Thunderhead

“No,” Nora said. “Nothing else.” She swept her papers into the portfolio, spun on her heels, and left.

4

NORA SCANNED THE CLUTTERED APARTMENT with dismay. If anything, it was worse than she remembered. The dirty dishes in the sink looked as unwashed as when she’d seen them a month before, tottering so precariously that no additional plates could be added, the lower strata furred in green mold. Sink full, the apartment’s occupant had apparently taken to ordering pizzas and Chinese food in disposable cartons: a tiny pyramid rose from the wastebasket and trailed onto the nearby floor like a bridal veil. A flood of magazines and old newspapers lay on and around the scuffed furniture. Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” played from speakers barely visible behind piles of socks and dirty sweatshirts. On one shelf stood a neglected goldfish bowl, its water a murky brown. Nora glanced away, unwilling to look too closely at the bowl’s occupants.

There was a cough and a sniff from the apartment’s inhabitant. Her brother, Skip, slouched on the decomposing orange couch, propped his dirty bare feet up on a nearby table and looked over at her. He still had little bronze curls across his forehead and a smooth, adolescent face. He’d be very handsome, Nora thought, if it weren’t for the petulant, immature look to his face, his dirty clothes. It was hard—painful, really—to think of him as grown up, his physics degree from Stanford barely a year old, and doing absolutely nothing. Surely it was just last week she’d been babysitting this wild, happy-go-lucky kid with a brilliant knack for driving her crazy. He didn’t drive her crazy anymore—just worried. Sometime after their mother’s death six months ago, he’d switched from beer to tequila; half a dozen empty bottles lay scattered around the floor. Now he drained a fresh bottle into a mason jar, a sullen look on his inflamed face. A small yellow worm dropped from the upended bottle into the glass. Skip picked it out and tossed it into an ashtray, where several other similar worms lay, shriveled now to husks as the alcohol had evaporated.

“That’s disgusting,” Nora said.

“I’m sorry you don’t value my collection of Nadomonas sonoraii,” Skip replied. “If I’d appreciated the benefits of invertebrate biology earlier, I’d never have majored in physics.” He reached over to the table, pulled open its drawer, and removed a long, flat sheet of plywood, handing it to Nora with a sniff. One side of the board had been set up in imitation of a lepidopterist’s collection. But instead of butterflies, Nora saw thirty or forty mescal worms, pi

“I see you’ve done some interior decorating since the last time I came by,” Nora said. “For example, that crack is new.” She nodded at a huge gash that traveled from floor to ceiling along one wall, exposing ribs of plaster and lath.

“My neighbor’s foot,” Skip said. “He doesn’t like my taste in music, the philistine. You ought to bring your oboe over sometime, make him really mad. So anyway, what made you change your mind so fast? I thought you were going to hold on to that old ranch until hell froze over.” He took a long sip from the mason jar.

“Something happened there last night.” She reached over to turn down the music.

“Oh yeah?” Skip asked, looking vaguely interested. “Some kids trash the place or something?”

Nora looked at him steadily. “I was attacked.”

The sullen look vanished and Skip sat up. “What? By who?”

“People dressed up as animals, I think. I’m not sure.”

“They attacked you? Are you all right?” His face flushed with anger and concern. Even though he was the younger brother, resentful of her interference and ready to take offense, Skip was instinctively protective.

“Teresa and her shotgun came along. Except for this scratch on my arm, I’m fine.”

Skip slouched back, the energy gone as quickly as it had arrived. “Did she drill the bastards with lead?”

“No. They got away.”

“Too bad. Did you call the cops?”

“Nope. What could I say? If Teresa didn’t believe me, they certainly wouldn’t. They’d think I was nuts.”

“Just as well, I guess.” Skip had always distrusted policemen. “What do you suppose they wanted?”

Nora didn’t reply immediately. Even as she’d knocked on his door, she’d still been debating whether or not to tell him about the letter. The fear of that night, the shock of the letter, remained with her constantly. How would he react?

“They wanted a letter,” she said at last.

“What kind of letter?”

“I think it was this one.” Carefully, she pulled the yellowed envelope from her breast pocket and laid it on the table. Skip bent over it, and then with a sharp exhalation picked it up. He read in silence. Nora could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen, the faint sound of a car horn, the rustle of something moving in the sink. She could also feel her own heart pounding.

Skip laid the letter down. “Where did you find this?” he asked, eyes and fingers still on the envelope.

“It was near our old mailbox. Mailed five weeks ago. They put up new mailboxes but our address wasn’t included, so I guess the mailman just stuck it in the old box.”

Skip turned his face to her. “Oh, my God,” he said weakly, eyes filling with tears.

Nora felt a pang: this was what she’d been afraid of. It was a burden he didn’t need right now. “I can’t explain it. Somebody found it somewhere, maybe, and dropped it in the mail.”

“But whoever found it would also have found Dad’s body—” Skip swallowed and wiped his face. “You think he’s alive?”

“No. Not a chance. He would never have abandoned us if he were alive. He loved us, Skip.”

“But this letter—”

“Was written sixteen years ago. Skip, he’s dead. We have to face that. But at least now we have a clue to where he might have died. Maybe we can find out what happened to him.”

Skip had kept his fingers pressed to the envelope, as if unwilling to relinquish this unexpected new conduit to his father. But at these last words, he suddenly removed his hand and leaned back on the couch. “These guys who wanted the letter,” he said. “Why didn’t they look in the mailbox?”

“I actually found it in the sand. I think it might have blown out—the mailbox door was missing. And those old boxes looked like they hadn’t been used for years. But I really don’t know for sure. I kind of knocked them down with my truck.”

Skip glanced back at the envelope. “If they knew about the farmhouse, you suppose they also know where we live?”

“I’m trying not to think about that,” Nora replied. But she was. Constantly.

Skip, more composed now, finished the last of his drink. “How the hell did they find out about this letter?”

“Who knows? Lots of people have heard the legends of Quivira. And Dad had some pretty unsavory contacts—”

“So Mom said,” he interrupted. “What are you pla

“I figured—” Nora paused. This was going to be the hard part. “I figured the way to find out what happened to him would be to find Quivira. And that will take money. Which is why I want to put Las Cabrillas on the market.”

Skip shook his head and gave a wet laugh. “Jesus, Nora. Here I’ve been living in this shithole, with no money, begging you to sell that place so I could get my feet on the ground. And now you want to blow what nest egg we’ve got looking for Dad. Even though he’s dead.”

“Skip, you could always get your feet on the ground by finding a job —” Nora began, then stopped. This wasn’t why she came here. He sat on the sofa, shoulders hunched, and Nora found her heart melting. “Skip, it would mean a lot to me to know what happened to Dad.”

“Look, go ahead and sell the place. I’ve been saying that for years. But don’t use my share of the money. I’ve got other plans.”