Wild Penance

16

“Mind if we stop by my place real quick-just so I can pick up something?” Kerry asked. “It’s right up ahead, won’t take us out of our way.” We had taken his truck when we left the BLM to pay our little social call at the Suazo residence.

“Sure, I guess.”

“Thanks. I’m going into Santa Fe this afternoon, and there’s something I need to get first. I’ll make it fast.”

“When do you sleep anyway?” I asked, feeling tired.

“Working nights like this? Usually right after a shift. But I have an errand to run. I’ll grab some shut-eye when I get back. I’m off all weekend. I can make it up by sleeping late tomorrow morning.”

“I’m off this weekend, too.” I yawned. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” He looked across the cab at me.

I blushed. “I have stuff I have to do. I won’t get much chance to rest up.”

“Well, that’s too bad. I was going to say-when you said you were off, too-maybe we could go to a movie or something.” He focused on the road now.

“I’d like that. Can I have a rain check?”

He glanced at me and smiled. “You bet. Just say when.”

We rode in silence for a few minutes. I was thinking about poor Mrs. Suazo and how hopeless she had seemed.

“You’re upset about Mrs. Suazo, aren’t you?” Kerry kept his eyes on the road ahead.

“Yeah. She seemed pretty beat down.”

“Seeing her like that makes me wish I could run into Santiago Suazo on my time off,” he said. “I’d like to show him what it feels like to have somebody pound on your face. Not that it would really solve anything.”

“I know. You’re probably right. But it feels kind of good just to think about doing it, huh?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. Then he nudged me on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “You know, you have a little ornery streak in you, don’t you?” He was giving me that devilish grin again, and I had no tools to resist it. My boundaries seemed to malfunction with this guy. All my fences turned to open gates, my battlements became highly decorative entry ramps, my moats became swimming pools with neon signs hanging above them reading: Come on in, the water’s fine!

When we pulled in front of a row of apartments near the Forest Service office, Kerry offered, “Want to come in? I’ll just be a minute.”

“Well, I…”

“Come on. I promise I won’t try to get you to cha-cha.”

I don’t know whether or not I felt relieved about that.

When he opened the door, I smelled incense or copal. In contrast to the bright midday sun outdoors, the efficiency apartment contained a soft shadow-gray-green, hushed, halcyon. I paused on the threshold. Kerry urged me in. It was clean, spare, everything carefully considered, everything in harmony. The pine bed was made up with plain white sheets and a Hudson Bay trade blanket. A gun cabinet housed four polished rifles, their stocks gleaming, the barrels burnished black. A well-used blue enamel camp-style coffeepot waited on the stove like an old friend, but the counter and table were clean and uncluttered. Along one wall, books lined a built-in shelf. Wild treasures-stones, feathers, small animal skulls like perfect white sculptures-were the only decorative accents. Except for the pictures.

Arrestingly beautiful, large, framed photographs hung like windows looking out into beautiful landscapes. There were shots of desert canyons, their rock strata a lasagna of mauves and umbers-statuesque pink and gray demoiselles erupting from them like exotic mushrooms. A view of a thin white toenail moon in an otherwise azure sky, with the Rio Grande Gorge moving like a highway from the bottom of the photo to the blue and pink mountains in the distance. Anasazi ruins in the side of a cliff. A long view featuring the red dirt of the Carson road, with green scrub growing up the center line and rising in clumps on either side, the track wide at the bottom of the frame, but dramatically narrowing to a point in the distance beneath an indigo sky full of white clouds. And there was one of a local mountain range, Tres Orejas-Spanish for “three ears.” The trio of rounded peaks stood in perfect black silhouette against a red-orange sunset, the valley floor in dusky darkness.

“These are incredible! Who did these? Eliot Porter?”

“No. Guess again.”

“David Muench?”

“Nope.”

I turned to look at him. He was smiling at me, his face full of amusement. “You took these?”

“Guilty as charged.” He was beaming.

“Oh, Kerry! They’re so… I don’t have a word!”

“You like them?”

“No, no, no. If I said I liked them, that would be a lie. No, I love these. They make me feel almost exactly like I do when… when I see these places.”

“And how is that?”

I put one hand on my abdomen. “I don’t know if you will understand this,” I said, “but they are so beautiful, they grab me here.” I patted my tummy. “They almost make my stomach hurt.”

He laughed. “You and your stomach!” Then he reached out an arm and gave me a squeeze, just for a moment. His arm dropped to his side. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

“Not yet.”

“Come on,” he said, knocking my hat askew with the palm of his hand. “I’ve got some things in the fridge. Why don’t we make that stomach of yours some lunch?”

We boiled eggs to make egg salad sandwiches. I diced dill pickles while Kerry washed lettuce and toasted whole-grain bread. As we were peeling the cooked eggs, a bit of shell flicked from my fingers and landed on Kerry’s cheek. “Hey!” He laughed. “So, that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” He used his thumb and index finger to flip a piece of shell at me, but I dodged, and it missed.

I picked up a small square of diced pickle. “You’re not very good at this, are you?” I lobbed it at him. It struck his upper arm and stuck on his shirt.

We both laughed. “Oh, so you don’t think I can hit a target?” Kerry threw a leaf of lettuce, striking me in the neck.

I looked around for something new to toss and spied the small rubber spatula waiting beside the mayonnaise jar and the bowl of already peeled eggs. No, I thought to myself. That would be bad. Then I grabbed the spreader, scooped up a gob of the white stuff, and catapulted it. It made a splat sound as it struck Kerry’s forehead. I shrieked with laughter, pointing my finger at his newly decorated face.

Kerry’s hand flew out fast and grabbed me by one wrist. With his other hand, he reached into the jar and scooped up two fingers full of mayonnaise. Even though I wriggled to get free, his grip was firm around my forearm and I couldn’t get away. Despite my dodging and ducking, he succeeded in cornering me against the cabinet, his body pressing against mine and bending me backward over the sink, both of us laughing so hard we were gasping for air, and me shouting “No!” between peals of laughter. As his loaded fingers moved in on my face, I shook my head back and forth, but he still managed to paint my nose and right cheek with the cold goop and get a lot of it in my hair. I squirmed out of his grip, grabbed a paper towel, and made for the bathroom to clean off my face, still laughing out loud.

“Jamaica, you’re a dangerous woman in the kitchen,” he called after me.

“That’s not the only place I’m dangerous,” I said.