The Colorman (15 page)

Now he brought pliers, cutters and hammers into play, prying stones from metal fittings, resins apart from wire, pulling bristles out of wooden brushes, cutting bone buttons from jackets and shirts, cutting away elastic from skirts and separating shoe leather from soles. Some for the incinerator, others to an acid bath, stones in the crusher and metals to the forge.

Nights and nights of this activity, distilling objects down, most for the incinerator to make lamp black, some materials ashed all the way to a translucent white. James' house began to empty and one night he even hauled a chair across the lawn toward the factory.

Throughout all this, he worked with a light sense of irony playing on his consciousness. In so carefully preserving his memories, he had been locking in rage and despair, but in destroying them, he honored them.

Hiking on the trails around Mahican Brook Road, Rain had started to get used to the solitude, the utter peace of uninterrupted nature so that one day, hearing a noise from behind her through the thump from her iPod, she jumped, her body apparently convinced she'd be facing down a rabid raccoon or a mountain lion or something. She looked over her shoulder and pulled an earbud out, finding neither of those things. But then, suddenly, from out of the woods came three emergency workers and one other hiker hauling gear and a large, orange, human-carrying pallet.

“Watch out!” One of the paramedics hooted.

“Oh, jeez!” Rain exclaimed. “Can I help?”

“Thanks, we got it,” the paramedic said. “He'll be fine. Just a leg.”

Rain stepped off the trail and let the group pass. The hiker was pretty beat up. His friend was pale and roughed up, though still up and walking.

When they had passed her, the second paramedic turned and called back to Rain, “Hey, be careful up there!”

“Yeah! One trip a day, huh?” The paramedics chuckled.

Back on her trail again, Rain was not watching where she was going, clicking through tracks on her iPod, when she nearly tripped over a mountain bike propped up against a tree.

She tugged one of the wires back out from her ear.

“Hello?” she called.

A loud cracking sounded above her head, and she flinched and peered up into the branches to find a brown-skinned, greeneyed young man perched there. Hunter, from Chassie's party. He was dressed in hiking pants and an ill-fitting, hand-knit wool sweater.

Stepping aside, Rain said, “Oh, I'm sorry.”

“No!” Hunter exclaimed. “Hey wait.”

He jumped down gracefully from the tree. “Hunter, from Chassie's. You're Rain, right?”

Rain was flustered. He was so beautiful. “Right,” she began. “Your playing, it was so…” Hunter grabbed her hand and shook it, his hand so big and soft and warm that Rain blurted giddily, “Yeah, nice to see you. Again, I guess.”

“Chassie told me about you,” said Hunter.

“She seems to be the source,” Rain said.

“Oh, yes, of all things,” Hunter said laughing. “She's my girl. Which way you headed?”

Rain pointed on down the trail.

“Uh-huh. Have you seen the waterfall?” he asked.

“What waterfall?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hunter said, full of charm and pluck. “Okay. I've got some things to show you, I think.” He took up his bike and began pushing it along the trail.

Rain looked around. “Oh, I've got to…” she trailed off.

“You've got to see it,” Hunter said enthusiastically. “Come on, you're going to love this.”

Hunter ditched his bike at the gated mouth of a smaller trail and Rain followed him as he danced his way delicately, goat-like, down the narrow winding path.

Rain could hear the falls even before she saw the shallow winding creek. As the trail leveled off next to the water, the dramatic falls came gradually into view.

About forty feet high and almost as wide, with boulders dividing and redirecting their flow, the falls had a pretty wading pool at their base. Hunter pulled off his sweater and marched into the pool, walking right in with his hiking sandals and pants and all. It was knee deep.

“Come on in, it's fantastic!”

“It's October!” Rain exclaimed.

“It's an Indian summer! Enjoy the global warming! Come on, you got those quick dry pants: put 'em to use!”

Rain muttered softly to herself, “What'chyou talking about my pants.” Taking off her boots and socks, she rolled her pants up and dropped her backpack. As she picked her way in, the water felt so cold it gripped her ankles hard, her feet reading every stone along the bottom of the shallow pool.

Watching her struggle along, Hunter gave Rain a friendly little splash as she took another step toward him, and the surprise of it made her lose her step. But just as she started to go down, Hunter caught her valiantly. The proximity took them both offguard and there was a dangerous moment of connection, his green eyes lit-up and close. He held her for a moment longer that he should have.

Rain said, “I'm, uhm…” She stood, getting better footing and unconsciously pressing her left thumb to her wedding ring.

“I saw that,” Hunter said graciously, nodding at her ring. “No worries.” Hunter took her right hand in his and helped her back to shore. “We'll bring you sandals next time.”

Out of the water, Hunter threw himself down at the side of the falls and ripped into his backpack where he retrieved some apples, a hunk of cheese and a thermos of hot tea.

“Tea,” he said. “The real thing. Lapsang Souchong—it's like whisky, you gotta try it.”

Rain put her boots back on and joined Hunter on his patch of soft ground. She took her camera out of her pack and photographed Hunter's hands, the apples and cheese, the pouring tea and cascading waterfal lbehind. Hunter was a willing and easy subject. Didn't get uncomfortable. Just let her photograph him.

Rain took the thermos top when Hunter passed it to her. She tasted it. Liquid smoke, toast and burning fires, barley and oak barrels.

“Mmmm,” she said, nodding. “So did you grow up here?”

“My parents were the caretakers at the castle. I grew up playing over there all my life. Chassie and me were just like brother and sister. Had no idea we were any different from them.”

Rain passed the thermos top back to him. “And you're different from them?” she asked.

“According to some,” Hunter said, smiling wryly at her. “As I'll just assume you know…” Then he gave her a crooked smile and said, “Not me and Chassie, though. She was no-nonsense. I think we had more to do with forming each others' personalities than anything else.”

“Pesky outside world…” Rain said.

Hunter resumed cutting apples and handed a slice to Rain on his Opinel knife. “That and cash,” he said.

“Irritating,” Rain said. She took the apple and some cheese from him.

“The old man left me an inheritance, though. Chassie set that up, I'm pretty sure,” Hunter said. “So I travel. Play music.”

“Your parents still here?”

“Well, my dad passed just before the old man, but Mom's doing alright. Getting on for sure. She stays at the retirement community down in the village. Loves it. Got the Mah Jhong ladies all sewn up. And what about you? What brings you up here?”

“My dad had a little house. Left it to me.”

“Did he die recently?”

“Couple months ago.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“Where's the place?”

“It's the little cabin on the edge of the Highland Morrow grounds.”

“I know that place. John Morton, the writer, used to live there.”

“Yeah, that's my father.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah.”

“I like his stuff, man. He was good at what he did. I am truly sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“Weird for you having him be so famous?”

“It's not as weird as you'd think,” Rain said. “I was Daddy's girl, so he was just famous for
me
, you know?”

“You famous, too?”

“Oh, no,” Rain laughed. “No, totally incognito.”

“Artist?”

“Trying.”

“Right. You just are.”

“Not much of a résumé behind me,” Rain said, sheepishly.

“Well, it's the doing it, right?” Hunter said. “Look at you: you can't even have a picnic without thinking that way.”

Rain turned her camera in her hands. “I'm sorry,” she said.

Hunter laughed. “You're the real thing,” he told her, shaking his head.

“Whatever that means,” Rain said, and they both laughed, allowing their eyes to meet under the beams of sunlight working their way through the branches in the waterfall's cove.

The cabin was looking more like a house, the inside more like a working studio. Paintings were stacked up along the walls. Opened boxes of paints, supports, mediums, cans of turp and mineral spirits and old coffee cans stuffed with brushes covered the surfaces of the two large tables. The couch was filled up with stacks of books and magazines. Running her fingers lightly over a half-dozen small paintings lined up on the table, Rain picked one up. It was loosely rendered and rich, depicting the river and the railroad tracks from a high vantage point. She looked up at the large canvas she had set up next to the landscape composite on the wall. It was covered with her scrubby black markings now. Carefully placing the small landscape down into ripped muslin cloth, Rain wrapped it and pushed it into her backpack.

She arrived at the factory to find Alvaro there working late. He greeted her warmly and directed her right back to Morrow's office. Rain wound her way through the factory floor, past a warren of rooms and shelves of beautiful junk and finally found the stairwell to Morrow's office. Peering up, she could see that Morrow's desk was empty, so she climbed the stairs thinking she'd just leave it there for him. But she surprised him at another table where he was hunched down working over a tray.

Morrow jumped. “Holy…!”

“Oh! I'm so sorry! I just wanted…! Oh, I'm so…”

Rain glimpsed a tuft of fur, wet and red in the tray James was working over, but he quickly covered it with a metal lid.

Morrow said, “It's good to see you. I'm glad you, uh…” He looked around.

“Please forgive me,” Rain said, recovering. “I just wanted to bring you a little token of thanks.”

Rain held out her painting still wrapped in muslin.

“No,” Morrow said. “No, you shouldn't have…I'm honored. It's a…I'm just honored.”

Morrow moved so slowly toward her that Rain lurched at him, proffering her gift. As he unwrapped the painting, his smile faded.

Rain couldn't help but notice his distress. “I hope you… I hope you don't hate it.”

“No, please,” Morrow began, as if waking up again. He hung the painting on the wall and stepped back to view it.

“I know it isn't very good, but…”

Morrow said, “No.”

“…I just thought I'd give you a little token of thanks while I…”

“No,” Morrow said.

“…worked on something more appropriate to say thanks…”

“No. No. Rain. No. I love the painting. I'm sorry I'm so…” He took a chair and pointed to one for her. “I'm so…” He pinched his nose again. He sat there silently, his glance rising to a framed photograph on his desk again and again. Rain didn't sit, she watched him. He wiped his eyes, wiped them again. Coughed.

In the silence, James looked up to find Rain's face streaked with tears, her eyes shining and reddened.

“I'm so sorry!” James said, looking even more devastated.

Rain was embarrassed. “No,” she said, trying to puff out a casual laugh. “I think because my Dad…you know.”

James cleared his throat and rubbed his face, like he was trying to wipe something away. He breathed deeply. Rain took his cue and wiped her face too. They smiled at each other with a small polite relief.

“I'm so sorry, Rain Morton. I'm moved. That's all.”

“No, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm not sure what's come over me. Uhm,” Rain said, feeling ridiculous now. “I came to say I'm having an open studio—a Halloween dinner—for a couple of people at my cabin next week. And I was hoping you would be willing to come.”

Morrow broke into a small rare grin and said, “That's very kind. Yes, I will.”

As she walked back up the dirt road to her house, Morrow's emotion lingered with her. She tried to make sense of her tears. Was she missing her father who was close in age to Morrow? Someone Morrow knew from the old days? But there was something else, something elusive. By the time she got back home, however, she had convinced herself it was just the awkwardness of crying right in front of him, this odd character she barely knew.

Home. For the first time she actually felt like she might be home. Something in the history this place held for her, the abundance of the wooded trails. And even the unfamiliar feeling of belonging she got on the dirt road.

Though she used a digital camera, Rain still cocked a vestigial film advance lever. It was the appendix of cameras. It certainly had no use, but Rain felt that since it couldn't hurt, why take the risk of removing it? Thumbing it between shots forced her to shift her hold on a view, forced a fresh angle and new way into a scene for each shot.

There was something of the specter in the way James entered her house; he was silent in his step, waiting patiently until decorum forced him to speak.

“This is beautiful,” he said just as Rain registered his presence.

“Better than the art, I think,” Rain said, on auto-self-deprecate. She gave herself an inner forehead slap and hoped James hadn't heard her. Her nerves felt like they were leaking out from every pore.

Before he crossed the threshold, Violetta sidled over to James from the kitchen where she had been directing the cooking. “Ah, no, I adore art,” she said, offering James a glass.