Descending Star

ELDERS

Jacob had the Rabbit's front end up on a pair of wheel ramps. He and Quil had muscled the transmission onto a collapsed scissor jack, positioned aft of the torque converter and manifold. The car should have been assembled by now. Jacob had a diminishing window in which to get the car running and pack. His plan was to go on the deferred grocery run tonight– which should have happened three hours ago– pack his bags, get a few hours of shut-eye, and head out tomorrow morning. Instead, he would cut it right down to the wire tomorrow morning, most likely hit the road late, and then who could predict when he would cross into California on the Rt. 5 Interstate? He might not get to Yosemite before Monday at this rate.

He should not have shot his mouth off. He should have kindly offered to make a grocery run, and left it at that. They had been subsisting on rice and sorghum for a week. Billy would have congratulated him on fixing the car, handed him some money from that magically inexhaustible billfold of his, and that would have been that.

Instead he had let his big fat mouth run.

Jacob should have been able to predict what had happened next, he decided, looking back on it, but it wasn't his fault. The fault was totally Billy's. The old bastard just couldn't restrain himself from turning family issues into Tribal issues. Jacob kicked himself in hindsight, because he would never learn. Billy had called Harry, and Harry had called big Sam Uley, and that miserable son of a bitch had called a Council meeting for tonight. But not at the community center, oh no. Not even at Emily's place, like last time. No, this time the pow wow would take place in Billy's own living room, just fifty yards from Jacob's garage.

"You're so lucky you're not an Elder," Jacob told young Quil Ateara. His old man was already in the house with Billy, thawing frozen venison for the crowd that they'd have to feed.

Quil wrestled with his end of the scissor jack, because they still didn't have the tranny lined up quite right. "You're not an Elder either, and I'm telling you, we need another set of eyes on this. If we bend the gearshift couplings on the cabin floor pan raising this bad-boy, we're all the way back to square one, and you're not going to Yosemite before August."

Jacob railed, "I don't have to be an Elder, dork! I'm the only item on tonight's agenda! And how the hell do two guys install a tranny at Malcolm's Auto?"

Quil grunted, "At Malcolm's Auto, it only takes Malcolm. The car's on a hydraulic jack, and he remote controls a power lift. This jerry-rigged crap we're stuck with is pitiful."

"Well it's all we've got. Where the hell is Harry Clearwater? He should be bringing Leah. She can watch the couplings."

On cue, the garage door opened. In trudged Leah, moping as usual. "Whatever you two are doing, count me out. I'm not skinning my knuckles anymore for that thing you call a car."

Jacob glanced repeatedly between pallid Leah, who looked half-asleep, and the overcast dusk beyond the garage door. He challenged, "I didn't hear your truck. Harry's not here?"

"He'll be back later. He's going down to Forks to fetch Charlie Swan."

"For a Quileute Tribal Council?"

"Uley wants him here." She never articulated Sam Uley's first name aloud. The last name only, if pressed, and always with contempt. "He wanted Ben, too, but the kid's apparently indisposed. Probably over at that leech girlfriend's house, getting some nasty hoohie-coochie in her coffin."

Jacob punched the car so hard that he rocked it on its springs, knocked the precariously balanced transmission off-kilter, and nearly dropped it on Quil's boots. Chaos ensued, through which Jacob roared, "They're my friends, Clearwater! You don't talk about them that way!"