'Something with Vietnamese home invaders.'
She looks at him. 'Really? What did you say?'
'I said yes. He took me up to meet your mother, then handed me over to Fargo, who grilled the living hell out of me for an hour with two idiot goons by his side. It was weird.'
Valerie cradles the gun and looks at John. To him, she seems so odd a sight, this young, bright, beautiful woman standing golden-skinned in a meadow with a shotgun in her arms. He watches her dark eyes watching him, a wholly analytical expression on her face.
'Lane's a… riddle. But as for Dad, he's taken a liking to you.'
'Well…'
'No, really. You remind him of my brother. Did he tell you about Patrick?'
John nods. 'Your mother thought I was Patrick.'
'Oh, I'm sorry.'
'No, she was just fine, but… well, it's hard to know what to say. I ended up kind of playing along. At least that's what your father seemed to be doing.'
'He's been forging letters from Patrick for four years now. Mom just wouldn't accept that he was dead, kept on wanting to believe he's away at college. Dad finally broke down and started feeding that illusion. You should see how happy she is to get a postcard or letter from her… son.'
'Isn't there anything at all they can do for her?'
Valerie shakes her head and looks away for a moment. 'No, there isn't. Okay, go set that bird, John.'
John walks across the meadow toward the razor grass. He holds the bird in both hands again, head down, swinging it in a wide circle. As he walks he tightens the circle and accelerates the rotation until the bird's head relaxes and the animal is unconscious. At the razor grass he rights the animal and gives it a moment to recover a little. Dazed now, the pigeon will sit still on the ground until its head is clear-five or ten minutes, maybe-or until something as frightening as a dog scares it into the sky. He sets it behind the clump of grass with a final stroke to its feathers and mutters 'good luck.'
John sees that Valerie has been diverting Lewis and Clark, with food treats, making them do simple sits and stays for bits of kibble. When John approaches, she looks at him and smiles. Beneath the dull throbbing in his ear, courtesy of Snakey and Lane Fargo, John hears the ringing again, and he feels that giddy little shiver in his stomach.
You're very beautiful, he thinks, but this settles nothing. He has been around beautiful women many times and only once felt as if his body was receiving a constant, subtle, electrical prod. The first-and last time he felt that way-was with Rebecca. It must be the pressure, he decides. It must be circumstance.
There will be times, John, when you will long for a friend, a confidant, a lover. You will know a loneliness you cannot imagine. The desire to confess will grow inside you. You don't have a friend. You are alone. You must contain yourself-you must stay within your own skin.
I will try, he thinks. For Rebecca.
'What kind of a look is that, Mr. Menden?'
'Admiration,' he says, before he can stop himself.
'Of what?'
'Your dog skills,'
'Why thank you. Coming from a dog man, that's nice to hear.'
'Pigeon ready,' he says with a grin, his ears a banging cacophony now, the throb and ring, surge and flow, rush and eddy of blood.
'You're perspiring, John.'
'It's only about eighty-five out.'
'Wasn't eighty-five in the house, and you were sweating there, too.'
She's still smiling. It is a prying thing, her smile, but not ungentle.
'Sweat is sweat,' he says.
'Can I ask you something? Is it only my dog skills you admire?'
'Mainly.'
No.
She studies him, then looks toward the bird.
'There's a funny taste in my throat right now,' she says.
'Then maybe you should work the dogs.'
She takes up her gun again and starts the search with a wave of her arm. She walks into the meadow, dogs ahead of her. She sends them left with two short blasts of her whistle, then right with one. Left again, right again. John is aware of them, but all he can focus on is Valerie as she traverses the green meadow grass. On their first pass by the razor grass, neither dog picks up the scent. But on the second, both get it at once and their bodies snap back toward the clump in unison and their tails blur. Even from so far away, John can see the change in musculature the bird dogs undergo when they're on game-the dogs seem to condense in size and their movements are reduced to pure efficiency. Then the pigeon flutters into the air, unsteady at first, but still rising and gaining speed. It lifts off over the meadow. It is in perfect shotgun range. But Valerie never lifts her gun, she just lets the bird fly, then issues one long loud blast from her whistle. The toughest thing for a young dog to do, thinks John: come back when they've just put up a bird. Neither Lewis nor Clark seem to hear. They bound across the meadow after the diminishing pigeon, yapping skyward, utterly fried with frustration. They disappear into the hillside scrub, still ignoring Valerie's third and most adamant whistle command. The bird is just a fleck in the blue now, bearing south.
A few moments later, Valerie returns with two penitent springers. She has slapped them smartly, then marched them back. John sees no anger in her, no impatience-just a clear and guiding discipline.
'Mission was a failure,' she says. 'Back to the lead lines.'
'Good call. That's always the toughest thing for my dogs. Youth and all that. Pure energy.'
She nods and wipes her forehead, tilting back the cap. John notes, furtively, the darkened plaid of her shirt beneath her armpit where the sweat has soaked in.
For the next hour, both springers come on command, encouraged by long lead lines that John pulls in when the whistle blows. At first the dogs tumble ass-over-teakettle when the lines are drawn, then they get the idea. By the end of the session they're coming back without John's help.
'End of class,' Valerie says. 'They're tired and I'm hot. How about a jump in the lake?'
'Perfect.'
The afternoon continues with the easy, weightless atmosphere of a dream.
They swim in the lake, then sun themselves dry on the wooden dock. The dogs-John's three plus Lewis and Clark- splash in and out of the water like kids on a hot beach.
They walk the groves in the first cool of the evening, an evening drenched in the smell of oranges.
They leave each other to shower and primp. Valerie says she can meet him on the dock in one hour. She wants to take a boat over to Liberty Island to have a picnic dinner she made up earlier in the day.
John walks to his cabin and tries to put a clamp on the giddy beating of his heart.
CHAPTER 23
He stands inside his cabin and looks out the window to the lake. The dogs on the deck stare through the window back at him.
His body starts to buzz inside, a delayed reaction to his first covert mission into Holt's office. He sees the 'view messages' light on the computer blinking, and presses command F2, which, as Valerie has told him, will show him what's in his basket. He is confident there is a little note from her.
Two messages appear on the monitor : STOCKED FRIG WHILE YOU WERE OUT. EAT A CARROT. HOW' S LIFE ON THE RIDGE? JUST KEEPING IN TOUCH A. SEX
John smiles. His nerves are still brittle but he smiles anyway. He wonders if this is some kind of game, so he goes to the frig- freshly stocked, all right-and pulls out the vegetable drawer. He and Rebecca used to play little
