Rye Curtis - Kingdomtide

Lewis told again the men to leave her to it and they went out and took the dog. She refilled the mug from the bottle under her desk. She sipped at it and filed a vandalism report on a campground boulder that Silk Foot Maggie had spray-painted gold and covered in cat hair and rubber nipples.

After a while a transmission came in over the radio. Lewis leaned over the paging microphone.

Ranger Lewis here. Over.

We got somethin developin here, Ranger Lewis. Yesterday the wife of a small aircraft pilot named…Terry Squime…contacted Missoula authorities concerned about her husband’s whereabouts. She said he was due back in Missoula late Sunday. Due back after he was to fly a pair of senior citizens to Lake Como. An elderly couple named Richard and Cloris Waldrip. Over.

Cloris Waldrip? So Cloris is a goddamn name? Over.

Yeah. Turns out. Over.

You figure they went down, John? Over.

We checked at the cabin the Waldrips were supposed to be at, but they’re not there. Proprietor said they never were. Squime’s flight path was to be over your way. I’m dispatchin search-and-rescue. You’ll act as department liaison for this thing. Go with them, chopper over, and check it out this afternoon. Expect a Steven Bloor with a team in about an hour. Bloor’s a real interestin fella, you’ll like him. Poor guy’s a widower. He’s a good guy, a good old bud from the National Guard. You two can help each other. Hopefully you guys can beat the storm. Over.

Roger that. Over.

This’s some excitement. How’re you holdin up up there? Over.

I’m fine, John. Over.

Good. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. If you ever need to talk, we’re here for you. Marcy says she’s here for you too. Over.

Thank you. I’m all right. Over.

Well all right. We’re all prayin for you. Marcy included. That’s what the ranger community is for. Carin for the land and servin people. Over.

Thank you. That everything? Over.

That’s everything, Ranger Lewis. Out.

Out the station window dark thunderclouds lay slung over the mountains like blueblack viscera jumbled and discarded as if the heavens had been hunted and gutted the way Lewis often found the carcasses of poached bears and elk ditched on service roads. The elk had gone from the valley, and wind from the stormhead combed the grasses and shook the forests and moaned through the station. In the wind Lewis figured she heard a woman orgasm. She shivered. She finished a mugful of merlot and poured another. She turned from the window to the front of the station and put a hand to a cheek and figured she had a fever. She watched the door and strained to hear again the woman.

Then the pineboard steps croaked without, and the door opened.

A tall man ducked into the station and removed a pair of sunglasses. He took a hand to a mullet of feathery blond hair, so sparse it was in front that the ruddy dome of his skull gleamed underneath. He wore civilian clothes—hiking boots, a button-up, and khakis—save for a bright orange windbreaker which bore the letters SAR .

The man hung the sunglasses on his shirt and showed bright white teeth like those of children in beauty pageants. He said, Koojee.

Lewis stood and drew a sleeve across her mouth. Sorry?

Do you have kids?

No.

The man shook his head. My daughter, he said. His voice was faint and high and he sucked over each word as if it were a lozenge. Her disgusting boyfriend clerks at a dollar store and has a dead tooth. Political, everything is always political, you know. I’m a progressive man, but…

Are you with search-and-rescue?

He clicked his teeth together and nodded. I hope you’re the ranger I’m here to see. I misplaced the name John gave me. Wrote it down on a napkin. A waitress threw it in my beans.

Ranger Lewis.

Ranger Lewis, of course, my apologies. Please take your seat.

That’s all right.

You prefer to stand?

Yes.

The man closed his eyes and sighed. He opened them again and raised an arm to the window behind her. There’s a storm waiting for us, he said.

I’m ready to go.

The man came closer. No, Ranger Lewis, he said. He looked her over. If we chopper out there in this weather and go down, who’ll rescue us? He put out a hand. A fine white dust covered his fingers. Steven Bloor, he said. Search-and-rescue.

Lewis took his hand. Don’t you figure since it’s an emergency we ought to go anyway? Weather be goddamned?

If you speak with my colleagues from Tacoma to Missoula they’ll all tell you that I’m a prudent and professional and progressive man. Tonight that may save our lives. He squeezed her hand and let it go. We’ll wait till tomorrow. I predict the storm will have abated.

In a goddamn emergency—

It’s not much of an emergency, Ranger Lewis.

How do you mean?

If the plane did go down, those aboard are more than likely deceased. Koojee.

Bloor unzipped a breast pocket and brought out a photograph and a small cake of hand chalk like that used by gymnasts. He passed the photograph to Lewis and slapped the chalk between his palms.

Lewis studied the photograph and brushed it clear. It showed a young couple posed in foam Stetsons smiling before a low geyser in a state park.

That’s Terry Squime, Bloor said. The pilot, there on the left. Mrs. Squime sent us the picture. My guess is she’s the pretty woman in the blue hat. Xerox it for your personnel.

You mean Claude?

I probably do. Bloor studied her and pulled out the chair behind the smaller desk against the west wall. He sat down and pocketed the chalk. He stretched out his long legs and thumped the pineboards with the heels of his boots. You know, my wife always told me never to stand while there’s an empty chair in the room.

Do we have any more information on Cloris Waldrip and her husband?

Retired, Bloor said. In their mid to late seventies. Small-town Texans flying up here for a pleasant few days in a cabin. Koojee. You live up here all year round, Ranger Lewis?

What does that mean?

What does what mean?

That goddamn word you keep sayin.

Koojee?

Yes.

It’s a word my wife used to say to express most types of emotional concern. It’s exclamatory. You know, it just stuck with me. So do you live up here all year round then?

I go down for groceries and gasoline.

Bloor put an end of the sunglasses in his mouth and nibbled. It’s not unpleasant up here. Only I get the sense it’d be lonely for an individual with an active mind. Loneliness can be dangerous. You could go nuts. Do you have a companion?

You mean a dog?

No. An intimate companion.

No.

Do you have a dog?

Claude has a dog. I’m divorced.

How long?

Almost three goddamn months now.

Where is your family?

My dad was in Missoula. He’s gone.

Your mother?

Long gone.

I hope I’m not being too forward. Sometimes I’m too forward. My wife always told me I was too forward and that it made people uncomfortable, because forwardness is only permitted in children.

It’s all right.

I’m a progressive man, Ranger Lewis. It’s important to me to become familiar with the people I’m to be working with. I’m a people person. Are you a people person, Ranger Lewis?

Goddamn it, I don’t know.

Bloor took the sunglasses from his mouth. A little about me, he said. I was married in Washington State. Lived in Tacoma, you know. At heart I’m an art collector. I only keep working in search-and-rescue anymore to have a reciprocal relationship with society. Just recently I procured a wonderful piece by a tractor mechanic in Washburn, Arkansas. Jorge Moosely. He uses his comatose mother for his canvas. Paints her head to toe in landscapes, then photographs her. I have his White Water Vapids piece back at our house in Missoula. It’s heartbreaking.