Perma red, p.25
Perma Red, page 25
I heard someone call my name. Yellow Knife was speaking to me. The old ghost stories slammed my chest. Instead of meeting my fears I burrowed deeper in the covers, my knees shaking.
I heard someone fumble with the light on my bed stand where my gun rested in its holster. I threw back the covers and saw a man I could recognize only as Baptiste Yellow Knife. I wanted to bolt. I wanted to grab my gun and shoot the apparition but he stood before me, grinning. “Scare you?” he said. “Think you could get rid of me that easy?”
I sat up. My heart squirmed with pain. I grabbed my chest and Baptiste left the room. “Don’t be a pussy,” he was saying to me. I couldn’t be seeing right. I sat for a moment stunned and then I grabbed my gun and hugged the wall. I inched my way slowly toward the living room, wishing I had a door to hide behind.
“Take it easy, pal,” Yellow Knife said, like we were old buddies. I switched on the living room light and sighted down my gun. Yellow Knife had been beaten so badly his face puffed twice its size. His left eye ran pus and rolled back red, as if the muscles of that eye couldn’t hold. If I hadn’t been so scared I would have thought he looked pitiful, and he did. He didn’t seem afraid of me. He shuffled to the kitchen table like an old man. I saw a festering black wound at the back of his head. His right arm was wobbling in a scarf sling. His legs trembled when he sat down.
He tried to focus his attention on me but his head seemed too heavy for him.
“You look worse than me,” he said. “If you’re going to use that gun, you better do it quick and put me out of my misery.”
I held the gun in both hands, my legs braced and straddled like I was on the firing range. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I lowered my gun and walked cautiously to the table.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I didn’t come to settle any scores.”
I sat down and rubbed the back of my neck, wondering if I might be dreaming still, but Yellow Knife was real and sitting at my kitchen table.
“Jesus, Charlie, you look like a man who needs a drink.”
I did need a drink. I picked up the whiskey bottle and chugged a good swallow.
“As you can see,” he said, “I’m in no condition to hunt for my wife. I think you can tell me where she is. Save me some time.”
I didn’t answer Yellow Knife. I figured if he was alive again and talking to me he was up to something.
“She’s in for trouble. I know what’s been going on,” he said.
I couldn’t shake the feeling I was talking to a man I’d killed. Yellow Knife was like Coyote. He kept coming back from the dead. “I can’t help you,” I said, remembering Louise’s words. My voice cracked. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything.”
“I know about Stoner,” he said. “It’s not you I’m blaming for my troubles.”
I sat with my chin in my hands, an ache in my chest. Grief. I wanted Yellow Knife to leave, hobble back down the road and leave me be. The alcohol was roaring in my belly and I wondered how people could stand to drink the stuff.
Yellow Knife was quiet for a long while, what seemed like hours. He bent over, holding his side, and he rocked back and forth. He didn’t look like the Yellow Knife I knew. I knew he’d taken a beating that would have killed another man, would have killed me. I thought he still might die, and I was still the mean bastard whose only thought for the moment was that I didn’t want him dying in my house.
I was strapping on my work boots when Yellow Knife began talking as if he was talking to someone else. But Baptiste Yellow Knife was talking to me and for the first time I didn’t have my badge pinned to my chest. I wondered if he was delirious and I think he was. Baptiste Yellow Knife was telling me a story, and I heard in his voice a memory of the man he could have been. I didn’t want to listen to this Indian talking. I had to get my wife back. I rolled my head in my hands and saw the long night of work stretching before me, and then I found myself leaning forward just a little, straining to hear what Yellow Knife was saying. His voice was a light inside me, pulling me up the rock cliffs behind my house, and I could see, see beyond the valley, see beyond myself.
Louise
GOING HOME
She didn’t want to stay in Jules Bart’s house. He had probably saved her life last night, but she could not forget the day she had entered his house uninvited. She felt she had betrayed him, and he had been good to her more than once without any reason. As Louise reached the edge of the highway she sniffed the cold air and felt the good pull in her lungs. She was going home again. She walked, glad for the walk. There was fog on the low hills, a mist on the road that felt good on her face. She saw the car in the distance, the round repeating rings of light, the dense lit darkness. She knew the sound of Harvey Stoner’s car, and Harvey Stoner was heading up over the hill toward her.
She looked off the road into the snowbound fields, into the swirled trick of hills where she could sink to her thighs in a drift. She decided she wouldn’t run from Harvey Stoner. She was smarter than him. She would not run from anybody. It was dark on the road, though in some places she walked through the spare breath of clouds as if she were hidden in a strange light. Harvey Stoner might not see her. She could be a ghost in the murky light. But as his car entered the road mist she lit up, glowed like an apparition. She could see the light her hands gave off. She echoed with light, and Stoner slowed his car and turned out on the shoulder. She would not give herself away. He would never know he frightened her.
“You owe me,” she said. She tried to smile at him. The corner of her mouth twitched. She held her hands cupped over her ribs to steady her quaking stomach and bent down just enough to see him. She did not walk over to him. She stayed to her side of the road. In the sifting haze of his car lights she saw the rainbow skim of ice on the highway. No one else was on the road. She knew Baptiste was dead or he would save her from Harvey Stoner. She was on her own.
She squinted into the light. Harvey looked down as if he was ashamed to be seen. She saw the thin fringe of his eyebrows frowning. “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”
The passenger door opened and she saw Jules Bart grinning. He couldn’t have jumped out at her and made her heart pound any faster. Jules Bart and Harvey Stoner together was a wrong sight from the start. She felt it before she could reason it, knew that they had plans for her. She didn’t believe Jules Bart would harm her on his own, or he would have acted by now. But Jules Bart and Harvey Stoner together bred a different man. Stoner had the money to manipulate a man in Jules Bart’s situation.
Harvey Stoner had his own reasons for desiring her silence. She used to think Harvey wanted to make sure at any cost that Emma Stoner never found out about their affair, but Louise had begun to see that everything Harvey Stoner needed had suddenly become invested in her. His desire endangered her. There was something these two men wanted from her. She would run. She imagined long-legged Jules Bart running over the top of her like a horse over a bunny. Her only defense was ignorance. Ignorance would save her.
“Two handsome men,” she said. “I must have died.”
Jules got out of the car and stood by the door. She braced her legs and walked over to him. He pressed his arm on her shoulder, urging her into the seat between them. “Where’s your truck?” she asked. Jules didn’t answer her.
“It gave out,” Harvey said. “This is the second time the clunker’s failed. I picked him up down the road.”
Harvey seemed to be explaining too much. He’d talk himself into telling her what she didn’t need to know. Louise backed out of the question with more talk. “Turn up the heat,” she said, and she saw the men smile at each other. She rubbed her hands together and smiled at both of them, first one and then the other. She noticed the look that passed between the two men.
“A drink,” she said. “A drink is what I need.” She would be safe in a bar, able to ditch them.
They drove past the Perma Bar in the seething fog. They drove in drowsy silence all the way to Paradise. Louise sat stiffly in her seat, careful not to lean on either one of them as the car made the curves. She could feel the tires slipping at times, the quick slide to berms and back again to the road’s center.
The Angler Bar in Paradise was set up for a night of dancing. A live music sign was taped to the door. A group of four or five women was sitting at the bar in lively print dresses that were more suited to summer. They did not smile at Louise when she smiled at them. Harvey Stoner came back to the table with three clinking glasses, a special bottle of Four Roses for the lady. He poured them each a tall drink. Louise lifted the glass to her mouth and gulped the whiskey until she coughed.
“Drink up,” Harvey said. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit one.
Louise drank more, hoping for a plan, an idea to get out of the bar without Harvey and Jules. The only other men present were with women themselves, women who seemed anxious to hold onto their men. The group of single women at the bar eyed Louise with flat humor. Tight-lipped women who had chased more than one man to the altar, women too eager to be with a man again, and Louise looked to have two. They plumped their lips and dabbed at the corners of their mouths. Louise was the girl at the Ursulines’ eating the last sandwich. She lifted her glass again. Jules went to play the jukebox. He played the cattle-call song and Louise felt the dull liquor in her chest.
Harvey Stoner leaned on the table and winked at Louise. “What do you know?” he said. He seemed to be teasing her, but when Louise looked over at Jules he was waiting on her answer as if she had something important to say. They were both waiting on her answer. Jules poured her another belt and she shot it down. He poured a tall drink for himself and gulped it down fast. Then he had another. His drinking seemed desperate to her. She could see the lazy loll of his eyes. Her eyelids felt puffy, swollen in the barroom heat. She saw the smoke haze of the women’s cigarettes. They were crossing their legs now. They were smiling too much.
“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t know.”
She slipped out of her coat to wake herself. The door opened and two men came in, carrying guitars. They turned off the jukebox and headed for a small, lit area. Louise looked at the door and then she saw the back of a man’s head. He was a tall Indian man, lean and strong. His hair was thick and black and stiff. He was wearing only a thin white shirt, a pair of moccasins. His pants looked stiff and dirty. She felt the heat of the drinks in her chest. The room was moving a little faster than her head. She looked at this man but he stood at the bar and bent his head down over his drink. She knew he wasn’t Baptiste and yet she had a strange, shaking feeling in her shoulders that if she took her eyes off of him he would disappear. Harvey Stoner saw him too. “What do you hear from your husband?” he said. He had never asked her about Baptiste before. He drew hard on his cigarette and smiled at her but his eyes remained fixed. Jules Bart lifted his head, listening. “I don’t hear much,” she said. Jules shifted back in his chair and tipped back another drink. “And you’re not going to hear nothing,” he said. She saw the quick shift of Harvey’s eyes to Jules. She could see Harvey pressing his knee into Jules Bart’s thigh. Jules pulled away from him with a start. Harvey had been caught. Louise tried to read their gesture but Harvey Stoner stood up. “Time to go,” he said.
The night air was so cold she felt the sober press of it on her hands and face. They shouldered her into the car. Louise closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of Harvey’s seat. She could feel their eyes on her. She knew they thought she was so drunk she couldn’t make out their talk. She heard their grim whispers to each other like lovers. She couldn’t help but laugh, and her laughter sounded loud and harsh in the car as if her lungs had exploded. “Are you two together?” she said. She had only meant to tease them, to break the ice. Jules turned to her. His face was heat on her. She knew. Right then she knew. She turned to Harvey and he tried to smile with her like he was laughing, too, but now she knew the both of them had done something terrible together. They had conspired together. She could feel something pass between the two men. Harvey Stoner’s cigarette lighter popped up and when he lifted it to his face she saw his teeth turn red.
She felt the buzzing spin of booze circle her thoughts. “I know you killed my husband,” she said. Before she had said the words aloud they were just crazy thoughts but as she listened the words fell around her like sharp stones. Both men were turning on her, stricken, their eyes suddenly hollow. “Louise,” Harvey said, “you’ve had a few.” She had shaken them. Fog surrounded the car. Fog so thick there was only the three of them and the words Louise had spoken. They had killed her husband.
Harvey pulled the car to a stop on the roadside. Louise tightened the muscles in her legs.
“What are you doing, Stoner?” Jules asked.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Harvey Stoner slammed the gear into park. Before Jules could speak Stoner was out of the car.
“You’re helping me on this one too,” he told Jules. Louise pressed her hands to the seat ready to run when the chance opened. Jules sat beside her, his eyes wide. He would look at the dash and then he would glance sideways at Louise.
“Out, you two,” Stoner said.
Jules opened the door and Louise slid over the seat to standing. She walked toward the front of Stoner’s car. She could hear the ticking engine cooling. She tried to think of a plan.
“You did me a favor,” she told the men.
“What are you talking about?” Jules was flexing his hands like he was working his strength up.
“Killing Baptiste,” she said. “You did us all a favor.” She pulled her hair to one side of her neck and leaned over to tug her stocking up to her thigh. She hoped they were watching her and that they couldn’t see that her hands were shaking. She thought of Baptiste dead, how she was standing on an open road, no other car in sight for miles, with the men who had killed him. She dropped her skirt quickly and tried to smile at Harvey. Harvey was looking at Jules. “You know what we have to do,” he said. They spoke a code Louise understood. She looked up to see the grimace on Jules’s face, knowing he was turning toward the idea of her death.
Jules looked at Louise.
“What’s up?” She tried to make her voice sound light. “I’m not talking. I won’t be telling anybody about this.” Her knees were trembling. Jules leaned on the car and swiped his hands through his hair.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Stoner said.
“I can’t,” Jules said. “I won’t.”
Louise knew their plan was closing around her. Stoner glanced toward the river. She looked for the clearest path in the darkness and then she made a run for it. She could think of nothing else to save her. She pushed hard. She prayed and her prayers smoked behind her in the cold wind of her passing. She decided to head for the river. She would take her chances on the ice. She could hear them running behind her. She heard one of them slip and fall and she turned to see Jules catching himself and then lifting up again in his run. She jumped the barrow pit and sank for a moment in a swell of snow.
When she reached the river edge she held her breath and took to the ice. The moon lifted through the clouds she had hoped would hide her. She heard the crack and then the low moan, saw the black cobweb beneath her feet as the frozen river gave way, the sudden pool of water to her ankle. She leaped to catch the opaque ice and then she was clear of the river. Jules trailed her. She turned to see Jules’s leg plunging into a black swirl of water, the ice shattering around him. He yelled to Harvey but Harvey pressed past him in his run. They were far behind her.
Harvey clipped the ice and was reaching the bank as she grabbed the thick horsetail weeds and pulled herself up the embankment. Harvey was puffing hard. He was slowing his pace. He’d had too many easy days to run fast enough to catch her. She was feeling strong, even cocky. She reached the hill and took the down trail. The snow was deep, too deep; it cupped her chest. She had stepped off into the powder of a high snowdrift. She struggled to free herself but she was trapped. The snow was fine as silt. As soon as she brushed a path it sifted over her chest again.
She felt the blow of his fist so hard on the top of her head that light stuttered, and she was being lifted from the snow, heaved over his shoulder. She could feel the wheeze of his lungs. Her ribs ached. He had knocked the breath from her. She caught a glimpse of Jules sitting on the bank edge, his clothes dark-edged with water. She saw a glittering circle of stars.
“Jules, get in the car.”
“What will we do?” Jules asked.
“Just get in the car,” Stoner replied.
Jules followed Harvey as Harvey carried her like a sack of grain, as Harvey fumbled in the car to turn on the overhead. She let them believe Harvey had knocked her out. She had to think. She could see her blood tap the snow and she wanted to touch her face, but she remained still. Jules dropped to his knees, his clothes steaming in the cold.
“Christ, get up,” Harvey turned to him.
The moon moved from the clouds clear and bright and Louise closed her eyes for a moment.
“Get up,” Harvey said again. “Help me here. We’ll have to take her up to the Chefler place. This was a bad idea anyway. We can’t just stand here by the road.”
“What about Charlie Kicking Woman?” Jules asked. Louise could hear the high pitch of his voice. She wondered if he was scared.
Jules opened the back door of Harvey’s car for him, but Stoner heaved her in the front seat. “She can’t get away from us up here.”
