Day 2

Chapter 3

Out in the flats, something stirred. Something stirred. Some thing stirred.
From a cave below a broken boulder, and erratic from an ice age not long past, came a nameless thing. It stretched itself upright, as upright as it could, its eyes darting at the waxing moon, soon to be full. You would expect blood to be dripping from a fang, or maybe clotted in the hair of the beast, but no blood could be seen, no blood could be smelled. The creature fastidiously cleaned itself, constantly preening, and cleaning, and combing and, scratching, scraping, biting, gnawing.
The thing bared its teeth, jumped to the top of the erratic, and howled, but no sound could be heard. Still, kangaroo mice cowered in the entryway to their burrows. The turned in fright and fled to the depths, forsaking the evenings meal, for the safety of the den. The thing howled its soundless howl again as it jumped down, landing on all fours.
As it galloped off into the night, other nocturnal creatures, mammal, reptile and insect fled its path. The bats veered away and the nighthawks stopped their buzzing dives, preferring to be as far from the thing again.


Chapter 4

Hugo woke in the wee hours of the morning, as he often did, and made his way to the bathroom. He relieved himself, then drank a glass of water. It tasted of old pipe, and water that needed purification, as it often did. He lay back down in bed and tried to go back to sleep. His head, still thick from the beer, ached a little as he lay watching the reflected light from the street on his ceiling.
After only a minute, two at the most, he left his bed knowing that he would not fall back asleep. Ever since the change of season, he had not been able to sleep much. If he had to put a name on it, he would say that an oppression had fallen over McLoughlin valley since summer had turned to fall. He slept less and drank more. Maybe, he thought, those two things are more intimately connected than I care to believe.
He settled into a maroon wing-back chair, still in his under shorts, and picked up the novel that he had been reading. He pulled an afghan that his mother had made him for his thirteenth birthday over his lap and flicked on the table light beside his chair. Officer Jim Chee and Lieutenant Leaphorn were on the case again.
He read two and a half chapters before he fell asleep in his chair, slumped over, the afghan slipping off his right leg. The sun rose over the low hills and poured pink light into his front room before it rose above the clouds that still hung over the city. It had stopped raining, but the ground would be wet until the end of May now: once the rain started in McLoughlin, it didn’t let up for months. They could expect snow, of course, but it never lasted for more than a day or two, sometimes three.
Hugo woke with a start, he had dreamt he was an eagle and had jumped of a cliff to start his flight. He looked around the house, bleary eyed and a bit confused. His neck hurt from having it loll to the side as he slept. The Hillerman book lay on his lap, closed; the bookmark still lay on his side table; the lamp still burned. He opened his eyes wide, and rubbed his aching neck. As he stood, the afghan fell to the floor as the did the book. He jumped at the sound of the book hitting the floor.
“What time is it?” he said. He looked at the clock on the stove, trying to focus. Half past six, he was pretty sure. He picked up a pair of jeans that lay on top of his typewriter, and found a shirt on the arm of the couch. As he buttoned up the shirt he looked outside. No rain, he thought. But it will probably be pretty cold. He rummaged around in his closet, then around the spare bedroom. Finally he found a jacket, one heavier than the windbreaker that had barely broke the wind, but hadn’t broken any of the rain from the night before, hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Where else would I keep such a thing, he thought.
He opened the last beer and drank it as he headed out the door. The wind had fallen silent and the sidewalk was slick with the rain water and leaves. He crossed the street, cutting between two houses, one had been empty for almost a year now, and the other belonged to Mrs. McGreggor. She was about ninety years old, and she couldn’t hear a thing, but she watched out her window like a hawk searching for field mice. He waved at her peering from behind her curtains as he passed her fence. She let them fall without returning his greeting. Hugo wondered if ever she slept. The image of old Mrs. McGreggor sitting at her window, the curtains propped open with her head lolling to the side in the middle of the night, sitting in her underwear, unable to sleep, with an afghan on her lap, and a mystery in her hand, made him chuckle. But then he felt bad for thinking poorly of her. She really was a nice person. She made conversation, such as it was, with him while she worked in her yard, and he sat on his step drinking a beer (cut that last part later, but keep it for now so that I can have more words typed, hee, hee, hee). (“Hello, Mrs. McGreggor,” he would shout. She would stop her weeding and put up a hand, “Hello, neighbor,” she always called him neighbor. She called everybody neighbor, mostly so that she didn’t have to remember anyone’s name, Hugo suspected. “How are you doing today,” Hugo would say. “Oh, he’s fine. Listen, did I tell you about the time that we were attacked by the Japs? Right here in Oregon, don’t you know…” Hugo would smile and nod, just enjoying the company.)
He startled a covey of quail as he neared the end of Mrs. McGreggor’s property. The flew up around him, wings thumping a cacophony of drumbeats. They whirred around his head, flew twenty feet, and scurried under some low growing juniper bushes. By the time he reached the dirt path above the canal, his boots were wet; he felt the squish of water in his sock near the burn hole in the left one. He tried to ignore it, but found the sensation grating on his nerves. The beer hadn’t cleared his head as he had hoped it would. He tried to focus on where he was going, but the wet sock, coupled with the stench of a newly drained canal, confused him.
He slowed to a stop and looked around. He wondered where he had been heading. He turned to flee back to the safety of his house, panic rising in his chest like a mystic fog over a wooded pond. He heard his heart in his ears and thought, Calm down. Everything is fine. He took a few deep breaths, and felt the anxiety ebbing.
A siren sounded somewhere far away. He thought that it probably was a fire truck, but he couldn’t be sure. The birds had left, or fallen silent. He felt panic rising again, but shooed it away as ridiculous. He still was unsure of where he was headed, but felt compelled to keep heading down the canal, toward the south. His pace slowed or quickened, depending on how thick the weeds and brush had grown. His jeans rubbed against his calves where they had been wetted. The birds returned and sang their morning songs, all about flocking and heading south for the winter. The wind blew a breeze from the east and Hugo pulled the collar up on his jacket.
He came to a road crossing, a bridge over the canal to his left, and parked on the side of the bridge sat Dr. Bonanza.
“De Naranhas,” he shouted. “You’re just the man I want to see. Get in.” Dr. Bonanza unlatched the passenger door on his late 60’s, white pick-up and pushed it open. Hugo, a little bewildered, climbed in and buckled his seat belt. Dr. Bonanza started the pick-up and drove them out to the highway.
“Where are we headed?” Hugo asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
Dr. Bonanza cracked a beer and handed one to Hugo, then vaguely pointed down the highway, saying, “We need to stop by my house first.”
Hugo nodded as he sipped the beer.


Chapter 5

Dr. Bonanza lived to the south of McLoughlin, and a little bit to the east. His place sat just on the edge of The Slope, and tailed off onto the flats. Hugo had been there once before, but it had been late, well after dark, and they had been drinking some foul combination of Jagermeister and ouzo. His recollections were vague at best.
They sipped their beers, riding in silence except for the static coming from the dusty AM radio in the dash.
The houses grew thinner as they left the town. They passed the last gas station on the outskirts of town and passed into cherry orchards. The orchardists liked it up on the plateau, and even on the slope, but out on the flat, trees wouldn’t grow no matter how much water you poured on them. Or if they did grow, the fruit that they bore grew with out meat and with extra large stones.
The white pick-up rounded a corner and slowed as Dr. Bonanza guided it into a narrow dirt drive. Hugo glanced at the mailbox on the opposite side from the driveway. On the side, in black block letters it said Dr. Bonanza. Hugo had hoped to get a clue to his first name, but to no avail. The pick-up slid ever so slightly as they rounded a corner and headed up an incline. In the middle of the drive grew a thick layer of grass, grass that looked healthier than most of the grass growing in the Southside. Even where people took care of their lawns.
Barbed wire lined the road on either side, the right side newer than the left. Up ahead, Hugo could see two houses, one smaller than the other. The left one was larger, but more rundown: goats could be seen in the yard and a tree had been pruned rather badly. The right hand one small, but well kept. Hugo felt a shock of surprise when they turned off the main road toward the nicer of the two. Hugo’s view of Dr. Bonanza had been that he too was a little run down.
As they rounded the house, Hugo could see a chicken coop, the attached yard full of chickens, pecking away at scattered grain and leftover salad greens. They parked next to a newer foreign car, maroon. Dr. Bonanza cut the engine and lightly hopped down, saying, “I’ll be right back.” He took two light steps before falling into his limp. Hugo wondered whether the limp were actually real, or only part of the act.
Someone looked out the window, Hugo assumed that it had been Mrs. Bonanza, as Dr. Bonanza entered through the back door. The screen slammed shut as Hugo glanced around the property. To the east of the house stood a few cherry trees; they marched down the slope, but not too far. Hugo could see, even from here, that they were not doing well the further down they went. The Slope itself sat mostly behind the house and Hugo couldn’t see very far out onto it. Farther to the east rose the foothills of the Cascades, their flanks covered with second and third growth Douglas fir.