"I don't know," he said. "Kind of off and on, and lately it's got worse."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugged. "It's not the easiest kind of announcement to make."

His bristly blond hair, for which he'd been named, was still wet and plastered to his forehead. Even though he had just showered she could detect a light perfume of sulfur on him, underneath which was something flowery and sweet. He looked at her earnestly, worriedly, as if waiting for her to p.r.o.nounce some sort of judgment upon him. She was quiet for a while, trying to enjoy this moment while it lasted, trying not to think what it might mean for her future.

"I don't care," she said finally, and it had felt good, somehow, to tell this lie, to act as if she meant it. "Try not to worry about it. We'll figure something out. It'll be okay." His mouth sagged open a little with relief and she kissed him. Just like that. Even gave him a little tongue, which he readily accepted. She was used to waiting on him, to seducing him into kissing her, but she had already broken Rule Numero Uno; she might as well a.s.sert herself a little.

"I'm not done with you now," she said, pulling away. Suddenly she felt like she might begin to cry. "Still one more question to go."

His face clouded with worry again. He said, "Shoot."

She said, "Is it true you're planning to marry Maureen Sinkfoyle?"

He exhaled, and shook his head energetically. "No, no, no-no way." He put his big hand on her shoulder. "Uncle Chick brought it up with me a while ago, but I told him no, I had all I could handle already."

"Beverly said it was already in the works."

"Beverly's always trying to arrange things, you know that. But believe it or not, I'm the one who has to make the decision about who I marry. And I'm done. You're the last. After you, no one else could compare." He blushed a little at the uncharacteristic bit of flattery, but she was so grateful for it she kissed him again.

"Just one more question, then," she said.

"You said only two questions. This makes three."

"Indulge me."

"Only if I can ask you a question first."

"Fair enough."

"Did you call me an idiot a while ago?"

"I think I did."

"Is that really how you feel about me?"

"Most of the time."

For the first time that night his lips looked ready to work themselves into a smile. "Well, all right. What's your last question?"

She looked out window. "Why would anybody want to build an old folks' home right next to a wh.o.r.ehouse?"

A MAN AND HIS WIFE He watched her sleep, wondering if he'd ever seen her this way before; he had the feeling that as long as he'd known her he'd done most of the sleeping while she'd done most of the watching. The only illumination inside the trailer came from the glowing face of the alarm clock, which cast its weak green light onto the top half of the bed and painted a dull shine on her hair, drew a soft l.u.s.ter from the skin of her cheeks and forehead. She was beautiful: this was his thought. She was beautiful and he couldn't remember the last time he'd noticed.

The warm, heavy hand of exhaustion pressed down on the back of his neck, but sleep wouldn't come. His head hurt-the lump at the back of it had contracted into a hard little stone under the skin and the sc.r.a.pes and scratches on his feet itched and stung with an insistence that occasionally made him want to whimper and thrash inside the sheets like an infant.

He heard a noise outside-what sounded like the crunch of footsteps-but when he looked out the window he could see only the dark humps of sagebrush.

He squeezed shut his eyes, hoping to force himself into some pa.s.sing pocket of sleep, and listened to Trish snore. Her snore, which he was sure he had never heard before, had the throaty quality of a reed instrument, an old clarinet played by someone in a secondhand shop. Her breath pulsed softly against his face and he found himself looking at her again, watching the small twitch at the corner of her lip, following the shadowed maze of her ear, and at this bitter hour, with morning beginning to harden like frost in the window, he couldn't escape the thought that he had betrayed her. She had come to him during the worst part of his life-just when the entire family seemed to have agreed as one to end their mourning of Glory's death, leaving Golden behind in his close-fisted sorrow. Unlike the other wives, who in their own ways urged him to move on, to return his attention to his living sons and daughters, Trish had a ready reservoir of sympathy that she could tap at any time. She didn't judge him or require him to be strong. During the first year of their marriage she had been his only reliable source of comfort; her joy in a new pregnancy, the possibility that it offered both of them, helping to brighten his days. And then they had lost Jack, and what had he done? Run away without apology or explanation, afraid or unable to add the weight of that loss to the grief he already carried. He had abandoned her: there it was. He had let her shoulder that pain-and he knew too well the desperate, clawing ache of it-all alone.

He wanted to rest his hand against her cheek, to tell her how sorry he was, to remind himself of everything he owed her. He wanted-in the most selfish and carnal of ways-to press himself into her. He wanted to gather her against him and take comfort in the faint heat of her skin. He wanted to slip his arms around her. He wanted to touch her. He didn't dare.

29.

THE HUNT

WHENEVER GOLDEN FINISHED A JOB, EVEN A SMALL ONE, IT WAS his habit to celebrate. He was not one for merrymaking, but when it was all over-the haggling, the unreliable subs and the thugs and ex-cons who worked for them, the rotten weather and the soil tests and the a.s.shole inspectors with their freshly sharpened pencils, the nitpicking clients and their bounced checks and threats of litigation and late-night calls about a stain color or the price of a box of roofing nails-when all of that was over, yes, it was time to have a party. His men never failed to invite him to the bars or a kegger out in the sticks, but he always declined. Instead, he bought tubs of ice cream or maybe a case of Twinkies and brought them home, let the kids go nuts. Once, he'd loaded up the whole family and treated them to dinner at a nice sit-down Italian place in St. George called Fat and Swifty's-a mistake he would never repeat. In the past couple of years he'd taken to celebrating by himself: he'd do some shopping-a little something for the wives-or go see an afternoon matinee, depleted and happy, dazed with relief. his habit to celebrate. He was not one for merrymaking, but when it was all over-the haggling, the unreliable subs and the thugs and ex-cons who worked for them, the rotten weather and the soil tests and the a.s.shole inspectors with their freshly sharpened pencils, the nitpicking clients and their bounced checks and threats of litigation and late-night calls about a stain color or the price of a box of roofing nails-when all of that was over, yes, it was time to have a party. His men never failed to invite him to the bars or a kegger out in the sticks, but he always declined. Instead, he bought tubs of ice cream or maybe a case of Twinkies and brought them home, let the kids go nuts. Once, he'd loaded up the whole family and treated them to dinner at a nice sit-down Italian place in St. George called Fat and Swifty's-a mistake he would never repeat. In the past couple of years he'd taken to celebrating by himself: he'd do some shopping-a little something for the wives-or go see an afternoon matinee, depleted and happy, dazed with relief.

Today, there would be none of that; he would go home and act as if everything were normal, as if the job were still on, and try to figure out his next move. But he couldn't deny the relief he felt now. Driving the winding course between the ramparts of the Virgin River Gorge, the Airstream b.u.mping unwillingly along behind the GMC, it was as if everything inside him had turned to tar. He slumped in the seat and barely had the strength to keep his foot pressed on the gas.

Early this morning, not long after Trish had left for Virgin, Ted Leo had pounded on the Airstream's flimsy door, waking Golden from a drooling stupor. Wearing white loafers, a dark green shirt patterned with neon-pink martini gla.s.ses, and plaid polyester slacks, Ted Leo had informed Golden that they were going out to do a little coyote hunting before breakfast, and wanted Golden to come along. In contrast to his peppy getup, Ted Leo's face showed nothing but grimness and exhaustion, and Golden was certain he could detect on the man the sour scent of booze. Golden ducked his head under the doorframe to get a look at Nelson sitting at the wheel of Ted's pickup, staring glumly into s.p.a.ce. In the bed of the pickup two wedge-headed dogs hung their snouts over the tailgate, watching a jackrabbit lope casually through the brush. Golden had done his best to refuse Ted's invitation, saying he had a lot of work to get to today, but Ted Leo insisted. "We'll have you back in an hour and a half. Get some pants on."

On the drive into the desert there was a minimum of talk. Golden sat in the middle, trying to stay calm, as if he were perfectly happy to be going on an extemporaneous hunting trip with his two good buddies, Nelson and Ted. But it was not easy to hide the unease, percolating like swamp gas from deep in his gut. He had never seen Ted Leo like this: propped against the pa.s.senger door, head sunk down between his shoulders, his face a wooden mask, speaking not a word. Even Nelson looked a bit troubled, giving his boss the occasional sideways glance.

They circled around the western edge of a hummock topped with pitted lunar sandstone and suddenly the fence of the Test Site came into view, stretching east and west in a perfect black line like the demarcations on a compa.s.s. Golden saw in his mind the abandoned bunker Ted Leo had shown him last summer, felt the heavy, almost animate darkness of the cave he had escaped from only last night, imagined his body stuffed through the bunker's steel hatch and interred there forever among tangles of old wire and the carca.s.ses of dogs. A wet rag of claustrophobic panic pressed against his face and he began to squirm.

"Where we going?" he managed to say. There was no way to keep himself from asking it, just as there was no way to accept, without protest or at the very least a polite inquiry, the emerging possibility that they were all on their way to see him meet his mortal end.

Nelson looked over at Ted Leo as if he had the same question but lacked the appet.i.te to put it into words. Ted Leo didn't speak or move for a good ten seconds. Finally, he said, "Take us up the way, Nelson, and get the guns and dogs ready."

They drove half a mile or so north and Nelson parked the pickup under the negligible protection of an ancient Joshua tree with two sagging arms and a fat trunk bulging with odd-shaped tumors and burls. He gave a piercing whistle, which sent the dogs leaping from the tailgate, circling and sniffing, throwing long, frenetic shadows in the early morning light.

All three men got down on their bellies, the dogs hunkered next to them, and Nelson blew through a wooden cylinder to produce a plaintive, high-pitched howl, followed by a series of sharp, barking yips. Nelson and Ted scanned the hills with binoculars until the dogs began to whine and make low growling noises in their throats.

"There in that shallow draw," said Nelson. "Male, prob'ly."

The dogs raised their heads and both men trained their binoculars in the same direction, but Golden could see nothing.

"Do your thing, girls," Nelson whispered, and the dogs jumped up and scrambled down the slope, ears flapping, cropped tails vibrating with excitement. At first Golden could see only the two dogs racing neck and neck, wide-eyed and grinning like two kids trying to settle a bet, but then a coyote came into view, a big s.h.a.ggy gray thing with bone-white legs, going hard along the top of the ridge to cut them off. Just when it seemed their paths would intersect, the dogs veered away, weaving through the chaparral, tongues wagging, appearing to have the time of their lives. The coyote was clearly faster than the dogs, and occasionally it would put on a burst of speed, stretching out to take long leaping double-strides, and would close in to bite at their flanks as if to hamstring them. One dog would always slow to make a few slashing feints, distracting the coyote, sometimes drawing it into a spinning, growling tangle until the coyote would race away, dragging its hindquarters to protect itself, and the whole dance would start again, their long swinging shadows performing a parallel drama along the brush and sand.

While this went on, the dogs circling ever closer, luring the coyote in, Ted Leo spoke: "The coyote, he can't help it, see. We're upwind and he's probably already picked up our scent, but he just can't help himself. Those pretty dogs come racing through his line of sight, he can smell 'em, and he's stumbling all over himself to go after 'em. He's got a mate and probably a litter of pups up them rocks, every reason to be cautious, but it's in his nature, his blood. He chases after what ain't his, not paying enough attention to his own, and just you watch, he's going to get himself killed."

Golden turned to look at Ted Leo and what he saw made his skin p.r.i.c.kle; instead of watching the chase, as Golden had been, Ted Leo was up on one knee, staring at Golden with a carefully controlled malevolence, a glint of cold mockery in his eyes.

Golden pressed his face into the dirt and took a breath, smelled salt and dust and sage and the sour taint of the gun's steel on his hands. "Mr. Leo, I want to explain-"

"You be quiet. I'm doing the talking."

"Yessir." Golden deposited his face back into the dirt, and began reciting names-EmNephiHelamanPauline NaomiJosepineParley NovellaGaleAlvin RustyClifton...

"You praying?" said Ted Leo, who seemed amused by this idea. "Suddenly you want to involve G.o.d in this?"

Head down, Golden kept reeling off the names.

Ted Leo took up his rifle and nudged Golden with the barrel. "Come on. I want you to see what's going to happen here. Look up. I want you to see this."

The dogs and the coyote were now only two or three hundred yards off in the draw just below them, circling and dodging, sometimes in a way that looked like play. Another coyote, this one smaller than the first with a reddish cast to its coat, had appeared on top of the rise. It paced nervously, sometimes coming down into the draw when it looked like there might be trouble, but always retreating to patrol the narrow ridgeline.

"That'd be the female," Ted Leo said. "A little more cautious than her mate, but I'm guessing not cautious enough."

The dogs, seeming to tire of the chase, began a loping zigzag up the rise toward the hunters, their tongues dangling. The male coyote charged after them, stopped suddenly, lifted its snout, and began a cautious, trotting retreat, checking back over its shoulder. Ted Leo made a barking call on his bugle and the coyote paused, looked around, sniffed again.

"You want to take him?" Nelson whispered.

"I'll take him." Ted Leo was already sighting through his scope. The taste of nausea Golden had woken up with began to fill the back of his mouth and thicken his tongue. His sinuses contracted, began to burn, and though he did everything to hold it back, he let loose one of his roaring, thunderclap sneezes. At the sound the coyote wheeled, flattening its body, and began a sprint up the draw toward its mate.

"Ah, s.h.i.t," Ted Leo growled, and his gun went off in Golden's right ear. The coyote flinched and lifted a foreleg, stumbling a little, slowing, and then Nelson's gun went off in Golden's left ear, and the coyote was spun around, as if somebody had grabbed it by the tail. It began a horrific squealing that penetrated even Golden's stunned eardrums, biting at its hindquarters and turning in place like a puppy chasing its tail. Within a few seconds the dogs were on it, snarling and biting with a sudden bloodl.u.s.t, and then the red female was there, leaping into the pile and slashing with her teeth, raising a great boil of dust.

Nelson yelled something that Golden couldn't make out. The dogs retreated, and when the female gave up following them to check on her mate, another gunshot concussed the side of Golden's head and the little rust-red coyote rose off the ground in a flexing convulsion and landed softly in the dirt, one hind leg still twitching.

Golden didn't know if the deep silence that followed was something real or a product of the gunshots, which had filled his head with wet cotton batting. He heard a kind of underwater murmuring, which turned out to be Ted Leo yelling at him, telling him to go down and retrieve the carca.s.ses. Golden tried to play deaf and dumb, but Ted wasn't having any of it. He delivered a sharp jab to Golden's neck with his rifle barrel. "Bring the carca.s.ses up. Or I'm going to set the dogs on you you."

Golden made his way down the draw, his body numb except for the hot, tingling spot in the center of his back where he imagined Ted Leo's 30.06 was trained. He considered making a break for it, sprinting down the draw and out into the open desert just to see how far he could get. He clenched the muscles of his neck so he wouldn't look back, walking with the careful, overly dignified air of a drunkard asked to leave a party.

The two coyotes were laid out one next to the other in the sand, grinning and b.l.o.o.d.y. The dogs sniffed them, giving them little nips and dancing backward, as if coaxing them to continue the game a little longer. Golden risked a glance up the hill. Ted and Nelson were standing together, watching, and Golden felt a small swell of grat.i.tude that neither had a gun pointed at him.

The task of dragging two dead coyotes uphill in the hot sun through tangles of brush turned out to be even less rewarding than Golden had antic.i.p.ated: the dogs kept tugging on the coyotes' ears and digging in, playing tug-of-war with Golden all the way up the rise, while a caravan of refugee fleas began a full-scale evacuation of the coyotes' coats for the fertile, hairy fields of Golden's arms, back, and chest. Sweating and gulping for air, he said nothing to the dogs, made no move to slap away the fleas; he limped up the hill, a coyote leg in each hand, not stopping until he slumped with a sigh into Nelson's vast, planetary shadow.

"b.i.t.c.h's got swollen teats," Nelson said. "Means she's got pups back up in them rocks. Hold on. Listen. You can hear 'em crying."

All three of them listened. Lying on his side, the sun in his eyes, Golden heard nothing except the ocean roar of his own lungs. His bad knee was killing him and his stomach churned. He gasped, "You going to leave them there?"

Ted Leo laughed. He laughed like this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "We going to leave them there? No, we're going to fetch them up and bottle-feed 'em and raise 'em as our own and one day, if they work hard and mind their manners, they'll go away to the Ivy Leagues and make us proud."

He shook his head, walked in a circle. Like the filament popping inside a lightbulb all the mirth drained out of him in an instant. His face went dark and he stiffened.

"You piece of s.h.i.t," he said, and gave Golden a quick, hard kick in the ribs. "I should have known. You piece of f.u.c.king f.u.c.k." Though Golden gasped at the violence of it, the kick turned out not to hurt at all; it was like being kicked by an old lady wearing house slippers. "Maybe we'll leave you out here, too, with them poor little pups, what do you think? Maybe that'll teach you to make time with another man's wife. You piece of utter s.h.i.t s.h.i.t."

Ted Leo lifted his rifle and brought the b.u.t.t of it down on the back of Golden's head. A red comet flared across his vision and his brain seemed to wobble inside his skull like a gyroscope. Now that that, Golden had to admit, hurt. While he was busy writhing on the ground, ringing like a bell of pain, Ted Leo squatted next to him and spoke into his ear. "Now get those animals in the back of the truck so I can decide what to do with you."

Ted Leo got in the cab to deliberate and Golden took his time working his way to his feet, spending a good minute on all fours, drooling into the dust. Finally Nelson helped him up and together they swung the carca.s.ses into the back of the pickup. He could hear the pups now, a faint mewling carried in on a gust of wind. Overtaken by a wave of dizziness, Golden pivoted, slumped against the rear tire, heaving in a way that sounded a little like sobbing, dripping with sweat, head bowed, exhausted beyond reason, ready to accept his fate, whatever it might be.

His immediate fate involved being forced to ride in back between the two dead coyotes like a trophy of the hunt. The dogs sat at the other end of the bed, wedged up against the tailgate, smiling at him shyly, their mouths rimmed with blood. Head lolling, he smiled back at them. Any of the fleas who had not jumped ship already did so now: they bounded in amazing little arcs off the dead coyotes onto Golden, crawling down his collar and up the cuffs of his pants, making themselves at home anywhere there was hair, which meant every part of him except his face and the no-man's-land around his groin.

They stopped behind the p.u.s.s.yCat Manor at the makeshift dock where the brothel accepted its bulk shipments of liquor, food, and d.i.l.d.os. Ted Leo went inside and came back holding an envelope and a sheet of paper. He said nothing to Golden, and they drove on, up the hill right through the construction site, where most of the men stopped to stare.

At Golden's trailer, Ted Leo did not get out of the cab. He rolled down the window and waited for Golden to climb down out of the bed and come to him.

"I don't make it a practice to trust anybody," he said in a low voice, staring out the windshield, "but you I trusted. I trusted you because I was dumb enough to think that a man who claims the t.i.tle of Christian, a man married to four women, with a crowd of children to protect and feed, a man with all that to lose-why would a man like that do this to me? Last night when I found my wife out at the hot springs, I knew something was wrong. I went back, and followed your tracks-barefoot tracks, wandering all over the d.a.m.n place-right back to this trailer, right to your front door there, and still I had trouble believing it. I made a few calls, and come to find out what a fool Ted Leo is. People around have seen you two together, taking romantic walks and carrying on on that couch, seems like I was the only one not to know. And I realized my mistake. Somebody like you, you have everything and you're not satisfied. You want more. You want what doesn't belong to you, you believe you're ent.i.tled to it all. You're exactly like your piece-of-s.h.i.t father."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Leo," Golden said. "I don't know what else to say."

"I don't want you to say anything. I don't want to hear from you again. I considered putting you away forever, but you're not worth the trouble it would take to put a bullet in your head. Turn the other cheek, the Good Book says. Well, consider my cheek turned." He handed Golden an envelope with a check for three-quarters of the amount he owed him, and had him sign a cancellation of their contract, a doc.u.ment that permanently ended their business relationship henceforth and forever.

Golden touched the tender knot at the back of his head, checked his fingers for blood. He whispered, "And Huila?"

Something hardened in Ted Leo's eyes. His arm banged against the door as if he had a mind to step out of the truck and give Golden another beating. He said, "Don't you ever say that name again. Don't you ever think it. Now go away and don't come back." Before he rolled up his window he turned his head to address Nelson. "And Nelson'll have a little something to send you on your way."

Nelson got out of the truck and ambled around the front of the pickup. He gave Golden a small, apologetic smile and Golden opened his arms slightly as if to receive a farewell hug or a nice parting gift. With a short, brutal stroke, Nelson brought his fist up into Golden's diaphragm. He made a sharp, wheezing gasp, and collapsed to the ground, opening and closing his mouth and arching his back like a fish on the deck of a boat.

Nelson knelt on one knee and loosened Golden's belt. "There you go, okay, breathe, that's good, relax now."

Golden let his head fall back, looked up at the bleached-white sky, felt like he was suffocating.

Nelson put his head down close to Golden's. "Do what Ted Leo says, he means it, okay?"

"Okay," Golden wheezed.

"He knows people. A few worse than me."

"Thank you," Golden managed.

"Okay then," said Nelson. "You're welcome."

And they drove away, kicking up a column of dust that followed them down the hill to p.u.s.s.yCat Manor. Golden lay in the dirt for a long while, trying to learn how to breathe again, trying not to think about what would come next.

BELLY OF THE WHALE After Ted Leo and Nelson had left him lying in the dirt in front of his trailer, he took fifteen minutes to gather himself and did the only thing left: collected his belongings from the work trailer, packed his things into the Airstream and drove away. With a pang of regret he left the Barge sitting alone in the yellow sand, an artifact for the ages, and drove past the work site, thinking it best not to say anything to anybody, to disappear and let gossip take care of the rest. But Leonard, who had a knack for being in the middle of everything, called out from the entrance of the new brothel where he was helping to install the great oak doors. He ran to intercept Golden's GMC.

"Where you going all loaded up?"

"I'm leaving, Leonard. Somebody else will take over for the last leg, maybe you. Tell the rest of the men goodbye for me. I'll try to get you on the next one."

It cheered him just a little to see how stricken Leonard looked by this news. He grabbed Golden's forearm. "What happened?"

"Ted Leo and I had a falling out. That's all. He gave me my walking papers."

Leonard nodded, closing his eyes with an air of profound intellectual comprehension. "Because you was f.u.c.king his wife, ain't it."

Golden looked around at the men who had stopped their work to watch. He settled his gaze on his hands gripping the steering wheel. There was still coyote blood on one of his knuckles. He said, "I didn't."

"Sure you did," Leonard said. He gave his boss an awkward half hug through the pickup window and whispered gently into his ear. "Don't worry, chief, happens to the best of us."

For a moment Golden stared blankly into Leonard's bright little eyes. "Thank you so much, Leonard," he said, and put the truck into gear.

Golden drove away then, Leonard in his rearview waving with his whole arm as if from the rail of a departing steamer, and pulled out onto the highway. He pa.s.sed the p.u.s.s.yCat Manor going slowly, staring straight ahead as he went by. Up the hill he pulled onto the gravel margins of the road for one last look. On the construction site they were pinning up chicken wire for the stucco, and then it would be mostly finish work, painting and carpet and trim. The whole thing would be done in a month and he would not be there to see it. He was proud of the work he'd put in-it was a well-constructed building, the biggest he'd ever done, but he would be glad, he thought, not to see it finished, not to have to think about it again.

He couldn't help it: he scanned the hills behind the site. He couldn't see the pond from here, and he imagined Huila there, wading in the shallows, the water at her ankles. He tried not to think about what might have happened between her and Ted Leo. A hot breeze pushing his hair around, he scanned the landscape for any sign of her. And then, feeling like a coward, like somebody running from a fight, he drove away for good.

During the drive home, the midday light crowding the shadows into the deepest fissures of the canyon walls, his thoughts began to stir and chase themselves through the foggy depths of his exhaustion. He experienced a series of impressions and images his jangled mind presented to him at random: Huila's b.r.e.a.s.t.s suspended in the inky water of the hot springs, Trish's hand on his as she lay next to him in the dark, the coyote biting at its own hindquarters and spinning itself into the ground, one of Ted Leo's white loafers flashing in his peripheral vision before burying itself in his ribs, the black air of the cave pressing against his face, the sour smell of his own fear, on him even now. His first coherent thought was that he had just escaped certain doom. Five years ago he had been hauling a load of cinder block on Highway 89 west out of Kanab in a sudden thunderstorm and had hit a pool of water, sending his truck out of control and into a slow roll down an embankment. The centrifugal force had wrenched open the driver's door and yanked him clear with such force he'd been separated from his hat and one of his shoes. He had no memory of hitting the ground, only of standing up covered with mud and finding himself-except for a sore shoulder and forearm embedded with bits of gravel-in perfect working order. He stood there weak-kneed and delirious in the rain, nothing to do but look around and palpate his bones, amazed.