Molly would go into one of her icy rages, the kind where her mind glittered like crystal and her eyes could slay at a glance. Anna needed that, too, needed someone to be furious for her, rage against the withering impotence of knowing life was very, very unfair, and there was not one goddamned thing you could do about it.
Having locked the door behind her, she slipped into the padded swivel chair in front of the desk, a narrow built-in behind a half-wall that kept visitors from wandering into the working portion of the office.
There was both an overhead light and a desk lamp. Anna left them dark. Not only did she feel at home without light, she didn’t want visitors trotting down to borrow a cup of sugar.
Finally alone, the last rays of the day making the dust motes sparkle and dance in the dim office, Anna realized how tired she was. After Regis had been rescued from the solution hole, Steve ordered her to the Bullfrog clinic. The nurse practitioner—a competent woman named Beatrice—wanted her to go to the hospital in Wahweap or, failing that, stay overnight in Bullfrog for observation. Anna refused, arguing her injuries were old news. If the bang on the head and dislocation of her shoulder were going to kill her, she’d already be dead.
Never again would she allow herself to be trapped and observed by strangers as she slept. After signing release forms, Beatrice let her go. The woman was so affronted by her refusal to see sense she’d actually said, “If you have problems with the concussion, let it be on your head.”
By the time she’d gotten a boat ride back to Dangling Rope it had been after five. She had forgotten to eat. Now she was out of fuel, running on empty, and not running very fast. A few glasses of wine backed by a Xanax and sixteen hours in bed looked like her very own Eden. Still, she picked up the phone and dialed the many numbers needed to make a credit card call to New York.
“It’s me, Anna,” she said when she heard Molly’s “hello.” At the sound of her sister’s voice, tears she had no idea were waiting gushed from her eyes. With an effort, Anna kept them from her voice.
“Well, well,” her sister said. “Did you have to ride a yak to the nearest village where they had running water and AT&T?”
As was Molly’s habit—both by training and inclination—she listened without interrupting while Anna told her tale of abduction, assault, and imprisonment. Trusting her sister absolutely, as she had done since she could remember and probably from the moment her mother brought her home from the hospital and laid her in six-year-old Molly’s arms, Anna left nothing out: the drugged water, the carving on her thigh, being stripped, her nude body posed—all of it. Twice she heard the familiar metallic rasp followed by a short sharp intake of breath as her sister lit and smoked two Camel unfiltered cigarettes.
Anna was glad she could end the story with the odiferous heroics of Buddy. Neither she nor the little skunk knew the man in the dark was Regis Candor and not one of the young murderers and would-be rapists, so Buddy got full credit for saving her life.
That he had saved her in other ways she didn’t bother to voice—not at twenty-five cents a minute. Molly would know. The healing power of friendship, the value of having someone to care for, to give and receive love, were things her sister often said she wished she could dole out in pill form.
The only part of the story Anna kept back was that not only had Molly’s voice been with her in the jar, but it had pulled her back from the edge. Much as Anna loved and trusted her older sister, there was no sense giving her a big head. As a doctor and a New Yorker, Molly had sufficient arrogance to get her through the day.
Finishing her story, Anna brought Molly to the present moment: sitting in a small dusty ranger station, sun relinquishing its light to the first stars, absolute quiet a palpable thing. Over the phone line, from three stories above Seventy-seventh, off Fifth Avenue, Anna listened to the ululations of sirens, the sound track of cities.
For a long intake of breath Molly said nothing. Then she gave her professional summing up: “Yikes.” Another long breath came and went. The slow response to a story full of danger and drama didn’t offend Anna. This was how Molly designated levels of importance. Shallow thoughts brought quick rejoinders; serious matters deserved serious attention.
“This Regis guy stinks to high heaven,” Molly said finally.
“Even without Buddy’s ministrations,” Anna agreed.
“But it was not he who struck the girl you unburied, or chased you and, presumably, knocked you unconscious, stripped you, and rolled you into the pit.”
“Right,” Anna said. “As far as I know, Regis wasn’t within miles of me that afternoon.”
“Easy enough to check,” Molly said.
It was easy to check. Anna could find out. Until that moment, pursuing justice on her own behalf hadn’t crossed her mind. There were professionals for that. Vigilante justice had struck Anna as an oxymoron. Until now.
“You’re right,” Anna said firmly.
“What? No you don’t. I am most assuredly not right if you’re thinking two of my rights are your permission to do a big fat wrong. What are you thinking, Anna?” Molly demanded. “Your voice has that terrifying ‘fools rush in’ ring to it.”
“It’s better than feeling helpless,” Anna countered.
“It’s not better than feeling dead,” her sister snapped.
“Living, knowing the monster is out there, might not be better than dead,” Anna said.
“Don’t be such a melodramatic little ass,” Molly said. “There are always monsters out there. Many of them in high places and respected professions. Do you think I just listen to bored housewives and neurotic rich people forty hours a week? I see monsters every day: men who batter wives, women who are cruel to their children, grown-up little boys who were used by fathers and uncles and cousins, grown-up little girls who were raped by their dentist or pastor or Daddy’s best friend or Daddy himself. On Fridays, when I do pro bono work at Pelican Bay, I meet the batterers and child abusers and murderers. I know they are the tip of the iceberg, the small percentage that get caught and their lawyers don’t get them a deal and the judge doesn’t throw out their case on a technicality and the victim doesn’t withdraw her accusation and the witnesses actually show up in court.
“Of course we’re scared sometimes. Of course we sometimes feel helpless. Of course we all live knowing the monster is out there.
“You are not a monster hunter, Anna.” Molly ran down, the heat leaking out of her tirade. “Leave this to the cops,” she finished. “You are not John Wayne. You are just a stage manager.”
Anna clenched the fingers of her left hand, making the tendons in her shoulder ache.
“John Wayne wasn’t John Wayne,” she said. “He was just an actor.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
By gray-green fingernails dusk hung on to the edge of a star-studded sky. Chain-smoking and thinking and trying not to think, Jenny sat with her back against the wall of the duplex, legs stretched out on the picnic table, waiting for Anna.
Party boaters had defiled the grotto. She and Anna would need to sample the water there again, see if it was fit for human visitation. There was the beautiful little beach in Gunsight Bay, a prime spot for toilet paper blooms and graffiti, that she hadn’t visited in a while. Interpretive opportunities would abound in Gunsight. It would be a good place to get Anna started on the higher education aspects of her job.
That was if Anna didn’t bolt. Jenny wouldn’t blame her if she did pack up her toiletries and head east on the first train, plane, or bus. Jenny hoped Anna would stay, figured she would run, and, in honesty, thought she probably should put as many miles between herself and the “jar,” as she called it, as possible. Ms. Pigeon was incredibly ignorant of reality not created on stages in the Big Apple.