Salt River by James Sallis Read Free Book Online Page B

want this set right, Sheriff. Came here hoping I might persuade Eldon Brown to go back with me, turn himself in. Nothing more to it. This point, I'm not expecting a lot more from life. Small wins. Small rewards. And most of those for someone else."

CHAPTER NINE
    "A MAN IS SLUMPED against a tree trunk in the jungle," Cy, my old mentor, said that one time we met, "or the side of an overpass, or a building smack in the heart of ritzy downtown—and he's dying. What he's thinking is, I'll never be able to tell Gladys how much I loved her, now I won't even get to try. What do you say?"
    "I'm there?"
    "For the benefit of the exercise, you are."
    "I'm not your student anymore, Cy."
    "Habit. So tell me: What do you, as a trained professional, say?"
    "I say . . . " I began, and foundered.
    "Exactly. You don't say anything. You listen." Cy got up to leave. "And that's the most important thing I can ever tell you. A small, simple thing—like most great secrets. You just listen."
    Strange how, as we age, our lives turn to metaphor. Memories flood in often and with little provocation, to the point that everything starts to remind us of something else. We, our actions, our lives, become representational. We imagine that the world is deeper, richer; in fact, it is simply more abstract. We tell ourselves that now we pay attention only to what's important. But sadly, what's important turns out to be keeping our routine.
    Much like the town back there behind us.
    Billy, it turned out, was going to be okay. He'd thrown a major clot, but it lodged in a leg vein and they managed to excise it surgically before it hit lungs or heart. Lonnie's description of the procedure when I spoke to him on the phone just before we left made it sound a lot like pulling a worm out of its skin. Except for all the fancy tools, equipment, and degrees, of course.
    And now Jed Baxter and I were hiking up-country through the heaviest growth, four or five hollows and a long hill or two away from Isaiah's colony. Morning sunlight fell. at a slant through the trees, struck the ground, and slid away into undergrowth without much purchase. Bird calls everywhere, growing silent as we approached, starting up again behind us. The barky, lisping chatter of squirrels.
    The colony was looking good. The townspeople did a great job rebuilding, and the kids had done an equally great follow-up. Kids—I still thought of them as that, though none of them were, and most hadn't been for some time. The old sign—HIER IST KEIN WARUM—was back up, over the common hall now. They'd left the scorched edges and glued the ragged crack running lengthwise down its middle. At the far end of the compound, they'd built a playground worthy of the swankest inner-city park: animal-shaped swings, treehouse, wooden jungle gym, tunnels made from crates, pint-size barn and corral. One of the colony's newer members had been a woodworker, custom stairways, door casings, and the like for a builder back in San Francisco. The swing in the shape of a horse bore an elaborate swirl of hand-carved mane; delicate whorls ran into its ears.
    The group was having its morning meal outside at one of the tables. Moira spotted us first, lifting a hand high in what served as both alert and greeting. The others turned, Isaiah came to meet us just inside the clearing, and nothing would do, of course, but that we eat with them. Fresh-baked bread, elderberry preserves, a kind of farmer's cheese made (Moira signed, with one of the children interpreting) by curdling milk with lemon juice.
    I'd told Baxter what to expect, but you could tell it was a reach for him, taking all this in, accepting it for what it was. After we'd finished eating, he and Eldon stood nearby playing horseshoes (horseshoes! how long had it been since I'd seen horseshoes?) and talking. We had helped clear the table and attempted to help more, but Moira and the others held up hands and pushed us away in pantomime, mugging in mock terror as though we were