Trial by Ice and Fire

by Clinton McKinzie

  She disappears into the bathroom and I hear the shower start up. A little later I hear her use my toothbrush, then gargle and spit. I try to quiet down my stomach with a banana and a glass of milk.

  When Cali comes out she has a towel wrapped tightly around her body. Her short hair is still wet and pasted to her skull. If it weren't for her bloodshot eyes, she would look far younger than her twenty-six years. I go to the front door, open it, and whistle for Mungo. She glides in like a gray ghost. Her eyes slip past Cali and me almost guiltily, and then she looks back out into the night before I shut the door. She pads across the room on her oversized feet and collapses onto her sleeping bag.

  “Do you have anything I can wear?”

  The towel isn't particularly large—it barely covers her thighs—and Cali's hands twitch over her stomach and hips as if she's aware of it.

  I fetch her a scratchy wool blanket for the couch and a random, oversized T-shirt from the stack in the gear room. She looks at the shirt, frowning, as she unfolds it. Too late I realize it's a T-shirt my brother gave me years ago. Paper-thin and black, it has worn letters in red that read, “The Dead Kennedys.” And underneath, “Too Drunk to Fuck.”

  Cali lets out a whoop then covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God! That's the truth! If only Mom could see me in this!”

  “You want some water? Some aspirin?” I wonder what my brother will do if he looks in a window and sees this pretty young woman in the T-shirt. I bet I'll be able to hear him laughing out in the night. It's better than the other image I have of him, alone and rejected, curled in a sleeping bag in the woods.

  Cali agrees to both. I fill a glass from the sink and find some ibuprofen—climber's candy—in my toilet kit. She washes four tablets down while giving me her steady pink-and-green-eyed gaze over the rim of the raised glass. I turn away from it to busy myself checking that the windows are locked and turning off all the lights but the bathroom's. She might need it unexpectedly.

  “Good night,” I tell her as I climb up the ladderlike stairs that lead to the loft. I take the copy of Smoke Jump with me but discreetly place its cover against my hip and hide the back of the jacket with my hand.

  Upstairs I turn on the little light by the bed. Before settling in, I lean out over the railing and glance down at the main room. Cali remains standing below, still in her towel, and looking down at the T-shirt in her hands. It looks like she might be smiling. I remember what I'd thought of her this morning: that she looked like trouble. But once again I can't help but be impressed. It's hard to believe she's a lawyer.

  TWELVE

  I WAKE UP to hear the electronic chime of the “Mexican Hat Dance.” The sound is coming from below, in the cabin's main room. It takes me a moment to realize it's the new cell phone I'd been issued, the one that some wag at the main office—certainly McGee—had programmed to play that tune. It takes me another groggy moment to remember that I'd promised to call Rebecca tonight, to make arrangements for her to come up so that we can have our “talk.” How could I have forgotten? I sit up in bed and rub my face. I'll have to go down and get the phone then call her right back.

  I hear the rustle of blankets below. Too much rustling for Mungo. There is a quiet feminine curse. With a jolt, I remember that Cali is sleeping on the couch down there. Don't answer it.

  “Hello?”

  Shit. I scramble up, smack my head on a solid rafter, and look for my pants.

  “Yeah, he's here. Hang on a sec. Anton?”

  Where are my pants? The steep stairs to the loft creak as Cali starts coming up them. I can't find my pants so I flop rigidly back in the bed like a condemned man and pull a sheet up to my chest.

  Cali climbs up into the loft with the cell phone in her hand. Near the top of the steps she loses her balance but manages to catch the rail with her free hand. She laughs at herself. In the bright moonlight coming in through the skylight I see she's wearing my old T-shirt. Her strong legs are pale and bare. The blonde hair, still wet and shaped by a pillow, stands out from her head in a lopsided tangle. After handing me the phone she sits Indian-style on the far corner of the bed.

  “Hello?” I ask into the phone.

  Rebecca's voice sounds hesitant, as if it's wavering between feeling hurt and angry. “What's going on, Anton? Who is that?”

  “That's Cali, the assistant county attorney I'm looking after. She's the one who's being stalked by a guy who tried to break into her house two nights ago. And tried to attack her again tonight.” Even to me, my voice sounds guilty although I haven't done anything wrong. I tell myself this again and again. But it's the appearance of impropriety that has me feeling almost as guilty as if I have done something.

  Cali's smiling at me apologetically. In the moonlight I can see that her eyes, though, are sparkling with mirth. She mouths the word Sorry and covers her lips with a hand.

  “She's sleeping here on the couch, 'Becca. She was afraid to go home. So how are you?”

  There's a long silence on the other end of the line. These silences and the sinking feeling in my chest that accompanies them are becoming too familiar. Then Rebecca says in a weary voice, “I'm not sure.”

  I sigh, struggling to sound normal. “If you're not sure because another woman answered my phone, then put your mind at rest. I was tired and forgot to bring the phone upstairs with me, that's all.” It's not like Rebecca to be jealous. To not trust me. We've drifted so far apart in such a short time. Doesn't she know me anymore?

  Cali nods, moves her hand down from her mouth until she's holding it out to me, and mouths with another bleary smile, Let me talk to her. I shake my head vigorously and try to wave her off my bed.

  Again Rebecca doesn't respond right away. When Cali doesn't budge, I pivot to face the skylight so that I can at least pretend that she's not sitting half-naked a few feet away.

  “Okay, Anton. I'm just calling because I thought you were going to call me tonight. And I wanted to tell you that I'm coming up there in a couple of days. You were right about what you said this afternoon. We need to talk. In person.”

  “I'm glad you're coming, 'Becca. Really glad.” I try to make my voice enthusiastic, but I feel nothing but dread. I figure this “talk” will be the end. “When will you get here?”

  “I don't know. Maybe Monday night—I've got a story to knock out before then. I think I'm going to drive.”

  “Why don't you fly? It would be safer and faster.”

  “I've got some thinking to do,” she answers tiredly before hanging up.

  I wait a few seconds before hitting the END button. Then I turn to the girl on my bed and say, “Goddamn it, Cali!” There is the strong urge to punch out a window, to overturn the bed, to throw everything including the girl down the stairs. “What the fuck were you thinking!” My voice is low and hard and the words wipe the smile off Cali's mouth.

  Wide-eyed now, she pulls her knees to her chest and peers out at me from between them. She looks like Mungo. Craven. “I'm sorry, Anton. I . . . I don't know. The phone rang next to my head and I picked it up. I didn't know . . .”

  “Fuck!”

  This time I'm berating myself instead of her. She didn't intend for this to happen. I can't blame her for my own stupidity. I lift up a pillow and shove it down over my face. “Forget it,” I say, my voice muffled by the down. “It's not your fault.”

  Whatever grasp I'd once had on Rebecca has slipped. I'm holding nothing but air. For the first time I'm pretty certain that I've lost her.

  I feel Cali's fingers touch my ankle through the sheet. “I'm sorry, Anton. For whatever's going on with her. And for making it worse. I should have thought of that.”

  I don't move. Her hand doesn't move either. She no longer sounds the slightest bit drunk. “But I have to say something. . . . I think you're a pretty cool guy, Antonio Burns. If she doesn't see that, well, then it's her loss.”

  She unfolds her legs and turns away, spinning around slowly so that she ends up lying down next to me. Not tou
ching, but only a few inches away with her back to me. I can feel the heat coming off her skin. We both lie very still for a few minutes.

  Then, almost feeling like it's someone else doing it, I put a hand on Cali's shoulder and roll her gently onto her back. She obliges, raising her hands over her head either in surrender or preparation to embrace me. I rise up over her on an elbow and stroke her hair and face with one hand as I bring my mouth down to hers. With my other hand I pin both her wrists above her head. Her slack mouth tastes of tequila and mint. Her tongue traces my teeth and I remember the way she'd licked her ski's edge before leaping off the cornice, the way she'd shouted with delight as she carved her way down Teewinot's East Face. Her breasts are soft and hot against my chest through the thin cotton of the T-shirt.

  Maybe this is what I need, I tell myself. To just fall into space. Like letting go when a climb gets too hard.

  But I'm fooling myself. I think of Rebecca and my ribs constrict around my heart with a white-knuckled grip.

  Without a word I let go of her hands, get out of the bed, pad down the stairs, and stretch out on the couch. Mungo's claws click-clack across the floor. I can sense her looming over me, studying me. She sniffs the air inches from my face. “It's me,” I tell her. “It's okay.” She thumps down on her elbows and chest beneath me.

  THIRTEEN

  SHE WAKES ME with her bad breath and rough tongue. Sleepy eyed, I get up and open the front door to let the wolf out. I don't notice the white scrap of paper that's been slipped halfway under the welcome mat.

  Cali comes down from the loft once I have coffee brewing and a bowl full of Cheerios on the table in front of me. She has pulled the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. The trailing ends nearly cause her to once again fall down the steep stairs. I get a shy, uncertain smile from amid the wild blonde curls and below puffy eyes before she disappears into the bathroom.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask when she comes out.

  “Fine,” she answers shortly. She doesn't look at me or speak as she eats her own bowl of cereal. We both stare at yesterday's newspaper spread out on the table.

  A little later I shower, shave, and get dressed. When I come out of the gear room/closet Cali is back in last night's dress with the bandanna now holding back her short mane of hair.

  “What are your plans for the day?” I ask. “Jim's going to be staying with you.”

  Cali is crouched by Mungo's prostrate form, stroking her fur while the wolf's legs jerk and tremble and her lips pull up.

  “Good,” she says quietly and with a short nod. “It's Sunday, but I need to spend the day at the office. I've got that trial tomorrow I want to prepare for.”

  Mungo leaps to her feet when I pick up my keys and then stares at me with pathetic hopefulness on her long, hatchet-shaped face. It reminds me of the way I feel on the phone with Rebecca. Pathetic. I decide to let her spend the day with me. “Okay” is all I have to say and she races happily out the front door and stands alertly by the truck.

  “What's that?”

  Cali's pointing at a scrap of paper on the porch. I crouch to pick it up, and my heart rate picks up, too. It's a small piece torn from the corner of a topographical map. On the back, in pencil, is written: You rat me out to the cops, bro? This road was like a pigpen at feeding time last night. Below that is a signature that's indecipherable. Farther down is: P.S. Who's the girl? She's got the look, you know? And definitely NOT too drunk!

  Cali is reading over my shoulder. “What is this? Who's this from?” Her voice sounds a little breathless. A little high.

  I fold the note in half and stick it in my jeans pocket. When I look at her, her expression shows alarm and concern.

  “A friend of mine. Someone who's been watching the place, I guess.”

  For the first time this morning she's giving me a direct look. “Oh God, when I saw it there, I thought it might be a letter from the guy who's after me. That maybe he followed us out here last night. But it's your brother, isn't it? He calls you bro.”

  I don't answer right away. I unlock the truck so that Mungo can leap inside as I think about what I should say. Cali's a prosecutor, a sworn peace officer as well. With a phone call she could have Wokowski and the SWAT team out here combing the hills, and me arrested as an accessory. But it would be foolish for me to try a lie.

  “Look, my brother showed up yesterday. Unexpectedly. He's working a deal with the Feds, and he's supposed to turn himself in later this week. I'm pretty sure he's going to do it. I don't want to screw things up for him. I don't really have any right to ask this, but—”

  She smiles, breathing better now, and puts her hands on her hips. Then she cocks her head to one side, saying as she looks back up at me, “Okay. Don't worry, I won't say anything. I never saw the note. Besides, he's not wanted in Wyoming for anything, right?”

  “Right. Well, not on a Wyoming-based warrant, anyway.”

  “Okay, so you owe me now. That means you can't mess with my head, Anton.”

  Suddenly the taste of tequila and toothpaste is back in my mouth. The kiss. Now that was stupid.

  “Cali—”

  She brings up her hand and touches my lips with her fingertips to shut me up.

  “Don't say anything. I don't want to talk about it right now. I know you're dealing with something with that girl who called last night, and I shouldn't have gotten in your bed. Just don't mess with me, okay? That's all I want to say.”

  Her fingers are still on my lips so I just nod. They're cool in the morning air, the kind of cool that's not really cold but still makes you want to warm them. We stand this way, looking at each other, for several seconds. Then she takes her hand away.

  “Now tell me, what does he mean about cops being around here last night?”

  “I don't know, but I'm going to find out.”

  I walk around to the side of the house. The hillside is thick with aspens and green spruce but that doesn't stop me from squinting into the morning light and looking for a bit of cloth or skin that might betray my brother's presence. Even a bright glint of his mad eyes. But I see nothing but a pair of squirrels cavorting high in some branches.

  There are still faint numbers scratched into the dirt beneath the bathroom window. Surprisingly, the sequence is only ten numbers long. An Idaho area code, not an Argentinean one. He must have gotten a new phone when he arrived. I copy it down onto the piece of paper before scuffing it out with the heel of my shoe. I'll try to call him later, when I'm alone.

  Mungo hangs her head out the truck's window when we turn onto the pavement at Cache Creek Road. As we pick up speed her ears and lips flap in the wind, her tongue lolling far out of her mouth. We haven't driven more than a half-mile when I see a County Sheriff's black-and-white Chevy Tahoe coming toward us from the other direction. Like the time I'd once seen a killer whale cruising the Inland Passage during a kayaking trip, I feel a sense of menace pushing ahead of the actual object.

  “Uh-oh,” Cali says. “That's Wook's car. He supervises the midnight-to-ten shift, so he must be about to get off.”

  The windows of the police vehicle are darkly tinted, but the shape of Wokowski's square head and protruding jaw muscles are discernible through the glass as we pass. For a fraction of a second he and I stare at each other from just a few feet away as our trucks intersect. Even through the obscuring tint I think I can sense animosity radiating toward me. Maybe even something stronger than that. A moment later in my rearview mirror I see his taillights flash on then off before he vanishes around a corner.

  Cali turns around in her seat to look out the rear window. She doesn't say anything.

  “You still think he's not the guy?”

  She shakes her head, still twisted back in her seat and looking out the window. “I don't know anymore. It's spooky, though, him coming out here. Are you going to talk to him?”

  “Soon. When I have some evidence linking him to the letters or the break-in. Right now all I've got is that he's yo
ur ex and that he's following you around.”

  Cali puts her hand on my shoulder as she settles back into her seat. “Remember what I said before, Anton. You'll want to have some backup around when you talk to him.”

  I drive on, slowly now, but the big truck with the gumball lights on top doesn't reappear in the rearview mirror.

  FOURTEEN

  EVEN THOUGH IT'S SUNDAY MORNING, Lydia Grayson, the manager of the County Attorney's Office, consents to meet McGee and me in front of the courthouse. She is a stern little woman who greets us with a small nod and a disapproving gaze. Around her neck is a heavy wooden cross on a chain. We have probably interrupted her weekly worship and she doesn't look too happy about it.

  I'm taken aback when my boss mentions to her that he had known her late husband, a state Fish and Wildlife officer, who was, in McGee's words, a “feisty son of a bitch.” I wince, unable to imagine this woman not being horribly offended at having her dead spouse described in such terms.

  But McGee somehow gets away with such things. The hard, wrinkled face softens a little as she says, “Let me assure you, Mr. McGee, that he often described you in similar terms.”

  My boss gives her his depraved grin. “You're just being kind, Mrs. Grayson.”

  She promptly replies, “No, but I'm sure he was.”

  McGee's bark of laughter turns into a rough, hacking cough that causes him to double over on his walker.

  I look back at the street behind us while McGee recovers and Mrs. Grayson unlocks the glass doors. Above us, to the west, the massive wall of West Gros Ventre Butte looms over the town like a cresting tsunami. The steep hillside is thick with dry, brown grass. It wouldn't take much to ignite it—just a careless smoker tossing a butt or a kid with a bottle rocket.

  From across the street Jim gives me an earnest wave. I'm awake. See? He has parked his rental car so that he can watch the entire front of the glass-and-sandstone building. I'd told him again to keep an eye out for the big cop with the big jaw and to call me on my cell phone if he so much as drives by and gives the courthouse a long look. And, of course, to make sure he comes nowhere near Cali Morrow.