South of Superior (20 page)

“There's a place I want to go, way back in the woods. It's kind of a—quest.”

“Do you think you'd be okay driving it?”

“Definitely, yes. If it's an automatic transmission. I'm a very careful driver.”

He studied her somberly.

“Don't worry about it. Bad idea, forget I asked.”

His face was full of misgiving. “Well—when would you want it?”

“I was thinking the Fourth of July.”

“No way. You have to work. It's going to be crazy.”

“I'd go in the morning, be back in plenty of time.”

“If it was any other day—”

“I hear you. But it's the best day for me.” She wasn't going to be swayed on this, she just wasn't. How often did she ask for anything much from the world at large? Not often, but that was going to change a little bit. She
would
have her day. Her morning anyway. “I'll take the Buick, I'm sure it'll be fine.”

“God, no, you can't take that old heap, you'd never make it. Take the truck.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, and Madeline didn't give him another chance to change his mind.

 

 

She pored over
the map by candlelight Up in the hotel the next few nights, memorizing the route, trying to envision the terrain. Six miles north of Crosscut she had to turn off to the east onto a dirt path. Arbutus had said it would be marked Firelane Trail on a small, hand-painted sign. The trail would wind around, following Wildcat Creek more or less, and she'd have to be careful—there'd be old logging roads, two-tracks crisscrossing it here and there.

“Just keep in mind you're following the creek,” Arbutus had told her. “Keep bearing northeast, you'll be going through a big plain of stumps. Nothing ever grew back much after the first big cut. Too many fires, I guess, and the soil was too thin. Anyway, you ought to see the fire tower about five miles in, the best I can remember. It's been years. Gladys's Frank worked on a cut in there once, we took a part for the skidder out to him. Past the fire tower there's Simmon's Camp. It's an old log cabin, someone still Uses it, I think. After that you're on your own, I've never gone beyond there. But you'll be close by then. Joe and Walter were both born out there as best I know. Maybe the cabin where they lived is still standing.”

“Good luck with your quest,” Paul said as he handed her the keys at the end of her shift on the third. “If you need the four-wheel drive, just punch the button on the dash.”

 

 

The last thing
Paul did every night was close out the till. If things went well this week, he'd have a few spare thousand
and
all his bills paid for the month, which would be great. He watched Randi for a moment. She was wearing the summery blue dress again, and was perched on a stool, painting her toenails pink. The tiny brush in her hand was a precision tool, and she was a master craftsman, focused and serene. Sometimes he felt a flicker of Uncertainty about their relationship—she was so much younger than he, and they were so different from each other, and she was
Randi
. Flighty, restless, wild. Only now that he knew her, she didn't seem to be those things, so much.

She looked Up and caught him watching. She winked. “Gonna take me out for a ride tonight, mister?”

Paul was so tired. But he was psyched, too—business was good, the Fourth was tomorrow, he had a girl. Sure he'd go out. “It's gotta be the Fairlane, Madeline's got my truck.” Randi loved riding around in his truck. Once in a while he thought she liked it as much as she did him, but that wasn't fair. Randi was different than he'd always thought. Sweeter, more grown-up.

“I don't care. As long as it runs.”

“It's runs great, a classic like that, what are you saying?”

“It just looks old to me,” Randi said, but she was laughing. Paul went back to figuring out the till, smiling.

He'd splurged on the Fairlane two years before. He'd run across the ad in a
Hemming's Motor News
and once he called and had the owner send pictures, he couldn't resist. The car was a good deal, and practically in mint condition. Paul told himself he worked hard, he needed a treat. If he couldn't have something he wanted now and then, what was the point? It probably would have worked out except that the truck he'd been driving ever since he moved to McAllaster—nursing along, really—died exactly one week after he got the Fairlane. The Fairlane was fun; a truck was essential.

The Chevy Madeline was borrowing was overkill—bigger and newer and nicer than he'd gone out looking for. But it was solid and super-clean and the financing deal on his credit card had been great, four point nine percent for the life of the loan. He'd convinced himself he could make those payments
and
keep the car.

He did make the payments, no matter what, because if he was ever a minute late the interest rate would jump to twenty-five percent overnight. Bottom line, the car, the truck—they were both consolation prizes for the way his life felt these last few years. Dead end, frustrating, confining. (Like the lives of the prisoners he fixed food for, wasn't that ironic?) Lately Paul had been staring down some hard facts. He couldn't go on the way he had been. One thing he really should do was take the truck back to the dealer and switch it off for something more economical, something older and more basic.

“
Now
what're you frowning about?” Randi asked, coming to lean against him, twining an arm around his neck and nuzzling his ear.

“Not a thing,” he said, exasperated with himself. Why'd he plague himself this way? He pulled Randi around to kiss her. She tasted good, like mint. “Ready to go?”

“I have to pick Up Grey from Jo Jo's pretty soon.” Jo Jo was a girlfriend of Randi's who babysat sometimes.

“So let's go get him. He can come too.”

“He'll be asleep.”

“He can sleep in the car.”

Randi kissed his neck—a quick small dart of affection—and acquiesced, smiling. “Okay.”

A wave of tenderness washed over him. Randi was happy, he was happy, his situation probably wasn't as bad as he told himself sometimes. Probably she was exactly what he needed and life was simpler than he always tried to make it.

Another wave of tenderness swamped him as he carried Greyson out of Jo Jo's and bundled him onto the backseat of the car. Paul had always liked Greyson, but now that he'd spent more time with him, he was starting to find him irresistible.

Randi had dropped Greyson off late last night, on her way to do a fill-in shift at the Tip Top. Paul had bitten back his hesitation—when the pizza place was busy, there was just no place to put somebody who wasn't a worker or a customer, especially a five-year-old somebody who needed not to get tripped over, spilt on, or burnt—because Randi said she couldn't find anyone else at such short notice.

Fortunately—sort of—there hadn't been a lot of late orders, and it had worked out all right. Greyson sat on a milk crate in the corner and played with a video game. When the batteries ran low, Paul did a quick search through his rooms for something else to entertain him with, and came Up with a pair of binoculars. Greyson spent the rest of the night padding around gazing at everything through them: the customers, the pizzas, the waitress, Paul, the equipment, the toes of his shoes. Luckily half the customers were locals who knew Grey and didn't seem to mind being the subject of his scrutiny, and the other half were the nicest kind of tourists, the laid-back ones.

When the place emptied out, Greyson observed the cleanup process, his small face dwarfed by the big glasses, his mouth slightly ajar. He looked like a tiny ornithologist on the trail of some rare species.

It was at moments like those that Paul realized he was coming to love the boy. He hadn't thought about that when he and Randi hooked Up. But now he was surprised to find himself missing Grey when he wasn't around, and swamped with a kind of pride when he was—as well as an Urge to protect him from some of the things he knew life would throw at him, though probably that wouldn't be possible.

Paul drove down to the arm of land that encircled Desolation Bay and parked at the pier. He turned off the engine and lights but left the radio on. The battery would last awhile. The music coming out of WFNM in Crosscut was awful—the worst of the oldies—but Paul felt loyal to the station anyway. It was part of life in the north. Randi scooted over onto the console between the seats and snuggled into him. He pointed out some stars to her. He was feeling good—a smart idea coming out here, a good night—until he heard her softly snoring.

He smiled ruefully. But this was all right too—Randi asleep beside him, Greyson asleep in the back. A little family. He felt the pull of it. What would his mother think? That it was about time, probably.

His mother had a big heart and a no-nonsense approach to life. Both his parents were that way. He knew they wondered when he'd find another wife, have a few kids like his sisters had done. They didn't harass him about it, though. The closest they came was when his mother would pull him aside for a private talk in the kitchen when he visited. She'd give him an investigative once-over, ask how he was.
Fine, great
, he always said, and that was her opening to say,
Have you met anyone?

He'd tell her a little about his girlfriend if there was one, which there sometimes was. His mother would listen, her intelligent eyes skeptical as he gave her the pertinent details: the girlfriend's name and age and occupation, the color of her hair. Then she'd jump directly into The Talk. You don't still blame yourself for the accident, do you? You don't let that run your life?

No, he always said. Of course not. I was a kid, I didn't know any better.

His mother would give him a dubious, worried look, but he never had anything else to say about it.

The real answer was,
How could I not?
I was the one riding on the luggage rack. The bike just had a cop solo for a seat, putting someone on the luggage rack was a great way to throw the balance off, and I was the one who insisted that Manny take me for a ride. I plagued him about it. For once he was the one with some common sense. He took me around the block a few times but that wasn't good enough. I wanted more, I wanted speed. He didn't have an extra helmet, remember? So he gave me his. And finally he broke down and put on the speed and we went roaring down East Phillips Road to see how fast we could make the turn and it was great. It really was. But I didn't lean left because I didn't know crap about riding, and the rest is history.

So no, I don't blame myself. I was just a kid, it was an accident. You have to forgive yourself, and life goes on. But also,
how could I not?

For a while Paul concentrated on picking out the bits of constellation he could see through the windshield: Cassiopeia, Perseus. Then he stared into M31, thinking about the Andromeda galaxy, wishing he had binoculars. Maybe he'd be able to see it. A whole other galaxy. Eventually he felt his arm begin to go numb. Randi was flat-out asleep, so he carefully maneuvered out from Under her weight. As he did, he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Greyson, pointing Up. “Hey, buddy,” Paul whispered. “You ready to go home?”

Greyson shook his head. “I saw a shooting star. I'm waiting for another one.”

 

 

The Fourth of July
had turned hot by the time Madeline reached the old fire tower, though it wasn't much past seven in the morning. She'd gotten Up at five to get an early start. Now she stopped, easing the shifter into “Park” with care, and got out to study the choices of two-track to follow. A chickadee called from a nearby tree, and Madeline smelled the dust of the road swirling behind her. Despite all the rain they'd had, most of the road was dry, though it was true that she might not have made it in the car. She'd crossed three flooded spots that were long and scary—where was the bottom?—the ruts leading in and out of them churned deep with muck. She'd have to wash the truck. She glanced at it, still Unnerved to be piloting a late model, three-quarter-ton, four-wheel-drive truck through a vast Unbroken tract of wilderness.
If Richard could see me now,
she thought fleetingly. He'd never believe it. She scrambled back Up into the cab.

At last, after another half hour of driving at a snail's pace down the ever-narrowing track, she had traveled just over nine miles in from the main road and the trail petered out. With a great sense of anticipation she climbed out of the truck. Just ahead was a low, sandy hill. The brink of the lake. She hurried Up it to the top.

Stone Lake lay before her, a shallow bowl that spread perhaps a mile off into the distance and half that width to the opposite shores, which were ringed all around with pines. But “shores” wasn't quite the word for it, not anymore. The lake was dry.

M
adeline stood there for a long time, smiling she guessed. What else to do? Her namesake lake was a swale of swaying grasses. Finally she scrambled down into it. Sand and tiny pebbles crunched Under her feet, sharp-edged sedges flicked against her calves.

After the first wave of disappointment, and then cynical acceptance—of course! Of course the lake was dry and empty—Madeline felt Unexpectedly peaceful. She was like any other animal, or plant, or mineral. Just a soul alone in a wide, wild world.

She felt the sun on her back, smelled pine needles and hot sand, heard the breeze whispering in the trees. The rustle of grasses echoed the long-gone water. She was in this clearing deep in the woods in a forgotten place, and for at least this moment needed nothing more or less. She walked, and with each step she let another inch of the long furl of her expectations go. The place itself was like a steady hand, a low voice, a very old person who'd seen too much to get overexcited anymore.
Stop now a minute
, it said.
Stop searching.