TUESDAY OCTOBER 23, 2007
SHE WAITED FOR HER MORNING cup of coffee. Even though the house was quiet, she propped her pillow and stayed under the quilt and waited. The room brightened and the clock ticked past the time she usually showered. She would continue to wait, for hours, until noon, into the night. Waiting was her specialty. At seven o’clock, she threw off the covers. Mother would be needing the bathroom.
He’d left a note on the kitchen table. I’ve gone to the cattle auction in Belen. Don’t hold dinner. Odd. He’d attended the auction three weeks ago. He didn’t like eating in restaurants and always looked forward to a hearty meal after a day away and the two-hour drive home.
On the way to work, leafless cottonwoods with smooth, gray bark spread their limbs like giant feather dusters against a pale blue sky. One of Pete Herrington’s cows was out, grazing on the shoulder of the highway. She’d call him from the office. Lyle had likely informed the deputies of Walker’s latest “activities” and by now, Lewis would have confided in his new bride, Loretta. Jeremy would have passed along the information to Leo at the garage and Melba, the dispatcher, would have called her twenty best friends and four sisters. Every table at Vera’s would be occupied with folks exaggerating details, exchanging opinions, saying, “I told you so.”
At nine o’clock, she called the second floor clerks into the commissioners’ conference room and gathered them next to the green chalkboard. There were chairs, but everyone stood.
“I want to tell you the facts about my brother as I understand them from Lyle.”
Blank faces stared at her. The latecomers unbuttoned their coats.
“Ross Plank signed a quitclaim deed, giving Walker ownership of his ranch. Walker sold the property to a man from Arizona for a large sum of money. Naturally, Owen is upset, as am I. Since the deed is legal, unless Owen brings charges, nothing can be done. Lyle and I have no idea where Walker is or what Owen intends to do.” Beth Ramirez blew her nose and dabbed her eyes, but it had nothing to do with sympathy. She’d had a cold for a week. “Now, I would like you to return to work. Caroline, please call the commissioners.” She pushed back her shoulders. “Tell them I’ll be out of the office today.”
Pastor Fletcher agreed to open the church if she used the side security door upon leaving. When asked if he might offer consolation, she said, “Thank you, I’d like to be alone.”
Along the side aisle, a lopsided poster of Christ had been thumbtacked next to the haphazard collection of donated crosses on the south wall. The chairs formed sloppy lines, some shoved sideways. She knelt on her knees in front of the pulpit and breathed deeply, opening her palms and bowing her head until her chin touched her chest. Oh, God. Help me endure this. Show me what Walker is meant to teach me. I have tried to understand. I have believed You would guide me, as well as him. Has my patience not been tested, my compassion, my trust in You?
She raised her head. The room was cold, the pulpit nothing more than a rectangular box. The cross, two sticks of wood nailed together. The light harsh. The pine floor scuffed and dull, the white walls in need of paint, the piano dusty. The place that once promised miracles: spiritless. Depleted of pleas, questions, promises or bargains, she turned from the cross and exited through the side door.
At the motel, she asked for Danielle.
Suzette looked up from behind the counter.
“She didn’t come in today. She called in sick.”
She found the shovel in the garden and dragged it out front and rammed the blade into the row of red hot pokers, scooped up a clump and heaved it aside. Stabbed the dirt again. Auction in Belen! Danielle sick! Her foot drove the blade, slicing the roots. She dug deeper. But now you must put them all away; anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Colossians 3:8. No longer! Red. Jeep. Hot. Sexy. Poker. Well! She plunged the blade. Red. Heart. Hot. Furious. Poker. Cattle prod. Red. Blood. Hot. Boiling. Poker. Stud. Red. Alert. Hot. Wire. Poker. One pair. She stopped and wiped her neck and face. If one crude, bold flower shot up, she’d gouge it out of the ground. Give her pansies, columbine, and Shasta daisies. The door opened and Grace placed a jug of water and a glass on the step, muttering something about wearing gloves, nothing harder on the skin than dirt.
She finished mid-afternoon, the yard a disaster, and wiped her blistered, cracked hands on her pants and walked into the field, through dried gaillardia, sunflowers, and mallow, around gopher mounds and prickly pear cacti turned purple from cold nights. Thistle burrs stuck to her pants. Coneflowers and grama grass supported seed heads on long, graceful stems, cottonwood leaves matted between them. The trees from which the leaves had fallen stood tall, their bare branches cracking the sky. Mullein stalks and prickly poppy filled bare patches of ground. Beyond the golden-brown foliage a strand of diamonds shimmered—sunlight reflecting off the creek. The trees, weeds, and wildflowers ended at a two-foot drop where floodwaters had eroded the bank. On the other side the land flattened into a rough, sandy beach with tufts of sedge grass sprouting between sand, rock, and boulders. The creek was shallow, its current barely discernable. A fallen cottonwood trunk spanned the water and she crossed, one foot in front of the other, arms outstretched, and plopped down on sun-warmed sand and rested back on her palms. The air was still, everything so quiet silence was almost a sound.
To her right, two arm lengths away, a long and lean snake, perhaps seven feet, stretched out in a sloppy S, rubbing its head on a rock. Snake: the lowest of creatures, physically and spiritually the embodiment of Satan. The Bible told us so. And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou has done this thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Genesis 3:14.
Scott would not panic. Don’t move. In autumn, or before shedding, a snake can become cranky and aggressive. Breathe.
Its tail was ringed and smooth—a bull snake. The chocolate brown, diamond shaped markings were dull, its eyes cloudy and dark. The snake rubbed its head under the rock and against the sand, occasionally tucking its head to work the area on top of its mouth. Semi-opaque skin had already come loose on the underside of its jaw. Its tongue flicked in and out.
The skin came off the head and collected in a collar below the jaw and the snake opened its mouth wide, as if to yawn. Slowly and effortlessly it crawled out of its skin, leaving it inside out like a dirty sock, and moved off in the direction of the rocks, its new scales vibrant and lubricated.
She sat for half an hour beside proof of the snake’s transformation. Its body would have been warm to the touch and firm, its line elegant as a master artist’s stroke, its movement fluid as flowing water, a creature that approached quietly, without footsteps, its only sound a hiss to fend off predators.
From the opposite bank the cottonwoods’ shadows reached across the water onto the sand. The creek ran dark, its jewels invisible. Walking back, her feet crunched branches woven into haphazard, thatched designs along the bank. Swallows swooped as swiftly as darts into the grasses, their wings and forked tails silhouetted against the cloudless sky. In the center of the field she threw open her arms and spread her fingers. Open, open, heart! Attach to every living thing, every color, scent, shape, taste, and sound. Stop believing in the Great Mystery. Become part of it.
Grace’s car was gone. While Mother dozed in her chair, Lee Ann entered Danielle’s room, stepped over slippers and toppled cowboy boots and opened the bureau drawers. She rifled through underwear and nightgowns, filtered through the closet, turned skirt and pant pockets inside out, opened a jewelry box and dumped the contents. Several handbags hung on a peg and she unhooked them and searched every compartment, pricking her finger on a toothpick at the bottom of a shiny black one with a chain strap. A year-old monthly planner stuck out of a side pocket and she leaned against the wall and scanned it, tossed it aside, got on her hands and knees and ran her hand under the bed. More shoes. Still kneeling, she opened the night table drawer. A key lay on top of a slip of paper with a local telephone number on it. She took the note into the kitchen and dialed.
A recorded voice answered. “This is Keith. I’m in Phoenix. Anyone needing to reach me knows the number.”
Mother still slept. Leave her alone, or wait until she wakes? She was done waiting.
It had been years since she’d been to Ross’s place, the last time to deliver a casserole after his wife died. Less than a month after Charlotte’s passing, he’d suggested Mother might make a good second wife. Lee Ann had never returned.
She climbed the trailer steps, unlocked the door and opened the curtains. Bedroom first. Two shirts, a pair of jeans. A poncho. Empty dresser drawers. In the bathroom, two toothbrushes, a razor, shaving lotion on the sink, an assortment of shampoos and conditioners in the shower. Paper plates and plastic utensils in the kitchen, a small paring knife, a few pots and pans, a spatula and ladle. The phone hung on the kitchen wall above an address book. Her finger trailed the entries, starting with the As. All the listings were in Arizona. Then, under the Ms, a name with a New Mexico address—Pat Merker, Central New Mexico Correctional Facility, Los Lunas.