Assumption by Percival Everett Read Free Book Online

moon to speak to me. For the spirits tell me what flies I’ll need.”
    “You’re full of shit.”
    “I’m waiting for some feathers to arrive from Cabela’s.” Fragua looked at the passing chaparral. “I hate having to tell people bad things. I’d like to look at it as just a part of the job, but it’s so hard. Especially when you know them.”
    “So, tell me, what do you think went on out there?” Ogden asked.
    Fragua shrugged. “We’ll know more when the state cops send us their report. Who knows, maybe the Marotta kid got picked up hitchhiking and they stayed out there to smoke some dope. Maybe they were transported there by aliens.”
    “That’s more likely.”
    “Turn here,” Fragua said. “They live down this road about a mile across the creek.”
    Ogden followed Fragua’s directions and they found the house, set back away from the road, the snow around it disappearing quickly. They walked up to the porch and stomped their wet boots. The stomping was more or less a knock. A young woman opened the door, then closed the door. It was opened again, this time by an older woman.
    “Mr. Fragua,” the woman said, half-­smiling, seeming to see something in his face, and falling back a step. “We haven’t seen you for a long time.” She stepped back and allowed the men to enter.
    “It’s been awhile. You been busy?”
    “Yes, yes, very busy.”
    Ogden closed the door.
    “This is Deputy Walker.”
    Ogden nodded to the woman.
    She briefly acknowledged Ogden and looked back at Fragua. “What’s wrong?”
    “Where is Mr. Marotta?”
    “He’s at work.”
    “It’s José,” Fragua said.
    Mrs. Marotta sat on the sofa. Ogden looked to see the young woman at the kitchen door. Fragua sat beside the boy’s mother.
    “I called the police because he didn’t come home for two nights,” she said. “He’s never been gone for two nights. You have him in jail?” She shook her head. “What has he done? Do we need money?”
    Fragua rubbed his left temple. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s been an accident.”
    “Oh god,” the woman said. The woman at the kitchen door disappeared.
    “José is dead.”
    With that the woman who had disappeared into the kitchen ran out and clung to her mother.
    “I must call my husband,” the woman said, blankly. She was crying, but made no sound.
    “We’re very sorry,” Fragua said.
    Ogden was waiting for her to ask what had happened, but the woman was too broken up. He touched Fragua’s shoulder and asked with his eyes what they should do. Fragua shrugged.
    The young woman looked quickly at Ogden, then away.
    “You call your husband, Mrs. Marotta,” Fragua said. “You can come by the station anytime and the sheriff will talk to you, if you want that. I’ll come back by tomorrow.”
    Fragua stood and Ogden moved to the door, stepped out first. Outside the brisk, fresh air was like a drug. Ogden couldn’t get enough of it into his lungs.
    Ogden walked into his home and looked at his walls and furniture and unwashed dishes in the sink and breathed easier. He peeled off his hat and coat, went to the gas heater, and turned it on high. He took off his shoes and slipped into the moose-­hide moccasins his mother had given him last Christmas. He then turned his attention to the collection of feathers and patches of deer and calf hair and spools of thread on his desk. He sat behind his vise and secured a size 10 hook, imagined a trout on the Chama rising for the Green Drake he was about to tie. He recalled his father spending the cold winter nights reading and tying flies for the next season. Ogden finally asked his father to teach him to tie, not so much because he wanted to fish, but because he thought the flies were beautiful. He was ten at the time and he still remembered watching his first colorful streamer develop in front of him. He recalled the way it felt to trim the deer hair on his first grasshopper, the pieces of feathers, how much fun it was to dub