Perma red, p.10
Perma Red, page 10
She slept so hard the palms of her hands felt weak. She heard wood crack, the brush of branches pushed aside. She sat up slowly, rubbing her left shoulder. She thought Florence was on her way up the hill but when she looked down she saw Baptiste Yellow Knife. She felt a blue lick of adrenaline skim her chest. He looked like he had a rough time reaching her, and he was drunk. His skin was oily with sweat and he had unbuttoned his shirt down to his belt line. His skin was shiny. His hair was dusty. He had a thick butcher knife strapped to his thigh with leather thongs and she thought for a moment he had stumbled on her by chance when he was out hunting. But she knew better. He had traveled miles from his mother’s house to find her. She felt uneasy. Baptiste Yellow Knife was another man when he was drinking. He smiled at her when he stood over her and she noticed that he was weaving. When Baptiste Yellow Knife got drunk he was mean. His teeth looked big. She noticed he had tattooed her name on his hand with indigo pen ink. The tattoo was large, in wide block letters, blue pigment staining his skin forever with her name. Louise tried to imagine Baptiste poking the ink-dipped needle into his brown hand again and again, ink pooling beneath his skin, her name sinking into his blood.
He sat down next to Louise on her blanket and for a moment she was glad for the company. But even her boredom did not make Baptiste Yellow Knife a welcome visitor when he’d been drinking. He didn’t speak to her and she didn’t speak to him. It occurred to her that Baptiste had ways of finding things out that had less to do with his mother’s medicine power and more to do with his desire. He had the clean whistling eyes of a screech owl. She believed he could look for her in darkness to hunt her out. She had trusted him to hide her from Charlie and now she wondered if he was expecting payment. She felt she had trusted him too much, because she couldn’t count on Baptiste to stay away from the bottle. Baptiste Yellow Knife could find her, because he had memorized the shape of her footsteps in weeds and tall grass. He knew the brush of her hands past the huckleberry bush and wild roses. He knew the way leaves turned as she passed them, the way her scent fused with spearmint and sage. He knew the sound of her breath and the sound the wind made as it passed around her. He could trace her because he wanted her. He could sniff her out.
He had a pouch tied around his neck and Louise tried not to look at it, because his black hair curled blue around the leather straps and around his strong neck. She wondered if Baptiste could ever really change. Maybe being in the woods could cleanse his ways. Baptiste had told her the land brought us all back to our best selves. Now she wondered if he could make a change for the better. She could feel the warmth of his skin and she wanted to be close to him but she pulled her legs up to her chin. She let herself imagine. She saw herself kneeling beside him, opening her blouse to him, her nipples hard in the cool shadow of the cottonwoods, letting him suckle her, the gooseflesh rising on her arms, letting him have what he wanted. No one would know. Hidden in the dark trees, the scent of them drifting, then gone. No one would know. She looked down at her shoes.
Baptiste stood up over Louise. She was dwarfed by his standing, his strong, lean legs. He stepped around her slowly, almost carefully. She let go of her thoughts and felt the brutal toe of his boot barely touching her buttocks. He turned his back to her and she heard him unzip his pants. She kept quiet. She did not want Baptiste to know she was afraid of him just as she didn’t want him to know she was drawn to him. She heard the low sound of Baptiste’s voice as he pulled back from her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Your luck has run out.” She wondered what he meant. She wished his foot was still at her back. She was afraid to turn around.
She heard the dense patter of urine and she tightened her arms around her legs. Baptiste walked slowly, circling her, peeing like a dog marking territory. Louise wanted to hide her face in her lap but she kept her head up. She had a desire to pull her blanket tight around her but she made no attempt to move. She could see the stream of his piss. She could smell the dry soil, then the pine needles startled by brief moisture. His pee seeped slowly into the pale dust, leaving a dark clay stain.
She wanted to shove Baptiste’s skinny butt down the hill. She wanted to slap at his head, chase him away from her. She looked down at the highway and wished she could make a run for it, yet she knew there was no running from Baptiste. She remembered that Baptiste, even with his smoking and his hard whiskey ways, could outrun the high school athletes. She had seen him running hard, never winded, hurdling barbed-wire fences as easily as a deer. He could stand dead stop on solid ground and leap like an antelope over the high school fence. He could bolt full speed when he wanted nothing. And she knew he could jump her like a cougar if she tried to run from him—and would. Her grandmother had told her to back slowly away from him if she was frightened by him. She had run from him before and her sister had been bitten by the rattler. She pulled in a sigh and waited.
Finally Baptiste turned back toward her and shook his penis dry. “Scare you?” he said, grinning. Louise watched him zip up his pants and wished she had the power to make him catch his cock.
He sat down beside her and whispered to her. “Don’t you know animals are afraid of human scent?” He batted her arm with the tips of his fingers. “You wouldn’t want a skunk in your bed, would you?” Louise swatted at her ear as if she were slapping a mosquito. She gave Baptiste the same look her grandmother gave her when she came in from a night of drinking.
Baptiste leaned over close to her and before she could duck him his teeth clenched the top of her ear. He bit down hard enough to sting her. She seized his jaw and pushed him back from her. She grabbed the branch she kept by her blankets and swung at him. He jumped over her first strike, laughing until she cracked him hard on his backside. When he put his hand to his back she struck a hissing blow to his face. She could see the white welt rising on his cheek as he stood back from her.
She watched his face, afraid he would hit her. He stared at her. He stared at her for a long time until she had an urge to rub the back of her neck, to look away from his staring. She sat still with the thick branch still raised in her hand. “You shouldn’t have left me,” he said. “Did you think you were rid of me?”
She heard the crackling of brush and knew from the sound that her sister was coming up the hill. The welt on Baptiste’s face was pinched and puffy but he did not flinch. “I’ll have you,” he told Louise. “I’ll have you yet. Sweetheart,” he said, as if he could touch her heart, as if he could taste it. She turned from him, pretending she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She would not let him know that he had flicked her heart, that he had made her giddy and shy, that he had made her breath come fast. She did not want him to know she could hate him enough to be full of him. Baptiste was like a brief cool breeze, a sudden thicket of darkness on a hot day.
When her sister called her name Baptiste pulled himself up and crouched down. “Someday,” he said to Louise in a low, whispery voice, “you’ll be mine.” And then he headed farther up the hill and he was gone. When Florence came up the hill she was breathless. She carried a sack of fry bread and a small jar of sugar. She sat down next to Louise and pulled out a piece of bread. Louise looked up the hill. She could not see Baptiste. She stood up to look but he was gone. “What?” Florence said. Louise shook her head and sat back down. She was hungry. Her sister held out a piece of fry bread and was sprinkling sugar on it. Louise looked at Florence. She was thick framed but not heavy. She had a delicate nose and large black eyes. She took after Great-grandpa Magpie. Her skin was fine toned and radiant and kissed with freckles. Her hair was black and usually long, but now it hung past her knees. Every summer for years Florence would go to old Suset to get her hair chopped off but Grandma had asked her to let it grow. Now her hair seemed a nuisance to her, thick and heavy, braided tight and still too long for her. She had tied her braids behind her head.
Florence could handle an axe with ease even though she was just a kid. There was a strength in her, in the way she smiled, in the way she moved. Louise thought she was beautiful, and envied the way Florence never strayed from their grandmother. Louise thought it was funny that Florence was easy to frighten. Small sounds startled her. She was afraid of the dark and she had once lit Grandma’s tent on fire with matches. Florence had been afraid of the tent. She said the tent was dark and she felt as if she were suffocating. Grandma had understood her fear. Florence had not been punished for the tent fire. Louise remembered the flare of red flames, the thick smudge of smoke, the hot, sick smell, flames ticking like static as the tent seared to sky. Florence had stood behind the house, her teeth chattering, watching the fire. Louise looked at her sister as she ate her fry bread. She would not tell Florence she had seen Baptiste.
Louise saw the slim shine at the edge of the river, the sheen of waterlight outlining every tree at the moment of dusk. Her sister talked on as the wind rattled the bushes and the smooth stars began to appear above the pale hills. She wondered if she had just imagined Baptiste Yellow Knife coming to her. She picked up the stick she had hit him with and poked around the dirt he had peed upon but the ground was dry. She could find no trace of him. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and looked up the hill. A few leaves trembled in the breeze. She could feel Baptiste Yellow Knife was far from her.
“They’re looking for you,” Florence said. Louise sat up with interest. “Even Mr. Bradlock is scouting the hills. Grandma and I saw him. He can hardly make it across the field without his face turning red.” Louise thought of Mr. Bradlock. The sour dampness of his heavy jowled face. She knew he would not find her.
“What about Charlie?” Louise asked.
“He’s mad at Grandma. He says you’ll die out here. He’s saying now he should have taken you to the hospital.”
“He would have taken me back to Thompson Falls,” Louise said. She knew he was looking for her again. She pictured him in his patrol car, spotlighting barrow pits and bushes, Charlie scrambling up the wrong hills, breathless and turned-around. She knew Charlie would never find her. A hundred people could find her, but not Charlie.
Florence stood up. “I brought you more water,” she said. Florence brushed a leaf out of her hair. Louise had an urge to grab her sister’s hand tightly and hold on but she did not. Louise smiled at Florence and stood up to watch her walk down the path. “Stay down,” Florence said, looking back. And Louise sat back down and tried to figure out what she was wishing for. She had run out of wishes.
The night cold settled around her, a cold that seeped through the blankets and ached at the small of her back. Her spine felt brittle. She could feel the tender bruises on her knees, the drawing of the deep cut on her arm. She wondered if Charlie had been right. She pictured herself on a long sterile bed, wrapped in white gauze. She looked at the rough blanket beneath her. She thought of Baptiste pissing around her. There was a weak rumble in her stomach. She had lost her hunger. Her arms felt weary and useless but she had to prepare for the night. She got up and gathered the leafy branches her grandmother had taught her to use. She folded her blanket lengthwise and covered the top with sage and the branches. She buried herself beneath the sweet boughs and then pressed her head down into the covers and soon she fell asleep, a sleep that forgave the wind, the moaning tree trunks, and the crying coyotes, a sleep that called her. The moon was too thin to offer light and the night closed around her.
A breeze shook the branches and they clicked above her. The bum smell of bear gripped her. She heard rustling, familiar and close, a snorting sound growing distant. The smell retreated. She lifted her head and remembered Baptiste, how he had peed a circle around her, and then the thought of him passed. She was not thinking about Baptiste Yellow Knife. There was only the smell of dampness settling. She closed her eyes and saw again the silver gleam of spiderwebs, miraculous, the cotton cocoon of moths blown up from a thousand branches, floating above her like light.
She sees the moon moving high above the fields, catching light in sleeping pockets of water. The valley is winking with smooth ponds. The waterlight. All the fields are dry now. The clouds lit by the moon are water, passing. It is close to harvest. And she is dreaming beneath this moon the way her grandfather dreamed, his cap of magpie feathers pressed to sky. With power she feels the movement of things and even the still night air has weight. Louise feels the night in her throat, in her skin, water-heavy.
In the distance he is glazed in quiet light. She dreams of Baptiste Yellow Knife moving toward her but never touching. He is watching her. The night air is cold as creek water and though he is far from her, she feels his breath. He is warm. She feels the heat of his passing like his horse lathered from running. She smells him. He is the smell of all the things she loves without awareness. The smells pass her like childhood: the river smell, spring sage before lightning, juniper and jack pine, the deep smell of dirt and worms after winter, camas flower and chamomile, her grandmother’s hands.
All summer long he has tended his horses. He is brushing Champagne’s mane. He is cutting Champagne’s tail straight and knotting it to silk. She hears a low sound and realizes someone is singing. The sun is white heat. She can’t remember the moon. And she is naked, sighing in the dry grass. He is far from her. He is wearing his dancing silks. He is ready for marriage. She lifts her hand. But he rides away from her. She yells to him, waving her arms. He is leaving her. She knows now. She is running. She hears the dull slam of his thighs to the horse, the hard kicking of his heels. Dust worries at the edge of the field, lifting heat to sky. She is sweating in this heat. She squints to see. He is riding toward the rock rise of shale. He shouts to her. She can’t hear him above the swift sound of wind in the high pines. She sees only his shirt, fallen to dust. It smells like rust-blood. He is gone from me, she thinks. He is gone. And she turns back to see him ride toward the black highway. His back is broad and shines with sun. All she sees now is the white gleam off the top of his shoulders. The fields and the grass are white with sun and the miles and miles of fences.
Louise woke in darkness, breathing hard. Her eyes settled on the pale moon. She lifted herself up on her elbow. She saw the thick net of branches that concealed her legs and remembered where she was. She thought of Baptiste. She lay back down and let her breathing quiet. She closed her eyes. A thought came to her and she looked up but could only see darkness, a blur of branches tangled above her.
When she had walked home her thoughts focused on Baptiste Yellow Knife. Thompson Falls had made Louise think there were worse things than Baptiste Yellow Knife. After all this time of ignoring Baptiste, looking away from him, running past him without a glance, hating him, pushing him, punishing him, using him, Baptiste had persisted. He wouldn’t let go of her. And though Baptiste could be mean, Baptiste had insisted on loving her with no love in return.
Louise thought of Jules Bart, how for a short time she had let the thought of him devour her sad life. Yet he took no more time to think of her than the time it took his heart to thud his chest once. And he had turned out to be another lonesome drunk, wanting nothing. At least, she thought, Baptiste wanted her. She swallowed hard, felt the dry rasp of her throat. She reached for the jar of water her sister had brought her and wished for one cold beer. She gulped the water too quickly and for one moment she felt dizzy, almost drunk. She flattened her palms to her sides to brace herself, and found she was rocking. She felt the raw flush of her longing.
She lay back down, wanting to say aloud, “Go away.” She could turn away from Baptiste for a hundred years but she wondered now if he would always be there. All that night she had prayed to be left alone and she realized now she was alone. She was alone and the slow morning revealed only the curving branches of the ragged junipers, the highway spilling toward places that would not accept her. The cottonwoods were curving toward the loneliness that cupped her but could no longer define her. She would not run again. She would go home. She felt the leap of the deer again, heavy and sudden in her lap, its beauty and crushing pain.
Louise
THE BURNING FIELDS
Mr. Bradlock had knocked on the door at four in the morning and while her grandmother and Florence were at the window, fleeing, Louise had stood up calmly. She picked her dress off the floor and laced her shoes. She could hear Mr. Bradlock at the door. She knew that even at four in the morning he would be in his suit, his thin hair oiled and grimly shining. “Don’t run from me,” Mr. Bradlock yelled through the door. “Louise,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Louise said. She did not raise her voice. She imagined Mr. Bradlock pressing his ear to the door and listening. Knocking. Listening again. Her grandmother had wanted her to flee the house but she had refused. Grandma and her sister would be up the hill by now. Their breath would rise from them in the darkness. They would not come home again until they saw Mr. Bradlock drive away.
Louise opened the door to Mr. Bradlock. She had thought about this moment for a long time. She was no longer afraid. She did not feel the dense thud of her heart. She did not feel a weakness in her neck. She was ready to face him. He stood at the door and then turned slightly. “You can’t run again,” he told her. She saw that he was looking at the bruises on her arms, not knowing she had been in a car accident. “Come on now,” he said.
“I’m not going,” Louise said. “I’m not going with you ever again.”
She saw Mr. Bradlock trace his hairline with his fingertips as if he thought he would enjoy this fight. She stepped back from him and he grabbed her arms. She felt the blood squeeze of his stubby fingers but she refused to let him know he had hurt her.
“I’m not going,” she said.
Mr. Bradlock rubbed his chin and she could hear the whisper of stubble on his cheeks. Louise leaned forward, close to his face and looked him in the eyes. He scattered his attention, looking at the cookstove, looking at the cattail bed on the floor, looking at her eyes and then away again. Louise spoke low to Mr. Bradlock. “I’m getting married,” she told him. He dipped his ear to his shoulder as if the puff of her breath had tickled him. Then he looked up at her, meeting her eyes, a hard grin lifting his face, his temples, his fleshy forehead green in the shadowy kitchen light. He looked at her like he knew he had caught her in a lie that would embarrass her. He rested his hands on his hips, half smiling, half laughing. Louise waited.
