The Brave (21 page)

The boy went and Ray stood up and stretched then went to stand in front of the long mirror on the closet door, wiping the sweat off his chest. His face was drawn and tense around the eyes. God, he was starting to look old. He turned sideways and tried to shift his mind into character. Tending the saddle, Helen coming up unseen beside him. You must be Harry. He turned and looked into the mirror again. A little less tightening of the jaw, maybe. Lose the lifted eyebrow. Do it with the eyes, just the eyes. Real intense, seeing her, knowing her. That was it. That was good.

Diane suddenly appeared in the corner of the mirror. She was in the doorway behind him.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure."

She walked toward him, tentatively, as if unsure what kind of welcome to expect. The sight prompted in him both anger and desire. They hadn't spoken since last night. She had left the party before him and was asleep when he got back. Her call this morning had been earlier than his and when he woke she'd already gone. They hadn't made love for a week.

She stopped in front of him and laid her hands on his bare chest.

"Where have you gone?" she said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You've gone all cold and distant."

"I'm right here."

She tilted her face and hesitantly kissed him on the lips. For a moment, ridiculously, childishly, he didn't respond but then he opened his mouth and kissed her. He put his hands on her hips then slid them under her shirt and slowly up following the curve of her body until he was holding her breasts.

"I want to fuck you," he whispered.

"Darling, not now."

"Come on."

"Later."

"Forget it."

He shoved her away and she fell back against the table and the tray with his lunch and the glass of orange juice went crashing and spilling onto the floor.

"For godsake, Ray. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Just get out of here."

They reached the top of the dome a little before five, the horses' hooves clacking and scraping on the hot sandstone. In the west the sky was stacking itself with bulbous, flat-bottomed clouds. There was no horse work in any of the scenes being shot that afternoon nor any involving Diane and since Ray didn't seem to want her support, she'd decided to join Cal and Tommy on their ride. She wanted the company but still felt too hurt to talk so she let the two of them ride ahead. Tommy turned around twice to ask her if she was okay and she told him she was fine and to stop fussing. He and Cal hadn't stopped talking all the way. Thank God, she thought, that the boy had at least one man in his life who was sane and stable.

Cal had found an old Navajo in Medicine Springs who'd told him where they could find the rock paintings but it still took them a long time. At last they found the gully the old man had described. It ran north to south down one side of the dome like a knife crack in the top of a boiled egg. They left the horses to graze among the sage and scrambled down into the shadow and cool of the gully. In places the walls grew steep and there were crude steps and footholds carved in the sandstone and some had crumbled or been worn away so that Cal had to lift and lower Tommy and do almost as much for Diane.

Along one side of the gully ran a shelf some six feet wide where the rock had been scooped out to make shallow caves. Cal said people used to live in these, people now known as the Anasazi, though this probably wasn't their real name. It was an old Navajo word for enemy.

"Just like what you told me about the Sioux," Tommy said. "How that was what their enemies called them."

"That's right. The Oglala and Lakota and the others never called themselves the Sioux."

"What happened to the people who lived here?" Diane asked.

"Nobody knows. They just vanished. About a thousand years ago."

"Maybe they were their own worst enemies," Diane said.

"It can happen."

"It sure can."

Cal looked at her and gave her a sympathetic smile and she could tell he knew the reference was to Ray.

They found the paintings in an overhang at the far end of the shelf. Only twenty yards farther the gully tilted into a dizzying chute down which you could see the outskirts of the town a thousand feet below. Cal found them a safe place to stand and the three of them stood staring up at the paintings. Diane remembered once seeing photographs of some cave paintings in France that showed hunting scenes, stick figures throwing spears and shooting arrows at running animals. But what was depicted here was quite different and it took her a while to work it out. There was a row of what looked at first like vases or bottles, each about six or seven feet tall. Some were in groups, others on their own, all a deep bloodred against the ochre of the rock. Then she realized that they were figures, silhouetted heads and shoulders, tapering to their base. They appeared to be cloaked or shrouded for there were no visible arms or legs. It was like some silent convocation of ghosts, watching and waiting. Diane shivered.

There was one among them that was larger and seemed to have wings and Tommy asked Cal what it was but he didn't know. Maybe it was some sort of eagle god or shaman, he said. He had seen figures like it once in a canyon in Utah a hundred miles farther north.

"Some of the rock paintings in this part of the world are thousands of years old," he said.

"It's like they're telling us to go away," Tommy said.

"Then maybe we should."

They climbed out of the gully and sat on a shallow bench of stone and watched the shadows of the clouds pass across the mellowing red of the plain far below them. Tommy said the flat-bottomed clouds looked like ice cream floats. The ones over the mountains were starting to tinge with pink. Diane's horse, a stocky bay mare, had strayed a little and Tommy waded off through the sage to fetch her, leaving Cal and Diane alone. For a while neither of them spoke, just sat there gazing out at the mountains.

"Cal, how long have you known Ray?"

"Ten, twelve years, maybe."

"Have you ever seen him upset like this before?"

He didn't answer for a moment. He picked up a stem of sage and began stripping off the leaves.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask."

"No, it's okay. He's having a hard time and this picture means more to him than anything he's done. It's like what you said. Sometimes Ray can be his own worst enemy. Forgets who his friends are."

"He doesn't seem to have any friends."

"I guess he is kind of a loner."

He was about to go on but then seemed to think better of it.

"What were you going to say?"

"Nothing much. Just that, with my kind of work, if something goes wrong, you just fix it, make sure you do it better the next time. But with acting, there are no mistakes. It's just you. Do something wrong, it goes right to the heart of who you are. Sorry, I don't know how to explain what I mean."

"I understand."

"I'm not saying there's no skill or technique involved. Of course there is. You gotta hit your marks, know what the camera's seeing, all that stuff. But when it all boils down, it's just you and what you are. And if someone rejects that, says that's no good, it's not your work they're rejecting, it's you. That's hard for anyone to take. But for actors it's even harder because... Hell, I shouldn't be talking to you like this."

"Please, go on."

"Well, because they're generally so darned insecure. They want approval. They want to be loved. We all do, of course, but with some actors it's like a hunger. And if they don't get it, they can fall apart."

"Oh, come on, Cal. There are harder ways to make a living."

"Not many that can do that kind of damage to a man's self-esteem. Please, don't get me wrong. I think what you guys do is a kind of magic. Especially you. I've watched you and that's exactly what it is. You have a great gift."

Tommy was tramping toward them now, leading Diane's horse. Cal stood up.

"Good work, Tom. We better be moving. It'll be getting dark."

The three of them barely spoke on the way down. Diane listened to the clatter of the horses' feet and the skitter of broken rock and breathed the scent of the sage and pinon and juniper and watched the clouds go red and purple and darkness unfold itself across the plain and one by one the pinprick lights of the town below begin to glimmer. And she thought about what Cal had said and about the life she had made for herself and for her son, this blossoming child who rode between them. And about those watchful, waiting figures painted on the mountain.

IT HAD BEEN Karen O'Keefe's idea to contact Troop. She couldn't stand the guy or his macho books but said Tom had to admit it made sense. With all his military contacts Troop was better placed than anyone to help find a good civilian attorney to defend Danny. Tom needed a lot of persuasion. He hated asking favors even of friends and Troop would have been last on any list.

"Listen, the guy could be useful in all kinds of ways," Karen said. "I googled him. He's the US armed forces' most popular author. Having him on Danny's side might not be such a bad idea. Think of the publicity."

"That sounds like a good reason not to get him involved. He'll probably just turn us all into a novel."

"Great," Karen said. "I'll make the movie."

"I thought you already were."

"Ouch."

When Gina and Dutch had first heard that Tom had Danny's blessing to find a civilian lawyer, they were predictably angry. They clearly felt as if they had been sidelined. But Tom knew he had to deliver—and fast. After a week of research and many abortive phone calls, he ran out of options and concluded that Karen might have a point. Swallowing his pride and the Pavlovian envy any mention of Troop's name inspired, he picked up the phone one last time.

As luck would have it the Famous Author was at his Montana residence, no doubt dashing off another throbbing ten-million-dollar blockbuster. He told Tom to get in the car that very minute and drive down to see him. The cabin, as he liked to call it, was five miles outside Hamilton, less than an hour's drive from Missoula and, predictably, turned out to be more of a mansion that just happened to be built out of wood. There were tall metal gates that opened spookily as Tom approached and security cameras whirred as he passed, tracking his progress along the driveway that wound for a mile up through the forest. There was a small black helicopter on the lawn and a glinting ruby-and-chrome Hummer near the front porch with a beautiful young blonde about to leap in. Tom foolishly assumed this had to be Troop's daughter but, of course, it turned out to be his girlfriend. Troop came out to greet him with a brave hug and a look overloaded with sympathy. He introduced him to Krista, who said a sweet hi and bye, kissed Troop lingeringly on the lips then thundered off in the Hummer.

The house had a travel brochure view of the mountains. The interior was lavish western chic, like an updated version of Ray's house only with more taste. It was all polished wood and stone and thick cream-colored rugs. There were elk and buffalo heads on the walls and Wild West paintings, including a Charlie Russell that Tom recognized. Troop's office was a kind of military command center the size of a small football field, with banks of computers and screens and flashing machines that were probably linked directly to the Pentagon. There were pictures of him on the walls with grunts and generals and politicians, including one on the White House lawn with George W. and Laura as well as countless framed bestseller lists with Troop's titles inevitably at number one.

They settled on the leather couch by the window and talked for an hour. Or rather, Tom talked, telling him about Danny and what had happened that night in Iraq. Troop listened, sipping a glass of ginseng tea and gravely stroking his beard.

"There's only one man for this," he said when Tom had finished.

It sounded like a line from one of his thrillers—or perhaps all of them. Tom almost expected to hear movie music and the thump of chopper blades. Troop went to sit behind his immense desk and picked up one of the half-dozen phones.

The lawyer's name was Brian McKnight. He had his own law firm in Detroit and specialized in defending cases of alleged military malpractice which, according to Troop, he was rarely known to lose. The two of them chatted and joked for a while and then Troop told him why he was calling and put the phone on speaker and introduced Tom.

McKnight seemed to know a lot about the case already.

"So, you were a Marine too," he said.

"No, that's Danny's stepfather."

"And is he okay about you bringing in an independent attorney?"

"Not yet. I guess he thinks it's disloyal or something."

"That figures. It sometimes takes a while to understand that loyalty has its limits. Cases like this are about politics. But you all need to agree on this."

"I'm working on it."

They arranged to speak again in a couple of days when Tom had consulted with Gina and Dutch.

Troop got up from his desk and came to sit on the couch again.

"I watched the DVD of your Blackfeet film the other day," he said. "It's a hell of a piece of work."

"Thank you."

"I remember once, all those years ago, when we were on the UM writers' program, you reading out a short story you'd written about a young Blackfeet boy living on the reservation. It was the best thing I ever heard. I remember thinking, shit, I wish I was half as good as that."

Tom laughed. Compliments always made him feel uneasy.

"I'm serious."

"Well, thanks. We were all completely in awe of you."

"Did you go on writing fiction?"

"Oh, I've got the usual drawer full of unfinished novels. They all kind of hit a wall halfway through."

"That's a pity."

They were silent for a moment.

"Thanks for doing this for us," Tom said.

"You're welcome. If there's anything else, just let me know."

It was easier than Tom had dared expect to persuade Gina that they should at least meet with Brian McKnight. The three of them flew down to San Diego the following week. In all the years since Gina left, Tom and Dutch had never really had a conversation. In fact the only times they'd ever met were when Tom picked Danny up or dropped him back home. Tom remembered the guy being tall and big, like a bear with a buzz cut. But when the three of them met at the airport, Dutch wasn't at all like that. He was shorter than Tom and not remotely like a bear. Tom realized he must have concocted an image of him that fitted the Marine cliche. They shook hands while Gina watched, trying not to look too anxious.

On the plane they sat three in a row with Tom in the middle and it took him a while to get over how strange that felt. Sitting next to the guy he'd hated for years, the one who'd stolen his wife and his only son, whose influence—you could at least argue—had landed Danny where he now was, in the dock. And here they were, eating pretzels and coffee and making polite conversation, while Gina pretended to be engrossed in her book.

McKnight had booked a room for them to meet at a hotel called the Bristol on First Avenue and he was already there with Danny when they arrived. Danny looked as if he'd forgotten how to sleep. There were dark rings under his eyes. The months of waiting were clearly taking their toll. He gave Tom and Dutch exactly the same, carefully measured welcome.

McKnight was a dour ramrod of a man with gold-rimmed glasses and a ginger seventies-style mustache. Over the next two hours, during which time he never once smiled, they discovered that he was a former Marine, an NCIS investigator and attorney and knew every murky corner of the labyrinth in which Danny was currently trapped. He had already read all the paperwork and said he had serious misgivings about the way Danny's defense was being conducted.

All now hinged on the Article 32 hearing, he told them. It was already scheduled for the first week in January. It was on the preparation for this that all their energy needed to be concentrated, McKnight said.

"What is this hearing exactly?" Tom asked.

"It's the military equivalent of a grand jury. Basically it decides whether there's a case to answer."

"And if it decides there is?"

"Then the case proceeds to a court-martial."

Gina cleared her throat.

"What's the worst that could happen?" she asked.

"The worst?"

McKnight paused for a moment. He looked at Danny.

"Well, ma'am. Your son already knows this. The US military hasn't passed a death sentence on one of its own in many years. But I have to tell you that the power to do so remains untouched."

They didn't talk much on the flight back to Montana. When they said goodbye at the airport, Dutch shook Tom's hand and held on to it for a moment.

"Thank you, Tom, for doing this," he said. "I was wrong about getting an outside lawyer involved. I still find it hard to believe, but it looks like they were going to let the poor kid take the rap. With this guy McKnight on our side, maybe he stands a chance."

That night, for the first time in many years, Tom dreamed about Diane. It was a kind of updated version of the dream he'd had again and again during the year before she went to the gas chamber. The one that used to leave him cowering in the corner of his bedroom, shrieking and clutching his head until the whole house was awake. It had never actually been about the moment of execution. The terror had been more insidious, a kind of creeping prelude: sitting with her in a darkened cell, footsteps coming closer down the corridor, a shadow below the door, an eye at the grille, the click of a key in the lock, the door beginning to open.

It was Karen O'Keefe who kept him level as the weeks went by and summer turned to fall. She was often away, doing research or shooting interviews for Walking Wounded. But whenever she was in Missoula, staying with her mother, she would drop by two or three times a week. They would have lunch or supper and then spend a couple of hours going through some of the research material for their film about the Holy Family Mission. She had in mind a dramatized documentary and had written an outline that Tom liked a lot. And she had delved around and turned up some interesting new material, including photographs Tom never knew existed. Better still, she had located a journal kept by one of the Italian Jesuit priests who had run the place.

They went for walks with Makwi, who seemed to like her just as much as Tom did. The three of them even occasionally went running together. It was all still strictly platonic, though not without substantial restraint on Tom's part. As for Karen's, he couldn't be sure. She seemed to like him a lot. And by now he knew much more about her. She was thirty-three years old and for the past seven years had been living in Vail, having an affair with a ski instructor who had apparently always kept promising to leave his wife but never did. Finally Karen did the leaving instead.

Tom remained confused about what he felt for her (or, more accurately, what it was appropriate to feel, for lust was an unruly beast and not so readily restrained). But what the hell. They enjoyed each other's company; she was fun to be around and she made him feel younger and more alive than he'd felt in years. The important thing was, he no longer doubted her motives. She made no secret of her continued wish to meet Danny and, should he prove willing, to interview him for Walking Wounded.

The opportunity would probably come at Thanksgiving. Danny was flying home to spend the holiday with Gina and Dutch in Great Falls. Relations were now so amicable that Gina, remarkably, had invited Tom to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. He was touched but not sure he was ready for this and had gratefully declined, saying he'd already accepted a previous offer. Danny was going to come over to Missoula at the weekend. Apart from the minor matter of timing, the alternative offer turned out to be real, for the very next day Karen invited him to her mother's Thanksgiving dinner.

"She's been driving me crazy, asking when she's going to get to meet you. She says if you don't show up she'll come by and grab you."

"I don't know which sounds the more exciting."

"Dinner, believe me."

For at least a decade, Tom had treated Thanksgiving and Christmas as if they didn't exist, turning down so many invitations nobody asked him anymore. Had it not come from Karen, he would certainly have turned this one down too. But when the day came he was glad he hadn't.

Lois O'Keefe looked at least five years younger than Tom knew she had to be—and so like her daughter it was uncanny. She had a wicked wit and teased him from the moment he arrived, mostly about the late and, it seemed, not unduly lamented Maurice.

"Tell you the truth, Tom, it was Norm who bought the wretched creature."

"Norm?"

"My ex-boyfriend. He absolutely doted on him—rather more than he did on me, as it turned out. They even had the same blue eyes. After Norm absconded, I found that a little disconcerting. As if the sonofabitch was still there, staring at me, checking up on me. Are you an absconder, Tom?"

"No, I think I'm technically an abscondee."

"Ah, well, there we are. We have something in common. Here's to all abscondees."

Apart from Tom and Karen, the other guests were a charming ragbag of the divorced and the displaced. There was a sweet elderly aunt from Chicago, a heart surgeon from Vancouver who was clearly one of Lois's old flames (according to Karen, there were a fair few of these), a University of Montana botany professor and her hunky but rather slow-witted boyfriend, and a suave, sad-eyed New Yorker called Gunter who did something incomprehensible with other people's money and seemed slightly ashamed of it.

Tom sat between Lois and Karen and felt honored. The food was delicious and the conversation fun.

"So, Lois," he said as she served him a second slice of pumpkin pie. "I hear you're moving to France."