The Hummingbird's Cage (24 page)

They were gathered on my lap, as familiar to me as my own face. Except this wasn't my face anymore. The features might be the same, with the same curve to the cheek and jaw, the same coloring. But there was a different woman behind them now, looking back.

I stared down into the tea tin and saw something else. Something that wasn't there before. Had, in fact, never been there.

It was a small piece of white paper, folded and lying at the bottom. I picked it up and smoothed it out.

The handwriting was familiar, too. It was my Oma's, and it contained a single word:
Mut
.

Courage.

What Is Past,
or Passing,
or to Come

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed?
And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven
and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower?
And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand?
Ah, what then?

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

black
bitter tang of copper gravity wrenching me down down down slammed against hard rock screams shards of glass twisting inside my skull screams

*   *   *

Laurel

eyes don't open don't open but then they open on red on red on red everywhere red my hand inches from my face red fingers twitch on red rock twitch like dying animal inches from my face

blink and blink eyes blur sting with red and salt and wet and warm running in the sockets

*   *   *

Laurel

pulsing roar in my ears push and push can't move rock won't let me go let me go rock
move move move
let me move twitching
fingers hand jerks hard pushes out pushes away dead air rock won't let me go

*   *   *

let me go rock

Eyes close tight no screams now no screams.
Laurel
.

Lungs spasm, hurt, buck for air. Shuddering breath rolls into me, throws me onto my side. Temple, shoulder, hip scrape warm sandstone. Eyes open, red rocks everywhere—above and below and beside and forever.

Blink hard against the blur. Against the sun. Against skull full of nails shredding my brain.

And there's Laurel.

Dangling weightless, little cornhusk doll, from Jim's upraised fist, over the mesa's edge.

Laurel, back in her summer clothes of many colors. No parka, no snow, no trees, no valley, no farmhouse. Only mesa, sun, heat.

And Jim, his back to me. In his summer uniform, shiny oxfords, Sam Browne, just like that day in June when we last saw him.

In his other hand, the machete, slick with blood.

Something more than human strength surges in me, my limp arm twists, limp hand flops to my side, palm flat, to push off.

At last the rock lets me go.

Struggle to my feet, teeter like an old woman, head
dangling, wet hair sticky on my face. Shake my head and the ends of my hair rain down splatters of blood everywhere. One step forward, then another and another toward Jim, who stands there beguiled by the power he has over life and death.

Another step, another. My foot stubs against a rock. Pale gray, not red like the others, but gray like Olin's fieldstones. I stoop, fight for balance, pick it up, feel its heft, its potential, another step, another.

I'm behind Jim now, so close I smell sour sweat, see it stain the back of his shirt along the spine, the armpits. My stomach heaves. My hand curls, clamps around the rock. The other reaches out, loops fingers through the rear strap of his Sam Browne. I yank with all my weight, pulling him with me, back from the brink. Laurel is still in his grasp, and he stumbles backward, struggling to keep his feet, legs pedaling like crazy.

As he hangs there, off-balance, he sees my face, my fist, the rock coming at him, and for a second I see it register in his eyes—the disbelief, the betrayal, the gall—before I bring the rock down hard against his head.

It sounds like an ax hitting cordwood.
Thunk
.

He hits the ground with a groan, face contorting. He loses his grip on Laurel and she falls on the ground in a heap. I lose my footing and crash down next to him. Something snaps in my wrist; pain shoots up my arm.

Jim rolls away from me, his hand flying to his forehead. “Mother
fuck
!” he mutters, sits up, dazed, swaying, blinking at the blood on his fingers as he pulls them away. He looks from his fingers to me, and his expression shifts. His dark eyes now as cold and empty as twin coffins. They move from me to the machete, dropped near the edge of the mesa, a few feet away.

Still fixed on it, he leans forward to stand back up, slow, methodical, like there's a job to do and no particular hurry to do it.

But as he leans in, bracing to stand, I swing the gray rock again, wide and for effect, and it's as if he's moving right into the blow, in profile. I wonder that he didn't expect I'd put up more of a fight. It hits his handsome Roman nose and I can hear, can feel the cartilage crunch underneath. Blood spurts from his face, down the front of his police shirt, sprays on my forearm.

I pull back and hit him again. His face is averted now and the rock hits his cheekbone, just below his right eye.
Crack
. He falls back, his eyes roll, and in an instant, with a strength and speed from no earthly source, I straddle him, pound his face, his head, over and over and over. He catches and grips my injured wrist till I think he'll wrench it off, and white-hot pain convulses my body. My teeth sink into his fingers till I feel bones break. He screams.

“Bitch!”

And still I hit him, hit him, hit him, till his own face is blood, pulp, not Jim. Till I don't have the strength to strike even one more blow. Till he stops moving.

I roll off and kneel panting on the ground, light-headed, fighting nausea, fighting for breath. Then I straighten and let the bloodied rock go.

I crawl to Laurel and feel for a pulse at her throat. It's faint and rabbity. But it's there. Her face and arms are full of scratches, from the tumble or from Jim, but otherwise she looks whole. I close my eyes, roll on my back beside her, lungs heaving, push sticky hair from my face. The wet is still running
down my scalp, seeping into sandstone. My body, too heavy to move now, wants to sleep.

A whisper, an echo, low and urgent, coming from nowhere, from everywhere, coming from the rock, calling me.

Joanna
.

It doesn't want me to sleep, wants me to move move move again. I blink up at the sky, blue as a cornflower, but with a bank of gray clouds moving in fast.

I roll onto my good arm. It pushes me up till I'm sitting beside Laurel. We need to move. With my wrist, my head, I know I can't carry her, so I call to her, a croak, from tongue dry as dust, “Laurel, please wake up. Please.”

She moans; her eyelids flutter but don't open.

I look around me, not sure for what. I don't know where we are, how we got here. Only that we're somewhere in the red rock mesas east of Wheeler. That somehow we went from winter to summer in a heartbeat. That Laurel and I are both dressed in the same clothes we fled Wheeler in, back in June. Miles of empty in every direction.

I push to my feet, totter to the edge of the mesa. I see the four-lane interstate below in the desert, in the distance. Now and then a car, a truck, speeds along. Getting there is our best hope.

I stagger to Laurel, kneel down to pat her cheek, my blood dripping onto her chalky skin, try to wake her, but can't. There's nothing for it. We have to get out of here. I have to stop the blood. My good hand shakes as it works the buttons of her blouse, undoing them one by one, then strips it off her, down to her yellow camisole. The sleeves are long, and I use them to tie the blouse around my head like a gypsy scarf, knotting it with my good hand and my teeth.

I pull Laurel up, nearly toppling under the deadweight of her limp body. I crouch and grasp her right arm, loop it around my neck. Then slowly I straighten, holding her slung around my shoulders in a fireman's carry.

I stand for a long time, head throbbing, to judge if I have the physical strength for this. To climb down off the mesa carrying Laurel on my shoulders. One slip and we could fall. I could kill us both.

I turn and look at Jim, lying there motionless, arms flung out at his sides in some sort of surrender, face pulped, blood pooling beneath his head.

Then I turn away and start to walk.

I skirt the edge of the mesa till I find what looks like a steep, narrow trail going down. Maybe this is how we climbed up to begin with. It hardly resembles a real hiking trail. More of a goat track cutting between boulders.

I stare down at it and my vision blurs, fades to a sick gray. A buzzing grows in my ears; bile rises again in my throat. I close my eyes and will my vision to return, my stomach to settle.

Desperate, I appeal to the powers that be:
If I have a concussion, let it do its worst. So be it. But not yet. Not yet. Not till I make it to the highway and flag down help.

Gradually, my head begins to clear. I shift Laurel on my shoulders and start down the track.

One small step, then another. Feet slide on loose gravel. Focus, focus, pick out a path. I miss a turn, hit a crevasse, turn, a boulder blocks the way, miss another turn, dead-end into a wall of sandstone, turn back, turn again. Focus, focus. I don't know how, but I keep to my feet. I pause for breath, steady myself against a boulder, rest, close my eyes.

A small stone pings against the boulder, inches from me, bounces off and hits the ground, tumbles ten feet down the path. I open my eyes and stare at it.

“I see you.”

The voice is Jim's. It's Jim's, but it sounds off. Like he has a head cold and can't breathe right through his nose. It's coming from above, to the left.

I drag my eyes from the stone and turn to look. He's standing on an outcropping not forty feet away. A perfect vantage point to see the trail, right down to the bottom of the mesa. To see us. To see me.

He stands there, looking down, head cocked. Wipes at his face with his shirttail, then drops it.

“I'm coming.”

He turns and disappears.

Adrenaline hits me, launches me from the boulder and back on the trail. No more small step, small step, but lunges down and down. Still I know I can't outrun him. Not even if I were whole and healthy. As I lunge, I glance around, frantic for a place to hide out, to foil what's coming down the trail after us. To regroup.

Finally I see it. A tangle of small boulders and rocks, seven, eight feet high. A small opening at the bottom. Panting, I move to it, kneel down too fast and Laurel slips from my shoulders. I catch her with both arms, wince from the stabbing pain that shoots from my bad wrist. As I catch her, her mouth gapes; her eyes flicker open. She looks at me, fazed, tries to register what's happening. I lay my finger against her lips. Her expression freezes. Her mouth clamps shut. No explanation needed.

I lean over and peer through the opening in the rocks. It's
dark, but I can make out a space inside. Just big enough for us to crawl through.

I push Laurel through first. She digs in with her elbows and pulls herself inside. Before I do the same, I glance around again. Nothing in sight. Then I crawl in.

It's cool and dim, the hole just big enough for both of us to sit up. I hug Laurel against me with my good arm. Ready to clamp my hand over her mouth, if I have to. She's trembling, heart rabbiting faster than ever. I know she can feel mine doing the same.

For what seems like far too long, there's silence. No footsteps, no gravel shifting underfoot. I begin to wonder if Jim took a wrong turn, ended up on some other track, lost his way.

But no.

“I see you.”

The voice is close. Nasal, and singsong. Like he's playing a child's game.

I squeeze Laurel against me. Whisper in her ear:
“Shhhh.”

If he can see us, he can see us. If not, the bastard's just trying to flush us out.

I won't play.

“You stupid bitch. If I can get Bernadette, you think I can't get you? She was ten
times
the woman you are. And it was easy.
Easy
. Knock-knock. Who's there? Payback, baby. Vengeance is
mine
.”

Payback? Vengeance? What's he talking about?

“You think I wouldn't find out? Put it together? I'm a cop, you idiot. It's what I
do
. I know it was her. At the house today. Must've been right after I left for work. Munoz calls me, tells me you're gassing up the car. Or
trying
to.” He's chuckling. “Only there's a little problem, huh?”

The voice is moving, to the left of us, to the right, then back again. Hunting us down.

Laurel shifts, her hand groping for something in her pocket.

“Like I wouldn't find out. Like I wouldn't see the bike tracks in the yard.”

I gasp. I remember that. Bernadette peeling out from the house, bike wheels hitting the grass, throwing up sod, just as they threw up snow when she came up the mountain road to Simon's cabin . . .

“Knock-knock. The maid's gonna have a helluva time cleaning up
that
mess.”

I shake my head. He's lying. He has to be. I just saw Bernadette. We're meeting at the pub. She's invited to the wedding.

But I know he's not lying. Somehow I know.

My head starts to spin again. It throbs till I want to vomit. I close my eyes tight, lean back against the rock wall. But I still feel like I'm falling.

He's talking like the last six months never happened. Like it's just today that I saw him off at the front door, today that I sat in the chair under the sunburst clock, waiting with my heart in my throat for Bernadette to show up. He's talking like he went after Bernadette just like he's going after me now. Like she's not checked into the Wild Rose back in Morro at all. Like she's still at the Palomino.
A helluva mess for the maid to clean up.

I can't draw a decent breath. Can't think.

From winter to summer in a heartbeat.

Laurel begins to whisper. So quiet I can hardly hear her. Holding something to her lips like a Catholic with a crucifix.

“Fly away, fly away,” she's saying. So faint, like a release of breath. “Fly away.”

She whispers it over and over, like a chant.

Fly away, fly away, fly away.

I look close and see then what she's holding to her mouth.

A tiny wooden doll carved of cottonwood root, barely three inches tall. Painted aqua and yellow, wearing a white leather skirt, green mask, moccasins. Crowned with a ruff of Douglas fir.

It's the Hummingbird. The messenger you send to ask the gods for rain. The creature that warriors who die in battle are transformed into. The only bird that ever flew high enough to see what was on the other side of the sky.

I lean close and whisper in her ear: “Where did you get that?”