Mohawk

were still running fast and deep. With the window down, the air smelled sweet and cool as fresh earth. Perhaps a sound caught Randall’s attention, but just as he thought
there’s no one else
a solitary figure belied him on the curb across the street, almost invisible against the dark line of trees. Randall pulled the van alongside, and said “Get in.”
    Wild Bill did as he was told. His scraggly hair was matted, his clothes heavy with water. The expression on his face implied he had just seen wild and miraculous things, and he shook all over. “Roll up the window if you’re cold,” Randall suggested, but he didn’t respond. Shivering violently, he craned his neck far out the window to catch a last glimpse of Mather Grouse’s home before it disappeared.

54
    After swinging his heavy legs out of bed, Rory Gaffney sat still until the trailer settled. He was wearing nothing but a grayish T-shirt. The girl had drawn the covers up over her own nakedness and turned away from him. He had used Randall’s key, then pulled the chain lock off the wall. The baby was asleep, and putting up a struggle wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Rory Gaffney studied her back for a minute, till his attention was distracted by a glow outside the curtains. He listened, but heard no motor. “Don’t be like that, young ’un,” he said. “This is old news.”
    She didn’t say anything at first, and when she did speak it was to the wall. “Things are different now. I told you.”
    Rory Gaffney stepped into his shorts and arranged himself in them carefully, as if placing a bird in a nest. “Things aren’t different. They’re always the same.” Then he added, “Thank God.”
    “Don’t talk about that. If there was one, he’d of settled with you a long time ago.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m made in His image, so I don’t blame myself.” He zipped his fly by way of punctuation and pulled his shirt from the tangle of bedding. “Who gave you this trailer to live in whenyou was swelled up like a balloon and no husband and no place to go?”
    Tucking in his shirttail, the old man went to the window and pulled back the curtain. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.
    “He’ll take me away from here if I ask him.”
    Now she had rolled over and was looking at him. Without bending over he pushed his feet into leather moccasins.
    “Sure he will,” the old man said. “Admires the hell out of you, he does. Plans to marry you. Which is how come he give me the keys to the trailer and told me I could keep you company.”
    He took the keys out of his trouser pocket and tossed them to her.
    “You don’t really think I’d believe any thing
you
said.”
    “Don’t believe me. Tell
him
all about it.”
    “I won’t have to. He’ll smell you on the sheets.”
    “Then change ’em.”
    “We could put you in jail,” she said, as if unsure.
    “Nah,” he said. “I didn’t force my way in here, and you didn’t put up no fuss. At least no more’n usual. Besides, who’d believe you and professor longhair?”
    “I know somebody they’d believe. Your own brother. He’s in love with me, in case you don’t know. Everybody down to the diner says so.”
    “Wrong again,” he said. “He loves
me
, the dumb fuck. Always has. Besides, people don’t tell. Too embarrassed. They look at guys like me and see theirselves. They’ll squeal on some guy that robs a bank, maybe, because they can’t imagine doing it. But what we just done is what all of them are thinking about doing every time they look at a girl like you. I’m just them, and nobody rats on theirself.”
    “The whole world isn’t like you,” said the girl.
    “Enough of it.” He ran his fingers through his hair and stooped to examine himself in the mirror. On the way out, he peered into the darkness of the child’s room.
    The girl sat up in bed. “Get,” she said. “I may not be able to keep you out of here, but that’s one room you don’t go in ’less you want to wake up with a slit throat some morning.”
    “The way you talk,” he said, grinning over his shoulder. “Cover yourself. I’m too old for thinking about double headers.”
    He shut the door behind him. The rain had stopped, but the breeze blew heavy drops from the trees overhead, hitting the ground at the old man’s feet like tiny grenades. The air was fresh after the storm, and Rory Gaffney felt freshened as well. On nights like this, it was good to be alive. Of course, it