Sweetgirl (9 page)

I don't know how long we slept in that shanty, but the storm had eased and I felt rested when I woke. I drank some water and Portis forced me to eat a plug of jerky, which I hoped was venison but tasted like a smaller game I did not need specifics on. We packed up and were gone.

There was some gray light above the hills as we left the ice—Portis in the lead and me trailing behind with Jenna babbling in her papoose. The snow was piled high on the pine boughs and the woods were still beneath the fresh powder as we walked back into the trees. I was glad to see Portis had wrapped an old T-shirt around his wound, though I doubted he'd bothered to clean it with the whiskey. Baby steps, I thought.

“It's pretty,” I said. “But I swear I am never coming back up on this hill.”

“This hill is cursed,” said Portis. “There isn't a doubt.”

“You're the one that lives here.”

“I don't so much live as I do exist.”

“That's deep.”

“I wish it were,” he said.

The Packer stove had given me my feet back. They were snug inside the wool socks and I stepped on them freely and without pain. I had been warmed all the way through by our time in the shanty but now that the cold had returned it was damn blunt about it. Like it hurt even worse because I was still so near to the alternative.

“How long was I out?” I said. “In the shanty?”

“I don't know.”

“Can't you tell it by the way the snow falls or something? By the way the light slants? Mountain man that you are.”

“Of course I could,” he said. “But what does it matter? Time don't move in a straight line up in these hills. It sort of wiggles around and folds back on itself. There's no way to put a number to it.”

“Whatever that means,” I said.

“It means what it means,” he said. “It ain't a riddle.”

“I'm just curious what time it is?” I said.

“Roughly, nine in the
A.M
,” he said.

“I guess we're not making breakfast,” I said.

“I did not factor in frostbite and another dumping of snow into my calculations.”

I looked at Jenna sleeping and was heartened by her calm and the soft touch of color in her cheeks. For the first time since I
found her I had a solid feeling inside, like we were actually going to get her to the hospital.

“How far to the truck?” I said.

“A mile or so.”

“That's not bad.”

“It won't feel like any mile you've ever walked. I can promise you that.”

“It's tough walking,” I said. “But it can't be but so bad.”

“We're going uphill the whole way,” he said.

“It doesn't seem like it.”

“It's a gradual incline.”

“That's good,” I said. “Gradual is good.”

“You say potato,” said Portis.

I could see him swaying a little as he stepped, but I figured it was from the labor as much as the drunkenness. Portis had been walking drunk near his entire life. Portis always said the key to walking drunk was to try and walk crooked.

Up ahead I watched as a swarm of chickadees broke from a jack pine, scattering tiny mists of snow as they searched out neighboring trees. And that's the thing about Cutler—it's a hard place, but sometimes it's so damn pretty you don't know what to do with it all. Portis drank from his whiskey bottle and I trailed behind him.

I tried to lose myself in the rhythm of the march. I tried to remain focused on how good my feet felt and to be grateful for their return. I was feeling better about our situation, that much was true, but it was hard to hold on to that feeling when the cold started to creep back in.

I had never considered myself the adventuresome type, and this entire ordeal had only confirmed that fact. You will not find me in any of those mud races, or leaping from a perfectly good airplane to prove some vague point about the human spirit. I do not relish risk or seek thrills and cannot understand people who pay their good money to endanger and punish themselves. You got to have it made to even think like that, to walk around feeling like your life needs a few more challenges thrown in.

I wish they had a website for such people. Rich folks with a bunch of crackpot energy. People like me could post help-wanted ads and then the adrenaline junkies could do something of actual value with their foolishness. I mean, why run through some mud you put there on purpose when you could come to Cutler and rescue a baby from the drug-ravaged farmhouse of a fucking lunatic?

I was getting a little loopy out there in the woods, thinking about how we could turn the whole thing into a race. I pictured a bunch of those X Games, Lance Armstrong types milling around Shelton's porch with their heart-rate monitors and protein shakes. I was cracking myself up good—imagining the Sandra Bullock moms in numbered running tights—when I heard the sleds in the distance and stopped cold.

There was more than one this time, but they sounded far away and muted—like flies buzzing in a windowpane.

“Do you hear them?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I hear them.”

“It sounds like two.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It does.”

“Where are they?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Somewhere across the river.”

I hurried to catch up to Portis and yanked on his coat to get him to stop walking. I figured that if we could hear them, they might be able to hear us, say if they stopped their sleds all of a sudden. It didn't seem to make much sense to stand there hollering at each other up and down the hill.

“Do you think it's him?” I said.

“Probably,” Portis said. “Probably Shelton and one of those retrobates that run with his uncle.”

“Shouldn't we be hiding or something?”

“I already told you they're across the river.”

“They sound pretty close to me.”

“Well,” he said. “They ain't.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because there's no way to get a sled back here, which I already explained.”

“Still,” I said. “I feel like we should do something.”

“There isn't nothing to do.”

“Shouldn't we at least move off the trail?”

“You're welcome to leave what's left of this trail,” he said. “But I think I'll keep going this way.”

“I don't like it,” I said. “It makes me nervous.”

“Well,” he said. “You go right on being nervous and not liking it. Let me know if it changes anything.”

“What's wrong with you?” I said.

“Nothing's wrong with me.”

“Then why are you being so testy?”

“Am I being testy? I'm sorry, Percy. As your cruise director I deeply regret any momentary discomfort my tone may have caused you.”

“Why do you continue to be an asshole?” I said. “When it's so clearly unnecessary?”

“Why do you continue to question my authority?” he said. “Why do you continue to question my knowledge of these hills and their inner workings?”

“I think its fine to discuss things,” I said. “You don't have to take it all so personal.”

“There is nothing personal about it. I know what I am doing and so I am walking on this trail and you are making me stop to explain things, as if to a child. I find it irritating that I have to parse everything so that it may be understood.”

“You used to be nicer, you know?”

“And you used to be quieter,” he said. “You used to be a sweet little girl, with ribbons in her hair. You used to be uncorrupted by feministic aggressions.”

“I don't even know what that means. You sound like a babbling fool, Portis.”

“And I believe I've sustained quite enough of your character assassination in these past hours,” he said. “I've grown tired of your subterfuge.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever is right,” he said.

He stomped off down the trail and I gave him some distance. I did not let him leave my sight, but he was far enough away that
I was spared his huffing and puffing—his dramatic exhales of whiskey-drenched breath.

We made the rest of our walk in nearly that exact same terse silence. I could feel the burn in my butt and thighs and was under some considerable strain but only shook my head and kept walking when Portis asked if I wanted him to take the baby.

Jenna was as calm as she could be. She mostly lay there and blew spit bubbles, almost as if she knew I was upset and kept quiet out of consideration. She was the type of baby that I thought might be capable of exactly that sort of wisdom and kindness.

The buzzing came in and out but eventually I told myself Portis was right and almost talked myself into ignoring it altogether. I thought about Carletta and the summer and why I was out there in the hills to begin with. I remembered how she told me it never snowed in South Carolina.

“I remember it once or twice,” she had said. “But it never stuck. Everybody ran outside to catch the flakes on their tongues and acted crazy.”

We were at the kitchen table again, eating scrambled eggs and buttered toast. Carletta had a cigarette burning between her fingers while she pushed her coffee mug in little circles.

“There were hurricanes, though,” she said. “Hugo was a bad one, but I was gone by the time it hit. I left not a month before.”

“I saw pictures of those houses they build up on stilts,” I said. “The ones on the beach.”

“That's to keep out the flooding,” she said.

“It seems crazy. To live in a house like that. Like any wind
could just come up and blow you away. Especially with the storms.”

“I expect they're as safe as anything else,” she said. “You don't hardly even notice them when you live there. They've just always been there, so you don't even think about it.”

“Is your cousin Veronica's house up on stilts?”

“I don't know,” she said, and knocked some ash onto her empty plate. “I never asked her.”

“I hope not,” I said. “I don't know if I could sleep in a house on stilts.”

“We'll camp out on the beach if you want,” she said. “We'll sleep right there in the dunes one night.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It's as beautiful as anything,” she said. “You should see the stars out above a Carolina beach.”

Like I said, I never really believed we would make it to South Carolina, but six months later I was traipsing through the north hills because I still thought we might make it back to that kitchen.

Up ahead, Portis had finally stopped walking and pointed to a clearing just down the trail.

“Scutter's Point,” he said.

“Thank God,” I said.

“Don't thank God,” he said. “Thank me.”

Portis's Ranger was snow-buried, but parked right where he said it would be. He hurried ahead, tossed his snowshoes in the truck bed, and snapped his rifle into the rack on the rear window. He wiped the piled snow from the driver's-side door, then climbed inside to start her up. I stood and listened as the
engine heaved and wheezed and I swear I didn't draw a breath until it finally caught and turned over. Then Portis jumped out and waved me over.

“Never a doubt,” he said, and went to work the windows with his ice scraper.

He cleared my side first and told me the heat was pumping. I got in the truck with Jenna, but left the door open to ask him if he wanted me to drive. I knew it would piss him off but it had to be said. If nothing else, I had to try.

He stopped scraping and looked at me and shook his head.

“Shit,” he said.

“I'm just saying,” I said. “You've been drinking.”

“You want to ride in this truck at all, I would suggest you shut up and sit in the passenger seat with that baby.”

“It was just a question,” I said.

“And I have given you an answer,” he said, and kicked my door shut.

Portis chipped ice and when the air turned warm I held Jenna close to the vents to soak up the heat. I was worried Portis was pissed for real, which might affect his driving, but then he dropped to one knee and played some air guitar with the scraper. I couldn't help but bust out laughing. He was as glad as I was to be getting the hell out of the north hills. To finally get Jenna to safety.

“Crazy ass,” I said, when he got in.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe that's right.”

“This heat feels good.”

“You ain't kidding,” he said.

“How far to the main road?”

“Not very,” he said, and dropped the truck into gear.

We pushed through the snow and I was surprised by how little drift there was. I was going to ask Portis about it, but realized it would only lead to a lecture on how his keen instinct and knowledge of the hills had directed him to park exactly where he had. How he'd had the foresight not to bury himself beneath a foot of snow by parking on a slope.

In truth, Portis probably had no idea the truck was going to clear the trail until the second we pushed onto Grain Road in a spray of powder. I couldn't have cared less. We were out of the goddamn woods. I was so happy I decided not to mention the swell of heat I felt on Jenna's forehead, and the way it flashed against my palm like fever.

Shelton didn't know how long he slept on the floor with Kayla, but he woke in a panic for having slept at all. He looked outside and the sky was still gray above Jackson Lake, but it was no longer snowing. He'd lost precious time and didn't even bother to slip Kayla another V before heading out. He just took a piss and hurried for the truck with his nitrous tank and party balloons.

He started his Silverado and then cleared the windshield with a push broom he had on the porch. The truck was parked in a little rut and when he got back in the cab he started to rock her out. He tapped the gas and shifted into reverse, then tapped the gas and shifted forward. Gas, reverse. Gas, forward. Gas, reverse, and he was out! It was an art form, really.

He crossed the lake and then took Grain Road out of the hills to Highway 31, where he turned toward town and drove along
Lake Michigan, his Silverado swaying a little in the wind off the bay.

He wished it were somebody else that had crossed him and stole Jenna. Anybody but Little Hector. Shelton thought he had a good relationship with the Mexicans, and particularly the hardworking Hector Valquez. Hector was a good kid, and he had reliably moved Shelton's methamphetamines to his friends and family, his
familia,
by the quarter gram.

Frankly, Shelton preferred Hector to the spoiled shitty white kids he sometimes had occasion to work with. Hector didn't complain, didn't peddle as much in excuses. And even as mad as Shelton was, as violently angry as he felt, he knew that beneath that rage was no small amount of hurt. He'd trusted the little spic, and he was not above suffering the pain of that betrayal.

He passed the cement plant, still in the throes of its theatrical decay along the shore, and Shoreline Estates, the trailer park home of his youth. Then the highway bent around town and he could see the sleepy downtown and the steeple of the Methodist church. He could see the softly lit homes on the snowy streets and remembered when they had everything decked out for Christmas and Cutler looked like a little train-set village in the snow.

But he was not headed for the quaint part of town. Shelton was headed a little farther south, where the highway hit Detroit Street and ran smack into East Cutler.

East Cutler had always been the wrong side of the tracks, a small-town slum with the good sense to remain in a state of despair and impoverished shame until the Mexicans moved in and
scared everybody shitless with their willingness to work. Even the criminal among them seemed poised for ascent.

Hector himself was using his drug money to pay for a few classes at the community college. Hector was after an Associate's in Business, whatever that was, and Shelton had sort of considered him an inspiration until he broke into his house and stole Jenna.

Hector lived on the corner of Detroit and Emmett Street, and Shelton pulled over on the curb a half block from his front stoop. Shelton shut his lights off and let the truck idle as the neighborhood spread out leaden gray around him. Four blocks of deteriorating row houses and everything was buttoned up and still, darker somehow than even the sky. Shelton noticed there wasn't a single light on around him and figured a transformer must have blown. Transformers in East Cutler always gave out in a storm, and sometimes for no reason at all. Nobody cared, except for the Mexicans.

Shelton had a balloon and peered out the windshield. He watched Hector's front door and wondered, should he wait a minute to see if the boy came out, or just bust right in and start breaking shit?

It was strange, but for a moment Shelton pined for the summer. He loved East Cutler in the warm weather, when the kids kicked soccer balls in the street and the men drank cold beers,
cervezas,
as they stood worrying over the hoods of their Chevrolets. In the summer in East Cutler the women hung laundry from their tiny balconies and stereos blared festive Mexican music. You could
smell the grilled meat and the malt liquor and hear the chants of the girls skipping rope.

Shelton felt a little lonely then, thinking about the Mexican families inside their shabby homes, all snuggled up and cozy in the storm. He watched smoke rise from the slanted, weathered roofs and wondered what everybody was doing to pass the time. You could fit a shitload of Mexicans inside those itty-bitty row houses and he imagined whole families gathered around the hearth, making colorful quilts and boiling beans in oversized pots.

Shelton admired much about the Mexican culture, if he sat down to think about it. Mexicans stuck together and valued the extended family. They had a variety of uses for turquoise, which was a beautiful stone, if you wanted Shelton's opinion. They had also invented the tortilla and had many interesting tales of ancestral suffering. Mexicans were great workers and seemed generally trustworthy, which made this slave trade business all the more disheartening.

Shelton did a blue balloon, then a red one. Red and blue make purple so he did one of those in the name of symmetry.
Wha-wha-wha
.

He put his helmet on and plucked the Glock from his beltline. He figured he was going to have to go in and root the little fucker out. He couldn't just sit there all day and wait. Shelton knew how critical the first forty-eight were in the case of a missing person, but as soon as he opened the door he looked up to see Little Hector trotting down the front steps.

He flipped up his visor to be certain, but it was Little Hector all right. Shelton would recognize those baggy jeans and that
dirty Dallas Cowboys coat anywhere. The boy fished a cigarette from his coat pocket and Shelton engaged the laser sight and held the red dot between Hector's jet-black eyebrows and waited for him to notice.

The plan was to freeze the boy where he stood. Keep him still with the laser and then walk up and come across his nose with the butt end of the Glock. Once Little Hector felt the blood rush, once that hard bone and cartilage had turned to sand, he'd be ready to talk. Wouldn't be no need for clever negotiations.

Hector lit his smoke, then looked up and saw the laser. And that fancy sight paid for itself with the slack-jawed terror with which Hector traced the red beam back to its source.

“That's right, motherfucker,” Shelton said, and stepped toward him.

Hector shocked him then by pivoting hard to the left and running. It was perhaps the most amazing thing Shelton had ever witnessed, like a miracle or a stigmata. Hector had directly defied him and his Glock, and Shelton was so surprised he stood there for a minute with his
Tron
laser pinned to the snowbank where the boy had just been standing. Shelton didn't even think to turn and retake his aim until Hector had disappeared down an alley.

Shelton knew better than to try and catch him on foot. He tucked the Glock away and hopped back in the truck. He jammed the Silverado into drive and sped away from the curb. His tires squealed and spat snow.

He looked for Hector in the alleys and the gaps between row houses, but the little fucker had vanished. Shelton didn't suppose he got across the Rio Grande by being an easy target.

The mystery of Jenna's disappearance had been solved, though. If Hector wasn't involved, why would he take off running? He was knee deep in it. He had to be, to risk life and limb by running from Shelton and his magical red beam.

Shelton turned down a snow-narrowed alley at the end of the street. He took out a few trash cans and snapped his rearview back while the Silverado trailed paint. He pushed down harder on the gas and sparks flew off the brick until the whole alley seemed swarmed with glow bugs.

He barreled onto Jupiter Road and there was Hector, two blocks ahead and running hard through the drifted sidewalks. Shelton didn't know if he'd ever seen somebody run so fast. Hector was probably in a pair of Kmart high-tops, two sizes too small. Yet there he was, a low-flying flash of Mexican lightning.

Shelton punched the gas and covered some ground. Hector looked behind him, and when he saw Shelton gaining he rounded the next corner and nearly lost his footing, probably would have gone ass over elbows had he not grabbed a stop sign and flung himself forward onto Gibbons Street. Shelton skidded through the four-way himself and had to straighten the truck in the intersection.

Gibbons was a wide road, lined with discount storefronts and gas stations. It was Cutler's half-mile stretch of suburban sprawl, and Shelton drove it at the speed limit. There were always cops on Gibbons, and while Shelton's caution allowed Hector to regain his advantage, he was content to trail him as long as Hector was in his sights.

Shelton couldn't believe the way Hector kept running, the way
he maintained his speed. If Shelton had to run as far as Hector he would have already keeled over and died twice. Shelton admired the boy's grit, which only made their quickly disintegrating friendship all the more difficult to bear.

Hector leapt the fence at the Saint Francis School playground while Shelton came to a stop at the red on the corner of Gibbons and Michigan. There he checked the glove box to see if he had any goodies stashed. He found a pint of whiskey, which was a relief.

He looked for something good on the radio, but it was all commercials. He glanced in the rearview, checked that he was all clear, and hoisted the pint for a swallow. He tapped the steering wheel and waited. There was nobody out, not even in this little ebb in the storm, so he decided to ignore the red and drive right on through. He had another gulp of whiskey, to keep the good times rolling.

Something was playing on the radio, but he didn't know what it was. He recognized the tune, though, and hummed along. He passed the Amoco Station and the Urgent Care and the comic-book store. He turned off on Stanley Street and there was Hector, finally slowed to a jog on the sidewalk.

He hoped he didn't have to kill Hector to get Jenna back, or even hurt him too badly, but that was really more of Hector's decision, wasn't it? That part didn't have a thing to do with Shelton. Hector would either cooperate or he wouldn't.

Meanwhile, the little absconder had run himself into a bit of a predicament. It turned out there weren't any side alleys or sharp corners on Stanley Street. There was just the road and the
razor wire where Stanley's Used Ford stretched for blocks. Little Hector had trapped himself on a straightaway and Shelton had him dead to rights.

He didn't guess Hector would stop and try to climb that fence, not when all Shelton would have to do is get out and tackle his ass to the ground. Or maybe shoot him in the back of the knee, but only as a warning and proof of the seriousness of his intent.

At the end of the street was the bike path that ran along the Bear River, which was obviously why Hector had chosen this route. Hit the bike path and he'd be safe, relatively. Shelton couldn't drive farther than the turnaround at the end of the street, and even as tired as Hector was there was no way Shelton could catch him by foot.

The boy's plan had been foiled, though. Shelton had caught him long before the turnaround, and he slowed the Silverado to a roll, then parked along the curb. He was no more than five feet behind Hector now, and he gave the horn a couple quick taps in greeting. Wisely, Hector stopped running and turned to face him.

Shelton put the truck in park, then opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. He pointed the Glock and put the laser square on the boy's chest. Shelton thought about how precarious it all was, life and the universe.