Boonville (32 page)

It was like the project she had planned, “The Blood of Christ in Wine Country,” except the Squirrel Lady's squirrels had replaced the wooden sculptures of the town's population. They scowled at her as she passed. This was what Squirrel Boy must have meant by his note, “Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand.” He knew it wouldn't last. As soon as the locals counted the number of squirrels and made the connection, they wouldn't stand for the effigies of themselves to remain. Frightened by their reflection, they would destroy that part of themselves they couldn't heal.

As Sarah drove past the hotel, she could see Hap with a microphone stuck in his face. There were two network news vans and a small crowd in the parking lot, rubberneckers bringing traffic to a halt. Sarah could hear Hap harping Boontling above the noise of the sheep. She never paid much attention to the local tongue spoken by a few of the old-timers. She could only pick out the
general meaning of some of the words. Hap would be tonight's local-color sound bite.

“Bahl or nonch,” he said, “You got a classic johnem of a crayzeek cock-darley and a lizzied appoled ready to pike. Turn this cow-skullsey Boont into a skype region, a kingster of squeekyteeks. Any oshtook ridgy could see that. But I ain't one to harp lews 'n larmers.”

Sarah felt her pulse in her ears. She tried to remain steady in the driver's seat, not looking toward the cameras. Her life was nobody else's business. Gawkers. They had the same problems as her, whether they knew it or not. Minus the sheep. An image of the animal she had left in the highway resurfaced as she watched its family filling the streets to stop its killer from leaving the scene of the crime. The squirrels resembled a jury of her peers ready to bring in a guilty verdict. She knew Boonville was the jail, but who would dare preside as judge? There was no God. Her early days at Catholic school were enough to teach her that.

Her heart was pumping fifty miles an hour faster than her truck was moving, her mind running at a pace close behind. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired, she ran through the H.A.L.T. list again, reminding herself to breathe. Too much was happening. She knew she was partially responsible for the chaos, but she wanted off this fucking merry-go-round.

“It's aliens tryin' to communicate like them patterns in the wheat fields in Iowa,” she heard Skeeter telling someone outside the market. “A sure case of first contact.”

The traffic lessened as she neared the edge of town, but it was more than simple road rage she felt building as she approached the city limits. Something was about to burst. Something the St. Francis, an abortion, wedding rings, or leaving Boonville could not repair. Not all the king's horses or all the king's men. Not any man, woman, or child. Nothing could put her back together again.

Sarah checked her rearview mirror and saw Boonville in an upheaval, sheep and locals, tourists and cars roaming the highway, hemmed in by the two rows of crucified squirrels as if their expression of shame and disgust would forever contain them. She thought she saw Daryl's Camaro in the middle of the turmoil but turned her eyes away, having seen enough. But there before her, at the end of the row of squirrels, in front of the town's
population sign, looming above the hood of her truck, was the carving of a woman affixed to a cross with a nail pounded through her head and stomach. She steered to the side of the road, parking in front of the crucifix, and studied the image of herself that she had created.

Sarah began to cry.

J
ohn was dreaming when he heard the knock on his door. In the dream, he was a teacher correcting tests for an English class at Anderson Valley High School and the students were getting perfect scores by answering all the true-false questions true. At first he thought they were cheating or it was his mistake for having designed a test with only true answers. But when he graded the essay question, “How can art affect our daily lives?” he discovered their responses were unique and insightful, although written in a language he didn't recognize as English but was able to understand anyway, a slangy dialect of American full of odd nouns. He looked up from one of the exams to praise a student, but found himself looking out on a classroom of squirrels, all with a red apple in front of them, missing a bite.

John decided to answer the door, thinking it would be Blindman or Cal or one of his cohorts come to tell him that the crucifix project had been dismantled and a mob was forming to string him up. “Dancing at the end of a rope without music,” he told himself, forgetting where he had heard that expression. He walked from his bedroom, tucking his shirt into his pants, having slept in his clothes again. He wondered if there was special attire for a hanging, aside from the rope necktie the guest of honor was required to wear. He didn't want to be underdressed.

“Hello,” Sarah said.

The sun was bright behind her. John could hardly see. By the glare, he figured it was late afternoon.

“Nice work down in town,” she said. “What better way to spend your Sunday than to see yourself crucified? You really know how to get a girl's attention.”

John raised a hand to shade his eyes. He saw Sarah's eyes were red and her nose needed wiping. She was trembling and looked like she had climbed out of an over-chlorinated swimming pool, except she wasn't wet.

“I borrowed your crosses,” John said.

“I saw that,” Sarah answered. “You hammered a few nails through my sculpture too. It was quite a statement. Tell me, what did I ever do to you, Squirrel Boy?”

John felt the stare of the two squirrels towering behind her. He had grown tired of their criticism and sledged two smaller squirrels into their sides when he had returned home this morning, trying to use the smaller squirrels as handles to rotate the big ones to point away from the cabin. But they were too heavy to move by himself. He almost threw out his back trying. They remained frozen in their position and dissatisfaction.

“I meant it as a compliment,” he said, noticing Sarah's face now looked as much like one of the frowning squirrels as his own.

“Next time send flowers,” Sarah suggested. “I like tuberose.”

John could tell she wasn't exactly angry, more disturbed by the experience of the crucifixes. He couldn't have expected any less of a reaction, but there had come a point in the project when he was no longer in control, working on instinct, uncovering a piece of himself that had been hidden. It was strange, but when he was finishing the exhibition, he didn't care or think about any specific individual. There seemed to be a greater force guiding him. It surpassed his needs or Sarah's, a common agony and indefatigable hope that was bigger than Boonville. That became his motivation.

“It was your idea,” John said, getting his bearings.

He wasn't trying to deflect blame. The truth was that without Sarah he never would have conceived of the project. He tried to explain to her the events leading up to the first nail, starting with his visit to the Waterfall and meeting her mother and the giant and the troll, then rambled into stories about his family, Grandma, and Christina. He mentioned the others' involvement, Pensive, the Albion Nation, Billy Chuck, the Kurtses, and how they had put their own marks on the crosses. He tried to lay bare his intentions, but it still wasn't clear to him why he had done what he had done or its full significance. The meaning would vary depending on the understanding and compassion each viewer brought to the work. For him, like Franny had suggested, it meant release. He had
pieced together order, a reflection of himself that felt truthful, linking him to a specific time, place, and community.

“I hope you're not mad at me,” John said. “I heard you were leaving and it was all I could think of to do.”

“I'm not mad at you,” she said, shaking her head, turning to face the valley, then setting her eyes directly back to his. “In fact, you might be the only person in the world I'm not mad at right now.”

“Maybe this isn't the time to tell you,” John said. “I made a deal with Cal to keep the crosses up so you could see them.”

“What kind of deal?” she said, eyebrows lifting.

John told her about Balostrasi and the earring and what the giant at the commune had said about “burying strangers.” Sarah asked how that affected her. John said that, without naming names or telling him what he was doing on the side of the mountain that night, he told Cal the approximate location of the ear they had uncovered. In return, Cal guaranteed to guard the project until she saw it, providing it was no later than tonight. John figured with the dope harvested and Sarah out of town, they were off the hook if Cal found the stomped site or the other patch, which would be a miracle because his directions were vague to say the least.

Sarah shook her head, asking John if he knew how long it took to set up an irrigation system, to find natural springs and water sources, to lug hoses and dig trenches. How expensive it was to start from scratch? How hard it was to scout locations? The risk involved? How everyone in the valley knew who was growing on that ridge, so the Waterfall was in deep shit if there was an investigation. And with her gone, everyone at the commune would think she ratted them out. Unless the Feds found her first.

“Cal doesn't care if you're growing dope,” John said. “Especially if it's gone. That's not his job.”

“That's what you think,” Sarah said.

“I couldn't have it on my conscience,” John said. “If Aslan killed Balostrasi he should be put away.”

“Poachers disappear in these hills every year,” Sarah said. “They know what they're getting into. Not that that makes it O.K., but I didn't set up the dynamic. I wouldn't kill someone trying to boost my crop, but I wouldn't steal someone's hard work either. If he's guilty, I hope they lock the Poobah up and throw away the key. But let me tell you, if he did do it, it's the least of his crimes.”

“What could be worse than murder?” John said.

“I'll let you answer that yourself,” Sarah said. “I don't want to think about it.”

“I'm sorry if I got you in any trouble,” John said.

“Don't worry, the Feds coming after me is a long shot,” Sarah said, cutting short the lecture. “The Poobah's been surfing a wave of bad karma for years. It's about time it closed out on him.”

Enough said, John thought, ready to leave the subject alone. He knew a lawyer who could get him out of whatever he had stumbled into so far, as long as he didn't fall any further. Bean Bean's cousin routinely cleared citizens in Miami unlucky enough to be in the proximity of large quantities of cocaine at the wrong time, usually a straw's length away in a Porsche parked in a stakedout parking lot of a convenience store. They walked with probation, donating their vehicles to the judge's favorite charity. That sort of help was a telephone call and a nonrefundable cash retainer of five thousand dollars away. But he was worried about Sarah. Although she seemed to be taking everything in stride, it could be more out of habit than choice.

“The golden goose always dies,” she said. “I'll be all right, nothing's in my name up there. I needed to make a clean break anyway.”

John could see that despite the problematic nature of the information he had disclosed, it had come as a relief for Sarah. Decisions had been made. It was out of her hands now. She seemed grateful for the intervention, regardless of the outcome. She could take care of more pressing issues.

“I'm pregnant,” she said.

“I know,” John answered.

He wondered who the father was but knew it was Daryl. Sarah confirmed this with a silence. The ass-kickings made sense now. Sarah's early harvest and flight. The crime was always simpler than its confusing evidence.

“What are you going to do?” John asked.

“I thought I knew,” she said. “But what was right for me before, isn't now. And I started seeing signs everywhere. I'm not religious, but I feel like someone is trying to tell me something.”

“I think we create our own signs, to tell ourselves which way to go,” John told her. “I think we always know what's right inside, but sometimes we need to manifest physical proof.”

“Well, I slaughtered a lamb on my way over here,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “Hit it with my truck. Dead as fucking dead.”

She choked off a snuffling, her chest beginning to heave with hiccups of grief.

“Tell me that's not a fucking sign,” she said, looking up at him.

John stepped forward through the doorway, enclosing her in his arms. She accepted his hug, her lucky red hat falling from her head as she leaned into his chest. John felt the heat of her body and strength of her arms as she returned his embrace. He rested his chin on the top of her head and patted her back. He could feel her tears wetting the front of his shirt. A breeze blew across the porch, but he felt warm. Sarah's hair was soft against his cheek and he felt he could fall asleep right here, standing up. They swayed together on the deck, not quite a two-step.

“Thank you,” she said, letting go. “I needed that.”

John reached down for her hat. Sarah wiped her nose. John wished he lived in an age when men still carried handkerchiefs. But he knew Sarah didn't need anyone to blow her nose. He wasn't the man for that job anyway. He just wanted to do the right thing once in a while. He held Sarah's hat out for her.

“You keep it,” she said, the blue of her eyes radiant beneath the remnants of her tears. “You're going to need it more than I am.”

“Are you sure?” John said.

“No,” she said, finding a lighter tone in her voice. “Just wear it when you visit me in San Francisco. And don't flinch when I ask you to run out for ice cream and pickles.”

“You're certain?” John asked, unsnapping the plastic strap on the back of the cap and adjusting it so it would fit his head.

“Of what?” Sarah asked.

John remembered Sarah asking him on his first night in Boonville, “Is anybody ever really ready for anything they do?” Sometimes until the event takes place, you don't know. You can only hope you've prepared yourself, because ready or not, the episodes of your life unfold without much rehearsal. He felt he had a different answer for her question now.

“Thank you,” he said, pulling the cap on over his tousled hair.

“It looks good,” she said, coming forward and kissing him lightly on the lips.

It could have been a hippie girl thing, but there seemed to
be more than friendship in the kiss. John was determined not to read too much into it, although Sarah smiled with Mae West sassiness as if to say, “Think whatever you want, big boy.” John knew they would meet again under better circumstances. He would need a break from the loneliness of Grandma's cabin. A night in San Francisco might be the ticket; dinner, candlelight, conversation. Strolling along together in the fog. He'd gladly try to satisfy Sarah's cravings.

Sarah told him to check at the Boonville Hotel in a week or two and she would leave her new address or a telephone number with Hap. She needed to be alone for a while, set up a home and a studio, create a stable environment for the change coming in her life. She wasn't going to fuck this up. John said he knew she wouldn't and he looked forward to seeing her again when they both felt better.

“Before you go, would you help me with something,” John asked, adding, “It's not even illegal.”

“If it doesn't take too long,” she said. “I really have to go.”

“It will only take a minute,” John said.

He led Sarah off the porch to the giant squirrels. As the two stood at the base of the sculptures, John thought the squirrels seemed like overly protective mothers guarding their young. John grabbed onto one of the makeshift handles and told Sarah to do the same. They leaned their weight into the large piece of wood. John thought the squirrel handles might snap, but the totem began to turn, damp soil churning from beneath as bugs and spiders scurried from their hiding place. The outer rim of a dark circle appeared in the ground, the base of the sculpture moving a few inches to the left. They paused, counted to three. Using all their strength, they turned the squirrel so it faced the valley.

“One more to go,” John said, moving to the other squirrel.

Before taking hold of the handle, he looked up at the giant carvings facing in opposite directions. They seemed confused, a weather vane pointing both north and south.

“I don't know how your grandmother carved something so huge,” Sarah said. “She must have had help, at least putting them in place.”

“I don't know, either,” John replied, willing to let that remain the eighth wonder of Boonville. “I guess Gibsons think big.”

They took their grips on the second squirrel. This totem
moved easier than the first, joining its partner in the new view. Seeing both squirrels pointing in the right direction, John felt a surge of relief. Sarah seemed to feel the shift too, acknowledging they had accomplished something by giving John the thumb's-up signal.

It may not have been what Grandma intended, John thought, but it's what he could live with.

He wriggled one of the squirrel handles from the side of the second sculpture. It's face was mashed from being wedged into the larger piece of wood, but it still held John's features enough to be recognizable. He tossed it to Sarah.