The Animals: A Novel (28 page)

Good. I’ll pick you up.

Really?

Yeah. Is that a problem?

Not at all. Are you going to pay for it too?

I draw the line there.

Sounds good, he said.

They had both been smiling, standing not far from where he now sat next to Majer. Do you remember that? he asked the bear. Right about where that jack pine’s coming up through the snow.

She had come out to replace the previous mobile veterinarian, a dour old man Bill had little relationship with outside of the animals, had visited the facility four or five times in that first month. After the first visit Bill found himself already looking forward to her return.

Within a few months they were dating regularly and she introduced him to Jude, four years old at the time. Grace told Bill that the boy’s father was essentially gone from their lives, living in Spokane, a man who had had repeated affairs and essentially abandoned all interest in Jude once she divorced him and moved to Idaho.

I don’t know what to say about that, Bill told her.

Just don’t ever cheat on me and we’ll be fine.

Deal, he said.

He had felt lucky. That was the word for it. As if something had changed for him, and indeed something had. He had awakened one day into the life he was supposed to lead all along, a life to which every bad decision he ever made had led him without his realizing it, an idea that he did not even believe in, that he would have thought ludicrous had it been spoken by someone else. And then Rick had returned and with it everything had scattered into unknowable and unanswerable questions. He did not even know if Grace would want to see him again. Maybe she would call later to tell him that it was over. Maybe that was how it would end.

Seems like I just figured out what I was supposed to do. You know? And here I am. The bear looked at him with longing. He slid another marshmallow through the gate and the bear took it with gentle distended lips. Well, buddy, Bill said, I don’t know what’s gonna happen now but I gotta tell you, you’ve been a good friend all these years.

The bear looked at him and to Bill’s surprise a wave of sadness and concern seemed to pass over the animal’s face.

Oh don’t give me that look. You’ve gotten all the marshmallows I’m gonna give you today, he said. The bear put his ear up to the window and Bill scratched it through the gap in the bars. Good bear, he said. Good good bear.

When the muffled sound of the phone came, he leaped off the stump and went careening through the snow and into the dark office, crashing into the desk and lifting the receiver. Hello? Hello? he said.

Well, it’s done, Grace said.

What’s done?

Let’s just say it’s good to be friends with the sheriff.

Jesus, Grace, tell me.

Earl ran him out of the county.

What?

I called him and told him he was hassling Jude and he ran him out of the county. Simple as that.

Holy shit, he said. What did he say?

He had his guys check a few hotels and found him here in Bonners right away. So they told him to get out of Boundary County.

And Rick went?

Yeah, he went. Earl waited for him to check out of the hotel and then followed him out to the county line.

And Rick didn’t say anything? About what we talked about?

Earl didn’t mention anything else. Said to call him if he shows up again. I’m probably gonna have to do free work on the sheriff’s horse for the rest of my life now.

Bill laughed with relief and breathed out into the cool air of the room. Ah man, he said. That’s good news. That’s really good news.

I guess he’s maybe done with this and headed back to Nevada.

I hope so.

So that’s it, right? she said. That’s the whole thing? No more surprises?

No more surprises. That’s all of it.

I’ll make you a deal, she said. Don’t lie to me again. I mean ever.

Oh I won’t, he said. I never meant to.

I don’t care what you meant to do. I really don’t. I only care about what you actually do. That’s important. The rest of it is just a bunch of bullshit.

You’re right, he said.

Can you come over tonight?

God I want to, he said. But it’s supposed to snow for the whole week and I gotta get the enclosures ready for it.

I got the snow tires on. Maybe I can come up.

Maybe in the daytime tomorrow. Not at night. That would just scare the crap out of me, thinking of you and Jude on the road.

I want to see you.

You do?

Of course I do.

I wasn’t sure you did, he said.

You freaked me out but I love you, Bill Reed.

I love you too, he said, relief pouring through him like an avalanche.

They talked for a few more minutes about the days to come. There was the Fish and Game paperwork to complete. Grace would call Zoo Boise in hopes they might offer some advice. And Bill told her he would try to get out to Bonners the following day to pick up the expired meat and if so he would stop by the house to see her and Jude, saving them the trouble of coming out to the rescue in the storm.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room now. In the dim light bleeding through the curtained windows he could see the desk, the cold silent heater, his breath in a cloud. I better go switch out my tires before I’m out of daylight, he said.

OK, she said. Be careful out there.

Always am.

They said their good-byes and he hung up the phone, smiling.

The light outside was pale blue as if the sky was frozen into a single enormous plane. The snow had fallen unabated and his booted feet sank until they were buried. He would need to clear the paths out first or he would be struggling all day to get to and from the equipment shed. And he would need to fire the generator to get the heaters functioning. But first he would change out the tires on the truck. After that he would attend to the rest of the list. He would have tomorrow too, and the next day, and the next. If Fish and Game wanted to close down the rescue, they would need to come up here and do it, and with the snow dumping down the way it was, he did not think they would do any such thing. At least not this week.

12

IT’S FIVE HUNDRED CASH BACK, RICK SAID. THAT’S WHAT HE
keeps saying on the commercials.

So what?

So that’s a lot of cash to have around. He was sighting down the length of the 99, sighting and then dropping the barrel to look at the cans and the water jug and then raising the rifle and sighting down its length once more.

You gonna shoot at some point? Nat said.

OK, OK, Rick said. He steadied the rifle again and squinted and at last squeezed off a round. A can jumped and rattled away off the rocks.

There it is, Rick said. I was starting to think the damn thing wasn’t shooting right.

I think we’re not shooting right, Nat said.

Too drunk.

Too retarded, Nat said.

Water jug, Rick said.

We’ll see about that.

Rick ejected the spent shell and then stood and aimed and repositioned and aimed and repositioned and finally pulled the trigger. The weapon’s report made Nat wince each time and with it the thin muscles in his forearms jumped as if from a short, faint electric shock. The shot did not hit anything this time and so the water jug remained where they had set it upon a smooth yellow boulder a few dozen yards away, flanked by a series of rusted cans already filled with bullet holes from previous shooters, men and perhaps women with better aim than they. Shit, Rick said. I don’t get it. The fucking jug is the biggest thing down there. I’ve been popping cans for an hour.

They changed positions, Nat with the rifle and Rick sliding to a seat on a stone beside a scraggly and ill-defined bush bristling with spikes and tiny gray-green leaves. The field guide lay next to him on the rock where Nat had left it and now Rick lifted the slim book and paged through it. What’s this thing called?

Saltbush.

Saltbush, Rick said. Christ, how do you find anything in here? Everything looks the same.

It’s just like reading a map, he said.

A map to where?

To here.

It was almost Thanksgiving and the cold of winter had already descended from the mountains, their breath outspiraling under a sky so pale it was very nearly white. The shallow draw they occupied was sunken between two low hills into which the sun shone lengthwise so that the whole of its short span was aglow.

Rick laid the book beside him on the rock and lifted the bottle at his feet. You said he had a safe in his office, right?

Yeah, so what?

So if Milt is giving people five hundred dollars cash back on every car sold, how much does he have on hand?

Nat stared down at the cans and the water jug. His broken index finger pointed down the length of the barrel. Depends on how many cars he sells in a day, he said.

Yeah, so let’s say it’s only like three or five cars. Something like that.

What’s your point, Rick?

My point is it’s open seven days a week so that would be … what … six days would be forty-five hundred and another fifteen so that’s six grand. Probably all in that safe in his office. And that doesn’t even include cash down payments and stuff like that.

Nat turned and looked at him now but Rick only lifted the bottle of Mad Dog from the dirt and took a long drink. You gonna shoot? he said.

Nat returned to the cans and took aim and fired, pulling the trigger with his middle finger. This time the bark of the weapon made his index finger jolt with pain. Nothing moved. Not even a puff of dust.

How big is that safe you saw?

I don’t know.

Small enough to carry?

I don’t know, Rick. Maybe. Probably … This is crazy talk. That’s what this is. Where’s all this coming from?

Just talkin’, Rick said.

No you’re not, Nat said. He had turned toward Rick but now he faced the targets again. This is a bad stupid idea. Seriously. A bad bad idea.

Jesus, I’m just talking, Rick said. Don’t get excited.

Can we just shoot? You’re freaking me out.

It was Saturday. All week he had lain in the apartment, shaking with fever. The clinic had reset his broken finger with an aluminum splint lined with bright blue foam and had given him a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics, neither of which he could afford to fill, and so he had ridden out the subsequent four days in a fever dream awash with throbbing agony, his body temperature seeming to burst into heat and then drop into a freezing chill like an ever rising and falling wave.

With each missed day of work his paycheck dwindled. After taxes his full-time every-two-weeks pay hovered around two hundred and twenty dollars, but he had taken the advance and now had missed four days and what remained for him to pick up at the office would be closer to eighty. Rent was due on Monday. That would be two hundred. And of course he feared the inevitable knock on the door that would be Mike coming to collect for his debt to Johnny Aguirre. He listened for that sound all day long and well into the night.

On Friday afternoon the fever broke and for the first time since the night in the casino parking lot he felt like he might survive whatever illness had descended upon him. Rick and Susan arrived after their shifts—Rick’s at the Peppermill coffee shop washing dishes and Susan at a video rental store across town—and that night they remained in the apartment with him, watching Rick Hunter and Dee Dee McCall track down bad guys in Los Angeles at nine and then watching Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs track down bad guys in Miami at ten. He tried not to look at her and he mostly succeeded. When she left just after midnight she embraced him gently, leaning down to where he lay prostrate on the sofa. I’m glad you’re feeling better, she said.

Thanks for taking care of me.

She glanced over at Rick briefly, giving him a look that might have held some meaning he could not trace, and then she was gone.

In the morning he came out of the bedroom to find Rick seated at the little kitchen table with the guns spread out on a ratty dish towel: the Savage 99 he had inherited from his dead brother and the .38 Special Rick had inherited from his absent father.

You’re not going on a killing spree now, are you? Nat said.

Feeling better?

Finally.

Just thought we might get outside and do some shooting.

Really? he said. It’s been a while.

No shit, Rick said. Might make you feel better to get outside. We can go out toward Pyramid Lake. Pick up a bottle of Mad Dog. It’ll be like old times.

What about your parole?

What about it?

Isn’t it against your parole to have guns around?

Only if they find out, Rick said.

And so a few hours later they stepped out onto the pale burned earth of the desert with the rifle and the pistol, a six-pack of beer, a bottle of Banana Red MD 20/20, and a couple of sandwiches they’d picked up from a deli on the way. Rick had received his first paycheck from the café the day before and so he paid for all of it and the ammunition as well.

Nat had hoped he would feel better out in the desert but he could not stop thinking about what would happen when Mike returned to find his pockets empty once again. As he aimed, he imagined Mike as a tin can down there, the sights swinging around that silver shape, but each time he pulled the trigger the can remained and he was left with a sharp arc of pain shooting across the broken finger bone.

So I went over to Bishop’s this week, Rick said from the boulder behind him.

Yeah? He aimed but did not fire this time. His whole hand had begun to throb.

That guy with the weird shirts was there. You know that guy?

Not from that.

He’s got that mustache that curls up. You know. The guy who looks like the guy on the Monopoly box.

Oh yeah. That guy.

Yeah, so I’m just sitting at the bar and out of the blue he said to me, “So you’re with Susan now?” and I was like, “What do you mean
now
?” and he just sort of laughed like it was a joke.

Yeah?

Yeah so … Rick’s voice trailed off. Then he added, Just seemed like a weird thing to say.