Crazy Blood

Chapter Seven

The next day, after six hours at Let It Bean, then splitting another cord of wood, Wylie drove down the mountain toward Bishop. It was forty-five miles south, a metropolis even smaller than Mammoth Lakes. Once he got past Crowley Lake, the temperature rose ten degrees. His shoulder and back muscles hummed from the splitting and his hands still buzzed from the vibration of the sledgehammer handle.

A slight smile crossed his face as he looked out at Round Valley, one of his several favorite places in the Sierras. The mountains above the valley loomed high in the west above Highway 395, eight thousand vertical feet of gray rock. The valley itself began to take shape at around six thousand feet, widening and pitching down to form a vast swale, dizzyingly steep. Looking out at it, Round Valley sucked away at his sense of balance the same way the mountains of Afghanistan had. The valley lowered and spread toward the highway, laced by streams and dirt roads, dotted with cattle and willows and black cottonwoods, some of the land planted with hay or alfalfa.

Folded in his coat pocket were Wylie’s sketches from the Tegernsee monastery and pretty much his entire savings from cheap living after the war — hopefully enough to get Jesse Little Chief going on the project. He’d done the sketches during the long, chill December nights at the eighth-century Benedictine site, which had been destroyed by the Magyars in the tenth century, then purchased nine centuries later by Maximilian I, who used it as a summer home. To Wylie, the monastery was surreal, scattered by time, ancient but modern, utopian and penal, seemingly part of another world.

In the Tegernsee dorms, the Europeans talked politics, the Irish argued, the Asians Skyped, the Americans listened to music and talked movies, and everyone drank the Tegernsee Spezial beer. It was here that Wylie had first sketched out his first rough design for the module, personal, portable, an idea he got in Kandahar. The MPP grew out of his thought that a self-contained, bulletproof, personal portable environment would naturally be great for war, but a peacetime version would be pretty darned good, too. Something like a tortoise’s shell, but stronger. But he wanted it to be stylish, too. He went through many drafts to get a passable approximation, confident that if he ever made it home, Jesse Little Chief — a full-blooded Paiute, schoolmate, platoon buddy, and carpenter supreme — could pull off Wylie’s elegant, almost nautical design.

The module was to be made mostly of wood, and it would be towed behind Wylie’s truck. It would shelter two persons from extreme Sierra conditions, contain a small kitchen and bath, and have room for provisions, tools, ski equipment, and fishing gear. It would be roughly fourteen feet long and six feet four inches high. One axle, two tires. The general shape of the MPP was a gently rounded rectangle, like an unbaked loaf of bread.

“You should just call it a trailer, because that’s what it is,” said Jesse. He was a big man with shaggy black hair, a plate-round face, and still black eyes. He wore shorts past his knees, work boots, and a lined denim jacket against the January cold. They stood in his workshop, a metal building that shared the lot with Jesse’s double-wide. Jesse lived north of Bishop, near the Paiute Palace casino and gas station — reservation land rich in poor Indians. Beyond the roll-up door of the workshop, the sun was low and the mountains bathed in wholly orange light. “Straight right angles would save you money.”

“But I want it to be...”

“Difficult?”

“Unusual.”

“Gremlins and Pacers were unusual. Why not just buy a good camper?”

Wylie absorbed this truth but said nothing.

Jesse grunted. Then he spread out the drawings on a workbench and set cans of nails on the corners to keep them down. He ran a big finger along the curving slopes of the trailer. “Teak and maple weather good. I could weld a sloping frame, then notch and groove the planks for the curves you want. That marine hatch is sweet — views and ventilation.”

“I’d hoped you’d like it.”

“Oh, I like it. The whole design. But we could just do the smart thing, go with right angles and save you some bucks.”

Wylie nodded, picturing the MPP as a simple rectangle. Nothing wrong with that, he thought, but... but he had been trying so hard to find his own true shape — through racing, nature, reading, war, and travel. He wanted to fill his shape and fill it honestly. The idea of a rectangular trailer made him feel confined and ordinary. He wondered how he had become this fussy. Was he getting old? “For an Indian, you sure are sober-minded.”

“Speaking of that, do you still enjoy a drink from time to time?”

“It’s been a while.”

“Let’s have a drink and talk about this some more.”

They drove to the liquor store for beer and bourbon, steaks and potatoes, ready-made salad, Funyons, lotto tickets, and cigars. They bought enough food for Jesse’s little sister, Jolene, and her friend. Jesse clapped the shoulder of the smaller man and they headed across the parking lot.

“Good to see you again, Wyles.”

Jolene and her friend Tonya took over the second Wylie and Jesse walked into the house. Music was playing. The girls had dressed nicely, done their hair, and put on scent. Wylie felt as if he’d walked into a stage play. Jolene took the two bags that he held, pecked him on the cheek, and gave him an eyelash bat straight out of old Hollywood. “Jolene.”

“You still remind me of a bear. Like your mom used to call you.”

“It’s good to be remembered.”

“Look at me. I got beautiful.”

“You did.”

“I’m eighteen now, Wylie. Old enough to enter into a contract legally! You remember Tonya, but hopefully me more.”

Tonya shook his hand matter-of-factly. Jesse looked at Wylie over the top of the open refrigerator, shaking his big head. Wylie grabbed two beers and Jesse found two shot glasses far back in one of the kitchen cabinets, slid the bourbon under one arm, and led the way back out to the shop.

At the workbench, Jesse placed Wylie’s small drawings aside and positioned a large desk blotter of graph paper before them. He stripped off the corner-curled, doodle-choked top sheet and fished a thick carpenter’s pencil from a coffee can filled with them. They touched beer bottles and drank.

Wylie loved the way the man drew so effortlessly and simply, as if his hand had eyes and a brain in it. Minutes later, Wylie beheld a rotated view of the MPP. The trailer was simpler and better than he himself had imagined — a graceful container with rounded transitions. It looked to be of one piece rather than pieces connected. Two portholes instead of one. And double doors for more and easier access.

“Beauty itself, Jesse.”

“A bitch to build. What’s your time line?”

“I want it badly. Spring? Early summer?”

Jesse studied him, nodding. “You specified an interior for two. Who’s the lucky lady?”

“Can you build me one of those, too?”

“Just so you know, Jolene turns seventeen next month.” Wylie nodded. “Tonya’s even younger. I worry about them. You’re only a kid once... Look, I’ll use scrap and salvage where I can, keep the cost down. Start with a junked trailer chassis, but a good one. I’ll build this thing to last.”

Wylie brought the wad of bills from the pocket of his coat. “Here’s two grand down. I lived cheap and saved some.”

They barbecued in the dirt yard between the double-wide and the haggard barbed-wire fence that marked the property line. The smoke rose into the cold night air and the Sierras hovered high and pale in the west. The stars were clear and close. Wylie refilled the shot glasses while Jesse prodded each steak with the tongs. “I should have stuck with you after the war,” Jesse said. “Should have traveled with you. I regret that now.”

“You were right to come home when you did.”

“Was I? I haven’t accomplished one damned thing.” Jesse looked at him, stepped back from the billowing smoke, and sipped from his glass. “Thanks for the news from your journeys.”

“Least I could do.”

Jesse added some mesquite chips to the fire and looked at Wylie through the shifting billows of smoke. “But I’m glad we ended up fighting together. After barely knowing each other at school, what were the chances of that? One of those coincidences that change your life. But the war wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. Maybe I got what I deserved, after drinking all night before and signing my life away the next day.”

“That’s pretty much how I joined up, too. It’s amazing just how dumb we were,” said Wylie.

“Really, it is. But we did it. We made it out alive.”

“When I hear about the war now, it doesn’t sound like the war I was in.”

“No,” said Jesse. “Grunts shouldn’t look back all the time like they do.”

“No, they shouldn’t. We did what we did. I don’t think about it, but I’ll never forget it, either.”

Wylie and Jesse shifted positions again. The barbecue smoke seemed to follow them. “Have you ever told anybody?” Jesse asked in an offhand tone of voice.

Wylie was a fine compartmentalizer, adept at stuffing memories into imaginary boxes and setting them high on his mental shelves. There, they wouldn’t fall down and hurt him, but he could find them if he needed them.

“Fuck no. I just say I was like a medic. That’s good enough for most people.”

“Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. And it’s true: You were an unofficial medic. You did some real good when the corpsmen weren’t around. Best tourniquet guy in the company.” There was a long silence as Jesse prodded at the fire with the tongs. “I’ve told you a hundred times, but I want to thank you again for... sticking by me that day. It wasn’t your idea, but you finished it for me. We could have got prison for that. It’s a debt I’ll always owe you.”

“Look. That skinny killed Sergeant Madigan and was trying to kill us, Jess. And we did what we did and it’s not changeable. Sometimes when you cross a line, the line goes faint, or even away. That can be a good thing, as in our case.”

“Do you think we were right?”

“I don’t think about it at all. Ever. Really. Except with you and some of the guys. I saw Lineberger and Carrasco in Germany. Lots of talk.”

“Still, thanks.”

“Jesus, Jesse — I’ve told you a hundred times not to thank me again, and here you go.”

“I’m just a dumb stubborn Paiute.”

“Me, too.”

“That’s what got us into all this!”

They laughed at this as they always did and drank a shot of bourbon; then Wylie refilled the shot glasses again. Jesse pulled the steaks away from the flame and got the platter ready.

“How many countries did you end up seeing?”

“Fourteen.”

“Lots of ladies on your travels?”

“More or less.”

“French the prettiest?”

“Tied for first with all the others.”

“That’s funny.”

“True, even.”

“And you always had mountains to ski?”

“Yeah. I never got that out of my system. I still haven’t.”

Jesse turned the steaks and looked down at his watch. “Your sister told Jolene you’re going to stay in Mammoth awhile. Going to win that Mammoth Cup thing again.”

“I’ve committed to it.”

“Why? You already won it once.”

The breeze changed direction and Wylie stepped away from the roiling smoke. “To honor Robert and shut Sky up.”

“And winning this race would do that?”

“I hope so.”

“Robert’s not going to get better?”

“He’ll never wake up. He could live for years, though. It’s just tubes, nutrition, and antibiotics.”

“Shit, Wylie. I hardly knew him, but Robert was cool. He was a good guy. I saw that. Nothing like the rest of them.”

“No one like him, Jesse.” Wylie squinted and wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve. Smoke and grief. It angered him that when he thought of Robert, he saw him paralyzed in a bed rather than flying down a mountain with sweet, beautiful speed. “Jess, there’s another reason I want to win that race. I’ve been seeing a lot. And thinking a lot. I want something better for my family than them working their asses off year after year for less and less. It’s worse now. Remember, back in the old days, when we were the only show in town? No more. Now Gargantua is in, and they’re trying to run us out of business. It’s working. They’re price-cutting for market share, sponsoring the Mammoth ski team and the Mammoth Cup next year. All so Gargantua Coffee can rake in the tourists and run us out of town.”

“Way of the white man.”

“No shit. But here’s the deal — if I can win the cup, then crank at the X Games, I’d have a shot to make the FIS World Cup circuit. And if I do well there, I just might make the Olympic team. And if I make the U.S. team and do well in Seoul? Well, then my family is set for life. That would be a dream come true. I’ve never actually had a specific, gonna-do-this kind of dream. Now I do. But dream sounds pompous and bourbony. I don’t know. I’m thinking out loud.”

Jesse nodded and stared down at the meat. “You a good-enough skier to do all that?”

“I don’t know. That’s a whole other question.”

“That you can’t answer until you try.”

Wylie threw back the bourbon, set the shot glass on the barbecue deck and took up his beer. “Expensive to compete up at that level. Not sure exactly how to finance all that. But I’ll tell you one thing, Jesse. I still love the speed. It’s still in me. I’m happy flying downhill like there’s a demon on my ass.”

“That’s what you looked like when you won the Mammoth Cup last time. I remember thinking, He’s not chasing something. Something’s chasing him.”

They ate with the girls in the small dining room, with the TV propped up on the kitchen counter and a football game on. Jolene and Tonya tried hard to be adults — having set a nice table with somewhat matching flatware, quality paper napkins, and glasses of water with lemon twists floating on the ice. Jolene glanced at Wylie often and stopped talking a good full second before Wylie began a sentence.

Wylie felt the alcohol swirling through him. It loosened his memories and helped give voice to a story of what had happened while he was staying at the Great St. Bernard Hospice in Switzerland. Wylie confirmed that, yes, this was the place known for breeding the hearty rescue dogs. He gave in to the excitement of telling it, gesturing and raising his voice, which he rarely did. Waving his arms and using a thick German accent, he impersonated the panicked hospitality director, then dramatized their mad, half-blitzed scramble to get on their boots and skis and jackets to go attempt a rescue. He dramatized the rather dicey flashlight-illuminated extraction of three Swedish cross-country skiers who had fallen into a crevasse not five hundred yards from the hospice brewery. They had been on an after-dinner jaunt. Wylie revealed that the big rescue dogs did not carry casks of brandy on their collars, and that they had romped through the snow, barking uselessly while the men and women pulled the skiers up using ropes and a lot of muscle. Wylie capped off his tale by quoting each Swede after being snatched away from certain death:

“‘Tack!’

“‘Tack!’

“‘Tack!’”

Much later, Wylie closed the door of the spare bedroom, stripped to his underwear, and climbed into the cold bed. Glancing through the parted curtain, he could see the western sky, black and dotted with stars that fell, then rose in unison, again and again, his vertical hold fully shot.

The door opened and Jolene, backlit by the hall light, stood in the doorway. She was motionless for a moment, then leaned against the door frame, pulled her blouse over her head, shook back her heavy black hair, and looked at Wylie. Her eyes were more stars, falling and rising. “You were showing off for me,” she said. “My turn now.”

Wylie saw the shiny plank of her hair and the curves and points of her breasts washed in the weak light from above. “You’re beautiful, but I can’t.”

“Can’t let me get in beside you on a winter night?”

“Can’t be responsible for you.”

“Then be irresponsible for me.”

“Twenty-five and sixteen don’t add up right.”

“Yeah, with all those blondes falling over you up on the mountain.”

“Nothing to do with blondes.”

“Or maybe you’d rather go up to Reno for the professionals. With Jesse.”

“You’re beautiful, Jo. It’s not that.”

“Can I sleep on the floor?”

“Jo.”

“I am not a child.”

Wylie saw pinpoints of light in her eyes. She tossed back her hair again and it settled forward. “I do admit I was showing off for you,” he said. “I wanted to feel like a big, important man. But I’d already made up my mind not to do this.”

“Why not?”

“Then I would have to deny and ignore you, Jolene. I don’t want to do that.”

“When would you deny and ignore me?”

“Sooner than later.”

“Why?”

“To keep us free. Which is how we belong.”

“You’re denying and ignoring me right now, Wylie.”

“Maybe you’ll thank me someday.”

“Big doubts on that one.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jolene stood still for a long beat, then waved her blouse at him. She yanked the door shut with a slam that shook the thin modular walls.

Just before dawn, Wylie stepped over her as she lay curled in a sleeping bag outside his door. She giggled. At the end of the hallway, he stopped and looked back at her.

“Have a good day, Wylie.”

“You, too, Jo.”

“Hi to Beatrice and Belle.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“You’ll get what you deserve, Wylie. Because you’re good. I heard you and Jesse out at the barbecue. You’ll win that race. And so far as the war goes, Jess told me what happened. I know it was his idea and he started it and lost his courage. So you finished it. For him. And it was a mess and it disgusted both of you. But I’d have done it, too, if the son of a bitch had killed one of my guys. I don’t think what you two did was too wrong. You just got carried away. It happens.”