Water Rites (37 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

T
he hospital corridor oppressed Nita. It was white and sterile, filled with echoes of pain and sickness. Everybody hurried and seemed to be very busy. She tiptoed down it, her skin tight with gooseflesh even though it wasn’t particularly cool, half expecting someone to stop her and demand to know what she was doing here. She had been surprised at Renny’s ready agreement to drive her all the way here to Portland, to the big city hospital where Jeremy had been transferred. The receptionist downstairs had told her his room number, but the numbers didn’t want to behave rationally up here. Nita closed he eyes briefly, her head buzzing with the fog of discomfort that filled this place.

A chunky young woman in green pants and a loose green shirt passed on her way down the corridor. “Are you lost?” she asked with a smile.

“I’m looking for Jeremy Barlow. In four twenty-one,” Nita said. The woman’s pleasant feel eased some of her tension. “I think I
am
lost.”

“Not really. He’s down here.” The woman nodded down an intersecting corridor. “I’ll take you.” She fell in beside Nita, her curiosity like the smell of flowers in the air. “He has quite a talent, Jeremy. Everybody in the entire psych department here has been down talking with him and testing what he can do. We moved him into a room where he could look out at the Willamette bed. Has he showed you the city he sees? It was so
beautiful
.” Her eyes had gone dreamy. “Pictures just don’t do it, do they? You know, when I see it, really
see
it, I can believe it’ll be like that again, some day.”

Nita halted in the middle of the corridor. “He shows you?”

“Sure.” The woman raised a quizzical eyebrow at her reaction, but decide to let it pass. “The more I do it, the better I can see it. I just caught a few glimpses at first, but some people see everything the first time. Cara, one of the surgical nurses is really good at it. Doctor Lazarus, the head of Psych, had a name for what he does, but I can’t remember it now.”

“That’s wonderful.” Nita felt dazed. He was doing this? Here? Where he couldn’t escape?

“This is the place.” The woman lifted a hand, smiling. “I’m Amelia Cary, by the way. A lowly intern. Say hi to Jeremy for me, will you? I’m supposed to be elsewhere five minutes ago.”

“I will,” Nita said, and pushed the oversize door open as the woman hurried away.

Jeremy was asleep. His face looked pale and fragile on the white pillow, haloed by his fair hair. Tubes trailed across the bed, IVs and a catheter, dripping fluid into his veins, carrying away the excess, as if Jeremy himself had become nothing more than some kind of living filter removing a few nutrients from the slow, steady trickle of liquid. It frightened her. She shivered suddenly, wanting to shake him, wake him up so that she could be sure he was still Jeremy.

As if he had felt her anxiety, Jeremy’s eyelids fluttered. “Hi.” He turned his head on the pillow to look at her, and his smile was his own. “When did you get here?”

“A little while ago. Renny drove me down.” She reached for his hand, closing her fingers tightly around his. “Jeremy, it’s my fault. I should have heard Delgado. If I’d listened, I would have known he was there. But Carter was going to kill Dan, and I just didn’t listen . . .”

“Hey, stop.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault. Any of us could have ended up dead. It’s kind of a medium-sized miracle that we didn’t. And I’m not going to die, so relax.” He squeezed her hand again, then grimaced and fingered the tubing taped to the back of his other hand. “It itches,” he said. “I guess I’ll be on this thing until they’re all done with the treatments. But they don’t have to do any more surgery. That’s what Dr. Carey told me this morning. Although she said some of the doctors were talking about working on my hands. And my knees.” He stretched his knotted fingers. “If they decide to, they’ll do it for free. I guess they’re seeing more cases of this and they want to see if they can fix it.”

He wasn’t sad. Or scared. “Jeremy?” Nita framed the question she wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t come.
Spinal damage
, Dan had told her.
He might never be able to walk again.

“Dr. Imenez was in this morning.” Jeremy smiled now, reaching up to touch her cheek. “He’s the one who’s been doing the fancy stuff — something with stem cells. He stuck me with a needle this morning. Up and down my legs. I couldn’t feel anything when he did it before, but this time . . . I did. Not all the sticks, but some of them. He was pleased, Nita.” He pushed her braid back over her shoulder. “I guess it looks good.”

“Jeremy, I’m so glad.” She held his hands, smiling with the bright glow of his hope. He wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life in a bed in Dan’s house. Surely. “I met Dr. Carey. She said hi. And she told me you’re showing people your visions.”

“No kidding.” He smiled, a little more tentatively this time. “I guess I really stirred things up. A whole bunch of doctors are trying to figure out how I do what I do. It scares me some . . . you can feel that, right? But it’s okay. They’re running all kinds of tests while I’m making stuff. They don’t have a clue. But the nurses all sneak in here to look at the river. I still don’t know why everybody saw that flood in the riverbed like they did.”

“It had to be because of all the people,” Nita said. “I
knew
it was you, and it still panicked me. I think it was like a few people saw it, and their reaction sort of set off others around him. Does that make sense?”

“No, but it happened anyway.” Jeremy closed his eyes. “You were right, you know? About my not wanting to face what I could do. The visions, I mean. My dad could see them. I showed him what the land had been like once, and . . . I think something broke inside of him. I think he died sooner . . . because of that.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You could have told me, right?” He kissed the back of her hand, lightly. “Too bad you weren’t there. Or maybe I’m right. We’ll never know. And I am . . . facing it. The visions. Trying to figure out what they’re good for.”

“Dr. Cary said they gave her hope,” Nita said softly. His face looked thin, shadowed with recent pain. “She said they made her believe the world could be like that again one day.”

Jeremy’s smile warmed her. “It’s still going to scare some people, make some people crazy. But I guess there’s a price for everything, right?”

“Yes.” Nita felt the smile tremble on her lips, made it stronger.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy’s fingers tightened around hers. “Carter?”

“So who reads minds now?” She laughed, but it caught in her throat.

“I don’t need to try very hard. He was here earlier this week.” Jeremy wouldn’t let go of her hand. “I asked him about you. He said he hadn’t seen you.”

He was sad for her. “He’s been pretty busy and…I don’t feel comfortable walking up to that gate. Even though the base isn’t closed anymore. I got the proof he needed from Renny’s hacker friend. Dan gave it to Carter. Johnny resigned from Water Policy. I heard it on the news. I’ve been busy.” She made her voice light. “Dan, Sandy, and I have all been busy trying to smooth things out between The Dalles and the Corps. It’s not easy.”
We
. “You know, I’m doing what I told Dan I’d never do — what my father did.”

“You’re doing what you need to do.” Jeremy smiled.

“I think so.” And it still surprised her at times.

“You want to know something weird?” Jeremy stared up at the ceiling. “Johnny Seldon paid for my treatment.”

“Him?” Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Jeremy touched his sheeted abdomen lightly. “He came to see me the first day I was here. He’s a strange man. I kind of wished you were here.” He fell silent for a moment, frowning. “He made me promise not to tell Carter. Then he said it made things even. Then he left. I’ll take it,” Jeremy said lightly. “I don’t care where it comes from.”

He had been terrified he would end up paralyzed. She could hear echoes of that terror even now. “It’s all right now.” Nita brushed a wisp of hair back from his face. His yes were so blue — the color of the sky above the riverbed on a windless day. David’s eyes had been almost that color. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Renny’s got Rachel at the car.”

“Renny?” He laughed. “She sure doesn’t seem like the motherly type to me.”

“She says Rachel’s not bad for a kid. She told me she’d take her on as an apprentice as soon as she can reach the pedals on the truck.”

“She could do worse.”

Through the window, she could see the river. Green grass fringed the sparkling sweep of the river full of water, glowing in the sun. Trees bloomed along white sidewalks, their bare branches clouded with pink blossoms. “It was so beautiful.” She leaned forward to kiss him on the lips. “I’ll be back when I can.”

“Nita?” Jeremy’s eyes were full of sympathy. “When I finally get out of here, I plan to head back to the Tygh Valley. To see if that kid they stoned might still be alive somewhere. He’s like us, Nita. There are others like us. I’ve heard about ’em. I think I’m going to start looking for them. If you want to come along, I’d like the company.”

If Carter is afraid of you, he meant. Dan was. Just a little. “I might take you up on it.” Nita smiled for him. “I’ll let you know.” She left the room before he could see her tears.

*

“You took your time.” Renny sat in the strip of shade cast by her battered loaner. Rachel stood between her knees, wobbly and delighted. “The kid’s ready to start running,” Renny said. “She gets ticked off when it doesn’t happen. I like her attitude.” She laughed and handed the drooling Rachel up to Nita. “Let’s go, babe. Feed her in the car if you’ve got to. I’m due to hit the road.”

“Can we make one stop?” Nita asked her as she climbed into the car’s baking interior. “Just for a couple of minutes?”

“Where and why?”

“Mosier.” Nita looked away from the comprehension in Renny’s eyes.

“Sure, babe,” she said, and a trace of sadness lurked beneath her words.

*

It was one of those rare, windless days in the riverbed. Nita left Renny at the car with the sleeping Rachel and walked up the steep little street, past the sagging white house where Julio Moreno sold his secondhand clothes and furniture. He was out on his cluttered porch and he raised his good hand in a gesture that was almost a salute. Nita nodded and smiled, but didn’t stop.

Dust puffed up from beneath her feet to hang in the still air. The heat stifled Nita, baking her flesh on her bones. The single tree in the tiny cemetery cast a thin shade across the dust. The newer stones were just pieces of lava or river rock; names and dates had been scrawled across them in black, or blue, or silver paint. Leaf shadows dappled the grave where Julio had buried the bones. Nita knelt in the dust beside the stone. She hadn’t been able to find any flowers this late in the year, but she laid the small bunch of greenery that she had gathered on the grave: desert parsley and wheatgrass, a sprig of yarrow. At least the leaves were green and alive, even if they were already wilting. The stone was rectangular, reddish brown, smooth enough to have been shaped by hand instead of by nature. Nita touched the surface with her forefinger, feeling the tiny grains of sand beneath her fingertip. A few feet away another rough stone marked a grave. Luis Hansen read the fading blue letters. There were no dates on the stone, just the name.

Child? Nita wondered. Old man? She sighed and pulled the nail from her pocket.
D
. She scratched the letter into the surface, wavery white lines as crooked as the embroidered letters on the pack.
A
. David, I loved you. I still love you.
V I D
. You gave me space to grow up. You kept me safe. A S. I don’t think I need anyone to keep me safe any more.
C H E R
. She put the nail back into her pocket and laid the bunch of greens on the stone. “If you’re here, know I love you. If you walked away . . . I hope you find happiness.”

“David Ascher,” Renny said from behind her. “You made up your mind, huh?”

“Yes, I have.” Nita stood up and took Rachel from the trucker’s arms. An ending and a beginning. She would ask Dan where her father was buried. Julio had disappeared from his porch and the little town looked deserted as people waited out the afternoon heat. Water was running in the soaker hoses again — for now. When it got cooler, men, women, and children would go out to work the fields until it got too dark to see, shaping their lives to fit the harsh rhythms of sun and water. This is what matters, Nita thought. We can look at Jeremy’s green visions and hope for that future, but right now, this is what has to matter.

“Thanks for the ride,” Nita said.

“I had nothing better to do.” Renny slid into the front seat, reaching for Rachel who yawned and blinked. “You know, when we made our little bargain, I thought you were sleeping with Danny. I could tell you weren’t real thrilled with the idea of crawling into my bed and I figured I could wing two birds with one stone.”

“I still owe you,” Nita said. “You took Rachel in the riverbed, too.”

“She’ll make a good trucker, that kid. I was serious about taking her on.” Renny handed Rachel to Nita and pulled her door closed. “We’re even, babe. You make me think about things.” She reached inside her denim shirt and pulled out a brown envelope. “This is for you.”

Nita opened the envelope, removed the folded sheets. It was a hardcopy of a land title, in her name. “Your farm?”

“Jesse’s farm, not mine.” Renny pulled onto the hold highway. “It was never mine. You can give it to Dan if you want. Or you can keep it and cut your own deals.” She shrugged, looking sideways at Nita. “Lydia told me a weird thing. She said you can hear what people think. Is there anything in that, babe?”

“I hear a little bit,” Nita said softly.

“Too bad you didn’t come along earlier.” Renny turned her attention back to the road, but not before Nita caught the glint of tears in her eyes. They were climbing up over the crest now, the engine growling with protest. Up ahead the promontory where Jeremy had called up a long-ago spring jutted out over the riverbed. Different, she thought. That’s all we are.

“Could you let me off here?” she asked suddenly.