Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [160]
Just because Marcos is the way he is doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take your own leap of faith in yourself.”
Sarah left the room to give Mary privacy as she placed her call to Los Alamos. Afterward, looking for her, Mary instead found Jessica out in the yard sitting beside a ruined fountain, a marble artifact of Spanish design that must have looked magnificent as an architectural centerpiece at the turn of the century, but now was something of a nostalgic eyesore. A salamander was gyrating along through its murk of standing water and brown leaves.
“Hello,” she said.
Jessica started.
“Didn’t mean to bother you, but have you seen Sarah?”
“No, Mary.”
“Would you mind telling her I’ve gone to meet my mother and brother, and that I said to thank her for everything?”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Good, then. It was nice to meet you.”
“Sounds like you’re not coming back.”
The salamander, a tiger common to the valley, reefed itself on a sandwich of floating leaves. A dragonfly settled on a nearby raft of Russian olive twigs.
“I don’t know if I am or not.”
“Mary, we’ve never spent a moment alone together and we don’t know each other, but I gather that you and Kip are pretty close. What’s he like?”
“Kip,” she said, watching the salamander briefly sun itself. “I can tell you he’s a gentleman and a good soul, because he is. And that he was always trying to steer me in right directions. But I don’t think anybody could sum him up. Another turn of the screw and he could have been a saint or maniac, there’s that kind of edge. I don’t know. I think he figured me out more than I ever did him.”
“I know the feeling.”
“He’s okay, right? They found him.”
“He’s going to be all right, apparently.”
“And Marcos and the others?”
“Still out there.”
Mary sighed. Like Bonnie’s lizard, their salamander vanished without leaving any evidence it had ever been nearby.
“Everything’s going to work out,” Jessica tried.
“I’m sure,” said Mary, turning to go. “You’ll tell Sarah.”
“Tell her what?”
“That I’ll be in touch,” and she left. Marcos’s mother watched her walk to her car, looking through the window in the greatroom, where the phone rang and, without preamble, Carl told her they were about to get to see Kip in the base hospital at Alamogordo. Reportedly he was dehydrated and burned worse than a bug under a magnifying glass and his feet were all fucked up, but otherwise he was good as gold.
“Why don’t they just go in and bring the other three out?”
“Seems Delfino’s armed. I’ll get back to you.”
Sarah joined Jessica by the fountain. “Keep meaning to clean this out, make it presentable, but it seems I never get the time.”
“I like it the way it is.”
“Just a tar pit. Probably find dinosaur bones in there if you looked hard enough.”
Jessica said, “Nothing’s resolved, then?”
The other woman shook her head, noticing that the cottonwood trees were reflected on the dark face of the stagnant fountain water.
“I feel awful for Brice, losing his mother and now this, but with Ariel out there in the middle of nowhere—I don’t know. I’ve never felt so helpless.”
Sarah rested her hand on Jessica’s forearm.
After talking with Carl, Delfino gave Jim back his field phone and, in dreamlike suspension, retrieved his shotgun from where it rested against the stone wall. He held it not in a threatening attitude but like some third arm, off to the side, oddly casual, numb to any possible consequences.
“I thought we had a gentlemen’s agreement about the weapons, Mr. Montoya,” said Jim.
Carl had read him the riot act, and though Delfino found it hard to disagree with anything that was said, he felt caught between the need to see this through and the urge to chuck it all in. As his brother had pointed out, he’d gotten everyone’s attention. More than he’d managed to do ever before. What now? He needed to think. Hard with all these people staring at him.
“Delfino,” said Marcos. “Let’s put down the gun. He’s talking with you, with all of us.”
“You really have my father?” Ariel asked.
“He’s doing fine,” said Jim, ignoring