Part 14 (2/2)
Shane watched the thin scientist, in his short-sleeved blue b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt.
”Let's do it ourselves,” Shane suggested.
Prajuk stopped moving.
”We'll come in weekends. We'll go back and find that door, and open it. No one will know.”
”This is not a law firm. You cannot just come in on the weekend and use the company Xerox machines.”
Shane's eyes smiled.
”There is not a drop of saline that is not accounted for. And this thing, the lab, there are people in it around the clock. But also, I discovered this protein in Helixia's employ. Any discoveries I make belong to them.”
”But they don't use it.”
”So because you're not using your car today, I can take it?”
”If a little girl was dying on the corner, you could G.o.dd.a.m.n take it. You'd be a criminal if you didn't.”
Prajuk's eyes drifted down to his watch. ”To manufacture a drug for the ten thousand people with alpha-one ant.i.trypsin deficiency would cost ten million dollars and take half a decade, Shane. This is not something we can do after hours.”
”What if I didn't want to help ten thousand people?”
Prajuk squinted, caught by surprise.
”What if I only wanted enough medicine for just one?” Shane looked across the table at this man he barely knew. He hesitated, breathless, and leaned forward onto the sticky Formica table. ”What would that take?”
Prajuk crossed his small arms and stared out the window, at the haze of the industrial city. For a long time, only his little finger moved, unconsciously tapping on his tray.
In a much softer voice he answered, ”Significantly less.”
7.
When Caleb came downstairs at five a.m., there were bottles everywhere.
The house reeked of beer. Large bottles of Belhaven lay like unfinished books on the floor. Two mostly empty big bottles of Beam stood by an open Monopoly set. The old boom box was still on, its green light fluttering like the heart monitor of a dying man.
Three light-bearded kids wearing T-s.h.i.+rts were asleep on the floor. Caleb recognized one as a regular from the Rocking Horse; the others he'd never seen before. He walked to the kitchen and was pleased to find it tidy. As Happy Trails did not stock food, there had been nothing for the party to raid. He carefully opened the gla.s.s containers of amaranth, faro, spelt, buckwheat, barley, blue cornmeal, and wheat germ, took a measuring spoon from the drawer, and began sifting them into a large cast iron pot filled with soy milk.
From upstairs came the creak of floorboards. John, he guessed. The older John became, the more his energy seemed to concentrate in these earliest of hours. Anyone who was a.s.signed to prepare breakfast encountered John's help bringing out bowls, replacing the grains, wiping down the countertop.
Then a sudden sound surprised him. Just beside the front door, the door to Mack's room creaked open. Caleb stepped back into the shadows by the kitchen door. Rae, her hair loose from its familiar ponytail, closed the door behind her. Her full mouth was frowning, and her head hung limply from her shoulders. Her eyes seemed to be carrying black weights.
Caleb watched her move straight to the stairs and take them quickly.
At noon, he left O'Neil's for his midday break and jogged steadily away from the shops.
Halloween themes had taken over the town. Orange and black banners hung from the streetlights advertising the upcoming parade, blocks of hay had been stacked along Broadway, and handmade posters for pumpkin coffees and beers hung in windows.
On Arapahoe he pivoted past the high school and took a quick turn down Nineteenth, a small street speckled with short trees and older single-story homes. By the doorway of a small apartment complex on Goss, he stopped and waited until June emerged, carrying her plastic bucket of supplies. She wore a soft turquoise fleece jacket and white running shoes, and when she saw him she skipped over the pavement and hugged him. They had arranged this a.s.signation with a whispered word during the group run the day before. He kissed her, she left her bucket and jacket in the doorway, and they started jogging west. Beside him she felt tiny but steadfast.
Soon they were out executing a good pace toward Flagstaff. They seemed to be struggling messily with the process of synching footsteps and heartbeats. Eventually, through a subtle progression, they found a rhythm and moved into a vast meadow.
”So, I really need to talk to you.”
Caleb glanced at her and nodded.
She hesitated. ”I'm worried.”
”About Lily? Look, we . . .”
”About you.”
He was surprised to see the look in her eyes.
”You asked your brother for help, and it's been three months . . .”
”Three and a half,” he mumbled.
”I haven't seen my family in six years. They've never even met Lily. But I know if I asked them for help, they would be there. If they blew me off? I'd be crushed. Caleb, are you crushed?”
He smiled, looking out at the gray road, and the rolling green and brown brush. ”I disappeared from Shane's life a long time ago. Why should he jump just because I ask him to?”
”But he came out here, so we thought . . .”
”He must have seen something he didn't like.”
”It's the way we live, or maybe Mack freaked him out. Or maybe me.”
”I doubt that.”
”I just, I wanted to tell you . . . I could see that he loves you.”
Caleb felt that reach him with surprising force.
She touched his arm. ”Ever since the Hardrock, I've been realizing how vulnerable we are on these mountains. I don't want you to be distracted, by Shane, or us.”
”I didn't fall at Hardrock because of you, or my brother,” he lied. ”I fell because the trail was muddy.”
”Rae's been against Yosemite from the start. Maybe she's right?”
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