He was a small man. Half Cherokee. His
movements, silences were those of the Indian.
The women watched, roused, a little
frightened. The husband of one of the women,
lover of the other, also watched. From a
distance, watched from his studio as the man
hammered into wood, did odd jobs around the
house. Outside, looking in at the women.
The wife’s movements became lighter. She
laughed more. Her face flushed from the ride
on his motorbike, through light rain off the
mountains. She crouched behind his warmth.
This warmth in her cheeks, eyes, spread as
they sat in front of the fire, quietly talking,
or letting the wood speak. The other woman
waited, wanting to make a third of this situ-
ation also. Not sure of her sense of place,
the placing of where she might sit, walk,
sleep between husband and wife. Wife. Husband.
And when the husband entered the room he
hesitated. ‘I think we might have a door here,’
he said, gesturing at the space between kitchen
and bedroom, ‘what do you think—could you do
that?’ The man nodded, hands lightly rested
on his knees. The wife bent over sewing,
hair, still wet, hid her face. The other looked
at the husband, the other two. Out of the
window, at the aspens, the cloud shadows
gathering speed through the valley. Back again
to the interior of light and shade, where
the three sat, moved from room to room.
Rooms without doors. Except the studio the
husband climbed into, shut down the door,
stared at blank paper in the typewriter,
listened to the wood sawing, the man’s low
whistling. And the wife’s laughter.
He arrived on his motorbike, a low black
figure, part of the machine. He seemed larger
then, the wife thought, as she looked out
of the kitchen window, each morning at eight
o’clock. Her hands paused over the sink.
Off the machine, he waved. His hand recon-
structing the speed, weather, landscape he
had passed through. The husband bent over
his typewriter, pulled out a page, crushed it,
and threw into the wastepaper basket. ‘Damn
it he’s just a bum—been here a week now and
what has he done—what are we paying him
for?’ ‘But he’s nearly finished the
windows—I know he’s slow but he knows what
he’s doing—besides we are paying him only
what a soda jerk would earn,’ the wife
answered, quietly smiling, quietly going on
with bread making, her fingers feeling, weighing
the elasticity of the dough. ‘It’s all very
well but I think we ought to have a time
sheet for him—always this impression he
gives of unlimited time—the last job he
had he was fired—there he was when this couple
drove up—apparently he swung the axe into
the wood when he saw them—the only work
he’d done all day—no—I’ll get a time sheet.’
So the husband drew up a time sheet, which
he nailed on the adobe wall, which the man
marked with small black crosses.
He ate with them, sitting between the
women. The husband at the head of the table.
The women talked. The men ate. ‘How about
all of us going to that hot spring pool tomorrow—
you can show us where it is—you’ve been there?’
The wife said. The man nodded, pushed his
bread around the plate, ‘it is small—but
the water is great—good for the body,’ he said.
But it’s a long walk isn’t it—we can’t take
the car all the way down there?’ the husband
paused in eating, looked at the women.
‘Oh we don’t mind walking—it will be lovely
you’ll see—oh it will be so good,’ the wife went
on eating quickly, giggling slightly, ‘and we’ll
do it in the nude.’ The other woman felt her
own weight sink into the chair, felt the weight
of the husband’s eyes, his face whiter then in
the afternoon light. The man next to her was
motionless, hands again on his knees, dark
skin shining, grains of dirt almost a lighter
shade.
The women cleared the table. The husband
climbed into his work. The man measured the
space for the door. While the women washed,
dried the dishes, their heads bent low, close
together. The wife quick, with a quicker
laughter than the other, who laughed slowly in
the spaces of the wife’s laughter. The silence
coming from the room above them, she later
entered, when the wife went shopping. A
quickness then between them on his studio
couch, listening for the car rattling over
the bridge, and all the while below them the
lower sound of nails slowly driven into wood,
the man’s whistling louder. The louder noises
of the wife returning, putting things in
cupboards, banging of dishes, as they straightened
their clothes, the couch cover. He lifted up
the door for her to clutch her way down into
the kitchen, into the bathroom where she powdered
over the heightened colour of her face.
The man went on hammering, hummed, bent
into his work. The typewriter a jerky rhythm
above. The wife talked, her voice higher
pitched, movements quicker from cupboard to
table, from table to cupboard. ‘Can I help?’
the other asked, standing behind the table,
her hands becoming steady from the firmness of
wood, the stone wall behind her. ‘I’ll show
you how to make stuffed pimentos and cabbage,’
the wife said. ‘Oh yes that would be nice.’
She came round to where the wife bent over the
vegetables, watched the deftness of knife against
green, red, slicing into, through, pulling out
the seeds. The hammering a steady sound. The
typewriter paused, went on, paused, while the
women worked with sharp knives.
He did not arrive at eight the next morning.
Thunder stirred over the distant mountains.
A sirocco wind spiralled sand in the desert.
Three spirals on their own, that approached,
joined up into a whirling tower of sand. Stilts
of rain came slowly down the mountains, faster
over the valley. Apples were flung on to the
ground, some breaking open on the cracked dry
earth under the wet surface. ‘He’s holding
off until the storm passes I guess—oh I hope
it clears up did so want to make that hot spring
today,’ the wife said, ‘he did say today didn’t
he—he didn’t say he wouldn’t be working today?’
‘Lazy bastard,’ the husband muttered, then in a
louder tone, ‘it won’t clear up look at those
clouds piling up there on those mountains.’
He went up into the studio, and put the radio
on very loudly. So loud that none of them heard
the motorbike crossing the bridge. Though the
wife looking out at the sky changing, small
patches of blue that widened, edged off the
clouds either side of the mountains, mesas,
saw the large black shape hurled,
suddenly from that clear space between clouds,
river and the trees. ‘There—here he is,’ she
shouted. ‘What?’ shouted the husband from
the opening at the top of the stairs. ‘He’s
here—get ready—it’s clearing we can go after
all,’ she shouted back while opening the front
door. The man approached, his heavy boots
hardly made any sound. He stood in the porch-
way, shaking off the rain, rain over his goggles,
eyes, hair. She began rubbing his head with a
towel, but he took it gently from her. ‘Oh
you are soaked through—you better change
you can wear something of his—though nothing
I guess will fit.’ He stood between the women,
when the husband swung down the stairs. He
rubbed himself quickly then, and put back his
shirt. ‘But that’s wet,’ the wife said. He
shrugged, ‘It doesn’t matter I feel warm
enough.’ ‘Well are we going or not?’ the
husband asked, not looking at the three, seeming
to look with concentration at the half finished
dishes stacked. ‘Of course we’re going—look
it’s going to be a beautiful day.’ ‘Very well
don’t blame me if we get caught in a storm.’
The men sat in front. The women at the
back. The husband drove, and manoeuvred the
rear mirror until he could see his wife’s face.
His own, he knew, had a strange pallor, and
his hands, gripping the steering wheel, paler,
next to the other, whose darkness was darker,
glistening there on his knees. They drove in
silence along the valley road, turned off, and
bumped across the desert. ‘You’ll soon have
to stop,’ the man said. Where—here—there—
where?’ the husband asked. ‘See those rocks
over there well there—it’s a few miles down
to the river—there’s a small track we can take.’
The husband brought the car to an abrupt halt.
They all climbed out. ‘Did you bring any towels
for drying ourselves?’ the husband asked his
wife. ‘Oh the sun will dry us,’ she replied,
walking quickly on, following the man. ‘I brought
one,’ the other woman said, as she caught up
with the husband. She glanced at him, but he
looked ahead, to where the other two now were
at some distance, then they disappeared round
the larger rocks. He quickened his pace. She
tried to keep up, and stumbled. He caught hold
of her hand, released. She fell back, breathing
heavily. ‘Where have they gone I can’t see
them?’ His face red now, as they clambered
on over large stones, dry grass, sand. She
looked back at the mountain range, clear cut
against the expanse of blue, the car, a fallen
grey object, in the desert.
They turned the corner and saw the river,
a thin strip of steel from that distance.
‘They must have run down here,’ he said, and
slowed up, waited for her to be beside him.
She stooped and looked down over the yellow
boulders, then up at his face, further up
into the sky that narrowed as they went on
down the track.
She saw his clothes on a flat piece of
rock, but could not see the man anywhere.
The wife’s face appeared over some bushes.
‘Isn’t it lovely here—so warm—so quiet.’
She stepped out, naked, her arms raised,
hair tossed back, as she climbed over the
rocks and disappeared. The husband slowly
undressed. The woman did likewise. She
followed him over the rocks, slipping a little,
feeling the sun between heavy breasts,
she clutched the towel. ‘Here we are—it’s
terribly small—but I think there’s room for
us all,’ the wife shouted up from the narrow
pool, only her legs submerged in the water.
The man, his back towards her, thrust his face
under the jet of water that spurted out from
a small hole in the rocks. The husband stood
on the edge of the pool, ‘Is there room do
you think?’ he asked. The other woman quickly
got in between the man, the wife. She tried
getting the whole of her body submerged.
The man shifted slightly, his mouth open. The
husband lay half on the edge, half on his wife’s
body. They lay there, shifted around, attempted
to move, manoeuvre their bodies, without
touching. The women looked down at the men from
the corners of their eyes, while the water
bubbled below, and behind them. The river, dark
green in parts, moved slowly.
The man got out first, went over and sat on
a large rock, facing the river. The husband
now lay between the women, his head
back under the hot water. The women climbed
out, and went to another rock, the other side
from where the man sat. The wife, laughing
quietly, stretched out, and through half closed
eyes watched the man, watched her husband. The
other woman wrapped the towel around herself,
and watched the patterns of light on her legs,
rocks, on the wife’s back.
The husband joined them, sat between them.
He smiled, smiled at his largeness, at the smaller,
almost childish, hairless body of the other man,
the other side of the pool, who started scratching
the grime off his body, digging this out from his
nails, picking out the dirt slowly, carefully.
‘He certainly makes use of the people he works
for—and just look now what’s he’s doing—never
trust a man who…’ the husband whispered, lay
back, his head resting on his wife’s legs, then
against the other’s breasts. The women laughed.
‘You just never stop—do you,’ the wife said,
‘at least he doesn’t say things the way you do.’
‘Ha you think his silences are profound or
something—he’s dumb—hasn’t a thought in
his head—he just drifts—think of that woman
of his respecting his silence when he came back
and found her living with another man—what did
he do—go away and wait—no—I mean there’s
all sorts of places to wait but to wait in the
backyard I mean to say what kind of man is that.’
He closed his eyes, sighed. They all closed
their eyes, allowed their hands to wander, rest
in places, parts, spread out on the flat rock.
The wife sat up suddenly, ‘where’s he gone
he’s disappeared?’ The husband, his eyes
remained closed, laughed, ‘Ah he’s got the message
at last.’ The other woman opened the towel a
little, and allowed her weight to be part of the
rock’s weight. The wife stood up, looked over
and beyond where the man had been. ‘Do you think
he feels outside it all?’ Oh he’s all right—
he’s the sort that likes to go off on his own
he’ll be back soon enough,’ the husband said,
pulling his wife down on top of him. ‘Not here
not now—might come back,’ she said, giggling,
thrusting him away. He mouthed the other’s
body, neck, his hands feeling the softer skin,
the flushed parts from the water.
They did not hear the man returning. He
squatted the other side of the pool, his head
bent, hands hung limply between his legs. The
wife saw him first, saw his small curved brown
back, glistening. He looked round then, and
grinned, small neat white teeth flashed up at
her from across the pool. She looked at the
other two, the woman who had discarded
the towel, her breasts, thighs already a harsh
red against the whiteness. Her husband’s head
rested against the woman. ‘I’m going into
the pool again,’ the wife said, and scrambled
down, arched her body under the jet of hot
water. The man humming softly, began cleaning
his toe nails.
The husband jerked up, looked down into
the pool, across the pool. ‘He should keep his
dirty habits to himself,’ he whispered. The
woman, smiled, brought the towel across herself,
it was just wide enough to cover the parts touched
by the sun. The wife lay half asleep in the
water. The man went on picking out bits of dirt
from his nails. The husband shifted around on
the rock, so that his back faced the pool, his
wife, the man and the other woman.
The river became a darker green by the time
they dressed. They climbed back slowly, up the
track, in single file. The man first, the wife
followed, followed by the husband, the woman
last. They walked in silence, only the sound
of the river gurgling, and then the wind bringing
dust and sand as they turned the corner, and moved
out of the canyon.
‘Well I didn’t think much of this hot spring
pool—I mean I thought at least it would be
larger,’ the husband said, as he started the car
up, as they waited for the man, who had fallen
out of line, to step behind a bush. The wife
did not say anything. ‘It wasn’t so bad but maybe
next time just the three of us will come,’ the
other woman said. They gazed out of the window,
and watched the man move slowly towards them.