Annalee came in from the kitchen then with the tea. The cups were on saucers. He was sunk. ‘Well,’ he began, trying for a tone of bewildered innocence, ‘that’s a falconer’s glove, isn’t it?’
‘No, Daniel, it isn’t,’ Shamus said, his voice as cold and level as a frozen lake. ‘I wear it because my hand is disfigured, scarred from a burn.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘I accidently spilled a vessel of molten silver.’
‘Do you always wear a glove?’
‘Yes. Otherwise it attracts morbid attention, or revulsion, and a pity I find far more hideous than my hand.’
‘Do you take it off when––’
‘Daniel!’ Annalee lashed. ‘That’s enough. You’ve gone from a tactless question to being plain rude.’
He used bewildered innocence again, appealing to Shamus with dismay and a hint of contrition. ‘Was I being rude?’
‘You were,’ Shamus said, then, added, ‘but I ascribed it more to cunning curiosity than thoughtlessness.’
‘Daniel wants to know everything,’ Annalee explained, her tone, Daniel noted with relief, fond and forgiving.
‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said to Shamus. ‘Seven Moons told me it’s hard to know when to put yourself first.’
Shamus smiled, blue eyes glittering in the lamplight. ‘Your gracious and elegant apology is warmly accepted.’ He leaned forward, opening his glove hand palm up in front of Daniel. ‘I want you to understand this, Daniel. My hand is horribly disfigured. The black glove is mysterious. I would rather inspire mystery than horror in the beholder’s eye, and heart, and soul. That is my choice. If you don’t respect it, you are not a friend.’
‘But maybe it would be better to just see it instead of imagining what it looks like.’
‘Maybe so. I clearly don’t agree, given my choice.’
‘All right,’ Daniel said, leaving no doubt he meant it.
They stayed up late that first night, listening raptly as Shamus talked about precious metals, how and where they were mined, the processes of refinement, their colors, textures, properties, malleability and melting point, their importance in the parallel refinements and applications of human consciousness, their irreducible and essential purity – literally elemental. Both Daniel and Annalee were taken by his passion and eloquence, both excited and vaguely disturbed by the power of his appreciation, which seemed to vibrate between reverence and obsession.
After Shamus had gone down to the guest house, Daniel said to Annalee as she brushed her teeth, ‘You like him, don’t you?’
Annalee rinsed and spit. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Extremely attracted.’
‘I thought so.’
‘And what made you think that?’
‘The black glove.’
Annalee laughed. ‘More likely the blue eyes.’
‘Yeah, but the black glove too.’
‘Good-looking, spirited, intelligent, emotionally alive, surrounded by an aura of mystery and danger – yes, I’m attracted.’
Daniel thought for a moment. ‘Well, don’t get too strange or he’ll quit liking you.’
‘It shows, huh?’
‘To me,’ Daniel said, ‘but I know how you really are.’
Suddenly serious, Annalee said, ‘I wish I knew how I really was. That’s something I really need to know, that I’ve gotten hungry to know this last year. I need some mystery and danger and dark, handsome strangers. Do you understand what I’m messing up saying?’
‘I’m not sure. But it doesn’t matter; it’s your choice.’
Annalee hugged him. ‘Daniel,’ she solemnly swore, ‘you are a joy to my soul.’
The next evening, after explaining to Daniel that Shamus had invited her down to the guest house to discuss the alchemical properties of silver and gold, and that she hoped to be out quite late, Annalee waltzed out the door. Daniel was cooking some oatmeal when she floated back in the next morning.
‘Oh no!’ she declaimed, throwing a wrist to her forehead, ‘what a derelict mother, her lonely child starving as she frolics the night away.’
‘Boy,’ Daniel said, ‘you look happy. You must have really frolicked.’
‘We did. We built a castle and then we burned it down.’
‘Does that mean you made love?’
‘For real and for sure. Tenderly and wildly. Sweet and scalding. Eye to eye and breath to breath.’
Daniel nodded, not exactly sure what she meant but knowing she was pleased. When she paused, he said quickly, ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure,’ Annalee said, but it was a nervous permission.
‘Did he take off his glove?’
‘Nope.’
Daniel nodded thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t think so. Can I ask another question that may be rude?’
‘Shoot,’ Annalee said, less nervous now than resigned.
‘Did you ask him to take off his glove?’
‘No.’
‘You like him a lot, don’t you?’
‘More every day,’ Annalee grinned.
More every night, too. She and Shamus began leaving as soon as the dinner dishes were done and not returning to the cabin till mid-morning. Daniel didn’t mind the shift in her attention – he was honestly pleased to see her so happy. Though he still felt slightly overwhelmed by Shamus and his black glove, and wasn’t sure if his respect was based on admiration or fear, he did like Shamus, and more so when Annalee elicited a playfulness that Daniel hadn’t suspected. Annalee, however, worried that Daniel was feeling neglected, and after the fifth night of sexual rampage suggested to Shamus that they should spend an evening with Daniel.
‘We’d better,’ Shamus had replied, nuzzling her shoulder, ‘or I will not survive what was supposed to be a time of contemplative rest.’
The next evening after dinner Shamus joined their study of their temporarily abandoned subject for the year, which was, loosely, American history and culture – or ‘how it was in the old days,’ as Daniel put it. The current text, barely begun, was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They took turns reading aloud, stopping at the end of each scene to ask questions or offer comments. Shamus even took notes in a red notebook he kept in his briefcase. His briefcase, like his black glove, was always there.
When Shamus finished his stint as reader, he wondered aloud if school ever recessed so that he might catch up on his notes.
‘Good idea,’ Annalee said. ‘I’m hungry. You guys want some popcorn?’
‘Two batches,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll melt the butter.’
‘Let’s do it,’ Annalee said, squeezing Shamus’s thigh as she got up from the couch.
‘I have to pee first,’ Daniel said.
‘Go,’ Annalee said. ‘Never resist the call of nature. It strains the organs.’
‘She’s a wise woman, your mother,’ Shamus said to Daniel, looking at Annalee.
Daniel came back in almost immediately. ‘Hey, I hear a helicopter coming.’
‘Fuck!’ Shamus hissed. He shoved his notebook into the briefcase, extracting, as if by some magical exchange, a Colt 9 mm. automatic. ‘Let’s go,’ he said calmly. ‘Right now or we’re dead.’
Daniel grabbed his coat from the rack. As he hustled to put it on, a sleeve whipped the kerosene lamp off the end table. The lamp shattered, instantly bursting into flame.
‘Now!’ Shamus commanded, flinging him toward the door. Annalee grabbed Daniel and they sprinted toward the flat, Shamus right behind them, the helicopter suddenly louder as it came over the ridge. They plunged downhill at the flat’s edge, following a runoff ravine, the water shallow but numbingly cold. They could hear the helicopter swing over, the pulsing mechanical chop like the heartbeat of a frenzied locust. Annalee in the lead, Daniel between her and Shamus, they headed downhill toward the South Fork, battling a passage through the ferns and gooseberries and redwood suckers.