The Cloud Atlas

It was a tender moment, or would have been (I was sad, but somehow, also satisfied) but for the fact that Gurley tore open the tent flap at precisely the moment that Lily was pulling away from me. I was able to look at him blankly enough at first, but Lily reddened with shame and stared at the ground, and then I turned away, too.

Gurley looked from one to the other of us, eyes wide and bloodshot, face taut like someone in that moment between receiving a wound and feeling pain. He finally exclaimed, “Good morning!” and then pulled his head out of the tent so fast he knocked over a pole. I struggled out first, then Lily.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” Gurley said again, with that compressed smile he usually employed before hitting someone. But then Lily was taking him by the elbow and trying to lead him away. He followed her for a short distance; I watched Lily try to speak to him while he turned his head up and away from her. They kept walking, out of sight, and I set about striking camp, because it was all I could think to do. I was almost finished with the tents when Lily returned, alone.

“Where's Gurley?” I said.

“He doesn't believe me,” she said quietly. “But you were there, you can tell him.”

“I don't think he'll believe me, either,” I said, scanning the brush for signs of him. “He looked in, he saw you kiss me, or maybe just missed it, but still, all he had to do was look at us and figure it out. Thank God he didn't see us when you were-on your journey. Without your clothes.”

“Oh, I told him about that,” Lily said.

“Jesus, Lily,” I said. “That's why he hasn't come back. He's looking for a club. Does he have his gun?” I ran to the pile of gear and started to rummage through. Of course he had his gun; he always wore it.

“Louis!” Lily cried.

“Get in the boat!” I said, now looking in the gear for a gun of my own. I could see Lily explaining to him what had happened; I could see her trying to explain how she had called on her shamanic powers to climb into the clouds. I could see her mentioning, without being asked, that she had had to remove all her clothing. How she had had to have an assistant, well, watch her, carefully. I could see Gurley hearing all of this, understanding none of it, except for the part where his naked girlfriend lay in a darkened tent with another man.

“Listen,” she said. She came over and tried to tug me free of the pile. I used one arm to keep her away and kept searching with the other. Then I felt a sharp pain in the back of my knee, and suddenly I was sitting on the ground, staring up at her. “Louis,” she said. I started to get up, but she put a hand out and pointed to the knee. “Would you like it to hurt more?”

“Lily,” I started, then stopped. “No,” I said. I scooted away but didn't stand. “I think I have, we have, a right to be scared. He's not- Gurley's never been on an even keel, and hearing about you and me in a tent could set him off-will set him off, for sure.”

“I don't care about what he thinks happened between us last night-or the last five months, for that matter.”

“Then what are you worried about?” I said.

“What indeed,” said Gurley, who appeared beside us with all the speed and pallor of a ghost.

I scrambled to my feet. “Sir,” I said.

Gurley kept his eyes on Lily. “The lady is speaking, Mr. Belk. About something that worries her.” He turned to me. “And unlike you, I want to hear what it is.” I couldn't tell what the cold fire in his eyes meant: violence, certainly, but to Lily or me and when?

Lily stared at him. “I'm worried you don't believe what I saw on my journey. Or even that I went.”

Gurley looked at her, then me, then her, and then turned and walked over to the pile of gear. He began packing items. “Oh, the journey part, I believe that,” he said, and leered at me. “But what you saw, no-in fact, it makes me wonder if I've been in Alaska too long. At war too long. Chasing balloons too long. What have I done, Belk? Hauled an Eskimo woman out into the bush to play fortune-teller and find me balloons. Spies.” He cinched tight a pack and stood. “Really, now. I should be shot.”

And with that, he removed his prized Colt from his holster and began to examine it.

I stopped breathing. Lily spoke.

“We're very close to the spot,” she said.

“Tingle, tingle,” Gurley said, not looking up from the gun. “Can you feel it, Belk?”

“What, sir?”

“Didn't you tell him, fair Sacagawea? When you got back from your trip? Without a stitch of clothing? Or did you have other things to talk about?”

I turned to Lily.

“I didn't get a chance to,” she said.

“My goodness,” said Gurley, raising his eyes. “By all means tell him. See what he thinks. I trust Sergeant Belk's judgment implicitly.” He returned the gun to his hip and then hefted a bag toward the boat. Lily looked after him and bit her lip.

“There's a very special balloon nearby,” she said quietly.

I looked quickly in Gurley's direction, but he was busy stowing the bag. “Is it Saburo?” I whispered. “He's actually come for you? Is that what you saw?”