Salt River Read Online Free PDF
Author: James Sallis
you could have done more, of course. But if you're to survive you learn to let it go. Couple of months after, I got a card from him, a tourist's postcard for some place in Kansas. Wheat fields, a barn, windmill, an ancient truck. He'd drawn in the Tin Man sitting astride the barn roof and written on the back, Whichever way the wind blows! Still later, around year's end, I got another. This one was plain, no location, just a photo of a white rabbit almost invisible against a snow-covered hillside. On the back he'd written, Vm thinking seriously about coming back, and underlined it. To Memphis? To sessions? To the living? I never knew.
The face at the window and the hand belonging to it, as it turned out, were those of Isaiah Stillman, on one of his rare forays into town. And looking uncomfortable for it, I first thought, but then, I don't believe Isaiah has ever looked uncomfortable anywhere. It was something else.
"Well..." I said.
"As well as can be expected." He smiled. "And you? It's been too long, Sheriff."
"Not for much longer." I gave him a second, then told him what had happened with Billy, and that Lonnie was back.
"Meaning that you'll be getting out from under."
"Right."
"Assuming that you want to get out from under."
He sat—not in a chair, but on the edge of Don Lee's desk next to mine. He was wearing jeans, a white shirt tucked in, the fabric-and-rubber sandals he wore all the time, summer, winter, in between.
"The boy going to be okay?" he said. Isaiah had maybe twelve, fourteen years on "the boy."
"We're waiting to see."
"We always are, aren't we? That's what we do."
"Meanwhile, what brings you to town?"
"Oh, the usual. Flour, salt, coffee. Get a new wheel on the buckboard."
"Miss Kitty'll be glad to see you."
"Always."
Isaiah and his group had arrived quietly, moved into an old hunting cabin up in the hills a couple hours from town, all of them refugees of a sort, he'd said. When I asked him refugees from what, he laughed and quoted Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones: "What do you have?" Some local kids had got themselves tanked up and destroyed the camp. Rape and pillage—without the rape, as Isaiah put it. Spearheaded by June, the town had pulled together and built a replacement camp, a compound, really: two thirty-foot cabins, a storage shed, a common hall for cooking and eating.
"Saw June down the street. She's looking good."
I nodded.
"You too."
"You know, Isaiah, in three years plus, I don't believe you've ever been in this office before."
Irue.
"So what can I do for you?"
He started as someone banged hard on the plywood outside, once, twice, then a third time. We both looked to the window, where half a head with almost white hair showed above the sill. Les Taylor's son Leon. Deaf, he was always beating on walls, cars, tree trunks, school desks, his rib cage. Because the vibrations, we figured, were as close as he could get to the sound the rest of us all swam in.
"You understand," Isaiah said, "that it is very difficult for me to ask for help."
I did.
"Back not long after we first came here, one of us—"
It had been only a few years; even my aging, battered memory was good for the trip. "Kevin," I said. He'd been killed by my neighbor Nathan's hunting dog. That was when we first found out about the colony.
Isaiah nodded. "For some, like Kevin, the fit's not good. They drift away, leave and come back. Or you just get up one morning and they're not there. Not that they are necessarily any more troubled than the rest. It's . . ." He glanced at the window, where Leon was up on tiptoe looking in, and waved. "It's like specific hunger—pregnant women who eat plaster off the walls because their body needs calcium and tells them so, even when they've no idea why they're doing it. Whatever it is these people need when they find their way to us, we don't seem to have it, and eventually, on some level or another, they come to that realization. Usually that's it. But not always."
Pulling
The face at the window and the hand belonging to it, as it turned out, were those of Isaiah Stillman, on one of his rare forays into town. And looking uncomfortable for it, I first thought, but then, I don't believe Isaiah has ever looked uncomfortable anywhere. It was something else.
"Well..." I said.
"As well as can be expected." He smiled. "And you? It's been too long, Sheriff."
"Not for much longer." I gave him a second, then told him what had happened with Billy, and that Lonnie was back.
"Meaning that you'll be getting out from under."
"Right."
"Assuming that you want to get out from under."
He sat—not in a chair, but on the edge of Don Lee's desk next to mine. He was wearing jeans, a white shirt tucked in, the fabric-and-rubber sandals he wore all the time, summer, winter, in between.
"The boy going to be okay?" he said. Isaiah had maybe twelve, fourteen years on "the boy."
"We're waiting to see."
"We always are, aren't we? That's what we do."
"Meanwhile, what brings you to town?"
"Oh, the usual. Flour, salt, coffee. Get a new wheel on the buckboard."
"Miss Kitty'll be glad to see you."
"Always."
Isaiah and his group had arrived quietly, moved into an old hunting cabin up in the hills a couple hours from town, all of them refugees of a sort, he'd said. When I asked him refugees from what, he laughed and quoted Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones: "What do you have?" Some local kids had got themselves tanked up and destroyed the camp. Rape and pillage—without the rape, as Isaiah put it. Spearheaded by June, the town had pulled together and built a replacement camp, a compound, really: two thirty-foot cabins, a storage shed, a common hall for cooking and eating.
"Saw June down the street. She's looking good."
I nodded.
"You too."
"You know, Isaiah, in three years plus, I don't believe you've ever been in this office before."
Irue.
"So what can I do for you?"
He started as someone banged hard on the plywood outside, once, twice, then a third time. We both looked to the window, where half a head with almost white hair showed above the sill. Les Taylor's son Leon. Deaf, he was always beating on walls, cars, tree trunks, school desks, his rib cage. Because the vibrations, we figured, were as close as he could get to the sound the rest of us all swam in.
"You understand," Isaiah said, "that it is very difficult for me to ask for help."
I did.
"Back not long after we first came here, one of us—"
It had been only a few years; even my aging, battered memory was good for the trip. "Kevin," I said. He'd been killed by my neighbor Nathan's hunting dog. That was when we first found out about the colony.
Isaiah nodded. "For some, like Kevin, the fit's not good. They drift away, leave and come back. Or you just get up one morning and they're not there. Not that they are necessarily any more troubled than the rest. It's . . ." He glanced at the window, where Leon was up on tiptoe looking in, and waved. "It's like specific hunger—pregnant women who eat plaster off the walls because their body needs calcium and tells them so, even when they've no idea why they're doing it. Whatever it is these people need when they find their way to us, we don't seem to have it, and eventually, on some level or another, they come to that realization. Usually that's it. But not always."
Pulling
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