TWO

After the first week, I stopped counting the days.

I settled into the routine of fishing, looking for berries and firewood in the forest, finishing that book about Jude Fawley’s miserable life, and taking Reno out for occasional runs, every day growing more and more comfortable with my quiet life in the cabin, where I never had to talk to anyone, never had to think about anyone, even if I still couldn’t stop myself from doing it.

Most mornings I woke to the sound of two nesting hawks calling at each other from opposite sides of the pond. I could make out the shape of the plane from just beyond the west shore of the pond, and from time to time I would look up at it, half expecting it to be gone when I did.

I had started reading The Idiot at page 78, and by page 200 was still trying to figure out who all the characters were and why they kept changing their names every other sentence. I’d have to ask my dad about that sometime. I was sitting on a rock, fishing line in the water and book open, facedown, to hold my place beside me, when Reno snorted, smelling the air, curling his lip back and baring his teeth. A rider was coming from out of the trees, down the lower ridge from where I had come all those days before, no doubt coming toward the smoke spiraling up from the cabin’s stovepipe chimney.

It was Luz Benavidez riding her black-and-white paint, Doats.

I’d been in love with her ever since I could remember, but I never said anything to her to make her think so. We’d seen each other nearly every day since we were kids. I always believed there was a wildness that Luz loved; something I would never have, someone that I could never be. And I wasn’t good enough, or handsome enough for her, anyway. I bit the inside of my mouth so many times when I was around her just to make it hurt so I wouldn’t have to think about her. But it never really worked, and I’d come home some days after school and throw myself down on my bed, frustrated that she never noticed me and that she always treated me just like she treated her younger brother, Gabriel.

And we were such close friends that I was afraid I’d ruin it by telling her I loved her. Sometimes, it was hard enough for me just to say hello to that girl, anyway.

I watched her as she rode along the shore of the pond, confident, sitting straight. I didn’t realize until then how much I had missed my friends. And she looked beautiful, her hair, gold and brown, tied back in two braids wrapped around her head and tucked up into her hat, her pale green eyes shining and visible even at a distance. She was looking right at me and smiling.

She jumped down from Doats and hugged me tight.

“Are you okay?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, if you wanted to disappear, you could have done a better job. I’ve only been out since this morning and I came straight up here.” And then she exhaled a sigh. “Look at you—you look so skinny, Troy.”

I guess I did, too. But I hadn’t really thought much about eating since I’d left. Now I suddenly wanted to tell her about everything that had happened to me and why I had come here. Luz. Every summer her skin got browner while her hair lightened. There were some strands of pure blond running through it, and there was just a little sweat pasting some of the fine strands down to the back of her smooth, soft neck. Her eyes were like her brother’s, serious and calm, wondering and wide.

“Well, I’ve pretty much been living off fish and berries.”

“That’ll turn you into a bear, Troy Stotts. A real skinny one.”

I pulled at a belt loop to hitch my pants a little higher, knowing she was scowling at how my Levi’s dropped below my waist.

“I’m sorry, Luz.” I felt like I disappointed her, again. “Anyway, I found this cabin and kind of made it home for a while.”

“Your home is down there on the lake. Your father is about sick with worrying over you now. Everyone’s been looking for you. Even the sheriff.”

Chase Rutledge’s dad. Looking for me. I knew he couldn’t have been trying too hard. Everyone knew about Clayton Rutledge, just nobody ever said it.

“Well, you can tell him I’m okay. Do you want to see this place?”

“Are you really okay?”

“I said it.”

“You say a lot of things,” she sighed. “But you never even tell your best friends what’s really bugging you.”

I knew that.

I thought about Tommy and Gabe. When we were kids, we’d promised each other to be friends for life. And I suddenly felt like I betrayed them in some way by running off.

Reno liked Doats, who was older and a little indifferent to my horse. His real name was Wild Oats, but Gabe and Luz came up with the shorter call name since Gabe couldn’t say it when he was little. “Anyway, I’ve brought some real food with me if you can fit any of it in you.”

“I could try.”

I showed her how I had set up the cabin. We walked the horses up the shore of the pond, me showing Luz how I had been surviving by fishing. I didn’t tell her what I wanted to, about how I needed to come here, about how I felt seeing her; it just stuck in my throat, formed, but unspoken. Mostly I listened, as Luz told me about the little things from home: how Tom Buller and Gabriel were doing, that her father and Tom’s dad had gone to Wyoming for a horse auction, and that her mother didn’t know that she had come looking for me.

And I could tell that she thought she would find me, too. She had brought ham sandwiches and chocolate cake from home. She also brought along some carrots for the horses.

We ate at the table in the cabin in the late afternoon. I slid it across the floor so we could both sit on the wood bed. I wanted to look at her, but I just looked at the food she unpacked. I felt my face turning red, felt her looking right at me, sitting so close I could feel the static between us, needles from invisible electric magnets.

“When are you coming back, Troy?”

“I haven’t thought about that yet.”

“I’m going to tell your dad you’re okay and that you’re coming back.”

Her hand brushed against my leg as she adjusted herself on that bed. I hoped that it was too dim for her to notice I was sweating.

“You can if you want to.” I rubbed at my neck, remembering the fight I’d had with him, like it was a dream; and my indignant fingers dumbly trying to testify, to offer some evidence of what he had done.

I took another bite of sandwich, trying to show her I didn’t want to talk about this. I could tell that hurt her feelings, so I talked.

“You know, when my grandfather died we moved up here because this was his home, where my dad grew up. With your dad. At my mom’s funeral, everyone was talking about me going away and stuff, to live somewhere they think is normal or something. But I don’t want to leave this place. And my dad and me, we’re not liking each other right now for a bunch of reasons I don’t want to say. Maybe I should’ve talked to him about it, but I was mad. I was mad at everyone, especially him because I thought he wasn’t there when my mom was dying. And I know I was being stupid and selfish but I guess I thought I was suffering more than anyone else, like I was some kind of saint or something. I was stupid and I could see that. And I didn’t even cry or say anything at her funeral ‘cause I was just so mad. And I needed to just get away to try to get my head back. But I don’t know if it worked out because I honestly feel more lost and messed up now than ever. And he has every right to be mad at me, too. But I’m not running away, because running away means that you know where you should be, and that’s the biggest thing I need to figure out, I guess, but I just kept messing things up worse and worse. Then, when I left, I thought to go by Tommy’s and get him but I messed up and slept too late and headed up this way instead, by myself. Then I fell asleep on Reno and fell off and busted my head open.”

“Well okay, you said it. Thank you, Troy. What a mess!” She laughed, looking across at me. But I saw her eyes were wet. “I remember when you first got that horse and how Tommy told you Reno wasn’t going to ever get tired of trying to kill you.”

I remembered that day. “I think he is tired of it, but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever quit it.”

“Your dad’s not mad, Troy. He’s waiting for you to come home.”

“I know. Probly.”

She brought coffee, too. I usually don’t drink it, but it tasted real good after our meal. We boiled it on the stovetop and shared the one cup she had brought along. I sat on the floor, she sat on the bed behind me. We watched the fire in the belly of the stove.

“Troy, I wanted to say something to you.”

I didn’t say anything, I just waited and stared at the fire. I took a sip of coffee and set the cup down on the dirt floor beside me.

“Troy, we’ve been friends since we were four years old. I loved your mom, too. And I just wanted to tell you I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine how much it hurts. But you’ve got to come back home, Troy. You can’t stay up here by yourself like this.”

And now I could tell she was crying.

I pulled my knees up to my face and closed my eyes. I felt her hand on my shoulder and then she reached down and grabbed my hand. And then I cried, too, which made me mad at myself. I wanted so bad to stop feeling like that and then it would just keep coming back and I hated that.

“Things’ll be better, Troy.”

“I don’t know.”

Because I didn’t know if things ever got better, or worse, than they had always been. Days would just plod along and happen whether you were ready for them or not. And no matter how disappointed or how elated life might make you, it was always going to just keep happening, pouring over you in a neutral, lukewarm flow. Like spit, I guess. I yawned. My eyes were watery, my hand sweaty and warm where our fingers intertwined.

We both fell to sleep like that, me sitting on the floor and Luz lying down behind me and holding my hand.

look, it floats. You stay in it. You float, too. See you at the bottom of the falls, then it’s Gabey’s turn.

you disappear in that water, Troy. Don’t go under the water.

Tommy and Gabe running down the shore toward the flats before the lake. The white foamy water, stinging like shards of ice suspended in its roiling flow, tightening my chest, making my T-shirt and jeans shrink to my skin, shrinking to my bones, closing around my face like a pillow being pressed down.

Troy, Troy

how do you like the hat, son?

it’s too curled up. I’m going to fix it. And I’m taking off that band with the feather in it. A real Stetson. I love it. Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.

And the cold, painful water now swallowing me up, keeping my eyes open, seeing white and gray like staring dumbly into a fluorescent light. I was looking through the window from the outside now, looking in; my mother sitting on the white chair; quiet, like always, my brother beside her.

Then I’m on the chair, sinking in, deeper and deeper. The water is covering me up.

When I opened my eyes, it was dark. The embers of the fire glowed orange inside the stove. I was lying on the floor, curled up, my head pillowed on my aching and numb arm. Luz was covered in my sleeping bag, sleeping on her side on the plank bed, one arm hanging down, fingertips just touching my shoulder.

She shouldn’t have been there. I knew she was going to get into trouble at home, but I didn’t want to wake her. I looked at her, sleeping, and thought how lucky I was to be here alone with her. I wished I could go back home, that it would be like it was, sitting by the fire pit with Tommy and Gabriel, dizzy, laughing in the smoke and warm nighttime. I sat there on the dirt floor and watched her sleep, watching with envy the rise and fall of the cover over her body.

I made myself go outside and saddle Reno. He was in the rope pen next to Doats. Doats followed us as I took Reno out around the other side of the pond for a run in the early morning quiet as the dark sky gave way to the pale color of slate, which in turn softened to a cottony blue.

She was awake when we came back.

“I thought you stole my horse.” She was coming out the doorway as we rode up.

“I couldn’t stop him from following.”

“There’s coffee.”

“You make coffee for horse thieves?”

She frowned, which made me a little uncomfortable.

I got down from Reno as Luz tended to her paint. I could see her saddle and bag were all packed up, ready to go. I picked up her saddle and walked over to where Doats was drinking at the steel trough.

“I didn’t mean for you to get into any trouble, Luz. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s a good thing my dad’s out of state. I’ve got a long enough ride back to figure out what to tell my mom.”

“I wouldn’t think there’s that many miles in between here and home.” I cinched Doats’ saddle in place.

“How can you do that, Troy?” And then I could tell she was mad. “I know you think that life can be funny. Sometimes you say really funny things that make us all laugh. But that mouth of yours is always straight and sad. When am I ever going to see you smile at things instead of just make fun of ‘em?”

I’d never really thought about it before, but I was suddenly aware of my straight-mouthed face. But I don’t think I felt sad, really, at least not at that moment. I just sometimes felt like I was in some kind of audience, watching myself do things between moments of distraction.

And then before I knew it, Luz whirled toward me and grabbed the back of my neck in both of her hands and kissed me straight on my straight lips. Then she was up on Doats, giving out a “hyaw!” and they were off toward the trees, heading down the mountain.

I guess I always knew that eventually one of us would break down and do that, and so many times I’d pictured myself getting slapped afterwards.

I let out a “who-eee,” loud enough for her to hear as she rode off. I stood there, watching her go; openmouthed, chest pounding, smiling big.

I went into the cabin and gulped down the coffee she had left in her tin cup, kind of wondering what side she had drank from, trying to keep that feel of her lips on mine. I just sat there on the edge of that plank bed, looking at the stove, not blinking. I felt a little tired and dizzy. I could smell her hair there, like strawberries and tea where she had laid her head down on my sleeping bag and it reminded me of all those times we had gone to the Benavidezes’ when I was small; Gabe running around the house barefoot, constant trickle of snot from his nose at three years old, her trying to get me to play doll house or with her toy horses, the sounds of our moms’ voices through the halls, laughing about things we would never know.

I called out the doorway: “You want to go home, Reno?” And Reno, of course, answered back in his own language that I understand, but can’t put into words.

I started gathering up my belongings and I repacked them a little less carefully than I had organized them when I left home that morning weeks ago.