The Hummingbird's Cage (25 page)

She turns her head to whisper back.

“Simon.”

There's shuffling nearby, and we freeze, the kachina pressed against Laurel's lips again. No whispering now.

I wait for a shadow to fall across the opening of our little cave, but none comes. Soon the shuffling moves off.

I don't trust it. Could be a trap. More games. Or Jim could've moved on, and the shuffling was only a fox, a rabbit come back to find its home invaded.

But we can't stay here and I know it. Sooner or later, moving up and down the trail, Jim's bound to see the opening. Bound to check.

I shush Laurel one more time and maneuver around her toward the opening. I wait, bated breath, then slowly peer out, glancing all around as I go. Ready to pull back at the slightest movement.

Nothing.

Jim's gone for now.

I crawl through the opening, turn to Laurel, who looks ready to follow me through. I push her toward the rear of the little cave.

“No. You can't come with me. You stay here. Quiet as a mouse.”

“Like Warrior Mouse?”

I nod. “Quiet as Warrior Mouse. Just as clever, just as brave. No matter what you hear. No matter what happens. Promise me.”

Her face settles into something stubborn, and for a second I think she won't promise.

Then she does.

“If I'm not back, stay here till morning,” I say. “Then make your way down the trail, careful as can be. At the bottom, you'll see the highway. Go stand near it and wave your arms till somebody stops. Tell them to call the state police. Understand?”

Suddenly she pushes through the opening toward me and I think all bets are off. That she's changed her mind and she's coming with me, like it or not. Instead, she wraps her arms around my neck and for a long minute squeezes tight, like she won't let go.

Then she does. Without looking at me, she turns to dart back through the opening and out of my sight.

I stand on shaky legs, leaning against the big nest of rocks for support. A strange, cool wind buffets me. I glance up at the sky and the cornflower blue is nearly gone now, replaced by storm clouds practically stampeding in from the east. The air temperature has dropped and I shiver in my thin blouse, my
slacks; my skin prickles from a snap in the air. I can smell rain moving in on the wind.

I move away from the rock nest, not sure yet which way I'm going. Just that, if and when Jim spots me, I don't want to be anywhere near it. I need to get him away from Laurel's hiding place. My best guess is he's searching farther down the trail by now, but I want a better vantage point. The outcropping he used to spot us would do.

There's a thick branch, like a staff, lying off the trail. I pick it up to use as a walking stick. I lean on it heavily, climbing up and up toward the ledge.

By the time I reach it, my head is pulsing, the pain so bad my eyes are running with tears. A light rain is falling, deepening the red sandstone to a dark brick. My foot slides on the slick surface. The temperature has dropped even more; the wind's picked up, slapping the sleeves of Laurel's blouse around my face. I move carefully to the edge of the outcropping, wary of being seen from below, in case Jim is down there, looking up toward the top of the mesa. The goal is to spot him first.

I peer over the edge. My eyes sweep the desert landscape. A flash of lightning arcs across the sky, stabs at massive black clouds tumbling over one another at a rapid boil.

“I see you.”

It's coming from right behind me.

My blood freezes, but there's no panic. No hurry to turn to face him. Nowhere to go.

I straighten, leaning on the staff. Then I shuffle around, till there he is, standing just a few yards away. His face is streaked with blood, misshapen. His eye's swelling shut, nose bashed in.

I look at the damage and feel a swell of pride.

“What are you smiling at?” He's frowning. I notice he's slurring a little.

“Missing some teeth, are you?” I ask calmly.

His good eye narrows to a slit. He takes a step toward me and I see he's unsteady on his feet. A stiff gust of wind hits him and he staggers back. Thunder rolls in the distance like a growl.

And suddenly I remember. I remember the missing bits of that ride out from Wheeler, the mad dash to Albuquerque. The first place for gas was the big truck stop halfway to Grants. The same one where Trang, heading for San Francisco, hitched a ride one day. I was pumping in regular, not sure how many gallons the punctured tank would hold, but sure it would let me know. A redheaded boy with a cowlick and an earplug, who didn't look old enough to drive, wearing a Rolling Rock T-shirt, was at the pump next to me when the gasoline started running out from under my car. “Whoa, lady!” he cried. “You're leaking!”

I bought three gallon containers, filled them with gas and threw them in the trunk. Back in the car, back on the road—I never got the chance to use them. Twenty miles out, I glanced in the rearview and saw a sheriff's unit in the distance, lights flashing, sirens screaming, coming up fast. I knew I couldn't outrun him, so I careened off the road and headed straight for the red rocks, praying for a miracle.

That was where Jim caught up with us. Six months ago. Two hours ago.

I remember it. Like a bad dream somebody told me once. But not my dream. Not anymore.

Now I'm untouchable.

I tip my face to the wrathful sky, eyes shut. Cold rain streams down my cheeks as the storm overtakes us.

“Like it?” I ask. “It's for you.”

He doesn't say anything, and I open my eyes. He's staring at me. Staring like he's not sure if I'm contagious.

But he's not moving toward me.

I feel a rush of adrenaline. Not sure what I'm doing. What I'm saying. Why I feel with all my might that I want to poke the rattlesnake.

I stare back, certain I look as bad to him as he does to me.

“You're fucking nuts,” he says.

“I'd say you'd know, but that's giving you too much credit. To know what
nuts
is, you need a point of reference. You'd have to know what
sane
is. Do you know what sane is, Jim?” I shake my head sadly. “That would be no. A thousand times no.”

The rain is coming down harder now and starts to sting. Tiny ice pellets. Sleet. Jim looks at the sky, at the boiling clouds. He looks at his bare arms, like he's seeing something unusual.

“What the fuck—?”

“Dear God, get a vocabulary,” I snap. “Buy a vowel, Alex! Get some consonants! Mix them together. They're called
words
. I'd get better conversation out of a monkey.”

His arms drop to his sides. He moves forward. But only a step.

He snarls deep in his throat. “Finally grow some backbone, eh? Didn't know you had it in you.”

The adrenaline is pumping so hard now it feels like my head's splitting open. Like I'm levitating off the ledge. Like I'm bristling with clarity. My face is hot. I lean on the staff, eyes locked on his, drilling him down. I can feel a shift in the air between us. Can feel him waver. The dynamic is changing.

“You have no idea what I'm capable of,” I say.

Thunder explodes above our heads. Rolls along the mesa like a diesel train. The air shudders with it.

The sleet is gone. Now it's hail the size of peas, the size of golf balls, rattling, thudding against the sandstone rocks, bouncing off, pelting us both.

Jim looks more uncertain than ever. Like he's not expecting this. Like he doesn't recognize me, or what's happening. He holds up his arms to protect himself, shoots a last glance at the cold-blooded sky.

Then he makes a choice. The only choice a man like him can make.

He heads toward me, an odd hitch in his step, fists clenched. “How did you think this was gonna end?” he shouts above the clatter.

He sounds desperate. Petulant. A grown man pitching a fit.

“And, Jim,” I tell him. “Bernadette? Don't worry about her. She had a soft landing. You won't.”

He's coming at me like a bull. Like old times. When he reaches me, I know the staff is nothing against him. The adrenaline took me this far, but it can't alter muscle mass. Can't
unbreak my wrist or teach me judo in seconds flat. I hold it ready anyway. Ready to fight back, even with no chance of winning.

He's reaching for me, his ruined face like a Halloween mask, when I swivel and pivot on the staff at the last second, a clumsy move that puts me no more than a couple feet to the side, but just enough for him to overextend. He has no time left, no balance, when one spit-shined oxford hits an icy patch of red rock and slides right out from under him.

*   *   *

He brushes against me as he topples over the edge, so close I can see the startled look in his good eye.

Sixty feet below, the rocks break his fall.

The
hail won't stop. It falls like a blizzard. A stiff wind keeps shoveling it into drifts. The hike back down the trail is slow. Plant the staff one step ahead, inch my way forward. Plant the staff again. Adrenaline's gone. Body's on fire. I slide on the slick path, but don't fall.

The rock nest where I left Laurel is nearly covered with a thick coat of ice and hail. For the first time I notice its shape—a rough dome, like a little hogan.

I call Laurel's name and her face appears at the opening. She scurries out, takes my hand, helps me inside. She's still dressed only in shorts and camisole and sandals. I'm soaked through, feverish. We curl up together on the floor to wait for the storm to pass.

In less than an hour, it does.

Blistered clouds roll off to the west; the sun splits through for the last hour of daylight. When Laurel peeks through the opening again, the air is already so warm the melting ice drips on her head.

She leaves me in a fitful sleep and makes her way down the hail-covered path, not once losing her way. She passes an indistinct shape a few yards off the trail, buried in a four-foot drift. She'll never know it's the body of her father.

She jogs to the highway and stands well to the side.

Minutes later, a plow driver out of Grants is clearing the
interstate of the accumulation from a freak June hailstorm when he sees a little girl dressed in green shorts and a yellow camisole jumping up and down, arms flailing. He pulls over to see what on earth is going on.

As
it is

It was Sam who told me about Bernadette. I was still in the university hospital in Albuquerque when he showed up with a bouquet of coneflowers he'd bought in the gift shop in the lobby, looking just as grizzled as the one and only time I'd seen him that night in the Javelina.

It wasn't the maid who'd found Bernadette, but Sam.

Sam had known about the escape plan, of course. In fact, he'd pitched in to help fund it. So when Bernadette was discovered, it wasn't hard to come up with a suspect.

Others came to visit while I recovered. Munoz and his wife. Sandoval and CeCe. The sheriff, who couldn't quite meet my eye.

The investigation was brief. Jim hadn't bothered to cover his tracks. Maybe he'd figured to just disappear once he was finished with us. Start over in some other incarnation. Or maybe my flight had taken him by surprise and he hadn't thought that far ahead.

The first person I saw when I woke in my hospital bed, though, was Terri. Ten years older, beaming at me as if merely waking up was an achievement.

“Girl,” she said, “you're
back
!”

When Laurel and I hadn't arrived at the airport in Boston as planned, she and her husband, Greg, had placed enough calls to Wheeler to find out why. They flew out at once. They took care of Laurel till I was released.

*   *   *

It's been two years since Insurrection Day, and I haven't been back to Wheeler since. I sold the house, leased a small one in Albuquerque near the university, started classes again. I'll get my English degree in June. After that, Terri and Greg have invited us to spend the summer with them in Boston—they have a daughter close to Laurel's age, and the two have become great friends. In the fall, I'll start working on an MFA in creative writing, and have accepted a job as a teaching assistant.

On weekends, we drive up to Taos. I found my Oma's little house outside town, abandoned, in disrepair. I used the money from the sale of the Wheeler house to buy it. To replace the rotting boards, repair the leaking roof. We painted it inside and out, and sowed fields of wildflowers all around.

Then we drove stakes of all sizes into the soil and tied links of pretty chain from branches. We used them to mount and hang a dozen hummingbird feeders—sequined glass, brushed metal, a crystal lantern, a dewdrop, giant strawberries and oranges, a red rose, a cobalt blue bottle, a tiny glass chandelier.

When we talk about Morro, about Jessie and Olin and Simon, it's usually there in Oma's house.

Although I've never been back to Wheeler, I did get close once.

It was a few months after I was released from the hospital, a day in late autumn when Laurel was still in school. I rented a four-wheel drive, hit the interstate and drove west. About thirty miles this side of Wheeler, I began scanning the landscape hard.

In time, I spotted the makings of an old dirt road cutting off south from the highway. Or, rather, the remains of a road—overgrown and pitted from rain and wind and disuse, sloping up toward a toothy break of hills and disappearing over the other side.

I pulled off on the shoulder and cut the engine, torn about whether to drive up this particular path or turn around and go back, even if I had just come a hundred miles to find it.

Finally I switched the engine back on and turned off the highway.

It was slow going over the rough terrain, up and up the sloping hills, then over. A mile or so farther on, I stopped again.

This time I left the Jeep and walked to the edge of the road.

The valley cuts east-west here, just as before. But now it's filled with wild grasses, brush, piñon, juniper trees. Gone are the wheat fields, the cornfields, the orchards, the trees of every kind, the wildflowers of every color. There is no Willow Creek tumbling down the Mountain.

There is no mountain.

At least, not the one I was looking for. What's here now has the bulk, the breadth, of a mountain, but it's barely a third the size of the one I knew. Just a moderate incline to a smooth
summit of moderate height. Much like any other in the range. Nothing extraordinary.

And from where I stood, I should have been looking at Olin and Jessie's farmhouse. But there was no farmhouse. There'd never been one. At least, not the big house with the wraparound porch, built of gray stones dug up from the soil every spring.

Instead, next to the road were the remains of a little woodframe, long collapsed in on itself, its fallen timber now scattered and rotted. The only portion still marginally intact was a brick fireplace rising out of the ruin, its chimney toppled.

This was where Olin and Jessie had lived.

It had taken a while to track them down, searching through the microfilm in the periodicals section of the university library. Two small obituaries in the Wheeler newspaper, both dated 1939. Jessie had passed first, in late April. By July, Olin had joined her.

I noticed far off the road a large mound of gray stones, cracking apart from erosion, sprouting so many weeds you could mistake the pile as part of the landscape—not collected over years of farming. But there weren't quite enough stones,
not quite enough years, for Olin to build Jessie that farmhouse.

Finding Reuben, Bree and Jean had been easier. They were so recent, by comparison, that an Internet search was all it took. And Trang was difficult only if you didn't know what to look for. His was a brief newspaper notice: Asian male, mid- to
late teens, no identification, discovered under an overpass along the interstate just outside Wheeler, hypothermia.

It was a while before I had the heart to look for Simon.

In the periodicals section, I skipped the computer and turned again to the microfilm. Wheeler newspapers, starting with 1942. Reel after reel, month by month, year by year until, in December 1944, a notice that U.S. Army Sergeant Simon Greenwood, thirty-five, 2nd Ranger Battalion, had gone missing in action in the Hürtgen Forest, on the border between Belgium and Germany.

It mentioned a fiancée, Margaret Dahl, but no other family.

I ran through more reels of microfilm, to the end of the war and beyond, but there was no other mention of him.

Margaret eventually married William Carmody in late 1946. There was a picture with the wedding announcement, the couple smiling at the camera, looking much as they had the night I met them in the pub. A computer search turned up a William Carmody who died in Denver fifteen years ago, a retired businessman, survived by his wife, Margaret, his five children, twelve grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Margaret “Meg” Carmody passed away only two years ago, at the age of eighty-six.

I turned and headed back to the Jeep. When the engine kicked in, I gripped the steering wheel and, for the barest second, wondered if I was going to continue south toward the foothills. If I'd round the bend to see what was left of Morro, the mining town where the copper had played out half a century ago. And to see if, just on the other side of town, there was a road cutting off to the right, heading up to a cabin in a clearing halfway up the mountain.

Instead, I wheeled the Jeep around in a tight arc, kicking up dust, heading back to the highway.

I would leave Morro as it was.

As it is.

As it will be.