Then somebody had hold of his arm, pulling him out through the doorway, where the bright sun smacked down against his face and blinded him. He was pulled toward a car, and he fell into the seat, still unable to see clearly. He felt the car move and heard the roar of the motor. He was tossed over against the driver as they turned around a corner. He pulled himself back. Then another corner. He lurched against the door. It was an open car. The wind blew through his hair.
The world began to clear. He heard his own sobs as his breath kept catching in his throat. He had a deep sharp pain in his side, the same pain he used to get as a kid when he ran too far. He looked around, realizing that they had turned into Carmody Road, heading out of town by way of French Hill.
He looked at the driver. He was a swarthy man, a small man, with dark hot eyes and a wide firm mouth. He was dressed quietly and well. He had a faint smile on his lips—a smile of amusement and condescension. It annoyed Post. He decided not to speak until the driver did. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his lips. He felt dried blood on his chin.
The man didn’t speak. He drove fast and skillfully. The car was a new maroon convertible—a Ford. They drove beyond the expensive new developments, out to where the farms begin. The road climbed and there were fewer farms. At last the man pulled off onto the wide shoulder near a small patch of woods. He switched off the motor and opened the glove compartment. He handed Walker Post a wad of Kleenex.
“Better go and mop off that face. You’ll feel better. There’s a stream right down there beyond those rocks. I’ll wait.”
Post took the tissues and climbed out. He felt stiff, sore and shaken. His legs quivered as he climbed down over the rocks. The stream widened to a dark pool under a thick willow. Water bugs skated across it. A dragonfly hung in the air over a weed.
He knelt down and dipped the tissue in the cold water. He mopped his face and it felt good. The damp tissues were stained pink with the blood from his lips and the cut beside his eye. He took his time. He bathed his knuckles. The air in the moist hollow smelled dank and sweet.
He brushed his hair down with his fingers and walked back up to the car. The man was smoking a cigarette. He silently handed Post one when he climbed back into the car. The dash lighter clicked out and Post lit it. It didn’t taste good. His heart still thumped from the exertion of the fight.
“I might as well let you know who I am. Dr. Benjamin Drake. I’ve no right to the title Dr., but I like to use it.” His voice was soft and seemed to be filled with gentle self-scorn.
“I’m Walker Post. I suppose I owe you some thanks.”
“You’re a mean citizen in a scrap, Post.”
“I wanted to kill him. I never did anything like that before. If I hadn’t been stopped, I would have, I guess. How much did you see?”
“Walked in just as you backed him against the wall. He lost the grin when you hit him the first time. You were lucky. He could have taken you.”
“What’s your object? What do you get out of this?”
“Probably nothing. You don’t look either friendly or grateful.”
“I don’t give a damn whether you came along or not. I wouldn’t have given a damn if I had killed him.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I can read it on your face. Something has given you a kicking around. Right?”
“What if it has? I don’t want sympathy and I won’t answer questions.”
“Maybe I could help you.”
“Nuts.”
“You can’t make me mad, Post. Here, let me show you what I do.” He pulled a wallet out of his inside jacket pocket and leafed through it. He found a clipping and handed it to Post.
He read: “MERIDIN LAKE SOLD. The Republic Lumber Company announced today that they sold eight square miles of land, including Meridin Lake and the deserted lumber camp, to Mr. Benjamin Drake of Chicago. Mr. Drake stated that he will open up a combination summer camp and health resort restricted to a few patients at a time. The camp will open on July 1. Tax stamps on the recorded copy of the deed indicate that the sale price was in the neighborhood of $110,000.”
Post handed it back to him. He was puzzled. “What’s that got to do with me? I’m no patient. I don’t need a cure.”
“You don’t know what you need. I’m what you might call an amateur psychiatrist. I don’t want you as a patient. I want you to work for me. You don’t look as though you have a job. You look like you need some outdoors in your system. You look like you could use the very small pay I’ll give you.”
“I don’t need a thing from you or anybody else. I got plenty of bucks in the bank. I’m getting along. Just drive me back or let me out here.” He snapped the cigarette butt off into the highway.
“I did you a favor; now you do me one. Just take that chip off your shoulder for five minutes and don’t interrupt me. Okay? You owe me that much.”
Post shrugged. “Go ahead, Doc.” He knew he couldn’t be talked into anything.
Drake slumped down behind the wheel and stared down at the horn button, a frown of concentration on his face. Finally he looked up at Post and smiled.
“I was trying to find the best kind of approach to your type of closed mind. Let me put it this way. Life has slapped you down. I don’t know how and I don’t care. You’re down. You have no interest in anything. Sometimes you wish for death but not strongly enough to kill yourself. Back in your mind is the furtive little idea that someday you’ll be okay again. You don’t really know. You wonder about it and then force your mind away from it. What are you doing? Nothing. So long as you have that idea in your mind that someday everything will come back—energy, enthusiasm, ambition—you owe it to yourself to put yourself in circumstances that will do the most for you. Right now you revel in drab surroundings. You won’t admit it, but you do. You’re punishing yourself for something. Get away from it. Come on up to Meridin Lake and get brown and healthy. Healthy on the outside. The work isn’t hard. I need another man. You can have your drinks there. I won’t pay much. Fifteen a week and your keep. Get away from this town for a while. It won’t cost anything. Nobody’ll expect you to be friendly. Just do it on a hunch of mine. Now don’t answer quickly. Wait a few minutes.”
Post sat and looked at his skinned knuckles.
He made himself yawn. He said, “I don’t give a damn whether I go up there or stay in town. I don’t care one way or the other. You’re nosy and you got a lot of cracked ideas. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Make it easy for me and I’ll go on up. What’s the difference what I do?”
Drake grinned at him. “I’ll get through that shell yet. Meet me right here at eight tomorrow morning. You can catch a bus out from town. I think the one you want leaves at seven-thirty. Buy some work clothes. That’s all you’ll need. Try to be on time.”
He turned on the motor and yanked the little car around in a screaming U-turn. He didn’t speak on the way back to town. He dropped Post off at the corner of Plant Street. Post walked down the street, conscious of the stiffness in his legs, wondering whether he would bother to buy the clothes and show up at the appointed place. He doubted it. He wanted to rest for a while, and then get something to eat. It wouldn’t be convenient to buy the clothes. It was going to be too much trouble. There was something about the man, Drake, that he didn’t like. Something superior and cold.
He stood in a chill morning rain under a maple across the road from where Drake had parked. The water dripped through the leaves. He was still stiff and sore from the fight. He wondered for a moment whether or not Drake would come. He felt annoyance as he realized that he wanted Drake to come. He stood quietly and forced himself into a state of mind where he didn’t care whether the man came or not. Then he relaxed. A few cars whoomed by him, their tires making a tearing sound on the wet concrete. He was lighting a cigarette when the familiar maroon coupe bounced over onto the shoulder. He picked up his bag and strolled through the rain. He tossed it over the back of the seat.
“Goo
d morning, Post.”
“Dandy.”
“I have things on my mind today. I won’t talk to you on the way up. It’s five after eight. We’ll get to the lake at about two. Just relax.”
“You’re hurting my feelings.” Drake didn’t answer. They drove up through the hills that grew almost to mountains. Post watched the road ahead until it made him sleepy. He wedged his head in the corner and went to sleep.
He woke up with a bad taste in his mouth and saw that Drake was getting gas. He glanced at his watch. It was eleven. He stretched his legs and in a few minutes they rolled back out onto the highway. Drake drove at a good rate. His nervous brown hands were firm on the wheel. He cursed softly when cars ahead were stubborn about moving over. Post went to sleep again.
Finally he woke up. Drake was saying, sharply, “Post! Snap out of it!”
“What is it?”
“Nearly there. It’s one o’clock.”
“Better time than you thought.”
“I never make careless estimates, Post. Get used to that. We have four miles to walk through the woods before we’re there.”
Drake glanced at the rear vision mirror. He slowed down to twenty. An old car rattled by. Drake watched the woods on the right side of the road. He slowed down to ten and then to five. The car ahead disappeared around a curve. He glanced in the rear vision mirror again.
“Now,” he muttered, and swung the wheel hard right. The little car lurched across a shallow ditch and scraped under low branches. The back wheels were spinning on the wet earth. He twisted it around another turn and the state road was out of sight. He slowed down. Directly ahead, across the faint trail, was a massive log, nearly a yard in diameter and about eight feet long. The lower third of it was embedded in the trail.
“Get out and move the log, Post.”
“Are you nuts? That thing weighs more than a ton!”
“That thing, as you call it, weighs precisely forty-five pounds. Hop along.”
Post got out of the car. The rain had stopped. The huge log looked immovable. He wondered if it was a gag. He grabbed the end of it and it lifted out of the soil. He carried the end around. It was a log. Drake drove past and he replaced the log the way it had been.
He climbed back in the car and Drake started down the narrow track.
“What is that thing? What kind of a tree is it?”
“Just what it looks like. I had it sawed into short sections and the center hollowed out. Then I had the boys fit the sections back together with glue and wooden pins. It’s strong enough to stand on. The marks are concealed. A stranger would have to kick it or try to lift it to find out what it is. It discourages visitors.”
“What are you running down here, Doc? A counterfeiting plant? What goes on?”
“Relax, Post. You’ll find out all the answers in time. I run a health farm and I like to keep it private.”
After a quarter mile of winding trail through dense brush, they came to a small clearing circled by tall spruce. Drake ran his car under the close branches. They climbed out. Post hauled his suitcase out. As they walked across the clearing, Post saw the rear bumpers of several other cars hidden deep under the trees. He wanted to ask Drake about it. Then he shrugged and followed along in silence.
For a long time the trail wound upward and the vegetation grew denser. Slim branches whipped back, lashing Walker Post across the face. He lowered his head and plodded along, considering only each step at a time. He began to imagine that if he had to stop, he would fail. He wondered where his ability to hike thirty miles in a day had gone.
Suddenly he stumbled against Drake’s back. The man had stopped. He stood calm and cool and pointed ahead down the trail. They stood at the crest of a hill.
“Meridin Lake,” he said with obvious pride.
It lay below them, a thousand yards away. It was small, possibly a mile long and a half mile wide. A large patch of the sky had cleared and the still water threw a deeper blue back toward the sky. It ran east and west. They stood above the west end. Wooded hills rose steeply from the lake on every side except the west. Ahead Post could see the outlines of weathered gray buildings against the evergreens. It was very quiet, strangely quiet. Post felt a momentary uneasiness.
“Like it?”
“It’s okay.”
“There’s one thing you should know about it. This is wild country. The only decent way to and from the lake is the way we’ve come. The thickets and brambles and hills are so bad on all the other sides that even hunters never come near us. Remember that.”
“So I’ll remember it.”
Drake started down the trail. The rest of it was easier for Post. It was downhill. He was so tired that his heels thudded against the hard earth with blows that jarred him. He wasn’t so tired, however, that he didn’t look around at the two buildings as they came out into the clearing.
They were two long, low buildings of wood weathered gray by the sun and rain and snow. They were of simple construction with gradual slopes on the peaked roofs and overhanging eaves. The square windows were netted. They appeared to Post to be each about forty feet long and fifteen to eighteen wide. They were set parallel, about twenty feet apart. Looking down the alley between them, he could see the blue glint of the lake about fifty feet beyond their farthest edge.
Drake shouted when they emerged into the clearing. There was an open door at the end of the building on the left. A tall man in faded blue denim with flame-red hair hurried out. A stockier dark man followed slowly after him.
They met in the middle of the clearing. Post dropped his bag with a hidden sigh of relief.
“Boys, this is Walker Post. Post, that tall one is Rob Strane, the man who has been with me the longest.”
Strane grabbed Post’s hand in his big red fist and said, “Hi ya, Post.” He was tall and rangy and looked as tough and hard as a pump handle. Post noticed that his eyes were a strange shade of faun, almost a yellow. He acted nervous and anxious to be liked.
“And this is Sam Frick.”
The stocky one nodded, and then looked idly off into the woods. He looked impassive and casual. His face was masked and the expression in his eyes hidden by the massive ridge of bone across his brows. Post noticed that the man’s lips were tightly compressed, as though by an inner tension that he couldn’t permit himself to show.
Frick spat on the ground and said, “Thought you were coming back with Jorder, boss. Told us you’d bring Jorder. Who’s this Walker Post?”
“Take it easy, Frick,” Drake snapped. “I do as I please.” He stopped and smiled. “Jorder is unfortunately detained. He won’t be able to come out. Post will be okay when he gets in shape. You might say he’s halfway between a patient and an employee. Be easy on him.”
Frick said, “Oh,” and looked at Post with silent amusement.
“How are the patients, boys?”
“All quiet,” Strane said eagerly. “Benderson and his daughter are taking a walk around the lakeshore. He seems okay. Mr. Burke and the girl are in their cabin.”
“Good. I better go visiting. Take Post in and give him a bunk and answer his questions, if any. He doesn’t talk much.” Drake headed off toward the lake.
Frick nudged the bag with his foot and gestured with his thumb toward the door they’d come out of. “Lug it in there.”
Post picked up the bag and walked into the long building. It was lined with double bunks on both sides. He stopped and stared.
“Used to be the bunkhouse when it was a lumber camp. The other building was the kitchen and mess hall. We still use the kitchen, but use the mess hall for storage of supplies. Grab any bunk except these two lowers on this end. That one by the window there ought to be as cool as any.”
Post tossed his bag into the bunk and sat down on it. He sat on the bare slats. The bunk above him was high enough so that he could sit upright.
He waited until his breath was coming more slowly. Frick and Strane stood by the door and stared at him with frank inter
est.
Post felt that they expected him to ask questions. He decided that it would be easier to satisfy them, even though he couldn’t generate much specific interest.
“What kind of work am I going to have to do around here? The boss didn’t tell me that. He just said it wouldn’t be hard.”
“It was hard when we were fixing up those two cabins. Damn hard,” Strane answered. “Easy now, though. Nothing to it. Issue them the food out of stores. Bury garbage in the woods. Cut wood for the fall. Just hang around. We have to go out and get stuff once in a while, but the boss probably won’t want you to do that. Just hang around and kind of watch. We take turns on our own cooking. With you around, it’ll come up every three days.”
“Are there only two of these cabins?”
“Yeah, two sets of guests at a time are plenty, hey, Frick?”
“Shut up, Rob. What else you want to know, Post?”
“Where do I get some bedclothes—mattress and blankets?”
“Go right in next door and pick out what you want. Grab some bug repellent, they get rough when it gets dark. Take it easy for the rest of the day and get used to the place. Really, there are three cabins. They were built when the camp was. They’re along the south shore there, about a hundred yards from here. The boss lives in one. We had to fix them up.”
They followed him out, and then headed toward the lake. He poked around in the litter on the floor of the supply building and found what he needed. He carried the supplies back in and made up his bunk. As soon as it was ready, he felt drowsy. He hadn’t had as much exercise in months. He lay on the bunk and drifted off to sleep. His last conscious thought was that the pine woods smelled crisp and clean.
Post gradually came awake and heard voices.
He recognized Rob Strane’s voice. “You sure that guy won’t wake up, boss?”
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