Come Landfall: A Novel

Eleven: A Rising Wind

eleven A Rising Wind By how Joe cradled her—lifting her up lightly next to his police cruiser, carrying her through the doorway of the hunting camp— Cam knew he cared. When he laid her down on the Indian print spread of the beat-up sofa bed and kissed her on the forehead, she felt like his treasure. Gone was the rough Joe, the angry Joe. In his place was the attentive Joe, who went to the fireplace and got a blaze going to keep them toasty in the December night, lugged in a cooler from his trunk, and poured them a beer—her first-ever taste of the yeasty brew—and taking off his holster belt, settled down alongside her. Softly he drew his fingers down over her forehead, her neck, to the top button of her blouse, the next, the next, undoing them as he went, her body his map. He explored farther, deeper than she had ever let him go, to her belly, the skin just below her belt, on down, until she gripped his forearm out of instinct—and he stopped. In the firelight she saw the happiness in his eyes. She eased her grip and gave him the slightest downward pressure on his wrist: keep on. She held her breath like she did at the doctor’s, but this felt immeasurably better, though scarier, too. His smile gave her courage. A voice crackled outside the door. “What’s that!” she cried, sitting up. “My scanner.” The voice intoned again: “Ten sixty-six. Ten sixty-six. Mayborn and Creek.” come l andfall 163 “We have to go?” she said anxiously. “No, no,” he said, easing her back down. “Suspicious persons call. It can hold. Probably a drunk.” “You are off-duty, aren’t you?” “Shh,” he said. They started where they’d left off, and this time she felt more relaxed . His rough palm low on her was already familiar. He was moving faster, tugging down her jeans, and the warmth of the fire on her legs felt good, and to keep from feeling nervous, she watched his blissful expression. The scanner erupted again, and he began hurriedly undressing and was suddenly sprawled out on top of her, and when she said, “Wait, wait,” he said, “We don’t have much time,” and when she said, “I don’t want to get a baby,” he said, “I love you,” and when he tore into her and she grimaced, he said, “Oh, my God,” and then he was done, calming down again, a cuddly teddy. She ruffled his hair. He grinned. “Ten seventy-one, ten seventy-one, Code 3.” “I’ll be back,” he said, jumping up. Shirt, pants, shoes, billy stick, gun—he was already heading out the door. “Where are you going!” “Ten seventy-one means shooting. Code 3 means I better get my ass in gear.” She was alone, the siren of his squad car whoop-whooping through the woods, and to the highway, and fading into the distance. The quietness rose. The hoot of owls, the saw of crickets—and something skittering across the roof, what was that?—replaced it. A pop! She turned to look: a spark from the fireplace. “Bodhisattva,” she entreated. A whir overhead, a click. Tiny paws pattering. A branch scraped the roof like the tines of a rake. She held her breath, looked at the window, pulled the pillow over her head, then looked out again. Beads of water on the pane. Did she feel different? Changed now that she had crossed the line 164 Roy Hoffman all the girls talked about, fretted about, fantasized about, and never stopped doing once they had “gone all the way”? Is this what her mother would have told her? That it took so little, she now realized, to make a man your own? The winter drizzle became the sound of BBs poured over the tin. It was sleeting. Had Joe locked the door behind him? She thought to rise and check, but her clothes were on the floor in a sad heap, and she did not want to be naked even one moment walking across this fire-flickering room with its animal heads above the mantel and snapshots on the wall of men with blood smeared on their faces. The mattress was wet; her thighs were sticky. She shifted to one side, brought the blanket up to her chin...