Farther up the ridge the trees gave way to mesquite and a few stubborn junipers. We followed a little trickle ravine up to the ridge proper, and stood on it in the wind. The ridge edge was sandstone perfectly divided, like the back of a fish. We walked along that division, commenting on the views out to sea, and up San Mateo Valley. “Swing Canyon is just over that spur,” I said, pointing a little ahead of us.
“Is it?” Melissa said. “You want to go there?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s.” We kissed to mark the decision, and I felt a pang; why couldn’t she be like one of the other girls, like the Marianis or the Simpsons?… We continued along the ridge. Melissa kept asking questions, and I kept on lying as I answered her. After Cuchillo, the peak of Basilone Ridge, several spurs headed down from the main ridge into the valley. The steep box canyon formed by the first two of these spurs was Swing Canyon; from our vantage we could look right down it, and see where its small stream made the final fall into one of Kathryn’s fields. We slid on our butts down the steep walls at the top of the canyon, and then stepped carefully through thick low mesquite. All the while she questioned me. I was amazed at how obvious she was; but I suppose if I hadn’t known what she was up to, I wouldn’t have noticed. It was just like plain curiosity, after all, or almost like it. Reflecting on this, I decided I could be more bold in my own questions to her. I knew more than she did. A bit more bold in every way: helping her down a vertical break, I used her crotch as a handhold and lifted her down; she held one knee wide so it would work, and giggled as she twisted free on landing. With a kiss we headed down again.
“Have you ever heard about the Japanese that come over from Catalina to look at what’s left in Orange County?” I asked.
“I’ve heard it happens,” she said brightly. “But nothing more than that. Tell me about it.”
“I sure would like to see one of those landings,” I said. “You know, when the Japanese ship picked me out of the water, I talked with the captain for a while, and I saw he was wearing one of the high school rings that the scavengers sell!”
“Is that right,” she said, astonished. You’re overdoing it, I wanted to say.
“Yeah! The captain of the ship! I figure all those Japanese coast guard captains must be bribed to let through tourists on certain nights. I’d love to go up there and spy on one of those landings, just to see if I could recognize my captain again.”
“But why?” Melissa asked. “Do you want to shoot him?”
“No, no. Of course not. I want to know if I’m right about him or not. You know, whether he helps the landings like I think he does.” It didn’t sound very convincing to me (and I shouldn’t have said the word spy), but it was the best I could think of.
“I doubt you’ll ever find out,” Melissa said reasonably. “But good luck at it. I wish there was some way I could help, but I wouldn’t like going up there.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe you could help anyway.”
We were down to the sink at the very head of the box canyon, and I stopped the conversation to give her a long kiss. After that we walked to the swing tree, near the spring that starts the canyon’s stream. The spring made a little pool before tumbling over a sandstone rib down the canyon, and beside the pool was a flat spot, protected by a ring of sycamore trees. It was a favored spot for lovers. Melissa took my hand and led me right to it, so I guessed she was as familiar with it as I was. We sat in the gloom and kissed, then laid on the leaf and needle bed and kissed some more. We pressed against each other, rolled aimlessly over the crackling leaves. I nudged my fingers under the tie of her burlap pants, and slid them down her belly, into tightly curled hair… she held my hard-on through jeans, and squeezed hard, and we kissed, and kissed, and our breath got short and jerky. I was excited, but… I couldn’t forget about everything else and just feel her. The other times I had lain with a girl—with Melissa before, or Rebel Simpson the previous year, or that Valerie from Trabuco, who had made several swap meet nights so interesting—I would get started and my brain would melt into my skin, so that I never thought a thing and when we were done it was like coming to. This time, at the same moment I was feeling her and kissing her neck and shoulders I was wondering how I could make my desire to see the Japanese landings sound convincing, even essential; how I could ask her again to ask Addison. It was strange.
“Maybe you can help,” I said between kisses, as if it had just occurred to me. My hand was still in her pants, and I nudged her with a finger.
“How so?” she asked, squirming.
“Couldn’t your dad talk to some of his contacts about it? I mean, I know he doesn’t have many contacts up there, but you said he has one or two—”
“I did not,” she said sharply, and pulled back from me. My hand slid out from her pants and it groped over the leaves for her; no, no, it said… “I never told you anything of the sort! Daddy does his own work, like we told you before.” She sat up. “Besides, why should you want to go up there? I don’t get it. Is that why you were up talking to him today?”
“No, of course not. I wanted to see you,” I said with conviction.
“So you could ask me to ask him,” she said, not impressed.
I shuffled to her side and nuzzled her hair and neck. “See, the thing is,” I said indistinctly, “if I don’t see that Japanese captain again, I’m going to be afraid of him for the rest of my life. He’s giving me nightmares and all. And I know Add could help me to find one of those landings.”
“He could not,” she said, irritated. I tried to put my hand back down her pants to distract her, but she seized it and pushed it away. “Don’t,” she said coldly. “See? You did get me up here to ask me to pester my dad. Listen—I don’t want you bothering him about Orange County or the Japanese or any of that, you hear? Don’t ask him nothing and don’t get him mixed up in anything you do.” She brushed leaves out of her hair, crawled away from me to the edge of the pool. “He’s got enough trouble in your damn valley without you trying to give him more.” She cupped some water and drank, brushed her hair back with angry slaps.
I stood up unsteadily, and walked over to the swing tree. She had made me feel awful guilty and calculating; and she looked beautiful, kneeling there by the dark pool; but still! All that holy innocent routine, after the way she had talked to the scavengers that night—after she and Add had welcomed them into their house, to tell them what they had learned by spying on our “damn valley” and its most foolish citizen Henry Aaron Fletcher… it made me grind my teeth.
The swing tree grows out of the rib that holds the pool in. Long ago someone had tied a thick piece of rope to one of the upper branches, and the rope was used to swing out over the steep canyon below. Angrily I grabbed the rope by the knots at its loose end, and walked back from the drop-off. Taking a good hold above the knot, I ran across the clearing at an angle away from the tree, and swung out into space. It had been a long time. Swinging around in the shadows felt good. I could see the canyon wall opposite, still catching some sun, and below me, treetops in shadow. I spun slowly, looking back to locate the tree’s thick trunk. I missed it by a good margin on landing. One time Gabby had taken a swing while drunk, and had come right into the tree, back first, hitting a little broken-off nub of a branch. That had taken the color out of him.
“Don’t you talk to us about that stuff anymore, are you listening to me, Henry?”
“I’m listening.”
“I like you fine, but I won’t abide any talk about Daddy dealing with those folks up there. We get enough grief about that as it is, and for no good reason at all. There’s no cause for it.” She sounded so sorrowful and put upon, I wanted to yell down at her, you get grief for it because you’re a pair of scavengers, you bitch! I’ve seen you spy for them! But I clamped my jaws together and said “Yeah,” and started another swing. “I hear you,” I said bitterly to the air. She didn’t reply. The rope creaked loudly. I tapped my feet together, spinning nice and slow. When I came in I went out again, and then again. For a moment I felt how wonderful it was to swing, and I wished I could swing out there forever, spinning slowly at the rope’s end, free of the earth and with no worries but clearing the tree, with nothing to think about but the air rushing by me, and the shadowed trees spinning around me, and the dark green pool below to one side. Surely the knot in my stomach would leave me then. When I landed I almost smashed face first into the treetrunk. That was just the way of it: spend your time in wishing and a tree smacks your face for you.