The morning was cool and steamy before they found Annie. After Brady came home.
Before they arrested Jimmy James.
I huddled against a tree in the Skokomish unit—bare arms to my ragged chest—the boredom biting into me. I’d been leaning against the tree for quite some time. Hours. Since sunrise. Not as patient as Jimmy James. Something was wrong. The waiting piled up. I bit my lip. I wanted to sit, but when I was sitting I wanted to stand. I was making too much noise. Although I had slept, I had not rested. That morning I had washed myself in scent-blocking soap, my clothes in odorless detergent. I was trying not to stare at Jimmy James’s back, in order to give him privacy. He knew when I was looking even if he couldn’t see me. I saw chanterelles growing under some Doug fir. I would remind Jimmy James to stop there on the way back.
The herd came all at once. They appeared from behind trees and evaporated into bushes.
They floated down from the sky—their stinky, animal odor filled up my nostrils all at once. Their cries surrounded us.
I watched the arrow leave the camouflaged hunting bow—arcing high—a strong, loud absence of sound as it hit the animal’s flesh. Behind the foreleg. A solid shot.
The large animal took a short time to die. We waited where we stood. We did not chase her. We watched the bushes where she disappeared in her death-run. We tracked her forty yards—followed traces of bright, bubbly lung blood and broken salal. Jimmy James’s boots churned up no leaves or dirt out of a strong, hard-learned habit. The elk lay on the ground—a fat doe. Doe meat is more tender, he’d said that morning. Her once-heaving sides were still.
I watched him mouth a personal, silent prayer to some nameless and cruel god. He gutted the animal with respectful hands—dove deep into the cavity of the body. He threw the truck keys to me and told me to go get his brothers. I left him while he finished. He would need all of us to help drag the animal to our truck. I stopped before I entered the thick tree line and turned around. I watched him on the grass alone with the elk carcass. I worried for him. I thought of cougars—their large, slinky bodies and silent paws. He worked methodically and easily. His arms were crimson. The blood turned dark as the air hit it. His bald head bowed for a moment. The steam rose up around him. He stayed there—motionless. I wondered if he was thinking of the meals we could have now. He looked so old sitting there. I had a sudden thought that I should turn around and go back to him—that I didn’t have as much time as I once did. But I started moving again. I hurried away with my hands in my pockets. I drove to Angel Road.
I pulled up in the driveway and saw her. Nadine Blood: a Scorpio. As complicated as the prairie wind. Drastic and changing. Lofty and intimate—filled with hail and a hot, dry heat.
Nadine Blood: who asked little. Nadine Blood: who gave much. The first love of the Man from Angel Road. She lived in a brown single-wide with an ornate jungle garden climbing energetically around it. Her sons and Lupita lived with her. They helped her keep it up. There was much work to do—always. There was a small, shady pond and a whitewashed shed. Wet laundry hung by the woodstove to dry. Timothy was throwing rocks into the pond and squealing when the water splashed. “Gam!” he kept yelling excitedly at Nadine—wanting her to look. “Gam!” Pointing his chubby fingers.
I walked up behind him. Said his name softly so as not to scare him—didn’t want him falling into the water. He turned and saw me. “Yee ah!” he yelled my name in a high-pitched voice. He spread his arms wide. I hugged him to my heart. I had bundled him in warm blankets early that morning. I had warmed up the truck before strapping him into his car seat. I held on to him for a moment just to smell him—feel him breathing—his black hair pressed against my nose.
I told him, “We can eat now.” Nadine scowled. Her son shouldn’t be out there alone. He should have taken his brothers instead of me.
Jimmy James took me because I’d wanted to learn. Nadine sensed the strange energy. She shook her head. She knew the problems of her firstborn ran deeper than hunting accidents. Nothing sat right. She stood with her pitchfork stuck in the soil—her elbow leaning on it—staring right through me.
Sagging grapevines hung heavily on a trellis. A split rail fence zigzagged around the apple, cherry, pear, and plum trees. Her porch held a spinning wheel and a kiln. There were bags of wool and clay. I saw her pottery wheel, pots she’d made and fired that were ready to sell.
She had a barn filled with home-brewed wine. Plum, dandelion, all the berries. The barn was where we kept our ammunition. The plan was always to meet here together when bad things happened. Her yard was an overwhelming regiment of pansies, sunflowers, and marigolds. We used her fresh thyme, parsley, basil, and rosemary to grill salmon. Pickled her peppers. Dried her lavender in bunches to use for tea and medicine. Made preserves out of her strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, salmonberries, and blackcaps. Dug up her potatoes to keep in the cellar under the barn. In the fall, we made pies from her pumpkins, froze and sautéed her yellow squash to eat with elk steak.
She planted the vegetables alongside herbs and flowers in a fragrant mishmash. Every plant was spotless, lush, and happy—planted in clusters. Corn, beans, and squash grew close together. The bean vines crawled up the tall corn stalks. The squash inched along the ground. Strong-smelling onions were planted around healthy carrots and cucumbers. There were spiders in the mounds of herbs. Marigolds grew unchecked. Cosmos, bee balm, and nasturtiums attracted swarms of happy bees in the springtime. Chives popped up everywhere. The butterflies pecked and fussed over the butterfly bush like little fairy nymphs.
Timothy was staying with her until Sunday. She liked to take him to town with her. She carried him proudly in her strong, bony arms. People couldn’t walk by him without taking a second look and smiling—his face scrunched into one bright smile after another. His fat hands waved and reached. Nadine had helped at the birthing. Lupita had insisted.
Jimmy James and Lupita had a short affair: She was a nice girl. Her dress was periwinkle blue. She went with Jimmy James to the river. She bent her knees into the water—it rushed around her—she floated. The dress turned royal. She told him her mama felt better. That she was done being sick. The sundress was homemade—the ruffles hand sewn. Her hair was braided, and he was glad. The sun turned the river golden. The sun turned her hair red. She smiled like she had known him. She smiled as if they’d already made love. She was fourteen. Jimmy James a year older.
She attempted suicide after she gave birth. Ran Nadine’s car off the road into a telephone pole even as her episiotomy stitches healed. She was examined by a psychiatrist—found to be an unfit mother. Jimmy James and I both knew—awful things had happened to her. Caused her young spirit to crumble. We couldn’t blame her, really. She was so young. And Lupita had no legal guardian in the US after her mama died. And Timothy could not go back to El Salvador all alone. And Jimmy James held the screaming infant wrapped in a cheap, blue blanket to his chest. He could not say no. He was bound in an instant. Timothy grew darker as he got older. He didn’t match us on the outside. His body curled between us as he slept. And fit perfectly.
Lupita went inside the brown trailer to wake Jimmy James’s brothers. They pulled on blue jeans. They rubbed their eyes. They ribbed me good-naturedly about waking them at noon. They poured cups of cheap, hot coffee from the pot. They drank it black. They shared a cigarette. They would help. They were sixteen-year-old twins. They followed me in Nadine’s brown Buick after putting a bag of new potatoes in our truck. They fought about who would drive. The sun broke through the fog. We found Jimmy James easily. The blood already dried on his boots. I gathered my chanterelles. I carried the elk heart in a plastic bag. I walked behind the boys the five miles back to the truck. We heaved the body onto the bed. His brothers followed us. They hung the carcass from a hook in Nadine’s backyard. The blood drained. Jimmy James was in a good mood. He fried bear sausage and potatoes for him and his brothers. Lupita and I ate toast and orange juice. Nadine stayed outside with Timothy. The brothers roughhoused. The twins fought against their elder. Jimmy James put them both in headlocks. He made them promise they would help process the meat the next day. No matter what, he told them, and released them from his grip. He glared and waited. Lupita stood halfway out of sight—behind the door. She nodded. The twins agreed, raised eyebrows at each other, and tried to be men about it. They sensed there were things they did not understand. They left to go fishing. Lupita curled up with Timothy on the hammock. She sang to him in a voice that was pure, and sad, and happy: “Someday I’ll be good enough to ta-ake you home.”
She was wearing a red dress. We went back to our apartment in town to shower and sleep.
The Man from Angel Road sat at the kitchen table with his chin on his fists—his elbows on the table. He looked younger—scared almost. His hands were rarely idle. The scar tissue in his knuckles throbbed. His stillness was a strange holiday. The sun shined in through the window. He’d missed me in the early morning—his body had searched for me in our bed and found nothing. He looked unabashedly into my face and read what was there. His eyebrows were like exclamation points. He leaned over the table and put his face close to mine. He didn’t bat an eyelash. He put his hand on my arm. His palm pressed down. He pulled my chair close to him. I crawled into his lap and shivered. He put his arms around me, lifted my shirt, and pushed his forehead against my breasts.
I felt him all the way through, and it scared me. I held on. Nothing made noise for a while. Then we heard the train whistle blowing, and he carried me to our bed. We made sad love. I fell asleep in the early afternoon. He held me and waited.