Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. Maile Meloy
on the tail a little,” Layton said. “It’ll stretch.” He was already moving back into the current, and the fish was dying. Sam saw Harry give her father a look, and her father put the fish in the cooler.
They packed up early and got on the river. Sam rode in the front of her father’s raft, lying across the cooler that slid into the metal frame. She read for a while and then fell asleep with the sun on her back, waking to jump in the water and drag the raft over sandbars.
At camp that afternoon her father went fishing and she walked away from the river, up toward the hills. The grass in the open was pale yellow, and the path through the trees spiked with sunshine, but she was thinking about boarding school. She had a sense that she wasn’t equipped for it. And she was wondering if she really had perfect teeth, and if anyone but adults would ever care. When Layton came through the trees she knew she’d wanted him to show up, though she hadn’t known it before. His attention was different from other adult attention.
“I brought you something,” he said.
She waited, but he kept on up the trail, and she followed him. They got over the first hill from camp, and up a second, higher one, and down again into a clearing. There weren’t any farms or houses, and they were a long way from the river. Layton reached under his shirt and pulled out a small pistol, dark gray, with a short, square barrel. There was a fallen tree ten yards away, with small branches sticking up, and he stood an empty beer bottle upside down on one of the branches. The last of the beer stained the bark of the tree. Then he walked back and gave her the pistol. It was still warm from his skin, and heavy.
“Nine-millimeter Ruger semiautomatic,” he said. “My pride and joy.”
“Can they hear it?”
“I don’t think so, with those hills,” he said. “Anyway, we’re legal. We’re not killing anything.”
He took her right hand and shaped it around the gun.
“One hand like this, arm straight, just like the movies,” he said. He reached around her shoulders and positioned her left hand. “The other underneath.” He kicked the instep of her right foot. “Bring this leg back.”
Sam stepped back and pointed the gun at the bottle, not really breathing, with his chest against her back.
“Close one eye,” he said. “Cover your target with the barrel. The gun’s going to kick up, but it’ll drop right back where you need it. You only need to squeeze a little.” He let her go and stepped away.
She missed the bottle completely on the first shot, and the kick surprised her: the gun’s explosion shot through her hands and shoulders and down into her legs. The second time she blew away the upended bottom. The third time she hit the broken-off neck. Then there was just a little triangle of glass sticking up from the tree.
“Go for it,” Layton said.
She did, and hit it, and there was nothing left but a stub of branch.
“Hit the branch,” Layton said.
And she did. She’d never been so proud of anything. Layton reached out and rubbed the top of her head, quick.
“She’s a sharpshooter,” he said. “You’re not afraid of the kick yet, so you’re not anticipating anything. You’ve got to keep that.”
“Okay,” she said. She could feel herself grinning like an idiot.
“Those perfect teeth,” Layton said.
She closed her mouth and looked at the scarred tree where the bottle had been, which made her want to smile again, but she didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Layton said.
“That’s okay,” she said.
When they walked back to camp, Layton veered off, so they came from different angles. Her father and Harry didn’t say anything. Sam thought they must have heard the shots, but she figured it could have been Layton shooting alone. She had hit quarters propped in the tree bark, and made a smiley-face in a piece of paper. In the pocket of her shorts she carried an exploded hollow-point, which Layton said wasn’t legal to buy anymore, and a warped quarter. Layton slipped the folded smiley-face into the camp garbage bag, and told Harry he didn’t think there were pheasants out here at all.
Sam’s father was making enchiladas, and chipping ice for margaritas with a pick. He made one without tequila for Sam. Layton asked for a virgin, too—alcohol made him nauseated since the work in the lab—and got out a little stereo with batteries. Sam’s father said it would ruin the silence of nature, but pretty soon he was dancing at the cookstove, singing along with reggae covers. It was still light, and the swallows dived in the canyon. Her father two-stepped over with a big plastic spoon and a chip full of salsa, singing in falsetto, “No you ain’t—seen—nothin’ like the Mighty Quinn.” He gave her the chip and kissed her on the forehead.
Her uncle Harry had too many margaritas and started talking about the case, about those poor, sick women with their lives ruined, and the gall of the lawyers who said they were making it up. When it got dark he went to bed. The other three sat close around the orange coals of the fire, and her father made up blues songs on the harmonica.
After a while, Layton said, “I need someone to walk on my back if I’m gonna row tomorrow. I’d ask you,” he said to Sam’s father, “but I’m guessing you weigh about two-fifty.”
Her father didn’t say anything, he kept playing harmonica.
Layton looked to Sam, who looked at the fire.
“It just takes a minute,” he said. “I threw it out on a job, and rowing that boat messed it up.”
Her father kept his eyes closed, the harmonica wailing. Sam stood up.
“Shoes off,” Layton said.
She slipped off her sandals and left them by the fire. Layton lay on his stomach on the ground. “Okay, step on careful,” he said. “Right in the middle.” She stepped, squeezing the air out of his voice. “Now the other foot,” he said. “Keep your balance.” She could feel his ribs beneath her toes. “Now walk forward, slowly, then back,” he said.
She did, and her father got up from the fire. “I’m beat,” he said. “We should get an early start tomorrow.”
Sam looked at him and he nodded, as if agreeing with himself. He put away his harmonica and disappeared into the dark where his tent was pitched. She could hear the rustle of nylon and the whine of the zipper, and then the night was quiet.
“One more time,” Layton said. “That’s so great. Now if you kneel with your knees between my shoulder blades, that’s all I need.”
She knelt like he said, lowering her hips to her heels, looking down at her bare knees and the short hair at the back of his head. “Now hold it there,” he whispered. “Oh, God.”
Then he didn’t say anything. The right side of her body was warm from the fire, the left side was cold. It was too cold at night to be wearing shorts. She heard her father roll over in his sleeping bag inside the tent, nylon against nylon.
Layton’s hand came back, and touched her hip. “You’re tilted to this side,” he said. She straightened. “There,” he said, but his hand stayed on her hip. She thought about what to do. His eyes were closed and he seemed to have forgotten the hand. After a minute it slipped under the back of her thigh, touching her skin. She took his wrist and moved it away. The hand paused in the air, then slipped back under her thigh, over her shorts, touching between her legs with a shock like the jolt of the gun firing in her hands. She started to stand up, awkwardly, but he found her calf and pulled her back down. “Stay,” he whispered.
She was on one knee, half-straddling his back in the dust, and he rolled over, facing her. His hand slid up her leg to the small of her back and held tight. His eyes were cloudy and intent, focused and unfocused, and she’d never seen a man look that way before.
She