The Subprimes (10 page)

“Ginny!”

She climbed down a narrow track between green licorice-plant spears and followed a ditch, sliding on the rocky scarp, bruising herself as she fell. At one point, there was a concrete platform with a huge pipe protruding out of it and a gauge and metal
wheel attached to its side. She paused there before descending, pushing into thicker and thicker brush until she burst through wiry acacia bushes and saw the remains of a camp: abandoned sleeping bags, a tarp shelter hung up between trees, empty cans and water bottles, the remains of a fire, clothes scattered where they had been left, and old sneakers, magazines, and books. She assumed she had stumbled upon an abandoned Ryanville. The sight of this squalor panicked her again. She imagined her daughter abducted by subprimes.

“Ginny! Ginny!”

She followed a trail out of the Ryanville and up another steep path.

“Mom!” She heard Ginny's voice, faint but clear.

“Ginny! I'm coming. Keep shouting.”

“Mom, they're all around me.”

“I'm coming.”

“I can see them, Mom. I can hear them.”

Gemma kept climbing. Her own breathing was so labored she could barely hear her daughter's shouts.

“Mom!”

She cut through a thick patch of acacia and a stand of California poppies so woven with spiderwebs that it felt like she was pushing through a closet of silk dresses. Then she heard growling, a snapping noise.

“Mom! They're dogs!”

Gemma was struggling to free herself from the strands and the thick branches, the barbs of acacia leaves and the thistles of sage and broom bushes. She lost a shoe somewhere, and was scraped raw by the flora, but she kept on pushing through to her daughter, finally emerging in a clearing where she saw Ginny, sitting down, blood running down her arm, her face badly scraped.

“Mom!”

There was scurrying in the brush, the scissoring of thin legs and brown and gray fur as coyotes were circling, flashes of silver irises sizing up the little girl, and now Gemma. Gemma could hear the animals breathing, their yips and barks. Where was her pepper spray when she needed it? Ah, wasted on the strange man who had surprised her a few days ago, warning her about coyotes.

Two humans instead of one. What would the coyotes make of that? More daunting, or just more meat?

Gemma grabbed her daughter, hugged her, and winced at the gash ripped into her arm.

“Ouch!” Ginny cried.

“They bit you!”

Ginny looked down at her arm. She had not yet realized she'd been bitten.

Gemma could actually see bone white through the bloody flesh. The scent of the blood had stirred the pack, who were now circling in anticipation of finishing the job. Gemma was too angry to be frightened. If the dogs wanted her little girl, they were going to have to go through her. She didn't formulate this thought, but it was a fact of her current state. Her fear, anger, rage, confusion, all of it coalesced into her being willing to face a charging coyote without hesitation.

The alpha dog leaped up at Ginny. The coyote was going after the weakest, youngest, most vulnerable. The teeth were gray and dry, the mouth angled open and the eyes surprisingly beautiful for an animal trying to kill. Gemma swung a hard overhand right that landed flush on the bridge of the coyote's nose, smashing the canine head downward and changing its trajectory so that it landed on its side on Ginny's legs. The hind legs were scratching into Ginny's flesh as the bitch tried to gain purchase. Gemma struck again, another blow to the head. The dog twisted its head to try to bite Gemma's arm, then backed away.

The rest of the pack was watching with interest, and Gemma heard another dog charging. Again she turned and swung and caught that dog flush on its open mouth, cutting her hand on its teeth but dealing the surprised dog a sharp blow that caused it to turn off into the bushes.

The alpha dog somehow recognized in Gemma an alpha female like herself who would not let her pup be taken.

“Back off, bitch.” Gemma lunged, her hands up again, going for the neck, but the animal scurried away into the bush.

Ginny had gone faint, most likely from shock. Gemma put her arms around her, their blood running together. She heard, barely, distant voices, the crackling sound of a radio. She tried to shout but was suddenly so tired she could not raise much voice. The fight had drained her, the adrenaline was no longer surging, and she suddenly felt exhausted, found appealing the notion of a short nap. Just a few minutes' sleep . . .

She roused herself. If they slept, her daughter would lose more blood, the dogs would come back. She pulled off her blouse, ripped the sleeve off, and tied it around Ginny's arm above the wound as tightly as she could. The claw marks on their legs were also bleeding. Her own hand was badly cut and scraped and she could barely bend her fingers.

“Ginny, honey, get up, get up. We have to move.”

“Are they gone?”

“Yes, dear, they're gone. Get up.”

Ginny rose unsteadily to her feet. Gemma took the girl on her back, piggyback style, and, bent over, marched down the hill. She had no idea she was this strong.

THEY EMERGED FROM THE BRUSH
a bloody mess. Their clothes torn, their hair streaked with leaves, twigs, and ticks, and blood
everywhere, from scrapes and gashes they did not even know they had.

There was an ambulance waiting for them. And a fire truck had snaked up the hill and was idling, its lights flashing. The firemen were still up the hill searching for them. A police drone buzzed overhead and then was apparently called off, since it banked and headed south along the ocean.

Sharon had taken the kids inside. Franny was hysterical when she saw her mother and sister through the screen door. She charged over but stopped when she was close enough to see all the blood.

“They bit you!”

Gemma shook her head. “Ginny.”

The paramedics came over with a stretcher and carefully moved Ginny onto the metal-framed gurney and then slid her into the back of the red-and-white van.

“Ma'am, you're injured as well—”

“I'm fine,” Gemma said.

“We have another ambulance—”

“I'll ride with her. Franny? Sharon, can you drive Franny to the hospital? Which hospital?”

“Ma'am,” said one of the paramedics, a tall bald man wearing shorts and a blue polo shirt, “we need a valid credit card. And can we ask what kind of insurance you are carrying?”

“I'm . . . I don't know,” Gemma said. “My credit card is—it's in my purse.” She turned to Sharon. “Can you get it?”

“Can we just
go
?” she said to the paramedic.

“That depends on your insurance.”

Gemma had a vague awareness of insurance payments being one among many matters that she had let slide since Arthur's arrest. Now she felt irresponsible, her daughter bleeding from a coyote bite, and she had to admit to the paramedic she was uninsured.

“Look, lady, we don't want to spend the night driving from hospital to hospital, looking for one that'll take you. If you don't have insurance, we'll take you to State Services.”

“Where's that?”

“Norwalk. We could get you patched up in outpatient at St. Johns. How's your credit?”

“I can't believe we are having this conversation. She needs medical attention.”

“As soon as your friend gives me the card, we'll be on our way.”

A fireman in helmet and heavy jacket came down the trail, his boots crunching.

“Did you see them?” Gemma asked.

The fireman shook his head. “But they're up there. Nothing we can do about it. We go out on a half-dozen coyote calls a day.”

“Mom!” Ginny shouted.

“A sec, Ginny.” She glared at the paramedic.

The fireman nodded. “Is that her? She sounds okay.”

“She's a fighter.”

Sharon came out with her purse. Gemma took it, found her wallet, and handed the paramedic her one good card. He took it, swiped it on a handheld meter, and nodded.

“Hey, 710! We're good to go.”

GINNY SCREAMED AS THE WOUND
was cleaned, wrapped, and bandaged ($1,875). The rabies test ($450) was negative. She needed a pint of blood ($1,590). An X-ray ($700) showed no damage to the deltoid, and a range of motion test ($330) was inconclusive. Her bruises were assessed and determined not to be indicative of hemorrhagic distress ($100). Her legs were
swiped and lightly dressed ($420). The doctor ($1,950) determined it unlikely she would have long-term nerve damage from the bite, and a nurse ($450) showed Gemma how to change the dressing on the wounds and provided her with bandages, antiseptic ointment, and wraps ($300). Gemma's own hand required six butterfly stitches ($600) on the index and middle fingers. Her own scrapes and bruises were cleaned and dressed ($320).

Franny was in the emergency room with Doreen, who had brought a change of clothes for them as soon as Gemma called. By the time Ginny and Gemma emerged from the emergency ward, Franny was lying with her head in Doreen's lap. Ginny was asleep in an emergency ward bed, the television tuned to a muted Disney channel. Gemma came out to see them, and at the sight of her, in bandages and with her bruises, Franny began to cry again.

“Mom, are you okay?” she asked.

“I think I am. Ginny is resting up. They want to watch her a few more hours, but I think we're over the worst. They said they treat fifteen coyote bites a day.”

“Your momma is a strong woman,” Doreen said, turning to Franny. “Now, sit here a bit with Franny, I'm going to sneak outside.” Doreen needed a cigarette.

“Were you frightened, Mom?” Franny asked.

“I wasn't feeling anything. Just these, dogs, circling, and then jumping, and I wasn't going to let them get to Ginny.”

“You were fighting them.”

“With my bare hands.” Gemma held up her right hand, stitched up and wrapped.

“Can coyotes get us at Gammer's?” Franny asked.

“Nope.”

Franny's eyes welled up with tears. She was sobbing again. “I'm s-so sad,” she said.

“It's okay. Ginny is gonna be fine. I'm fine.”

“N-n-no, not you guys. The whales!”

Gemma turned to see on a wall-mounted television Fox News showing footage of the beached whales and a graphic reporting that eight of the dozen whales were believed to be dead.

When Doreen returned, Gemma led them back to where Ginny was resting. They gathered around, smiling, and Ginny said, “This never would have happened if Dad was here.”

Gemma stood at the foot of the bed, forcing a smile, silently cursing the world.

WHEN SHE RETURNED HOME, MANY
thousands of dollars in debt to MasterCard, and with a daughter who might never want to stray from a paved road again, she found an e-mail from a reporter asking if she would talk for just a few minutes. He said they had actually met, in fact she had pepper-sprayed him just a few days ago. So he was the prophet who had surprised her during her morning run with strange ramblings about coyotes.

You know what, she thought. Fuck Arthur. I'm out here, fighting coyotes, trying to keep my kids alive, and what is he doing? He's hanging around in Texas with über-con assholes who are calling him some kind of capitalist hero? She'd show the world what kind of hero Arthur was. Yes, she wrote to the reporter, yes, I'll meet with you. When? Where?

She slid Ginny and Franny into bed and gave Ginny a slug of the hydrocodone-laced cough syrup ($225). She would have a scar for life. Her shoulder would be sore for weeks. The poor girl. She did not remember the coyote sinking its teeth into her arm, or how she had broken free. When going after larger prey, like a human child, coyotes tended to stalk and strike, and repeat, until the weakened animal could be taken down. Ginny must
have fought hard to have survived until Gemma could find her. The pack had been lurking, and one more bite could have pulled her little girl to the ground, where they would have gone for her kidney, liver, heart—Gemma didn't like to think about it.

Nor did she feel ready for social engagements of any kind. She did not want to consider her dating prospects post-Arthur. Her mother was a cautionary tale. In the thirty-five years since she had left her husband—a homosexual violinist who lived in an air-conditioned compound in New Mexico with a dozen stray dogs—Doreen had not had a lover. Gemma shuddered at the thought of that kind of parched spell.

Gemma knew she was not fooling anyone, not after what she had been going through these last few months: she looked her age. But her auburn hair retained its luster, her eyes were still green and bright, her lips full, the skin around her jaw taut, even if there were wrinkles—more every day—radiating from the corners of her eyes and along her forehead. True worry lines, as she weighed in silence the prospects of a single motherhood with a deadbeat con-man husband. Gemma was a handsome woman, retaining her appeal even as her features betrayed the beginnings of the muting and fraying of age, and while men no longer might elbow each other as she passed in front of a bar, every man would be secretly thinking to himself, Hmm, not bad, not bad at all.

She, of course, was too well aware of what she had once been: steadily, dependably pretty. And while she knew she had not lost that completely, she also knew that she was no longer a woman who could compel men to launch proverbial fleets.

Facing the mirror, she cursed herself for her vanity at a time like this, her hand bandaged and now aching (she had Tualaton tablets for that), scrapes and bruises up and down her legs. She'd fought off a goddamn pack of coyotes! Maybe it was being back
in her adolescent bedroom, geography reawakening teen worries like
Am I pretty? Do they like me?

Never, she thought, never again would she be driven by self-doubt and insecurity and teen-girl self-loathing. She would loathe Arthur. She would love herself.

SARGAM HAD QUICKLY EMERGED AS
one of the leaders of Valence, in part because of her value as chief mechanic, keeping alive a fleet of battered SUVs that could shuttle the men—and a few women—to work in Placer or Drum. A Pepper Industries subsidiary, HG Extraction, was fracking natural gas from the shale beneath the former agricultural communities sixty miles up the road. They occasionally could hear the convoys of hydraulic rigs rolling by on the highway. There was steady work on the fracking sites, doing the dangerous grunt jobs of cementing, building the casings, and mixing the proppants, and for those who could operate a backhoe or a steamroller, there was work running heavy equipment. The men and women returned weary, but with more money than they would have made day-laboring. They were all eating better. There was a doctor who had turned up in Valence, as well as a nurse. And just a few days ago a former farmer arrived who knew how to maximize crop yields.