All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 119

119

She slept in a motel along Highway 33. Payne County and miles of green fractured by white-domed crude oil storage, the pipeline crossroads beneath her as she lay in a bath so hot she breathed steam.

Outside her sedan cooled, the engine ticked. Already she felt a little like a traveling salesman peddling the illusion of safety.

The phone lay beside her, the cord stretched as she dialed.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Jimmy said.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m doing.”

“You can retake.”

He did not reply, and she could see him, sitting in his recliner. She asked after the animals, his parents, and if he had eaten. Saint heard SportsCenter,

heard the ring-pull of a beer.

“I miss you,” she said.

“Come home then.”

“The house and us. Is it how you thought?”

“Did you find a church yet, Saint?”

“I’m still searching.” She had not yet searched out a Kansas church to join.

He breathed through his nose. “I love you so much. And I know that I’ve let you down. And my parents, and your grandmother. But I—”

“You didn’t let anyone down. It’ll be all right, Jimmy. You need to focus and—”

“You don’t think I study hard enough? Or maybe it’s because I lay awake worrying about my wife, and why she isn’t home.”

“Jimmy.”

For a while she listened and waited. And then she heard the cold of the

dial tone.

A minute later the telephone rang.

Her calls were forwarded wherever she went, mostly so her grandmother could reach her. Norma had taken a fall, said it was nothing, but Saint had Nix pay a visit when Jimmy wouldn’t. The two sat on the porch and drank so much brandy Norma had taken another fall.

“Jimmy?” she said.

“There was a pirate named François l’Olonnais.”

Saint sat up.

“I mean, this guy was bad. He had a hatred for the Spanish that bordered

on crazy. And I know crazy.”

Saint fought a smile.

“One day he captured a Spanish fleet and pulled the still-beating heart from the captain, and he ate it. And he spared one of their crew so he could tell people what he saw. He sailed for maybe a decade before he was captured by the Kuna tribe. They tore him to pieces. Rumor has it parts of

him were eaten.”

“Lovely.”

“There’s poetry in karma, right?”

She closed her eyes as the water dripped from her. “How you doing, kid?”

“I feel like I’m getting closer to her, Saint.”

She breathed deep. It hurt.

“Where are you? Do you wear the flak jacket with the yellow letters and the ball cap, or is that for the movies?”

“Sammy told you.”

“It makes me feel better that you’re out there, on the right side, Saint.

How’s Jimmy treating you?”

“He’s…it’s good.”

“You know you deserve the world, right? Anyone that tells it different,

I’ll smack them in the mouth.”

She smiled and almost cried.

The tap dripped. “Today I was in Cottonwood Falls. At the First Kansas Bank.”

Just the crackle of the line for a long time.

“Right,” he said, and she imagined him in a phone booth on the edge of the world, his forehead against the cold glass as he stared out at emptiness so vast he could not know if he was floating or just falling.

“Dawn make you smile?” he said.

“You need to stop.”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t run forever, Patch.”

“I’m not running. I’m searching. I give people the means to search, too.

The net widens each time. Not just for her. For every Grace lost.”

“Are you eating?”

She imagined his eye roll.

“Yes, Ma. I ate a hog just last week.”

She sat up, the rivulets gathering, her mind on the clearing, on his small body that clung to life so resolutely. Her grandmother would now say there

was renewed purpose for him.

“I saw Misty,” he said.

“How is she?”

“She’s…she’s perfect, you know.”

“I remember.”

“She told me you wanted to talk to me,” he said.

“I asked her mother…she told me Misty had long forgotten you, but I

made her promise, just in case.”

“Covering bases.”

“I need to see you. I need to talk to you in person.”

“I’ll bet you do, fed.”

Silence.

And then he spoke, and this time he was quieter, less sure, the Patch only she got to see back when they were kids. “So this is it. It’s you…it’s you looking for me.”

She held the receiver away from her because she did not trust her voice.

“You know I can’t come see you, Saint.”

“And why’s that, kid?”

“They say I’m a pirate. And you’re a lawman.”

For a long time she matched her breaths to his, and when she finally spoke she closed her eyes to her tears. “When the time comes, I’ll take you

down.”

“I know that.”

“It will kill me.”

“I know that, too.”

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