NICK LOADED his pack and his truck and drove to Rapid Riggers to borrow the Bronco. Trying to forget what had to happen, that he was going to have to leave the river outfit for good, he moved his gear to the company vehicle and headed south on the highway toward Mexican Hat and Bluff, under a gray Christmas sky, through the snowspackled desert. His thoughts consumed the miles, and a familiar claustrophobia descended on him as he neared Blanding and the town of Covenant.
He fought it, fought thinking about things that were done and could never be undone, fought the paralyzing remorse of one error so grave that for him it had become a mortal sin. Fought the questions that never ceased. Where are you? Please tell me you’re all right. He fought so hard, became so absent, that the desert swallowed him, and he didn’t notice when he reached the Navajo reservation.
Nick loved and hated the reservation. Indian blood ran in his veins, from his mother’s side and maybe from his father’s, too, but he’d never known what kind. His mother had worn her hair in a ponytail and had spoken to him in her own tongue when his father wasn’t around to hear. Nick couldn’t recall a word of that language now. During his childhood, she’d been away from home often, working, and she’d disappeared altogether when he was eight. Died, though he hadn’t learned that until he was an adult and had looked up the records. He still missed her.
To camp on Navajo land required permission, but Nick disregarded that. He didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to utter a word to another human. Didn’t want to say his own name.
He paid cash when he filled the Bronco’s tank in Tuba City. Then he took a four-wheel-drive road into nowhere, into a place called Tanner’s Wash, and he left the vehicle under some cottonwoods. He drew his heavy pack onto his back and began to walk, knowing he would walk every hour of daylight and into the dark, until he could no longer feel.
DAY CALLED GRACE and told her she wasn’t feeling well but she’d try to make it for dinner if she could. Somehow, she would fill the hours till then. She was making cookies and getting drunk when her doorbell rang.
Fast Susan, a Rapid Riggers guide and a friend of Day’s, stood on the doormat. Susan was six feet tall, with a blond Mohawk and a heart as big as the river. She’d given up a child for adoption when she was seventeen.
“Merry Christmas!” She held out a poinsettia. “The Dry Gulch was getting rid of these, so I thought I’d bring you one.” Susan worked as a waitress at the Dry Gulch Saloon during the off-season.
“Thanks.” Day embraced her and accepted the plant. “Come on in.” Her body weak from what had happened with Nick, from the finality of it, she walked ahead of Susan into the kitchen to set down the pot and take her cookies out of the oven. She lifted the bottle of cognac on the counter. “Want some?”
Susan eyed a nonexistent watch on her wrist, then shrugged dramatically. “Why not? How are you, Day?”
“Fine.” She blinked, smiled at Susan. “What about you?”
“So-so. It’s not the greatest day, you know?”
“Jennifer?”
Shedding her black-and-white cowhide jacket, Susan nodded.
Day knew she had listed on a register to be reunited with her daughter if Jennifer should ever look for her. It hadn’t happened yet.
Susan helped herself to a glass from the cupboard. She squinted at Day. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.” Day quaffed some cognac.
“No, fess up. What is it? A man? Oh, no, let me guess—”
“It’s nothing.” She never talked about Nick with girlfriends, with Grace, with anyone. Nick had never shared their secret, either.
Susan picked up her jacket and fished in the pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?”
“No.” One Christmas cigarette. What could it hurt? Day wasn’t sure what made her resist, except the certainty that the deprivation was making her stronger. She set an ashtray on the bar and regarded the sugar cookies. “I was going to take these to Grace’s tonight. What do you say we eat them all, instead?”
“A woman after my own heart.” Susan winked at her. “Hey, let’s talk about the lip-sync contest. Have you got anything planned?”
Day tried to summon enthusiasm for the upcoming Moab event, the biggest party of the winter. But a lump formed in her throat when she remembered other lip-sync years, other routines. She and Nick had put something together a few times, always humorous. They’d always placed. Afraid her face showed what she was feeling, she turned to dig through her cupboard for a bowl to mix icing.
Behind her, Susan said, “Would another time be better, Day?”
Day shook her head, grabbed a paper napkin from a holder on the counter, tried to hold back the tears.
“That son of a bitch,” Susan muttered, clearly meaning someone in particular.
Day wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I’ve just had a bad morning.”
Without comment, Susan lit her cigarette and poured herself some cognac. “So, the lip-sync,” she said after a moment. “Let’s brainstorm.”
Grateful for her friend’s presence, Day gave herself to the conversation. It couldn’t take away the pain but could help the time pass.
FOUR DAYS after Christmas, Nick stumbled on a cave among the slickrock monoliths crowding the mesa near Tanner’s Wash. Ducking inside, he found that pictographs, paintings, covered the walls. In one place there were dozens of handprints, like a community record.
Nick adjusted his headlamp and ventured farther into the darkness. The cavern was dry, clean with the smell of dirt. As the ceiling grew lower and he had to crouch, he spotted a gap in the rock. Leaving his pack, Nick wedged through the slot into another room. Bats slept on the ceiling. He made his way onto a rock ledge and shone his headlamp at the floor six feet below. A pictograph on the wall showed a man lying on his back. He was painted white. Dead? Was this a burial cave?
Nick’s heartbeat accelerated. He’d vowed not to do this anymore. Buying Rapid Riggers had been a turning point. But the recent days had been without peace or joy. In contrast, this was a fine moment. Swiftly he edged back to the main part of the cave and went out into the dusky afternoon sunlight to look around. The cave mouth was beside a wash and partially hidden by scrub oaks and cottonwoods. No one around for miles. But he waited, listening.
Nothing.
Back in the cave, he collected the avalanche shovel from his pack and returned to the burial room. With a quick glance at the bats, he plunged the spade into the earth, not caring about anything except the moment, this obsession he’d first learned as a twelve-year-old foster kid wanting to make money to buy a basketball. His foster father—his second foster father, an unemployed miner—had said, “I’ll show you how to earn you some money. You come with me.” He’d paid Nick a dollar for his first find—a black-onwhite olla.
Back then the pot had probably sold for five hundred dollars on the black market. Today Nick could get much more. It had taken him sixteen years to learn how not to get screwed.
His shovel struck something and he stopped. Cloth. Bone.
“I bet they didn’t bury you all by yourself.” Picking another spot directly over the skeleton, he dug in again and heard and felt a splintering crack.
The shovel handle. Broken.
He’d meant to replace it—back in November. Now he was fifteen miles from the Bronco, much farther from town. He could hike out, go buy another. But he’d promised Shep he’d take her to the New Year’s Eve party at the River Inn. He’d told Day he’d be home by New Year’s.
That world. That other world, where no one really knew him.
Staring at the broken shovel, he came back to himself. What are you doing? You weren’t going to do this anymore.
The primitive picture of the white figure sleeping attracted him. A shaman? Probably. Whoever it was, his life was over, and his children and grandchildren were dead and gone, too. Nobody cared about this man. He sure wasn’t anyone’s beloved relative anymore.
But this was the ugliest part of pot hunting. Disturbing the dead. It was why pot hunters were called “moki” diggers. Nick had dug a burial cave once before and sold his finds for twenty thousand dollars.
So what had changed?
Day, sobbing, grabbing his arms and screaming at him, telling him he didn’t make love to anyone else like he did to her.
You’re shit, Nick, he thought. From shit you came, and to shit you will return.
The bone exposed by his shovel seemed obscene.
Sometimes he wondered if Kelly lay in some shallow grave like this.
Who would want a seven-year-old girl with a messed-up face? Why would good people take that kind of risk?
The night he’d told Day things, told her about his childhood, he’d said Kelly had been taken to a different foster home. A lie.
He knelt and used his hands to scoop the dirt back into the hole he’d made, smoothing the loose dust. In the sandy soil, he touched something cool and smooth like stone.
Too small for a pot. The wrong shape for a rock.
Nick pulled out the object. It was a ceramic dog. A coyote?
An effigy.
He’d never held one in his life. Never even seen one, except in books. Not even in a museum. They were rare.
They were worth a fortune, but it wasn’t money that made him hold the dusty figurine, the ancient thing someone had carved. It wasn’t money that made him stand up and take it from the burial cave.
I won’t take anything else.
He was quitting. This was the end.
But he would keep one souvenir.
THAT NIGHT he hiked till dark, ate cold refried beans from a can and slept under the stars. At dawn he was up, and by noon he’d reached the Bronco.
A white Blazer was parked in the wash behind it.
There was a bar of lights on the roof.
Nick’s mouth dried up and immediately he thought of the effigy. Why had he taken it? Suddenly it seemed meaningless. Worse than meaningless. Just stupid. If he’d wanted souvenirs, he had three at home, three artifacts hidden in a box in his trailer, pieces he’d liked too much to sell.
Now, he’d given in to temptation—the one time it mattered.
The guy can’t know you’ve got it.
Nick walked tall and straight toward the Bronco as a uniform of the Navajo tribal police climbed from the Blazer. The officer’s gut hung over his belt, but his manner was relaxed.
“Hello,” he said. “This your vehicle?”
“Yes, sir.” Nick filled his mind with nonincriminating images. Refried beans. Climbing harness. Anything but the object in his pack.
The cop pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. “It’s been here two days. Doing some backpacking?”
Shit. “Yes.”
“Can I see your permit?”
“Permit?”
The cop backed up a step, eyed the almost completely faded letters on the side of the Bronco. Rapid Riggers River and Jeep Expeditions.
Nick’s stomach rolled.
“May I see your driver’s license?”
Carefully Nick released the hip strap of his pack, slid it off his shoulders. The guy couldn’t ask to search his pack. The effigy was carefully wrapped in a long undershirt in the top pocket. If only he hadn’t taken it. From a side compartment, he produced his wallet and removed his driver’s license, glad his boatman’s license was out of sight in another slot.
The cop examined the license. “What do you do in Moab, Nicholas?”
Did he have to answer?
This guy looked like he could wait for the second coming.
“I’m an outfitter.”
The tribal policeman’s face showed no reaction. None was needed. Outfitters knew about permits. “Would you please wait in your vehicle?”
“Yes, sir.” Knowing he wasn’t going to leave with anything worse than a ticket and his own shame, Nick retrieved his keys and unlocked the Bronco while the cop walked back to his cruiser.
Nick tossed his pack onto the rear seat, got behind the wheel and waited, listening to the distant crackle of the police radio. He closed his eyes.
Eventually the officer returned with a small clipboard. He handed Nick his license. “I’m going to cite you, Nicholas, for camping without…”
Nick listened to the spiel and signed the ticket.
He couldn’t see the officer’s eyes behind his sunglasses as the man said, “Don’t visit us again.”
He nodded.
The policeman returned to his vehicle, and Nick started the Bronco. There was nothing else to do. The cop was watching.
He drove away with a stolen artifact, wishing he could put it back.
ELLA FITZGERALD CROONED “Love Is Here to Stay” through the stereo system, while a mirrored globe revolved near the ceiling of the Princess Room, the magnificent dining room of the River Inn. Though the room had not yet been fully restored, the hardwood floor was refinished; it was a perfect place for Moab locals to dance in formal wear and toast the new year and Zac and Grace’s venture.
Day had purchased her gown at a vintage-clothing store in Salt Lake that summer. Mandarin collar, long-sleeved, fitted down its entire length except for a slit up one side. The dress was pale gold and covered with black velveteen leaves and vines. When she’d bought it, she’d eagerly anticipated wearing it during the holidays. Now she hardly cared.
Pip never left her side. As they danced, Day occasionally glimpsed Nick in the crowd. He must have come home that day; tonight was the first she’d seen him, when she spotted him across the room with Shep.
“Day, would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” asked Pip. “For the new year? Grace tells me there’s a place that’s very good.”
It shouldn’t have been a difficult question. Pip really cared about her. Twice now he’d mentioned her visiting England. She should be thrilled by his interest—a chance to get over Nick. But her emotions weren’t working, except for the sheer agony she felt whenever she recalled Christmas morning in the Ice Box Canyon.
Dinner with Pip. “I’m not very good company right now, Pip. Thank you very much for asking, but I think I’d rather not.”
His brow crimped in concern over his expressive green eyes. “Can I help?”
“You are. I’m enjoying dancing.”
He replied with a remark she couldn’t hear but knew was charming and flattering, and she smiled up at him, pretending her heart wasn’t torn in pieces.
FROM THE REFRESHMENT table, where he was drinking punch with Dirty Bob, Nick watched Day and Pip dancing. As the couple spun out of sight behind some other people, Nick moved a foot to one side, trying to see them.
Bob murmured, “She’s an adventurous spirit.”
“What?” Distracted, Nick saw where his friend was looking—fortunately not at him but at Shep. Nick had practically forgotten that his date stood several feet away, talking class-V rapids with a River Legends guide named Harry.
“I want to do the Upper Animas,” she shouted to Harry over the music. “We should get a trip together this spring.”
“She talks about rivers like they’re men she wants to screw.” As soon as he’d said it, Nick wished he hadn’t. Shep had been his lover. And wasn’t her “adventurous spirit” what had attracted him in the first place?
“One should be more reverent about rivers,” Bob agreed.
The ironic comment was vintage Dirty Bob. He meant, One should be more reverent about one’s sexual partners, but we’re river guides so we love the river more than people. Rivers are what we hold in reverence, but, God, aren’t we messed up?
“If you’d like me to take her off your hands…” his friend volunteered.
Nick didn’t answer.
The music switched to the Indigo Girls. “All right!” said Bob. “This is my favorite song. They’ve got it down. We’re all overcoming past-life baggage. You and I were Sahara princes in our last lives. That’s why we’re river rats in this one.” Reincarnation was one of Bob’s favorite topics. Preparing to expound, he ladled himself another glass of punch and stiffened it with vodka from a fifth he’d brought. With drunken generosity, he added some to Nick’s glass without asking.
Nick frowned at the drink.
“Sorry. Forgot you don’t drink that much. Here, let me pour you another.”
“No, it’s fine.” Tasting it experimentally, Nick said, “I’m going outside.” Where he didn’t have to see Day.
Day wanted to leave before midnight. She wouldn’t be able to stand all the kissing. When the last notes of Bonnie Raitt’s “Have a Heart” faded away, she excused herself to Pip and searched for Grace among the bodies on the dance floor to say goodbye.
Her sister was nowhere in sight, so she decided to look in the kitchen—always a likely place to find Grace.
As she left the dance floor, Dirty Bob wrapped an arm around her shoulders and breathed alcohol on her. “Hi, May-Day. How’re you?”
“Great.” She hoped he would stay the night at the Inn rather than drive home. Grace and Zac had invited people to bring sleeping bags or use the beds upstairs; there was plenty of room.
“You look beautiful this evening,” he said gallantly. “You can be on my broomball team anytime.”
Day laughed and squeezed his arm. “Take it easy, Bob. I’m going to find Grace.”
The boatman lifted his glass in cheerful salute, and Day continued toward the kitchen.
Only one light glowed, over Grace’s restaurant range, and her sister was just coming down the hall from her bedroom. Grace was dressed all in white, a Ben Rogan dress that had been a gift from Zachary. Adjusting a large white earring, she said, “Hey, sis, how’s it going?”
“Good. I was going to head home.”
Grace paused at the junction of the hallway and the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”
“Sure.” Her sister would never love a man who hurt her. Grace had even left Zac once, and he had come after her.
She’s strong, thought Day. Not like me.
“Is everything okay at Rapid Riggers?” Though she’d sold her half of the outfit, Grace maintained an almost proprietary interest.
“Everything’s fine. I’m tired, that’s all. The holidays.” To stanch her sister’s questions, Day added, “Let’s get together soon and work up something for the lip-sync contest. With Susan.”
“Great.” Smiling at the mention of something in Day’s normal routine, Grace kissed her. “Let’s find your coat. You’re not drunk, are you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Do you want me to have Zac take you home?”
“No, no.”
They wandered down the hall to where the coats lay on the couch in the parlor. Two Current Adventures river guides lounged by the hearth drinking beer and talking to Zachary. He helped Day on with her black cashmere coat, and she said good-night to him and Grace and went back through the hall and into the kitchen.
As she reached for the door handle, the door opened and almost banged her face.
“Excuse me.”
That deep voice. Day retreated as Nick stepped inside. He was alone, and she slipped past him to go out.
Nick held the door, the last of any good feelings he might have had for the night gone. You look beautiful. He wanted to ask if she was safe to drive, but she never looked back, just left the screened porch and faded into the night, all but her bright hair.
He couldn’t take care of her anymore.
Someday soon they were going to have to talk about Rapid Riggers, but he wasn’t ready yet. A good solution would be to get out of town again. For longer. He’d call her in the morning.
He shut the kitchen door but stood against it as the Porsche’s engine and then its lights came on. He said a prayer she’d get home safely.
IT WAS ALMOST ONE-THIRTY when Nick and Shep returned to her house. The lights were off, and Shep said in an overly happy, overly optimistic voice, “Nobody’s home. Just us.”
She knew what he was going to say, Nick could tell.
He told himself it wasn’t going to be bad like it had been with Day. Nothing could be that bad. “Shep, I’ve got to…I can’t…” Somehow he found the words to tell her that she was too nice a woman for a man like him.
DRIVING HOME on the river road, he was numb. Shep had cried. Guess she’d thought that when she “set him free” he’d come back. Had he been born to make women cry? Why did they even like him?
Because they don’t know. He tried to slough off the feeling that clung to his skin like dirt, the smell of human waste in the air. He’d told Day about the shack and the cellar and the springhouse. She’d held him while he said it and made love to him afterward. It had felt good. It had felt so good.
Day, you don’t know everything. You don’t know how bad I am.
How disgusting.
He kept his pace slow, watched the curves of sandstone illuminated by his headlights. The road seemed monotonous, and he thought about leaving Moab. Maybe when he returned, things would be the same as they’d been before.
But Nick knew not to expect that kind of magic. Ever since he’d bought Grace’s half of Rapid Riggers—maybe since even before then, when Sam Sutter had died—his life had been changing. He couldn’t change back to the person he’d been before he was rejected by the man he’d depended on.
He couldn’t become again the person he’d been before he’d hurt Day in that canyon, before he’d made her break down and cry so hard in front of him.
He slowed for the familiar bend in the road after mile fourteen, the last curving red-rock corridor before Castle Valley. Just around the first curve, a red Subaru with a boat rack on the roof stuck out of the tamarisk; it stood at an angle, on the river side of the road, its tailgate over the blacktop.
Nick braked. Then, slowly, pulled over to the shoulder.
What was Bob doing?
But he knew. Bob hadn’t parked the car that way, with the tail in the road.
Broken glass winked at him from the asphalt.
He’s walking around here somewhere.
His mind suddenly keen, utterly clear, Nick grabbed his headlamp from the glove box. Rubber gloves and a disposable face shield. A voice inside him kept asking questions he didn’t want to hear, questions that argued with the lies he was trying to tell his instincts.
Why didn’t he put on his flashers if he had to leave the car here?
Nick flicked on the Chevy’s flashers, got out, closed the door, and calmly crossed the road.
There won’t be anyone there. Someone picked him up. He’s drunk, so he forgot the flashers.
The pavement under his boots was icy. From the still automobile, music played. Reggae. Loud.
He’s in there. Dammit, he’s in there.
Far away down the river corridor, headlights panned a field of white over the Navajo sandstone walls, then went away. Nick lit his headlamp and shone it at the Subaru through the back window.
A figure was slumped over the wheel.
He almost slipped on the ice, moving too fast. The front end of the car was crunched, the windshield broken, and he couldn’t open the door or see through the shattered driver’s window. The stereo blasted Bob Marley. “Lively Up Yourself.”
He circled the back of the car, past the familiar bumper stickers—FRANKLY, MY DEAR, I DON’T WANT A DAM and INDIGO GIRLS—and through the mud and leafless tammies. The passenger door worked.
The car smelled like blood, and he saw it spurting red against the windshield.
“Bob? Are you okay?” As he shouted over the stereo, he drew on his face shield and gloves.
No answer, no motion from the figure. Shit, Bob, it’s not time for that next life. “Bob!”
Adjusting his headlamp, he crawled into the car. Bob was breathing, in labored raspy breaths. Nick put direct pressure on the spurting wound. Compound fracture of the femur. Blood sprayed around his hand, and he repositioned it and found the pressure point in the femoral artery with his other hand as the music blared in his ear. He checked to make sure he was controlling the bleeding. There was so much blood it was hard to tell, and he couldn’t let go, couldn’t even spare a hand to turn off the music. He should have brought bandages, should have brought his whole kit.
Was Bob bleeding anywhere else? Through the red splotches on his mask, Nick surveyed Bob’s body. His left leg was broken, too, and his head was bloody. His ear seemed to glisten. Trying to see, Nick knocked his mask against Bob’s shoulder and dislodged his headlamp, too. It fell to the seat behind him, but now he could see. There was pink fluid coming out of Bob’s right ear.
He peered through the bloody windshield toward the road, begging for headlights, listening to the wailing pulsing song.