Leaving Blythe River: A Novel (25 page)

“I’d ask what was wrong with him,” Ethan said. “But I figure I already did. And you told me.”

“I’d like to withdraw my answer,” she said, “and apologize for it to boot. You’ll be a man yourself in a year or so, and I shouldn’t make blanket statements. All I can say is, you’ll have a choice about what kind of a man you want to be. Don’t be like that one. At least, not like that one’s being right now. Aw, hell, I already know you won’t. I can tell.”

Ethan mulled that over in silence for a moment.

“I’m not sure
exactly
what it is I’m supposed to avoid.”

“One word, kid. Pride. Don’t get all hung up in false pride. Don’t always have to be the leader. Don’t always have to be right. Don’t get your feelings hurt over every little thing and take it out on somebody else. Everybody makes mistakes, and you get to be part of everybody.” She rolled over onto one elbow. Looked down at Ethan’s face. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I don’t think I’m sick, if that’s what you mean. I’ve just never been this tired and sore in my life. It almost feels like being sick. Like I feel cold, and a little shaky, and almost sick to my stomach, but not quite. But it feels like it’s because my muscles are so sore.”

“Lactic acid,” she said, and dropped over onto her back again.

“Oh,” he said.

“Your muscles are releasing lots of lactic acid. You should push a ton of fluids tonight. All night, till you go to bed. You’ll have to wake up and pee, but you could do worse. It’s better than being in so much pain you can’t sleep in the first place. I’ll get you some water and some ibuprofen. That’ll help at least a little bit.”

“Wait. No. Aren’t you just as tired?”

“No,” she said. “I’m tired. But I’m not that bad. I’m old, but I’m tough. This isn’t all that far off the curve of what I do on an average day.”

And with that, she got up and wandered off.

Ethan shivered and breathed, and watched the clouds roll by. And wished there were some way out of his own skin. It was a purely miserable place to be.

A few minutes later she returned, and helped him sit up. She handed him a tall plastic cup of filtered water, and four white tablets, which Ethan swallowed all at once.

She wrapped a stiff blanket around his shoulders, and he pulled it more tightly to himself.

“Thanks,” he said as she sat cross-legged on her sleeping bag. “Hey! Rufus! Don’t chew on that sock.” Then, to Jone, “He’s chewing on the sock.”

“One of yours or one of Sam’s?”

“Mine.”

“Just as well it’s not Sam’s, based on his mood. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Sam put yours on the front paws. Hey!” she said sharply to the dog. She reached over and bumped his head with her hand, and he stopped worrying the edge of the sock. “When you get into the tent tonight and out of the dirt, take all that off him. Bandages and everything. He wants to lick those sore places. Let him. Tomorrow before we head out we’ll get him set up again.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. “I just remembered. I was going to wash out a pair of socks tonight.” He stared in the direction of the river for a time. “Command decision. I’m wearing dirty socks tomorrow. I just can’t make myself do it.”

“Give them to me,” Jone said.

“No. I draw the line at you washing out my dirty socks. You’ve done enough.”

“If I’m down there doing something else, and it’s convenient, I’ll do it. If not . . .”

Then they didn’t speak for a time. Maybe fifteen minutes or more. Ethan was too exhausted to speak.

And Sam still had not come back.

“I don’t really know Sam all that well,” he said at last. “I like him, so I hate to say what I’m about to say. But I guess I can kind of see why you keep him at arm’s length. Please don’t tell him I said that. He’d be hurt.”

“I won’t. Aw, hell. What can I say about me and Sam? My husband’s been gone a damn long time, kid. Over ten years. Part of me wouldn’t mind a little company. And it’s not like there’s much of anybody else around. If Sam’d only come at me some better way all this time, you know? Not so . . .”

But then she didn’t seem to know how to finish.

“Like the kind of man you don’t want me to be?”

“Right. But I know you won’t be.”

“What about your husband? Was he like that?”

“Oh, no. He was different. He didn’t waste his time with crap like that. He had living to do. He knew who he was and he didn’t have anything to prove to anybody. He had no problem saying he made a mistake, or he didn’t know. That’s a sign of confidence in a person. People think it’s the other way around. But it’s only people who don’t have their acts together who work so hard to make you think they do.”

“I guess I see what you mean,” Ethan said. Then, a few scudding clouds later, “Those ibuprofen are starting to help. Thanks.”

“I’ll go get started on some dinner. Sam can come back and eat it, or his helping can sit there and get cold. I don’t see it as any of my business. And frankly, I don’t rightly care.”

And not caring proved to be a good thing, too. Because dinner came and went. The sky faded to night. And Sam did not come back.

It was dark when Sam unzipped the tent flap and ducked in. Ethan would have guessed it was around ten o’clock, but he didn’t know for sure. But he was not asleep. He’d been lying awake watching the moon rise to directly overhead—where he could see it through the mesh top of the tent—and listening to Rufus lick his paws.

Sam stripped down to his boxers and climbed into his sleeping bag without comment.

A few minutes went by. Maybe three. Maybe ten.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ethan asked Sam, without realizing he was about to speak.

Sam sat up straight, sleeping bag and all.

“What am I doing? What am
I
doing? What are
you
doing? Yelling at the person who brought you out here just to be a nice guy?”

Ethan hadn’t yelled. But he couldn’t get a word in edgewise to point it out.

“Hell, I don’t need this, Ethan. I got enough problems without you getting on my case. I could ride right out of here. Right now. By headlamp. And you and that . . . you two can just finish this little project by yourself.”

Then Sam seemed to run out of steam.

“I just don’t get what you’re so upset about,” Ethan said quietly.

“Because. I’m.
Blowing it!
” Sam shouted. “Everything I try to do to impress her just backfires on me.”

“But you keep trying the same things.”

“What do you mean?” Sam’s voice quieted. As if he was interested now. Because maybe Ethan knew something. Saw something Sam didn’t see.

Hell,
Ethan thought.
Everybody sees something Sam doesn’t see.
Of course, he didn’t say so.

“You keep trying to impress her the same way. First you tell everybody to talk you up to her. Then you get all upset because there’s another man along on the trip. Like you’re a wild stallion or something and you have to drive all the other males away. Then you get even more upset because you had a different idea than she did about which way we should turn and I chose hers. I didn’t choose it to side with her. I chose it because I’m trying to find my dad. We’re out here to find my dad. Remember? It’s really not so much a dating thing, you know?”

Ethan waited for Sam to blow. Maybe stomp out of the tent and ride home. Instead the older man just sighed deeply.

“It was both for me. Okay? I don’t think you need to begrudge me that.”

“I don’t,” Ethan said. “I mean, mostly I don’t.”

Ethan breathed more deeply, happy that the explosive part of the conversation seemed to have passed on its own.

“But it doesn’t matter now,” Sam said, “because it’s over. I lost. I made an ass of myself. I finally got my big chance and I blew it. I don’t know any other ways to impress her. I don’t know what the hell she wants.”

“I do,” Ethan said. A brief, reverberating silence. “I know what impresses her.”

“How?
How
do you know?”

“She told me.”

“You were talking about me?”

“We were talking about her late husband, actually,” Ethan said. Because it was true enough. And more diplomatic. “She said he knew who he was. He had nothing to prove to anybody. If he made a mistake, he admitted it. If he didn’t know, he admitted it.”

“That doesn’t help, buddy. Because that’s not me.”

“She said something else. She said only people who don’t have their act together work so hard to make you think they do.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s too late. I did exactly that, and she hates me.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ethan said. “She told me her husband’s been gone for a long time and part of her wouldn’t mind the company. You just keep coming at her the wrong way. She said if you’d come at her differently—”

“Wait. She said that?”

“She did.”

“You wouldn’t tell me she said that if she didn’t. Right, buddy? Because that would be downright cruel.”

“She said it, Sam.”

“So what do I do?”

“I can only tell you what I would do. I’d go over to her tent and see if she was awake, and if she was, I’d tell her I was sorry. That I’d been acting like an idiot. You know. The truth. Tell her why as best you can. Tell her you can do better.”

Sam sat frozen like a statue in the moonlight for what struck Ethan as a strange and unlikely length of time. Ethan waited to see when he would break, and in which direction.

“Okay, thanks,” Sam said.

He unzipped his way out of the tent, zipped it back up, and disappeared.

Ethan lay still a moment, wondering if Sam was really going over there in just his boxer shorts. A moment later the tent flap unzipped again.

“Guess some clothes would help,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Ethan said. “I didn’t mean you should come at her
that
differently.”

It felt good to joke. For a change.

Ethan woke in the middle of the night, or at least what felt like the middle of the night. He needed to get up and pee, just as Jone had predicted.

Sam was still gone.

He left Rufus inside the tent, so the dog wouldn’t get dirt on his raw paw pads. And Rufus didn’t seem inclined to argue about coming along. So he must have been one tired, sore dog.

Ethan stepped out into the night and stretched his ruined muscles.

The moon had gone down behind the mountains, so he knew he had slept for a long time. And the stars were out in an absolute riot. Ethan had never seen anything like it. It felt like being inside the dome of a planetarium during one of those projected star shows. Except for one thing: this was real.

Ethan craned his neck back, sure he could see the eroded-looking, slightly more colorful band formed by the edge of the Milky Way.

He still needed to pee, but somehow the stars seemed more important.

Besides, it was probably his last chance to see them this way.

He heard a rustling, and whipped around. Immediately thinking,
Bear
.

It was Sam, letting himself out of Jone’s tent and zipping it up again.

“Ethan?” Sam whispered.

He walked over and stood shoulder to shoulder with Ethan, under the stars, and craned his neck back. As if he couldn’t imagine what Ethan saw above him and found so fascinating. As if there could be more than one answer to what was up there. In his peripheral vision, Ethan could see the dark silhouettes of the horses and mules huddled together in the dark.

“What time is it?” Ethan asked.

“’Bout two thirty.”

“That’s a long time to be in Jone’s tent.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“We just talked.”

A moment of silence, then Sam threw his arms around Ethan’s shoulders and hugged him sideways.

Ethan wanted to say “ow” but he didn’t. He just laughed.

“What was that for?” he asked Sam.

“Because . . .
we talked
. For like
four hours
.”

“That’s good.”

“Good?
Good?
That’s a freaking miracle, Ethan. And I owe it all to you. You have a real way with people, you know that?”

Ethan laughed again.