When We Were Wolves (16 page)

Another thing about the trip to Honeyville is that we do
not
know who to pay off. Trust no one over there, Wayne says, and almost no one on the Wyoming side either, for that matter.

Wayne checks his mirrors and stops his humming to inform me of something. “You know, the sailors with the real huevos
soloed
around the world. Picture that, at the helm on a starry night. Next day its rum and mahimahi at some maiden-infested island paradise. I’m thinking about soloing around the world in the
Cuba Libre”

“What about Robin?” I say but the old milk van leaks wind at its seams and rattles like a washing machine so Wayne doesn’t hear me.

Just across the Utah border at Garden City we turn west and grind up the pass before dropping into Logan Canyon and down narrow U.S. 89 through the Cache National Forest and its timber, the thousands upon thousands of potential ship masts. After an hour of canyon we reach Logan. It’s almost four, almost dark.

The most beautiful girls in the world live in Logan, Utah. Wayne says it’s the gene pool. But considering the Viking tradition of mead, you’d think there’d only be sons. Little real love lives in this town, Wayne says. Everything in Logan is too pasteurized, too sterile, too filtered. The van lumbers away from each stoplight like a loaded ice wagon. Even with overload springs in the rear, the front end rides high, causing our low beams to glare off the windshields of oncoming cars. They flash their lights at us. Wayne flashes back. We drive on.

“So when are you going to marry Harriet and grant her citizenship?” Wayne is blunt.

I look at him in a way that says I’m thinking about business. His talk, I think, turns to Robin.

“They’ll do anything for us. They cook. They do dishes. They scrub toilets. They have sex with us. They
raise
our
children.
And for what? All they ask is for one thing. Just one thing, and it’s small—tiny—in comparison.” A coffee dusk settles hard over the Cache Valley. The dashboard lights cast Wayne’s shaggy face in a virulent green glow. “All they ask is for us to
love
them.”

We brake not to hit a family of mule deer crossing the highway
in our high beams. Wayne downshifts and honks without breaking his line of thought.

“Yesterday, old guy at the gas station. His wife was younger—or just less sick—anyway, she looks spry and supple next to this guy she’s driving. She pulls up to the pumps, gets out, and pumps the gas. Ol’ passenger-side Methuselah must have had his prostate suctioned out two days before. But he puts all his energy, all his strength, into opening the car door, setting his feet on the concrete, and lifting himself upright so he can watch her pump his gas. This guy has had his life, but the wonderment was still there. I kinda smiled at him. That old man and me, warm sunshiny day, smell of high-octane unleaded, Antelope Street, Hams Fork. The meaning of existence passed between us right then and there.”

Wayne pauses for a moment, a bearded, contemplative pirate. “A guy like you,” he says, “women love you because they think you’re the kind that will evolve with them. They really believe that’s possible. Me? I’ve always been me, always will be. Wayne Kerr.” Wayne says his name like he’s the Emperor of Wyoming. “I think Harriet’s looking for someone to evolve with her. You’re pliable, still a pup. Plus she wants citizenship. All in one package, what a deal.”

“We’re fine just the way we are,” I say He knows I don’t like to talk about Harriet with him.

“Hey,” he says, “what are the chances of Harriet modeling for me?”

“Don’t go there, Wayne.” I’ve been ready for this. “Not happening. You can fire me and get someone else to make your mead, but I’d go back to chopping mackerel heads on a cannery barge off the coast of British Columbia before I’ll let Harriet be painted by you.” I know that Wayne’s models are more than just models. Wayne says the closer he is to his models, the more texture and dimension his paintings have.

“I didn’t say I wanted to paint her. I’ve been chewing on another
idea,” Wayne says. “We can talk about this on our way back up the canyon.” Wayne lapses into song.
He’s a taker, so he took her, ‘cause he could take her …

Though not nearly the highest, the Wellsville Mountains are some of the steepest in the world. They rise from the valley floor like steeples. Tucked up against the base of the Wellsvilles, across the range from Logan, and just east of Promontory, where a hundred and fifty years ago the golden railroad spike was driven that tied the East to the West and hurried this region on its way to hell, is the hamlet of Honeyville. Jersey and Holstein cows gather under streetlights along the roadside. Fields of dry corn and wheat stems butt against farmhouses along Main Street. The lighted marquee at the convenience store advertises three hot dogs for a dollar, ketchup available. Many apiaries. If not for the Wellsvilles and the neon absence of a bar or two, Honeyville could be in Illinois.

In the 1850s, Honeyville had been one of Brigham Young’s forts, the most northerly outpost in Utah. Now cottonwood trees surround the block-square ward house, a brick-and-mortar fortress with a parking lot the size of a Wal-Mart.
What would ya do with a drunken sailor
… Wayne cranks the wheel to starboard and we ease past the ward house, toward the railroad tracks, until a weather-bleached false-front general store comes into our headlights. On the side of the store a sign:

Tolman & Sons
GENERAL MDSE HARDWARE
&
COAL

“Time for business,” Wayne says as he gears down and turns the headlights off. Now we’re operating by moonlight. We pull our bandannas over our noses. The brakes squeak to a stop in front of the store. The figure of a man walks out of the shadows. He wears a western hat and a bandanna over his face. We’re all highwaymen here. The silhouette walks to my side of the truck. I slide the window open. “Who be you?” the man says. His voice is deep and coarse.

“Anama,” Wayne says. He had to explain it to me the first time I heard him use it. Wayne knows a lot more about Mormonism than some Mormons. “Anama” is a word used by special ops like the Sons of Dan a Mormon militia whose mission is to stop threats to the faith. Wayne says Mormons make up huge percentages of men in the FBI and CIA.

“All wheat,” the man says.

“All wheat,” Wayne says. “All’s wheat and honey.”

With that the man reaches me a thick Arby’s sack and the big door of the store slides open. Wayne takes the sack, looks inside, guns the engine, and the milk truck with us in it disappears inside the dark building. A swarm of men appear at the back of the truck and, excuse the metaphor, like bees, work at unloading the mead barrel by barrel. Bad-back Wayne and I step outside to wait.

Wayne counts the money from the Arby’s sack. Satisfied, he takes a cigar from his shirt pocket, pulls his bandanna down, and bites the end off the cigar, spits, and goes about his lighting ritual of flame, puffs, and sucks.

“Here’s your cut,” he says. “There’s enough there to buy your boss a Christmas present and still get Harriet a nice ring.” Wind licks the bills he hands me. I have enough saved up where I could marry Harriet and put a down payment on a house. Wayne never asks what I do with my money.

Tall cottonwoods towering over the house next door block out most of the moonlight. The house is old, very old stone. The windows
are small, as if designed to keep something out. “Those windows,” Wayne says, pointing with his cigar. “I bet those window frames flare and on the inside they’re normal size, maybe even larger than normal size. Meant to keep flaming arrows and mad Utes at bay.”

“Why wouldn’t they just be small inside, too?”

“So a Mormon with a rifle could set up shop inside one, a bastion. I bet those walls are four or five feet thick.”

“No way,” I say, pulling the bandanna off my nose. “It’s only a house.”

“Look,” Wayne says, “the Mormons knew what the hell they were doing when it came to defense. I say those walls are four or five feet thick, and I’m willing to bet on it.”

“Bet what?”

“I’m right, Harriet models for me.”

“No bet, Wayne. I told you not to step into that territory.” “Okay, then, dinner. Dinner at the Habanero.” “Deal.”

At that it is like we are powerless to resist taking a look. We have time. The noises from inside the building tell us they are still unloading mead and reloading the truck with honey. The dark house, like the gravitational pull of the moon, drags us toward it. Our running shoes slip in the heavy frost. We stand in a dormant flower bed—bad-back, beer-belly Wayne standing on my shoulders— when headlights sweep into the driveway and pan the house, less like a Hollywood opening than a searchlight at Point of the Mountain. A car pulls down the little lane. We just stand there, frozen. The lights stay on, the engine stops, the lights go out. The metered chime of a door-open bell. Dim glow of interior light. Hard heels click up the flagstone sidewalk to where I’m straining to keep Wayne Kerr on my shoulders. “My word,” says an older female voice, European, British. “Pirates!”

Another car door opens, then after a time closes. Soft footsteps—tennis shoes—run up the sidewalk. “Why look, Benjamin, pirates.” The man or boy breathes audibly. “There are pirates in our flower bed. Heavens. Did your car break down? Now, you two men, come along inside this minute.”

Wayne defies the confinements of his bad back and jumps off my shoulder with the agility of a gymnast and lands on a small bush. He rubs the cigar out against the sole of his running shoe, puts the stogie in his pocket, and looks around, nervously, as if watching grapeshot rain across his bow. The front door isn’t locked. The woman opens it and turns on a hallway switch. “Come along, I’ll fix us all some cider.” The boy—he is more boy than man—studies us, his eyes full of pirates! He wears thick glasses with heavy frames. In the light of the entryway I can see his eyes are milky and heavy, like oysters in stew. “Well, Benjamin, introduce yourself,” the woman says.

“Hello,” Benjamin says. The syllables are long and carefully thought out: hell-low. He holds out his hand to Wayne and Wayne looks at me, then shakes it. Then I shake Benjamin’s hand. The boy’s fingers are short and thick, his grip soft.

We follow. I catch a glimpse of myself in a hallway mirror, flannel and running shoes. I look pale and worried. Then suddenly, I find myself with Wayne Kerr in the harsh light of this woman’s kitchen. Smell of detergent and candles. The window above the sink is wide, but tapers toward the outside. The walls are every inch of four feet thick. Wayne is right.

“I’m Margaret,” she says. “Margaret Cloud.” Mid-fifties I’d guess, maybe sixty. She wears a dress, like a meeting dress. “I’m originally from the Old Country, from Goole. Zion is our home now.” She takes a deep, appreciative breath. “Benjamin is my youngest son. It’s just the two of us in Honeyville now. Peaceful it is. I have an older boy in Brigham City and a daughter in Salt
Lake.” She pours cider from a plastic milk jug into an aluminum pan on the stove. “Do you need to use the phone?”

Wayne shakes his head no. “Well then, you must have business at the Tolman building. You must be honey merchants.”

Wayne clears his throat. “Honey merchants, yes, ma’am. We buy honey.”

“Oh, yes,” Margaret says. “And what ward are you from?”

Wayne is taken aback. “Oh, ah, Montgomery Ward. It’s in Wyoming.” Margaret smiles warmly and nods.

Magazines and newspapers cover the table. On the walls are antique kitchen tools and curios—a hanging plate with a portrait of Charles and Di. A thimble collection. Ceramic egg cups. Tin flour and sugar canisters. Cereal boxes. A plastic bear half full of honey. A yellowed print of a sloop in a storm. Taped to the refrigerator, childish crayon drawings and a computer printout:

BENJAMIN’S HUG LIST
Mother
Aunt Evelyn
Uncle Earl
Brother Hyrum
Sister Rachel

“They’re beautiful.” It’s Wayne. Margaret and I turn to see him studying a pair of old sailing-ship prints on the far wall.

“My father built sailing ships in Goole. Those are two he built,” Margaret says. “Do you men like history? Sit down, please.” She leaves the kitchen for the dining room. In a moment she returns, carrying a gin bottle, sideways. She hands the bottle delicately, like a baby, to Wayne. Inside the bottle is a minute and intricately detailed schooner. “I always thought of this as magic. My father built these at home, though he didn’t allow me to watch. Bottled magic. It’s done with thread, you know.”

I sit next to Wayne, whose head hangs slightly, eyes wide, as he studies the ship in the bottle. I hadn’t planned on being ambushed by a British Mormon. We had no Plan B for this.

“It’s so real,” Wayne says, and I know he’s forgotten the mead, the money, and the men next door. “It’s all there.”

Margaret leaves again and returns with a large book she sets before us. Then she pours cider from the steaming pan into coffee mugs on the counter. “Well, this house was built in 1856.” Wayne sets the bottle down, gently, like a baby, and opens the book to the first page. He points to an old photo of the house. “Honeyville was a fort then. Call’s Fort, they called it. The Indians used to come out of the mountains and pillage. Upset the peaceful balance we have here today, you see.” She sets the warm mugs in front of us. Mine has a unicorn on it. Wayne’s has a big red heart embossed with MOM. I look at Wayne and we commence sipping. I put the mug to my lips when a bright flash of light fills the room.