Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [74]
Next day, Marcos helped Kip carry these new furnishings down through the lower pasture. Moving out of the main house, the man found himself in a bittersweet mood. These had been some of the best months of his life, his mind never so unclouded. Superstitious in his way, Kip worried that now that he had nearly completed the task he’d set himself, his usefulness here was concluded and the old demons that had been kept in abeyance might move into the field-house with him. Too, he wondered what living apart from the Montoyas would be like. Of course, he’d still take his meals with them and continue working for Carl. But this sworn outsider had grown used to being near the others. His natural will to run away from everyone and everything had unusually slackened as he’d matured, like some grafted limb, into the Montoya family tree. Damn strange sensation.
The camaraderie of working with the others would be lost as well. Through spring and into August, everyone at Pajarito had managed to help. What Kip didn’t know how to do, Carl did; what Carl didn’t know, Marcos did; what Marcos didn’t, Sarah or Franny did. Even the structure itself, after a fashion, informed its restorers how to renew it. Sun-dried bricks of strawstrewn mud had been replaced here and there, covered with adobe and lime set coats. Window openings had been fitted with fresh glass, their facings and lintels painted tomato red because that was the paint color Carl happened to have in a can left over from another project. There were some touches still to add, but the project was winding down. Marcos had found shutters in a storage room and, after stowing the new furniture and other gear, he and Kip sat down to scrape off the old blue paint together in cottonwood shade, alone for the first time since Franny had moved in.
“So when are you two getting married?” Kip asked with a sly grin.
That was unexpected, but Marcos, being a horseman, knew how to respond to unexpected moves. “Franny’s keeping her apartment for a while, you know.”
“Is that a good thing or bad?”
“Tell me, Kip. Have you ever been married?”
“I suppose you could say I have.”
“How can you suppose you’ve been married? It’s like being alive or dead. You’re either married or not.”
“You’re forgetting about comas and trial separations.”
Smart-aleck duffer. Marcos waited for more.
“I’m married to someone I’ll never see again. That’s all.”
“Because you don’t want to or because she doesn’t?”
“Because because.”
“You must have had a bad falling-out.”
“No, just two people worlds apart not meant to be together. I don’t know if she’d even recognize me. We didn’t get married for love, anyway. It had to do with American citizenship for her children.”
Letting that one go, Marcos asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
“I had my chance once, when I was about your age.”
“And?”
“And I missed it.”
Marcos wanted to ask but sensed from Kip’s voice, its hushed depth, that this was another subject best left alone. “Sorry things didn’t work out for you.”
“Things worked out like they were supposed to. They always do.”
“Always?”
“Always. It’s inevitable.”
Time passed as the dirt beneath their bench became slowly cluttered with blue chips of old paint, which now looked for all the world like a pile of dusty once-iridescent butterflies. Kip tucked a fresh piece of sandpaper into the block, tightened the wing nuts, and began stroking the scraped wood.
“You and Franny seem perfect for each other.”
“You think?”
Kip hummed, his mind moving away from the subject he’d come close to broaching. He wished to keep his promise to Mary but hoped somehow to inspire Marcos in the direction of discovering a path into her truer life. Franny hadn’t been fabricated for no good reason, nor was Mary’s apparent love for Marcos without foundation. Any former professional spook would know that secrets were sometimes founded on principle. But still, he wondered how much longer Mary was going to hold out. A prop plane passed overhead and Kip glanced up to watch it surrey across the sky. Cessna. He