Irish Chain (39 page)

“He’s evil man,” Mr. Morita said. “I protect Rose Ann like she protect my Hatsumi. My hands are strong hands still.” He held up his square, clean hands.

I stared at them for a moment, feeling like I couldn’t take a breath. “Todd,” I finally said, “Oralee told Mac and me everything. Mac went to the police. They’re probably looking for your grandfather now.”

“Shit!” Todd hit the side of his leg. He turned to his grandfather and grabbed his arm. “We have to get out of here.”

“Where are you going to go, Todd?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm and soothing. “Your grandfather is almost seventy years old. You’re not even eighteen yet. Where are you going to go?” My ears roared as if a wave had crashed inside them.

“I have some money saved,” he said, his eyes desperate. “We’ll go to Mexico. They can’t get us in Mexico.” He dug his fist into his thigh, desperate tears shining in his eyes.

“Son,” a voice said through the fog behind him, “you watch too much television.” Clay walked up, tall and comforting, and I exhaled in relief. “You wouldn’t last five minutes south of the border. Shoot, I’m not even sure if they get MTV down there yet.” He came up and stood beside me. “Now, why don’t we all just go on down to the police station and get this straightened out.”

“No!” Todd said. “They’ll put him in jail. I won’t let them do that. Mr. O’Hara deserved to die. He deserved to die fifty years ago.”

“We go with them,” Mr. Morita said, touching his grandson’s shoulder. “They are right....”

“No!” Todd turned and grabbed his grandfather’s arm. “You can’t go to prison, Grandfather. Not for him. We have to run.”

Mr. Morita’s face became confused. It was obvious a battle was taking place within him. I’m sure he was thinking of the one thing that Todd wasn’t. That Todd himself could be held as an accessory. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You’re not going anywhere, son,” Clay said, making the decision. “Your grandfather is too old to go on the run and you’re too young and stupid. Now, just come along with Benni and me....”

Todd bent over and grabbed something from the box at his feet. He pulled out a long steel-bladed fish-cleaning knife. “I’m not your son,” he said tightly. “And we’re not going anywhere with you.” He took his grandfather’s arm and started inching past us.

“Put that away before you hurt someone, more’n likely yourself.” Clay’s voice was lazy and calm. I stood frozen, not certain how serious Todd was.

“No!” Todd said, holding tightly to his grandfather’s arm and backing away. Mr. Morita looked confused and slightly frightened.

Clay started walking toward them.

“Stop right there,” Todd said, holding the knife out in front of him, pushing Mr. Morita behind him. “I’ll use this. I swear I will.” His hand trembled so much it looked as if he were shaking the knife at Clay.

“Be careful,” I said as Clay inched forward. “I think he will.”

Clay held up his hand to me and kept walking. His boots made a sucking sound on the wet concrete platform.

“Kid, I’m getting tired of this game. You give me that knife right now.” Clay reached out his hand. In a flash, Todd reached over and slashed it.

“Shit!” Clay jerked his hand back. “Why, you little—” He lunged at Todd. He caught him by surprise and grasped his wrist. Mr. Morita and I both jumped back and watched them grapple for the knife.

They twirled and grunted, the sounds of combat muffled by the thick fog. Clay was bigger than Todd and a more experienced fighter, but Todd had youth on his side and the adrenaline produced by fear. Mr. Morita pressed himself against the side of the building, his face a yellowish-gray against the dark wet wood. He looked ready to pass out and I started to go to him, but stopped, afraid of what it might set off in Todd.

They wrestled closer to me. I moved back, the back of my thighs hitting the low railing of the pier. Todd broke away from Clay. He slashed at Clay’s thigh. Red instantly soaked Clay’s jeans.

“You little asshole,” Clay roared. The back of his hand collided with Todd’s jaw.

The knife clattered to the concrete in front of me. I dived for it.

“Benni, stay back!” Clay shouted.

Todd broke away from Clay and reached the knife the moment I did. I grabbed the smooth handle and stood up. My triumph lasted only a second. He slammed his fist down on my wrist. I screamed in pain and surprise. The knife clattered to the ground. He kicked it away and shoved me hard. I felt the back of my thighs hit the low pilings. Then I went over.

It was like that dream. The one where you’re falling, falling, and before you hit the ground, you wake up in your safe, warm bed, trembling with excitement and relief. I’d heard it said if a person ever hit the ground in that dream, they would die. But it wasn’t a dream. I hit the water backwards. Pain shot up my spine and the cold water enveloped me like a giant’s fist. For a second, I went under and everything was black and freezing and all I’d ever imagined hell would be. I kicked my legs and pushed to the surface. Tread water, my mind commanded. The voice of my junior life-guard instructor, Miss Marion, screamed in my head. “Don’t thrash about so, Benni. Slowly, slowly. Remember, the proper way to tread water could some day save your life.”

No. It was impossible. My legs were too heavy. Then there was no feeling at all. Pictures flashed through my mind—my mother lying in bed the last day of her life, face as smooth and white as her bleached sheets; Dove’s hand on my shoulder waking me to tell me my life as a married woman was over; Jack’s face in his coffin, the bruising only faintly visible under the pinkish makeup; Gabe’s face the first time he kissed me, that mixture of longing and fear that had permeated our relationship.

I went under again, my mouth open. I pushed my head back over the edge of the water, gulping air and salt water. “Jack,” I cried. “Mama. Help me.” Far away, the foghorn moaned again.
Swim toward it
, my mind irrationally cried. I started moving my arms, stroking my way into the gray nothingness. Gabe’s face exploded in my mind. Gabe’s face, his voice, calling me.

“Benni!” The voice came from my right. “Swim toward my voice. If you can hear me, swim toward my voice.” The sound was muffled, like someone yelling through a thick wall.

“Gabe?” I choked out, swallowing more water. I inhaled a large gulp of air. “Gabe! Help me!” I screamed.

“You can do it,” he yelled. “Swim toward my voice.”

My arms started pumping of their own accord, following the familiar sound of his voice, toward warmth and safety. His voice called encouragement with each stroke.

“Answer me,” he’d yell every so often and I’d take a big gulp of air and call out his name. “Keep going,” he’d yell and kept up his loud patter as a beacon for me to follow. I pictured him in my mind, his sharp, high cheekbones, his crazy blue eyes, his large gentle hands. Gabe, who I would always feel safe with. Gabe, who I loved.

After what seemed like hours, in the cloying fog, a figure emerged, standing at the bottom of one of the metal ladders attached to the side of the pier for the commercial fishermen. I swam toward him, toward the outstretched hand. With each stroke, I said his name over and over in my mind.

“Gotcha,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the metal ladder. The strength and solidness of his hand made me whimper in relief. “Good girl,” he praised and pulled me up out of the water. “You’ll have to climb the ladder by yourself. Can you do it?” Through my water-clogged ears, his words sounded like someone yelling from miles away.

“Yes,” I said, holding onto the metal with a grip that bit into my numb hands. “Yes, I can do it.” Through the wet hair clinging to my face, veiling my eyes, I watched his jean-clad legs climb up ahead of me. I pulled myself up the ladder, thanking God for each rung.

When I reached the top, strong arms pulled me over the low railing. We collapsed on the cold concrete. His arms encircled me and I buried my face in his warm chest. His breath came in short, hard gasps, and I could feel the comforting warmth of it on the top of my head.

“Gabe,” I said, my voice catching in a sob. “How did you find me? Todd? Clay? What happened? I thought I was going to die. I saw Jack in his coffin and my mother. I felt Dove’s hands. Gabe, you found me. I love you.”

He sighed underneath me, his chest inflating like a blow-fish.

“Well,” Clay said. “I guess I could consider changing my name.”

21

I COULDN’T GET warm. The heat from the small electric heater in the Harbor Patrol office couldn’t seem to penetrate my chilled skin. One of the officers brought me a scratchy wool blanket that smelled faintly of beer and a small white hand towel to dry my hair. But even under the blanket, my wet clothes felt like ice. When the paramedics arrived, they checked me over and concluded I was all right but suggested that I should see my own doctor soon. The mug of coffee one of the sheriffs deputies had kindly poured for me sat on the desk growing cold. With the amount of salt water I’d swallowed, I knew that anything that touched my stomach would come right back up. Puking into a trash can was an embarrassment I just couldn’t deal with at the moment. I huddled in the chair and shivered while Clay answered the deputies’ questions for both of us. They had reached Gabe on his cellular phone. He was already on his way back from Santa Barbara when he received the call, and was currently about a half an hour away. I heard enough of the conversations between the various emergency personnel milling about to know that Todd and his grandfather never made it around that curve. In Todd’s haste, he apparently took it too fast and spun his little Toyota out of control. They crashed through the flimsy guardrail into the ocean. I still didn’t know how badly they were hurt.

I watched in a haze as a trim, fresh-faced young paramedic cut Clay’s jeans up to his thigh where the knife had sliced into his leg. As they worked on him, Clay caught my eye and gave me an encouraging wink, as if to say “This’ll be one to tell the boys in the bunkhouse, won’t it?” So like him to treat even something this serious as a lark. But then, each of us deals with trauma differently. For all I knew, he was eating a hole in his stomach the size of a baseball.

Everything and everyone seemed to be moving so slowly. I pulled the blanket closer around me and watched the front door of the Harbor Patrol offices with confused feelings of yearning and dread. Gabe arrived twenty minutes later. His face held that expressionless look I’d come to dread.

“Chief Ortiz, San Celina Police,” he said in a terse voice when one of the deputies asked him if he needed help. His eyes scanned the room like radar and I felt tears well up in my eyes when they finally found me. He crossed the small office in seconds and stood in front of me, his eyes smoky gray with anger. He didn’t say a word to me, but turned back to the sheriffs deputy. “Fill me in.”

They led him over to where Clay sat, his leg wrapped in a trauma bandage and propped on a small box, and the murmur of explanations started. I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair, calm for the first time in hours. I didn’t want to think about what would happen when Gabe and I were finally alone; it was enough that he was here, taking care of things, here to eventually take me home. That we cared about each other was painfully obvious. That we could ever reconcile those feelings with how we lived our lives seemed doubtful.

I’m not sure how much time had passed when I sensed someone standing in front of me. I opened my eyes to Clay’s brown, smiling gaze.

“They’re taking me to the hospital,” he said, leaning on the desk for a support. “I told them I’d been chewed up worse at a two-bit rodeo, but they insisted.”

“Does it hurt much?”

“Not as much as a renegade cow’s hoof that broke my knee once.” He reached down and touched the bandage. “I reckon I’ll walk again, though I doubt if I’ll ever play the organ quite as well.”

I gave a weak smile. “You don’t play the organ.”

Grinning, he made a gun with his finger and thumb and shot at me. He shifted and his face went bone-white and I knew the leg was hurting him more than he let on. “How are you?” he asked.

“Cold,” I said. “Tired. Sad. I feel like I failed Todd somehow.” A tear sneaked down my cheek. Before I could unwrap myself from my woolly cocoon to wipe it away, he reached over and captured it with a rough finger.

“Oh, honey,” he said. “There wasn’t anything anyone could do. That story started long before you ever came into the picture.”

“I know. Logically, I know that. But I still feel like I could have done something.”

“You did. You cared enough to try. That’s as much as anyone can ask these days.”

“Thanks.” I snuggled deeper into the blanket. “You’re a good friend for saying that. Maybe someday I’ll even believe it.”

“Friend, huh?” He shook his head sadly. Hatless, with his coarse blond hair all wavy and wild from the humidity, he looked like a teenager. Just like the Clay O’Hara who seventeen years ago strolled into the Senior Dance and stole me away right from under Jack Harper’s nose. “Oh, Benni Harper,” he said. “We could have had fun, you know.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, I bet we could have.”

“You’d love the Triple Ought. Two thousand acres of the most beautiful pasture land east of the Rockies. Air like the best Chablis you ever drank. More cattle than you can count. I’m telling you, the smell of sagebrush there would break your heart.”

“Sounds like heaven.” I sighed.

“Just not yours.”

“Just not mine.”

“What’s he got?” He jerked his thumb in Gabe’s direction. “A job that’ll kill him someday, one way or another. A pension if he’s lucky. An old Corvette.”

“He’s got one thing.” I pulled a hand out and laid it over my heart.

Clay gave a dramatic groan. “You’re takin’ all the slack out of my rope, Widow Harper.”

I laughed out loud this time. It echoed across the room and I noted with satisfaction Gabe’s spine straighten slightly. “I imagine somehow you’ll survive, Clay O’Hara.”

“Well, I guess we’ve started us a tradition now.”

“What’s that?”

“I have to come back to San Celina every seventeen years and get my heart broke by you.”