Rye Curtis - Kingdomtide

Joy?

I’m movin to a big city. Someplace like Seattle or Boston.

I’d say this’ll be leavin this station undermanned.

Pete already leave?

Left before the weekend, Claude said, looking out the window behind her. I’d say he’s back in Big Timber by now. Claude touched the scraggly scarf he wore around his neck. Left me this goofy thing he’d been knittin.

He’s a nice man, Lewis said.

I’d say he’s all right.

A strange bird.

He’s that too.

John said he’d be sendin my replacement up on Thursday, Lewis said. A man by the name of Sokolov.

Sokolov? I’d say he’s Russian.

I expect so.

I guess I can’t say I’m surprised you’re leavin.

You’ll be all right, Lewis said. Eric Coolidge and goddamn Silk Foot Maggie can’t get into too much trouble in three days. Then you’ll have Sokolov.

What’ll you do in Boston?

I don’t know if it’ll be Boston. Goddamn, I don’t know. I figure I can find a job in the city park service.

Claude took the campaign hat from his head and smoothed his neat black hair. You know someone shot Charlie?

What’s that?

Yeah. Few days ago. Shot her to pieces.

Her?

Charlie was a bitch.

Lewis looked out the window at a flock of geese shadowing the valley. I’d forgot.

Found her out back a ways. Her bowels were irregular, you remember. I let her go off by herself for some privacy. Shot to pieces. I’d say someone with a lot of hate had to do a thing like that.

You didn’t hear anythin?

I was in the shower.

I’m sorry, Claude.

Thought you might’ve, Claude said.

What?

Heard somethin at your place.

No. Sorry.

Well, it’s goin to get pretty lonely up here, I’d say. Claude thumbed the blue end of his nose.

Lewis unpinned the badge from her chest and set it on the clean desk, where only the holstered revolver and the receiver to the radio remained. The light from the window gave clouds to the lacquer there. Lewis touched her fingertips to the desk, paused a moment, then swung the plastic sack of wine bottles over a shoulder and went clinking to the door. Grab that box?

Claude replaced the campaign hat on his head and lifted the box and followed her out to the Wagoneer. He set the box in the backseat and folded his arms and watched Lewis drop the plastic sack in the back.

Thunderclouds rolled over them and they both looked up. I’m sorry you still haven’t got any proof of Cornelia Åkersson, Lewis said.

I saw her, Debs. I don’t need anybody else to believe me. I know I saw her and the glyptodont. I’d say that’s all that really matters.

All right. That’s fine.

Claude nodded down the road. I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you and Officer Bloor.

Goddamn it, Lewis said. It just wasn’t right.

Nope, didn’t seem right to me neither.

No?

No, said Claude. Talk about a strange bird.

Lewis came around to the front of the Wagoneer and leaned on the hood. I’ll be lookin forward to a visit whenever I get where I’m goin.

I’d say you don’t know me very well if you think I’m goin to go to Boston.

Been eleven years, Claude.

Claude clicked his tongue and looked off. Well, people come and go, I’d say. You can do nothin for it. He looked at his boots. Blood stained the hems of his trousers. I’d say it’s when you try and hold on to somethin, that’s when you get into the real trouble. I think you’ve got to keep a loose grip on everything you love.

I figure that’s probably right, Lewis said. You’re my best friend, Claude. Want you to know that.

Thank you.

I meant it. Never had a better goddamn friend. I’m sorry I’ve not always been a good one back.

Claude shook his head. He pulled taut his uniform and straightened his back and saluted over the brim of his campaign hat. To care for the land and serve the people, he said.

Lewis returned the salute. To care for the land and serve the people.

Claude smiled and reached up and put a hand to her arm. So long.

Lewis nodded and climbed into the Wagoneer and Claude headed back to the station. She waited a moment and honked the horn. Claude turned at the station door. She leaned over and cranked down the passenger’s window. I shot your dog, Claude, she called out. I’m goddamn sorry about it.

Claude stood there and looked up to the brim of his campaign hat. I figured, he called back. It’s all right. So long, he said, and turned back to the station.

Lewis watched the screen door clack shut behind him and pulled out onto the road.

Thunder shook the night mountains and rain lashed the windshield. Lewis, clear eyes ahead, brought the Wagoneer down the winding alpine road and buffed with the end of a finger the surface of her teeth. When she rounded a bend she passed a beat-up towncar heading the other direction up the mountain. In the dark a ghoulish woman behind the wheel was briefly lit up by the instrumentation, her lime-colored face like that of a corpse, mouth wide and abyssal, hair in a big bouffant. At that moment the two strangers were the most important people in each other’s lives, for all that separated them from certain death, Lewis figured, was a painted yellow line and faith in the system.

Lewis turned on the radio and listened to a woman with throat cancer and a voice like a jaw harp phone in to ask Dr. Howe about the nature of grief and why had her sister wanted everyone at their mother’s funeral to see her cry. For the vast majority of people, Dr. Howe said, grief is what you do to remind everyone that you are a person. That you have inside you an entire universe of emotion and thought, a universe that only you can truly know and access.

Before long Lewis reached the bottom of the mountain and pulled out onto Florida Avenue and the flat land. She drove north and arrived in Missoula in little over an hour, steering under the warm streetlights and listening yet to the radio show and the rain. A man with a deep voice soon phoned in, and he asked Dr. Howe about love, and how could he ever know for certain when he had it. Love is a wonderful and elusive state of being, Dr. Howe said. By its very nature it is difficult to explain to someone who has not found themselves in a position to know it. Love is something that you will know when you feel it, and when you are in love you will know.

Lewis shook her head and turned down a small street lined with closed shops and darkened alleyways. Dr. Howe went on defining love for the man with the deep voice. Lewis spotted a rain-swept pay phone bolted to a brick building next to a bus stop, orange under a streetlight. She swung the Wagoneer to the side of the street and halfway up onto the sidewalk in front of the pay phone. She scooted across the seats and turned up the radio and climbed out the passenger’s door into the rain.

She fished two quarters from her pocket and pushed them into the pay phone slot. Already she was soaked through and her dark hair was matted down over her head like a straw hat with a frayed brim. Lewis dialed the number she knew by heart and gave the squeaky voice on the other end her maiden name. The voice told her that hers would be the next call on air.

Over the pummeling rain Lewis listened to the radio blaring from the Wagoneer. Love is something worth hoping for, waiting for, Dr. Howe said. It is the salve to all trouble and fear, only it is hard to discover and even harder to sustain. I hope you find it. Thank you for calling in, Mr. Hopscotch, and good luck. And now we have our next caller, Miss Silvernail. You’re on the air, Miss Silvernail, how can I help?

I don’t think you’ve got any of that right about love, Dr. Howe, Lewis said.

Do you want to tell me why you feel that way?

Yes. I was sure I was fallin in love with a girl much younger than me. She’s eighteen. I’m older than that.