Crazy Blood (2 page)

*   *   *

After dinner, Wylie gave Bea a necklace from Italy, and Belle a necklace from Peru, both gold. He gave his mother a gold bracelet in the shape of an elongated tiger, ruby-eyed, from Nepal, and Steen, his stepfather, an elaborately wrought gold shot glass from his native Denmark, made specifically for aquavit.

Kathleen let the girls skip homework and stay up until ten, rather than the usual nine, missing sleep they would regret missing when their alarms blasted on at 4:00
A.M.
Before bed, Wylie hugged them and told them to hang in there, remembering how quickly four o'clock came, especially in winter, how black was the town of Mammoth Lakes at that hour, how bitterly cold was Let It Bean when he and Steen would let themselves in at 4:45 to prep the coffeemakers and steamers, grind the beans, form the dough, ready the counters, and bake the pastries that made the family its living.

With the girls in bed, the three grown-ups sat in the small, cold living room. Steen refilled their glasses with Aalborg and set another branch on the idling fire in the woodstove. The branch was pine, Wylie saw, surely scavenged from the forest behind the house. It would be punky and wet and burn poorly.

“So then, how many countries was it, Wylie?” asked Steen. Steen Mikkelsen was a trim man with an open face, white eyelashes, and smooth, almost whiskerless skin. He was a baker by trade and considered himself a pastry artist.

“Twelve, I think.”

“All with mountains to ski.”

“Most of them.”

“And the war?”

“I did my tour.”

“All of those lives. I am glad that you found a way to be both a healer and a marine.”

Wylie gave his stepfather a look.

“Of course I understand. Robert Carson came to the bakery every week if there was news from you in Kandahar. You can tell us about the war when you're ready.”

Kathleen went to the canvas log carrier, which lay open on the floor near the stove. She knelt and held up another twisted pine branch. “Steen?”

“We have the cut wood, honey. But the splitter is still broken, and the professionals want one hundred dollars per cord. I am sorry that I haven't had the time to split wood. But we made sixty dollars on the birthday cake tonight. You should have seen it. And our application for the vending license is near approval. Wylie, you will like my idea—to sell pastries outdoors in the parking lots of Mammoth Sports and elsewhere. From our own stand. It will bring income and promote Let It Bean. I am talking with the Mammoth Sports owners regarding placement. I have designed the stand. It will have bright paint, and handles and car tires for rolling.”

Kathleen stood and rubbed her hands together histrionically. “We're trying to keep down the heating costs. It's scary how expensive everything is. Gas over four bucks again, and we still have to drive all the way to Reno for the Walmart. The girls hate to be seen in those clothes. But? It's that or the thrift stores. Life'll kill ya.”

“We must always avoid that,” said Steen.

“It's really good to see you, Wylie. You were a boy when you left. Now … look at you.”

“You look good, too, Mom.” Wylie noticed wear he'd never seen on his mother, a hint of hardness in her face, though she was only in her mid-forties and still trim and pretty.

“We work hard but we're poorer,” she said. “Gargantua Coffee came to town last year, and they're trying to run us out of business. It's working—our numbers are way down. The girls know it and they're scared. They take some pride in Let It Bean, you know? Even though it's hard work. Now a billion-dollar-a-month national coffee monster is after us. Imagine that. Next fall, we'll have a new landlord and lease to negotiate. Rent will rise, certainly.”

“Don't be pessimistic, honey.”

Kathleen sat back down on the nearly formless old couch. “Beatrice is unhappy a lot, and anxious. I found a hunk of hash in Belle's jeans when I was washing them. Her crack about opium did not amuse me. Both of them have been sneaking up to the old Burnside mansion at Eagle. Some Silicon Valley hotshot bought it so he could throw parties. He likes the racing and freestyle crowd. The youngsters in town call it ‘Mountain High.' Cute. It's full of people like Sky Carson. So, I'm not pessimistic, Steen. I'm realistic, if that's all right with you.”

“Yes, of course it is. But these are things all families must endure.”

Kathleen swigged the last of her aquavit. “Let's give the mountain a rip, Wylie. Soon.”

“You're on.”

“I feel the need for speed.”

“Still got it, do you?”

“You bet I do.”

“Call of the wild, Mom. Me, too.”

She smiled softly. “It meant the world to me that you called me every birthday. That couldn't have been easy.”

“There was one from Kandahar that took a little doing.”

“You're my prince.”

Steen poured another drink and followed Wylie's mother down the hallway. Wylie put another soft branch and a few shards of kindling into the fire box. He left the door ajar to carburet the thing, turned, and let the faint heat warm the backs of his calves.

He looked around the old house. Same as ever. His mother had been renting it when he was born. She was a single mom then, and widowed in a sense—Wylie's father had been shot dead by his wife, Cynthia Carson, just minutes after Wylie's illicit conception. Back then, it was just Kathleen and her baby. Kathleen, getting minimum wage and tips at Bruno's Donuts, would never have survived without friends and family pitching in to help. Three years later, she married Steen, and they were able to buy Bruno's and make it their own. Then the girls came along. Kathleen and Steen had continued renting this house until they could make a down payment and get a mortgage.

Yes, they own it now, thought Wylie, his gaze roaming the water-stained ceiling, the cramped, dark kitchen, the knotty pine walls, the thinning carpet, the living room windows lined with old blankets behind the curtains against the winter cold, the drafts easing through anyhow. An orange plastic bucket in one corner caught drops of snowmelt coming through the roof.

He texted Robert Carson and Robert texted back.

 

CHAPTER THREE

Wylie steered his truck up ice-slick Minaret toward Eagle Lodge and the former Burnside manse, now, apparently, “Mountain High.” Before him, Mammoth Mountain towered, emanating its usual eerie, seemingly internal light. It was over eleven thousand vertical feet of volcano-spewed rhyodacite that would remain cloaked in snow until June, even into July in good years. The mountain brought Wylie the words of Rexroth:
There are rocks/ On the earth more durable/Than the configurations of heaven.
The sky around the mountain was black, the stars fixed in shimmering clarity, their long-vanished light just now hitting Wylie's earthly eyes. His four-wheel drive was sure-footed enough to keep him in his lane if he went slowly and braked early into slow-motion turns.

All three floors of the old Burnside home were lit. Wylie saw maybe a dozen parked cars under the spacious, snow-crowned porte cochere—a fifty-fifty blend of swank SUVs, then the beaters affordable for young skiers and boarders. He heard music and voices and knocked on the front door, and a moment later it opened. A man towered over tall Wylie, who came to about the bottom of the guy's beard. “Wylie, man.”

“Croft. You look bigger.”

“I only stopped growing a year ago.”

“Really?”

“It was a gland thing. But I can still fit in my truck.”

“Robert's here, right?”

“Come on in. You gotta meet Helixon. And, you know, get his permission to be here.”

From the dark entryway, Wylie was led into a great room, moodily lit, that was open all the way to the ceiling of the second floor. The vast interior looked to be hardwoods, warmly finished. Above, the second-story rooms sat behind the railed quadrangle of the atrium, like those of an old hotel. A wide stairway led to the second story, then swept up and over and out of Wylie's sight. Suspended from above was a behemoth chandelier of elk antlers and small flickering lights, graceful and complex. A faint veil of smoke hung within, cannabis and tobacco. Wylie heard music and saw movement in the second-floor shadows. Three young women came pounding down the burnished plank stairs, laughing and trying to balance drinks. A fourth, scantily clad but wearing a red elf's cap, slid down the banister on her butt. From somewhere above came a shriek, delighted and somewhat wicked.

“Third floor's kind of like forbidden,” said Croft.

“That's probably good.”

“Helixon's got more money than the Facebook guy and Bono put together.”

“How is that possible?”

“He created this app that sees the future. I'm not exactly sure how it works. He also invented the Imagery Beast for training skiers and boarders. It's on the second floor, but only Helixon can open the door. This place is quiet tonight, but it'll be packed this weekend for the Mammoth Cup. Come on—that's Helixon over there, the one what looks like lightning struck him.”

Bart Helixon looked to be in his early twenties, short and wiry, with a head of pure white hair. His mustache and Vandyke were similarly bleached, and it was only his unwrinkled skin that gave away his youth. He wore a window, positioned on its clear eyeglass frame like a tiny rearview mirror, his blue eyes studying Wylie from behind the chandelier flickers on the lens. Wylie shook his hand. “There's power in you,” Helixon said.

“Standard-issue.”

“No, nothing standard in there.” Helixon broke the shake and wiped his hand on his lounge pants.

Wylie saw a phalanx of young men and women moving from the kitchen, bearing drinks and plates stacked high with food. With them came Wylie's half brother Robert Carson, smiling and clean-shaven and somehow bemused, which has exactly how Wylie remembered him. Wylie hadn't seen him in five years, but rarely had more than a week gone by without calls and texts when possible, letters and postcards when not. Robert was three years older than Wylie, equally tall but lighter. He had an athlete's body, the blue eyes and blond hair of the Carson clan.

Wylie and Robert hugged forcefully, measuring each other's strength and balance as they had been doing their whole lives. Wylie was startled by the great affection welling up in him now. It was so good to know for certain that not all of his heart was scattered throughout the Middle East and the cold peaks of Eurasia or the Andes, that a big part of it was still here in Mammoth Lakes. He hugged Robert again, then broke away and smiled as the gathered crowd hooted and raised glasses to them. Wylie clamped Robert's shoulder with one hand and accepted a beer from a woman in a short dress and black diamond-patterned leggings.

Suddenly, a wail pierced the room, loud and coming at Wylie. People scrambled out of the way, some stumbling, food and drink spilling to the floor. Sky Carson—Wylie's other half brother, born to Cynthia Carson just months before Kathleen bore Wylie—came powering through the crowd on a skateboard, wearing red swim trunks and red board shoes only, aiming straight at Wylie. Wylie foresaw the attack. Sky launched the board at Wylie's head and it speared through the burnished orange light of Mountain High, straight at its target. Wylie stepped aside and caught it. Sky landed, feet together and arms spread for balance, like a gymnast. He stared at Wylie. “Behold. Five years of peace on the mountain have come to this ugly end. Enter the demon, Wylie Welborn.”

“Holy crap, Sky!” hollered Helixon. “These floors are Civil War reclaimed barn oak!”

Wylie lofted the board back to Sky, who snatched it midair, dropped it to the floor, jumped on with one foot, and pushed off. Sky carved across the reclaimed oak to the entryway, flipped the board up into one hand, then looked back. He aimed his free index finger pistol-style at Wylie, feigned recoil, then pushed through the front door into the freezing dark.

“Well, Sky's a bit up and down, as always,” said Robert. “Come on. There's someone who gets to finally meet you.”

*   *   *

Hailee Patterson had a good smile and steady blue eyes and her hand felt strong in Wylie's. Robert led them past a knot of frenetic dancers and into a theater with a large fixed screen and eight rows of seats descending like those in a lecture hall. The doors closed heavily behind them. Wylie saw himself on-screen, tearing down the X Course in the Mammoth Cup ski-cross final five years back, in which he had upset both Robert and Sky Carson, solid favorites, to stand on top of the box.

“Helixon insisted on showing this when he heard you were coming,” said Robert.

“Look at you go,” said Hailee. “Like you're stuck to the fall line.”

Wylie watched his younger self glued high and tight on the narrow chutes known as Shooters, banking hard, then schussing past Robert and Sky on the final downhill straight. Sky got the silver and Robert the bronze. Since then, Sky had won once; then Robert had won the Mammoth Cup ski cross three years running.

“That last chute was the difference,” said Robert.

“What a run,” said Hailee. “What great snow that day, too.”

Wylie watched himself on-screen, smiling rather goofily from the podium. What he'd thought at that moment was that his life was just beginning, that the world was his to see and he was ready to get this thing done. Now he missed his former clarity and wished for something like it again.

“Hey, Wylie. Hailee and I are getting married.”

Wylie looked from his brother's pleased face to Hailee, who looked happy and desirable by any standards he knew. “I'm down for both of you. Truly.”

“No more chasing dreams and Olympics. Grandpa's going to work me into the business full-time.”

“Look at
this
!” Hailee flashed a diamond and gave Robert a warm smile. Robert hugged her and looked over her shoulder at Wylie with pride and either contentment or resignation.