Water Rites Page 6

  “We could maybe understand your rate hike.” Montoya stepped out of the crowd, thumbs tucked into his belt. “We know it costs a lot to feed all those Corps people while they keep the Pipe flowing. And we gotta pay Canada for the water that feeds the Rocky Mountain Trench. We know all that. It’s this retroactive bit that’s hard to swallow.” His smile looked weathered, as old as the cliffs. “We’ve given you whatever you asked for, worked ourselves ’till we drop to pay off your water. Matt ’n Sara ain’t no lazy bums. They work as hard as any of us, and they could make the hike. They can’t make the hike you laid on the last six months of water. None of us can.” He tilted his head, his eyes on the Association man. “Seems kind of . . . well . . . coincidental, you offerin’ to buy ’em out like that. You in the land business now?”

  “That was charity.” The Association man’s voice had lost a bit of its smooth tone.

  “Was it?” Montoya frowned, appearing to consider. “Seems like you could’a waived the retroactive hike for charity. Matt ’n Sara work as hard as any of us. If they go down, I figure we’re all gonna go down. Where are we gonna go? Since I don’t think we have any good options, I guess we’d better figure something out.”

  Dan heard the responsive murmur, even though Montoya’s tone had been quiet and reasonable. The bodies shifted again, edging closer now. They were a crowd again, not just a bunch of tired, worried men and women ready to slink away and take what they could get.

  The Association man felt it, too, and threw Sam a quick, hard glance, before his face smoothed out. “Hell, I told you I’m not here to start a fight.” He gave them a rueful smile, like he was sorry they couldn’t be friends. “If you don’t pay your fees, or if you cut into the pipes, the Association’s gonna come down on you hard and legal. Backed up by the Corps.”

  “Fine,” someone hollered from the back of the crowd. “We’d rather deal with the Corps. They don’t want our land.”

  “Have it your way.” The man shrugged, turned his back on them.

  His two silent watch dogs followed him, their backs stiff. Someone cheered as the van lurched down the slope. That started them all cheering again, milling around, slapping backs and hugging, like they’d really backed the Association down.

  Montoya was in the center of it all, but as if he felt Dan’s attention, he looked up and their eyes met. His were bleak in spite of his smile. He knew what was coming. Dan turned away and headed for the pickup, leaning hard on his stick. As he rounded the front of the flatbed, he stopped. Jesse stood on the far side, talking to a thickset, bearded man with the pale skin and tattooed left arm of a convoy trucker.

  “. . . she picked up a ride east, figures she’ll get herself into a long-haul convoy back there,” the man was saying. “She says she’s got enough saved for a down-payment on her own truck. I don’t know why she didn’t come tell you herself.” His tone was a shade too jovial. “Just short on time, I guess.”

  “That isn’t any reason.” Jesse’s face was stone.

  “Hey, come on, now.” The trucker scuffed his feet in the dust, trying hard to keep his cheerful tone. “I hate to lose my partner, but you know she’s always wanted her own rig, her own routes. I figure she’ll be back, Jesse. Come spring, maybe. You’ll see.”

  “We both know Renny’s not coming back, but thanks, Jim. Thanks for telling me.” Jesse turned away, walked past Dan as if he wasn’t there.

  Her face looked faded and slack, as if all the life had drained out of it. Dan watched her start down the dirt track, stumbling a little, moving stiffly, like an old woman. The reset of the crowd was catching up now, still wound up and full of themselves. They climbed onto the flatbed and the parked trucks. Jesse was still in view, but no one asked what was wrong, no one ran after her. Dust puffed up from under her feet, whirled away on the dry wind.

  Montoya asked, when he finally made it back to the truck.

  “She started walking home.” Dan stared through the window at the reviving beets. “Your wife didn’t come along.”

  “Nope.” Montoya started the engine.

  “What’s she going to do, after the Association puts you in prison or kills you if they can’t?”

  “I told her it wouldn’t make no difference, if they were gonna kick us off the land anyway.” He gripped the wheel. “We make it together or we don’t make it. I don’t think the Corps’ in on this. We got to get them to look at what the Association’s up to. We’re all scared, but we’ll stick together on this.”

  “You think so?” The truck lurched down the track, shrouded in dust. Dan caught glimpses of the riverbed up ahead, and the dry scar of the falls. “People don’t risk what they got. Not anymore. They don’t give anything away. My sister and I begged our way up from California. I wasn’t so little that I don’t know how she paid for what they gave us. This togetherness stuff is a dream. They’ll walk away and leave you for the Association, soon as they get pushed hard.”

  “I’m sorry,” Montoya said heavily. “About your sister. And you.” He gave Dan a brief look. “But I think you’re wrong. You gotta believe in something.”

  Dan looked away, a fist of pain clenched in his chest. “I stopped believing a long time ago.”

  “I know. You could try again,” Montoya said quietly. “Not everyone is like the folk you met.”

  Dan kept his eyes on the dun land passing. “I can’t.” A vulture turned in the dry vault of the sky and he wondered what had died. “I . . . did some things I’m not proud of. If I stay around here . . . I’ll probably end up in prison.”

  Montoya was quiet for a long time. “I thought card tricks was a tough way to make a living out in the Dry.” He looked sideways at Dan. “Better than what you were doing?”

  Dan shrugged, his lips tight.

  “Some day, you’re gonna have to stop running, son.”

  “From prison?”

  “From yourself.”

  Dan kept his eyes on the patient vulture and Montoya didn’t say another word during the trip.

  *

  Dan woke to darkness and the sound of wind. It took him a minute to get his bearings, to remember the feel of the narrow bed in Jesse’s house. The east wind was booming down the Gorge. Sand and dust rasped against the walls. Dan rolled onto his back. Something had awakened him. A dream? His chest ached and he kicked the sweaty sheets aside.

  A board squeaked, and light glimmered in the main room. Jesse? Dan raised himself on one elbow. She had come in just before dark, dusty and silent, and had vanished into her room without speaking to him.

  The bedroom door creaked, and Jesse walked into his room, a small, solar lamp in her hand. The dim yellow glow streaked the room with shadows. She wore nothing but an oversized T-shirt, and her hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, coarse and gray, standing out from her head as if charged with static. Here eys looked enormous, full of shadows.

  “Are you okay?” Dan sat up, gooseflesh prickling his arms. She looked like a ghost.

  Jesse set the lamp down on the table without answering, stripped the shirt off over her head, and dropped it onto the floor. Her skin was brown, lighter where her clothes had covered her, and her flesh looked lean, tough, dried onto her bones. The soft light outlined the flat ridges of muscle in her abdomen, pooled shadow between her drooping breasts, made her cheekbones stand out sharply.

  She leaned across the bed and ran her hands lightly down Dan’s sides.

  “What is it?” Dan asked, his mouth dry.

  She shook her head once, and the ancient bedframe creaked with her weight as she slid one leg across his thighs. Aroused and uneasy at the same time, Dan put his hands on her hips, felt her shiver.

  She leaned forward, kissed him hard. Her teeth bruised his lips and Dan pulled her down against him, desire flaring inside him like a flame. We are both lost, he thought. They made love fiercely, silently, flesh straining against flesh. Her eyes were dark and opaque in the dim light, focused inward even as she clutched him.


  Her answer to Renny.

  Afterward, she slid off him and knelt on the edge of the bed, face turned to the black rectangle of the window. “I knew it was going to happen,” she said softly. “I knew she was just going to walk away from me one day.”

  Dan searched for words that would have some kind of meaning, found nothing. He touched her arm, but she pulled away from him, shook her head.

  “I drove her away. I could have taken off, on my own. Gotten by all right. But I had a kid. A daughter. I sweated every water bill. I loved my daughter. And I . . . hated her, too. A little.” She stood, shadows streaking her face.

  He reached for her hand, but she slipped away from him, out into the darkness of the main room. He heard her door close softly and firmly. He turned off the fading lamp, got up and limped to the window, drafts tickling his bare chest.

  Outside, the sky was black, starless. Dan listened to the wind roaring down the Gorge. Out in the Drylands, it would be whipping up dust, sending sheet lightning shuddering across the sky. You died in the dust storms. If you couldn’t find shelter.

  Dan didn’t go back to sleep. The wind kept him awake and he could feel Amy out there on the lips of the falls. I hated her, too. A little. Had Amy felt that? Tied to a little brother? Dan sat on the rumpled bed, listening to the wind, waiting for the night to end. This place was full of ghosts and yesterday. If he didn’t leave now, they’d trap him here. And he’d never escape.

  As soon as it was light enough to get around without stumbling over things, Dan fixed his pack. He filled his jug from the kitchen tap, trying not to think about how soon they’d shut off her water, now that she couldn’t pay. He slung the pack over his shoulder, water from the jug trickling coldly down his arm. His knee hurt, but he could manage.

  The sun was coming up. The door to Jesse’s room stood open and harsh light streamed across the neatly made bed. The threadbare T-shirt lay in a heap on the unrumpled quilt. “Jesse?” Wind rattled a loose shingle. “Jesse, you in here?” Renny’s picture had vanished, but a glitter caught his eye. The gold necklace glittered on the floor in a scatter of bright gold. He picked it up, started to put it on the dresser.

  His hand hesitated. Never again. He had made that promise years back. Payback for the gift of his life. Slowly his hand closed over the gold and he thrust it savagely into his pocket.

  And now you can’t come back here, a small voice whispered in his head. He ignored it as he limped out of the house.

  *

  The pack weighed a ton, and the rough track down to the highway made his knee hurt. Not much traffic this early. He limped along, leaning hard on his stick. Sooner or later, someone would come along. Ten miles to The Dalles. He could catch a ride to Portland, maybe, at the truck plaza there.

  Thin clouds had moved in from the west, turning the sky a cheating gray. The hot wind whipped dust in his eyes, tugged at his clothes. Dan heard an engine and stuck out his thumb. This one stopped and Dan smothered his reaction as he recognized Montoya.

  “Leaving?” He leaned out the window.

  “Yeah.” Dan felt the hot, heavy weight of the necklace in his pocket.

  Montoya got out, leaned against the fender. “The Association didn’t waste any time,” he said. “They started showing up last night, quiet-like, offering folks jobs. Supervisors. Gang foremen. Good-paying jobs, I hear. They arrested Matt Dorner.” He looked up at the weathered of the Gorge. “I guess you were right.”

  He looked . . . defeated. “What job did they offer you?” Dan asked harshly.

  “Nothing.”

  They wouldn’t. They knew who their opposition was here. Dan looked away. If Amy had knocked on this man’s door, they might have made it. Both of them. It hadn’t happened that way, but it could have. “There’s another way,” he said. “Go to the Corps headquarters, down in Bonneville.”

  Montoya just looked at him.

  “The Corps was supposed to run the whole Pipeline project — they run all the federal projects.” Dan shrugged. “The Association started out as a civilian contractor working for the Corps, but they had enough political clout to finally edge the Corps out. Not that the Corps is likely to be any better than what you’ve got,” he said bitterly. “But they don’t want your land. The general there . . . Hastings . . . he got the Association rammed down his throat. I don’t think this retroactive stuff is legal.” He shrugged again. “If it’s not . . . General Hastings might help you out. Just to cut the ground out from under the Association.”

  “General Hastings.” Montoya said the name slowly. “How do you know this?”

  “I . . . worked for the Corps. After . . . my sister died.” He couldn’t make himself meet Montoya’s eyes. “I was a surveyor’s assistant. You go talk to Hastings.”

  “I tried that.” Montoya shook his head. “Back when I first heard rumors about a rate hike. No one would talk to me.”

  Maybe not. Hastings didn’t like hicks much.

  “Come down there with me.” Montoya’s eyes glittered, hard as obsidian. “You know this man. Talk to him. Tell him to listen to me.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “You told me. I’m asking you for this, Dan. I’m asking you to do it.”

  No one had ever asked him for help. Dan turned his back on Montoya, stared out at the dry, dead falls. No ghost today.

  “What do you see?”

  Dan flinched at Montoya’s hand on his arm. “Nothing.” He shook off Montoya’s hand. “You can’t really change anything. Not today, not tomorrow, not yesterday. The Corps laid off all their civilian employees a few years back. Including me. I took some things with me when I left Bonneville, valuable stuff. I stole it, because I wasn’t going to beg any more. I went around in the Dry pretending to survey for wells that were going to go in. I tricked people.” He stared at Montoya, feeling dry and utterly empty inside. “So don’t ask me to be a hero for you.”

  “So that’s it.” Montoya stared up at the Gorge rim, his face etched like the rocks. “You weren’t surveyin’ when I picked you up.”

  “Yeah, well, I got my mind changed. By a kid.” Dan looked away. “I figure he’s dead now.”

  “An honest trade, you told me. Entertainment for you knowin’ how.”

  “I’m not staying.” He hoisted his pack. “If you care about your wife, your family, you need to stay out of this.”

  “I’m in the middle of this because I do care about them,” Montoya said quietly.

  A big semi came growling around the bend, heading into The Dalles. It slowed with a hiss of brakes. “Yo, Sam.” The bearded trucker who had delivered Renny’s message stuck his head out of the cab. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Montoya called out. “You going to Portland? He needs a lift.”

  He didn’t sound angry, he just sounded tired. “I’ll get my pack,” Dan said. He shook off a dull sense of regret. “Thanks.” He grabbed it, then had to look out at the falls, one more time. He wasn’t coming back here. Not ever. So he could look.

  And she was there. Amy. Up above, staring down at him.

  Celilo Falls, eddy in time, coyote-corpse of yesterday. Dan stared at her, sweating. She was real, like when that kid with magic in his hands had summoned her. If he looked down the bed would he see a patch crew working on the Pipe? Maybe see a skinny kid with black hair standing down there, looking up into the sun, looking up to see what his sister was doing up there?

  The road ran almost level with the top of the old falls along here. It was a mirage, he told himself. A crazy trick of light and memory. On the ledge, Amy leaned out over the drop that had bruised her face purple and broken her neck.

  The cheating, cloudy light made the stones glow and her black hair streamed over her shoulders.

  “Hey,” the trucker called. “You comin’ or not?”

  A rock rattled down the cliff face.

  “Amy!” Dan yelled, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth. He scrambled over the cement barrier, heard Montoya shout someth
ing behind him. He stumbled and skidding down into the riverbed. The wind was worse down here, full of grit, filling his eyes with tears.

  Panting, groping for handholds, Dan scrambled up the ledges that made up the falls. Amy was right above him, so close, so real. Could you hear a ghost’s shirt flap in the wind? Dan’s fingers slipped, his skin shredding on the gritty stone. He wasn’t close enough. In a moment, she would fall past him, arms spread, like she was trying to fly.

  Above him, she took the last step, poised at the edge, body starting to can t outward . . . “Don’t!” he screamed. “Goddamn you, don’t!” He got his feet under him, lunged, pain spiking up his leg. His fingers touched cloth, clenched tight, and he fell hard, knees scraping on the rock, heard a cry, felt her sprawl beneath him — no ghost, no ghost — warm under his hand, against his face. Alive.

  Thunder boomed overhead, dry and hollow. Dan lay flat on the stone, panting, face buried against a cotton shirt, arms clasped around warm flesh, hard ribs.

  “Dan? What . . . the hell?”

  Dan’s heart lurched and he raised his head slowly. The hair was gray, not black. The wind tangled it across her face, and she pushed it out of her eyes with a faltering hand. “Jesse,” Dan said numbly. “You were going to jump.”

  “No.” She looked away. “I don’t know.”

  Her eyes held the same dun emptiness that filled the Drylands.

  “Don’t do it,” he whispered.

  “What do you care?”

  He fumbled in his pocket, still breathing hard, sweating with the throbbing pain in his knee. Thunder boomed like cannon over his head as he pulled out the necklace, held it out. “I stole this.”

  “Keep it.” Her loose hair stuck to her face, veiling her empty eyes.

  “I watched my sister jump off this ledge,” he said thickly. “I think she hated me a little, too. Because she got stuck with me.” He saw her flinch and look down at the rocks below.