swam in after he shed his uniform at the end of the work day and put on
street clothes. He had a hunch the guy was nothing as mundane as biker
punk.
The plane took off to the south, with the merciless glare of the sun at
the windows on Jim’s side. Then it swung to the west and turned north
over the ocean, and he could see the sun only as a reflection in the sea
below where its blazing image seemed to transform the water into a vast
churning mass of magma erupting from beneath the planet’s crust.
Jim realized he was clenching his teeth. He looked down at the armrests
of his seat, where his hands were tightly hooked like the talons of an
eagle to the rock of a precarious roost.
He tried to relax.
He was not afraid of flying. What he feared was Portland… and
whatever form of death might be waiting there for him.
Holly Thorne was at a private elementary school on the west side of
Portland to interview a teacher, Louise Tarvohl, who had sold a book of
poetry to a major New York publisher, not an easy feat in an age when
most people’s knowledge of poetry was limited to the lyrics of pop songs
and occasional rhyming television ads for dog food, underarm deodorant,
or steel-belted radial tires. Only a few summer classes were under way.
Another instructor assumed responsibility for Louise’s kids, so she and
Holly could talk.
They sat at a redwood picnic table on the playground, after Holly
checked the bench to be sure there was no dirt on it that might stain
her white cotton dress. A jungle gym was to their left, a swing set to
their right. The day was pleasantly warm, and a breeze stirred an
agreeable fragrance from some nearby Douglas firs.
“Smell the air!” Louise took a deep button-popping breath. “You can
sure tell we’re on the edge of five thousand acres of parkland, huh? So
little in of humanity in the air.”
Holly had been given an advance copy of the book, Soughing Cypress and
Other Poems, when Tom Corvey, the editor of the Press’s entertainment
section, assigned her to the story. She had wanted to like it. She
enjoyed seeing people succeed-perhaps because she had not achieved much
in her own career as a journalist and needed to be reminded now and then
that success was attainable. Unfortunately the poems were jejune,
dismally sentimental celebrations of the natural world that read like
something written by a Robert Frost manque, then filtered through the
sensibilities of a Hallmark editor in charge of developing saccarine
cards for Grandma’s birthday.
Nevertheless Holly intended to write an uncritical piece. Over the
years she had known far too many reporters who, because of envy or
bitterness or a misguided sense of moral superiority, got a kick out of
slanting and coloring a story to make their subjects look foolish.
Except when dealing with exceptionally vile criminals and politicians,
she had never been able to work up enough hatred to write that way-which
was one reason her career spiral had spun her down through three major
newspapers in three large cities to her current position in the more
humble offices of the Portland Press. Biased journalism was often more
colorful than balanced reporting, sold more papers, and was more widely
commented upon and admired. But though she rapidly came to dislike
Louise Tarvohl even more than the woman’s bad poetry, she could work up
no enthusiasm for a hatchet job.
“Only in the wilderness am I alive, far from the sights and sounds of
civilization, where I can hear the voices of nature in the trees, in the
brush, in the lonely ponds, in the dirt.”
Voices in the dirt? Holly thought, and almost laughed.
She liked the way Louise looked: hardy, robust, vital, alive. The woman
was thirty-five, Holly’s senior by two years, although she appeared ten
years older. The crow’s-feet around her eyes and mouth, her deep laugh
lines, and her leathery sun-browned skin pegged her as an outdoors
woman. Her sun-bleached hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she
wore jeans and a checkered blue shirt.