Ariel's Crossing (36 page)

Sarah was reminded of another such morning as she drove across San Ildefonso pueblo toward the Hill. Mary was fighting for her life in a different way than Kip had fought for his, but she faced unknowns no less intimidating. Maybe more so, given, as Kip himself once said, living is often harder than dying. A lifetime lay ahead for Mary, no matter what decisions she made from this moment forward, whereas Kip seemed to be on a path that led toward relinquishment.

At Pajarito, Sarah had come close to sharing Mary’s secret with her husband. Leaving the girl in the kitchen, she woke Carl to tell him she was heading to work early. He squinted at the alarm clock and asked if the spry drifters had returned from their mysterious adventure. Seldom one to hide things from him, she cleared her throat, crossed her arms, and considered what words to use. His face, genial and sleepy before, fell into a rigid scowl when she simply said no.

“Well, where the hell are they?”

One secret or another had to give. Sarah told him about Delfino and Kip.

“Ridiculous,” he grumbled.

“What do you want to do?”

“Not a goddamn thing.”

“You’re not afraid they’ll wind up going to jail?”

“Can’t wind up in jail if you don’t break the law. I don’t see them managing to get far enough into White Sands to break the law.”

“I think you underestimate them.”

“They won’t get a hundred yards past the range perimeter. And if they do, getting busted might teach them loons a lesson.”

Tough brother talk, but Sarah read his scowl better than Carl might have imagined. She hesitated.

“That’s not all, is it,” he said.

“Well, not quite.”

“What else?”

“Marcos and Ariel went down there to find them.”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“You want me to bring you some coffee?”

“You’re not joking.”

“No.”

“I’m awake, might as well get up. Did I hear you talking to Franny out in the kitchen?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, at least she’s got some sanity to her.”

She knew her husband to be an understanding man. Allowing people their eccentricities, faults, and mess-ups was one of his virtues, something best learned early by anyone who would presume to work with animals. But unmasking Franny on top of everything else would push beyond Carl’s patience. He was the definition of mellow until you got him mad. Delfino and Kip, not to mention Marcos and also Kip’s daughter, were enough worry for one day. Besides, once he’d had time to think things over, his first response of hang-it-all diffidence would give way to a much more upset Carl.

“I have to tell Ariel’s grandmother and aunt what’s going on,” she said. “Can’t do it by phone, it wouldn’t be right. I’ll be home early, take the afternoon off so we can figure out what to do.”

“All right,” said Carl.

“Promise me you won’t go doing anything before I get back.”

“How could I? As it is, looks like I gotta do Marcos’s work, Kip’s, and my own to boot.”

“Seriously, Carl.”

“Don’t sweat. I don’t know what to do right now, anyway.”

The daybreak light was thin and brown. Black Mesa was veiled by a dust cloud. Wind shepherded burrs and tossed bits of bramble. Tumbleweeds bounded across the road in the futile headlights. Mary watched all this, numbly knowing the circle of her conceit had come full around. She felt as mindlessly driven as any of that stuff blown by the wind before them. Everything was out of check, the result of being beholden to too many unraveling promises—Kip’s to Delfino, Marcos’s to Kip, Mary’s to Marcos, Sarah’s to Mary. What better place than Los Alamos, she mused, remembering something Kip once said, to arrive with good intentions that might bring about dire consequences?

“I appreciate you coming along.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to tell them?”

“Well, having got you out of bed to confront you about the truth, I’d be a hypocrite not to let them know where Ariel’s gone.”

“Isn’t it more a matter of your allegiances?”

“You’re saying that by telling them where Ariel is, I’m crossing Marcos and Delfino.”

“Crossing me, too, kind of.”

“You didn’t ask me to swear not to say anything.”

“It was implied, don’t you think.”

For a long mile Sarah was quiet. This was forcing her into duplicities, not her stock in trade.

“The Hill must be the only place in the world where if you don’t know physics you’re in the minority. I’m no physicist by any stretch, but I do believe in the relativity of everything. If space and time can bend, then truth can too, I guess. I’ll let them know more or less where Ariel is, more or less what’s up.”

Mary’s turn to fall quiet. Then she said, “After what we talked about this morning, it might sound overbold of me but aren’t half-truths also half-lies?”

“Look, Mary. I have another idea. Let’s just do the best we can and see what happens. I think the same goes for you with Clifford. Just do him the favor of being his niece. No one in your family’s come to see him for a while, except a nephew named Jim.”

“My brother.” What a strange feeling to say in front of Sarah that she had a brother.

“Nice man. You might want to meet him again sometime.”

“I guess for all my father’s patriotism, paying honor to his hero brother was a bit much.”

“For what it’s worth, they used to visit. But then Clifford stopped showing any recognition of your family, until you. It’s a long drive from Gallup just to sit for an hour with somebody who’s become something of a living ghost. Happens more than you might think. Families tire and fade out of the picture. Your Jim’s been by three, four times a year, though. Maybe it’s because he’s in the military, too. Fellow soldier camaraderie.”

Mary had seen him wearing a uniform in Albuquerque at the San Felipe de Nerí festival on her birthday—centuries ago it now seemed. She remembered how young Jimmy used to rib their dad about that black POW/MIA flag. She wanted to ask Sarah about him, and about Johnny. And Rose—did Sarah know what she was doing now? Stifling the urge to learn more, Mary wondered at her own wonder. These names, these people, of course they percolated through her thoughts and dreams from time to time, but she’d come to regard them much as they did Clifford. Distant and distanced enough to have become like characters in a work of drama.

Why was it our minds thrived on forgetfulness? As if the world depended not upon remembering, but forgetting. That she wanted to know new things about those she’d tried with considerable success to forget was something of an internal seismic revolution.

Sarah slowed as they crossed the bridge at Otowi, where the wind walloped crabwise upriver, brawling with gusts that rolled down the canyon ahead.

“That’s some storm coming.”

“Thanks for helping me, Sarah,” Mary said.

Fingerprint-shaped droplets blew sideways over the windshield, soon to gust in torrential squalls so inundating that Sarah had to pull the Jeep over onto the shoulder of the road for a few minutes. Desert deluge, like riding through the carwash, one of Mary Carpenter’s favorite Saturday afternoon adventures when she was a girl. She pictured her father in the front seat, her brothers and sister in the back, faces pressed against the windows to watch the soapy tempest.

“There are times when I think things didn’t need to go as bad as they did,” Mary shouted above the din. “With my family, I mean.”

“What brings that to mind?”

“Nothing, the storm just kicked up a memory, is all.”

“Bad memory?”

“Good one, actually.” Then, “I don’t think Marcos will ever trust me again.”

Little shadow raindrops crawled down Sarah’s face as she looked at Mary. “I guess what you need to think about is whether you want him to.”

“He’ll be all right down there? With Delfino and the others?”

“He’s all right.”

The storm strengthened as they continued up the winding pass. At the convalescent center the night staff was signing out. Rain thrashed against the skylight in the main office, and Mary thought anew of the familial joy of the weekend carwash. Crazy, she mused, the things that even seemingly inconsequential sights and sounds could stir up. Franny’d never seemed so removed from her inventor.

“Shall we go visit Mrs. McCarthy first?”

As they walked down the corridor, Mary glanced past open doors into rooms, some dark, others softly lit by bedside lamps. Agony, perplexity, fatigue emanated from those entries, soft murmurs and gentle groans that seared through her. Sarah lay an open palm on her back as they walked, the briefest maternal gesture.

Mrs. McCarthy wasn’t in her room. The bed was unmade. The curtains were drawn back. A nightlight gleamed in her bath.

They found her in the east lounge, alone, sitting in one of the deep-cushioned chairs, hands interlocked on her lap, head tilted back to concentrate on the huge panes of glass overlooking Acid Canyon. Water flowed translucent down the windows. But for the early-morning tympany against the glass, the room was embraced by tranquility. Sarah kneeled beside Ariel’s grandmother and said, “Pretty, isn’t it?”

Without looking at her, the woman whispered, “Beautiful.”

“I understand you’ll be leaving us pretty soon.”

She turned her head and gazed at Sarah.

“Your daughter’s made arrangements with the speech therapist, I saw, and you’ll be coming back here twice a week for some follow-up physical work.”

“The rain, truly beautiful.”

“You can stay if you want, you know. Nobody’s pushing you out. You’re welcome here.”

“Home will be fine.”

She had learned to try to avoid words that went flooey in her mouth, ones that might turn
miss
to
myth
or
true
to
shoe.

“I wanted you to know that your granddaughter—”

“Ariel—”

“You may remember that she came with me down to Nambé to meet Kip Calder?”

“Where—”

“She’s with my son, Marcos. This is Marcos’s friend Mary.”

Mary shook her supple hand and smiled, feeling fraudulent despite having been thoroughly outed. “Hello.”

“They’ve gone downstate for a couple of days and Ariel wanted me to tell you she’s fine and will be back very soon.”

Sarah looked at Mary awkwardly.

“Good, good,” the old woman remarked, as if enjoying the sound of the word, then turned again to the runneling window.

“Good, yes. All right, then. Did you want to sit here a while longer? That rain is so pretty, isn’t it.”

“You warm enough?” Mary asked.

“I’m fine, good.”

“Will you tell your daughter that Ariel’s all right or do you want me to let her know?”

“Fine.”

Sarah rose to her feet. “I’ll tell Bonnie Jean, then.”

“Good, you do.”

Mary gently stroked a wisp of hair that had caught on the old woman’s eyelashes. “There,” she said.

“Beautiful,” the woman whispered, a rattling stutter at the center of the word.

“I’m sorry?”

“The rain is beautiful, isn’t it,” repeated Mrs. McCarthy, perfectly enunciating her pleasure.

“It most certainly is, dear.”

Sarah took Mary by the arm, and they departed the echoing room to find Clifford.

“Ki-ip,” she shouted, having heard what she thought was a man’s voice talking in the encircling wilderness.

Delfino turned in his saddle and said, “Hey, keep it down.”

She strained to hear the voice again but didn’t.

Marcos rode up from behind. “Let’s just get there first,” he said gently. “Then we’ll find him. You go yelling his name out here and you never know who’s going to hear you and yell back.”

That was okay. That wasn’t wrong. God, she was getting tired. But collected herself again.

Nabor’s Tank was the next appointed landmark in this neighborless place. It was up ahead in the dark—Delfino could tell by the way the terrain flattened and by the stunted vegetation and the more friable texture of the sandy ground. Even in the middle of the night and all these decades later, he remembered such nuances.

Not much was said for long periods, though now and again they spoke quietly, if only to confirm they were still within earshot of one another. They’d made a lot of miles without a second glimpse of those lights seen earlier. Marcos commented he was surprised they had gotten this far without being stopped. “Maybe they’re just waiting to see what we’re up to before they come try to arrest us,” he told Ariel, and she agreed that made sense.

They rode alongside Delfino for a while, listened to him softly whistle an impromptu tune. “How I’d like to have my feet in front of a nice big fire,” he said.

“This time tomorrow night you will,” said Ariel.

“More likely they’ll be
in
the fire,” said Marcos, which made her laugh.

At four or so, their clothes began to collect moisture. The huge moon had set. Some matin bird threw itself in bursts through the murk before them, unseen, unheard, noted perhaps by the scant draft it displaced in the otherwise utter stillness. The mountains, their contours discernible now in that they possessed one quality of black, a heavy unrelieved plane of pure lightlessness, while the sky bore another shade, much bluer, backlit, grained with stars—these mountains aptly called
oscura
—ranged close by.

Time passed in jerks and fragments through the night, as one or another of them dozed off, head resting on the leather pommel or rocking forward, chin on chest. The dew that dampened their thighs and shoulders now felt cold on their faces. Gwinn Tank they passed two hours ago, and Nabor’s came by now as they cut back up a washboard road, a rutted trail all but erased by wind and rain, toward Helms Tank, which marked the last leg of the journey. They would arrive around dawn, a little after. Whether they’d arrive alone remained to be seen, but Delfino guessed they were still untracked. Otherwise they’d have been greeted by a cadre of rangers on the western brim of the malpais when they emerged, wouldn’t they? He put any hopeful thoughts aside as soon as he conjured them, though. No easier way to bring trouble on your head than to presume its improbability.

Winds began to kick up, harbinger of daybreak. Stretches of sky along the serrated vista—pale, ardent blues and reds—started to gleam. Neon pinks, dim at first, soon would prosper, flourishing toward turquoise, and then the clear horizon would conceive banks of prodigious muscular clouds. Quickening morning breezes coming off the mountains roused the travelers.