Last Safe Place, The (17 page)

That jeep ride up the mountain three days ago had just about done him in. He shuddered at the thought of it, bouncing and banging around, holding on for dear life with his eyes squeezed so tight shut even the scared tears he was crying couldn’t slip through. Got to the top and that storm hit and he feared he was going to ride a lightning bolt into the presence of his maker. And when that didn’t happen, he was certain he’d close his eyes that first night and not never wake up, that his brain needed way more oxygen than he was sucking in, panting like P.D. chasing a rabbit.

That didn’t happen, neither. He just kept on going like the Energizer Bunny. No, more like one of them Timex watches that takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

Theo heard Ty holler and watched P.D. bound across the meadow. The two of them had adjusted easily to the altitude, far quicker than Theo or Gabriella. Theo paused about every three steps to catch his breath; Gabriella fared better, but after a couple of trips up and down the stairs, she was panting, too.

The dog dived into Piddley Creek and splashed water all over Ty. The creek was only two or three feet deep but the snow-melt-off water had to be frigid. Which didn’t appear to bother Ty any more than it did P.D. That spot in the back corner of the valley had become the boy’s home-away-from-home
since the moment he hopped down out of the jeep here. He’d already captured a couple of frogs and brought them back to the house, claimed he could see trout in the water, swimming around with the minnows—though Theo doubted there was fish that big in such a small creek. But then, how would
he
know? He’d lived his whole life in cities. The only trout he’d ever seen was on a plate, covered in cornmeal and fried up with hushpuppies and … but maybe he was thinking of catfish.

Lord, your ways is strange ways. You said that, mind, I didn’t. ’Fore we got here, I’s beginning to think that boy had plum forgot how to smile. What’d he have to smile about? But now, you couldn’t scrub the grin off his face with steel wool. Maybe you bringing us here ... wasn’t such a bad thing. They’s less tightness around Gabriella’s mouth, too, so I s’pose you did think this through better than it looked to me like you did at first. I might a been wrong. Maybe. Amen

Theo allowed his eyes to travel up the mountainside behind the hanging valley, up, up, up past the boulder field and the bristlecone pine forest all the way to the snow-dusted rocks at the summit and the dry wash that extended down from it on the east side, facing the chalk cliffs of Mount Princeton. He’d been practicing. Was able to look up at the top now without feeling dizzy hardly at all. Now, the front of the cabin, looking down from it to the valley floor—that was another thing altogether. Every time he so much as glanced out one of them front windows, the world started to spin and he had to swallow hard not to upchuck on the hardwood floor. What a sense of humor God had, putting Theodosius X. Carmichael up on the side of a mountain. Theo almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it.

He wiggled around a little on the chair cushion, which was the only thing between the bones on his backside and the solid oak of the rocker seat.

“Ain’t got enough meat on my butt for even one good cheek.”

And since he’d gotten sick, he’d probably lost fifteen pounds; all his clothes had got baggy and he’d caught Gabriella looking at him sometimes like maybe she could tell. He hadn’t planned on hanging around long enough for her to figure things out. It being cold enough up here he could wear sweaters in June—that’d help for a little while. But eventually … Well, he’d worry about eventually when eventually got here. No sense fretting about it now.

Gabriella came out the back door through the mudroom and sat down in the rocker next to Theo’s and he saw Ty and the dog turn and head down the creek through the woods. She was wearing jeans and an untucked plain chambray shirt, and had her short, curly blonde hair tucked back behind her ears. She looked ten years younger without that long black hair and those pointed bangs, and dressed normal, not in that black gothic stuff. Pretty, even. Except for the scar on her face. The sight of the uncovered scar sickened Theo. Oh, not because it was ugly—which it certainly was—but because of what it meant, because of who was responsible. It had cost Gabriella her looks and Smokey his life.

“You know, the view is a whole lot prettier out front,” she said.

“Yeah, way up here in East Jabib ain’t the end of the world, but I bet you can see it from that front porch.”

She smiled and looked more relaxed than he’d seen her in … maybe than he’d ever seen her. This place was sucking the tension out of Gabriella just like it was Ty. Oh, how Theo wished he didn’t hate it here as much as the two of them loved it.

“I’d rather look up the mountain than down it. Any crime in that?”

“Theo, are you afraid of heights?”

“What you talkin’ ’bout, woman! Theodosius X. Carmichael ain’t ’fraid of nothin’. A piddling little old mountain, why …” Why was he ashamed to admit it? Maybe the good Lord brought him up here to beat some of that stubborn pride out of him, wanted to humble him so he wouldn’t be strutting around heaven like some banty rooster. Theo sighed. “Not afraid, ’xactly. More like … scared spitless. I look down into that valley out there, it’s all I can do not to spew my breakfast all over my shoes.”

“Theo, why didn’t you tell me? What else are you scared of you didn’t tell me?”

“Water.” It just popped out. He bristled instantly at the incredulity on Gabriella’s face. “Now, don’t look like you ain’t never heard nothing so pitiful in all your life. I ain’t scared of water like bathwater or rainwater, puddles, creeks, things like that. Just … deep water.”

“Heights and deep water. You fall off a cliff into a lake?”

“Not a lake. And didn’t nobody
fall.”

“Somebody pushed you—who?”

“You the wrong color for us to be talking ’bout a thing like that.” Oops. Probably shouldn’t have said that.

Gabriella was so shocked it took her a moment or two to respond—long enough for Theo to figure out there was no “probably” about it. He absolutely should
not
have said that. Soon as she caught a breath she went off like a bottle rocket.

“What’s
that
supposed to mean? Don’t you dare play the race card with me! Why’d you come with us if me being white—?”

“I shouldn’t a said that—okay? I …” He couldn’t say he was sorry, never had been able to say that. So instead he told her, “Don’t get your panties in a wad. My son marrying a white woman … I ain’t gonna lie—I advised him against it.” He held up his hands before she could jump on him. “I’m just telling it like it is. I thought it was a bad idea because I knew it would cause trouble for the both of you—and don’t you tell me it didn’t. Or that it ain’t hard on Ty sometimes, too.”

She didn’t argue with him.

“You a fine woman.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that! Was being sick making him soft, or was that what happened to you when you brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen? “Ty’s a good boy. I ain’t much of a grandfather, but I’m the only one he got and for whatever time I got left—”

“Whatever time you … are you all right? You … don’t look good. Are you sick?”

Stepped in it again.

“I’m seventy-four years old. I traveled a lot of miles in my life, girlie, and most of them roads wasn’t paved.”

The details of his issues were private. Might not ever have to explain nothing, might be like that doctor said, that he’d just drop over dead one day.

He’d finally given in and gone to a doctor after he got where he was afraid to drive. Sometimes he’d go completely blind for two or three seconds. His hearing came and went, too, like some little kid was playing with the volume knob. And every now and then he got so dizzy he’d swear he’d downed a whole bottle of Boone’s Farm in one gulp—when hadn’t
a single drop
of alcohol passed his lips in ten years. Had the AA chip to prove it!

Them doctors had poked and prodded him, took scans and X-rays and way more blood than he figured he had to spare. Then that doctor said it flat out. A little Asian man who could barely speak English, looked like the
moon-faced Chinaman who sold tickets for a nickel to ride the Jack Rabbit at Kennywood Amusement Park when Theo was a boy.

“Mr. Carmichael,” the doctor said. “You have …” and then he said a word so long it used up almost a whole breath.

“You mind chopping what you just said into bite-sized pieces so I can gum it—left my dentures in my other suit.”

Blank look.

Before the doctor could point out that Theo had all his own teeth, he told the little man, “No mayonnaise talk, okay?” Theo didn’t waste his time with folks who used words that had more letters in them than mayonnaise.

Blanker look.

“Small words … like in a fortune cookie?”

Big smile.

“Ah, yes sir. A brain tumor. Cancer. You are fortunate man. It is operable. We remove it, you be good as new. You have surgery very soon, though. You wait, too late.”

“And if I don’t want you to cut my head open?”

“You die slowly, maybe. Or you drop over dead. Hard to say.”

That’d been a conversation stopper. Oh, you didn’t get to be seventy-four years old without wondering what was going to get you—because
something
was, and somewhere around sixty-five your odds of dodging whatever it was got worse with every breath you took. But when your wait your whole life to find out a thing, kind of takes your breath away when you finally do.

So there was a tumor growing up there in his brain that could kill him. He thought for a moment. He’d call it … Cornelius. Always did hate that name. A thing as important in your life as what could kill you had ought to have a name but no sense wasting a good one on it.

Then the Asian doctor wanted to schedule his surgery—in three days! But there was something Theo had to do first—just in case Cornelius didn’t fancy getting evicted and decided to blow up the building. He had to see Ty, spend some time with the boy. A few days, maybe a week, that was all. After that, he’d let them take an ax to his head. ’Course, he didn’t have no idea then he was gone get shanghaied! This wasn’t the first time ole Slappy’d played long odds, but these was getting longer every day.

He couldn’t tell Gabriella none of it. If she knew, that woman’d grab him by the ear, haul him off this mountain and drop him on the doorstep of the nearest brain surgeon. Besides, she had enough on her mind already. He looked up at the mountain behind the meadow and purposefully yanked the conversation away from his health.

“Them trees right up there,” Theo pointed to the mountainside that rose up above the valley. “The ones that look all shrunk, twisted up. Them the Jesus trees? You ever seen one up close?”

T
Y WISHED
J
OEY
was here. Joey Thompson was his best friend, or at least he had been before they left Pittsburgh. Didn’t have a chance to tell him goodbye, though. Ty hoped Joey wasn’t mad at him about that because he couldn’t wait to tell Joey about the green snake when they got home.

Home. How could Ty ever go home again? How—?

He forced himself to focus on the snake, which he certainly couldn’t tell Mom about! She’d totally freak out. He’d brought a worm in the house once and she about went postal! Girls were like that, didn’t like dirty things and for sure didn’t like snakes.

Joey would love the snake, though. It was the color of lime sherbet. Ty had seen it two times by the big rock down from the waterfall. He’d tried to catch it, of course, but it slithered away before he had a chance. And he hadn’t really tried all that hard because he wasn’t completely sure it wasn’t dangerous, poisonous or something. He didn’t think there were any poisonous snakes in North America except rattlesnakes and water moccasins, but he wasn’t sure. He should have listened better when they were studying reptiles in science class. But that was when his father had—

He stopped right there. Had gotten pretty good at that in the past couple of years, of grabbing hold of thoughts before he had a chance to think them, thoughts that would take him
there.
He visualized that the ugly, scary, guilty thoughts were green slimy things like the stuff he coughed up that time he had bronchitis. And when they’d come sliding into his mind through a door cracked open in the dark place—all infected, ready to make him sick—he’d grab them with one of the hairclips mom used that had teeth like a dog biting down. And he’d open the door into the dark place where all the ugliness
in his soul was stored and toss the green things in and slam the door back shut real quick. He’d lock it, too. But it never stayed locked.

He picked up the slimy green thought, but it hollered before he could get it to the door.
You did it! Your father’s dead and it’s your—!

Bam! He banged the door shut, then took a deep, trembling breath. It was easier here to get past the shakes he always got when he had to handle one of the slimy things. This place was so different from everywhere he had ever been that it was almost like he was on a different planet, like all that had happened to him, what he’d done, was in another whole galaxy. And maybe …
maybe
it didn’t even count here!

He didn’t really believe that, but even lying to himself was easier here than it was back home.

The green snake wasn’t the only wildlife Ty had seen in the past three days. There were squirrels in those tall, straight trees—Mom said they were lodgepole pines, or ponderosa pines. He called them rusty trees because they sounded like a door opening on a rusty hinge, like they needed an oil can as bad as that tin man in
The Wizard of Oz,
which was Mom’s all-time favorite movie ever. Ty thought it was okay if you liked singing but the special effects sucked—you could totally see the wires on those flying monkey things. Some of the squirrels in the rusty trees looked like the ones back home but others were gray with real bushy tails and great big ears that stood up on the tops of their heads.

He’d heard owls hoot in the woods and woodpeckers pecking but hadn’t seen any. There were lots of other birds and Mom knew their names. He never dreamed his mother knew so much cool stuff. She’d pointed out bluebirds and birds as yellow as lemons he couldn’t remember the name of. The big ones with black stripes on their wings were called tanagers, the little fat ones were warblers. And you could see hawks circling in the sky and maybe eagles and falcons, too—they were too far away to tell. Mom said golden eagles could spot a rabbit from two miles away! And that an owl’s round face acted like a satellite dish to capture sound. Yesterday, she put sugar water in this glass thing on the back porch and this morning there were hummingbirds around it—tiny things green as pickles, with wings moving so fast you couldn’t even see them.