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  “Ten minutes. I’ll get you some more of that Maui.”

  “I’m already fucked up. That stuff’s killer.”

  “What’d I tell you? Ten minutes. I’ll wipe down the tub, change the towels . . .”

  “Look, Earley, I need this piece of shit job, okay? Put your damn shirt on. If my boss comes in here and sees you like that, he’ll ream us both hollow.” Scoter swiveled his chair towards the screen, where a blonde in a wet shirt was screaming. Earley stared at his back. He decided it wasn’t worth saying fuck you; he might need a free bed again someday. He pulled on his shirt and went out in the rain.

  “Lost your key again?” Margie Walkonis swung open the door of her double-wide trailer. She had on a loose purple T-shirt and sweatpants. No bra, Earley noticed at once. Her loose breasts rolled down to her waistband. “Earley Ritter!” she sputtered, one hand flying up to her untidy hair.

  “I know, I’m a sight for sore eyes.” Earley grinned. “Make ’em sore if they wasn’t already. Did I wake you up?”

  “God no. I thought you were Harlan.”

  “Harlan’s in town?” Earley tried to sound casual.

  “’Sposed to be. Not that he bothered to stop by or nothing. He’s probably knocking back shots at the Cedar.”

  “I just came from there. I was hoping I’d see you.”

  “You were?” Margie smiled. Earley could see she’d been pretty before all the weight, the darkening under her eyes, the stripe of gray splitting her rust-colored hair. Probably a cheer-leader, big tits, big teeth, willing. He tried picturing her twenty years ago, doing a split, but got stuck on her powder blue sweatpants and belly roll. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “Listen, Margie, if Harlan’s in town—”

  “If he’s not at the Cedar he’s probably passed out at the Shamrock. He won’t make it home till closing time, if he shows his face then. I’m not on the top of his playlist these days.” Margie wasn’t complaining, just stating the facts. She reminded Earley of women he’d known back home, who’d gotten unlucky in high school and wound up with men their adult selves would never have chosen. His sister Judene. Not to mention his mom. “Besides, you can hear his damn diesel a mile away. Where’d you park?”

  “Down the street. I remembered.” Earley had left his truck in the grown-over lot at the end of the cul-de-sac, outside the development no one had ever developed.

  “Good boy,” Margie said, pressing closer against him. Her tits were like couch cushions, welcoming, warm. He could smell something winy and sweet on her breath. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was climbing the walls. Amber Ann’s at the hockey game with that Mexican boy, and whenever he drives, I can’t help it . . .”

  Earley took hold of her arm. “I could go for that beer,” he said. “You?” Margie nodded and led him back into her kitchen. Earley dipped his head under the Plexiglas chandelier, wondering whether his boot spikes would tear up the shag rug. He didn’t feel right about taking them off until he was invited.

  “How about a shot of Harlan’s Wild Turkey?”

  “That sounds mighty excellent, thank you,” he said, overdoing his accent to make her smile. She was a good lady, Margie, seen more than her share of hard times. She’d cried in his arms that first night on the waterbed, and he’d found out later that it was her thirty-sixth birthday. She’d already buried two children: a daughter who’d died in her crib, and a nine-year-old son who’d been clipped by a van on his way to a Little League game. Now her oldest was running around with an eighteen-year-old with two DWIs, and her husband was screwing some truck driver’s wife. Earley figured as Margie deserved any comfort she found in this lifetime. Even if it was just him.

  Margie poured him a generous bolt in a grape jelly jar, then swung the fridge open and refilled a glass of peach-colored wine cooler. She wore open-toed terrycloth scuffs, and Earley noticed her toenails were striped with a peeling magenta glaze. He pictured her sitting alone on her bedspread, cotton balls stuffed in between every toe, the radio on and a glass of that wine cooler, trying to make herself feel better. The bathroom he’d shared with his sisters back home had been littered with curling devices, mascara wands, small crusty bottles of makeup. Earley thought about all the time women spent doing things that men didn’t care about, really. It made him sad. He walked up behind Margie and slipped his arms around her. “Could we take a shower together?”

  “Ooh, kinky,” said Margie, turning around to face into his hug. She was too short to kiss him without his help; even when he slouched against the counter, her lips grazed his collarbone. She pulled Earley’s hand underneath her shirt, placing his palm on her nipple.

  “It’s a humanitarian project,” said Earley. “I stink to the sky.”

  “You know what I’d like some day?” Margie unsnapped his jeans. “One of those hot-tubby things with the bubbles. Jacuzzis.”

  Earley could feel his dick stiffening. Margie’s hand slid around the shaft.

  “Mm,” she said.

  Earley put down his Wild Turkey. The shower could wait. So could everything else. They stripped, groping each other. Earley pushed open the door to the bedroom. “I’ve got to go put in my thing,” Margie said. He nodded, deflating.

  Margie disappeared into the bathroom. Earley went in and lay down on the waterbed, feeling its slosh and embrace. His mind drifted to the motel room; he wondered if Reed was still chatting, or if Zan was jumping his bones. She didn’t look like the patient type. Earley thought of her circling the pool table, bending to shoot. It went right to his groin, and he groaned out loud, feeling disloyal to Margie and eager to get inside her. He knew Margie felt the same way about him: horny, grateful, just tender enough not to feel like a shithead.

  Earley rolled back onto one of the pillows. He wondered if Harlan would pick up his musk like a hunting hound, sniffing the forest green comforter cover for traces of woodsmoke, tobacco and week-old sweat.

  Margie stood in the doorway. She’d slipped on a shiny night-gown that featured her cleavage, and Earley noticed that she’d brushed her hair. “You look good,” he said.

  “You’re full of shit,” Margie answered, and then added shyly, “But thanks.” She came to the edge of the bed and held out one hand. Earley reached over and pulled her down, feeling the lurch of the waterbed. They got right down to it. He liked the way Margie kissed back, warm and hungry, how she ran the backs of her fingernails over his spine and massaged his bare butt as he arched himself over her body. The waterbed added an undersea roll to his thrusts. He felt like a sea lion mating.

  Earley had started to sleep with girls when he was thirteen years old; it was one of the few things he knew he did well. Fucking, drinking and splitting wood. Not a long list. I could do this forever, he thought, but Margie was already churning her way towards a climax and he obliged, pumping faster and filling her, bringing her with him, her breath getting deeper, more guttural.

  “Was that a car?”

  “Shit,” she gasped. “Bring me home. Do it.” And Earley dove in deep and stayed there, lifting up onto his arms as Margie shuddered beneath him. “God,” she moaned. “That was incredible. Go out the kitchen door.”

  Earley jumped up and yanked on his underwear, then scooped up the rest of his clothes, nearly dropping his jeans as he grabbed his caulk boots. He wondered how Margie was going to explain her glazed sheen of sweat and heaving breath. He figured that was her problem. His was getting the sliding door open and hiding somewhere in the darkness before Harlan boomed through the living room, waving a shotgun.

  Earley scrambled out onto the back deck, bare feet slipping on the wet wood. He could see headlights bounce onto the wall as a pickup pulled into the driveway. He dodged around the far side of the trailer, crouching next to a tank of propane. He looked up with a start as a light snapped on over his head, behind a small, louvered window. That would be Margie, rushing into the bathroom to throw on her bathrobe and squirt some cologne. Earley bent down to pull on his jeans. From the opposite side
of the trailer he heard a car door swinging open, an engine on idle, a woman’s flirtatious laugh. Had Harlan brought somebody home?

  “’Cause I said so.” A breathy voice, singsong. “Come on.” A male voice said something too low to make out, and the girl answered, “Yeah, well, tell that to my mom.”

  It was Amber Ann, coming home early and worried about what her mother would think, while Margie was probably inside with a big wad of kleenex, trying to blot up the rest of his come. Earley swore to himself he’d stop messing with other men’s women. He’d just slept with somebody’s mother , and here he was squatting behind a propane tank, trying to sort out his tangled suspenders, like the punchline of some dirty joke. What had happened to his self-respect? He thought of Zan’s crew chief, stomping around in the rain on his birthday, then shivered and pulled up his jeans. What did he have to show for his twenty-nine years on the planet? Hell, he couldn’t even get clean.

  Earley had wild thoughts of pounding on some stranger’s door, striding into the bathroom shower and taking his due, the way Scoter Gillies’ old man once came home skunked from a hunting trip and carried his rifle right into the frozen food aisle of the FoodMart, where he’d plugged a Butterball turkey, slung it over his shoulder and left before anyone got it together to stop him.

  Where else could he go? It was Friday night; none of the guys would be home yet unless they were getting a piece of some action. Maybe Chester Marczupiak, from the Texaco station, but he’d been so down since his wife left that Earley couldn’t face the idea of listening to him, not even for soap and hot water. He supposed he could pick up a new roll of dimes and drive back to Bogachiel, but he knew he was too beat to make the round trip. He thought briefly of doing it anyway, just leaving Reed and Zan in the motel and not coming back; it wasn’t like he owed them anything, really. Then he remembered that he’d brought his chainsaw inside the motel room for safekeeping. No way was he going to abandon his Husqy. That saw was his livelihood, his prize possession. And he’d left his wool shirt and best socks on the bathmat.

  All right, then. Earley had to go back for his stuff, so it wasn’t just about wanting to see Zan again. Though he certainly did want to see her. Reed too, he thought, feeling guilty; he liked the guy. Earley didn’t know why they’d washed up on his shore, like a tangle of kelp, but he already felt they belonged with each other.

  There wasn’t much light in the motel room when Earley let himself through the door. He could make out Zan’s hair on the pillow, the twist of Reed’s torso beneath the white sheet. He hoped they’d pretend they were sleeping, at least till he got to the bathroom. He closed the door quietly, twisting the brass knob, and bent down to take off his caulks. Trying to walk softly in those was like trying to tiptoe in horseshoes. The smell of his feet hit him full in the face. Damn the faucets. He’d just have to improvise.

  The ceiling light in the bathroom was bluish white, with a fluttering filament. Earley lifted the plumber’s kit out of the tub—goddamn Scoter—and stripped off his clothes. He could sponge-bath it, anyway. There was a plastic ice bucket on top of the toilet, along with two glasses. Earley set it on the edge of the sink, within reach of the tub. He turned on the hot water tap in the sink and twisted a towel underneath it until it steamed. He stepped into the bathtub and rubbed himself with the hot towel. It felt so good he moaned. He worked up a lather of Cameo soap, then filled up the ice bucket, pouring it over his shoulders. The hot water ran down his back, trickling over his buttocks. He did it again and again, scrubbing his arms and legs with the steaming towel, then lathering, rinsing, holding the bucket up high to pour over his head like a waterfall.

  By the time he reached over to turn off the tap, the mirror was fogged and the air in the bathroom felt tropical. Earley stepped out and rubbed himself down with a dry towel. This is more like it, he thought. It had been a long day, starting out with a rot-riddled oldgrowth stump the size of a Pontiac. He was ready for bed.

  Earley clutched the towel around his hips, switching off the fluorescent light as he emerged from the bathroom, surrounded by steam. He moved stealthily past the foot of Zan and Reed’s queen-size, then paused. The aisle between the two beds wasn’t more than a foot across. Earley would have to take off his towel to get into bed, and his ass would wind up half a foot from—which one was on his side? Zan.

  She’d rolled over. Her arm was thrown back on the pillow, her face twisted sideways. The sheet had slipped down so that most of one breast was exposed.

  Earley’s breath caught. He could feel himself getting a boner again. Better get under the covers before things got embarrassing. He edged in between the two beds and pulled back his bedcovers, sliding in, towel and all. The bed was too short for his legs, but the clean sheets were cool. He shifted his weight on the pillow, then reached under the covers to peel off his towel, feeling the rub of damp terrycloth over his groin. Zan was inches away, she was naked beneath that thin sheet. He stuck out his hand, dropping his damp towel onto the rug.

  “Night, Earley,” Zan whispered. Her hand reached across so their fingers touched, hanging in midair between the two beds.

  FOUR

  Zan’s description of how to get out to the treeplanters’ camp had been accurate, though without her there, wedged into the front seat between him and Reed, animatedly pointing out landmarks, Earley doubted that he would have spotted the final turn. The skeletal road was grown over with brush, and the more recent ruts on each side could have passed for an elk trail.

  Earley heard stiff canes of devil’s club scraping the truck’s undercarriage as they bounced along over rocks. His front tooth hurt. Reed had taken them out for a Pancake House breakfast, surreptitiously paying the bill with his Visa, and Earley had drenched his two stacks with a strawberry syrup that worked its way under his gums. He could feel the side order of sausage churning around in his belly. Where was this place, anyway? They were almost as deep in the woods as his bus, and the thought of picking his way back through this thicket of crisscrossing dirt roads, driving twenty more miles down the highway and clambering back up his own maze of log roads was daunting. Kiss this day good-bye for a wage-earner.

  “Just up this ridge,” Zan was saying, and Earley saw something that looked like a tipi loom out of the mist.

  “What the hell?”

  “Oh, that’s Young Nick’s wickiup. He pitched it up there for the view, and it’s blown down three times. Just around this next bend.”

  The treeplanters’ camp was laid out in a cross, on the intersection of the washed-out road they were on and another, still worse, road that led to the creek. There were several tan canvas tents, a two-tone VW van, a vintage Ford truck with a yellow and red gypsy wagon built onto the back, and a lavender step-van lettered TAKE BACK THE NIGHT parked along the crossed roads, raying out from a slightly collapsed, bright blue dome in the center. The place looked abandoned, except for a mangy dog padding along the ridge next to the wickiup and a thin plume of smoke from the stovepipe that jutted up from the blue dome’s sagging roof.

  “They must be out planting already,” Zan said.

  “Well, it is almost noon,” said Reed. He was the only one wearing a watch. It looked old and expensive, a gift from some uncle or grandfather who’d have his name on a college dorm.

  “I bet Just Nick will be pissed at me. Wonder who’s camptending?”

  “Where should I park?” Earley asked.

  “Wherever you think you won’t sink in the mud,” Zan said. “Oh, it’s Cassie.”

  The flap of the blue dome had opened. A girl’s face peered out, drawn by the sound of the truck’s engine. It was the same girl they’d seen last night at the Cedar, the one with the honey-blonde braid. Zan waved, pulled Reed out of the pickup and strode towards the dome tent, leaving the passenger door dangling off its lone hinge.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “They got started early for once,” the girl answered. “Just Nick was in one of his shake-it-up moods.” She watched Earley
approach.

  “Are they gonna come back here for lunch?”

  “I sure hope so. I cooked up a ton of food. I heard your truck coming and figured it must be the crummy.” The girl flashed a shy smile at Earley, flipping her braid over one of her shoulders. “I’m Cassie. Hey.”

  “Earley and Reed,” Zan said, without indicating which one was which. Earley nodded and Reed echoed, “Hey.”

  Cassie was wearing an inside-out sweatshirt and overalls, and hadn’t bothered to pull on her raingear when she stepped outside. “Come into the yurt,” she said, folding her arms with a shiver. “I’m getting wet.” If that’s an issue, thought Earley, you picked the wrong job, sister.

  Reed followed Zan into the dome tent. Cassie held the flap open for Earley, who needed to bend nearly double to get through the doorway. Even when he was inside, his head grazed the roof. It was surprisingly cozy, with a Coleman lantern hung over a long plank table and stools made from stumps on a matted straw floor. Pots and pans and stray twists of dried herbs dangled down from the dome struts alongside a sizable woodstove. The air was close, smelling of garlic and cedar smoke.

  “You guys want some soup?” Cassie touched her hair again, looking at Earley. She lifted the top off a pot, revealing some brown, indefinable bean mass.

  “Ah, no thanks,” said Earley. “I’m full of bad pancakes. It might send me over the edge.”

  “I’d love some,” said Reed. Cassie smiled and reached into a crate for a bowl. She had very straight teeth. In a different circumstance Earley might have thought she was attractive, but Cassie quite literally paled beside Zan. Her fair hair looked wan, her skin sallow. There was a gentle, drifting fluidity in her movements that might have been graceful, but struck Earley instead as unfocussed and woolly. It made him impatient to watch how slowly her wooden spoon circled around in the bean pot; he felt like grabbing it out of her hands and giving that mess a good stir.

  “I’m gonna go out for a smoke,” he said, bending to fit through the doorflap. He felt better as soon as he got back outside, filling his lungs with cool air that tingled with mist. He took out his Drum pouch and made his way down to the creek. It was fast-moving and nearly opaque, clotted silver with silt. A crisscrossing thicket of alder trunks lined the far bank. Beyond the bare twigs of the alder hell, he could make out the dish of a mountainside, partially clearcut, its peak disappearing in veils of low clouds. That bald patch was probably where they were planting. Earley squinted up at it, wondering if someone had already cleared out the cedar. If not, he could put in a claim, move his bus a bit closer to civilization. To Zan.