Joy Williams - The Quick & the Dead

Alice decided against sharing the nurse’s tale with Ottolie, who was still formulating another tomorrow for Alice.

“You could be making a sandwich and accidentally set yourself on fire. Do you know how to make a sandwich? You have to preheat the oven to three hundred degrees.”

Corvus appeared in the doorway. Ottolie smiled at her and said, “I think you’re someone else.”

“It’s time for me to go, Ottolie,” Alice said.

“You know when I knew I was a goner?” Ottolie said, “I was about to explain the mountains to a friend. I was about to say, ‘There are the Mustang and the Whetstone Ranges, then, less sharply cut, are the Rincons and Tanque Verde, while soft in the distance loom the noble Santa Catalinas.’ I was about to raise my arm and grandly indicate but I could not raise my arm. I’d forgotten how it was you caused your arm to be raised.”

“I’m sorry, I have to go now,” Alice said. “I’ll see you next week.”

“On the other side of the valley are the Mules, the Dragoons, the Winchesters, and the distant wild Galiuros.” Ottolie pursed her lips. “The distant wild Galiuros,” she called, as if to someone.

As Alice and Corvus were leaving, they passed a lady bent almost double creeping down the hallway, gripping her walker. She was making up her grocery list. “Flour, yeast, raisins,” she said. “Tea, eggs, grits. A good broom. A good broom …”

Carter came into the living room and saw the three girls sitting on the sofa.

“So, what are you plotting today?” he said merrily. He felt exceptional after an uneasy week. Donald had encouraged him to go on a fast where he drank nothing but water and ate only a kind of clay, and he felt exhilarated if somewhat weak. The black scorpioid toxins that had appeared in the toilet bowl were — well he didn’t want to dwell on them, but they were damn impressive. Appalling, of course, but now he could understand the quiet pride people could take in the purification of their intestinal tract. He felt wonderful and was quite unaware that he looked haggard and unwell.

Alice looked up at him, startled. Her face was mobile and expressive, and what he saw on it now was dismay and random guilt. She would not do well in a police lineup.

“Mr. Vineyard,” she said.

“Hi,” Carter said, thinking he should start over. They all were looking at him in astonishment. Madness is flight, he always thought when he saw Corvus, such a curious name, though lovely. He’d never understood why Ginger had insisted on the awkward name, Annabel, for their bundle of issue. It brought to mind a dairy.

He looked at his dear Annabel. “Honey,” he said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Are you all right, Daddy?”

“I’m fine ,” Carter crowed. Thank God for Donald and his clay. And Ginger hadn’t visited him for the last several nights. Maybe she was actually … gone. He was cautiously optimistic. The last time she’d shown up, she kept asking, “Do you think I have pretty eyes?” but he’d had the wit not to look at them, into them, whatever. Her eyes had never been particularly pretty, though he would’ve been out of his mind to have said so. They were normal eyes, he recalled, in no way transfixing.

“We were thinking of going on a camping trip,” Annabel said, “and I was saying I could make a soufflé but—”

Carter frowned. “A soufflé?”

“—but Alice said just hard-boiled eggs.”

“Isn’t it too hot to go camping? Though I don’t mean to block any tendency toward enthusiasm.”

“It’s more of a retreat,” Alice said.

“You’re awfully young for retreats,” Carter said.

“Daddy,” Annabel said, “we are not children.”

“I’d be afraid of the bears.”

“Oh, Daddy.”

“I would.”

“Bears were extirpated from this area,” Alice said, “more than fifty years ago.”

“In my reading the other day, I came across this line by John Muir,” Carter said. “ ‘Bears are not companions of men but tenderly loved children of God.’ ” He directed this to Alice. He liked old Alice.

“What utter crap,” Alice said.

“He was a fine man,” Carter protested. “He began the American conservation movement.”

“I hate people who talk like that,” Alice said. “It mixes everything up.”

“He wrote a very nice book about a dog,” Carter persisted. “Stickeen.”

Alice was unimpressed. Corvus looked at him and smiled.

“Do you have a dog?” Carter asked.

“No,” Corvus said. For an instant he gazed openly at her face, which didn’t seem quite human to him. Or rather, it was human but one that most humans didn’t happen to have. That was preposterous, of course. Suddenly he felt a bit wobbly. What he needed was a big milk shake.

“I should get you all library cards,” he said, trying to shake off what seemed to him a curious numbness. “Wouldn’t you all like your own library card? Many a summer hour was made delightful to me through books as a boy.”

“That was then, Daddy,” Annabel said.

“Well, yes,” Carter said.

“This is now.”

He was reluctant to admit it. He sat down opposite them but, eliciting looks of disappointment, bounded to his feet again. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your deliberations.”

“Here comes Donald,” Annabel said. “He just drove up.”

Donald! In his little lotus white car. Carter’s heart soared. At the same time, he thought he glimpsed a vulture rising on voluptuary wings from the swimming pool, where it had been hunched, drinking. Remarkable, the things that came to drink. Sad, somehow. He excused himself and hurried out to greet Donald, to direct or be directed in their labors together.

“Is he still the gardener?” Alice asked.

“Of course he’s still the gardener. What do you mean?” Annabel was looking at the hiking boots she’d just bought for this expedition. Never in her life had she encountered anything so totally without charm.

“Well, there doesn’t seem much left to do around here. It all looks pretty nice.”

“Some people get very involved in gardening, Alice. It can become a lifelong obsession. Sometimes they just move rocks around together. Donald is a big believer in fighting ass … acid — God, what is that word?”

“Acedia,” Corvus said.

“That’s right! You are so good, Corvus. You could go on Jeopardy or something. It means sloth, right?”

“It means more like experiencing the moment as an oppressive weight. It means listlessness of spirit.” Corvus pushed a fallen wing of black hair behind her ear.

Annabel didn’t know what else to do, so she smiled generously. “Well, he’s got Daddy moving those rocks, all right.”

Alice was inquiring as to what Carter’s occupation actually was.

“He was trained to design things. Not office buildings or skyscrapers but other stuff. Not houses or furniture either, exactly. He was trained to make use of space , Alice. But he never did. I guess he and Mommy just wanted to relax. He was asked to design a zoo once. He had some wonderful ideas for it. It was in Newark and had a tropical rain forest wing. It had mold and microbes and everything. Plus one of those quetzal birds. I remember because I asked for one of its feathers after it died. But I never got one, or if I did I can’t remember what happened to it. But it really was a good zoo. There was an elephant there who painted pictures with her trunk. Watercolors. You could buy them.”

“They made an elephant paint watercolors?”

“She liked it, I think. But they weren’t very good.”

“This was your father’s idea, to make an elephant paint watercolors?”