The Annunciation, page 20
“Now you’re going to start giving me credit for the rain?”
“Every single drop,” he said.
She looked down at his intense face, wondering how in the name of heaven he had fallen that much in love with her. Wondering why it terrified her so.
18
The storm came from the south. And from the west and east. Outside the curtainless windows the lightning was breaking in three directions, a bowl of storm clouds surrounding northwest Arkansas.
Around two-thirty Will pulled her into his arms. “I know you’re awake,” he said. “Let’s go watch the storm. Let’s go upstairs and watch the lightning.”
They took pillows and quilts and made a pallet on the floor before the long glass doors that opened out onto the balcony. They sat up half the night watching the storm, snuggled together in quilts on the floor.
“Let’s have a wonderful breakfast,” Amanda said when they woke. “Katie Vee brought fresh blueberries yesterday. Let’s have blueberries and English muffins and cafe au lait out of china cups. And then,” she said, “let’s fly to New York City and spend all my money. I want to take you to New York, to the Village, to Donovan’s and Gregory’s and Sweet Basil and the Eighth Street Playhouse. And the ballet. And croissants, croissants on Seventh Avenue before a show. Oh, Will, it would be such fun to be there with you.”
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’m ready.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never been. I want to show you the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History and the Vermeers at the Frick and Steuben Glass. I want to show you The Sword in the Stone. Oh, Will, I want to give you The Sword in the Stone.”
“Let’s go,” he said. “I can do anything you want to do. Until Wednesday. On Wednesday I’m going out and get a job. Well, you want to go to New York until then?”
“We can’t,” she said. “It costs too much. We’d have to spend my money. You told me not to do that to you.”
Then they were quiet, wishing they hadn’t talked of it. They were eating breakfast at a small table by a window, blueberries and muffins and orange marmalade and real cream.
He is so beautiful she thought, watching the light from the windows fall across his cheekbones, the light on the brass bowl of blueberries, the light on his hair, the light on the parquet floor.
She reached out her hand to touch him, then picked up a blueberry instead and held it between her fingers, wondering how anything could be so fragile and so blue.
“Going to New York isn’t the only thing to do,” he said. “We could go down a river. Look out there, every river in the state is running like crazy after that rain. You’re always talking about wanting to float a river.”
“Could we go down the Buffalo?” she said.
“We can do anything you want to do,” he said. “We can do the top reaches of the Buffalo after this storm.”
“Then let’s go,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go right now. What do we have to do to get ready?”
“It will take two days,” he said. “We’ll have to sleep out one night.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I’d rather do that than anything in the world.”
“Okay,” he said. “Get dressed. Let’s get going.”
They drove out of Fayetteville into the soft green beauty of the hills, the country becoming wilder and more sparsely populated, the old Boston Mountains getting higher and higher as they moved upwards into the escarpment, to the place where the rivers begin, to Ponca where the Upper Buffalo is only full enough for floating for a brief time in late spring.
“Where will we get a canoe?” Amanda said.
“There’s a little store called White Deer. I used to know the guy that runs it. A crazy guy that had a commune up here in the seventies, a guy named Jeter. I don’t know if that’s his real name or not.”
“What kind of commune?”
“A bunch of kids that came up here when they got fed up with the Peace Corps. They all left except Jeter. I guess he’s still here. Be watching out for a sign.”
By noon they came to Ponca, a little town spread out along a narrow creek valley, four or five frame houses with chickens and goats and sleepy dogs and porch swings. There was a hand-painted sign stuck on a fencepost with a picture of a fat white deer. CANOES, it said, Jeter Mayhew, Whitewater Guide.
“That’s it,” Will said. “That’s the guy. He’ll rent us something that won’t leak.”
They turned a curve, went down a hill and came to a stop in front of a log cabin with red and yellow canoes piled haphazardly around the yard. A huge dog the color of rust was lying on the path to the door.
“What is that?” Amanda said. “It looks like a Shetland pony.”
“It’s one of Jeter’s dogs,” Will said. “Don’t be afraid of them. They won’t hurt you.”
“That’s the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said, getting carefully out of the car, keeping her eye on him. He was standing now, at least three feet tall, standing right in the middle of the path, looking up at her out of his great soft sad face.
“It’s okay,” Will said. “Take it easy.”
Amanda squared her shoulders, walked politely around the dog and hurried into the safety of the little country store. She looked around at the shelves of camping gear and racks of colored life jackets. Then she saw the other dogs, four more of the great silent rust-colored creatures. They seemed to be everywhere. Two were lying beside a white freezer, one was asleep on an old sofa and the biggest one of all was standing by the cash register being fondled by a tall man wearing glasses.
“The dogs won’t hurt you,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”
“They’re the biggest dogs I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said.
“That’s Trevino outside,” he said. “And that’s Allie and Luke by the freezer. And Rose, there on the sofa. She’s hurt. Somebody shot her, took her for a deer. It’s been a bad year for the dogs. Someone stole Carl Orff but we got him back.”
“They’re beautiful,” Amanda said. “I’m starting to like them.”
“Be careful what you say around them,” he said. “They’re very sensitive. They’re worse than children.”
“Hey, Jeter,” Will said. “What’s happening? How’s the river?”
“It’s the best week we’ve had all season,” he said. “Where’ve you been? You haven’t been in these parts for a while.”
“I went back to school,” Will said. “Wasted a lot of time and money.” He reached out and pulled Amanda to him. “This is Amanda McCamey, Jeter. Get her to tell you about how she tamed the Colorado. She says she’s ready to take on the Buffalo.”
“I did not,” Amanda said. “You’re the one that thought this up.” She moved his arm and walked over to a rack of T-shirts, pretending to be looking through them.
“Come back here,” he said. “I want Jeter to show you his worm farm.”
“What on earth is a worm farm?” she said.
“It’s how I make a living,” Jeter said, leading them back through the store to a room with a concrete floor. A great pile of loam and peat moss was spread out on a canvas with fat earthworms crawling through the openings. At the far end of the room a waterfall came out of a wall and poured down into a long concrete pond.
“Look at Jeter’s waterfall,” Will said. Amanda walked to the back of the room and stared uncomprehendingly at the arrangement.
“What’s it for?” she said.
“To listen to,” Jeter said. “I like to hear it while I’m sleeping.”
“Where does it come from?”
“It’s from springs,” he said. “The pipes take it back to its course. Sometimes I keep fish in the tank. There might be some in there now.” He leaned over and stirred the tank with a broom handle. One lazy-looking catfish swam to the top and then sank again. Every time Jeter moved Carl moved with him, keeping close to his leg. Now Rose, the wounded dog, hobbled out of the other room and joined them. Jeter reached down, caressing them while he talked.
“We better get going,” Will said. “We want to make camp before sundown.”
“You’re going to have a hell of a day,” Jeter said. “You couldn’t have picked a better one.”
They drove down a little winding road and there it was, spread out before them, the Buffalo, a bright, curving line of fast-moving white water, rushing down out of the mountains, breaking out of its canyon, so fast and full now it almost covered the little concrete bridge leading to the put-in place.
“Well, what do you think?” he said, smiling as if he had just handed her a piece of the moon.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “It’s moving so fast. Jesus, Will, when I told you I knew how to canoe I meant at camp or on a little bayou. I didn’t mean in anything like that!” She was looking at the place where the rushing water went in two directions around a tree. It didn’t look as though there was room for a canoe on either side.
“We’ll do fine,” he said. “Just remember what I told you about diving out on the high side if we capsize. Everything else will be all right.”
“Are you sure you know how to do this?” Amanda said.
“I don’t guess I forgot how since September.”
“Did you ever turn one over?”
“Not on purpose,” he said.
“What does that mean?” she said.
“You’re safe with me,” he said. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He was tying their gear into the center supports of the big soft-bottomed yellow canoe.
She watched his hands, thinking of them lying so still beside her while she slept, on the strings of his guitar or skipping stones on the flat surface of the lake or throwing rocks one right after the other into the knotholes on her tree.
“The opposable thumb,” she said. “Imagine a creature who could develop that being too stupid to be happy.”
“I’m happy right now,” he said. “Now then, are you getting in this canoe or not?”
“All right,” she said, striking her chest with her closed fist like the old Indian in Little Big Man. “It’s a good day to die. Show me what to do. I’ve never seen anything like this river in my life, Will. Isn’t there an easier place to start?”
“Put-in,” he said. “It’s called put-in. And you have to do it here. Don’t worry. All you have to do is paddle as hard as you can and remember, for God’s sake, which side to fall out of in case we turn over.”
“All right,” she said. “I’m counting to three and then I’m getting in.” She took a breath, stepped into the front of the canoe, picked up a paddle and looked straight at the tree. “Let’s go,” she said. “Vaya con dios, Holy Mary Mother of God, whatever one says.”
Will stepped into the back of the canoe, and they shoved off into the sudden violence of the river. “Paddle,” he yelled. “Paddle like a son-of-a-bitch.”
Amanda paddled. She sat up straight, pulling her torso up out of her rib cage, leaning over the side, paddling as hard as she could. Will tossed away his cigarette and guided them around the tree and down a little three-tiered waterfall and they were off down the winding spinning first half-mile of the high Buffalo.
“Paddle,” he yelled, “you’re doing great.” Amanda paddled harder. After a while the water smoothed out and they coasted past a rock-covered beach and on down to where the river became a pool with huge black and gray bluffs rising up like eagles’ wings.
“Look at the bluffs,” Will said. “Is that as good as Steuben Glass?”
“Steuben Glass couldn’t hold a candle to this river.”
“It smells so good,” he said. “I’d forgotten the smell. And she’s running. She’s running like a dream.”
The canyon narrowed. The water became swifter again. “Listen,” Will said. In the distance Amanda could hear the rapids. She leaned into the paddle. In a moment they were upon a rush of water falling over stone ledges. She felt the adrenaline pour down into her arms and fingertips. They were through a couple of long exciting chutes, then the river ran down to a shelf of level land. Around them and behind them were dense unbroken woods. A jungle of trees met over their heads like a green tunnel. It was quieter here, darker, and Amanda sat back, letting Will do the work for a while.
I feel safe with him, she thought. I think he can take care of me. She felt a sharp pain low on her left side, thinking for a moment she had pulled a muscle, then recognizing the old quirky pain of ovulation. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’re too old to ovulate.
“Is something wrong?” he said.
“No,” she said. “I was just thinking about form. Like the way you handle this canoe. Making it look easy.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about what you look like out here.”
“Can I take my shirt off?” she said. “You have yours off.”
“Take it off for all I care,” he said. “If we get arrested I can always say you’re from New Orleans and don’t know any better.”
“Is there anyone out here?” she said. “I mean, to arrest me?”
“Of course not,” he said. “It’s Monday. There isn’t anyone for miles. Take your pants off too for all I care.”
“Well, that might be going too far.” She reached up and pulled off her old gray and white striped boat shirt and Will guided the canoe on down the river thinking about her lovely smooth back, thinking about the night.
Thirteen days, she was thinking. No, twelve, I guess. Let’s see, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Well, it’s absurd.
“Amanda,” Will said. “Quick. Look up there. To the left.” She turned her head and saw a waterfall pouring down over rock shelves to the river. Beside it a fat, white-faced steer gazed out through the trees.
“You see everything,” she said. “You’re always showing me something.”
“That’s because I look. Most people never look more than thirty feet in front of themselves. That’s one thing I got from all those days I spent surveying. I’m always picking out landmarks, walls, ditches, fences. I’ll be glad to get back to doing it.”
“You’re definitely giving up on school?”
“I don’t like to go to school, Amanda. All I want to do is get a job and be a happy man. I don’t care about that other stuff. I never have. All I want is some work to do and a band to play with on the weekends.”
“I don’t believe that’s all you want, Will. I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“Hear that,” he said. “That’s white water up ahead. You better be watching out for where we’re going.”
By late afternoon they had passed Three Points, an unmarked place where the river splits around a small island. They came upon it unexpectedly, sailing down the incline and around the curves yelling like Indians. They went around a final bend and Will guided them into a small lagoon beneath some willow trees. “How’s this, Ms. McCamey?” he said. “Will these accommodations do you for the night?”
“I’m with you, Captain,” she said. “Whatever does for you does for me.” They pulled the canoe up on the rocks and Amanda went to work hanging their wet things on the persimmon trees along the bank.
“I’m going to walk up into the woods and see where we are,” Will said.
When he left she took a box of animal crackers out of the supplies and sat down on the edge of the bank biting the heads off tigers and lions, looking up at the ancient twisted junipers growing in the cracks at the top of the bluffs, pretending she was an eagle perched on the junipers, looking down on herself sitting on the riverbank in her old gray shirt, munching the little cookies, content as any housewife.
Will walked up the path into a stand of birch and water oaks, breaking off dry branches as he moved along, making a little bundle of twigs. I’ll make her an Indian fire, he thought, remembering his grandfather squatting beside him in the woods teaching him to build the small hot fires of the Cherokee. He shivered, feeling the cool beginning of evening. We should have brought blankets, he thought, but, shit, I was afraid if I let her go back in the house one more time she’d change her mind. Jesus, she’s changeable and hard to figure. All I really know about her is the way her skin feels. She’s got the softest skin of any woman I’ve ever touched. Sometimes I wish she’d take those big eyes and all those goddamn words and ideas and go on back to New Orleans and just leave me her skin to hold. Goddamn, I can’t even drink around her. What kind of a deal is that? He walked on into the woods, thinking about her strangeness.
It was growing darker now. He had moved almost half a mile into the underbrush. He turned and walked back the way he had come, caught up in the cool green of the woods at dusk, getting used to the feeling of being alone in the world. The darkness was gathering faster turning the leaves black all around him. He looked up and saw her sitting on a fallen tree trunk with her head tilted up to catch the last light.
“Are you going to make me a fire or not?” she said.
“Wait till you see this fire,” he said. “This fire will knock your eyes out.” He walked down to the beach and found stones and arranged them in a circle, tore a paper sack into fat strips, laid pieces on the stones like a Maltese Cross, then added the bundle of twigs, then a log. She sat on a sleeping bag, watching him without speaking. In a moment the fire caught and began to blaze hot and quick, sending a thin stream of smoke straight up into the windless night. He held out his hands. The smoke sailed up through a hole in the overhanging willows, becoming a small cloud as it hit the air currents above the trees.
“I wish I had some eagle feathers,” he said. “The Cherokee bring up the fire with eagle feathers. When the smoke reaches the sky it becomes an eagle. And the spirit of the firebuilder can fly with the eagle wherever the night winds carry him. In the morning the spirit returns through the fire and goes back into the man.”
“What if the fire goes out?” Amanda said.
“I won’t let it go out,” Will said. “Not tonight anyway.”
They ate a cold supper sitting beside the fire, then lay down together to watch the constellations appear in the sky.
