Georgetown had advanced another round in the tournament. Even living in a white town, things weren't so bad.
'You take care on your way, Aunt Mayzie,' he said at the door. 'Love you. Bye, now.'
James stepped into the sunshine and the breeze and the white eyes of Windshake.
'Where's Sylvester?'
'Like I would know.' Peggy Mull pulled the phone away from her mouth so she could draw on her cigarette. She huffed out the smoke in a long, sighing trail. 'Bryson's called and asked how he was feeling and to see if he was up to coming in after lunch. That's two days in a row he's missed.'
'Reckon where he is?'
'Probably off in the woods somewhere, stroking that rifle of his. Anyways, I told them he wasn't even able to get out of bed. If his sorry ass loses that job, I'll be up shit creek with a toilet brush for a paddle.'
'There's ways to get money. Don't you worry your pretty head none.'
'And what's that supposed to mean?'
'Nothing,” Jimmy Morris said at the other end of the line. “If Sylvester's off hunting, how about if I come over? You said yourself he usually stays till the sun drops.'
'I don't know, Jimmy. I think he's starting to suspect something. It's hard to keep a secret in a damn trailer park.'
Peggy knew that firsthand. Old Paul Crosley next door had noticed Jimmy's comings and goings, and Peggy had had to serve him a helping of home-baked panty pie to keep his wrinkled mouth shut. Not that Peggy minded much. She just hated to feel obligated.
'Peg, you know what you do to me. Just your voice is driving me nuts.'
Peggy pushed away the pile of dirty dishes that covered the cracked Formica counter. Thank the Lord peanut butter doesn't mold. Probably the oil in it. But I’ll have to take a hammer and chisel to those egg yellows. Maybe tomorrow.
'Tell you what, Jimmy. Why don't you get a fifth of that Millstream and swing by, and maybe we'll talk about it?'
'Talk, hell. I want to do more than talk.'
Peggy giggled like a teenager. 'Well, the kids are off at school.'
'I'll bring back that old lawn mower and stick it out in the shed so's the neighbors will think I've been fixing it.'
'You're a regular fix-it man, that's for sure. You gonna fix me up?'
'Let me check my tool, darling. Yep, raring to go.'
Peggy stubbed out her cigarette and rummaged through her purse for another. Her fingers felt the ring of her Earnhardt key chain, the one Jimmy had given her. Sylvester hadn't given her a damn thing except a hard time, and not the good kind, either. 'Say, Jimmy…'
'Yeah, honey?'
'Why ain't you working today?'
There was a silence on the other end of the line, and Peggy listened to the faint electronic hum as Jimmy got his story straight. She glanced out the window and noticed that the trailer park was deader than usual. The curtains were drawn in Paul Crosley's Silverstream and the sawed-off Bronco was gone from the Wellborns' puddle-filled driveway. A patch of lilies poked up behind a rotted row of railroad ties at the park’s entrance.
'Lemly Building Supply didn't drop off the blocks like they was supposed to. No need to mess around that muddy foundation all day for nothing. Can't lay what I ain't got.'
'And you ain't got me yet.'
'I'm working on it. See you in about twenty minutes?'
'I'll leave the door unlocked. And, Jimmy-'
'Yeah?'
Peggy found a half-full cigarette pack and crinkled the cellophane trying to spill out a fresh smoke. She looked at her hand, red and raw and aging, a hand that had been delicate once.
'Tell me you love me.' Even if you have to lie.
'I love you, Peggy.'
'Bye now,' she said faintly, slowly pulling the phone away from her bleached hair and hanging it in its cradle. She lit the cigarette with her bloodshot hand.
Tamara picked Kevin’s baseball glove off the floor and tucked it in the hall closet amid fishing poles, deflated soccer balls, windbreakers, and tangled piles of Christmas lights. One of these days they’d have to get around to spring cleaning. Because spring was here. The season of hope.
Yeah, right. Hope is a dirty word. I hope Robert will talk to me before our marriage slides the rest of the way into hell. I hope we can understand each other, because he’s in a mid-life crisis and I’m in the same old sanity crisis. I hope hope hope.
She opened the living room window and the breeze pushed the scent of flowers through the screen. Dampness still clung to the air, but the sun was strong, and in its glow the mountains were deep blue. Tamara’s gaze traveled up the slopes, over the ripples of dark ridges to the gray stone face of Bear Claw. The familiar tingle trickled through her, and she tried to ignore it and concentrate on the coming day’s lecture instead. But the sound cut through her thoughts.
Shu-shaaa.
She had no idea what the word meant, or if it even was a word. She tried it on her tongue.
“Shu-shaaa.”
As she said it, something drew her attention back to Bear Claw. She thought she saw a flash of green light near the distant peak, as if someone had signaled with a piece of mirror. A secret signal directed at Tamara.
No. Probably just a reflection off a rock.
Because you do not hear voices. You do not dream the future. You do not see invisible lights. You are NOT crazy.
You are a teacher, a mother, a wife, a sensitive soul who needs to grow a thicker hide. Maybe that’s not the right order of things, but brush your teeth and get down the mountain, and stop staring off into space waiting for spy messages to zap themselves into your brain.
If she wasn’t crazy yet, she might soon drive herself there. Shu-shaaa was a cavity and her mind was a tongue, probing, exploring, curious, even though the rot would only continue spreading until the hole was bigger than the tooth. She slammed the window closed and went down the hall, away from the secret lights of Bear Claw.
'So that whole mountainside belongs to one family?'
'Yes, sir. And they're in a selling mood. I talked to one of the sons already. His father got rid of a chunk of it a few years back.'
'Cheap?' Emerland handed the binoculars back to his assistant.
The assistant strung them over his neck, the strap tangling with his tie. The wind ruffled the papers on his clipboard. 'Ninety thou for twenty acres. Can you believe it?'
'The people are strange up here in the mountains. One minute they're giving it away, and the next they want an arm and a leg and your firstborn thrown in as a down payment.'
Emerland gazed at the blue, stubbled face of Bear Claw, picturing three ski slopes, a glass lodge, and a condominium complex. The outlying areas that were too steep for serious development could be carved up into tiny lots and dotted with log cabins. The environmental regulations would be a bitch, with these new run-off laws, but Emerland knew how to go around or through red tape. He'd built Sugarfoot without much of a problem and he could do the same thing again. Maybe more than twice. There were mountains as far as the eye could see.
'Who did you say you talked to?' he asked his assistant.
'Johnny Mack Mull is the name.'
'Johnny Mack, huh? What does he say?'
'Apparently the father doesn't want to sell out completely. Now that he's got some money he feels like he's set for life. And the two sons don't get their share until he's out of the picture.'
