Ariel's Crossing (43 page)

Private property,
he mused. What kind of witless wonder would want to set up shop in such a place as this? Even if the government weren’t putting bread on Jim’s table and meat in his Crock-Pot, he would deem this land fit only for the uses to which it was presently being put. Exploding dummy prey and testing high-velocity hardware. At least Alamogordo was on the lee side of natural wrath. Over along this western edge of the basin was different. Beautiful in the harshest ways. But you come here looking to homestead and you ought to be homesteaded straight to the cuckoo’s nest. Soup to nuts but skip the soup. Kinda like that.

The secure line came to life. They’d arrested the other man who avowed he was not Delfino Montoya but one William Calder. Delfino Montoya was high probability among the Dripping Spring group. A call from a worried relative corroborated this and indicated the male was his nephew and female this Calder’s daughter, though Calder—in custody at the infirmary—had stated he had no family.

It was all coming to complex clarity.

Montoya was on file as having communicated threats to various official individuals over the years with regard to his eviction from Dripping Spring a long time ago. To be considered potentially armed and dangerous, since his name came up on the computer as a buyer of blue-market armaments from right-wing extremist purveyors. They were trying to get specifics on that. The relative’s name was Sarah Montoya, his sister-in-law. The younger male was her son, no priors. The woman, name of Ariel Rankin, was being processed. Some things, however, had already been learned about her. Stepfather was an active antigovernment advocate with an FBI file long as your leg, a sheet of multiple protest arrests, and connections to leftist clients. Stepfather’s father, Phillip McCarthy, a chemical engineer and scientist, had worked without incident on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, but later repudiated said participation. This Calder character, father or not, was also from Los Alamos. His mother was a Cuban national, now deceased, but they were checking into how she got clearance during the war in the first place. Calder had made captain in an elite covert insurgency outfit in Laos, code name Ravens, serving with apparent distinction until he renounced his citizenship temporarily to work underground in Communist Laos on behalf of the Hmong. Now homeless, with IRS records showing no known job affiliation, Calder was legally married to a Vietnamese citizen residing in Hanoi, two stepsons American citizens. For somebody with no family he sure had a lot of relatives.

They then summarized the trespassers’ probable objectives and demands.

Great, thought Jim, filliping the gum. Just fucking great.

He was told to go ahead and try to make contact with the intruders, but must under no circumstances be provocative or make any attempt to arrest the individuals until information could be gathered as to whether others were involved. They were already running some background on the lady who telephoned from up north.

Wider awake than he had been since he was called in for this small operation not yet twelve hours old, Jim radioed his team members that he was going to have a little chat with their guests. They were to back him up. Keep their eyes wide open and firearms holstered but at the ready.

Ariel, Marcos, and Delfino watched Jim make his ascent. They could see the three others emerging from their positions on the left and right, and while none of the rangers displayed any aggression in the manner they approached Dripping Spring, Delfino thought it might be prudent to show them he meant business.

“You sure that’s necessary?” Marcos asked his uncle, who had retrieved the shotgun and leaned it against the low stone wall.

“So long as I’m not brandishing the thing. They need to know we’re not on some picnic.”

Troubled by the gun and what it could precipitate, Ariel voiced her agreement with Marcos.

“We don’t show we got any protection, they’ll just take us away in cuffs, and all we done to get here was for naught. What I think is, we find out what we can about Kip, then Ariel ought to go back with them. That’s her purpose.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

In no time, Jim stood facing them downslope from the stone fence. Delfino’d already warned him, when he was yet a few hundred feet away, not to come more than half that distance closer. They could hear each other just fine. Wasn’t no noise to disturb them.

“You Delfino Montoya?”

“I am.”

“Your friends here, what are your names?”

“Ariel Rankin.”

“Marcos Montoya.”

While jotting the names on his pocket pad, he said, “You folks realize you’re trespassing restricted government property?”

“Sure do.”

“You understand that’s against the law?”

“May I ask your name?”

“Sergeant James Carpenter,” he smiled at Ariel, most polite and friendly. “I’ve come here to escort you to the perimeter of the proving grounds. We’ll be met there by some people who will be happy to take down any statements you wish to make.”

“That’s kind of you. But we won’t need your help when we want to leave. I know this terrain like the back of my hand,” Delfino assured him.

“I assumed that’s what you were going to say.”

“Well, I guess you’re a smart fellow.”

Not missing a beat, Jim continued, “Not smart enough to know what brings you folks up here this morning, sir.”

Delfino asked Marcos if he wouldn’t mind walking the copy of his deed down there so the sergeant could see for himself. “Just go partway, lay it on the ground, and for godsakes don’t let him grab you,” he told his nephew, then louder, for Jim to hear, “Hope you don’t mind if I hold my shotgun so we got ourselves some—what do you people call it?—parity. Let’s nobody make any quick movements, all right?” With that, Delfino retrieved his weapon.

“Mr. Montoya, no need for guns. We’re not here to harm you.”

Marcos started down. This is how you get your ass slain, he thought.

“We’re doing fine, then. We’re not here to harm you, either.”

Ariel was shocked by how swiftly the climate had changed. She backed away from Delfino several unconscious paces. Marcos set the deed and its accompanying claim, sealed in a plastic sleeve, on the tan earth. As he turned to rejoin the others, Jim Carpenter advised him, in a gentle voice, “Your mother’s concerned about your welfare. You know that none of whatever you’re all up to here is worth people getting hurt over.”

“So what’s my mother’s name?”

“Sarah Montoya. All right?”

“What did she say?”

“What do you think she said?”

Delfino was calling him.

“And what about your girlfriend?”

“You mean Mary?”

“I thought her name was Ariel,” nodding upward.

“What about her?”

“Aren’t you concerned for her welfare?”

“I’m concerned, sure. About everybody’s welfare. And while we’re talking, you should know there’s probably another person out here. He’s sick and needs medical attention. The woman with us is his daughter. She’s looking for him and doesn’t have anything to do with evictions or land claims or any of this other problem. His name’s Kip Calder. He’s a Vietnam vet. He—”

Jim thought about whether to divulge what he knew and decided to hold his cards. “I’ll put a search and rescue out on him right away,” and did so in Marcos’s presence, raising the VHF radio earnestly to his head and ordering the rescue, though without ever pushing the transmit switch. “Let her know we’re on top of it.”

Delfino waited impatient and silenced by the vision of this colloquy out of earshot. Marcos began his walk back up the sere knoll. Ariel felt suddenly ridiculous in her dress.

“Hey, Marcos. What do you want us to tell your mother?”

“Tell her everything’s fine.”

“You want me to lie to her?”

Marcos turned around and said, “You’ve got all the equipment. Patch her through to me and I’ll tell her myself.”

“I’ll see what I can do, chief. Let’s just don’t forget who’s causing the problem and who’s trying to help resolve it.”

“Don’t call me chief.”

Hang tough, zip the lip, stay cool to rule. Jim ran several choice expletives through his mind as he watched Marcos hike away. He didn’t much like having to stoop to retrieve the pathetic documentation provided by these neophyte fanatics. The kid seemed levelheaded, though, had to admit. Probably loves the codger. Once Marcos was out of hearing range, he reported what transpired. Projection was, all agreed, a minor standoff of brief duration, to be kept from the media. Nobody liked the old fart’s shotgun, including, seemingly, the perpetrators themselves. Who knew if it was even loaded? Hardly mattered since they had to proceed as if it were. The girl was entangled in somebody else’s fracas and would probably be the weak link. Would have to work on that. Last analysis: What they had here was an elderly local with the same damn gripe they’d heard before. Some folks just won’t give up their private past for the common future.

Jess remembered an afternoon so buried in the past that she might have questioned whether it really happened had she not borne to this day a scar that verified it did. A sandy beach at Montauk with her new family. Sweet sincere Brice and little munchkin Ariel, then five years old. The waves cascading gently to shore and just as gently receding. Brice, in that faded dorky plaid swimsuit he mistakenly considered hip, had carried his laughing daughter into the green waves, while Jessica herself lay on a towel watching these chancy creatures. She’d slept the night before wrapped in her husband’s arms and with her daughter nestled in hers, in the seaside motel bed, breathing in a kind of counterpoint with the swells beyond the window. She loved her family. Loved watching them wade into the water, a small wave, a stronger wave, then several waves so marginal they hardly counted as waves at all.

While she would always value her time with Kip, always cherish the prodigal outcome of their intimacy—darling Ariel herself—Jess had made her peace with his disappearance from their lives. Now her daughter and husband played in the Atlantic, ranging farther out into it until, yes, she realized they were afloat, Ariel’s chin on Brice’s shoulder bobbing up with each fresh surge, the girl’s peals of laughter not quite swallowed by the rushing breakers.

She remembered settling back on the beach towel, sun warming her and specks of fine sand, kicked up by the shore breeze, dancing across her skin. Dear God, if you are and if you’re willing to help me out here, she thought, please never let me forget this perfect moment of peace and contentment. Thank you with all my heart.

And meditatively, arrhythmically, the waves continued to roll in, to fizzle and hiss where the sand restrained their progress, then to withdraw before another mouth of brine opened up, curled its long lip into a whitecap of pluming emeralds, and chewed its way down the shoreline. What a banquet! she dreamed, drifting away toward light sleep as a clutch of black-backed gulls squabbled over a rind of discarded grapefruit or some hapless mussel knocked loose from its bedrock mooring.

Maybe she did fall asleep for a fleet second, but no sooner did she reawaken than she knew her prayer had been answered in the most startling, unwanted way. She knew even before she sat up and cast her eyes frantically over the knotty face of the ocean that she would never forget her former contentment, if only because she lost every atom of it in this new indelible, ghastly moment.

The riptide had carried them out with dispatch. Jessica ran frantic along the edge of the water, shrieking their names, crying for help. People gathered, also shouting. The call went out along the shore, its own human wave of hysteria. Several surf fishermen dropped their long rods and raced over to where this young woman screamed that her husband and daughter were drowning.

—They were, they were just there, just a minute ago.

She must have said something to that effect, though it was more than possible nothing articulate came forth.

—Where?

She did hear them asking that question.

—Out there there
there,
out there.

Miles away, an oil tanker slowly traversed the low horizon. Nearer, a few fishing boats pitched, trawlers dragging for scallops or clams. Nearer yet, a dory crewed by one soul, a peapod making trap rounds. All too distant to ask for help. Bathers could be seen along the shore, not many for such a crisp clear day as this.

Then someone spotted them. —Over there! And others in the crowd began sprinting down the beach, Jessica merely among them now, for hers had become their collective fright.

Ariel and Brice’s heads were like one speck, a fused trifle in the silver expanse of water. From seemingly nowhere two rescuers had launched, one in a small canoe of sorts, the other paddling hard past the shoals out into the longer swells on a surfboard.

—They’re gonna be fine, a woman assured her, taking Jessica’s hand as they stood knee-deep in buffeting waves.

A quarter hour must have passed before they were brought back to shore in the canoe, the surfboarder clinging alongside. Some cheering, applause. Blankets. The two were cold and shaken but fine. Some minutes of weeping together in an embrace of joy and surfeit fear before Brice noticed Jessica’s hand was running with blood. The wing of flesh between her right thumb and index finger was gashed, and though her memory of tripping over one of the fishermen’s tackle boxes and coming down on an open chest of spoon lures was as faint as if it never transpired, the scar from her laceration lasted to this day.

Even now she recalled how preposterous it was that, having nearly lost her daughter and husband to a riptide, she was the one who wound up in an emergency room where she, never in mortal danger like the others, was administered a tetanus shot and bandaged after receiving stitches. How many ironies had been in play that afternoon? She lost count and then interest in counting them, too, as her hand healed and the incident receded, only popping into mind at the least likely moments, such as the present when she noticed how pale her skin was against Sarah Montoya’s as they shook hands. And, too, caught sight of that tiny ladder of scarring that prompted her memory of Montauk.