Michael Caleb Tasker

The voices were vague murmurs coming at him and he tuned the dial until he found an old man singing softly with a raw, rough voice that sounded like it wanted to stop. Two lost-looking bison stood by the side of the road, near the tree line, their strong backs covered with thick coats, and they watched him go, sadly, turning their heads to him. He nodded as he passed and watched them in the mirror. He wished they would come with him. And he wished his father could have seen them. He had seen a heard once, a real heard, long ago, when he was a boy and his father took him through Montana, when they had started out so early the sky was still cold and grey with only a few pale teardrops of light coming through. He remembered his father left the car’s headlights off when they pulled out of the motel. On the radio the old man stopped singing and voices came at him again, talking too fast, laughing too often and he switched it off.

            He pulled into the gas station before Willow Creek and sat in the car, the engine idling. He could smell gas and coffee and hear the hum of the neon sign over the pumps, still on, still buzzing against all that bright sky.

            When he paid, the man behind the counter was friendly, smiling, trying to get him caught up in a conversation, trying to get him to stay a while.

            “You must have hit the road early,” he said. “About two, maybe three hours from anything right now.”

            “Yeah, it was early.”

            “I don’t know you, do I? Don’t see many new faces, not at this time of year.”

            “No, I don’t think we’ve met.”

            “What brings you up to these parts?”

            “My father lives this way.”

            “That right? Maybe I know him. Does he live close?”

            “No. Not really. You got any of those little white sugar donuts?”

            Outside he sat in the car, the windows down, drinking a coffee, the package of donuts in his lap. When he looked up the cashier was still smiling at him behind the window. He had a long drink and started the motor, pulled out onto the highway again, squinting against all the light. The skies were big here, he thought, big enough to swallow the land. 

            When he stopped for the night in Milton his mouth was dry from the road, from the dust and the sun, and his left arm was sunburnt again. The air was good, had that damp, rich smell from the lake and there was no traffic. Dusk burned slowly in the sky, running purple and smoky in those torn up clouds, the sun taking its time, going down slow like it was too tired to lie down and sleep. 

            He ate in the bar. Young girls, too far from any real fun, eyed him cautiously from the pool table, smiled nervously and laughed loudly while older men down the bar from him with leather-brown faces drank quickly, quietly, waiting for him to move on. When he finished his cheeseburger and left, walking behind the men, he felt the tension harden in their backs, felt them hold on tight to their bottles, making sure they didn’t turn to look at him. Outside it was dark and the lights from the motel and the bar throbbed yellow and blue against the night and he could hear the wind running down the highway and over the lake behind the motel. 

            He sat a while in the chair outside his room and watched the highway but it was empty. In the moonlight he could see the mountains running north, along the highway, thick with tall trees, and later, when he was getting tired, he heard something cry out.

            “What do you suppose that was?”

            He turned to the woman standing at her door, drinking from a white coffee cup, watching the mountains. He wondered how long she had been there.

            “I don’t know.”

            She smiled at him. It was a good smile, with something sharp in the dark eyes. “They used to have mountain lions up here, in the hills. There aren’t many left, but there are a few.” She took a drink and watched him. When she pushed her smooth, black hair from her face he thought she looked at him the same way a raven that wanted his donut might. But her smile was sweet, he thought, somehow younger than the rest of her. “I’m Mona,” she said.

            “Toby.” He nodded.

            She laughed. “You look too old to be a Toby.” She finished her drink and watched him, thinking, tapping her fingernails against the coffee cup. “I’m going to sleep now Toby. Nice meeting you.”

            “Take care, Mona.”

            She gave a small frown, fast and offhand, and went into her room.

            Toby sat a while, in the dark, and when the motel turned off the sign the only light came from the thin, running veins of pale snow up in the mountains.

            When he woke it was early, before daybreak. He half expected his father to be in the room, by the counter, making coffee, saying it was time to go. He got up and opened the door for the air and it was cold, fresh, clear in a way he hadn’t smelled before, and already he heard the hydraulic whine of a big rig, down the road, getting an early start. He showered quickly, in the dark, like his father had, being quiet about everything, and when he left the motel he put the car in neutral and rolled away from his room before starting the motor. He remembered the way his father smiled, in the dark, on the road, and the odd, rolling way he said his name; “Toby, Toby, we’re gonna make it. Yes sir, we’re gonna make it.”

            Out on the highway he turned on his headlights. High hills hulked closely in the dark, like giant sleeping bears waiting for the sun to open up the sky. 

            He pulled in a little before noon, in a rest stop by the side of the road, looking over Dawson Valley. He got a soda from a vending machine and stood by the rail, the sun bright over the valley and when the wind came it was dry, cold and dusty but still clean. Everything was always clean this far away. The sun was bright and he was sure it was closer than it had been down south, but even so the heat was gentle and he was always surprised to find himself a little sunburned. He turned and watched the highway, saw it winding up the hills, long and empty, crawling on after him and, far away, in the valley he saw something moving slowly, moving darkly in the yellow grass.

            It was still light when Toby found a motel. He was given a room near the end of the row, away from the restaurant, away from the road, and when he lay down on the bed, in the dark, he could hear men talking outside, hear their boots in the gravel and hear the rattle of their RVs as they got in and out, getting more beer. He took off his boots, stripped down and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his father’s old belt buckle, rubbing his thumb over the fine carving in the silver, tracing the small flowers.

            When his father had come back up from Mexico, long ago, when Toby was small, he used to find him awake at the kitchen table, too early in the morning, looking worn out, thin, like a man about to fade away to become a ghost. He remembered sitting across from his father, the lamplight burning hot and golden over his face, his skin clammy, his hands shaking with some nervous energy Toby didn’t understand. Later his father told him about all the silver he had seen.

            He fell asleep quickly, without eating. He woke every now and then, with the noise of the men outside, with the sound of the traffic, the heavy long haul trucks. His mouth was dry and his face stung lightly. The soft pale blue glow from moving headlights swayed across the ceiling and he closed his eyes again. 

            In the morning he ate at the motel’s restaurant. The girl who brought him the pancakes kept making small talk, telling well-worn jokes, trying to get him to laugh a little. When he smiled at her she faltered, looked nervous, like a foal trying to stop itself from running and she looked outside, at the parking lot, squinting.

            Later, when he paid, she was grinning again. He thought she’d be pretty some day.

            “You up here with that RV tour group?”

            Toby shook his head, “My father lives this way.”

            When he saw the bison running he stopped. There were eight of them, big ones, coming down the road, coming at him from nothing but the bright and silent silver sky. Their faces were dark, sad looking behind the horns, behind the heavy hair and Toby didn’t think they would stop. He blinked at them and when they were close he hit his horn, hard, wincing at the sound, and they turned and ran off the road, into the hills and over the long yellow grass. He could smell them, smell their hides, their sweat and when a car passed him, honking at him for sitting in the middle of the road, he wished he had just let them keep running where they wanted.

            He kept the radio off as he drove. The engine hummed calmly against the wind from the mountains and the sun was very bright. Red wildflowers ran through the grass on the side of the road, up into the low hills, waving at him until they disappeared in the trees. When it started to rain, lightly from a low and fast moving sky, he kept the windows down.

            It was still raining when he came into Carmel. He drove beside the river that ran through the town, the water rolling fast and dark, with the gunpowder sky melting into the hills. Neon signs caught the darkness and turned the afternoon into night and when he pulled into the Edgewater Motel and went into the office he was surprised to see it was just past three. 

            “Any rooms?” Toby asked.

            A man behind a counter blinked at him, took his time thinking about how Toby looked. “Oh yeah.” His voice was older than his face and when he smiled it came out hard, like a warning, his nut-brown skin creasing across his face.

            “That river’s not as big as I thought it would be,” Toby said.

            “No. Not now. In the spring, when the snow’s melting, then it’s something,” 

            “Well, I’ll take that room.”

            “You bet.” He held out a key for Toby, held his eye, thinking.

            Toby nodded and left.

            He showered and dressed and started for the bar across the street, still combing his hair. The rain was light but steady, settling in like it might stay a while. He could feel the pull of the river down the road, hear it slowly wearing away the rocks and then the mountains. He went into the bar and saw her watching him from a stool, smiling that hungry bird smile. He sat down two stools over from her.

            “Mona.”

            “That’s right.”

            He ordered a beer while she watched him and he drank half of it down, nervous under her eye. She looked behind him, out the window and pointed.

            “There used to be gold in that river. And in those mountains.”

            “I heard that.”

            “A lot of it. Man this town is named after died looking for it, somewhere up there,” she said. She picked up her glass and drank, watching the mountains. “In fact, I heard he was killed looking for it.”

            “Head that too.”

            “Think there’s any left? Gold, I mean,” she asked.

            “I’d guess so. Somewhere.”

            “So, Toby, are you going to buy me a drink?”

            He nodded and looked at the bartender, pointing to Mona. He held his beer tight and felt those mountains she kept talking about, behind him, looming heavily over the town, over the earth, pushing their way up and into the clouds and the rain. He wanted to be on the road again, driving again, the wind coming hard at him. The bartender set Mona’s drink down in front of her and she took it and moved over, next to Toby. She smelled good; clean and a little salty. 

            “Now I feel bad,” she said.

            “How’s that?”

            “You didn’t want to buy me that drink, did you?”

            “I was happy to.”

            “You always frown when you’re happy?”

            “I just don’t like it in here is all.”

            “You’d rather be out in that rain?”

            “It’s only rain.”

            “I like it up here,” she said. “This far north. This far away. It’s always quiet.” She sat beside him, very still, watching him in the mirror behind the bar. She was small, he thought, small but sharp, hiding something from him behind all that stillness. 

            “That why you’re here? The quiet?”

            She frowned at him again, holding his eye in the mirror. “No,” she said. “No. I’m up here because the gambling is good.”

            “Here in Carmel?”

            “No. Up in Silver Creek. You know where that is?”

            Toby nodded and pointed up.

            Outside the rain picked up, hit the windows, hard and cold sounding. He couldn’t hear the wind but he knew it would sound good, sound fast and full, with that hush that made him want to close his eyes. He looked up at the mirror and Mona was still watching him. She frowned.

            “There’s a dinner down the street,” she said. “It’s an old one, they always play Bye-Bye Birdieon the television, but they have good burgers.”

            “I like Bye-Bye Birdie.”

            “Of course you do.” She laughed at him. “Come on. I’ll buy you a meal.”

            While they ate Toby felt her watching him again, felt her thoughts trying to get inside him, but when he looked up at her she was looking out the window, at the mountains, where the gold had been. When she looked across the table at him, her face soft and thoughtful, her eyes dark and worried, he was reminded of his father, of the way he looked when he woke Toby up, in the dark, not long after they had crossed the border. “We gotta go kiddo. We gotta move. Quietly, now.” Toby nodded, put on his jeans, watching his father dress in the dark. Headlights swayed across the closed curtains and they looked at each other, nodding, his father’s face blue in the cold light, his black eyes burning bright. The headlights moved away and they heard the hydraulic sigh of a big-rig. His father sat down on the bed, breathing hard, his face tight and he looked at Toby, looked at him a long time. He took off his belt buckle, the silver one, and held it a minute, ran his thumb across the scroll-work, then put it in the small ham bag. It hit the other silver hard and Toby winced at the noise. “Give me your knapsack, Toby.” His father put the ham bag into the knapsack and handed it back to Toby, holding his eye. “You know what to do, right, kiddo.” “Yes, sir.” They left in the dark, leaving the car behind, and walked down the highway. They were high up and the air was thin and cool and Toby could smell water from the earth. His father’s boots hit the road, the sound gentle and rolling with that funny walk he had that made him look like a big cat, and when the sky broke light red and silver with day they flagged down a trucker and his father joked them into a ride.

            Mona called out for coffee and looked over at Toby. “So, you never said what brought you this way.”

            He looked at her and blinked and she laughed.

            “Holy hell, Toby. Don’t take up poker.”         

            That night he woke often, thinking of Mona, thinking of the way she looked at him, the way she smiled at him, and at three he got out of bed, washed his face and opened a window. The air was crisp enough to bite. There was no moon and it was dark but he could see the blackness of the river and he could hear it running, heading north. Going all the way.

            He heard a car, far away, its engine coughing in the cold, and he wanted winter to come. It was always quieter in the winter.

            He started the coffee machine, waiting in front of it, added creamer and drank it at the window again, watching the sky, watching the road. 

            It was still dark when he left the room. The front desk was closed and he put the key on the counter and walked out to his car. The morning cold stung his cheeks and hands and when he saw her standing in the parking lot he stopped, thought about turning around, thought about leaving his car and walking, waiting until there was enough day to try for a ride.

            “Toby.”

            “Hey Mona.”

            He looked down at her hands. 

            “I’m going to need a ride, Toby. My car gave up on me.”

            “A ride?”

            “To Silver Creek.”

            “You don’t want to wait? Call a mechanic?”

            “Need to get to Silver Creek,” she said.

            Toby watched her. He heard something call out and he thought birds were circling overhead, in the dark. Her eyes were very black and her smile was pretty, small but pretty.

            “Okay.” He unlocked his car and waited for her to get in first. He looked at the highway, back at the way he had come from and he thought about those bison he saw running, then he took his duffle bag and put it in the trunk and locked it.

            When he got in she grinned at him. “I’ll bet you ride with the window open. Even with the cold.”

            Toby nodded. “Even with the cold.”

            It was light when they stopped for gas. Toby filled the tank and went in for coffee and he looked out the window at Mona, standing by the car, her back to him while she watched the red clouds sink back into the mountains. He got a second coffee and a muffin for her. 

            The clerk smiled at him and Toby thought he must have been up all night, sitting in the little store, watching the empty road.

            “Where you headed?” he asked.

            “Silver Creek.”

            “Pretty far. What’s in Silver Creek?”

            Toby shook his head. “I don’t know.”

            She was quiet most of the morning. The clouds dried up and drifted off, heading north, and the wind and even the road ran at him, steady and quiet, and carried the smell of burnt wood. He listened to Mona breath. It was a smooth sound, he thought, like young, tender skin and when she smiled at him he wished he was alone again but thought it might take a while.

            Later, he saw the darkness in the sky from the fire. It looked like a faraway storm cloud, hidden deep in the hills. Birds circled to the west of the fire and he listened hard but all he heard was the motor. And Mona. Her soft breath, so slow and even he thought she must be sleeping with her eyes open.

            “I’m meditating,” she said.

            He looked at her.

            “I’m meditating. Makes me harder to read at a game.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “Tonight. The poker game. Poker is all about reading people before they read you. I told you last night at that restaurant.”

            “Oh. I forgot.”

            “Ann Margret will do that to a man.”

            Toby nodded and looked over at the smoke.

            “You’re blushing.”

            “Ann Margret will do that to a man.” He felt her smile beside him and worried he was blushing more.

            It was late when they got to Silver Creek; after eight but the sun was still up, somewhere at the edge of the sky, burning hard so that the clouds smoldered orange and black against the mountains. And the wind was dry. She had him pass the casino and told him it was too early, keep going, find somewhere to eat.

            “I’ll buy you a cheeseburger,” she said. “Maybe take a walk. Not good to drive so much in a day.”

            Toby nodded and looked down the road. He saw the highway start up again, fading into the mountains, saw an old RV going slow, ready to drive through the night.

            They sat near the window and Toby watched the last of the daylight fall away. And he heard the men at the counter stop laughing, stop talking, and wait. He thought they didn’t know why. 

            “Order me a cheeseburger and salad. Blue cheese dressing,” Mona said. “I need to splash some water on my face. Clear that road away a little.” She winked at him and when she stood he half expected her to fly away.

            The man who took his order smiled in that lonely way, some quiet winter prairie dancing across his face and he lingered, told Toby that cheeseburgers were a good choice, were always a good choice anywhere you went.

            “I guess so,” Toby said. 

            The man was too old to move quickly and he smiled wider. “You look like you might be up here for the games.”

            “No. Not me.”

            “The lady play?”

            Toby nodded.

            “You just along for the ride?”

            “My father lives this way.”

            “What way is that?”

            They both turned and looked at Mona, standing behind the old man, and Toby wondered how long she had been there. She had been watching him again and she looked at him with those flat black eyes and he wondered what kind of bird’s eye view she had of him. 

            When she sat down the men at the counter looked over at her, grinned and mumbled to themselves, and he remembered the men who grinned when they saw his father, sitting in a diner, alone, waiting for Toby to come back from the bathroom. They were small men and they looked hard, like the sun had beat them into iron, and when they smiled, when they grinned wide and open, Toby stopped, watched them sit down across from his father, and tried to catch his breath. He sat down slowly, at a table in the back of the dinner and watched his father, waited for his father to do something. The two men leaned forward. Sunlight hit them and they looked dusty and Toby wondered if they had come out of the desert he had driven through with his father. He tried to remember when that was. His father shook his head, slowly and closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was looking at Toby, and Toby nodded, got up and walked out the back door of the dinner. He went to their car, took out his knapsack and started walking. He wondered how long it would take to cross Montana, how long it would take to find his mother.

            When he found her she was blue, dark and bloated with seeping, cracked skin and he wondered how long she had been hanging from the ceiling.

            He walked with Mona to the casino. They bumped gently and thought she must walk like his father, slow and rambling, moving side to side with her steps, weaving. Her hair moved slowly with the wind. Far away a coyote called out, looking for fun, and the sound ran back into the trees, into the mountains and the cold, quiet air. Mona stopped walking.

            “Coyote,” he said.

            “What?”

            “That one was a coyote.”

            “Not a mountain lion.”

            “Right.”

            “Where you going tonight?”

            He looked down at her and wondered what she meant.

            “I mean are you getting back on the road?”

            “I’ll wait until morning,” he said. “I like driving in the morning.”

            “Motel on the way in, the Silverado, the know me. Might give you a deal.”

            “That where you going to stay?”

            “I’ll be here all night. At the casino. Game won’t stop before morning.”

            Toby nodded and wondered where the river was. He had seen it coming into town, running out of the mountains and digging into the earth, cutting it open, slowly, going hard. Mona reached up and touched his face and he liked it. Her hand smelled good, smelled soft, like soap, and it was very cold. She frowned at him. 

            When she walked away, walked into the casino, he thought he heard the river. He stood on the corner, the lights of the casino bright, flashing hard, throwing red and gold and silver neon over the streets but he still thought it seemed dark and when the wind blew he could smell winter coming, he could smell the quiet coming and he remembered his father telling him to go north. “No one likes it there. It’s too cold and it’s too quiet.”

            He checked into the High Country Inn and made coffee and sat in the dark, near the window. He heard the coyote calling out again, almost laughing and he went to bed. He fell asleep quickly.

            The steps woke him up. They were too soft, too small, like the gravel wasn’t carrying any weight and Toby slid out of bed, took the ham bag from his duffle and put it in the bar fridge. He felt for his buckle, ran his thumb over the silver, and left it on. He slid the curtain, looked out the window and saw her, leaning against his car, watching his door. The pale light from the motel’s sign showed her face, thoughtful and somehow hungry and wild. He opened the door. Her hands were still empty.

            “What happened to the game?” he asked.

            “Couldn’t play. Didn’t like the Silverado?”

            “It was the wrong direction.”

            “If only card players had your face.” She smiled at him and straightened. “What you up to Toby? You looking for someone? Your father maybe?”

            “No.”

            “What are you going to do to him when you find him?”

            He winced, tasted something small and sour in his throat and shook his head. Mona stepped toward him and stopped. 

            “Where is he?” she asked. “Somewhere up this way?”

            “No.” Toby shook his head again. He wanted a coffee. He wanted to be back inside his room, in the dark, behind the window, watching the empty parking lots and highways. Waiting until it was time to go. Like his father had. Until the diner. After those two small men sat with his father, and after finding his mother, Toby sold a small silver bracelet and bought a bus ticket north, back to his father, back to their last motel. He remembered the green frog on the sign, the jerky painful looking way it jumped when the lights changed. He found his father in the closet. They had used the phone cord and it pinched deep into the bruised, rotting skin. 

            Mona stepped away from him, shrunk a little, fell into herself. Her breath slowed, almost stopped and he saw that look on her face, that tension. He looked behind her, at the highway that ran past the motel, at the small blue light that was starting to show in the sky.

            “He already dead?” she asked.

            He nodded. 

            “Why do you worry me?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “The only time I haven’t seen death on your face was when you were watching Ann Margret.”

            He smiled at her and nodded. “You want to come in for a coffee?” he asked.

            “No. No, Toby, I’d better not.”

            He nodded and looked back at the highway. He wondered how far along the next gas station was and if they would be open yet, if they would have coffee yet. When he looked back at Mona she was walking away, back toward town, toward the small empty streets. She stopped when a bird cawed and looked up and he wondered if they were talking.             

            After she was gone he packed the car, put the ham bag under his seat and rolled out of the motel, his headlights off. He turned the radio on, quietly, too quiet to make out the words so there was just a low murmur of company, and he opened the windows. He drove slowly, watching the trees move, wondering what was there and he remembered the quiet way his father laughed.