Klickitat by Peter Rock Page B

watching,standing on a deserted basketball court at the bottom of a grassy slope.
    â€œWhat about me?” I said.
    â€œYou know I’ll always take care of you.”
    Our shadows blended into the larger shadows of trees, then slipped out the other side.
    â€œMaybe,” I said, “maybe I don’t always want to be taken care of.”
    â€œVivian.”
    â€œMaybe I want to take care of myself,” I said.
    â€œYou will,” she said. “Of course you will.”
    The swings’ chains jangled above, behind us, as we kept walking. The moon was almost full; it cast our shadows out into the street, our legs bending over the curb, our bodies and legs long and thin and black.
    We climbed out of the neighborhood, into Mount Tabor Park, up past the reservoir, under the dark trees where the ground was steep. Our shoes in our hands, barefoot, we practiced how to step without making a sound.
    Audra had her rope, her nylon cord, and her braided fishing line. She bent back saplings, little trees, tiednooses that attached to trigger sticks on the ground—I’d seen the drawings in the book, and she knew how to do it. Even in the low light I could tell she was smiling, that this was what she wanted to, what she liked to do. The snare would jerk an animal into the air, break its neck, but she didn’t bait the traps, they were only practice. She took them apart, didn’t leave them behind.
    We spent hours in the trees, practicing for times in the future that I didn’t know about. We raced to make shelters as quickly and quietly as possible; we played Blindfold Trap, where we had to set up a deadfall while blindfolded, where the trap always caught my hand.
    The Rock Tool Game, the Throwing Stick Game, the Fast Fire Game.
    Audra and I climbed high in the trees. We tied our hammocks to branches and swung there, close together. Below, Henry was working on his blind, a pile of brush he could hide inside. I’d read in the book where it said you had to let the blind sit for days, so the animals would get used to it, so they would forget that it had been any other way and return to their normal activities, but Henry was only practicing, keeping his skills sharp.
    â€œWhere did he learn how to do all this?” I said.
    â€œEveryone can,” Audra said, “where he’s from.”
    â€œDoes he tell you about it?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “Some things. He told me he has a boat for fishing that’s so camouflaged a helicopter flying over couldn’t see where it’s hidden. He told me there are places dug underground where the people go—places that no one could see, that no one could find unless they knew.”
    â€œAre the people hiding?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s the weather, mostly. They’re only underground in the winter. There’s houses in the trees, too, for when it’s warm.”
    â€œAnd there’s other people there?”
    I peeked over, down below to where Henry was trying to move his whole blind; in the deep shadows, it looked like a bush was sliding along the ground by itself. Above, I heard the wings of birds, the wind in the trees. The branches were blacker against the darkness, but I couldn’t really see anything. Nothing moved at all.
    â€œHe said he had brothers,” I said. “So there must be people.”
    â€œThere are,” Audra said. “Only there used to be more and now there are very few.”
    â€œAnd that’s why he needs us?”
    â€œWell,” she said, “he came for me. I forget, sometimes, that you’ve never been with someone, the way I am with Henry. It’s hard to explain.”
    â€œHow? Because you’re in love or something?”
    â€œYou can call it that, if you want,” she said. “But it’s more, bigger—he needs me, I need him, so we can take care of ourselves and each other without all these