Graphic the Valley Read Online Free PDF Page A

rooster tail runs downstream.
    He says, “You understand me, right?”
    I don’t, but I say, “Yes.”
    “The betrayal, right? Do you understand me?” he says.
    He hooks his index finger in the squirming whitefish’s mouth. Gains leverage. Lifts his elbow and his thumb pops a hole through the top of the skull. The whitefish jerks once then stops moving.
    • • •
    The stars like bugs on the water. Black on reflected white.
    Lucy was in her sleeping bag when I came back. She turned over as I unzipped the door.
    I said, “Sorry to wake you.”
    “You didn’t,” she said. “I was already awake.”
    “Good.” I lay down on top of my bag, still hot from running back through the woods. Sweating.
    She said, “I watched you climb.”
    “Huh?”
    “The dome,” she said, “I watched you climb it.”
    I touched my fingers together, the calluses like rubber caps, no feeling through that thick skin, and I couldn’t see Lucy in the darkness.
    She said, “I followed you, then stood off to the side at the base to see your profile.” She shifted and I heard the rustle of her body against the sleeping bag’s nylon. “You climbed pretty fast.”
    I was still sweaty, but cooling off now. I said, “It’s not a really difficult route. Anyone could do it.”
    “Are you sure?” she said.
    “Yes. And I’ve done it so many times.”
    I tried to think of something else to say after that but couldn’t. And in a few minutes, I heard Lucy breathing loud and slow. I’d stopped sweating, and I slid my legs into my sleeping bag. I closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep yet. I lay there and listened to Lucy’s breathing. Then I held up my hands in the dark, saw them obscure the lighted tent walls on the moon side.
    • • •
    We made breakfast with the food from the group cooler again, a cooler that smelled like old fruit. I fried potatoes and eggs with milk and cheese. Lucy poured too much salt over the top of everything but it was still good.
    The mosquitoes came in a black mist before the sun cut.
    Lucy said, “Will you spray me with DEET?”
    I grabbed the bottle from the gear bin.
    She turned her back to me and held up her hair. I sprayed her neck. Then she slid up her shirt, showing the small of her back. She said, “Will you spray it up underneath my shirt so they don’t bite through?” I was looking at the top of her black underwear, a small mole on the left side of her hip, at the top of her hipbone.
    I sprayed.
    She lifted her shirt further and I sprayed over the back of her crooked spine, over the strap of her bra. Across the lace.
    Lucy turned around and lifted her shirt in front, to the bottom of her breasts.
    I wanted to swim again. See her pull her shirt off. Watch the swell of her chest in her wet bra.
    I tried not to think about that as I sprayed her stomach with DEET.
    She said, “We grew up near each other.”
    I tried not to look at her chest as I sprayed her stomach. Then I bent down and got the fronts of her legs. I said, “Where?”
    She turned around and I got the backs of her calves. The spray dripped down. She reached and caught the drip. Rubbed it in.
    “In Mariposa. The park south,” she said.
    “South? Really?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Take off your shirt. I’ll get you now.”
    Down by the water, children played in the shallows as their parents sat reading in camp chairs. Off to my left, Lucy lay out in the sun. Browning. Eyes closed, asleep, her eyelids twitching while I stared at her. I tried not to, but she didn’t have a swimsuit on, just that bra and underwear again, what I wanted to see all day long. I watched her breasts rise and fall with her breathing, noticed the thin layer of sweat on her stomach, sparkling like salt.
    I left the lake to get away from her. Mumbled to myself that I was going to climb the Polly slabs, maybe swim later. I hoped she’d be gone when I got back. I could barely be around her now. I was struggling to do anything. I felt sick to my stomach.
    •