New Mexico.
All over again, Troy hated Ruby Ryan. Everything about her reminded him of Charlene. Both of them curses that wouldn’t go away.
“What’s got him?” Odegard asked.
Dom didn’t know. His orders were to prepare supplies for an excursion to Bargamin Creek.
“One day, he can’t get off the chair. Next day, he’s ready to go.”
Gus Odegard didn’t like Edwin Ryan. Although he looked Gus in the eye, it wasn’t a real look. Nor did he really listen. On the other hand, Gus liked Dom a lot. There was nothing to suggest they were related. Adopted, he figured.
“You disturbing the wildlife!” Odegard yelled. “Hunting season ain’t started. You read the rules, ain’t you?”
Troy didn’t stop shooting at the water until Dom had loaded their pack on the Lazy OK’s jetboat. The jog upstream was brief. The boat bounced over the rapids and pulled alongside the rock-littered beach at Bargamin Creek. Early afternoon, the beach was empty. Rafting parties camped the night before had departed. New parties wouldn’t arrive for a few hours.
Dom lay the pack down and started to make camp.
“Boy, this ain’t the place to rest. Best to go up the creek.”
Dom hoisted the pack on his back and headed up the trail. The day was overcast and, according to Odegard, predicted to get colder and wetter by evening.
“How far you want to go?” Dom asked, toiling like a burro.
The hairs on Troy’s neck stiffened. He was in no mood to talk. He was agitated and preoccupied. The serene forest glade and forecast of more rain did not improve his mood. Nor the chatter of Dom Gambolli.
“I hate to cross your opinion, Uncle Edwin.”
“Shut up!”
“But the beach is better for camping. Easier to shelter when it rains. It’s not good sense to start trudging up this way. For what?”
“A half-nigger bastard girl,” Troy muttered.
“I don’t like that language. It’s intolerant.”
“You got that right!” Troy swiped at the mosquito on his cheek. “Something came back to me. The girl we saw at Salmon Falls?”
Dom nodded. He’d seen her. Pretty and statuesque, she looked like a goddess poised over the falls as if she could fly.
“She’s the one!” Troy said.
“Here?” Dom’s unibrow lifted doubtfully.
“Always go with your hunch.”
“I guess it’s possible,” Dom said.
From limited experience, he had learned that many unexpected and farfetched things were possible. His cousin, the smartest member of the Gambolli family, had studied astrophysics at MIT. He told Dom that everything was possible if you lived long enough.
They marched steadily up the incline, Troy cursing Ruby under his breath with every painful step. He had to find and squash her. About that, he had no doubt.
“Knee itches like a son-of-a-bitch,” he yelled at Dom.
Troy slapped the scab to make it quit but it was useless. He stripped and slid down the bank into one of Bargamin’s cold refreshing pools.
Downstream Dom fished. Fishing calmed and cleared his mind. Clearest of all were his impressions of Edwin Ryan. Unpredictable, bent, and maybe bona fide crazy. As soon as the caper on Bargamin Creek was finished, Dom planned to catch the next jetboat to Riggins.
“Hey!” Troy called to a woman with a bundle in her arms, struggling down the path and praying loudly.
“Good Lord!” Hazel shrilled. She staggered backwards and shielded her eyes from the sight of a naked man. After three years of marriage, she’d never seen her husband naked.
“Don’t go!” Troy shouted.
“Please, no!” she shrieked.
Thigh-deep in water, Dom’s concentration shut out everything except the colorful bobbing fly. He was supremely content.
“Grab that woman!” Troy yelled.
“Please, no!” Hazel stumbled on the path.
“Dom!” Troy barked.
Dom was startled from his reverie. Contentment vanished. He placed the rod and fly box on a flat rock and hopped up the bank to block the path.
“God’s will,” Hazel screamed. “Are you a doctor?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What are you then?” she asked.
“Nothing yet,” Dom admitted.
“Is the other man a doctor?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What is he?”
“He knows a lot about cars,” Dom said.
“My child needs a doctor.”
Troy appeared fully clothed. “Excuse me, ma’am, I didn’t mean for anyone to notice me.”
“I got to find a doctor,” she panted.
“There’s a ways to go before you reach the river,” Dom said.
“How far?” She didn’t have much reserve left.
“At the river, somebody will take you downstream to Mr. Odegard’s place. He’ll call the rangers and whatever else you need,” Dom said.
“You reckon?”
Dom stepped forward. “I can carry the child.”
Hazel smiled although unaccustomed to strangers and kindness. “We’re on a mission from God,” Troy explained, intercepting Lucas and returning the boy to his mother’s arms.
“I am too,” Hazel asserted.
“We got twelve to twenty-four hours to find a girl,” Troy said. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Mine is matters of life and death too,” Hazel said.
“We understand she might be on this trail. She’s a colored girl.” Troy dropped his voice. “I’m from the World Disease Convention Center in Orlando. You heard of that?”
“I heard of Orlando,” Hazel said.
“I’m sorry I’m not a doctor.” Troy dabbed at the perspiration on his upper lip. “I’m a tracker.”
“A tracker?” Dom asked, torn between belief and disbelief.
“We got high classified clearance security to believe this girl could have a deadly disease.”
“She was there last night,” Hazel cried out and pointed to the trail. “We slept next to each other. My boy, sick and all, will he catch it?”
Troy put his hand on Hazel’s shoulder. His thoughts ran faster than a greased pig, which in Troy Mason’s case was not a figure of speech. He actually knew how fast a greased pig ran. He’d tackled one at his seventh-grade picnic and won a clock radio.
“You have to be intimate,” he said.