Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [102]
Bonnie was left speechless. Meeting silence with silence, her brother lowered the receiver onto the cradle. To knock one’s head repeatedly against a wall was a sure symptom of chronic stress. Brice remembered this factual detail from a civil lawsuit as he leaned against the prewar plaster and brought his head to its cool surface, withdrew it, struck himself again, pulled back, struck once more.
Kip’s head, too, was aching. He ranged unsteadily out into Delfino’s yard in the early darkness of the Tularosa basin while his host prepared a cupboard feast of canned lima beans and corn potpourri, tortillas furnished with sardines and mustard. At the western edge of the yard loomed a grand cottonwood, fluted like a misplaced Doric column attired in shaggy bark, overhanging the mother ditch—the main artery—of this community. A trickle of muddy water scudded down the acequia. Kip could hear but not see the little flow.
He sat himself down, thinking, What brand of crazy bastard are you? Thinking this because he’d had a new idea. Bark clawed through his damp shirt. His feet were a long way from his head. The darkness curled. His stomach churned as in years past, gurgled like some small choking creature stuck inside him. He massaged the trapped beast with frightened probing fingers. It was as if he could feel the resurgent cancer, a meaty sponge or coral reef of flesh in his gut, wet yet firm, pliable, as he imagined, and he knew this was it. He knew his having hidden from Sarah the new acidic ache in his belly probably amounted to a prideful death sentence. She’d have helped him, might even have been able to save him one more time, but Kip didn’t want to return to the Hill. Souring body and undimmed pride made for the worst combination, he thought, while quietly vomiting under Delfino’s tree. Oh well, yes, he’d been through this onerous drill a few times down at Pajarito recently, mornings and evenings behind the fieldhouse, and saw that the urp was bloodied. What’re you gonna do, sue God? Stand down, Captain. God and all his blessed saints never got along with Satan and all his devils, but they concurred on one absolute verity—at the end of the day, every man and woman and child was articled to wind up like this, first on the ground, then under it. At least he’d managed to conceal his resurrected affliction from those who loved him healthy.
Delfino called him in for supper and Kip gathered himself at the bole of the tree, climbed to his feet, mussed the trivial liquid into the earth, wiped his lips with the sleeve of his work shirt, and joined his host in the bungalow. Had Delfino looked over at the face of his companion and confidant, he might have fainted dead away himself at the sight of the apparition with whom he dined. But he didn’t. They ate, the percussive measure of forks and knives on enameled tin plates telling less about hunger than their abstracted reserve. Kip broke the spell, such as it was, with a question about whether they were going in tomorrow or the day after?
“Tomorrow we get the horses, the perishables, check out all the gear in the garage. We rest a little, then leave at sundown. Best do the trip in the dark.”
“How long does it take to get there?”
“Overnight should do it. Pull in Sunday morning when they’re most likely least staffed. That’s my best guess, anyhow.”
“What about on foot?”
“Why you ask?”
“In case there’s any problem with the horses.”
“Well, we could get in by foot from the road that runs east to west up along the north end of the basin. But we might get caught. Lot of towers over that way. Pretty secured, I think. But if we come in along the edge of the lava flow, nobody’ll be watching because nobody’d bother to try penetrating through there.