Crazy Blood (28 page)

Suddenly, he felt his inner boxes shifting around and heard the thumping within them. Once they started sliding, he was never sure when one might topple over, hit the floor, and spill its contents. Some of them housed relatively minor things, such as the small square one that now crashed and spilled out the beating he'd given Sky Carson when they were eight. Wylie saw his little fists flailing away, landing often on Sky, who squirmed flat on his back on the playground grass, trying to cover up. What shamed Wylie now wasn't the beating, but the satisfaction he had taken in it, how good it had felt to silence a tormentor. He could have stopped sooner but didn't.

Down fell another, this one rectangular and long, as if for roses, rocking end to end before it settled. This contained Ellen Pelleri in their sophomore year at Mammoth High School, whom he had spurned bluntly, and who not long after had veered into an express lane of heavy recreational drugs and promiscuity. Two years later, she had committed suicide. He'd always known it was his fault, or at least partially his fault, so, what percentage exactly, and to whom did he owe restitution? No word on that from anyone. So there she was.

Before Wylie could get Ellen back where she belonged, Sergeant Madigan landed hard on April's hardwood floor, neck-shot and blood-drenched and knowing he was dying, and really, what more could Wylie have done? A team of surgeons couldn't have saved him. QuickClot and tourniquets versus a blown carotid, severed vertebrae, and a ruined spinal cord? Wylie was helpless. Then why was Sergeant Madigan still up here? War was war. How was Wylie supposed to make it up to him?

Next tumbled free the Taliban sniper who had shot Sergeant Madigan from a murder hole in a shot-to-shit abandoned hillside compound. Wylie's B squad had patrolled past that compound nearly a hundred days running, checking it coming and going every time. But suddenly it was not abandoned at all and the sergeant was down in a blast of blood. Then came a barrage of enemy mortar fire. Wylie had done his best for Sergeant Madigan as the rounds rained down upon them. Hopeless, and they both knew it. Jesse thought he hit the sniper with a very good shot through the sniper's own hole in the mud-brick wall. Later, Wylie and Jesse had clambered against the rocky hillside for cover, then worked their way up to the compound to see if Jesse had hit his target.

Now Wylie saw the dead fighter splayed out in his man dress on the dirt floor of the compound, Jesse kneeling over him with the big knife in one hand, working away at the top of his head. At first, Wylie thought Jesse was taking a lock of his hair. Then he heard the grind of the steel against skull, and the rasp of parting scalp. And saw the in-and-out motion of Jesse's elbow. Then, suddenly, Jesse went still. He looked down at his blood-sheathed hands. When he finally lifted his gaze to Wylie, it was in helplessness and wild shame. Wylie took the knife and pushed Jesse away and finished the awful act. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done. But the reason for it was good and true, was it not? To help his friend and take some of the shame and guilt for himself, to prove to Jesse that he was not alone, that they were in this together. Always faithful. Always. He would do it again.

Wylie sat in the brightly lit room for a long while, waited for another box to fall, but none did. His mind wandered now, fatigued.

“It's Bea and Belle,” he finally said.

“Can you tell me?”

“That could put you in a position. They may be in some genuine trouble. I might not be able to fix it.”

“Then I'll stay out of it, Wylie. My plate's plenty full, too.”

“With Helene?”

“Only by phone. But I spotted Logan today, cruising by here in one of my Escalades. Imagine a six-nine gargoyle in a beanie hunched over the steering wheel. I was standing out front and he looked straight ahead when he went by, like I wouldn't notice it was him.”

Wylie smiled at this.

“I got you to smile.”

“I know all this is hard. Helene. Everything.”

“It's been coming for years. Now, finally. There's no good time for it.”

“Is it as difficult as a triple cork?”

“Harder. But, I have an idea.” She offered him her hand, which was warm and strong. “Let's turn off all the lights and put on some music and dance to the last of the daylight.”

He rose and began turning off lights. He willed his spirit to rise, too, but it seemed to be trapped in a concrete room with no door or windows. He watched her plug in a speaker no larger than a tennis ball and hook her phone to it. A tearjerker came on. Wylie caught April in the near dark and put his arms around her and they moved to the music. He felt her heart tapping away against him.

“I feel good, Wylie. No matter all the stress. No matter what happens. I know we'll catch some hell for this. They'll try to give us hell. But I feel free and strong for this season. I like our chances for the Mammoth Cup.” She brought him closer. “However. What I don't like was the look on your face a minute ago.”

They danced and Wylie's nerves began to unjangle. Images of head-butting Jacobie into the Grand Canyon dissolved as the small of April's back moved warmly against his hand. “I want to be as good for you as you are for me,” she said.

“You're very good for me.”

“Four hugs a day good?”

“Or five, or six.”

“What else is eating you? Besides your sisters? You're almost strong enough to hide it.”

“Just the usual.”

“There's a hot tub in the bath,” she whispered. “And the master bed's a four-poster I just made up, and they have a fake bearskin rug by the fireplace. Fire's all lit.”

“Your choice.”

“Up to you.”

“Where we stand?”

“Oh my, yes. Good as middle podium, you beautiful, haunted man. Kiss me now.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sky guided his new love, Antoinette, into one of the wing chairs in his grandfather's great room, trailing a hand across her shoulder on his way to the other chair. Adam sat opposite them at one end of the old leather couch, the hefty burl coffee table between them. Snow-streaked Mammoth Mountain waited just outside the window glass, looking close enough to touch. Sky tried to focus on the steep boulder and snow carapace of that mountain, then on the chairlift towers staunch against the silver sky, but his eyes kept drifting back to Antoinette, and hers to him. She was petite and stylish, black-haired and brown-eyed.

Teresa came into the room from behind him, but Sky sensed her before he saw her, as he often did. She swept by and mussed his hair. “Such bright colors,” she said. He'd always liked Teresa, even as an infant, he'd been told. To Sky, it was nice that she was with Grandpa often now. They seemed comfortable and right together. Sometimes love was easy. And sometimes it was a high-adrenaline blur, like a ski-cross race. Which is how he felt around Antoinette. He stood and introduced the women, watched Antoinette rise and Teresa move forward for a brief handshake. Teresa then sat down at the opposite end of Adam's couch and crossed her legs.

Sky stood. “Grandfather, Teresa. The news I want to share with you is that Antoinette and I are engaged to be married.”

“I thought so from that rock on her finger,” said his grandfather. “Congratulations to both of you.”

“Yes,” said Teresa.

Antoinette held out her left hand, smiling and blushing. Then she briefly bowed her head, as if acknowledging great and underserved fortune. Sky watched the curtain of black hair fall, aglitter in the light from the deer-antler chandelier above.

“I have never in my life, sir and Teresa, felt this way about a woman,” said Sky. “I feel like I've awakened from a quarter century of sleep. You're looking at a new Sky—the Commitment Guy.”

Antoinette hooked a section of hair behind one ear and looked at Adam as if prepared for judgment, then to Teresa.

“How long have you known each other?” asked his grandfather.

“Twenty-two days,” said Sky.

“Twenty-three days,” said Antoinette, simultaneously. They smiled at each other, raised palms in a high five, though they were seated some eight feet apart. They had joked about this time discrepancy before, whether it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday that Sky and Antoinette had met at the Rock ‘N Bowl. He clearly remembered that it was the Wednesday two-for-one local brews beer night—two being his max while training for the cup—and Antoinette clearly remembered it being the Tuesday ten frames, ten bucks night, which, as a true bowling nut, brought her to the Rock ‘N Bowl every Tuesday.

“We've agreed to disagree,” Antoinette said pleasantly. She had a bell-clear voice and she articulated precisely, which Sky found refreshing after a lifetime listening to loose-jawed snow bunnies. He liked her sophistication, too: trim-cut clothes instead of baggy pocketed stuff, fashion boots instead of snow boots, dramatic full-length coats, not bulbous down-filled parkas. She was not afraid of a little makeup. And, God, those eyes.

“Antoinette grew up in New Jersey,” said Sky. “She snowboarded in the Poconos and Catskills when she was little and learned to ski here when she was fourteen. Guess who taught her here? Robert! Antoinette fell in love—with Mammoth, I mean. She moved here six weeks ago with her cosmetology degree in hand and a job waiting for her. She's got a chair at Hair It Is and she's a certified level-three color consultant for Redken. I've always liked hairstylists. They're curious, good conversationalists, and often pretty. I can't believe it took me six weeks to discover her.”

Sky's grandfather nodded. “And that's why your hair is now bright red on the left and bright white on the right?”

“Correct. It's just a marketing thing, G-pa. Mammoth speed demon goes patriotic.”

“Not to be an old man about this,” said Adam, “but don't you think an engagement is kind of soon, after only three weeks?”

“It certainly is,” said Antoinette.

“I agree,” said Sky.

“But the sheer wrongness of it,” she said, “is what convinces us it's right.”

“And the logic in that is where?” asked Adam.

Sky was ready for this. He scooted to the edge of his chair. “It's nowhere, Grandfather. We know that. That's why the wedding will be after the season. After I've won the Gargantua Mammoth Cup and the X Games in Aspen, there's going to be the long FIS World Cup circuit in Europe, then the U.S. Olympic team selections in spring. All of which you have generously offered to finance. So … we're thinking of a classic June wedding. By then, we'll have been together for almost eight months. And if we're not still together…”

“We're both trying to go in with our eyes open,” said Antoinette. “Although I will admit that I am completely, blindly in love with your grandson. And I feel that I always will be.”

Sky noted that both his grandfather and Teresa were sitting unusually still.

“Doubt us all you want,” said Sky. “But give us time. I ask you for that.”

“I will believe in you,” said Teresa.

“You make my heart glad,” said Sky.

Antoinette bowed her head again.

“Well,” said Adam. “You're twenty-six, Sky. I
want
to believe in you. I am ready to believe. I want you to find a good woman and settle down. But there is a much more urgent concern. Namely, the Mammoth Cup. I expect to see your good character and steady nerves in that race. I expect to see you on the podium.”

“I'll be there, sir.”

“And if you and Wylie run afoul of each other on the X Course that day, I expect sportsmanship out of you—in spite of your empty and theatrical threat.”

Sky absorbed this body blow with a nod, vowing to reverse its sharp thrust and, like a hapkido master, convert its power to his own. It was all in the plan. “No, sir. My threat is not empty.”

“Focus on the race,” said Adam.

“I have done that, G-pa. You'll see.”

But Sky knew that words would not satisfy his grandfather. Not after so many wasted ones. So many false starts, broken promises, bold declarations that amounted, in the end, to nothing. Which is why he was looking forward to G-pa's reaction when he won the cup. That victory would wipe the doubt from G-pa's face once and for all.
Wipe it right off, Sky. I never could
. With the Gargantua Cup victory, Sky would step forth into the world as a fully emerged man, a man respected, a man whose word was his bond. Sky breathed slowly and deeply, banishing all negativity, or most of it. He was surprised to hear the Black Not lurking so close by, so soon after their last episode.

“Sir, may I say something about Sky's alleged threat?” said Antoinette.

“Of course you may.”

Antoinette stood and clasped her dainty hands together in front of her, like a student preparing to give a speech. “Sky and I have had some long talks about Wylie Welborn, and the … promise that Sky made at Mountain High that night. Sky's public vow was to punish Wylie if he knocked Sky—or anyone else—off the X Course again. It was a promise to the mountain and to any person on it.” Sky watched Antoinette's hands release each other as she looked at Adam and Teresa in turn. “But—and this is what everyone seems to forget—in one wonderful, beautiful, gracious moment, Sky Carson followed up by saying he would withdraw his threat if Wylie would apologize for what he had done. Sky was willing to forgive Wylie, and he said so, publicly. It was the moral thing to do. But no apology came. Instead, Wylie sucker punched Sky in the restaurant for no reason, and they've not said a word since.”

Antoinette swung back her shiny black mane and cast a firm look at Adam. She had delivered comparable speeches to Sky, though on differing subjects. He loved them. They were always truthful and persuasive. And in that clear voice, they were tonally beautiful, too, like a Sierra creek or rain on a roof. Antoinette's speeches seemed to run on their own fuel. Now she walked around the wing chairs and the big couch, circling back to where she'd started.