Rye Curtis - Kingdomtide

Cecil’s a longtime rescue paramedic, Bloor said. Works even though he has COPD. He doesn’t like me very much.

These people we are lookin for, they are dead, Cecil said. He turned back to the window. Sun filled his eyes yet he did not squint.

Koojee, said Bloor.

They flew onward over intrusions of granite set in the earth like molars in a jaw, and they each of them searched the ground below, wearing now sunglasses as the day grew brighter. Wind shear drove the helicopter down and Lewis squeezed the thermos in her lap. The air smoothed and she drank. Bloor watched her behind yellow lenses and asked her if she considered herself an ethical person.

Lewis wiped her mouth and ran a tongue over wine-red teeth. She tightened the lid to the thermos. Not sure, she said.

Bloor brandished a finger white with chalk. I give a share of my time and skills for the wellbeing of others, so for the sake of universal balance I allow myself particular ethically selfish pleasures. Chesapeake was an ethically selfish pleasure.

Lewis smiled and unscrewed the lid to the thermos. She drank and rescrewed it.

What ethically selfish pleasures do you allow yourself, Ranger Lewis?

Goddamn, I’d have to think about that.

I hope you do.

Cecil put up a hand. Do you need me to peel them for you?

Thank you, Cecil, Bloor said.

The pilot circled two other mountains and passed over a bleak forest. Lewis kept her eyes to the land and blinked little. In the glass she could see Bloor turn his head to look at her. Twilight was already upon them when the pilot warned that they ought to turn back before they lost the light.

Goddamn it, Lewis said.

Cecil had not turned his head for a time. At long last he shuddered it around to them like some rickety piece of theater on a set of pulleys. It’s difficult to think anyone of any age could survive down there at all, he said, and he coughed on the plump ends of his fingers.

As the pilot began to fly them back toward the station, Bloor spoke about the depression of people without ambition.

These are the eighties, you know, he said. I’ve seen thirty-year-olds dressing like teenagers. I’ve always been ambitious. Do you enjoy your work out here, Ranger Lewis?

They passed the black edge of the mountain in the oncoming dark. Yes, she said.

My daughter will be eighteen the third of November. I’ll tell her about you, remind her that there are ambitious women out there.

Be quiet, Cecil said. You’re makin the pilot crazy.

One more thing, Cecil. Then you can wire my jaw shut if you want. Listen, Ranger Lewis. I apologize if this is too forward. Sometimes I’m too forward. Have dinner with me this evening? I’m renting a large lonely cabin and I’d appreciate the company. We can go over the case and discuss our options.

Lewis watched unsteadily the man’s face.

She drank a bottle of merlot at her kitchen sink and put on a clean uniform and then drove to a stately two-story cabin built of pine and painted clean white, stilted dark and alone in a far dead end overlooking the east valley. Down below in the foothills a little town glowed. No wind battled the trees and stars spun like rowels in the glassy firmament. Lewis parked the Wagoneer in the gravel driveway. She took up from the passenger’s seat a four-dollar bottle of merlot and picked off the price tag.

The front door of the white cabin opened. Bloor ducked under the transom and peered out at her. His thin black shadow emerged like an insect from a crack in a floor. He put up a hand and rolled his long fingers. Lewis climbed from the Wagoneer.

Without a word Bloor ushered her into the cabin. He closed the door and locked the dead bolt. He waved in a circle a chalked hand and asked her what she thought of the place.

Lewis surveyed the large, open room. A circular steel fireplace burned in the center and a length of dark picture windows lined a wall beyond which lay a stilted deck and a hot tub and a barbecue. Long white couches were angled around a glass coffee table where there sat a bottle of wine. The kitchen was lit up through an open archway and from there came a smell of cooking that recalled a deep basement.

It’s goddamn modern, Lewis said.

I thought so too, Bloor said. He took from her the bottle she had brought and her coat. Do you go everywhere in uniform, Ranger Lewis?

I expect I just got comfortable in it.

It’s a handsome uniform.

I’ve been by here before, Lewis said. It’s goddamn unusual to see a white cabin.

It’s owned by a homosexual man named Cherry. Good guy. You know him?

I know he rents this place out, but I never met him.

Bloor thanked her for the wine and said, I’m sorry if I seem distracted. I just hung up with my daughter. She’s been trouble recently.

I figure she’s the age for it.

Bloor went over to the coffee table and set the bottle there beside the other and took from his chest pocket a cake of chalk and chalked his hands. I don’t want to say she’s slow, but it takes a long time to get her to understand the complexity of a thing. He took up the bottles and held them out for her to choose.

Lewis pointed at the merlot.

Bloor uncorked the bottle with a corkscrew from the table. She was caught today with that clerk with the dead tooth I was telling you about. In the school restroom. Suspended. What do you think of that?

Nothin.

Bloor poured two glasses of merlot. She told me one morning over eggs she wanted to do it. Can you believe that?

Do what?

Sex. I’m a progressive man, Ranger Lewis. Cultured, of this time. Beyond this time, even. But you know, part of me wants my daughter to be the eternal virgin.

I expect that’s only natural, Lewis said.

Bloor smiled and sat on the couch. He patted the cushion next to him. Lewis went over to him and sat. He handed her a glass and raised his. To the Waldrips and Terry Squime, may Light and Love have mercy on them. May they rest in peace.

Lewis raised her glass. That’s premature talk.

The two drank.

How did you meet your ex-husband? I apologize if I’m too curious. My wife always told me that I’m curious in a way that makes people feel probed and unsafe.

Lewis told him that she had met Roland at her dad’s veterinarian clinic when she worked there after school and Roland had brought in his dog to put it down. She told how they had gotten married just after she had left high school and had begun working in the Missoula Parks and Recreation. After a few years, she said, she took the ranger’s position in the Bitterroot Mountains and Roland was put in charge of purchasing in the small-game department at a hunting-goods store. At the time she had not thought anything of him running off on a business trip every other weekend.

He was seeing someone else?

He had a wife in Nebraska, one in Colorado, and one more in Montana. Lewis pointed to her badge.

The man is a Mormon then.

If he is he never told me about it. He’s in prison for trigamy.

Koojee. At least you don’t have kids.

Goddamn it, never needed any.

Kids. You know, when we moved from Tacoma to Missoula I hoped the change of venue would help. But I don’t know. My daughter’s already lost her virginity straddling a toilet. It’s not that I’m made uncomfortable by sexuality. My tenure as a sergeant in the National Guard made sure of that.

Bloor drank off a glass, then reached for the bottle and poured himself another. He stroked together the chalked fingers of his free hand and studied the wine with eyes that did not seem to see.

When my wife passed away three years ago, he said, I thought I’d become a better person. To honor her memory, you understand. I haven’t. Not at all. I don’t know why.

Sorry about your wife.