John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

The dead forest rats stank, way too close. Between her and her father, Robin didn’t have room to relieve her itch.

“I mean, no way a grower ever brings a kid along. No way, Robb. The job is cut-throat, in here. But see, I was even meaner than the rest of them: I figured out a way to use my own daughter. See, I brought you along and I brought a couple other things, a couple other tricks. I had a way where I–I figured I was covered.”

“You were covered.”

Chin up, chest up, he nodded. Robin realized she hadn’t just repeated his words, she’d echoed his voice. She’d sounded spongy, wobbly. Out of control.

“Robin, that’s not the worst. The worst was, I kept kidding myself that the trip was for you.”

Then there was the rainbow, the last straw. Robin couldn’t look at her father’s face any longer, and casting round for better she saw it in an opening between the tallest firs: a double rainbow, breathtaking, beautiful. Bent shafts of red and blue built across cumuli more white than usual for February. She couldn’t stand it, such a corny show of good news at a time like this, and the rainbow was all the harder to take for how it unwound from the tatters of the Wilderness Area.

“That was the worst,” Dale was saying. “That was where I was totally lost. See, you told me you wanted this, Robb. You said you couldn’t do this with Mom. So then I could kid myself, I could say, see, this whole runaround is really for her. Robb, I mean — when a father’s acting like a rat, he’s got some old, old lines to fall back on…”

Robin spun away and ran.

Two minutes later, breathing hard, they were down on their knees together in the forest. Busy with their hands, avoiding each other’s eyes. Robin once more fisted together her pack-straps. Dale brought out a floppy leather sack of seeds.

“For the big evergreens,” he said. “Seeds.”

The bits of pine cone glittered at the bottom of the pouch. It was like he held a mouth in his hand, a worn and thick-lipped maw, and the seeds were yellow fillings at the back. Why hadn’t she seen this sack before? Why hadn’t she seen, at least, that it wasn’t a gun? As soon as Dale had caught up with her — which didn’t take long, with this load on her back — she’d screamed at him about the gun. “You can’t hide these things from me!” she’d screamed. But when Robin had managed to face him, he’d only looked puzzled. Then she’d dropped. Where was she going to run, anyway? Where? And Dale had knelt beside her, fishing the sloppy black thing from behind his back. It wasn’t a gun.

“Seeds,” Dale repeated. “It’s for that scam I was telling you about.”

His plan, he explained, had been to tell the troopers that they were environmentalists. “You know, Robb. Just a father and daughter who care about preserving the splendor of the wilderness.” As for the marijuana, he’d kept those seeds separate, in the coat pocket that was easiest to reach. He’d been ready to chuck them at the first sign of trouble.

“Then with these pine seeds, see, the rest of our stuff would all fit. Even the rock phosphates would fit.”

Their breathing hadn’t settled yet. Robin stumped upslope, bringing her face to his level.

“We’d still be breaking the law,” he admitted.

“We’d still be breaking the law?” she said. “Dale, just for starters , we’d be breaking the law! I mean, is that your idea of a cover story? Is that your idea of how to get us out? God, an old B movie wouldn’t have such a stupid story. I mean, you talk about people trading in their family for a Macintosh, here you are trading in your family for a B movie. A really dumb B movie!

“Dale, man oh man. I mean, if anyone ever deserved to go to jail just for having an idea — Dad, listen to me. Listen like I was Mom, okay? Just listen while I do the talking. I mean, who do you think these troopers are? Do you think they’re idiots? People planting trees, I mean, they don’t even use seeds. People planting trees use seedlings. Seedlings, Dad, seed-lings. Even I know that. They come in with trees that have already started to grow!”

There he was with his Sunday face. “Are you through?”

“You must have been stoned when you thought up that one,” Robin said. “If the sheriff saw that old sack he’d laugh in your face.”

She swatted the thing from his hand. The leather went rippling through the weeds, and for a moment it looked like a mouse, some ragged brown life in a scramble. But then it stopped and collapsed.

“At least I had an idea,” Dale said after a minute. “I had a way we might get sprung.”

“Oh yeah, a stroke of genius.” Oh no — was she starting to laugh? “A legend for wilderness people everywhere.”

“Okay, okay, that was wrong. A father should never kid himself that he’s a legend.”

She was starting to laugh, laughing already. It felt like someone kept plucking a bowstring in her gut. “Seeds,” she repeated. “Seeds.”

“Well, there’s still the can.” He tried to get into the spirit, grinning, hopeful.

Oh yeah, the can. The cash. She and her boyfriend would take whatever they could get. Maybe Robin would tell Dale about it, too; yeah, okay, maybe — though no way she could manage it now. Not with this bowstring going sproing in her belly. Not while she was hooting, chirping, struggling for a half-decent breath. She was out of it. She was airborne for God’s sake. And as for her father trying to work the pack-straps off her shoulders, his clumsy attempts to make her comfortable, that was the funniest thing yet. He was trying to help, and it was hysterical. Hey, was this a father or a feather? Sproing, sproing .

Robin tried to swallow, tried to frown, she lifted her face to the cold and wet. But the rainbow was still there. Hey — shouldn’t the colors fade?

THE LAST TWO MIMOSAS have been pretty much straight shots. Nobody’s about to get up and mix more orange juice. Yet I have to sit upright, I have to keep an ear cocked for my kids, they’re out somewhere near the garage. With that, and with the omelettes and popovers sodden and gurgly under my belt, not to mention Magda here beside me, hinting repeatedly that we should go out to the garage ourselves, we should share some sensamilla with the men — with all that, it starts to feel as if my entire time in Oregon has been one long brunch. Seven months of it now, September into March. Like some local ritual where everyone stuffs bread and wine between a person and the work she’s got to get done.

Even the Don, my husband, seems to have the hang of the ritual better than I. He’s the one who invited Magda and Sonny. And Magda’s with it too, though she’s the real out-of-towner. She brought strawberry preserves her parents sent from Cologne.

“Sometimes,” she says, “I think that to be healthy in this country, you have to take drugs.”

Outside there’s a shout, my Angelo. It rings in the tall glasses, the dishware; I can’t tell if he and Andrea are staying away from the garage.

Nine o’clock this morning, the Don called these people. Now he’s taken Sonny off to “see the workshop.” Plus before he went he had the nerve to remind me that I should get him if there’s “a call.” He didn’t say the call, the one from Mort, but I know all his codes by now. I mean, he wants me to make brunch-talk and then he reminds me we’re waiting on Mort. When the kids asked to be excused, I warned them not to bother Papa. But I can’t be sure, not without standing in Magda’s face and hollering across the back yard. This when she believes that what we’re doing here is making friends. Sharing a few private combinations, the last of the booze and the first close moments: she knows the ritual.