Damaged Goods (19 page)

“No.”

“This is my fault. I can try and help you. Maybe talk to him.”

“I suppose Hershel also told you what it is?” She sounded angry.

“He didn’t.”

“I don’t think you can help with this.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe there’s something I can do.” He pressed a bandage over the second blister and sat back on his heels. “How’s that?”

“Much better,” she said, pulling her socks on. “Thank you.”

“You know where to find me if you need anything,” he said, returning the first-aid kit to the concession stand.

“If I tell you what Kyrellis has,” she began slowly, “you’ll think differently of me.”

“I don’t think any particular way now. How could it be different?”

“Believe me, it can.”

“Silvie, there isn’t much you can tell me that would shock or surprise me. I’ve seen and done worse things in my life than most people could even imagine. I try to make a general habit of not judging other people.”

She pondered this so long that Carl stopped waiting for her and picked up the broom again and began sweeping.

“Do you think I can trust Hershel?”

The question wasn’t what he’d expected. Carl sized her up, weighed her need against his experience with Hershel Swift.

Hershel turned the ignition and pulled onto Tualatin-Sherwood Road, past the cinema and across Highway 99. Sherwood was no longer the same town he’d grown up in. It had boomed in the past ten years, growing from six thousand to sixteen thousand residents. Where the Borscher farm once stood, there was now a Safeway. The open fields where Langers had grown onions and harvested walnuts were now strip malls with fast-food restaurants, a dry cleaner, gas stations, and a brewpub. New streetlights caused traffic congestion, backing up miles of SUVs and high-end sports cars that had never been part of
his
Sherwood. What was once a farming community was now one of the more affluent suburbs of Portland, despite the fact that it was more than twenty miles away from the city’s center.

As he passed the mini-storage, he craned to see if Woody was at the counter. Should he stop? There was no reason to. Woody had asked if Albert Darling was still bothering him; clearly he believed Darling was alive. And maybe he was. But something about Darling was trapped in Hershel’s blotted-over memory, like inky stains obliterating some critical fact. It left him to guess and
extrapolate, question himself and Kyrellis. The man knew something, but was he telling the truth?

He turned onto Scholls-Sherwood Road, and the familiarity of the countryside returned to him. Rolling corn and onion fields, now dormant, stretched narrowly between hills of Christmas trees and filberts. A few more vineyards had sprung up, their clean lines and open space bringing a gentle order to things, even with the absence of leaves. He breathed in the cool, fresh air and promised to take Silvie to the top of Chehalem Mountain in the spring, when the trillium and wild dogwood bloomed white and dotted the misty hills.

Hershel glanced at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock. Silvie would be ready. The thought of her waiting for him at his warehouse—waiting to go home with him—caused the nagging sense of unease to evaporate.

When Hershel reached Scholls and the auction barn, the sun had broken through and he had momentarily forgotten about Kyrellis and Albert Darling. He anticipated an evening with Silvie. He’d grill a steak for her, he thought, then considered stopping by the grocery first. Or maybe he’d take her out for dinner. The occasion deserved celebration. When was the last time he’d felt this excited and optimistic about another human being—about
anything
, really?

A ray of sun penetrated the dusty window above the concession stand, and Silvie basked in it. How long since she’d experienced the sun? Winter was hard in Wyoming—hard in the cold sense—but the sun still showed up frequently. She thought she’d go out of her mind if she had to live in the overcast gray of Oregon, where the clouds scraped along the landscape, obliterating color and warmth.

Jacob was more on her mind today. She’d stolen from him,
caused him untold distress, and now she’d cheated on him. He’d forbidden her ever to be with another man. In fact, he had warned her so many times that she’d finally implored him to stop, that she understood. She promised she would never do that to him.

An engine outside returned her to this place. That would be Hershel. She hopped off the stool and collected her backpack, but paused with it slung over her shoulder. Jacob’s face had been near hopeful, as if he wanted to believe her, but something stood in the way of full trust. In that moment, she’d been desperate to prove her devotion. It wasn’t simply the threat of what he might do but a genuine desire to please the man who had pulled her from the muck of a ruined family and given her a strange new status as the sheriff’s girl.

“Carlos,” Yolanda shouted, running to meet him where the unmarked road to the migrant camp intersected the highway. He quickened his pace to meet her, and when she reached him she was breathless. “Carlos, they came. They took half the camp.”

“What? Who?”

“Immigration came this morning, just after light. They went from cabin to cabin, checking our documents.”

“Your sons?”

“Gracias Santa María.”
She crossed herself. “Away still.”

Carl breathed relief, but Yolanda was no less tense.

“Don’t come here tonight. They say it was you.”

“Me what?”

“What called immigration. Even Jimmy Arndt is looking for you.” As she spoke, she assessed his bruised face. She ran a cinnamon-scented hand gently along his jaw, but no words were necessary.

“I didn’t call those bastards. I wouldn’t!”

“I know. But listen to me; it’s not safe.”

“Yolanda, what am I supposed to do? Just leave? I live here.”

She gave him a pained look. “Please, Carlos. I can’t stand it for something to happen to you.”

Carl tipped his face up to the gray sky and blew his breath out. His ribs ached. He’d been looking forward to the warmth of his woodstove and the softness of his bed.

“I hear them talking. Some men want to burn your cabin down while you sleep.”

“Yolanda, I didn’t do it.”

“I know, Carlos. I know.”

He shook his head and looked back up the highway, in the direction from which he’d just come. “I guess you better not be seen out here talking to me.”

“Oh, Carlos.” She put her hand to his cheek again, and he grasped hold of it. He pressed it to his lips and kissed her palm.

“I’ll be at Swift’s barn if you need anything.” He looked into her dark eyes. “Anything at all.” He let go and started up the highway. When he glanced back, she was still watching him.

Hershel took a back road to get to the restaurant, winding through steep and narrow canyons before cresting a low mountaintop, where he pulled onto the gravel shoulder and they took in the wide, velvety green-and-yellow valley. The coastal range stood blue and hazy to the west, hemming in the patchwork of farmland. A low ceiling of clouds scraped along the highest glens, leaving ragged tufts of mist in the crevices where deciduous trees stubbornly held on to the last of their summer foliage.

He seemed lost in his own thoughts, and she wondered if she’d done something wrong. His knuckles were scabbed, as if he’d beaten someone.

“That’s Yamhill County,” Hershel said quietly.

“It’s beautiful.” It reminded her of pictures of the English countryside. Everything lush and vibrant even though it was nearly winter.

“If it was a clear day, you’d be able to see Mount Hood right
there.” He pointed at the simple gray horizon. “It comes out when it feels like it.”

He’d pulled back onto the road, which wound down a steep hillside with tight switchback curves, through a nameless town three times the size of Hanley, and up another mountain. This one was cultivated and pristine. Signs advertised wineries along the well-maintained road. And Silvie marveled at the beautiful buildings and perfectly groomed grounds of these establishments. Erath, Rex Hill, Alloro. The names were as exotic as the bright flowers that lined their entries, so unexpected in this late month.

“These look expensive,” she said, hoping he didn’t plan to take her inside one of these luxurious places with wrought-iron gates and cobblestoned driveways. She thought of the wine tasters she’d served that afternoon, with their crisp new jeans and turtleneck sweaters. Their sparkling Mercedeses and Acuras, and their still-soft suede shoes. Armani sunglasses. White teeth. Perfectly trimmed hair. She didn’t belong.

To Silvie’s relief, he continued on to Dundee, a town in transition from forgotten to the lucky recipient of new industry. The buildings along the main road were a hodgepodge of derelict houses and businesses with sagging porches and overgrown weeds, standing alongside brand-new bistros, gift shops, and tasting rooms with deep inset window boxes.

The restaurant was a refurbished Craftsman home with dark fir interior and wavy-paned windows. The dining room overlooked the mini-mart and the gas station, and a low-income neighborhood of small houses and trailers on the other side of the road. Hershel ordered a bottle of pinot noir, and she swirled the pale raspberry–colored liquid in her glass the way she’d seen wine tasters do on television cooking shows. Its flavor was tart and she couldn’t manage more than a tiny sip at a time.

“Can I ask you something?” Hershel said, breaking the silence. “What happened to your father? I assume … he wasn’t around.” When she didn’t immediately answer, he said, “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s okay if you’d rather not say.”

“I don’t ever know how to answer that question is all.” She watched the way the liquid in her glass subtly changed color in the light as she swirled it.

“Is he dead?”

She snorted softly. “No.” She braced up for the truth. “He left. Started over with another woman. He’s got three kids with her.”

“How old were you?”

“Ten.”

“So you have brothers and sisters?” Hershel peered at her over the bottle of wine, solicitous but trepid.

“Technically they’re my siblings, or half siblings, but I’ve never met them. They didn’t
feel
like brothers. They didn’t feel like anything. I don’t know them.”

Hershel poured himself another glass of wine. There was a strange barrier between them now.

“My dad just didn’t come home one day. He called Mom from wherever he was staying to tell her that he wanted a divorce. Within a few months, he had a new wife. They had kids right away. All boys.”

“What about your mother?”

Silvie could hear her father in that short period before he left.
You and your goddamn drinking. How much have you had tonight?
Her mother had cried inconsolably when he left. “Well, we lost the house. Mom had to file for bankruptcy. That’s when we moved to town and she started waitressing at the bar.”

“Didn’t your father pay alimony or child support?”

Silvie felt tears beginning to rush forward. “You have to be sober long enough to file the paperwork and do all the stuff that’s required to get money.”

“Yeah, but …” Hershel shook his head.