"Are you nuts?"
The question struck Eric as funny so he laughed, his head, thrown back, the.38 he'd taken from Blackjack stuffed into his waistband. The butt dug into his stomach as it jumped from his laughing, rubbing the skin underneath raw. He let it.
"I mean it, Eric," Tracy continued, easing herself to the floor of the Xerox room which Blackjack had turned over to them. It was one of the few actual rooms in the building with a real door that even locked from the inside. Eric locked it behind him. Blackjack had called this the settlement's honeymoon suite because its use was alternated every night by different couples. They had a sign-up sheet attached to a clipboard hanging on a nail outside the door.
"What's to think about, for Christ's sake," Tracy added. "Let's get our canoe and get the hell out of here."
Eric didn't answer her right away. He was thinking. Not about Blackjack's offer or Angel or Rhino or Alabaster or Liar's Cove. He was back to The Centurion and that woman he'd killed. Crow, they'd called her. She'd been singing outside their stateroom door.
"Every day, it's a gettin' closer, goin' faster than a roller coaster…"
Eric backed against the long wooden table with its three-hole Hunt-Boston paper punch and green paper cutter still resting where it had before the quakes. He couldn't get that song out of his head.
"Love like yours will truly come my way…"
He remembered Buddy Holly, his mom sneaking him into a concert when the Crickets played Tucson. Eric was nine. Everybody else's mother was always dragging him to hear Frankie Laine or Pat Boone. But Eric's mother liked to dance, to move. That night his father had remained on the Hopi reservation to haul a few more wheelbarrows of rocks from the mountain he was carving to resemble one of their legendary chiefs. His father didn't like Buddy Holly because of his black thick-rimmed glasses. "Makes him look like a busboy in an Oklahoma roadside diner."
"Come what may, do you ever long for true love from me-ee-ee?"
That was 1959. Three months later Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Also on board was Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson. Eric's mother had cried, worn a black arm band while teaching her archeology class at the university that afternoon. At the end of class she played "Rave On" on a tinny old record player from the audiovisual department. That night Eric's father brought out his finest block of granite and started sculpting a bust of Buddy Holly for her. It took three years for him to finish and it was not very good because, though he was an enthusiastic artist, he was not very talented. But Eric's mother kept it on her piano long after Eric's father died.
Eric smiled at the memory, savoring it a bit. Good memories were so hard to recall these days, when one came he sometimes couldn't decide if it was of something that really had happened or if he was just making it up.
"Hey, earth to Eric. Come in, please." Tracy was waving at him.
"A little static, Houston Control. Can't copy."
She smiled. "Try an emergency landing, pal, 'cause Rod Serling has taken over down here. He's got us holed up in some flooded building that's been transformed into a farm. He's got us negotiating with some giant ex-pediatrician who claims he's a pirate, while avoiding an ape with a melted face and his companion, a Vietnamese Mata Hari with a kinky streak. And now-boy, Rod's really outdone himself this time-now he's got our heroes, Eric and Gimpy, discussing the possibility of kidnapping the aforementioned Vietnamese vixen from under the nose of said custard-faced ape in the midst of some thieves' and murderers' hideout called Liar's Cove. California just ain't the mellow place it once was. On second thought, don't return to earth. Catch us on the rerun." She sighed, adjusting her hip for some comfort.
Eric laughed again, clapped his hands in appreciation. "I can't wait to read your book on this whole experience when we get off of here someday. A combination of Franz Kafka and Woody Allen."
"Well, I can't believe you actually told him we'd consider his scheme."
"Why not? It makes sense. We help out, in a purely advisory capacity, and get a free ride up to Santa Barbara on his ship. That alone will save us a lot of paddling. Think about your scabby little knees kneeling in that canoe for a few more days, paddling until your arms ache as if they'd been gnawed on by an alligator."
"Sweet talker."
"And with your hip, it'll be even worse. Plus we get as much fresh food as we want and the choice of weapons from the cache. There might be a few things there to help even the odds against Fallows and his bunch."
"I want to free Timmy, too, Eric, but-" Tracy started to protest when someone knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Nurse Havczech. Got something for you."
Eric tilted the gun in his waistband for a fast draw, then opened the door.
"Howdy," she said, walking into the room. With both hands she held a steaming mug which she offered to Tracy.
Tracy leaned forward to take it, smelling the steam as she leaned back again. She made a face. "Thanks, but what is it?"
"Don't ask, honey. It'll go down better that way."
Tracy sniffed it again, wrinkled her nose. "You sure I'm supposed to drink this and not use it to scrub the bathroom tiles?"
Nurse Havczech laughed as she turned to Eric. "She's quite a card, your lady."
"Keeps me in more stitches than an eight-inch knife wound."
Nurse Havczech stared dumbly at Eric. "That supposed to be funny?"
"Don't mind him," Tracy explained. "He's the ayatollah of comedy."
Nurse Havczech would have doubled over with laughter if her stomach hadn't been in the way. "You're a crack-up, lady. What my mom used to call 'the genuine article.'"
"It's nice to be appreciated," Tracy said, winking at Eric.
"Now you go and drink up that concoction, honey. Help you relax and get some sleep. Doctor sent it over."
"Blackjack?"
Nurse Havczech made a face at that name. "Yeah, that's what he calls himself."
Tracy frowned at the steaming mug.
"Now, don't fret. It's just a little distilled maple syrup made into a tea. We use it around here as an anesthetic."
Tracy looked at Eric, who shrugged. "Kind of a Mickey Finn," he said.
"Yeah, that's right, honey. Knock you on your ass for a few hours and give that hip of yours a chance to relax."
Tracy held her breath while she sipped the hot liquid. It slid across her tongue and down her throat with a soothing warmth. She took a breath. "Not too bad. Tastes a little like sweet and sour pork. I'm surprised he didn't send a few joints of grass along."
Nurse Havczech made a stern face like a mother defending her child. "Doctor might be a little bizarre, young lady, but he's still a damn fine medical man. He was one of the best in the state before this whole crazy mess and I won't hear anything bad about him."
"But just when his medical skills are most needed he's thrown them away to become a pirate."
Nurse Havczech sighed. "Peculiar, sure. But there's a lot about the situation you just don't know. Can't understand."
"Like what? Help me understand why a mature man with any ethics would do what he's done. Become what he's become."
"Can't," she said with a finality that left no doubt. She pressed her wrinkled lips together as if to demonstrate her inflexibility.
Eric lifted the only chair in the room, a gray metal folding chair, and slid it next to Nurse Havczech. "How bad is his cancer?"
Nurse Havczech stared at Eric, and he could see the pain in her old watery eyes. She deflated a few inches with another heavy sign and sat down. "How'd you know?"
"Guessed. His baldness is a little patchy, like someone who's been through chemotherapy. And the marijuana. He didn't seem to enjoy it as a recreational treat. He seemed to need the relief."
"We grow some upstairs just for him. He'd never smoked before, so he's still getting used to it."
Tracy looked stunned. "That explains what he said before. That the quakes are the best thing that could have happened to him."
"Yeah, honey, that's the cynical way he's been since I've known him, but occasionally something else slips through. Something real fine. As a school nurse I'd had occasion to hear something bad about every pediatrician in Southern California. But I never did hear anything bad about Doctor."
"Then his whole pirate thing is just a game?"
"No, ma'am, not for a minute." She shook her head briskly. "He's one tough mother. He caught a couple of Rhino's crew once trying to sneak in here at night. A man and a woman 'bout your ages. He killed 'em both right on the spot. A regular execution. Nearly took the guy's head off with that saber of his. That thing's not just ornamental, you know." She looked at Eric. "He's got a mean streak in him, a crazy urge to thumb his nose at the world. He's mad, goddamn it. Before the quakes he was being treated and there was some hope they'd be able to operate and clean him out. Save his life. But now…" She shrugged hopelessly. "Can you blame him for being what he is? He had a basketball scholarship to Temple University, was a cinch for the NBA. Got drafted in the lottery, sent to Vietnam in time to get a bullet through the ankle. Poof, no more basketball. Became a doctor instead. Then this cancer shit." She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Told me once that as a kid he saw Mary Martin play Peter Pan on TV, and for two years after, all he used to dream of was being Peter Pan and going to Never-Never Land. Said he used to cry when he had to go to school because he wouldn't be able to think about Never-Never Land at school. Well," she smiled, "he finally got his wish, though Lord knows this is a poor substitute for Never-Never Land."
Nurse Havczech hoisted her plump body from the uncomfortable chair and shuffled toward the door. "Got to get back to my patients. We do quite a walk-in business there."
"Thanks for the tea, or whatever it is," Tracy called.
"Thank Dr. Blackjack," Nurse Havczech chuckled, shaking her head as she closed the door behind her.
"Quite a story," Tracy said, obviously impressed.
"Yeah," Eric nodded. "If it's true."
"God, you're cynical. Like him."
"Just cautious."
Tracy stretched out on the bedding, setting the mug on the floor near her head. It was no longer steaming. "We're going, aren't we? To Liar's Cove."
"That's not for me to decide alone. What do you think?"
"I think you still have a yen for the samurai sister."
"God, Tracy."
"Is it the danger? Knowing she carries a knife?" Tracy pulled the steel blade from her pocket. "Hell, I carried your arch support in my underwear. Can't get much more erotic than that."
Eric laughed. "The only feeling I have about Angel is regret that I didn't kill her back in 'Nam."
"What do you feel about me?"
"You already know."
Tracy lifted her eyes toward him, patted the blanket next to her. "Show me."
"Christ, Tracy, your hip."
"Show me."
Eric lifted the glass bell jar from the lantern and puffed out the tiny flame. The room winked into a grayish dark that still allowed them to see each other. Long, thin slivers of orange from the cracks in the door crisscrossed the dark like photo-sensor guards in clothing stores.
Eric tended to Tracy first, helping ease her out of the jeans and sweat shirt. He could see the pain wringing her face as she peeled the denim from around her hip wound, but there was no use in trying to talk any sense into her. She was like Annie that way. Once she decided something was important, there was no turning back. As she shifted on the pile of blankets, one of the rods of orange light flickered across her face like a sci-fi laser beam. It lit up the moisture in her eyes and he could see how important this was to her. Not just sex, but a ceremony. A bonding, an exchange of silent vows.
When she was finally naked, the white bandage taped to her hip in a lump like a jellyfish, Eric quickly shed his own clothing. He stretched out next to her. Carefully she rolled herself onto her good hip, exposing her back to him. She brought the knee of her leg up into a frozen ballet dancer's stance, only prone. Eric snuggled next to her, his body hair brushing against her smooth skin. He hung an arm over her stomach and was surprised at the hardness of the muscles there. It excited him, lifting his penis until it poked insistently against the back of her thigh.
She chuckled and began humming "Hail to the Chief."
"Jezz, how romantic," he said.
She didn't have to see him to know he was smiling. She wriggled her buttocks and back closer, pressing herself flush against his solid body.
Eric let his hand brush lightly over her breast, swirling lazy circles like a child doodling in the sand. Feeling the nipples grow longer, harder. He thought about the crops growing upstairs, preferred the ones they were raising right here. He cupped her breast in his rough hand and massaged the nipple between thumb and forefinger, pinching harder and harder until he feared he might be hurting her, knowing he wasn't. Her breathing was shallow now, a husky panting.
She reached behind her, groped for his penis, finally snagging it with a firm grasp. She squeezed and he could feel her callouses and blisters pricking his tender skin. It made him harder, hungrier. Still, he was cautious.
"I'm wounded, Eric, not dead," she said. "We can do the slow gentle bit later. Right now, I just want to get laid."
He smiled, dipped his head over her shoulder to kiss her. Their eyes were open, staring deep into each other's as their tongues bumped like playful dolphins. The orange light sizzled along Eric's scar and she squeezed him harder, using her other hand to crush his hand tighter over her breast.
"God, Eric, it's been so long."
He understood. The mechanics of sex were much different in this California than they had been before. No more birth-control pills. Prophylactics were rare anymore. Those that cared, reverted to the rhythm method, the only one that didn't require any devices. Big Bill Tender-wolf had once told him about using stoneseed roots to suppress the estrous cycle, but Big Bill had preferred a vasectomy. Eric could have had a vasectomy done at University Camp when they were being encouraged, but he'd seen no need to since Annie was no longer able to give birth after Timmy. Now he was glad he hadn't. What if anything should happen to Timmy? Would he ever want to start over again with another family? With Tracy?
It made him guilty to even think such thoughts. As long as Timmy was alive, that was all that mattered.
He skated his hand over her buttocks, nestling between her legs into her soft pubic hairs. They were matted, wet and sticky, and he calculated how long since they'd last made love. Two weeks, three. They'd run out of rubbers, the little boxes of Trojans they'd carried in their backpack along with other necessities of life. He hadn't used one since and that made him feel like a high school student, fumbly and sweaty. When they'd run out, Tracy had just passed her menstrual cycle. She was within days of her period; he could relax.
Tracy lifted her leg slightly, guiding his engorged penis to her. The head bumped, then skidded along the slippery path, disappearing.
Their movements were smooth, less energetic than usual in deference to Tracy's wound. But there was something almost more passionate about this, a sense of ritual that touched both of them. He could feel the filmy sweat bristling over her skin as they rocked together. Her eyelids fluttered as usual, her mouth wide open and sucking air. Morbidly it reminded him of when she was drowning earlier. Then all the air rushed out of her lungs and she clenched her teeth. He felt her vaginal muscles rippling like a strong tide along his penis. He hurried a few more strokes, tensed his buttocks, and gushed bubbling lava into her.
They hugged without words for a while. He watched her eyes close, her face relax into sleep. Her lips puffed loosely. Watching her in the dark, he realized something he'd avoided accepting for too long. "I love you," he whispered.
She opened her eyes and turned to face him. "Gotcha." She smiled.
He smiled back, pulled a ragged blanket over them.
Book Three: