The Painter: A Novel by Peter Heller Page B

Didn’t matter to where. Because she would swoop up under me and carry me down. With Irmina maybe once or twice like this. Maybe not. Because she was always trying somehow to heal me, to make me better. Not now. Sofia let me fall. Met and wrapped and covered me and we went down together and I cracked open, not like hitting the bottom but like a chrysalis maybe, shuddered open all light and weightless and winged, blown skyward, hearing her with me with me—a cry—whose? No names no words, lost and falling upwards with her in blinding light. Like that.

    When it was over she touched her nose to mine.
    “You didn’t kill him did you?”
    I didn’t move.
    “You got up to pee once. And to get the gear from the truck, out of the rain. To hang it up. I heard you say that.”
    I didn’t move.
    “You were here in my arms all night, weren’t you? I don’t remember much about it do I?
Do I
?”
    I shook my head. Barely.
    “Because we were sleeping.”
    “We were sleeping.”
II
    The search warrant was executed that afternoon. The bloody vest was enough for any judge and I knew it was coming. But I was careful not to touch it. Before they came I stood next to the hanging vest that smelled like fish and studied it from inches away, didn’t look like any pieces of brain. Like I said, I was pretty confident that the one blow hadn’t gone that far into the Simian’s brainpan. The blood? Where did all the blood come from? Must have hit and broke that vein that throbs on the temple.
    A squad car, a white van, and a plain white Crown Vic with Sport driving alone. Seemed like a lonely man, to me. Twice as smart probably as anybody in the sheriff’s office, twice as sensitive. Wanted to be an artist. Well.
    They didn’t take much. The vest, my rod, boots, waders. The light nylon sack with shoulder straps I sometimes use to carry lunch, a water bottle, extra pack of the cigars if I am going all day which Ihardly ever do. They took photographs of the two paintings, first separately then side by side which I thought was pretty sophisticated. Evidence of a sudden shift in state of mind would be my guess. Premeditation. Sport asked us politely to stand outside, formal now, friendly still but making no effort to hide that this was a contest, a match and we were on opposite sides and he, beg your pardon, had every intention of winning. Watched him direct the tech to sample the clay under the truck in the frame, take an imprint of the treads on the tires, all four.
    Took maybe twenty minutes, the whole thing. When it was done he walked up to us where we were standing in the shade of a young cottonwood on the west side of the house. Not wearing the green shell anymore, too hot, had on a short sleeved button shirt but not business, more like what a surfer or climber would wear at a barbecue, but tucked in, a wide checked pattern olive and soft yellow, and brown loafers, all very casual. He walked up, nodded to Sofia, to me, a frank not unfriendly look as if we had been friends for a long time and didn’t have to pretend anything, said,
    “All done. They were very careful. Didn’t toss the place.”
    I said, “Am I under arrest?”
    “No.”
    “Can I go fishing then? Up where I fought with Dell?”
    “Sure. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Five of the hunters stayed on. Said they’d paid for nine days of hunting, they were going to hunt nine days. Dell’s brother is flying in from Tucson this afternoon. Grew up here too, knows the country better than his brother. I’d rather not have any more fights.”
    I took the mostly unsmoked cheroot I’d just had time to light when they showed up, took it from behind my ear, lit it, inhaled. For a second the three of us stood in the shade and looked at the mountain, the sage hills beneath it flushing pale green with last night’s downpour.
    “How about New Mexico?” I said.
    His head came up sharply.
    “You planning on going there?”
    “I have a commission in Santa Fe. A