CHAPTER 1

“ARSON SUICIDE IN THE SIERRAS—THREE DEAD”

The headline screams up at me from the concrete stoop and at first I can’t bring myself to pick up the paper. It’s insane, but I feel if I leave it there, what I fear to be true will remain just the; a fear. I tear my eyes away and look across the beautiful grounds of the house where I’m staying to a distant Monterey Bay. In the morning light, nothing could be more beautiful, more peaceful and tranquil; and so completely at odds with what I’m feeling. I force myself to get the paper the paper and read the first two lines of the story. “Townsend” is all I have to see. I fold the paper and go back into their home. They were vital to me, living proof that what I do professionally means something, a big piece of the puzzle I’d been trying to solve for nearly twenty years. Now they’re gone, my reason for being here obliterated and the answer I thought I’d found proven false. I suddenly realize the telephone is ringing, and has been for some time.

I round the sweeping curve just north of town.  Home again; refuge for the defeated, a sanctuary for licking wounds and reconciling failure, a place where there are no new questions raised, but a haven that can offer reason in the aftermath of chaos.   But when I seek reason this time, will I know it when I see it? The intriguing question makes the air in the car hard to breathe; I roll a window down. I can’t see the old swimming hole as I approach the outskirts of town; a large building, new since I was last home four years ago, blocks my view. I notice that in the “Rocky Mountain Building Supply” emblazoned on the side, the U is elongated and scrunched between the O and the N. I can’t suppress a chuckle, Should I be surprised that a silly mistake like that is still acceptable here, as crude as the fix might be? 

The new building isn’t the only change. The two-lane highway opens up to five at about where the stockyards used to be. Five lanes for a town that might see thirty cars drive from end to end in any given hour on a busy day. I’ve kept up with most of the improvements through the local paper I get delivered out-of-state, but it’s still a surprise to see it.

State Street—anywhere else it would be called Main—also doubles as US 91/191-Alternate US 20 and 26. It’s lost three of its older buildings, and presents a brave, civic-minded, though gap-toothed, smile to anyone inclined to look. It’s my bet that no one notices any more. I do, because the holes were once filled with pieces of my life. I glance at the dash clock of the new ’76 Oldsmobile. Mom expects me at five o’clock. “Supper’s at five. That’s five, Will, are you listening?” she’d said on the phone. I click on my left turn signal and hope U-turns are still allowed. Not that it matters; there’s not a moving car in sight.

I backtrack through town and turn right across the tracks, toward the foothills. I feel like I’m entering a time warp; same houses in the same colors, same lilac hedges, same cracked sidewalks, and Murdock’s barn, an old, defiant red. It stands stoically, grandfathered for eternity, still hiding its secrets behind boarded windows. I drive to the canal bridge on the eastern side of town and slow down. The dirt road is still there, though now it’s two tire tracks with a weedy hump between. I ease the car off the pavement and grit my teeth as it drags bottom. A couple of minutes later, I park beside a stand of bedraggled cottonwoods and get out. Twenty years melt away like an early-April snow-shower and I’m there again.

CHAPTER 2

Standing at the back kitchen door of my house, I endure Mom’s “suspicious transient” lecture—again. “You have no idea who or what they are. I’m not saying they’re not God’s people. I’m just saying some of them lose sight of Him from time to time. You listening, Will?” She tilts her head at a certain angle that means her patience is getting short. I’m as tall as she is, but this slim lady in the plain cotton dress and flat brown shoes demands respect.

“Yes, Mom.” Of course I’m listening. I always listen. Or have to explain why to Dad.

“Doesn’t look like it to me, Will Border.”

Abby enters from the living room, carrying our large cat by its head. The animal doesn’t seem the least concerned, but Mom’s attention switches from me to my sister and the cat. “Don’t carry Felix like that,” she protests, and hurries across the room.

“See ya, Mom,” I mutter to her back, and escape. A fraction of a second too late, I remember the screen door, and wince as it bangs shut. I hurry around to the lilac bush in front of the house where my friends are waiting.

“What’d she say?” Trailer asks. Actually, Trailer’s name is Lawrence Case Revene Scanlon III, and his dad’s a lawyer. Since I’ve known him, and that’d be about my whole life, he’s always been two steps behind, and four inches too short. His body looks inflated, like he had put the air hose at Bowhan’s Sinclair in his mouth and pushed the lever. His friendly blue eyes always have a slightly surprised look to match his crew-cut blonde hair. He supports a spray of freckles across a nose that starts to run whenever he tells a lie—he isn’t aware of that.

“She said no. Do you see any wieners or buns stashed in my pockets? Jeez, Trailer, think once in a while.”

“Shut up.” Trailer defends himself half-heartedly.

“So, what we gonna do?” Charlie asks. Charlie is the worrier. I suppose it comes from his dad, Mr. Lorin Barker, the town clerk—and a CPA, Charlie always insists. Every morning, Charlie wakes up in a panic if he doesn’t have a complete plan for the day. Physically, he’s Trailer’s opposite. At five feet, eight inches, he is taller than me by two, and doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. He wears round-lensed glasses, which he constantly pushes up his nose. Wildroot Cream Oil keeps his dark-brown hair slicked back—“Like David Niven’s,” he says. Now his intense brown eyes look into mine, as though searching for some vital clue.

As usual, the decision, if one is made, will have to be mine. I shouldn’t complain because a guy couldn’t ask for better friends, and right now, in the summer of 1955, I’m enjoying my buddies. “How much money ya got, Charlie?” I ask.

“Thirty-five cents.”

“How ’bout you, Trailer?”

“Zero cents.” He grimaces. “Tomorrow is allowance. It is Saturday tomorrow, ain’t it?”

“Great. I’ve got forty.” I watch Trailer, face screwed up and eyes squinted, as his thumb dances across his fingers. “Before you blow a fuse, Trailer, that’s seventy-five.”

He scowls at his ciphering fingers like they’ve somehow let him down, and then grins. “I almost had it.”

“We could just show up with nothing. Maybe Chub and Shine would let us stick around anyway.” Charlie looks hopeful.

“No chance. Shine maybe, but not Chub—that fat shit is mean.”

“Yeah, mean,” chimes Trailer.

“Well, forty-five for the wieners and thirty-nine for the buns leaves us about ten cents short. You sure, Trailer? Ya ain’t got any money?”

He holds his hands out, palms up, and shrugs. “Spent my last dime at Bowhan’s on a Hires. Yesterday. You were there.”

“Then we’re screwed, blued, and tattooed,” Charlie says.

Chub has told us to bring eight dogs and he’s not going to settle for seven. And Mr. Johns at the grocery store won’t throw in an extra one, not Mr. Johns. One thin dime. Crappola. “Can’t have hot dogs without buns.”

Trailer spits in the dirt. “I hate buns. My mother puts my weenies on plain bread.”

Charlie’s face lights like a flashbulb. “You’re a dang genius, Trailer.”

“Huh? I am?” His face breaks into a smile.

“Sure. A small loaf of bread is cheaper than buns. Problem solved.” Charlie punches Trailer on the arm.

“Good one, Trailer.” He’s still grinning so hard I can see his back teeth. “C’mon, let’s get goin’. It’s almost noon.”

After a visit to the meat counter at Johns’s Highway Market, and a short argument over whether to get Wonder Bread or Eddy’s—I decided on Eddy’s—we walk the dirt road beside the canal bank toward Bum’s Hole, Trailer about ten feet back. Bum’s Hole is a fairly deep depression from which the irrigation engineers dredged dirt for the sides of the canal. Cottonwood trees have taken root and now provide shelter for anyone who needs it, including transient workers who pass through town from time to time. The current residents are Chub and Shine, and they’re fun to be around, or maybe “interesting” is the better word.

We’re bringing lunch because we lost a bet with Chub. He said he could poke his hand through the ring on my bosun’s whistle. After Charlie, Trailer, and I had discussed it for over five minutes, we bet he couldn’t. Grinning stupidly, he’d laid the ring on the back of his hand, and poked through it with a finger. It was almost cheating and Trailer said we didn’t have to go back, ever, but I’m not a Welsher.

Looks like Chub was pretty sure of us, because I smell the camp before we get to it. He has a small fire going just at the edge of the small grove. Shine sits in the shade, reading something as usual, and Chub is whittling on a piece of wood, also as usual.

“Hey, Shine, the pussies are here.” I hate it when he calls us that.

“I see that.” Shine puts down his book. “Howdy fellas.”

Chub gets up. “Ya bring the grub?” He’s about six feet tall, maybe a bit more, and has an enormous gut that hangs outside a filthy, striped, pullover shirt; a hair-fringed bellybutton appears to fasten the wedge of pasty white to his body. The hair on his head is cut short; Shine said something about habitat destruction—I don’t get that—and I can see dirt crusted on his scalp. For all that, the most impressive thing about him is his hands, which are two small hams—he has four dents where his knuckles should be. His stubby fingers end with nails chewed so close they’re set in the skin like horny scales.

“They were out of buns, so we brought bread instead.” I hand him the sack.

“I don’t like buns anyway,” Trailer says brightly. He’s standing back a few feet, and his eyebrows rise expectantly.

Chub grabs the bag. “I don’t care what you like, moron.” Trailer’s smile instantly vanishes.

“We appreciate the food, Will,” Shine says as he gets up. I like Shine. He’s a slender man and looks about as old as my dad. Somehow he manages to stay pretty clean: hair combed, hands washed, and his clothes, though stained, don’t stink like Chub’s do. He walks over to the fire and faces Chub. “And we’ll share.”

“We?” Chub scowls at him. “Ya got a turd in yer pocket, Shine? Four of them are mine. I don’t give a shit what ya do with yours.” He bites the center of the cellophane-wrapped loaf and rips it open. One slice falls to the ground and he picks it up, putting it on the short stack, and hands it to Shine. With his half of the bread, Chub sits down by the fire, slits the package of wieners open with his knife, and skewers a dog sideways on a sharpened willow branch, which he then holds over the coals.

Shine sighs and looks at Trailer. “I don’t like buns either, son,” he says, smiling. “I cut us some roasting sticks—they’re there by the tent. Go get ’em.”

Trailer looks at me, and when I nod, ambles over to the Army surplus tent that’s pitched in the trees, returning a few seconds later with the willows. “You have a sign on your tent,” he says to Chub, his voice friendly.

“Yeah, and what’s it say?” Chub looks up at him, his voice anything but friendly.

“Uh, I—”

“You can read, can’t ya, moron?”

Trailer winces. “It says ‘Private, keep out.’”

“Like the sign will actually prevent someone from going in,” Shine says with a chuckle.

“Maybe not, cracker,” Chub says, and then looks directly at Trailer. “But it gives me the legal right to shoot any sumbitch I catch in there.” Trailer’s eyes get big and his mouth gapes.

“I doubt that,” Shine replies, and winks at Trailer.

“Try me,” Chub snarls. “Jist you try me.”

Shine shakes his head and reaches for the wiener package. We take one dog each and sit down by the fire. I’ve always stuck my hot dog on the stick lengthwise, and start to do that.

“Do y’all know willows is poison?” It’s Chub, and his upper lip is pulled back, exposing the roots of his scummy teeth. “Salatic acid. I read it in Real Men magazine.”

“It’s salicylic, and it’s not poisonous,” Shine says. “Actually, aspirin is made of the same substance. The Indians used it for pain and fever, just like we do now.”

That’s why I like Shine—he’s smart. Well, it’s one of the reasons, the look on Chub’s face being the other—he’s scowling again, his slow brain trying to put something together that’s way past him.

“Salatic! It said so. You figger the fella that wrote that didn’t know what the hell he was talkin’ about? You didn’t even read it, so how the hell do you know?” He looks satisfied.

“The folly of the fool, Chub—they see everyone as kin.”

“Whatcha mean by that?”

“It means literature will find its audience. Now turn your dog; it’s getting burnt.”

“Shit!” Chub hoists his blackened sausage out of the coals and sniffs it. “What’re you looking at, Sealed-beam?” he says to Charlie. “That’s just how I like it.”

The single hot dog tastes so good I could eat about four more. Chub wolfs all his down as fast as the rest of us eat our one, then toasts the extra bread and eats that as well. I’m dry as popcorn, and look around for one of the gallon jugs they keep full of clean water. In a pinch I can drink canal water, but Mom’s annual polio warning always nags me when I do.

“The water’s behind that tree. Go ahead and get it,” Shine says.

I didn’t know he was watching, and I’m a little embarrassed. I get up.

“Yeah, I need some, too,” Chub says.

Not what I wanted to hear—the image of his rotten mouth flashes in full color. I walk over to the indicated cottonwood, find the clear glass bottle nestled in the grass, and pick it up. It’s wet on the bottom and my mouth gets dryer yet. A glance at the rest finds them all staring at the nearly dead fire, so I quickly unscrew the lid and tilt the jug up. It’s sweet and almost cold; twin trickles sneak past the corners of my mouth and run down my neck.

“Hey asshole, bring me that jug.”

Too late, ya fat shit, I’ve already got mine, and did it before you put your rotten lips on it. “Yeah, I’m coming.” I hurry back.

Chub works his Adam’s apple for about a minute, the water gurgling back into the jug as he sucks air past his lips. I imagine all kinds of crud being washed off his teeth. “Ahhh, that’s good.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and gives the jug to Shine.

“I’m all right for now,” Shine says, and offers the water to Trailer.

Without hesitation, Trailer tips it back and takes a long drink. With every swallow, Charlie’s lip curls higher and higher until he looks like a braying donkey. Then Trailer lowers the jug, and cuts loose a belch as only Trailer can; it’s almost a crude sort of music—and it tickles him to death. Face beaming, he hands the jug to Charlie. Charlie just shakes his head, face scrunched up.

Chub and Shine take odd jobs as they find them; as we’d hoped, they have nothing to do for the afternoon, so we all sit in the shade, as full on lunch as we’re going to get, and listen to stories about the places Shine has been. Charlie takes a quick trip to the canal to wash the sweat off his face, or so he says—I think he went to get a drink. Hope he doesn’t get polio.

The air is still, like it gets on these summer afternoons, and I hear flying insects drone by aimlessly. The three of us settle down by an old cottonwood log. Charlie closely inspected the underside before he leaned back, but still doesn’t look comfortable. He stabs a finger at his glasses. Chub and Shine recline against a couple of trees, and nobody has much to say at first. A magpie, usually as wary a bird as there is, squawks his way onto a nearby branch. Chub raises his arms, holds an imaginary rifle, and squints down the imaginary barrel. “Pow!” he explodes, and the surprised bird takes flight. “You guys ever shoot?”

“I got an Army forty-five that my grandpa give me,” Trailer says. “He showed me once how it works, and as soon I’m fourteen, I can shoot it.” He sniffs.

“So ya ain’t shot nothin’?”

“I suppose not—but I could.” Trailer pokes the ground with a stick and sniffs again.

“Idiot,” Chub says.

I bristle. “I’ve got a rifle, and I shoot it anytime I want.”

“Anytime? Bullshit. It belongs to your pa, don’t it?”

“Does not, he’s got his own.”

“So, your pa’s a hunter, is he?”

“He can hunt. Just doesn’t have time.”

“What’s he shoot? Thirty-thirty? Ought-six?” Chub leans away from the tree, attentive.

“Don’t tell anyone about these.”Dad’s words fill my head and I can him standing in front of the cabinet, pointing at the rack of five guns. “Not even your friends. You understand, Will?”  I’d understood, and hadn’t told anyone except Trailer and Charlie, but they wouldn’t tell even if Genghis Khan tortured them. I glance at Shine. He’s staring at me like he wants to tell me something without speaking out loud. The look on his face confuses me for a moment.

“Well,” Chub persists.

“Nothin’, I guess. We’ve only got my twenty-two.”

Shine winks at me.

“You know ya go to hell fer fibbin’ like ya do for stealin’?” Chub asks. “Yer pa got a deer rifle, or don’t he?”

“Guess I was fibbin’.” I give him my best you-caught-me-at-it look.

“Ya weren’t foolin’ me none.” He looks directly at Charlie. “Ain’t no sense even askin’ a pussy like you.” Chub leans back against the tree.

Charlie squints at him through the top part of his glasses for a few seconds, and then pushes them up. That’s followed by an awkward silence, and I’m surprised it’s Trailer who breaks it. “Hey, Shine, tell us some more about Florida,” he says.

“Who gives a shit about Florida?” Chub mutters.

“Looks like they do,” Shine replies.

We spend the rest of the afternoon listening to Shine. He lived for a time right in a swamp, and used to trap otters and muskrat, run trotlines for gar—a method and fish I’ve never heard of—and hunt alligators for their skins. We’re with Shine in the moment, ghosting along silently in a flat-bottomed boat, as he searches the bank for the telltale pair of bright spots—gator eyes, reflecting the beam from the big six-volt spotlight. Even Chub is listening intently.

I’m more than a little disappointed when Charlie speaks up. “It’s quarter to six, Will. We better get home.” Charlie is the only one with a watch.

“Crap,” Trailer says, “just when it gets interesting.”

“I can finish it next time,” Shine says. “In a couple of days. I’ve got work tomorrow.” He gets up as we do, and follows us away from the trees. It’s the first time he’s ever escorted us up the road, and I slow as he hangs back, letting Charlie and Trailer get a little ahead.

“You can’t always choose the company you’re in, Will, but you can choose the words you speak. Do you know what I mean?”

“Don’t tell Chub about the guns?”

“I’m glad you caught that. And not just guns, don’t tell him anything. And keep Trailer away from him. Matter of fact, don’t any of you spend time alone with him, okay?”

The chill that shoots up my spine certainly can’t be the evening air, and the look on Shine’s face is as serious as my Sunday school teacher’s. “Okay, Shine. I’ll make sure. See ya in a couple of days then?”