California(21)

Cal was sure it had been the worst for Bo. He had probably been the last to eat the poison. Someone had to make sure their dosages were correct and that his children, his wife, wouldn’t awake. It must have been terrible. Who wanted to be a man?

Cal looked at Frida across the table. She was scraping at her food with the fork, her focus anywhere but on him. He cleared his throat. “Frida,” he said.

“What?” she asked, and looked up.

“I have no interest in finding out what’s beyond the territory we’ve already explored.” He paused. “All I need, all I want, is right here. With you.”

The only sound was Frida’s fork hitting her plate.

“I hate these beets,” she said.

Though he agreed, Cal shook his head. “You have to finish them,” he said. Already the possibility of their unborn child was exerting its influence. It needed the nutrients.

*



Cal had last seen Bo alive six months ago, when the Millers had come to the shed for dinner. It was the beginning of spring, and Cal had again found himself missing the jacarandas in L.A., which had to be blooming soon. Two years earlier, they’d left town before the trees blossomed, and sometimes he imagined the purple flowers pastel against a cloudless sky. He used to love that, and how, come summer, the sticky flowers would carpet the sidewalks.

On that visit with the Millers, though, he felt at home. He didn’t miss anything. The weather was warm, and the sun was a neon peach in a charcoal sky. He had roasted cauliflower, and Frida had steeped jugs of water with lemon balm. Thanks to the garden’s bounty, they’d been getting crafty with their meals. They could have been back in L.A., throwing a dinner party. In the year and a half since they’d met the Millers, they’d learned a lot. They were getting the hang of things; that, or they had let themselves be fooled.

The Millers had brought a tent for sleeping, but Cal remembered waking the next morning to their absence; the family had risen before dawn to be on its way. They probably hadn’t even gone to sleep, Cal thought. He imagined Sandy and Bo alternating security shifts, the chilly wind the only thing keeping their eyes open. He envied and derided their brand of dedication. Breathe out already, he wanted to say.

Still, the families were getting comfortable with each other. Garrett sat on Frida’s lap occasionally, and the couples shared a few inside jokes. Bo and Cal had already gone hunting a handful of times, and Sandy had shown Frida how to forage for mushrooms and berries. She had explained to his wife how to distinguish between the poisonous and the safe.

That night, while Frida helped Sandy tuck the children into the tent, Cal took Bo up on his offer of moonshine. The liquor tasted like Windex, but he drank it anyway because he wanted to feel that old familiar ease in his brain and limbs.

It didn’t take long for Cal to feel a little drunk. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t have asked Bo what was beyond their land. The Millers never spoke of this, even as they approached other topics: the local flora and fauna, visits from August, how to keep animals away from the garden. They were full of advice, and yet continuously evasive. This place of mystery, Cal reminded himself. But he wanted answers.

He could tell Bo was tipsy by the way he lay back on the faded quilt they’d been dining on and propped himself on his elbows. In the daylight, Bo had an alert and serious face, but in the darkness it was hidden, and he simply seemed small, and thus more vulnerable. Frida liked to remind Cal that their neighbor was short, as if this spoke of some deeper lack. “This isn’t a nineteenth-century novel,” Micah had liked to say back at Plank, and Cal thought of that now. Bo could just as well have had a wooden leg, he thought. It would mean nothing.

“Have you searched for others? Who the hell is out there?”

Bo didn’t respond, and in the dark, Cal couldn’t see whether he intended to. So he went on. “There have to be more of us. Why haven’t they shown themselves?” He paused. “Why haven’t they killed us and stolen our shit?” He and Frida asked themselves this all the time. Besides a lunatic who had jumped in front of their car on their way through the Central Valley, they hadn’t been bothered by a soul since leaving L.A. Where were all the marauders—the Pirates—that everyone in L.A. was so frightened of? It couldn’t just be luck that had kept Frida and Cal safe.

“Why do you assume they’re bad people?” Bo asked.

Cal laughed. “I’ve seen movies.”

“They trade with August, they keep to themselves.”

“But why?” Cal asked. “What do you know?”

Cal heard the slosh of the liquor in Bo’s Mason jar, and a strong gulp, as if the man were preparing for a long story. Cal waited.

“When Sandy and I first came out here—years ago—we went on an exploratory mission. We were still living in the shed, and we secured it with this big bicycle lock before we left. Not that it would really keep anyone out, but we figured it was more important to know the area, dangerous or not.”

“Were there Pirates back then?”

Bo sighed. “We were curious, like you.”

Cal wondered why Bo was being so shifty. He thought he could see that Bo had his eyes on the tent, where their wives were hushing the children. He seemed suddenly anxious that Sandy might hear them. Would she contest his version of events? Maybe she had another story to tell.