The Captive (18 page)

"Sure." She could wrap him around her finger, he thought.

"And a glass of water, and a piece of bread with the crust cut off."

Half an hour later, he and Renee sat over a last cup of coffee at the counter in the half dark kitchen. Through the open-work patio doors the cacophony of frogs along the ditch made the darkness audible and a cooling night breeze flowed along the skin like the lightest touch of a floating veil. Barry was lost for a moment as the scent of oleander became strong and then faded when the breeze died away. This was more complete than he had ever imagined life would be. He felt a relaxed, happy feeling growing inside him and looked up as Renee put her arm around his neck.

"Love me?"

"Harder than thunder can bump a stump up a hill backwards," he said.

"You're going to get that job from
Esquire
," she said. "I know it, my woman's intuition."

"And we're going to ride high."

"Live off the fat of the land," she said, putting her head on his shoulder.

"Off the fat of my head," he said, his arm around her now and his whole body feeling an internal flow of happiness.

"I don't care about being rich," she said, running her hand up under his shirt and scratching his stomach with delicate nails. "I just want us to be as happy as we are and you not to worry." She pinched his stomach, making him jump. "Tell me you aren't going to worry about money anymore."

"I can't tell you anything but love, baby," he said, pulling her off her chair onto his lap.

It was the first time he had carried her to the bedroom since they bought the house.

***

Barry is not happy that I choose this night to run, but he is safely asleep after his love with the woman, which I have the pleasure to share, of course without intruding on their thoughts. Their love is an intense and mindless union of selves that I at the same time participate in and observe. It is an important ritual for them, not simply for the making of young, and not for the simple lust that I felt a year ago when I discovered it in my natural form. It is more than that but must be that also. They feel something in it that I cannot fully share, something that binds them together beyond the palpitations of the flesh. It is this that makes me uneasy, makes me need to run. Perhaps if there were another like me; but then why is the rule of solitude so strong? I have not asked these questions because they seem to have no meaning to me, but my sharing a part of my life with the little girl has changed me in some way.

I walk through the house in my natural form, holding all the creatures in my awareness, the spatial sense that  surrounds me with an intricate pattern of waves, almost like being under water and receiving the vibrations of fish and scuttling creatures, except that in air it is so much more delicate, each living thing embedded in its web of vibrations. Unlike the crude heat sense of the snake or the pressures of sound, it is a palpable sensation that is not located in my ears, my eyes, my head at all. It is, if anything, an epidermal sense, an awareness through my whole outer covering, as if I were a sensitive spider set in the center of a three  dimensional web, noting each ripple as I walk softly to the patio doors and push them open, stepping into the brightness of a full-moon night. I drop and run silently through the yard, across the ditch with a single bound and am loping along the far fence toward the river. I do not feel like the high mesa tonight, but will prowl the river bottom among the willows for a stray goat or lamb, perhaps. I feel a sense of foreboding, as when a thunder storm is about to break near me, setting my skin in prickles and my muzzle on alert for the charged ozone that increases smells, waiting for the gigantic discharge of energy that thrills me as the lightning strikes and hammers the earth with power. But the night is calm, cloudless, growing to a comfortable coolness in the hours before dawn. The river is a line of dark becoming brilliant as the moon strikes it, winding among the low sand flats that fill the river bottom. A group of sheep is clustered among the stand of willows to my left, but I find, strangely, that I am not particularly interested in them. I am not  hungry, as I supposed I would be this night. The feeling of tension comes from the next days, as if I were remembering something that has not happened yet, some danger. I prowl in the shadow of the high bank, making not a sound,  concealing my scent. Only the large, long tracks will remain in the morning to confuse and frighten the herder. I stop to sense dogs or humans. There are none. Surprising. I stroll past the woolly little dinners, some of them sheared already and scrawny looking in their white summer underwear. I pat a couple of the fatter ones gently on the rump so that they jump in fear but do not make a noise beyond snorting and whimpering lightly in their sleep. No, I am definitely not hungry. I pace down to the river and take a long drink of the muddy water. Clean water is to be had, but there is a certain flavor to a river, more than mud and sheep shit and garbage, an ineffable tang of all the places the river has been: whitewater and brown, steep fall and lazy meander are all there. We might simply take off and travel up this river, up past the Indian reservations, past Santa Fe into the purple mountains around Taos, the canyons and lava beds, up into Colorado. My, how delicate and dreamy we are tonight. And then it comes over me what the trouble is. The plural pronoun, the "we." I am lonesome.

I feel stupid and split within myself. Can it be that I so enjoyed the company of little Mina the other night that I want her to come with me again? If I had a tail I would switch it angrily, feeling for a moment like killing something just for the hell of it. But that is not for this night. I  absolutely do not feel like blood and guts. Am I turning Human? Disgusting thought.

I whirl about and race up the steep river bank, leaping in the flowing sand as it comes pouring down, caught in the chute of the slick sand as it breaks away in floes above me. I have chosen the wrong place to climb the bank, a deep sand hill stretching up more than a hundred feet, but I keep trying, forcing my muscles to push harder while the sand keeps cascading without end, carrying me down farther even while I am leaping up. Finally, when almost at the top, I lose grip again and go sliding down with the whole side of the hill under me, and I find it is fun. I let go and lie belly down with my paws spread wide, holding to the hill while it carries me down to the river, the sand shifting under me with a delightful tickling sensation until it all flattens out and stops at the water's edge. I get up and shake myself so the sand grains fly and sparkle in the moonlight. I have discovered a natural slide. I gaze up the slope that is bright with the moon overhead, but it is not to be done again tonight. I turn and lope downriver toward home. I have little joy tonight. I will go back and try for a better night later.

At the house I creep down the ditch bank with an absurd hope in me that the little girl will be there, but I see no shape on the front porch swing. No, she is asleep. I stand up and walk under the cottonwood toward the patio.

"There you are, you naughty big pussy cat," a high voice whispers at me from the dark bole of the tree. I leap to one side, unprepared for her, and then fall to all fours and sit back on my haunches. I am positively happy to see her in her white nightgown, the little arms encircling my neck now, her breath in my ear.

"I almost went back to bed without you, Big Pussy Cat," she says softly, hugging me. "Will you take me for a little ride?"

Listen
, I say to her after she has climbed on my back,
I know where there is a wonderful sand slide that goes all the way from the moon down to the river. Want to go try it?

***

Barry came fast from the bathroom, whistling, "I'm an old cow hand from the Rio Giande." He slurped his coffee to get Renee's attention. "Got a special assignment today, sweetie," he said, tying his tie while he sat at the counter. "Going down to Isleta to do a thing that will be starting a week from Sunday in the special New Mexico section, thing on the Indian children who are cast off from the clans."

"That's wonderful, Barry," Renee said, scooping a mound of scrambled eggs onto his plate. She was thinking ahead to her shopping trip with Mrs. Ahern this afternoon, parceling out in her mind the money Barry_had given her.

"So, I'm going to be late tonight, maybe seven or eight before I get back, OK?"

"What? Seven or eight what?"

"Sweetheart! I'm going to join the Foreign Legion and will not be returning for seven or eight years, how's that?"

"Just be sure to keep a pure heart and a clean body," she said, patting his head. "I was thinking about shopping."

"Well anyway, I'll be late this evening, because I'm doing a feature. Frank just walked up yesterday and said I was the resident Indian expert, so I could do the first installment. And it has a chance of being syndicated, how about that?"

"That's just wonderful," Renee said, stopping in mid kitchen, her pencil poised over the note pad. "Was it  oregano or thyme I needed?"

"Swell," Barry said, and began eating.

"Mina," Renee said as the little girl came wobbling into the kitchen rubbing her eyes, "you're all sandy. Have you been playing outside in your nightgown?"

The dusty little Model-A coughed and shuddered as Barry turned off the key, gave a final terrible backfire as a last curse and stopped. The yard was cool and shadowy, the sun already near the horizon and out of sight behind the ditch bank. He sat there a minute or so, waiting for the family to come running out. What a day it had been, and now they were off somewhere and couldn't give him the conquering hero welcome he wanted. Damn!

He walked toward the kitchen with a sagging step, leaving the car door open. "Renee," he called, closing his eyes. He stepped inside the patio doors, but no one was in the kitchen. "Hey! Where is everybody?" After incredulously checking each room in the house and even looking under Mina's bed, he walked back into the yard, kicking at the hard dirt, looking  along the ditch bank where the shallow play cave of Mina's was vacant except for some lead soldiers tilted in the dust.

"Well, I'll be dog-damned," he said under his breath, walking back and slamming the door of the car. He stood a moment, started back toward the house, then changed his mind and walked out into the street and off to the left.

"Hola, Senora Gutierrez?" Barry shouted, peering through the screen. "Como 'sta?"

"Bien, Mr. Golden, bien," the heavy woman said, smiling all over her round face as she unhooked the screen and waved for him to come in while waving to keep out the mosquitoes. "You are just coming home from work, no?"

"I've been down at Isleta all day," he said, holding his hands out to indicate he was not always so dusty. "Say, I can't seem to locate my family at home. Would you happen to know where they might be?" He let his words trail off as the woman's husband approached, hitching up his pants and smiling. He offered his hand.

"Oyay, Pacifico," Barry said, shaking the hard, narrow hand.

The woman's face became grave and assumed a few worry lines. "They are not in your house? I have not seen them this day," she said, turning to her husband. "You have seen Mrs. Golden and the nina today?"

"No, I do not see them when I irrigate today, and the little girl comes with me sometime to watch for frogs," the small, wiry man said, hitching up his trousers again.

Barry felt a touch of cold along his back, but shrugged it away. Don't borrow trouble, he thought, talking on with the Gutierrezes who were both worried now and talking half in Spanish. He backed out the door, telling them thanks and reassuring them it was probably foolish of him to worry. He heard them behind him as he set off for Mrs. Ahern's house, assuring him of their good will and help.

On the way to Mrs. Ahern's, which was three blocks away on Gabaldon, he stopped by his house again, stuck his head inside the door and called, but it remained cool and silent. He made it to the Ahern house at a half run, telling himself there was nothing wrong but failing to convince  himself. The sun squatted, fat and ruddy on the far horizon now. It was late, too late for them to be anywhere. They didn't have a car to use, few friends in town. Renee didn't pick up with people easily, and they hadn't gone out much. He trotted  up the walk of the neat white frame house that looked out of place amid the desert adobes and the sandy yards.

"Mrs. Ahern?" His voice sounded strained in his own ears.

"Well, Mr. Golden," the old white haired woman said, pushing open the screen. "Come in. Oh," she said, catching sight of his face, "something's wrong?"

"Have you seen Renee and our little girl today?"

"We were going to go shopping this afternoon," she said, her hand catching at her cheek, "and Renee didn't come along, so I waited until about two-thirty and walked down there, and you know, there wasn't a soul around."

"They were gone at two-thirty?" Barry said, his voice cracking.

"Well, I called and stepped inside the kitchen, and no one answered," she said, her face turning white, picking up fright from the man who stood in front of her. "Whatever is wrong?"

He stepped through the door without saying anything more to the woman, hearing her talking behind him as he broke into a run back toward the house. Two-thirty! And it was after eight now. His mind did not think again until he was walking into the kitchen, and then he began to look, to look at everything, for a note, for some clue. He called her name again, just once, for the house was so empty it shook him to call loudly and hear nothing but the silence closing in on his voice. Two dishes lay dirty on the counter with two glasses that had a bit of milk in them. The dishes smeared with catsup meant Renee and Mina had probably had hot dogs for lunch, but it was unlike Renee to leave a mess. If she'd had time she would have cleaned it up. If she'd had time. He looked in the refrigerator, the sink, under the sink, cursed himself and ran for the bedroom.

Renee's closet had been ransacked. Dresses lay on the floor tangled in the shoes, hangers were bent and scattered, belts tossed about. He tried to remember what she had been wearing this morning and what dresses might be gone and decided two or three he could recall were not there, but he couldn't be sure. He ran into Mina's room and found her closet in a similar condition, and then he noticed that Bruno, her teddy bear, was not on the bed where it always lay during the day. He raised his head, eyes staring. What could have happened? They were gone. He opened the little door to the storage space off the kitchen and found one suitcase missing. Gone. Truly gone!