Watershed, page 6
“I was drunk two weeks ago and it felt a lot like this.”
“What happened then?”
“I passed out.”
“Is that likely to happen tonight?” I asked.
“Not after this one, but after the third, yes.”
The egg sandwich came and was pushed aside. I ate my burger and Davies turned out to be true to her word. She drained her third bottle, put her head on the table, and never came up. What I thought as I studied the top of her head on the table was how much I truly disliked her, in spite of her clumsy attempt at decency.
The flood plain of the Plata Mountain watershed is usually sandy and exhibits a moderate amount of hull material that appears to consist of calcium carbonate and clay from contributing soils. This kind of hull matter typically tends to decrease the roughness of the channel. The sandy alluvium exhibits ripple marks, indicative of high velocities and erosional action by the stream. Occasional boulders are found in the middle of the stream along with flood debris, including trees, logs, and brush that form with soil and rock into irregularly shaped swellings in the flood plain.
So there I was in lily white Rivertown with an unconscious Caucasian woman who had a badge and, no doubt, a gun in her purse. The waitress came to the table, stopped and looked at Davies.
“She done passed out, honey,” the woman said. “You’re going to have to get her out of here. We don’t allow no drunks in here once they’ve passed out.”
I didn’t say anything. There was not much to say. I tried to lift Davies from behind to drag her out, but that became sloppy right away and seemed not to be working. I took her arm and pulled her over my shoulder and carried her out fireman style with all sorts of hoots and hollers following me through the door. Outside, I loaded the drunk woman into my truck through the driver’s-side door and pushed her all the way over so that her head rested against the opposite window. As I turned the key I thought that all I would need right then would be to have my truck fail to start. But it did start and I realized as I pulled out of the parking space that I didn’t know where to take this catatonic FBI agent. It wasn’t going to do much good to drive her back to her car and I didn’t know where she was staying. And, finally, I would not be calling the FBI in Denver and have them misunderstand my story about having in my possession an unconscious agent of theirs. I turned north toward Plata Mountain and my house.
I turned the heat on high hoping that she would wake up, but the way she moaned suggested that I had only made her feel warm and cozy. She twisted her body and then fell over, her head landing in my lap. She talked in her sleep, but I could not make out any words, although I could feel her breath on my thigh through the fabric of my trousers. All of a sudden she shouted, “Freeze!” and I nearly lost control of the truck. I turned up the heat again.
At my house the snow was considerably deep and I had to shovel through a small drift to reach the door. I worked up a good sweat that made me feel just a little more alive. I then pulled Davies from the cab and carried her, over my shoulder, inside where I put her down in front of the cold stove. She felt heavier this time; perhaps she was more deeply unconscious. I covered her with a blanket and got a fire going. Her breathing was even and I felt confident that she was okay, so I left her in the big chair with her feet up and I went to bed.
You may rest assured that I shall adhere to the just and humane policy towards the Indians which I have commenced. In this spirit I have recommended them to quit their possessions on this side of the Mississippi, and go to a country to the west where there is every probability that they will always be free from the mercenary influence of white men, and undisturbed by the local authority of the states: Under such circumstances the General Government can exercise a parental control over their interests and possibly perpetuate their race.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I had trouble at first, tossing and turning and waking to the sound of my guest’s stirrings. I had the fleeting thought that she might come and attempt to share my covers, or in a dream walk in and shoot me, or, worse, kiss me. As far as I know, the former never happened. When I did find sleep it was deep and unmoving. I was awakened by icy air and when I sat up and focused I damn near screamed. There was Karen, wearing a godawful full-length fiber-filled parka, standing in the open doorway, hurling clothes out into the snow. I watched this, her flinging out a bra, then going back and grabbing a sock and tossing that out. I heard the shower and slowly began to piece it all together. Davies was in the shower. Her clothes were on the floor. The madwoman was in the doorway and I was standing next to the kitchen counter in my boxers, rubbing my head.
“Karen,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve been such a fool,” she said. “I trusted you. I thought you were up here fishing and trying to find yourself. I should have seen it. I should have known.”
“Karen, slow down.”
“Slow down? I’ll take it about as slow as you and Ms. Clean in there.”
I pulled on my robe and put some more wood in the stove. “This isn’t what you think.”
“No, then what is it?”
“The woman in the bathroom is an FBI agent who’s in the middle of an investigation.”
“Yeah, right. And what’s she investigating? Your missing cock?” Karen slammed the door and stood in the center of the room. She spotted Davies’s handbag and moved toward it.
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” I said. “She is an FBI special agent, so if I were you . . .”
“Well, you’re not me. I’m me. I’m the only one who’s me around here. Not you, not her, just me. Do you fucking understand?”
I nodded. “Still, I wouldn’t open that bag.”
“Fuck you. I want to know the tramp’s name.” She opened the bag, pushed in her hand, and came out with a .38 revolver. “Oh, my god,” she said. “She carries a gun. What kind of low-life slut are you ditching me for?”
“Put it back.”
The sound from the shower ceased. Karen looked at the bathroom door. “She carries a gun, Robert.”
“She’s an FBI agent,” I repeated.
The bathroom door opened and Davies came out; her body was wrapped in a towel, her hair was wet and uncovered. She stopped, her hair dripping on the floor and making puddles by her feet. Karen’s hand tightened reflexively about the pistol and the barrel came up pointed at Davies.
“I would put that down if I were you,” Davies said.
Karen’s face was frozen; her eyes were like saucers.
“Gladys, I’d like you to meet my friend, Karen.”
Karen pointed the gun at me. “Your friend?”
“You’re not my friend?”
“Give me the gun, Karen,” Davies said and she took a small step toward her.
“Stay away from me!” Karen shouted.
Davies stopped.
I sat down on the stool by the stove.
“How can you just sit there!” Karen shouted at me.
“I’m sitting because if you are crazy enough to shoot me I don’t want to fall far. You need help, Karen, and I can’t give it to you. So, go ahead and shoot me so you can go to prison and get daily help from a prison doctor named Hilda who likes you in a way you won’t like.”
“I hate you!” Karen dropped the pistol on the floor and ran screaming out of the house.
Davies and I remained motionless as we listened to Karen’s car engine rev up and her car roll away over the crusty snow.
“Don’t ask,” I said.
Davies bent and picked up her weapon and examined it, then put it carefully back into her bag. She sat in the chair in front of the stove and blew out a long sigh.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“Did I pass out?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Did we?”
“Oh no.”
She nodded.
“But Karen thought we did. That’s why all of your clothes are outside in the snow.”
She looked around the chair, saw only one of her shoes, and picked it up. “Shit.”
“Yep.” I stood up and refastened the belt of my robe. “I’ll get my boots and collect your things.”
Davies was holding her shaking head in her hands. “I don’t believe this.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
I pulled on some jeans, a dirty T-shirt, and boots and waded through the snow to get Davies’s clothes. They were soaked of course and I felt more than a little strange holding her bra and panties. I took them to her.
“Here they are,” I said.
She pulled her face from her hands and looked at the wet clothes. “Oh, my god.” She looked down again, shaking her head as if to empty it. “What time is it?”
I looked over at the clock on the counter that I had forgotten to wind and estimated. “It’s about nine.”
“Do you have a phone?”
“Nope.”
She sighed. “Where is the nearest phone?”
“Down the mountain at the junction. I use the one at the general store.”
“I’ve got to call my office.”
“I’ll drive you down there. In fact, I have to drive you to Rivertown. That’s where we left your car. I would have taken you to your motel, but I didn’t know which one.”
“I guess I should thank you for not leaving me to freeze.”
“You’re welcome.” I walked into the bathroom and draped her clothes over the shower rod, then came back. “I guess you’ll have to wear some of my clothes.”
“You don’t have a dryer?” she said.
I smiled and shook my head.
“Who was that woman?”
“She was at one time a girlfriend. That’s the first time I’ve seen her in over a month. I don’t return her calls or her letters. You know the drill. I’m a dog.”
“At least you know it.”
Davies was a moderately large woman, but still my clothes swallowed her up, leaving her looking like she was wearing my clothes.
“You look fine,” I said.
“Let’s go.”
“You at least have your own coat to wear,” I said.
We walked out and got into my truck, worked our way through the dirt road, then skated down the badly plowed highway.
“The road people do more harm than good,” I said.
“Did you shoot the agents?” Davies asked.
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea who did?”
“No.”
“Are you telling me everything you know?”
“No.”
She rolled down her window about half an inch and I could feel the frigid air on my side of the cab. “You ought to tell me everything you know. You could get into a lot of trouble. Do you know a woman named Louise Yellow Calf?”
“What were the FBI men doing up here?” I asked.
“That’s not your business. Now, answer my question.”
“No, I don’t know anyone by that name.” And I felt another shovel of dirt land on top of me. My heart was beating rapidly. “You don’t think I’m involved, do you?” A stupid question.
“I don’t know you,” she said. “I hope, for your sake, that you’re telling me everything you know.” She looked back out the window. “Never mind about the phone. Can you just take me back to my car?”
“Sure.”
Dog Canyon was inspected on 23 and 24 September, the field work consisting of observations and measurements from where the canyon opens into Plata Canyon to approximately 1.5 miles above the confluence of Silly Man and Red Creeks. Cross-sections were taken at high and middle elevations and at the canyon mouth, and high-water marks were noted and flood stage width was measured. (See photograph no. 6.)
The headwaters of Dog Canyon arise in the Plata Mountain sandstone, a carboniferous sandstone. The stream bed, however, is etched through limestone. The canyon’s north wall is steep and so is notably different from the Hell-hole and Skinner Creeks in overall shape. Areas of the stream bed and the north wall suggest that a Halgaito tongue might be present—a red, slimy sandstone alternating with limestone and shale. Here the wall seems particularly susceptible to the loss of angular fragments caused by wind and water.
*
Davies’s car was just where she had left it. Her parting words were “Again, I hope you’re not holding back.”
I nodded and watched her walk toward her car. She stopped and called back to me.
“I’ll bring the clothes back later,” she said.
I didn’t want her coming back to my place, but I gave her the okay sign anyway. I didn’t go home after I had watched her drive off to wherever her motel was.
4
I went back to the reservation, to Plata Township, to the house of Louise’s mother. The house, in the morning light, seemed as abandoned as it had the previous night. I sat in my truck in the driveway and didn’t bother to get out, just waited for someone to come out or someone else to come up to the house. I stared at the paint, at the way it curled in strips off the beams supporting the porch. No one came up the drive and no one stepped out of the house, and so I drove over to the little store at the intersection with the flashing amber traffic signal.
“Do you know Louise Yellow Calf?” I asked the young woman who was standing behind the cash register. Her hair was in one long braid that hung down over her left shoulder and was secured at the bottom by a clip with yellow and red beads.
She looked at me with her dark eyes and said, “No.”
“She’s very small,” I said, holding my hand down to illustrate her height.
She studied my hand and then my face again. “Oh, you’re talking about Very Little Woman.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I haven’t seen her lately. Not for a week or so. Why are you looking for her?”
“She’s a friend of mine,” I said. “I haven’t seen her for a while either and I guess I’m just a little worried.”
“Well, I haven’t seen her.” She looked toward the back of the store.
“Do you know Hiram Kills Enemy?”
“Yes.”
A couple of teenagers fell in line behind me. One held a loaf of bread. The other had a Big Hunk candy bar and a liter bottle of generic cola.
“Do you know where his house is?”
She seemed a bit tired of me. “He lives down near where the road crosses the river. Hi, Chuckie,” she said to the teenager immediately behind me.
I walked to the parking lot where I leaned against my truck. It was midmorning now and I was starting to feel pretty hungry. I was feeling lost, too. I wanted to eat just so I could do something familiar. Here I was, a dormant hydrologist, trying to spend the autumn alone, trying to break up with my girlfriend, stuck in the middle of an FBI investigation of the murder of two of their agents, practically in my backyard. I’d lied to the investigating officer, without good reason, about the night of the crime and so had made myself look like a probable suspect. There I was digging myself in deeper by going to the reservation and attempting to find Louise Yellow Calf. And I wanted to locate Hiram Kills Enemy because I thought he might know something about Louise and because Big Junior had told me that the old man wanted to see me.
I drove down to the bridge over the Plata River. It was a pretty river, full of rocks and twists. Down here the flow usually slowed some and there were fewer rocks impeding its progress. There were rumors among the whites of trout of great size lurking in the river, but since it was on the reservation, they could not fish the water. That seemed right and fair to me, but the townspeople saw it, as they chose to see everything that the Indians just barely managed to hold onto, as a huge inconvenience to them. “They don’t even fish the water,” I’d heard men say. One of the men I’d heard say it was that pain-in-the-ass fellow from Clara’s store who always wanted to know where the black hydrologist stood on the water question.
From where I was standing on the bridge I could see a couple of small shacks nestled into a stand of tall cottonwoods just back from the bank. There was a dirt road off the highway that at least pointed in that direction. I got back into my truck and followed it.
Article 9. About seven and two-fifths acres bounded as follows: Beginning at the northeast corner of lot eighty-nine, in the center of Dog Road; thence west, along the north line of said lot, fifty-four and a quarter rods; thence south, thirty-eight and a quarter rods; thence east twenty-eight and a quarter rods; thence north thirty-four rods; thence east twenty-six rods; thence north four rods, to the place of the beginning, comprising the ground heretofore used by the Plata to bury their dead, shall be patented to the supervisors of the town of Plata, to be held by them and their successors in trust for the inhabitants of said town, to be used by them as a cemetery, and the proceeds from cemetery lots and burial places to be applied in fencing, clearing, and embellishing the grounds.
The dirt lane twisted and opened up in places as if to swallow my truck. It threw me against the ceiling and into the door, and at one point I was straddling a wide ditch filled with sharp-edged rocks. By the time I had made the circuitous trip to the shacks in the stand of cottonwoods, I was sweating and a little cranky.
Hiram came out of the larger house and watched me roll to a stop. He looked at me and then back at the trail. He shook his head.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “Not too many people actually drive on that road all the way to my house.”
“I can see why.”
“The road was fine until the council decided it needed to be maintained. It’s been like that for six years. Before that it was flat and smooth.” He used his hand to show me what he meant, slowly sailing it horizontally through the air. “Then it snowed and they plowed and it’s been like that ever since.”
I bent low to examine the underside of my truck, checking the transfer case for leaking, wishing I had a skid-plate.
“Yeah, they maintain the hell out of it. Is everything okay under there?”
I got up. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Well, when you leave, just take the other road.” He pointed to a long straight lane from his house leading toward the highway.
