost Dance and the ghost shirts, and so he believes in invincibility, invincibility that is as good as truth.
The Sioux messenger returns to South Dakota. Then his bands ride to violence, a frozen creek in December, bodies like twisted sticks.
This is your end if you do not listen to every word.
Greazy saw me in Camp 4 at t
he Pratt Boulder. He said, “Bro, you should lay low for a while. I had two troopers and an FBI dude visit me at the Bees. They asked a lot of questions about you.”
“What did they ask?”
He said, “Where you were. What you liked to do. Who you hung out with. Lots of shit like that.”
“Did they say anything else?”
Greazy rolled a cigarette, twisted each end. “Yeah,” he said, “I think they asked about the fires. Not sure what they meant though, and I said that. Plus I told them that you’d left the Valley.”
“You did?”
“Hell, yeah,” he said. “I got your back.” He pulled out a plastic Bic lighter. Flicked and lit his cigarette. Inhaled and exhaled. “Fuck the feds,” he said. “I told them you’d been gone a while, might never come back.”
“Did they believe you?”
“Not at first,” he said. “But then I said you’d left to chase a girl, and that this sort of shit can take a while. Those dudes seemed to get that. At least they wrote it down and didn’t ask me any questions after that.”
“Thanks, Greazy.”
“No problem, man. But stay low, okay?”
• • •
The rear Ahwahnee caves were less caves and more hollows in the jumble of the granite. The drop-off of the Arches. I moved to the most remote natural lean-to, where I’d never heard of anyone staying. There was no mattress moldering, no pine-needle bed arranged, no stove parts crushed into the dirt. I didn’t find any bottle caps or cigarette butts. There was a black drip on the west wall, a fungus growing at the seam of the rock.
Greazy gave me a mattress that was wintered. Folded over my head, it smelled like gin gone wrong. I hiked it up.
Early the next morning, I pulled a hat on low over my eyes and I snuck into the hotel bathroom to fill water. Scrubbed nickel faucets, hot water, free soap. Upstairs, six coffee urns silver as mercury. Cream in a mini-pitcher. I took a big gulp of cream straight out of the pitcher, before I poured myself a free coffee.
I walked past the Great Room on my way out, my ancestors hung as tapestries while 3 million visitors drove through the Valley. Men and women held bags of ice and Popsicles in store lines, ramen noodles and microbrews. People set up in campers, kids watching Disney movies on laptops in their tents.
Graphic the Valley Page 18