“Was Jennings one of them?”
“Sure. Listen, did you tell Del and Gabby and Mando?”
“What about Lee? Was Lee with them?”
“I didn’t see him. What about our gang?”
I was worried about Lee. I didn’t understand or like the way he had disappeared from the group. “I told Gabby and Del,” I said after a while. “Del’s going over to Talega Canyon with his pa Friday to trade for some calves, so he can’t come.”
“And Gabby?”
“He’s coming.”
“Good. Henry, this is it! We’re part of the resistance!”
The hot push of the Santa Ana burned in my nose, and I felt the static electricity all through me. Stars danced in the leaves. “True,” I said, “true.”
Steve stared at me through the darkness. “You aren’t scared, are you?”
“No! I am a bit tired, I think. I’d better get some sleep.”
“Good idea. You’re going to need it tomorrow.” With a slap to the arm he was off into the trees. A powerful blast of wind carried a soaring branch over my head. I waved at it and went back inside, where Pa was sewing.
I didn’t get much sleep that night. And the next day was the longest one I could remember. The Santa Ana blew strong all day; the land was drying out and heating up, and it got so hot that just to move was enough to break into a sweat. I checked snares in the back country all day—not an animal in any of them. After I forced down the usual fish and bread I got so fidgety that I just had to do something. I said to Pa, “I’m going up to see the old man, and then we’re going to work on the treehouse, so I’ll be home late.”
“Okay.”
Outside it was twilight. The river was a silvery sheen much lighter than the trees on the other bank. The western sky was the same silvery blue, and the whole arch of the sky seemed lighter than usual—the land was dark, but the sky still glowed. I crossed the bridge and went up to the Costas’. From their vantage I could see the whole valley forest bouncing in the gloom.
Mando met me outside the door. “Gabby told me about it and I’m going, you hear?”
“Sure,” I said.
“If you try to go without me, I’ll tell everyone about it.”
“Whoah, now. No need for threats, Armando, you’re going with us.”
“Oh.” He looked down. “I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure.”
“Why?”
“I thought Steve might not want me to go.”
“Well… why don’t you go down and talk to him. I bet he’s still at his house.”
“I don’t know if I should. Pa’s asleep, and I’m supposed to keep an eye on Tom.”
“I’ll do that, that’s what I came here for. You go tell Steve you’re coming along. Tell him I’ll be up here till we leave.”
“Okay.” Off he went, running down the path.
“Don’t threaten him!” I shouted at his back, but the wind tore my words off toward Catalina, and he didn’t hear me. I went inside. The Santa Ana was catching around the sides of the house, whistling in all the oil drums, so that the house said Whoooo, whoooo, whooooo. I looked in the hospital, where a lamp burned. Tom was flat on his back, head propped up on a pillow. He opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Henry,” he said. “Good.”
It was warm and stuffy in the room; Doc’s sun heating was working too well during these hot days, and if the vents were to be opened completely the wind would have torn through and made a shambles. I walked to the bedside and sat in the chair left there.
Tom’s beard and hair were tangled together, and all the gray and white curls looked waxy. They framed his face, which was smaller and whiter than I had ever seen it. I stared at it like I’d never seen it before. Time puts so many marks on a face: wrinkles, blotches, sags and folds; the bend in his nose, the scar breaking up one eyebrow, the caved-in cheek where those teeth were missing… He looked old and sick, and I thought, He’s going to die. Maybe I was really looking at him for once. We assume that we know what our familiars look like, so that when we see them we’re not really looking, but just glancing and remembering. Now I was looking newly, really observing him. Old man. He pushed up onto his elbows. “Put the pillow so I can sit up against it.” His voice was only half as loud as it usually was. I moved the pillow and held him up while he pulled himself back to it. When we were done he was sitting upright, his back against the pillow, his head against the concave end of an oil drum. He pulled his shirt around so it was straight on his chest.
The one lamp that was lit flickered as a draft plunged down one of the partially opened roof vents. The yellow glow that filled the room dimmed. I stood and leaned over to give the flame a little more wick. The wind bent at an especially noisy angle around the corner of the house.
“Santa Ana blowing, eh?” Tom said.
“Yeah. A strong one, too. And hot.”
“I noticed.”
“I bet. This place is like an oven. I’m sure glad I don’t live in the desert if it’s like this all the time.”
“Used to be. But the wind isn’t hot because of the desert. It gets compressed coming over the mountains, and that heats it up. Compression heats things.”
“Ah.” I started to describe the effect of the Santa Ana on the trees, that were so used to the onshore wind; but he knew about Santa Anas. I fell silent. We sat there a while. There was no rush to fill silences between us. All the hours we’d spent sitting together, talking or not talking, it didn’t matter. Thinking about all those hours made me sad. I thought, You can’t die yet, I’m not done learning from you. Who’s gonna tell me what to read?
This time Tom made an effort to rouse things. “Have you gotten started on filling that book I gave you?”
“Oh, Tom, I don’t know how to do such a thing. I haven’t even opened it.”
“I was serious about that,” he said, giving me the eye. Even in that wasted visage the eye had its old severity.
“I know you were. But what am I going to write? And I don’t even barely know how to spell.”
“Spelling,” he said scornfully. “Spelling doesn’t matter. The six signatures of Shakespeare we have are spelled four different ways. You remember that when you worry about spelling. And grammar doesn’t matter either. You just write it down like you would talk it. Understand?”
“But Tom—”
“Don’t but me, boy. I didn’t spend all that time teaching you to read and write for nothing.”
“I know. But I don’t have any stories to write, Tom. You’re the one with the stories. Like that one when you met yourself, remember?”
He looked confused.
“The one where you picked yourself up hitchhiking,” I prompted him.
“Oh yeah,” he said slowly, looking off through the wall.
“Did that really happen to you, Tom?”
The wind. Only his eyes moved, sliding over to look at me. “Yes.”
Again the wind, whistling its amazement, whoooooo! Tom was quiet for a long time; he started and blinked and I realized he had lost track of what we were saying.
“That was an awful long time ago for you to remember it all so clearly,” I said. “What you said and all. There’s no way I could do that. I can’t even remember what I said last week. That’s another reason I couldn’t write that book.”
“You write it,” he commanded me. “Everything comes back when you write it down. Press the memory.”
He fell silent, and we listened to the wind’s howls. A branch thumped the wall. He clutched at the sheet covering his legs, clutched and twisted it. It had a frayed edge.
“You hurting?” I asked.
“No.” Still he kneaded it, and looked at the wall across from me. He sighed a few times. “You think I’m pretty old, don’t you boy.” His voice was weak.