The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel (13 page)

The cry in the night that Anna had thought sounded like a small animal must have been just that; the erratic scratching sounds, the paws of coyotes as they attacked and killed the mother skunk. The kit was too small to have been on his own. When the coyotes attacked, this little guy must have fled into the mouth of her jar for safety, then tumbled down. The kit couldn’t weigh more than a pound, and he’d landed on soft sand. The impact must have been minimal. He didn’t appear to be hurt, just frightened of the enormous bipedal beast whose den he found himself in.

No, Anna corrected herself, not frightened, more interested. Had he been frightened, she thought, he was supposed to turn away and point his bottom at her so he could spray. Chances were he’d never seen a person and was more curious than fearful.

“Hey, buddy,” she said softly as she lowered the canteen and laid it gently on the sand. The little animal flinched but didn’t run back behind the datura leaves. Stilling herself, she let her eyes wander, pretending she had little interest in him but sneaking glances. Watching the ball of fluff sniff around, exploring this new place with increasing confidence, she experienced a sensation she hadn’t felt for so long it took her a moment to identify it.

Delight.

She was delighted. That an animal she could fit in a pocket, a wild creature, and a skunk to boot, could bring so much life into the jar that the air seemed brighter, the walls more cozy than forbidding, and her heart no longer too heavy to beat, amazed her.

Soon, she knew, she would worry about how to keep her new friend alive. How much drugged water would be too much and shut down his heart? Should she try to capture him and throw him up the neck of the jar into the real world before he perished from thirst? Or was he too young to survive in the world above without his mama? Like the writers of
Old Yeller
or
The Yearling,
had the fates given her this warm little soul only so the monster could take it away in some gruesome fashion?

Soon. Soon she would worry. For now she was content to sit, head resting against the stone, and revel in the tiny perfect creature toddling around on the sand.

Anna was no longer alone.

SIXTEEN

Anna’s false sun moved through her sandstone universe, crawling down one side of the jar, creeping across the bottom, and lapping at the other side. On the surface of the earth the temperature was probably in the nineties; in the perpetual shade of the jar, Anna was not uncomfortable. No longer plagued by fear, and drifting on the low-level effects of sipping drugged water, it occurred to her that Nature wasn’t as harsh as she’d thought when she’d come to Glen Canyon. It was Man’s fighting against it that made it hard.

A woman—even a drugged and broken stage manager—who embraced it could find comforts. Solitude—something she’d dreaded since Zachary had gone—was, in truth, beautiful. Not loneliness, but freedom from people. How could she be lonely while Buddy delicately explored her toes with his snout and one wee paw?

The skunk kit wandered off to find something better than toes with which to play. A strange piece of music filtered through Anna’s memory. Glenn Branca, she thought.

Running Through the World Like an Open Razor.

Human emotion was the razor: slights, sneers, mockery, love, hope, desire. All cut in their own way. Those wounds spawned their own cuts in actions taken, understandings and misunderstandings, then in the remembering.

Not so in solitude.

The prison of the jar she’d feared and loathed was simply stone. She was there uninvited. It neither hated nor loved nor cared. Today she found in it shelter from the sun; tonight, from the cold. Monsters and thirst and starvation were not part of the sandstone; they were of humanity, of the razors. The stone itself was pure, enduring. It had no ambition. It did not plot or pine, trap or torment. Rain deepened it, sand blew in, cold sheared flakes from its walls, torrents carved canyons, and forests poked roots into its crevices. Form changed without resentment, loss, or lust.

Bizarrely, given that she was probably going to die soon one way or another—and none of them pleasant—Anna was more at peace than she had been since she’d last lain in Zach’s arms, oblivious to the fact that the end of her world was nigh.

The canteen was resting upright in a trench of sand she’d made. So far as she’d noticed, the cap didn’t leak, but water—even poisoned water—was too precious a commodity to take chances with. Tipping the canteen, she filled the cap and poured it over her tongue. Using the cap as a measure, she found she could control her consumption to a certain extent. At least her parched innards had less of a chance to override her will and gulp it down.

Buddy turned at the sound—or maybe the smell. His tiny black nose had grayed. Part of it was dust from his explorations, but, Anna guessed, some was because his nose must be drying out. He took several steps in her direction, then stopped, gazing up at her, his nose twitching.

“I’m afraid to, Buddy. I don’t know what’s in it, what it would do to someone as small as you,” she said miserably. “I would if I could. When I get us out, you shall have a mastiff-sized bowl in your room at all times. I promise.”

When we get out.

Anna heard the words come into her ears. In this hole in the ground she had managed to undress and rebury a body, dress herself, stay moderately sane, make a sling for her arm, and acquire a pet skunk. Though drugged to the gills, she had made the attempt to hide her clothes when noises came from above. What she had not even considered was that she could get out. First, she’d hoped the rangers would come get her out, then she’d resigned herself to—to what? To living and dying in a buff-and-peach-colored bottle like a short-lived genie with a bra that didn’t fit and no harem pants?

Could she get herself and Buddy out? Gathering the foggy tendrils of thought back from the drug marshes muddying her brain, she tried to focus. Moqui steps; that was what the park historian called the shallow toe- and fingerholds carved into the sides of some of the rock around the lake. The ancient peoples made them so they could travel to and from the river more easily.

The cap of the canteen was metal and had a small-linked metal chain that attached it to the mouth. Tin probably, a soft metal. Still, it might do to scrape away the soft sandstone.

Granules of sand hit her cheek and dragged her from her thoughts. Buddy was digging furiously. Since it was not right where the corpse was interred, Anna didn’t stop him. For all she knew, skunks could be like cats and dig holes to use as latrines.

Lying back, the canteen pressed into service as a headrest, she studied the body of the jar—a space she had done nothing but study for days. It was shaped rather like a turnip, round and full at the bottom, then curving into a narrow point that veered off at an angle, before opening to the sky.

Moqui steps wouldn’t work. A strong person, with two good arms, might be able to climb them on a ninety-degree vertical. No one but Count Dracula could climb them at ninety-five degrees. Gravity would not be defied. The inward curve of her jar was more pronounced than a mere ninety-five, closer to a hundred and fifteen.

The only way out was however the monster came and went. It would be easy enough to climb down a rope, but climbing up over the curve would require strength and agility.

Also, it would probably be better not to be drugged off one’s ass.

Two good arms would help. Gingerly she shrugged her left shoulder. Maybe it was her imagination, but she was sure she could feel the round bone end trying to push out of the socket. Whatever held her together—tendons, ligaments, muscles—was torn or stretched.

Sand scattered over her belly. “Buddy,” she said as she struggled to a sitting position. “What are you doing?”

The skunk kit had dug up a moldy green snaky-looking thing. He had it in his teeth and, front paws braced, haunches bunched, was trying to pull the rest of it out of the dirt. It was a strap, Anna realized, army green and tightly woven like the belts with the flat buckles. Memory flashed and she saw the belt around Kay’s hips as the boys abused her, saw the water bottle clipped to it with a carabiner.

“Let me help you, Buddy,” she whispered and gently took hold of the strap between his jaws and the dirt. Buddy didn’t run or let go. “We’re a team,” Anna assured him. With little effort she uncovered the rest of the belt. There was a small fanny pack she hadn’t noticed before and the water bottle: one liter, clear plastic and three-quarters full. Pizarro looking on El Dorado, Ponce de Leon at the Fountain of Youth, Arthur and Excalibur: Anna was stunned by the glitter of the treasure Buddy had unearthed. Her hands shook so badly, she had to stop for a moment and rest them on her lap. The water bottle lay on its side. Sudden fear that it was leaking goaded her into movement. Carefully, as if it were delicate china, she set the bottle upright and banked sand around it.

The first capful should go to Buddy, she knew that.

Buddy was already onto the fanny pack, scratching and gnawing on the black dusty nylon. Anna pulled the zipper open for him.

“Granola bars with chocolate chips. That’s what you were after all along, isn’t it?” Using her teeth, she tore one of the two foil-wrapped packets open and bit off a corner of the bar. This she spat into her palm and offered to Buddy. Gingerly, one eye on the prize and one on the biped, he took it, then scurried away a few feet to eat it. The next bite Anna kept for herself. Hunger was with her these last hours or days, but thirst was a good appetite depressant and she hadn’t suffered the pangs much. Chocolate awoke them.

Doling out the water as if it were the most precious commodity on earth—which, in fact, it was—Anna filled the cap from the plastic bottle with the good water and set it a foot or so from Buddy. The first swallow was his. The next was hers.

The urge to drink all of the water was almost too powerful to resist. Almost. Anna sipped and chewed. Once, she refilled Buddy’s cap and gave him another chunk of the granola bar. It was his nose, after all, that had found the treasure. This time she picked out the chocolate chips first, then offered it to him. “Chocolate might not be good for little skunks,” she said apologetically. Buddy, had he had any fear of her to begin with, had none now. He took the morsel from her fingers and ate it.

Anna returned the second granola bar to the fanny pack. Fortified with sips and bites, she was settled enough to see what else the pack contained. Sunscreen, SPF 40—so shady was her jar, Anna hadn’t much use for that, but she rubbed it on her face for the moisture. As the heavy cream soaked in, she felt her skin relax and expand to cover her bones. There was a ChapStick that she pounced on greedily, rubbing the oily wax into her cracked lips. The small sack was emptied. Having administered to herself, she replaced the lotion and lip balm inside and zipped it closed.

“I have a plan, Buddy,” she announced to the baby skunk. “It’s only partially baked. So it qualifies as a bona fide adventure.” So saying, she wondered if the miracle of the bars and the water had made her giddy.

The first play she’d ever stage-managed was
Hello, Dolly!
The boys from Yonkers were off to New York City for an adventure. Barnaby, younger and having had no adventures, was afraid he wouldn’t know when the adventure was happening and thus miss it. Cornelius, his older, wiser companion, promised he’d yell “pudding” when the adventure commenced so Barnaby would know it had begun.

“Pudding, Buddy,” Anna whispered.

SEVENTEEN

Anna drank as much of the drugged water as she dared and slept the rest of the day. Buddy nosed her back into consciousness when the light was nearly gone from the sky and her circle of sand in deep shadow. She shared the last granola bar with him and opened the clean water from Kay’s belt. Anna drank a good portion of what was left and gave Buddy his fill. If her half-baked plan fell flat, she doubted she’d need to ration the clean water. The drugged would be just fine; there would be little point in prolonging sanity.

The influx of fluid into her dehydrated body was nothing short of miraculous. As water seeped into her cells, she felt an opening inside, much as she imagined a flower feels when unfurling its petals. Strength, energy, hope: Those things that made life worthwhile flowed in with the moisture. Grabbing onto these sensations, Anna closed her mind to the possibility of failure.

Buddy watched while she put herself through deep breathing exercises, sit-ups, and rapid walks around the circle of their tiny arena, trying to shake off the effects of the drug.

Having achieved a modest level of alertness, she set about erasing all traces of herself from the bottom of the jar. The belt went into the loops to hold up her shorts. She would need both arms free. The fanny pack she wrapped around her waist, snapping the plastic buckle in place. The scraps of paper from her and the skunk’s repast she shoved into the pockets of her shorts, then clipped the plastic water bottle to the strap of the fanny pack with the carabiner.

If the monster came, he must come down the throat of her jar. The angle dictated that, if he used a rope and didn’t simply crawl down the sides like a blowfly, he would enter her world slightly off center. Beneath the angle where the throat widened into the body of the jar, and the stone overhung the farthest, was the least visible part of the bottom.

As the last of the light was going, she dug out a shallow trough six feet long and two feet wide in the exposed area where she could see the throat and the eye of sky. Sitting in it, legs straight, toes pointing toward where a rope thrown down the jar’s gullet had to land, she buried the canvas-covered canteen next to her right knee and laid the strap along her thigh. That done, she swept sand over her feet and legs. When she was certain nothing of her extremities was visible, she lay down and, grateful that Kay had been so well endowed, arranged one triangle of the bra over her eyes and the other over her nose and mouth. Doing the best she could by feel, she buried her chest, neck, and head, leaving only a slit between the fabric of the bra and the bridge of her nose so she could see out. Moving as little as possible, lest she disturb her sandy shroud, she burrowed her right hand and arm under the sand till she felt the canteen strap and closed her fingers around it.