by Martin Clark
“You’re welcome. That’s by far my nicest fish of the season. Congratulations.”
“That was so neat, the whole experience. I can’t begin to tell you.” She balled her hands into celebratory fists and danced in place for an instant, squished her soaked tennis shoes up and down several times and stomped out splashes of water. “Yes!” she shouted.
They stopped for lunch thirty minutes later at a jut of bank with a good level patch to accommodate the table, chairs and cooler. They could see straight down the river for a quarter mile, and across from their small peninsula was a phenomenal swath of rock, a tall, powerful fortress that extended well into the river and caused the water to go dead around its base. The formation was almost Gothic, had chunky spires and gaps and recesses and ledges and weird cuts that looked vaguely like animals of some sort, maybe lions or gorillas. The top of the rock was higher than the tallest pine on the bank, and its sides were stained gray, green and white. It looked surreal and rough-hewn at the same time, brought to mind a hobbit’s fantastical dwelling, and Joel had taken to imagining it as a home for furtive river imps who were most likely benign but probably had sharp incisors twice as long as a man’s.
Lisa and Karl had walked behind some skinny pines and scrub growth while Joel was unfolding the portable table and laying out lunch and blush wine. He saw them arguing again, picked them up in the periphery but didn’t stop what he was doing, kept his eyes on the plates, napkins and silverware, minded his own affairs and not theirs. He heard the word “bitch,” then heard it a second and third time. The last time it came from across the stream, evidently had carried over the water, bounced off the high, brute stone and doubled back. Joel unfolded a canvas chair and locked its legs.
This set-to didn’t conclude like the first one Joel had witnessed, however, didn’t stop with Karl glowering and cursing and Lisa timidly surrendering. Joel popped open another chair and twisted it steady, had to twice drag his foot through a layer of small, loose stones to get all four legs stationary. He heard Karl’s rabid voice again, saw him pointing at Lisa, the end of his index finger so near her nose it might as well have been touching. Joel put his hands in his pockets, checked the table. He heard her voice—it seemed to come ricocheting from the rock tower as well—and she slapped her husband’s hand, skin striking skin. Joel thought Oh my goodness and felt his stomach spasm, took a mouth breath and started to shout at them.
Karl punched Lisa square in the face with a full fist. She tumbled backward and landed on her butt, managed to catch herself with one arm and break some of the fall. Joel yelled at Karl to quit it and ran to where they were, lost traction in the rocks and stumbled for the first few strides. When he got to them, Lisa was sitting on the ground, her legs splayed, blood rushing from a gash above her eye, and Karl was glaring at her, completely unrepentant, his fist still clenched. Her blood was all down her cheek and neck and making a mess of her shirt. She felt the cut and attempted to clean her face, but wiped sand and grit into the wound and accidentally spread the blood onto her pants, left a crimson print on her thigh.
“Are you okay, Lisa?” Joel asked. He was panting, more from the shock than exertion. He’d never seen a man hit a woman, only counseled couples about abuse and evil in his study, sent them home with a list of Bible verses to read and a marriage handbook.
She stared at Karl, and he stared at her, and neither of them said anything.
“Lisa?” Joel said.
“You are such a coward.” She meant this for her husband. “A common coward.”
Karl bent his leg at the knee, cocking it as if he were going to kick her. “You’ll see what kind of a coward I am if you don’t shut your friggin’ mouth.”
Joel had watched enough. He felt sure Karl was going to sail into her with his foot, and he stepped between them. “That’ll do, Karl. Don’t you hit her again.”
“Oh—Mr. Fucking Fisherman. Who do you think you are, huh? I’ll tell you—a loser who paddles a stinkin’ boat for tourist tips.”
“Leave her alone, Karl.”
“Mind your own damn business,” he growled.
“This, Karl, is my business.”
“So what are you going to do about it, fisherman?”
Joel had lost fifteen pounds of preacher’s lard since arriving in Missoula— tuna fish and cereal had replaced Brunswick stew and pancakes—and eight hours at the oars twice a week was beginning to show in his arms, shoulders and chest. He was a foot taller than Karl and was wearing sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat that kept much of his face obscured. “Try me,” he said. “In fact, I wish you would.”
“Yeah, right. So you can sue me and get rich? You’ve got nothing to lose, do you? It’d be like early retirement for a deadbeat like you.”
“Be that as it may, you need to back off. Otherwise your next fight’s going to be with me.”
“You think I’m afraid of a piece of shit like you? Do you?”
“I don’t know, Karl.” Joel removed his dark glasses. “Are you?”
“Neither one of you is worth my time. You go right ahead and be the white knight and see what good it does you.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Joel told him.
“How would you have any idea?” Karl snorted. “Huh? You don’t think she deserved every bit she got?”
“I’m not going to argue with you. Move out of my way.”
Joel used two hands to stand Lisa, took her by the wrist and underneath her armpit and helped her to the boat. He set her against its varnished side and tended to her with sterile pads from the first aid kit and a towel he’d soaked in the river. She was completely silent but she didn’t seem outside herself, didn’t appear dazed or disoriented, followed everything around her with attentive eyes and flinched when the cold towel touched her cut for the first time. Her blood dotted the path they’d taken to the boat, showed up here and there in the light dirt and on the sides and crowns of stones.
Joel was able to clean her face, but the injury was to the bone and the bleeding difficult to staunch. Every time he peeled back the towel, the gash poured blood, and he felt sure she needed stitches to close the meat and skin above her eye. He told her to hold the towel to the wound and apply pressure, to push until she couldn’t stand the hurt.
Karl had picked up a rod and waded into the river, pretending to be unconcerned with his wife and her injury. He was fishing close to the bank, in lifeless, shallow water that couldn’t possibly hold trout or fish of any kind, and each cast thwacked the shoal behind him and lost momentum.
Joel put Lisa into the boat and shouted to him. He had to scream his name twice before Karl acknowledged him. “Let’s go,” Joel said.
“I’m not through,” Karl answered and turned his head.
Amazing, Joel thought. “I’m going to say this once. Get over here now—immediately—or I’ll leave you where you are. You hear me? It’s a long, long walk to the road.” Joel didn’t wait to see if he was coming or not. He pushed the boat from behind, scraping it over the bottom until he felt it surge and float.
“Okay, okay,” Karl said. “Jeez, keep your pants on.”
He clambered into the bow, and Joel shot them into the swift heart of the stream, leaned forward and extended his arms with every oar stroke and didn’t let up until he saw the rusted iron bridge above the take-out. Karl kept fishing during the trip, never stopped casting, and occasionally he would hum or whistle, mostly songs that were unrecognizable, but once he added words and Joel was positive he heard “Danke Schoen.” Lisa pressed her cut with the towel and gauze pads and smiled at Joel when he asked if she was doing all right.
None of them spoke while Joel stored their tackle and the cooler and winched the boat onto its trailer. Lisa sat cross-legged at the edge of the river, as far away from them as the land could carry her, her shirt, hands and jeans sullied, the towel saturated with red in the middle and at every corner, tie-dyed almost. Karl didn’t seem in the least embarrassed or contrite, and he slouch
ed against the hood of the truck and provoked Joel with an eye-to-eye challenge every opportunity he got.
When Joel finished loading and packing and they were prepared to leave, Karl walked to where his wife was seated. Joel started to trail him, but he noticed there was nothing menacing or aggressive in the way he was going after her. Joel stayed near the truck, watched Karl sidle up to her and say something, and then she said something and stood, handed him the towel for a moment and brushed the butt of her jeans. She took the towel again, and they walked side by side to the truck. As they got closer, Karl hung his arm around her shoulder. She didn’t show any reaction, but she let him do it and waited demurely while he sprung the front seat forward and boosted her into the rear of the cab.
There was nothing anyone could say during the trip from the Blackfoot. Both Joel and Karl would look at Lisa as they drove down the interstate. Speed limits were very much an abstract notion in Montana, but Joel still never traveled above sixty-five, was uneasy going too fast, afraid of losing control and crashing or being the one motorist out of a thousand who actually got a citation from a Missoula cop. He glanced at the speedometer and was doing eighty, as fast as he had moved in a vehicle since he was a teenager joyriding in his cousin’s souped-up Gran Torino.
Instead of returning to the shop, Joel took an early exit off the interstate and turned on to Orange Street.
“Where’re you going?” Karl asked, the first words anyone had spoken during the trip.
“Shortcut,” Joel said.
“Oh.”
Minutes later Joel made a sudden right at Spruce, and Karl was on to him, saw the signs for Saint Patrick’s Hospital. “No fucking way, my man. Uh-uh. What do you think you’re doing?’
“I’m taking your wife to get proper medical treatment.” Joel saw Karl eye the steering wheel and tightened his grip, kept his hands clenched at ten and two.
“You’re wasting your time. And you’re kidnapping us. She doesn’t want to be here and neither do I. I’ll have your ass for this, you understand?”
“Somehow, I’m not too worried,” Joel answered. He came to a stop at the emergency room, shifted the truck into park and set the floor brake.
“She’s fine, okay?” Karl said. “You don’t want to be here, do you?” He twisted to address his wife. It was bright outside, the middle of the afternoon, and everything inside the truck was clear and precise.
Lisa didn’t speak. Half her face was still covered by the towel.
“Okay, look. Here’s the deal.” Karl’s tone changed, lost some of its belligerence. “What’ll it take? A hundred bucks? Two?” He took his wallet out. “You tell me.”
Joel cut the engine. “Do you want to go in and fetch help or do you want me to?”
“Tell him not to do this, Lisa.” Karl thinned his lips and raised his chin, stared straight ahead. “You better tell him.”
To Joel’s delight, she sat mute, only shifted her towel to place a dry spot over the wound.
“Lisa?”
A young man in uniform exited the hospital and approached them, and Joel knew immediately just what kind of person he was. His hair was shaved to the skin on the sides of his head, and his shirt was a tiny bit small across the chest but was clean and proud and without a single wrinkle. He didn’t have a gun, although there were all sorts of pouches and attachments hanging from his belt, most noticeably a radio with a stumpy rubber antenna. He came to the window of the truck, and Joel switched the key to give them power and lowered the glass. The man’s silver nameplate said Douglas, the elaborate patch on his sleeve announced he was hospital security. A green kid putting in hours, hoping to catch a ride with the real police, spit and polish and by the book, probably a few credits shy of his criminal justice degree at the community college. There was no way Karl would get loose from this guy.
“Afternoon,” the officer said. “Can I help you folks?” He crowded the door, almost sticking his head in the cab, and ran his eyes along the interior, surveyed Joel, then Karl, then halted—bingo—at Lisa.
“Yes sir. You can,” Joel spoke up. “Lisa’s got a bad gash and needs stitches. I’m Joel King. I work for Dixon Kreager at the Royal Coachman. They were with me when it happened—I saw the whole thing.” He thrust his thumb at the passenger seat. “This is her husband, Karl.”
“Saw it, huh?” Douglas said suspiciously. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, had a wispy mustache and two pink pimples on his chin.
“Yep,” Joel said.
“Yeah, she took a bad fall,” Karl interjected. “Scared the heck out of me.”
“That the story?” Douglas asked Lisa.
“It’s a bad cut,” she replied without any hesitation.
“Why don’t you help her to the ER?” Joel suggested. He cracked the door and Douglas moved away.
Joel got out of the cab, and he and Douglas led Lisa down from the rear of the truck, braced her when she stepped from the running board onto the pavement. Karl scurried around from the opposite side and went into elaborate ministrations, waved Douglas off her arm and helped guide her toward the emergency room entrance.
“I’ll need your name and number,” Douglas told Joel as they got closer to the hospital.
“Sure,” Joel said. “You finish getting her processed, and I’ll wait here and give you all the information I can. I won’t leave till we’ve had a chance to discuss things.”
The doors opened automatically, and Lisa stopped at the threshold, smiled with the uncovered portion of her mouth and offered Joel her hand. They were far enough along that Joel could smell the ER, the sterile scent typical of every hospital, mostly alcohol and powerful cleanser for the floors. He accepted her hand with both of his, gently, in the same manner he’d received scores of others in wards and waiting rooms and intensive care units, wrapped her to the wrist with a touch suggesting he could siphon off her grief, take it for himself and shunt it to a harmless place.
“My fish was so much fun. Thank you, Joel,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Hey, like I said, it’s the biggest one I’ve seen this year.”
“I appreciate your taking care of me.”
He released her hand. “Sure. You make sure you take care of yourself, okay?”
“Okay. Was he really the biggest?”
“He was. Absolutely.”
Douglas steered her to a window and the receiving nurse, and Karl stood beside Joel, waiting until his wife and the security guard were out of earshot. “Listen you stupid bastard, I—”
Joel advanced on him, jumped in his face. “No, you listen.” He summoned ire and eloquence and made them stick together, preached words to Karl that were righteous and completely commanding. “I will not be intimidated by you. I’m not your wife. You can threaten and bray all you wish, but it won’t faze me. You’ve done a terrible wrong. You are less than a man, beneath an insect even. I’ll tell the truth about this, no matter what, so you need to walk away from me before I wring your craven neck.”
Karl immediately realized no amount of bluster or bribery would influence Joel or mitigate his fervor, and the wife-beating dentist wilted, dropped his shoulders and slunk down the hall, afraid to say anything else or return Joel’s anger, cowed by the sheer obscenity of what he’d done and the resoluteness in Joel’s voice.
thirteen
When Joel arrived home from the hospital, two identical letters were waiting for him on the kitchen table, both in plain envelopes, both typewritten without any return address. The postmarks indicated they’d been sent from Nevada, and Joel speculated that they were Edmund and Sa’ad’s doings, would let him know more about handing over the jewelry so it could be taken back to Las Vegas. Baker’s toy dump truck was parked in the middle of the table, and there was a jelly smear and a dirty knife and a streak of bread crumbs near the truck. A bill, a grocery store flyer, another bill, a credit card solicitation and three skinny catalogues were lying in a scattered, picked-over pile next to Joel’s two pieces of mail. He
took a seat, opened an envelope and unfolded the paper inside:
Dear Preacher Joel,
Thank you for your kind invitation to visit while we are in Montana. We don’t have much time to spend in your part of the world but would like to see you if you’re free. We could meet you Tuesday at noon near the big carousel downtown. I’ll have my grandson Eddie along, and I’m sure he’d enjoy experiencing this wonderful attraction.
Regards,
Lyle Jewel
The second letter read exactly as the first, evidently was simply a fail-safe, a precaution that helped the odds where possible mishaps and careless postmen were concerned. Joel was about to tear them both into small pieces, then thought better of it and crammed the envelopes and papers in his front pocket, deciding to keep them and hide them under his mattress and hang on to them to use as thin, lean proof against Edmund and Sa’ad, if it ever came to that. Not much, but better than nothing. The jewel reference was fairly ham-fisted, and down the road it might strike a detective or prosecutor as incriminating and too clever by half, especially since there was most likely no such person living in Las Vegas.
Joel could hear Baker in the rear of the house, talking excitedly to his mother about going to a pizza party with friends from school. The boy came out of his room into the hall, spied Joel and ran to him full tilt, windmilling his arms as if his shoulders lacked sockets and tendons while he made his approach. He bounded onto Joel’s lap without breaking stride, crashed against his uncle’s chest and hugged his neck with warm, sticky hands.
The two of them were starting to get along well. When Joel had first moved into the basement, he was a stranger to a child who’d been abandoned by his feckless father, and he never once forced the issue, never bought Baker a baseball glove, or talked to him more than the boy wanted, or chased him through the house like a fake monster and tossed him onto the sofa and tickled his ribs. Joel washed dishes, cued the VCR, said good morning and good night, taught his nephew the “God is great” blessing and let the child take his time, circle closer at his own pace.