The Mountain Story (15 page)

When she stood, her nipples stiffened from the oscillating fan. She must have noticed my expression shift because she sounded a little panicked, asking, “You gonna throw up again?”

I shook my head without confidence.

Lark set a cold cloth on my forehead and smiled like an angel of mercy. “Your dad said your name’s Wilfred?”

It was as though she was speaking another tongue in which neither “dad” nor “Wilfred” were familiar words to me. “Wolf. Everyone calls me Wolf.”

She smiled. “So you’re Canadian? French Canadian or something?”

French Canadian? Did he use that as a
line
? Did it
work
?

“A hundred years ago we were French Canadian,” I said. “We just moved here from Michigan.”

“What? Is your father some kind of
outlaw
?”

I didn’t like the way she sounded hopeful. “Not exactly.”

“Witness protection?”

I liked the sound of that, and had every intention of lying about our background. “We left everything behind,” I said. “The blue house and my school and my street and Miss Kittle at the library and the shed in the alley and my mother’s grave in the old cemetery.”

“That’s sad,” Lark said. “Will you ever go back?”

I shook my head.

“But you’ll find a nice place here,” she said.

Tears began to roll down my cheeks before I had the chance to turn away.

Then the phone behind the cash register rang and with a frown of apology Lark ran off to answer, closing the office door behind her. I strained to listen, but she only spoke for a moment, in a whisper, then she hung up and dialed another number. I hoped she was not calling an ambulance, or mental health facility.

She didn’t return to me, as I’d hoped. Instead I heard the sound of splashing and realized, with some horror, that she was cleaning my vomit from the welcome mat. Then came the sound of her silken voice as she helped a customer at the register, then another customer, and another. I envied every eye that saw her when I couldn’t, each ear that heard her say, “That’ll be twenty-six for the gas and seven seventy-two for the Red Vines.” I loved the way she said, “Thangz,” at the end of each transaction.

I wondered if she would rush back to me if I coughed or cried out. I didn’t want her to think I was too pitiful though, or worry that I was too ill, should the urge to kiss me overtake her. If there was to be a kiss, I badly needed a mint.

Managing the few steps toward the adjoining restroom, I wondered what I could say to impress a girl in front of whom I’d thus far puked and wept. I washed my hair in the sink with dispenser soap and dried it with the industrial hand dryer.

I still had no line but I
had
thought of a conversation starter—the mountain. I would ask if she had been up in the tram. Of course she’d ridden up in the tram! The tram would open up the general discussion about the mountain, about which I knew many interesting facts.

I held my breath as I opened the office door. Lark was gone and Byrd was there in her place. “Forget it,” he said, grinning at my hand-dryer hair.

“Where’d she go?”

“Forget it,” he said, laughing. “Seriously. Are you even a junior?”

“I’ll be fourteen in November,” I said. It was then that we discovered our birthdays were on the same day—one year
apart—with Byrd being a year older. That’s a hell of a thing to have in common.

“Your face looks like jam, dude. And your hair’s gnarly.” Byrd laughed. So I did too.

I spotted Lark through the window pumping gas for an elderly man. She saw me watching but didn’t smile like I hoped she would.

“She’s almost eighteen. She’s leaving for boarding school at the end of the summer. New York. She’ll never come back.”

“Oh.”

“She’ll have New York friends. A New York life. Plus, she’s too old for you.”

“She won’t always be,” I said.

“Are those cut off pyjamas?”

I shook my head. “Underwear. Frankie has the car and all my stuff is in it.”

“You walked all the way from your hotel in underwear?”

That’s when I told Byrd about my aunt Kriket’s trailer in Tin Town, and why I’d been in such a hurry to escape.

“Your old man’s a case,” he said.

“You should meet his sister,” I said, telling him about her diaperless babies.

“So they just walk around shitting and pissing on the floor?”

“Right.”

Byrd turned serious, watching me watching Lark. “Don’t even, Wolf. She’s cursed. Her last two boyfriends died under mysterious circumstances.”

“Is that true?”

“One was a heart attack.”

“Wow.”

“He
was
thirty-six.”

“Her father lets her date thirty-six-year-old men? Isn’t that against the law?”

“Her father didn’t know,” Byrd said. “He would have killed them both.”

“What about the other guy?”

“Kitz?” Byrd spat. “Hated that smarmy podlicker. He died of snakebite. Young rattler—they have more toxic venom.”

“Hate snakes.”

“I took a bite on the mountain last summer.”

“You said it was a flea bite!”

“Not that. This.” Byrd twisted his leg so I could see the puncture marks in his right calf. “Hurt bad. But at least it was dry. No venom.”

“How do you know if it’s a dry bite?”

“You don’t expire,” he said, grinning.

“Did this Kitz guy get bitten on the mountain too?”

“He was taking his dog for a walk over by the high school. You must have passed it on the way here. There’s a big area of brush out back behind the path and there’s always rattlers. No one goes back there. They even warned people in the local paper.”

“I was just there!”

“Don’t go back there.” Byrd was serious.

“Why was Kitz there?”

“Masturbating?” Byrd guessed. “Why were you back there?”

I remembered. “I found red weed.”

Byrd looked at me hard. “You know what red weed is?”

“I know.”

“You sure it was red weed?”

“The white flower with the red pod.”

“Where?”

“Back in the brush behind the high school.”

“You know they call it ‘dead weed’?”

“I know.”

“You know why?”

“I know,” I said. “I know.”

“The sheriff sent out volunteers on horseback with packs of tracking dogs and they cleared it from here to the Santa Rosas. My uncle Harley has pictures of all these law enforcement dudes with shovels and hoes. He was there.”

“Should I go back there and pull it out?”

“To the den of rattlers? No.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t tell
anybody
ever.” He said this last part solemnly.

Lark appeared at the doorway, eyeing us warily. “Don’t tell anybody ever—what?” she asked. Then to me, “What’d you do to your hair?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“What were you talking about? Don’t ever tell anybody what?” she asked again.

I shrugged. She smiled. “Secrets, huh?”

“No secrets. I just said not to tell anybody I get to ride the tram for free,” Byrd said, covering.

“Okay.” Lark shrugged and sashayed down the aisle. The cowbell clanged on the door and she disappeared once more.

“Harley? Because he rides a Harley?” I asked, continuing our earlier conversation.

“Harley because his mother named him Harley. Harley has a Honda but he doesn’t ride much anymore. He’s got a
warehouse full of classic cars. He donates one to charity every year. Everyone around here knows Harley.”

“That’s why you get free tram rides?”

“That plus my uncle Dantay is the head guy at Mountain Rescue.”

“Cool.”

“I used to hike with Harley but not much anymore. He’s like fifty.” He laughed. “He’s cool but he talks too much. Everything is a lesson. This flower is for that. That shrub is for this. He just wants me to know my culture. It’s cool, I guess.”

“Frankie says we had Cree blood on his mother’s side,” I said.

“I grew up thinking I was Polish.” Byrd laughed. “Well, I am Polish—half.”

“Don’t you want to learn all that Native American stuff? I would. I
do
.”

“When I was younger I did and then … I don’t know … It’s not that I don’t want to know.” He thought for a moment. “Sometimes a guy wants to feel like he
learned
something without being
taught
.”

I had no experience with cool uncles or interested teachers or guiding parents. Miss Kittle was the closest I’d come to having a mentor. “Right,” I said.

“I have four uncles, three aunts, twenty-two cousins altogether,” Byrd said. “My uncles all try to be my father. Harley’s cool, I guess. Dantay, Gabriel. They’re all cool, I guess. Jorge and Gabriel work at the casino with my uncle Harley. Before he joined Mountain Rescue, Dantay was a stuntman in the movies. He’s got crazy tattoos.”

“People get lost on the mountain a lot?”

“All the time.”

“Is it easy to get lost up there?”

“Not if you’re with me.”

“Mountain Rescue would be a cool job.”

“Dantay lets me ride dirt bikes around his property. I’ll take you over there sometime.”

“What about the tram?”

“Day after tomorrow, my day off from here, we’ll meet at the base of the station at eight a.m. You got a bike?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

“Bring water. Warm coat. Good shoes.”

“Coat?” I laughed, considering I’d nearly just died of heatstroke.

“It can get cold up there. Weren’t you ever a Boy Scout?
Be prepared
.”

I thought to ask, “Where do you go to school?”

“Correspondence.”

“I’m starting the high school in September.”

“SSHS, huh? Tell people you know the Diazes.”

“I don’t know the Diazes.”

“I’m a Diaz. So’s Lark.”

“What about Tin Town? Are there Diazes in Tin Town?”

“Have you looked around? We’re not all out on the rez anymore, dude. We have management jobs in the casinos. We work in real estate. We own half the Mattress Kings in the Coachella Valley.”

“Okay.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Byrd said, laughing. “There are a few Diazes in Tin Town. But most of my uncles and cousins are rich. The Diazes rule SSHS.”

Lark startled us when she leaned in to grab a set of car keys from the rack near the door. The sneering minx from the night before seemed to have returned to possess her. “Come on,” she said to me impatiently. “You need a ride home.”

I grinned at Byrd and then followed Lark down the aisle toward the door. Byrd called out to me from behind the register, “Yo!”

I didn’t turn around when we said in perfect unison, “Arra fah ken ut.” I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life.

The air was warm and the sun still high when Lark led me out of the gas station. I was hypnotized by the sway of her heart-shaped behind and soon felt the familiar tug of divergent blood. Not about to show my appreciation while wearing cut off pyjama pants, I pictured the unusual batting stance of the baseball player John Wockenfuss as I always did in such moments.

Clearly I could not get into Lark’s car without having my gratitude noted. What if she screamed? What if she hit me? What if she didn’t?
Wockenfuss. Wockenfuss. Wockenfuss
. My stomach churned but had no influence over my predicament. I looked away from Lark’s bottom, concentrating on my ravaged feet. Burned flesh. Beautiful Lark. Torn toes. Sublime Lark.
Wockenfuss
. I cannot get into that car with you, I thought.

Lark turned around, glowering, and said, “You’re going with him.”

I followed her pointing finger to a sleek black Cadillac at the far end of the lot. “He’s waiting,” Lark said, and then disappeared.

Or rather it was I who disappeared. Passed out.

Next thing I knew I was in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle (not just a moving vehicle but a Cadillac Coupe de Ville) with a large male presence beside me at the wheel.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I offered. “I am not myself.” It was the God’s honest truth.

“Heatstroke.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who I am?” His deep voice rattled the dash.

I took in the huge man in close-up snapshots: aquiline nose—right nostril with no visible nose hair (I’d never before in my life seen a dark-haired man without visible nose hair before). Buffed fingernails on the lacquered steering wheel, squared off with a file instead of bitten to the quick. Massive Adam’s apple in his deeply tanned throat and a humble gold crucifix hanging some inches below. “Are you Byrd’s uncle?” I asked.

“I’m Lark’s
father
,” the man intoned. “You’re not going to vomit, are you, son?” He didn’t wait for my answer before pulling the Caddy to the side of the road. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait for him to stop the car before bathing his supple upholstery in cola-coloured mucus. “Sorry,” I choked, pulling my T-shirt off and trying to mop up the mess.

When the huge man came around to open the passenger door I swung my legs out of the car but couldn’t lift my head. I noticed he wore fine shoes, at least I guessed they were fine by the way they were not sneakers or cowboy boots. He had creases ironed into his pants. When he set his hands on his knees to steady his huge frame when he crouched, I saw that he wore a ring on each of his thumbs. No tattoos.

I’d never met such a fine-shoe-wearing, thumb-ringed, bald-nostrilled person and was conscious of my own dishevelled appearance. I wiped my mouth with the back of my arm. I wondered if he wanted to hit me. Maybe he already had. “My head hurts.”

“You fell pretty hard,” he said. “Does your father have health insurance?”

Frankie didn’t have socks. “No, sir.”

“Did you eat breakfast this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“Thought you’d go for a three-mile hike in the desert without breakfast? Without water?”

“I’m new around here,” I said, as if that explained stupidity.

“Michigan.” He startled me when he set his giant thumbs on my eyes and lifted my lids to search my pupils. “So SSHS?”

“Sir?”

“You’re enrolled at Santa Sophia High School?”

“I know the Diazes,” I blurted.

The man grinned. He liked me. I don’t know why. “You don’t appear concussed.”