“Huh?”
“After you wipe, put this under a rock or use a stick to put some dirt over it.”
“Gary!”
“Don’t get squeamish on me. This is just our bodies, right? Don’t you know how a male body works?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. And I know how a female body works. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. I’m glad we got that out of the way. Now go on and take care of business.”
They hiked in through the valley side by side, two dark figures tracing the grassy inside slope of a pale green parabola, their shadows lengthening before them, the girl in a wreck of sweat and dirt and dust and sunblock and cow shit.
They reached the shop again in late afternoon, the girl carrying the empty canteens, one over each shoulder, canvas straps marking her chest. Lamb was bare chested, his blue work shirt tied into a turban over the girl’s head. He hadn’t known about skin like hers. Even sunblock couldn’t help. He should have spread cow shit all over her face.
“We’ll help you rinse off with cool water and soap you off before it hurts to the touch.”
“It doesn’t feel bad.”
“It will.” He ran his hands under the hose faucet and back through his hair. “If we were out working we’d rinse our hats and shirts in the river and put them back on.”
“Can I get a root beer?”
“Good idea. Get me one of those other beers will you?”
“Do I get a sip?”
“One sip. Take it right off the top and bring me the rest. I’ll get the soap.”
Lamb went into the cabin for towels and bath soap and on his way out saw a flash of Alison Foster’s white hair in the doorway of the shop. In two steps Lamb was through the door, filthy, old ratty towels rolled up beneath his arm, and just in time to see Tommie—her face a terrific ruin—turning around from the workbench and lowering the open beer from her lips, her little mouth pursed in a conspiratorial grin pointed mistakenly at Foster, whose presence she’d taken for Lamb’s.
Lamb stepped past the old man, took the beer from her hand, and slapped her full across the face. His hand stung and for a moment he was afraid she was going over. It was too much. He’d never hit anyone so small. She looked up at no one, stunned. She raised her hand to her face. She made no sound. He loved her for it.
“Go inside.”
“I hate you.” A shaking whisper.
“No you don’t.”
She looked from Lamb to the old man and back again and ran out. Lamb stood still, blood beating hard in the sides of his neck and inside his thighs and rushing hot through his face and the palms of his hands. It was the sun working in him. He let his eyes shut halfway and took a deep, steadying breath. She’d go off in the grass behind the shop, or beyond the outbuildings or to the river. She’d be back. There was nowhere for her to go. He set the full beer on the workbench. The breeze from the open window was cool and the blue sky was beginning to darken. Shadows were already capturing the trees at the river. Box elder leaves paler than they’d been two days ago.
Lamb exhaled. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”
“Well.” Foster widened his small eyes and looked at the floor. For half a minute neither man spoke.
“She’s never done that before.”
“I guess a little taste of beer never hurt anybody.”
Lamb said nothing.
“You went for a walk,” Foster said. It was not a question.
“We had a little snack out there behind some old homestead.”
“Thought I saw you going north.” Lamb envisioned the old man on his rooftop with binoculars. “You shouldn’t,” Foster said.
“We didn’t. Well, initially we did. But we crossed back and went out that way.” He looked off beyond the old man as if he were pointing through the wall. “How far does that go?”
“Ninety mile.”
“All BLM?”
“Mostly.”
“Not much out there.”
“Beef cows.”
“We saw signs of that.”
“You don’t want to go north,” Foster said again.
“Some unfriendly landowners that way, what?”
The old man watched Lamb. “Ed Granger. Had a metal plate put in his head in eighty-one.”
“That right?”
“Never been right since.”
“Where’s that property start?”
“And he doesn’t like children.”
“I see.”
“Maybe you ought to go see about her.”
Lamb looked up. “Who? Em?”
Foster returned the gaze.
“She’s okay.” Lamb gestured with his head toward the cabin, wondering if Foster had seen her outside, through the window behind him. “She’s got a lot to deal with right now. Her mom gone and all.”
Foster looked at him with eyes Lamb couldn’t read.
“Her own mother was the drunk in that wreck.”
“Shame.”
“I know it.”
“But this is no place for a girl.” The old man surveyed the steel beams crossed above them. “Helped my brother-in-law Calhoun put this place up in seventy-four.”
“I remember you saying.”
“He had a godchild running around here back and forth all over the goddamned place. Just about lost her arm on a square of sheet metal.” He made a slicing motion across the belly of his forearm. “She was just a little thing.” The old man shook his head. “Kind of picture you don’t forget.”
“No, I’m sure.”
“Seventy-eight miles to a hospital. As you would know.”
Lamb looked out the window behind him toward the river and tree line, as if he might find the correct response out there. “I didn’t think things through too well, I guess. I’m not used to having a child around.” He turned back to Foster. “But if that’s the closest hospital, that’s something I should have taken into consideration.”
“You ought to take her home. Your home. Somebody’s home.”
Lamb said nothing.
“Pardon me if I’m speaking out of line.”
“No,” Lamb said, “you’re right. I guess we’ll head back in a couple days. I was just… we’re expecting company. A friend.”
The old man held his chin up. He raised a palsied, spotted hand. “I’ll leave you to your troubles.” He made for the door.
“Was there something you wanted, Foster?”
“Just see how you’re getting on. Let you know snow’s on its way.”
“We’ll be all right. You’re welcome anytime.”
“Pretty night coming on.”
“Yeah, she is.”
When the old man left, Lamb leaned against the workbench, his back to the window, and drained the beer as the shop darkened. He waited. He moved the lawn chair from beside the woodstove to the far corner of the shop and sat on the floor, his legs stretched out before him. He sat there an hour, then went out through the bunk room door and pissed in the weeds. It was dark but he could still see the green of the grass. He waited. Listened. He had no sense of where she was, so he walked back into the shop and left the door open behind him—that was as far as he’d go. She must have been waiting for it, because soon after he heard the main door swing open. She caught it to keep it from slamming, but he knew she was coming. When she stepped into the doorway the night was lit up blue-black behind her. She stood still looking in. He could tell she’d washed her face.
“You were supposed to be the lookout,” he said from the floor across the room.
“I’m sorry.”
“You have to pay attention to everything now. Do you see? Everything depends upon it. Our friendship depends upon it. You have to be awake.”