long winter nights of high plains America, wanting true friends, wanting the hands of a man upon her, hands moving across her breasts and along her legs, words in her ear, the paradoxical, two-edged feel of complaisance and power that a certain kind of man can stir in a woman.
The Indian was a separate case. Neither man nor boy, but something else. A bird perhaps, maybe a hawk, a shadow figure with whom she could quiet herself temporarily and practice her mystical ways without restraint. Like the others she had truly cared for, he had a sense of impermanence about him, as if he were always looking out beyond wherever he currently stood.
She was thinking of the Seattle jazz musician as she walked along the main street of Salamander on an August night. Heading south toward her house, she prepared to cross the street and waited for a pickup truck with California license plates to pass, the same one that had been parked in front of Leroy’s and had startled her when its engine turned over. The window on the driver’s side was open, and the driver looked at her when he went by only a few feet away. His face was partially shadowed from the streetlamps, but she could see the fall of long hair tied back with a yellow bandanna. The music from his radio faded as he rolled down the street.
Chapter Six
C ARLISLE MCMILLAN JERKED TO HAZY WAKEFULNESS AT four a.m. when a truck backfired on Route 91. He was cold and scratchy and stumbled from the chair in which he’d been sleeping onto the nearest of the twin motel beds, still dressed. After wrapping himself in the spread, he slept again, dreaming restlessly about a rider on an old motorcycle. In the dream, a woman with a yellow feather in her hair reached out for the rider through the wake of his passing.
Three hours later, showered and drinking instant coffee heated by the small electrical coil he carried with him, Carlisle sat at a desk marred by deep cigarette burns along its edges. He wrote to his mother in Mendocino.
Dear Wynn,
I’m still drifting around in a place called America, looking things over. You can reach me, at least for a few weeks, at general delivery, Salamander, South Dakota. I just got in here last night, but this area looks pretty good to me. If things work out, I might be settling down here for a while, get some space between me and the craziness out on the coasts.
Love,
Carlisle
Carlisle pulled back the curtains to check the weather. First light was indecisive, ragged stripes of reds and grays. But sunlight finally powered its way forward, and the sky was clear when he drove away from the motel. Coffee cup squinched between his legs, napkin map beside him on the seat, he headed north along 91 past an old dance pavilion set back from the road and on the edge of a small lake, turned west on 42, and ten minutes later stopped in front of the Salamander Post Office.
He bought stamps, mailed the letter to his mother, and reached for the door. It opened, and the face in front of him was the same face as the night before in his headlights. Her auburn hair was fashioned into a long braid winding around her neck and coming to lie softly on her right breast. Green eyes pointed at him, straight and even.
She said, “Excuse me,” smiled pleasantly, and moved by.
Carlisle sat in the truck, waiting for the woman to leave the post office. He wanted to see her again, to look at her in the way one returns to stare at a Matisse print or the way one puts on the Brandenburgs even after a hundred listenings.
Sitting there like a stone. Too obvious, yet not forward enough. Introduce yourself, tell her she is the most incredible woman you have ever seen, ask who she is and where she’s going. Hell, say you want her right now, in the truck, in the post office, on the pavement outside, middle of the street. Hard to do, not good at that direct approach. Feeling clumsy and immature around that level of beauty and the sense of a controlled burn seeming to
The Indian was a separate case. Neither man nor boy, but something else. A bird perhaps, maybe a hawk, a shadow figure with whom she could quiet herself temporarily and practice her mystical ways without restraint. Like the others she had truly cared for, he had a sense of impermanence about him, as if he were always looking out beyond wherever he currently stood.
She was thinking of the Seattle jazz musician as she walked along the main street of Salamander on an August night. Heading south toward her house, she prepared to cross the street and waited for a pickup truck with California license plates to pass, the same one that had been parked in front of Leroy’s and had startled her when its engine turned over. The window on the driver’s side was open, and the driver looked at her when he went by only a few feet away. His face was partially shadowed from the streetlamps, but she could see the fall of long hair tied back with a yellow bandanna. The music from his radio faded as he rolled down the street.
Chapter Six
C ARLISLE MCMILLAN JERKED TO HAZY WAKEFULNESS AT four a.m. when a truck backfired on Route 91. He was cold and scratchy and stumbled from the chair in which he’d been sleeping onto the nearest of the twin motel beds, still dressed. After wrapping himself in the spread, he slept again, dreaming restlessly about a rider on an old motorcycle. In the dream, a woman with a yellow feather in her hair reached out for the rider through the wake of his passing.
Three hours later, showered and drinking instant coffee heated by the small electrical coil he carried with him, Carlisle sat at a desk marred by deep cigarette burns along its edges. He wrote to his mother in Mendocino.
Dear Wynn,
I’m still drifting around in a place called America, looking things over. You can reach me, at least for a few weeks, at general delivery, Salamander, South Dakota. I just got in here last night, but this area looks pretty good to me. If things work out, I might be settling down here for a while, get some space between me and the craziness out on the coasts.
Love,
Carlisle
Carlisle pulled back the curtains to check the weather. First light was indecisive, ragged stripes of reds and grays. But sunlight finally powered its way forward, and the sky was clear when he drove away from the motel. Coffee cup squinched between his legs, napkin map beside him on the seat, he headed north along 91 past an old dance pavilion set back from the road and on the edge of a small lake, turned west on 42, and ten minutes later stopped in front of the Salamander Post Office.
He bought stamps, mailed the letter to his mother, and reached for the door. It opened, and the face in front of him was the same face as the night before in his headlights. Her auburn hair was fashioned into a long braid winding around her neck and coming to lie softly on her right breast. Green eyes pointed at him, straight and even.
She said, “Excuse me,” smiled pleasantly, and moved by.
Carlisle sat in the truck, waiting for the woman to leave the post office. He wanted to see her again, to look at her in the way one returns to stare at a Matisse print or the way one puts on the Brandenburgs even after a hundred listenings.
Sitting there like a stone. Too obvious, yet not forward enough. Introduce yourself, tell her she is the most incredible woman you have ever seen, ask who she is and where she’s going. Hell, say you want her right now, in the truck, in the post office, on the pavement outside, middle of the street. Hard to do, not good at that direct approach. Feeling clumsy and immature around that level of beauty and the sense of a controlled burn seeming to
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