Сигрид Нуньес - Salvation City

Hunting was second only to church in Salvation City. (“There’s a reason the Indians thought of heaven as the Happy Hunting Ground,” said Boots.) All the boys and more than half the girls Cole knew did some kind of hunting, and there were kids his age who’d been doing it for years. Clem had killed his first turkey at seven and his first deer at nine. There was no shortage of people eager to train Cole to hunt any time he was ready. But the idea did not sit well with the animal lover in him. He’d gone fishing just once and even that had been too much for him, his stomach mimicking the convulsions of the hooked fish.

Tracy was no hunter but she knew how to shoot, as she knew how to load a rifle and how to take it apart and clean it, too.

“My daddy always said that’s how you prevent accidents. Not by keeping young’uns away from guns but by teaching them how they work.”

And what was it with people who were scared of keeping guns in their homes? For her it was just the opposite. “I could never sleep in an unarmed house, especially after what happened with the flu,” she said. “And when you think about what might be coming, well, what are you going to do, just sit there defenseless?”

Defenseless was how she looked to Cole that morning as he and PW drove away. Smaller and smaller through the van’s rear window, in her short hot-pink bathrobe with white pom-poms at the belt ends, waving two-handed like a child.

The sun popped into view behind her just as she vanished from sight.

PW liked to drive fast. Once they got to the highway they would zoom up to eighty or ninety and maintain that speed most of the way. He turned on the stereo and they listened to Veronica playing their new song, “So Angel.” He kept the volume high, the way he did only when he was driving alone or when it was just the two of them. Cole thought Veronica was an awesome band and that “So Angel” was their best song yet.

The music was too loud for them to talk, but he and PW glanced at each other from time to time, grinning. Veronica was one of PW’s favorite bands, too.

Already they were having fun.

Next on the mix was “O Lonesome O Lord,” a bluegrass song about a man who’d lost his wife to the flu. Sung by Earl E. Early, in that famous wailin’-failin’ voice that gave everyone goose bumps. “O Lonesome O Lord” was a super hit, but there were lots of people, like Tracy, who couldn’t listen to it because it made them too sad.

“Man, this dude got a voice,” said PW, raising his own voice above the music, and sounding—as Cole had rarely heard him—envious. It was the part about the man forcing himself to dance alone so he’ll remember the steps and be able to dance with his wife when he gets to heaven.

Cole’s eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t because of the singer, though. It had nothing to do with the song. Today was his birthday. Happy birthday! But the truth was, as the day had approached, Cole hadn’t expected it to be happy. The only thing he could remember about his last birthday—passed in the hospital and totally ignored—was thinking that he would never be happy again.

One of the reasons people love to speed is for the illusion that they are escaping something, and though he wasn’t behind the wheel, that is how Cole felt now: as if he’d left some trouble behind. There was a vibe coming off PW that suggested he was feeling something like this, too. He steered with his left hand—his left palm, mostly—his right hand tapping his thigh to the song. Cole always studied the way people drove, losing himself in the dream of how he’d one day handle a car. This was how it should be, he thought: fast, but smooth and laid back. His mother, as she’d liked to boast, had been an excellent driver. But for some reason, his athletically graceful father had been a klutz at the wheel, the cause of several minor accidents, each of which had made him a more nervous and therefore worse driver. He drove squeezing the wheel with both hands, shoulders hiked to his ears, checking around so constantly in every direction he made Cole think of a bobble-head.

Cole had to laugh. Bobble-head! Just the word was hilarious.

The laugh came out a giggle, and he clapped a hand over his mouth in embarrassment.

“You know, son,” said PW, pitching his voice low like he was about to say something stern. “Most people cry when they hear this song.” They both cracked up then, and as their laughter died down a new feeling swept over Cole, one that almost made his eyes well again.

If only they could keep going. If only they could keep driving, just the two of them, it didn’t really matter where. Out west. To California. Or down to Mexico. Or to New York City. Or all those places. Images fanned before him like a hand of cards: The two of them riding horses, riding choppers, riding big waves. The two of them piloting and co-piloting a small jet plane, eating steaks under a giant chandelier. There’d be daring adventures, heroics, and so forth wherever they roamed. It would get so that before they even arrived in a place, people would know their names.

It was crazy—where did he get his crazy ideas—and it made him feel selfish and guilty. No place for Tracy in any of his grand plans. But it wasn’t the first time Cole had felt the urge to run. Now that he was completely healthy again, he often felt restless, bored, as if he was stuck somewhere, waiting for something to happen or for some special knowledge to come to him. Bible study, lessons with Tracy, church, the games he played with the other children—it was not enough. He wanted more. And there were times when he felt as if there was a force holding him back. Some force was sitting on top of him, squelching and trapping him and preventing him from growing into who he was supposed to be. Like a colossal spider, it pressed its boulder of a body down while its legs caged him in. He would have to be Samson to break free.

If only they could keep going. It wasn’t like he was asking them to run away from God. God would be with them if they wanted him there. He remembered how he had missed Chicago after he moved to Little Leap. But if they never turned back, he did not think he would miss Salvation City.

If there was anything he yearned to talk about with PW it was this. But he did not know how.

ON THE WAY, they stopped at the place where PW’s great-grandparents were buried. Cole had been expecting a real cemetery, but this was just a cluster of a dozen or so weed-choked graves on a rise off one of the mountain roads.

It wasn’t a real family plot, either. “Though everyone here was kin to some degree or other.” PW had brought a trash bag for all the litter he knew they would find. Beer and soda cans, mostly; he gathered them up without a word. But Cole was surprised to see so much litter in that lonely spot. There weren’t even any houses nearby. The closest thing to a house they’d seen had been miles back: a horseshoe of weather-beaten mobile homes sharing a clearing with several vehicles in various stages of being gutted. Rust city. A swaybacked horse tethered to a post, head hanging low to the ground, and some equally forlorn-looking dogs staring mutely at the van as it passed, as if they didn’t have the strength to bark.

Some of the gravestones were sticking out of the ground at such odd angles it was easy to believe someone had tried toppling them. PW’s great-grandfather’s slab had a long crack running down it, and Cole pictured a night of pounding rain and a zigzag of lightning striking.

Jasper Carson McBell was only forty-four when he died, but that was not unusual for a man who’d worked in the mines from the time he was a teen.