Chapter 3
Dane Amleth In the lobby, large glass windows pointed out toward SR-85, where the traffic rolled past at about forty-five miles an hour--the highest speed in the city. Like an umbilical cord rolling north to south, SR-85 (what they called "Main Street", even though the actual Main Street was about a block west of it) provided comparatively quick access from one rural city to another. Delldale was to the north, with a population about twice the size of Dane's first-year history class out at Central Utah University. As he leaned against the cold window and stared at sun-drenched lawn, now November brown, he wondered what would have put such a thought into his head. It didn't take much self-reflection to unearth the idea that death was a petty son of a bitch, and marriage, it seemed, was a worse one. "What is she thinking?" he asked the empty room, his foggy breath sketching a speech bubble out of his mouth like he were a cartoon character. "Marry her brother-in-law?" He shuddered and smacked his lips as if he'd eaten something more distasteful than the dried out roll with a golden-foiled pat of butter that was currently sitting unhappily in his guts. "We may live in a small community, but surely there are more options than my uncle." Shaking his head, Dane pushed off from the window and looked about at the sparse furniture that made up the foyer. Two drapes-upholsteried, wing-backed armchairs flanked a wooden endtable with a box of tissues and a pear-shaped lamp. A loveseat of the same floral pattern took up space on the other wall. A fake plant staunchly gathered dust in the corner. He sighed and stomped over to the armchair and flopped down in it, a black mood coursing over him. He could feel the beginnings of a headache that clamped onto his forehead and a wave of depression that dragged his lips into a sharp frown. He had thought, while standing in the wind-caressed graveyard, listening to a believer fumble his way through his empty words, that nothing could have been worse than that moment. "Clawson sure proved me wrong," he mumbled. Gritting his teeth, he stood and returned to the glass windows. A white pickup truck, engine revved and muffler broken, growled the owner's manliness in a sharp crescendo and then faded as it sped past. "That guy was not going forty-five miles per hour," he said to himself. The quip wasn't even funny, but it chipped a tiny bit of his bad mood. He could still spurn the hypermasculine posturing by which he'd grown up surrounded, even if it really wasn't appropriate. And thinking of inappropriate, his mind immediately flicked to what a marriage between his mother and uncle would mean on the wedding night. Stomach tight with a kind of sickness--it was bad enough to know that his parents had sex to make him, so the idea of Clawson taking a tumble… "I'd rather kill myself," he said, surprised to learn that he meant it. Surely the danger of the darkness beyond death was preferable to what he would have to deal with in the light of life? "That would make me sad," said a familiar voice, which, despite its familiarity, still made him start. "Gwen?" Pushing off the glass, he stood and looked her over. She was dressed in a white-and-black skirt with a black blouse. Her blonde hair, normally long, was shorter now, and styled with large curls on each side of her face. She'd done her makeup with greater care than he was used to seeing, her lips a vibrant, living red and a blended purple on the eyeshadow. She looked beautiful, if remote, like a master's statue that now moved, yet still behind the ropes of the museum. "When did you get here?" "I was here for all of it, Dane. Dad just…he said that we needed to give you space." Dane swallowed hard. Space? He needed space from Gwen? What was that all about? If anything, he needed support from his friends more now that his father was dead. Paul Madsen might be the sheriff, but that didn't meant that he knew anything. Dane opened his mouth to say as much, when Gwen closed the distance between them and enclosed him in a tight hug. Startled, yet gratified, Dane hesitated only a moment before returning the hug. Gwen was shorter than he, and her head, tucked beneath his chin, smelled of her hairspray. Tipping her head up, he saw tears pearling her eyes. "Dane…I'm so sorry. It's just…horrible. Horrible." He didn't know what to say, so he accepted the love like love, relishing instead her closeness and warmth. Holding her this tightly started to push his thoughts toward previous experiences, but before his memories got too swept up in the relishes of the past, she spoke again. "I'm glad you're back, though. I've…I've missed you." "I've missed you, too." "I have…well, it's kind of hard to--" Before she could finish, the phone purse she had slung around one shoulder began to squawk. "Oh, no," she said, stepping free of the orbit of his arms and reaching into the purse. "That's Lenny." Dane frowned. "Your brother's ringtone is a crowing rooster?" Gwen rolled her eyes as she started to thumb an acceptance of the call. "'It's a bunch of cocks', is what he said when I pointed that out." Dane couldn't decide how that made him feel. Usually he was, at best, ambivalent about Lenny, who always gave Dane a sense of competition, as if they were vying for something--though Dane didn't know what. It probably was just over-protective-older-brother syndrome, but since Dane didn't have any siblings, he could only guess. It probably had something to do with Gwendolyn Rose, though (as Lenny always called her), and that much, at least, Dane could understand. If it wasn't that, though, he was lost in it. "Hi. Yeah. No, I'm just talking to Dane…No, I know…Okay. Yeah, I got it. I'm coming now." Gwen thumbed the phone off with more venom than was necessary, then looked up at Dane, sorrow in her eyes. "I'm sorry. Lenny's gotta pack. He's off to Idaho tomorrow, so…" "Idaho?" She sighed and nodded. "Paris, Idaho. I didn't even know such a place existed, but apparently there's a new ranger program training going on there." "In November?" She shrugged. "I didn't pay attention to all of the details. Anyway, he was supposed to leave today, but the funeral was important enough that he stayed longer. He's anxious to get everything put together." Outside, on the shoulder of the broad state road, a gleaming black pickup idled. The lights flashed and the faintest hint of a honk came through the church windows. "That's him. I'm sorry, Dane. I really am." She reached up on her tippy-toes and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "I'll talk to you later." "Okay." She pushed her way through the exit, waving at him as she left. He curled a small finger farewell at her. The moments in Gwen's company had been nice. For a few brief moments, he didn't have to feel the pain, the grief. Her departure left a hole. "You know, I've always liked her." "Yeah," he said, distracted. Then his mind clicked in place the familiar-but-unexpected voice. With his face cracked by surprise, he turned to see Harmony Roman, wearing a wine-red turtleneck over a black miniskirt and dark leggings. A black beret sat on her black hair, and the gentle upturn of her eyes melded into her excited smile. "Harmony!" For the second time that day--for the second time since he'd heard the news, honestly, and maybe the second time since he'd left Elsinore Ranch at the end of Fall Break over a month ago--he felt his mood brighten. His childhood best friend closed the distance and squeezed him with a gleeful hug. "You look good. The beard suits you," she said, pulling back to eye him. "It's new, right?" Self-consciously, Dane scrubbed at his cheeks. "Oh, yeah. The face-fungus is just laziness, really." "Fair enough." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "The manbun, though? Isn't that style a bit old?" "Not in Buttcracksville, Utah." "That's no way to talk about Delldale." Harmony's eyes sparkled as they always did when she was teasing him. That was one of the things that he had always enjoyed about Harmony, even when they were younger: She could take and make a joke better than almost anyone he knew of. "No, no: Delldale is a Turkeybuttcracksville. Noah doesn't have that stink to deal with." Harmony laughed, which Dane remembered someone once describing as more of a bray than a laugh…and Dane rather agreed with that assessment. That didn't matter, though, because it still made him smile, if only by association. Smiling felt good, he had to admit, especially when her next comment took pains to wipe the emotion away. "It's so good to see you again. I'm sorry that it has to be under these circumstances." Dane turned away and looked at a pastoral painting of Jesus hanging out with some sheep that hung over the loveseat. "Yeah, well…is that why you're in town?" "That was just lucky timing. Or bad, I guess, depending on how you want to frame it." Dane snorted. "If you ask my future-father in there, it's about him getting lucky." "Ugh. Yeah, that's…that's gross." "To put it mildly." He paused. "I didn't see you at the funeral. I would've…I would've liked…" Harmony put a hand on his shoulder, pulling his attention from the painting and onto her. "I was there, but Dad said Sheriff Madsen had recommended that everyone give you space." A fist of anger closed in over his aching stomach. "Not what most people do, is it? Letting the bereaved handle their grief alone?" "I'm sorry. I…I figured we could talk now. After the funeral was over." Harmony hesitated in such an obvious way that Dane knew she had something worse to say. She shot a glance over her shoulder. "Look, I mean, it's not even really the sort of thing that would be appropriate at a funeral anyway." "What, were you going to propose to me?" He said it with enough venom that Harmony recoiled, her face stricken. "I'm sorry," he said, avoiding her gaze and wagging his head in embarrassment. "I didn't mean that. I'm still…you know…raw." "Oh. I get it. It's okay." She didn't really sound okay. "Besides," she said in a more brisk tone, "I wouldn't propose to you anyway. You're not really my type." He forced out a laugh. "I know that. Freshman year, remember? I asked you out and you said that you thought you might be gay and we'd better just be friends." Harmony covered her face with her hands. "Yeah, well. I actually just was terrified that we couldn't be friends if we started dating, so that's why I said no." He shrugged. "It's all right. I think you did the right thing." He paused. "Except for saying you were a lesbian. I think you could've done without lying." Harmony nodded. "That's a fair critique. Any other constructive criticism?" "You should wear that color more often. It suits you." "Thank you," said Harmony. "You should cut your hair." "Criticism noted and ignored," he said, finally feeling as though he'd rectified the misstep. "So, what was it that you wanted to tell me?" The ghost of her smile exorcized, Harmony's face dropped into a serious expression that he had only seen on her back when they were getting ready for the ACT during their junior year. She had always dreamed of going to college and Dane had not been taking their study session seriously. When he'd let loose with a fart joke of some sort--he couldn't remember it now, but he liked to think that it really stunk--she'd gained that same serious expression and shouted at him for a solid ten minutes. Remembering that, Dane felt a coldness pull over him that had nothing to do with the fact that people had started to leave the luncheon and were pushing open the doors, letting in gusts of November air into the building. No one stopped to offer him condolences, and most made it a point not to look at him directly. "Come on," said Harmony, pulling him through the sudden stream of people. "Let's find some privacy." A joke about appropriate behavior in a church came to his mind but died on his tongue. Harmony's expression had quenched that impulse more firmly than almost anything she could have said to quiet him, he felt. Finding an empty classroom was easy--few of the doors in the building had locks on them--though finding a seat was a bit harder. Ten or so metal-legged plastic chairs were stacked in one corner. A waist-high table sat beneath a dusty blackboard--vestigial, he was sure, from when the building was made all those decades ago, and the Church had never bothered to upgrade them to something more modern--and a single metal folding chair leaned against the wall next to a small black garbage can. The room had a single frosted window, which let in diffused light, casting everything in a sullen gloom, despite the brightness of the world outside. Harmony clicked on a light switch and unfolded the metal chair. "Sit. This…" She took a deep breath. "This is going to be hard to say, I think." Confused, Dane sat down, staring at Harmony all the while. "What's wrong?" he asked, tugging the tail of his coat so that he could sit more comfortably--inasmuch as anyone could sit comfortably on these metal folding chairs. He'd just left one behind in the basketball court, and he was now convinced that these monstrosities violated his Eighth Amendment rights. Harmony took a deep breath. "I saw the footage of the accident." "Yeah. I…I haven't seen it yet." "I think, then, there's something that you need to see." She pulled out her phone and began tapping her way to the appropriate app. "Harmony, what is this all about?" "I think, Dane, that it wasn't an accident." The words landed on him like a falling tree. He sat, staring at her for a long moment. "What are you talking about?" "This." She flipped the phone around, the video ready. He reached out with a finger, but hesitated to push the triangle to play the clip. "I don't know if I want to see this." "You don't. But you have to." Swallowing hard, Dane tapped the screen. The video began to play. As he watched the clip, hearing the shouts, the pops of the gun, he felt something that he hadn't been able to process or understand earlier in the day: He wasn't crying. He hadn't cried at his own father's funeral. Who did that? Who would be so monstrously so uncaring and calloused that he wouldn't cry at his father's death? When it arrived at the moment of death, the crater in Papa Dane's chest, Dane closed his eyes and handed back the phone. A wave of nausea gripped him, and for a moment he thought that he would need to avail himself of that little black garbage can. "Harmony, why…" "Did you see it?" "See what?" "What was missing!" "It's a video of my dad's death! I'm not going to deconstruct the damn thing!" "Dane," she said, putting a steadying hand on his shoulder. "It's the GoPro. Didn't you notice that your father had one on, too? But when it showed his body, it was gone." Dane stewed on this, his stunned mind taking longer than usual to put the pieces together. "But, that would mean…" "Something's wrong." Harmony took a deep breath. "I think we need to investigate the place where he died. Did you recognize it from the footage?" "Um," he said, still trying to force his shocked brain to process what was happening. "Yeah, yeah. That looked like it was up Forked Creek…" "Good. We should go check it out." "Now?" "Can't we?" He shook his head. "Not…not right this moment. Jenny told me that we have some family business to discuss. If I miss out on that…" He paused. Was this why Clawson had proposed? To keep himself from being left out of the family business? He shook his head. "Tonight, though." Harmony nodded. "I'll come to the Lodge." "I'll be there." Harmony gave him an encouraging nod, a pained smile, and then left. For his part, Dane sat on the painful chair and thought dark thoughts. |