Call Down the Hawk, page 5
He nodded. “In Afghanistan. She was wounded. She saved lives. She has medals like Russ’s father, the horrible William.”
“Good heavens,” Jane said faintly. “The poor thing.”
“Ha! Sexist!”
“Gerd!”
“If I had said of Russ that he was wounded, saved lives, and had medals, you would not have said ‘the poor thing.’ Am I right?”
“Yes, oh dear, I suppose you are. Isn’t that strange?”
“Strange that you should be sexist?”
“Just strange,” Jane muttered. And it was. Nevertheless, it was true. Far from being praised and paraded, the moment Judith Hough was acclaimed a hero, men like her despicable father would call her sexuality into question. Because a heroine is not a hero.
After an awkward pause, Jane asked Gerhard whether he had invested money in the ill-fated bank, and he admitted he had lost perhaps ten thousand euros. Not, you understand, his entire savings, just the signing bonus Frank had given him and a few thousand more. Frank had not known of the investment. Of that Gerd was certain. Frank had not warned him off, however.
The wine maker was more philosophical about his probable losses than Jane would have been, so she murmured encouraging phrases about FDIC insurance and government bailouts, but she had the feeling it would be a long time before Gerd saw his money.
She put the food away and shoved the dishes into the dishwasher. She could have used help, speaking of sexism.
When she reached her room, she turned on her cell phone and found half a dozen messages, including one from Russell Hough. Though he sounded resigned, like any man used to telephone tag, his news was good. Both legs were bruised, but the right ankle was not broken, and his uncle had driven him home from the hospital. He thanked her for her help. She jotted his phone number down. Then she dealt with the other calls, one from the Hood River campus of the community college to remind her of an obligatory faculty orientation the second week of September.
Galvanized by the message, and by her urgent desire to leave her father’s house before the press siege began, she booted her computer and logged onto one of the real estate sites that listed apartments and small houses available across the river.
She had not yet explored the area. Most of her colleagues and students would live in town, but one of her classes would meet in Hood River and the other in The Dalles, at the main campus to the east. She could live in either town or halfway between. Her first goal was to find a place with good northern light for her own work, and a view of the river. The river was a mile wide and changed color by the minute. Alternatively, she thought one of the small communities south of Hood River might provide her with a close view of the mountain, though living there would involve a winter commute to both campuses.
She created a list with addresses and e-mail contacts and sent out a message to the real estate offices outlining her needs and the price range she thought reasonable. As she worked, she heard Libby’s voice rising and falling and her father‘s answering rumble. A door slammed.
When she tired of house hunting, Jane took out her sketchbook and looked at her views of Mount Hood. Beautiful as it was, the mountain was something of a cliché, like Mount Fuji. Hundreds of landscape painters had “done” Mount Hood sherbet pink at sunset. A nineteenth-century artist had painted the north face imbedded in scenes from the southern slopes, a juicy concept for a magical realist. Her fingers itched for pen and paints and pastels and chalk and camera.
Someone in the house turned a television on briefly, breaking her concentration. A train whistled down by the river. It was getting late, so she set the sketches aside for the time being. She thought about watching the tube herself but activated her Kindle instead and began to reread a comedy of manners she’d enjoyed ten years before. It was even funnier the second time around and distracted her from her uneasiness.
Libby and Gerd had not gone off to the marina after all. She wondered what Gerd had done with the time. Phoned all his friends upriver? Called home? No, it was early to telephone Germany, given the nine-hour time difference. She thought she heard him rummaging in the kitchen, or it might have been Libby. She heard voices.
Jane read on, laughing from time to time. Around ten-thirty she heard a car come in, probably Frankie if he meant to leave for the airport at the crack of dawn. Male voices rumbled but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She yawned, decided to call it a day, and went to bed with the wired comedy. She hoped Russell Hough was not in too much pain and decided to check up on him in the morning. She could walk down to the farmhouse through the cherry orchard. Perhaps Gerd would like to come, too. She fell asleep with the Kindle on. Fortunately it turned itself off.
* * *
Judith was later than she should be. A mild fog hung in the air. She liked fog, it was so different from raw desert air. But fog hid. Fog distorted. It condensed on her goggles, so she took them off, let them hang around her neck, and stood still while her eyes adjusted. Black-clad with a scum of dirt to camouflage her face and hands, she was standing behind the garage, holding the old rifle. She stared into the pool of darkness until she could make out the shapes of things.
The house on the hill bulked dark to the northwest. The single security light on the southeast side cast a pallid glow over the pool area. Wisps of fog flowed through the cone of brightness. The guest house was dark.
At first she thought they’d all retired for the night. It was past midnight, after all. The old man stayed home and went to bed early. However, Mrs. August came in at all hours and so did the wine maker, and the daughter sometimes did, so the air of sleepy calm might be an illusion. She thought someone else was there now, too, another guest.
Her family had always turned in early. It surprised her that, after seventeen years away from home, her brother did, too. He could have broken the habit. He’d rejected everything else their father had insisted on.
A noise off to the right startled her. The butt of her rifle hit the wall of the garage with a soft thud, and she froze in place.
Something white drifted downhill from the August vineyard. Heart pounding, she squinted through the fog. Russ must have turned the electric fence off after all, damn him. Or they cut the fence. The gate gaped open. A white vehicle, an SUV, rolled to a stop inside the orchard. No engine sound, no lights.
She crept along the back wall of the garage. From the west corner, she could make out the fallen ladder and the bough that had brought it down on her brother. The tree masked the SUV from view, but she caught sound, a dull click, and movement, a white blur as the hatch rose in back. Something rustled. When another white blur and a thump suggested that the hatch had been closed, she took her chance and ran, cat-footed, to the fallen branch of the cherry tree.
But the fog had thickened. She squinted past the trunk of the tree. Somebody was moving around on the other side of the SUV. She listened to sounds she could not interpret, soft sounds, shuffles, more rustling, faint thuds. What was happening? Sweat dried on her face and arms, and she began to shiver.
After interminable minutes, she heard the SUV’s engine cough and rumble to life. The lights did not come on, but the vehicle inched up the incline backwards. It reached the open gate, reversed, and drove off out of sight. She glanced at her watch. The incursion had lasted less than fifteen minutes. What did it mean?
She checked around her, but nothing stirred, neither up on the hill nor back at the farmhouse. Cross and edgy, she made her quiet way up the slope to the open gate. She stumbled a little on the loose soil and made out the pattern of the SUV’s tread marks, but the driver hadn’t dumped anything she could see. She’d have to look again in broad daylight. At least she could secure the gate, for all the good that would do. It wouldn’t keep the deer out, let alone human intruders. She made her way back down the slope.
She was brooding so hard about the trespass she didn’t notice the train approaching across the highway, coming from Two Falls. Freight trains and two passenger trains ran along the river, one every couple of hours. Living at the farmhouse, you learned to adjust to the noise. Unless you were jumpy. She was. At the first rising hoot, her hand clenched. The rifle discharged.
Oh no fuck it. She thought she shouted, but the train whistle, on its second bleat, drowned her out.
Shaking, she flicked the safety on, clutched the rifle to her chest, and ran zig-zag to the porch. When she reached the door to the kitchen—the porch wrapped the house on two sides—she stopped dead. Had they heard? Surely not. She hadn’t been that close to the farmhouse. Her mother had been asleep for hours, and Russ had retired to the couch in the living room that would serve as his bed until his foot healed. Though he’d said he was going to read, his light had gone off before she slipped downstairs to go out on patrol. He’d had a long day, and he was probably doped up.
She paused in the kitchen while her eyes adjusted to the interior darkness, but she saw nothing and heard nothing other than her own breathing.
When her pulse slowed and her breathing evened out, she set the rifle on the kitchen tablecloth and the night goggles on the folded napkin at her place. She lifted her chair and turned it so it faced sideways to the table, easing it down with exquisite care. Then she sat and began to remove her left sneaker.
She didn’t hear him at all, so absorbed was she in edging the Velcro tab open without making a sound.
“Jude.” He spoke quietly but might as well have shouted.
She jumped and muffled a scream, hands to her mouth.
Russ sat in his manual wheelchair, blocking the doorway to the hall and watching her. He could not have been there when she entered or she would have seen him, and he could not have just come from the living room or she must have heard him.
“You’ve been waiting in the hall,” she said dully. “With the lights off.”
“I didn’t want to wake Mother. I still don’t.” He drew a breath. “Bring Dad’s little souvenir to the living room.”
She bit back a protest and picked up the rifle. She would have to talk to Russ. She didn’t want to.
4.
When Jane got up the next morning, a mild fog hung in the air. It made her homesick for San Francisco. The mountain had gone away.
She dawdled around the kitchen, hoping for company. If he had kept to his plan, Frankie was probably already on his flight south. She made coffee and emptied the dishwasher. As she was pouring herself a lonely bowl of Cheerios, Libby drifted in. Eight o’clock was early for her. Jane said so.
Libby stretched luxuriously and said mmm. For a woman who had fled the dining room shrieking the night before, she looked almost pleased with herself and somehow keyed up. Jane wondered whether Frank had reconciled his wife by means of inventive loveplay but decided that was improbable. Gerd came in, also sleek and rosy, from the direction of the guest house. He poured two mugs of black coffee and handed one to Jane’s stepmother. Libby gazed into his eyes.
Three lemons clicked into place in the slot-machine of Jane’s mind.
She did not feel sorry for her father. Frank probably deserved a little betrayal. But who was the shtupper here and who the shtuppee? She spooned cereal and chewed. Nominative or accusative. Does it matter? Not to me.
As she arrived at that comfortable conclusion, Gerd said, “I had a message on my cell from Russell. I mean to call on him this morning. Shall you come with me, Jane?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Libby?”
“Bill Hough’s son?” Libby made a face. “I don’t think so. I’m going to the marina, Gerd. You could join me.” She gulped coffee and set the half-full mug in the sink. “Me for a shower.”
“See you later, Schatzi.” Gerd stuck his head in the refrigerator and pulled out a loaf of Tillamook extra-sharp white cheddar. He cut a thick slice and a slice of wheat bread, made a sandwich, and washed his breakfast down with coffee. The sight made Jane queasy. She went to her room.
There was no sign of Frank by the time Jane was ready to rejoin Gerd, so she left a note for her father on the kitchen table. “Off to Hawk Farm. Back soon. J. 9:00.” She thought about warning Libby that the media might show up. Local radio news had mentioned the bank failure. She visualized Libby holding a press conference and said nothing to alert her stepmother.
Gerd was ready to drive down to the farm, but Jane made him walk. She led the wine maker through the orchard. Something had changed, but she couldn’t think what. Someone had closed the gate; perhaps that was it. She showed Gerd the wilting foliage of the fallen bough. The ladder lay where she and Russell had abandoned it. Gerd clucked his tongue and shook his head. She wished she didn’t like him.
The farmhouse was as still as a tomb. Gerd rang the bell, and when that produced no result he rapped sharply on the blistered wood of the door. They heard a scuffing noise, and the door creaked open.
“We don’t want any.” A middle-aged Klalo woman regarded them without expression.
“May we speak to Russell Hough? I am Gerhard Koeppel, a friend of his.”
The woman looked at Jane.
“I’m Jane August. We’re concerned about Russell’s leg.”
The woman’s smile transformed her. Jane saw that she had once been pretty. “Please come in. I’m sure my son will want to speak to you, Miss August. I want to thank you, too. He might have lain there for hours if you hadn’t seen him fall.” Her eyes flicked to Gerd. “And you, too, Mr. Er.”
“Koeppel,” Gerd repeated. “I’m Herr August’s wine maker.”
“Come in, come in.” She ushered them into a cluttered hallway and led them down it to the kitchen. “I’ve just brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Russ should be back soon. He was checking on the new crew.”
Jane was horrified. “I hope he didn’t walk to the fields!”
“No.” Mrs. Hough went to an automatic coffeemaker. It was still burbling.
“That’s a relief.”
She turned back to Jane. “The doctor told him not to stand on the good leg for a week or so. And he can’t attach the artificial leg to the stump until the cuts heal, so he can’t use crutches.”
“I didn’t think so. You know, he could use Dad’s golf cart. I wish I’d thought of that. How did Russell—”
“He asked my brother Jack to bring one of those electric scooters for him, the kind old ladies use to ride around town. Bill, that’s my husband, was my husband—” She gave her head a shake as if disoriented. “Did you notice the ramp? Bill put it in when my mother came for a long visit. He never got around to removing it after she died, so Russ can get the scooter in and out of the house. I hope he isn’t run over by a produce truck when he crosses Fourteen.” Fourteen was what locals called the highway. “The drivers never look where they’re going. Have a chair, Miss August.”
“Please call me Jane.”
She smiled. “I’m Alice. Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Mr. Koeppel?”
“Yes indeed, Mrs. Hough. And I’m Gerd.”
“You must be the one Russ went to Europe with. I’m pleased to meet you. He told me you showed him a very good time.”
“I’m glad he enjoyed himself.”
Jane and Gerhard exchanged glances and seated themselves at a round oak table. The kitchen was not only bright with crisp curtains and new paint, it was sparkling clean and smelled of fresh-baked bread. Jane decided to spend the rest of her life there.
Alice poured three mugs of coffee. “Cream and sugar?”
They shook their heads no.
“Would you like a slice of bread? It’s warm from the oven.”
“Yes, please,” they said in chorus and laughed at themselves.
They were on second slices of bread with melting butter and huckleberry jam when banging noises at the front door announced Russell’s return. Alice went on telling them about her family’s hereditary berry patch.
“Ma!” The kitchen door crashed open. A motorized wheelchair zoomed in and stopped short. Russell gaped at them. He was sweaty and dusty, his extended right foot covered with a plastic bag. He was not wearing the artificial limb. “I didn’t see a car. You two must’ve walked down. Gerd, wie geht’s?”
Gerd jumped to his feet, bread in hand. Jane rose less abruptly.
Russ smiled at her, teeth very white in all that dust. “Miss August.” He shook hands with Gerd, who said something in what sounded like Spanish and took another bite of bread.
“De seguro. Excuse me, while I go sluice off the dirt.” And he backed the scooter out the swinging door and disappeared.
Alice shook her head. “Always in a rush. More coffee?”
Gerd said, “Russ is the only Yank farmer I know who bothers to speak to his work crews in their own language. He said he learned to speak Spanish when he was a boy, working on the farm. And of course he studied it in school.”
Of course. Jane wondered what Bill Hough had thought of that. He’d been hostile to Hispanics.
Russell took his time getting clean. Alice’s huckleberry reminiscences dried up, so Jane talked about her upcoming classes across the river. Gerd finished her second slice of bread. He seemed to find the flavor of huckleberries fascinating.
At last, Russell entered the kitchen in an ordinary wheelchair, closely followed by a young woman wearing jeans and a red T-shirt with a faded screaming eagle across the front. The eagle bulged at breast level.
Russell’s hair was damp. He’d removed the plastic bag from his injured foot, he was cleaner than he had been, and he wore an unironed work shirt over the dusty cargo pants. He was not smiling, and Jane saw that he had not slept well. He looked at his mother, then turned to Jane and Gerd. “My sister, Judith. Jude, my friend, Gerhard.”
The girl inclined her head. She didn’t smile either. Gerd was staring at her as if the Virgin Mary had appeared on the refrigerator door.
“And Jane August, who drove me to the hospital yesterday.”
Jane murmured something polite. So did Judith.
Jane looked from sister to brother. Judith’s skin was ivory lightly sprinkled with freckles, her eyes were gray, and her hair light brown. Otherwise she was an exact duplicate of her mother, as her mother must have been thirty-some years earlier. Russell had his mother’s dominant coloring, but otherwise bore no resemblance to either. He was good to look at because of his vitality, but his features were bony and irregular. Judith, on the other hand, was beautiful. They might have been unrelated.
