Cosumnes, Calaveras, Mokelumne, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, Chowchilla, Fresno, San Joaquin, Kings, Kaweah rivers, one after another. The water made the enormous lowland between the coast and the mountains the most valuable farmland on earth. His family had been part of that for five generations.
He might not be raising crops, but he was part of the tradition, and leaving the land fallow, giving it a rest for a couple of genera tions, was almost an act of patriotism. He was protecting and preserving it. He was also keeping the level of air pollution in the Central Valley down, not contributing to the chemical runoff into the rivers, and even keeping the prices up for other agricultural corporations. And of course, the water the Forrests didn’t use had been going to cities while they had grown, and without it they wouldn’t survive. The southern half of the state was all and savanna and desert.
He drove into the downtown area of Merced, along a block of small shops. It was after nine, so the stores that sold china and women’s clothes and the hairstylists were closed, but the restaurants were just filling up. Forrest let his BMW coast into the turn at the corner beside Marlene’s Coffee and Sympathy, and found a parking space at the curb down the street just past a tall sycamore. He was far from a streetlamp, and the tree’s broad canopy threw the car into deeper shadow. As he got out he looked up into the night sky anxiously. In hot weather old trees sometimes dropped limbs, but he didn’t plan to be here long.
He took a couple of steps and saw the back door of Marlene’s open, and a small, thin creature appear. She stood under the light near the door for a couple of seconds, looking for him. He could see the shining honey-blond hair as she shaded her eyes and looked up the street. She began to walk toward him, but as soon as she was well away from the building, allowed herself to break into a run.
When she came into the deep shadows away from the glow of the commercial street, he heard her voice, a half-suppressed, delighted laugh. She took a little hop and threw her arms around his neck. She spoke into his ear. “What a treat! Come on and get me out of here.”
Forrest turned his head as he opened the car door for her, trying to be sure nobody was watching. There were still people walking on the commercial street, but none of them seemed to be able to pay any attention to one more couple getting into a black car on the side street past Marlene’s. Forrest started the engine and then pulled out.
Kylie said, “God, Ted. You are so sweet to sneak out of a dinner just to rescue me from barista servitude.” He felt her soft, wet lips on his cheek, then her left hand playing with the hair at the back of his neck.
He moved his head slightly to get rid of the tickle. “Put your seat belt on.”
She turned to face forward and slid back into the seat, then pulled the belt across her chest and clicked the buckle. “Don’t worry. There aren’t any cops to give us a ticket. Terry and Dan just came into Marlene’s for their coffee ten minutes ago. From here they go out to prowl those new streets up by the freeway entrance.”
“You know that?”
“Of course. They come in the same time every night.”
“If you know there are no cops, then the speeders and drunk drivers probably know it, too. You’re even more likely to need a seat belt.”
She laughed, untroubled, but Ted Forrest felt slightly uncomfortable. His voice sounded old to him, like a father or even a grandfather. The similarity wasn’t a coincidence. Her father was six years younger than Forrest, and her mother at least fifteen years younger. He glanced at Kylie as they passed under a streetlamp, and saw a remnant of a smile on her lips. Kylie. Even the name reminded him. When he had been young, there were no names like that. Girls had familiar names, like their mothers. Most had names from the Bible, like their grandmothers.
As long as he thought about Kylie instead of himself, he would preserve his good mood. Even in the scarce light pulled from the glow of the dashboard and the reflected lights from windows her hair shone, long and thick and alive, and her skin was milky-smooth. This generation of girls seemed to be different, physically. They had more muscle and bone, and no fat at all except rounded breasts and buttocks-shapes that made fourteen-year-olds look like designers’ drawings of idealized women. Just looking at girls on the street gave him hope for the future of the species, and Kylie was a prize, a grand champion, without even knowing it. That ingenuousness, the apparent unawareness of her beauty was one of the things about her that he loved. He knew that teenaged girls were not unconscious of themselves. Their most arduous study was given over to their own waistseyes-chins-cheeks-necks- hair-fingers-toes-legs-feet. But Kylie had already outgrown part of that and learned to take her looks as she took everything else, as a gift that she’d received years ago and never thought about anymore.
He drove back out onto the highway. “How was work?”
“Boring as usual, and it’s not over. I’m still on until eleven, and then we have to clean up.”
“Why do you do it?”
“A lot of reasons. I like having money that’s mine and nobody gave me. If I want to waste it, then I don’t have to feel guilty or pretend I’m sorry.”
“I suppose not.”
“And besides, it gives me freedom to do what I want.”
“Really? What do you want?”
She looked at him slyly. “You. Would you come to my house to pick me up? You know-wait downstairs with my daddy while I put on my makeup?”
“You’re pretty smart.”
“I’m very smart,” she agreed. “Where are we going to do it?”
“What?”
“You didn’t sneak away in the middle of Caroline’s big party just so I wouldn’t have to wash the cappuccino machine. You want to get me out of my clothes, as usual.”
“Well, since you suggested it, maybe you have something in mind.”
“Me suggest it? Shut up. I just know how you are.” Her sly look returned. “My parents are out tonight. They probably won’t be back until midnight, at least.”
Forrest shook his head. “I’ve got a better idea. I think I’ll show you a place you’ve never been to.”
“You just don’t want to get caught. It’s because I’m jailbait.”
“Charming term,” said Forrest. “But yes, I think it’s fair to say I don’t want to get caught. Do you? Then we could have a trial. You could get dragged in to testify in public about everything we ever did together in great detail. Maybe we’d get to be on television. Your mother could cry for the jury, and your father, too, probably. I suppose it might prompt Caroline to finally get around to killing herself. God knows, nothing else has.”
“There’s a thought. Maybe I’ll turn you in myself.”
“I’d get twentyfive years.” He looked at her sadly. “That’s the risk I’m taking to be with you.”
“I know.” She gripped his right hand so he had to take it off the wheel. “I love you so much.”
“Me, too.” As soon as he had his hand back he grasped the wheel with his right hand and raised his left to look at his watch. He was on schedule. She had been waiting, so they had not wasted any time. He was pleased. He drove faster now, but he was careful never to go higher than the speed limit when Kylie was with him. He made full stops at stop signs, signaled for lane changes, and watched his mirrors. Even a simple fender-bender with the girl in the car could bring po lice to write down his name and the name of his passenger, and then there would be trouble.
He drove the ten miles out of town toward Espinoza Ranch. His family had always kept the original name, even though they’d had it for over a hundred years, and had bought it from a man named Parker. Family folklore said Espinoza Ranch was a spectacularly fertile piece of farmland because it was the floodplain of an ancient meandering creek that came from a spring in the foothills. A couple of days after any big winter rainstorm, and two weeks after the melting of the mountain snowpack each year, the water rushed down and inundated the loops and curves of the creek and choked the plain with fresh mud. At some point the creek had been diverted somewhere upstream, so the floods didn’t happen anymore, but nothing had been planted on the Espinoza Ranch for fifty years. Someday, Forrest was sure, it was probably going to be covered with houses. For the moment there was only the house his grandfather had built on the foundation of the old main house about two hundred yards from the highway at the end of a gravel road. It took vigilance to spot the unmarked road on the right, but he had been here many times. He turned at the entrance to the ranch and stopped in front of the big steel gate.
“What’s this?” Kylie asked.
“I own it. I thought I’d show it to you.” He got out, opened the combination lock on the gate and walked with it to swing it open, then came back and moved his car forward, got out again and locked the gate behind him.
He drove up the packed-gravel road to the house and stopped, the dust swirling ahead of him in the
