Painted Boots

by Mechelle Morrison

“I hope he’s dead!” Em says.

  I spin round to face her but she’s bent away from me, her white coat gleaming in an inverted L. I plant my foot on her butt and kick her to the ground. She rolls to her back and I kick her again, but there’s something there, dark against her coat. She wraps her arm around my leg and I fall over her, thinking she’s found her gun. It’s the tire iron.

  Screaming, we wrestle for control, though we sound different from how we did at first. More tired. Desperate. We tug the cold metal between us, grunting and crying as we roll across the icy road.

  Em twists the iron and one end makes contact with the side of my head. I tumble away from her, flecks of light dancing behind my eyes.

  I jump up, just as Em shoves me. She’s yelling how I’ve ruined everything and how I’m going to pay. I stumble sideways, wondering With what, as I crash into Kyle’s door. I can’t find my balance and pitch forward, the Moon boots clumsy on my feet. I bash against the guard rail and cut my hand trying to steady myself, then slip along the corrugated metal until I’m on the ground. Em throws the iron at me. It hits my shoulder.

  It’s weird, but I can’t remember where I am. I feel like I’m in the hall at school, like I’m lying stripped and bleeding on the floor. I swear I see the rectangular lights evenly spaced above me. But this time I don’t feel anything; I’m numb, just an observer. Em screams, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

  Her voice is ugly, and for some reason I think of dead fish when they wash ashore from sea. Something white moves across my vision, drifting like mist, back and forth, back and forth. The white takes Em’s shape, standing in front of me and pointing.

  My thoughts crystallize.

  She says, “Bye, Retro.”

  A blast of brightness, a booming crack and pain, shearing hot pain, rips through my left calf. I scream and scream. Warmth soaks into the fabric of my jeans.

  Em runs toward me. She steps on my knee, then my thigh. She drops onto me, her weight slamming my shoulder to the ground. Her gun comes down hard on the rail, just above my head. She scratches the side of my face. Her boots dig into my legs.

  I shove at her. I want her off! I don’t want to die like this; I won’t! I push against her body. I punch her; I fight. She squirms and shrieks and rips at my hair. I push and push and push. Then she’s just . . . gone.

  Icy wind chills the tears I’d forgotten were even there. I shiver, and catch a glimpse of Mom. I call to her, though when I look at her directly she disappears. I’d get up to search for her but I’m tired, so I lie down.

  Lights spin in the distance. They’re much lower than the stars. I could watch the lights forever, but a shadow falls from nowhere to block my view. The shadow forms a heap, shifting until it’s the shape of Devil’s Tower. The lights are gone but now, glowing all around the tower is an aura—red and blue! It’s the “Close Encounters” aura from when the aliens and the humans played music together. Mom loved that part so much.

  The tower moves, inching forward, growing bigger and bigger until the aura disappears. It scares me—all that darkness coming near. I scream, “Get away!” but the tower doesn’t stop.

  Maybe the tower is death. Maybe it has come for my spirit. Maybe if the tower touches me I’ll be engulfed in nothing, a prisoner, trapped in dark and cold. I struggle to crawl, pebbles and ice cutting into my skin. I yell, “Leave me alone!” It hurts so much to cry.

  The tower’s inky shadow stretches out. The shadow takes hold of my hand.

  *****

  43

  I DREAM OF HER, sometimes. We’re facing each other on an abandoned road like two players in an old western show-down. Lacy, black shadows swirl around us like sooty snow. It’s cold—but I don’t feel it.

  Em falls in the dream, tumbling for the river just like she did the night she shot me. The dream-sky crackles and turns white. Stars appear then rain down as fiery spears. The river becomes an icy creature. I watch its long, jagged fingers reach round Em and pull her into its grip. She begs for my help, though I confuse her words with gurgling. Her hair slowly freezes into a pale gold halo. Her lips turn purple-blue. Her dead eyes meet mine.

  I wake, terrified.

  Like all the other times I’ve dreamed this dream, I’m sweating. Not the cold kind I used to get when I had nightmares as a kid. This sweat is fire, prickling and hot across my flesh. I’m crying too, though my throat is so tight I can’t make sound. The bedside clock says three fifty-three—still night, by my standards. I slip from beneath my covers and wander out of the room.

  When I see the dim light of the kitchen, I feel better. Ray Thacker is there, like he is every morning by four, sitting in the window seat and drinking coffee. “Morning, Miss,” he says, as I enter the room.

  I pour myself a cup, breathing in the fragrant brew, then sit next to Ray. He puts his arm around me, pressing the cool dampness of my night shirt against my skin, patting my shoulder and my back before he draws away to lean on his elbows. I’ve been around him long enough to know that this is his way of giving comfort. He’s quiet as I pour cream and sugar into my coffee. He watches as I slowly stir it into caramel-brown.

  After a while he asks, “Rough sleep?”

  I nod.

  “You want, I’ll drive you out to see your dad. Won’t take more than an hour. The horses will tolerate the wait.”

  I glance toward Ray from the corners of my eyes.

  I don’t see much of Dad these days. We hardly speak. After Christmas, I moved in with the Thackers. I needed a lot of help healing and Angella volunteered and I’ve been here ever since. Once Dad realized I wasn’t coming back he sold our house and moved with Jesse to a forty-acre ranch some twenty miles outside Gillette. It’s the ranch where he spent his summers growing up, the one he inherited when his mother died three years ago. Until he moved there I had no idea the place existed, let alone that the grandmother I never knew was dead.

  Mom must have known, though. Just like Dad she kept it secret, and for reasons I’ll never learn. She probably had thousands of secrets like that—large and small—things like her abusive boyfriend and Dad’s willingness to fight, things she culled from my view as I grew more aware. Mom knew how to protect the past and paint it fresh.

  I smile to myself. Maybe we all do that, in our own way. I mean, I still paint Kyle’s boots.

  It’s taken me a while to accept that I’ll never completely know my mom and dad. I’m sure that would be true even if Mom had lived and we were still together in Portland. Back then, Mom and Dad were starlight. Now I know it was their light that was familiar. They kept their source hidden in some faraway place I can’t begin to imagine.

  If I think of Dad that way he’s not so different from Ray Thacker. I know bits and pieces, but I’ll never know the whole of what made either one of them the men they are today. Like starlight, their pasts are places that no longer exist.

  “I’ll see him this afternoon,” I say to Ray, then take a sip from my coffee. “He’ll be at graduation. For now I think I’ll just go back to bed.”

  Ray gives me a parting pat-pat hug.

  With my warm mug in my hand, I wander back to my bedroom. I set the mug on the nightstand then pull my sweat-soaked nightshirt over my head and drop it on the floor. Groping around for the lip of the covers, I slide into bed. Kyle rolls toward me. His hand finds its way to my bare stomach.

  “You not sleepin’?” he asks. His voice is beautiful in the morning—gravely and deep.

  “I had coffee with your dad.”

  Kyle yawns. “I should maybe help him with the horses. We won’t see another morning here, not till fall.”

  I touch his face, running my fingers into his hair. Dad and Kyle don’t talk much, but I’ll admit, Kyle tries harder with Dad than I do. On the rare occasion they get into what happened, they’re patient. They respect each other under all their anger. They share a curious amount of common ground. “I need to tell you something,” I say. “About Em.”

 
Kyle’s quiet and then, “I’m listening.”

  Like every other time I’ve stepped onto the threshold of this conversation, I don’t know where to start. Kyle and I have never talked about that night on Garner Lake Road. Not really. We talk about the surface stuff—his broken leg and mild concussion, the bullet scar I’ll always have in my calf. But I’ve never been able to tell him what happened between me and Em.

  At first it was because I couldn’t find the words. I only had the dream and how it made me feel. But the words surfaced—in truth, the words have been there for a few months now, as clear to me as a bright, wintry sky.

  I avoid them. I occupy myself with other things. I want the words to go away. I want them left unsaid. But my silence has only made the words stronger. They’re a constant, unwelcome companion, pounding every thought around them into dust.

  I need to give the words away.

  I hate examining that night directly! I still feel the shock, and the way my body melted into pain. When I think back on it, I still feel the biting cold. On that night, and for months after, I buried the bitter details of Em’s death deep within me, like a private funeral. It was self-preservation, probably. But the facts haunt me, rising up from my sub-conscious as ghostly, sour dreams. The largest of them all is that, “I killed her.”

  Kyle shifts, bunching his pillow under his head. “How do you figure, girl?”

  “You came round, right? In time to open your door. A domino thing happened after that. The gun went off. Em stumbled forward and fell across me. It was an accident she tramped the leg she’d just shot, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was too cold and too hurt and I believed I was back in the hall at school. I kept flashing between what was happening and what had already happened and I couldn’t tell the difference. I still can’t. All I know for sure is that when Em fell across me I thought she was attacking. I thought she was going to kick me to death.”

  “Maybe she was,” Kyle says.

  “No. She wasn’t trying to kick me. She fell.”

  Kyle’s fingers lightly trace along my shoulder. “I woke confused,” he says. “In pain. I didn’t know where you were. I can’t say I knew where I was, at least, not at first. Then I saw Em, standing close to the truck—I recognized her coat. The sight of her made me furious. I hated her, just then. I wanted to tell her to get lost but the door was locked and that only fueled my anger.”

  “I did that,” I say. “I locked your door.”

  “All I know is by the time I got it open, I was so bent on hitting her I shoved it as hard as I could. The gun fired. You screamed and screamed and I realized you’d been shot.” He pulls me close. “God it cuts me, thinkin’ on it now. I thought you were dead.”

  “I thought I was, too. But Em didn’t attack me. She fell. Her boots beat into me. She’d been yelling how she hated me. She screamed about wanting me dead. I didn’t want to die like that, up against a rail. I only wanted to protect myself.”

  “It’s all right, girl.” He touches my cheek.

  “It’s not!” Tears stream into the fine hair of my temples. “I hear her, Kyle, in my dreams. Her screams are different. Scared. Em fell across me. I think she landed on the guard rail. It was icy. She was screaming for me to help her. Instead I shoved her over the edge. I pushed her into the river. I killed her. Em is dead because of me.”

  44

  KYLE GATHERS ME up, wrapping himself around me like an emotional cocoon. He holds me so carefully I wonder if he’s known the truth all along.

  “Those words are mine, girl,” he whispers.

  “But—”

  “But nothin’. I’m taking on the burden. Those words are mine. Don’t you let them trouble you more.”

  “But I feel so guilty, like I should talk to the police.”

  “You think the cops don’t know? They have your journal. They know every step Em took against you. When they found us that night, you were broken. You were nearly dead. In the ambulance the paramedics hardly knew where to start for the blood coverin’ your face and dryin’ in your hair and seepin’ up through your clothes. Once they got us to the hospital they found gashes in your skin, damage everywhere. They know, like I know, you fought for your life. And mine.”

  “It’s that I’m sure Em knew she was going to fall. I didn’t realize it then, but she was begging me to help her.”

  “Help her with what? Back to solid ground so she could finish what she started? I was there, girl. Sittin’ in the truck, gulping down shards of rock cold air. I heard Em screaming too.”

  “But what did you do? Did you help her?”

  “Had I wanted to, I couldn’t. Just the effort of opening my door left my head spinning between brown and black. I fought to stay awake only because I knew you were in trouble. But I can’t speak to what I might have done had I been whole. I just don’t know. Em chose violence and dragged us there with her. We’d fought that day. I’d had it. Maybe she was out cruisin’, still mad and looking for me. Maybe she was hell-bent on revenge. All I know is when she saw my truck she turned around and came up alongside us. I tried slowing. I tried speeding up. She side-swiped us, lost control, then went off the road into a ditch. But by then I was going too fast. Near the bridge we hit ice and spun. The last thing I remember is the truck slidin’ up the guardrail like a skateboard.”

  I stare at the ceiling, watching it turn from black to fuzzy gray. “I guess I hadn’t thought about the crash being Em’s fault.”

  “Everything was Em’s fault.” Kyle cups my face in his hand and pulls until he can look into my eyes. “I blame her for all of it and always will. Maybe she was sorry at the end, yeah, but hers was the kind of sorry that comes from not having anything else to be.”

  “It’s just. Hard to think about.”

  “Then don’t think on it. I’m the one who set her death in motion. I told the cops so. Em and I went out shooting all the time. I know how she looks, holding a gun. I meant to hit her with the truck’s door, and I did. But if anybody’s to blame for Em dyin’, it’s Em.”

  I drape my arm around Kyle’s waist. The memory of that night floods over me. “She had me,” I say. “I thought I’d failed and that I was dead and then you were dead, too. I fought so hard, and it meant nothing. I couldn’t begin to stop her. You saved us, and I don’t think I’ve even said as much as thanks.”

  “I saved you. But it’s your dad who saved us, girl. We both owe him, the way I see it.”

  “What?”

  “I never told you, but I called him that night as we neared Gillette. I was trying to work things out. We’d been talking a while when Em passed us on Garner. Your dad knew she’d turned round. He knew she was giving chase. I was telling him the play-by-play right up until I lost control. Your dad called the cops. We would have froze to death, otherwise.”

  “But he’s never said a thing!”

  “You’ve got him on pins, ignoring him the way you do. You won’t see how his choices favor you. You won’t accept he’s always been on our side. So he took you when he feared for your life. I should have done the same. He thought Em was out to get you and girl, he was right.”

  “It’s just the way he did it.”

  Kyle traces my eyebrows with his fingertip. “He loves you, Aspen. His aim was to protect you, nothing more. He’s lost his family once. You really want to put him there again? I get how forgiving people close to you can be a complicated thing. But your dad. I’m hoping you still want his love.”

  I catch my breath, not knowing what to say. I’ve pushed Dad aside for a long time now, and not just over the stuff with Em. I’ve second-guessed him. I wouldn’t trust. I didn’t believe he knew my heart. I wanted on with my life, demanding my terms while denying Dad his own—especially when it came to Jesse. And through it all, Dad’s been patient. Understanding, even. “I’m an idiot,” I say.

  Kyle holds me tight, stroking my hair. When he kisses my forehead he lingers there in a way that reminds me of sealing wax, warm and sure. “What you
are is deep. You’re an anchor, girl, a bonding soul. You’re that for lots of people—your dad and me, too. I need your love in my life. I need you. That you had to fight the way you did, and on my account, breaks me some. But I’m glad the fight took its toll. Had you been clear enough to help Em, you would have.”

  “No, I wouldn’t—”

  Kyle shakes his head. “She was begging, Aspen. She was begging for your help. I was half-conscious, the pain in my leg searing me from inside out. My thoughts drifted to the day you hugged Evvie. You forgave her when anybody else would have left her drowning in her tears. It was sweet of you, then. But listening to Em beg, knowing you were hurt and I was hurt, the memory scared me. Evvie, she respected your forgiveness. But Em wasn’t the forgivin’ type. Had you helped her, we’d both be dead.”

  I nod, swallowing at my tears. Kyle rests on his elbow. His eyes shine like sapphires in the early morning light. He kisses my cheek as I say, “I need to tell you one more thing.”

  “What’s that, girl?” he whispers. His lips brush my nose. He kisses near my mouth.

  “When you dropped out of your truck, I could have sworn you were Devil’s Tower. Your shadow had its shape.”

  Kyle starts to shake.

  “What—wait. You’re laughing?”

  “Sorry,” he says, and rolls to his back. He wipes at his eyes.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You just solved a little mystery that’s been plaguing me. I crawled to you and held you while we waited on the cops. You were cold as ice and delirious, humming five notes, over and over. The theme tag from ‘Close Encounters.’”

  I smile, then. I can’t help it. “My mom loved that movie,” I say.

  Kyle takes my hand and laces our fingers together. “Maybe she was with you that night.”

  Maybe. Mom was in my heart that night. She was in my thoughts. But Dad? He was there.

  45

  EVERY NOW AND then I glance to where my classmates wait, fixing their caps and gowns, laughing and teasing each other as they get ready to march onto the field. The Tower County colors are everywhere: blue and gold streamers, balloons and endless yards of bunting. Someone has lined the stage with hundreds of potted pansies. I love the sight of so many rugged little flowers all arcing for the sun. And I’ll admit from here, part-way up the bleachers, Mom would say It’s not enough! But I don’t care. It’s my graduation!