Better to let her go this way. Cleaner. Get it over and stop her suffering. If he had tried to save her, there would be all kinds of questions he couldn’t answer.
He stared into the inky water. He could just about make out a dark form, drifting downward. It was out of his hands now. He paddled away as fast as he could.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to give up Pilar after all.
Funny thing about fog—it makes your eyes play tricks. He looked up and saw what seemed like a silver figure floating above his head. It almost looked like Pilar. He shivered. Probably a reflection of the moon. Probably nerves. He threw his back into it and rowed toward the marina.
—
Carlene came to as she hit the cold water. She didn’t know where she was or how she had gotten there, but the shock of hitting the water jolted her, and she opened her eyes. There was a white sheet wrapped around her face, and she clawed it aside in a panic, coughing against the water that surged into her lungs. For a moment, she struggled to understand where she was. It was so dark. She couldn’t remember anything.
Then she felt a warmth on her face and looked up to see a bright light shining through the green water. A figure swam toward her, silhouetted. At first Carlene thought it might be the Aswang, but for some reason she was not afraid. In fact, she had never felt calmer. Waves of happiness washed over her with every motion of the water, as if she had been waiting all her life for this moment. It was pure joy. As the figure came nearer, she could see its face, shining and golden.
“Jerry! What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.” He laughed, the biggest, most glorious happy laugh. It made her want to laugh, too.
“Come on, Carlene! You won’t believe the place we’re going. It will blow your mind, baby. It will totally blow your mind.”
“Can we live there together always? Can Kevin come too?”
“We can live there together always. And Kevin can come too, just as soon as he is ready.”
The sheet fell away and drifted down into the cold green depths as he took her by the hand. They began to swim together toward the surface of the lake, toward the bright shining light.
66.Baby
Baby sat on a rock beside the cave entrance. She had checked out the plants, explored around the crevice, and paced back and forth for what seemed like hours. She had even tried to climb the rocks, like they were going to do with the Girl Scouts, and got several feet off the ground before she got scared she would fall and jumped down.
She looked up at the sky. They had gotten here before seven, and the sun was high overhead now, burning hot on her shoulders. She wished she wore a watch, but they always bothered her on her wrists. She would have to get one on a chain she could wear around her neck.
Bean should have come back a long time ago. He said he was going to take Cherry down to where Tripp was, then come right back up and go get some tools. Something must be wrong. He knew the caves too well to get lost. Cherry had been so afraid of going down in the cave. Baby felt guilty for staying behind. But it wasn’t her fault. Bean had said she should. Still, that was just an excuse. She was too scared to go down, but she had thrown her best friend in the world to the wolves. Baby didn’t know what she would do if something happened to Cherry.
Baby grew more and more frightened. She couldn’t sit there one more minute. Now she was sure something had gone wrong. She would go back to Bean’s house. Maybe he had come out some other way. Maybe they were all at his house now, waiting for Baby to come back. If they were, she would be so mad at them for scaring her like that! But she knew that wasn’t what had happened. They were all still in the cave. And she was the only one who knew they were down there, the only one who could save them.
She set off in what she thought was the right direction. At least it was a different direction from the one where she and Cherry had come from. She would go to Bean’s house and call Ricky Don. She didn’t care if he saw the marijuana plants or not. Ricky Don would know what to do to get them all out.
Baby almost changed her mind about guardian angels, because she hadn’t gone far before she stumbled onto a trail and, in a short time, emerged from the woods. She was scratched up and bitten by bugs, but she hardly noticed as she ran across the road and leaped up the rickety old wooden steps two at a time. Bean’s mother was in the kitchen rinsing dishes in the wash pan when Baby burst in.
“Lordy mercy, Baby, you scared me half to death. What’s got after you?”
“Have you seen Bean or Tripp or Cherry, Mrs. Boggs?”
“No, I sure haven’t. Ain’t they with you? Is anything the matter?”
“I don’t know. I think they’re down in the cave, and they should have been back out by now. I’m going to call and get somebody to come help.”
“They’re probably all right. Bean has crawled around in them old caves for years. I wouldn’t worry if I was you.”
“I hope you’re right, but I can’t help it. I need to use your phone.”
Ricky Don was not at the office, but the girl promised she would get him on the radio and tell him to come up to Bean’s as soon as he could. All Baby could do was fidget and wait.
67.Baby
Dioniso sat in his store until long after the lights were out and the house was quiet. Perhaps Pilar was going to stay in her room tonight, he thought, looking at her dark window. His mind went back to July, three months ago, and the night Auwling had come home, breathless, to tell him she had seen a girl being thrown into the lake. The image wouldn’t leave him, except in his mind it wasn’t the murdered girl he saw; it was his daughter. There was danger in that lake, and Pilar was so young and heedless; she flirted with danger, as the moth flirts with the flame. But short of chaining her to the bed, there was no way to control her. He should have been harder on her long ago. Now it was he who would have to somehow right his wrongs.
Still no movement from her room. He would wait another half hour, then go to bed. He would be out early, before Pilar got up for school, so he could avoid talking to her in the morning. But he couldn’t avoid her forever.
Twenty-five minutes passed, and just as Dionisio prepared to leave the store, the back door opened and his beautiful daughter emerged and got on one of the little motorcycles that Denny and J.C. had parked out back. She pushed it, making no sound, until she was a distance from the house, and then stood up on the starter and roared toward the bend in the road that led around the lake.
Dionisio got into his car, leaving off the lights, and followed as Pilar turned down the road that led to the Water Witch. Dionisio knew it well. Park bought all his fish from the store, and the two men had become friends, as two foreigners will.
Dionisio left his car and followed on foot. He kept to the trees lining the road, melting into the shadows, as he had done on so many nights long ago in the Philippines.
Down by the marina, he saw the little Honda parked beside a house-boat. The lights were on, and music floated over the water. Dionisio crept down to the dock and boarded the boat, making no sound. He looked in the window, through the crack below the shade.
What he saw forced him to exert all of his self-control, because there in the bedroom was his precious daughter Pilar, stripping off her clothes and dancing for a man with gray hair, who was standing behind a movie camera filming her.
His soul screamed, but he did not utter a sound. His body was cold. He withdrew, making no noise, and crouched in the shadow of the dock, never taking his eyes off the door. Time passed slowly, but Dionisio was used to waiting.
—
The door opened finally, and Pilar got on the Honda, passing no more than three feet from the place where her father waited, hidden. On one of her hands, the sparkle of a diamond ring, shaped like a leaf, caught his eye.
As she rode up the ramp and out of sight, the man with the gray hair opened his door and stood on the deck, looking out over the lake. He took out a cigarette, put it into his mouth, and flicked a lighter.
Before he had even inhal
ed the first puff, he felt rather than heard a presence. He turned in surprise to see an upraised machete glint in the moonlight. Before a scream had time to form in his throat, his head hit the deck.
68.Cherry
Tripp smoked all the roaches down to nothing and ate the last ash. Then, to distract him from the pain, he and I told each other every story we could think of, going back to grade school and all the kids we knew who had shoved beans up their noses and peed on themselves and thrown up vegetable soup in class. We admitted that we had both, at one time or another, peed on our ownselves, and then we confessed to every single naughty thing we had ever done, from stealing a comic book to inching somebody’s chair out from under them while they stood in class to read so they sat on the floor. He had done a lot more naughty things than I had, but then he was a Catholic. Then we told all the jokes we could think of, clean and dirty, and finally we tried to sleep. I thought about trying to feel my way back out to the entrance of the cave, but I knew that was insane. I kept thinking about what had happened to the old Indian, and he, I’m pretty sure, was better at directions than I was.
Surely to goodness Bean wouldn’t just leave us down here. But if he had killed Carlene, he was capable of anything. He hadn’t seemed mad at Tripp or anything, though. He had called him buddy. But that could have just been to lull us into thinking he was really coming back so we wouldn’t try to follow him. I was heartsick thinking that Bean had killed Carlene. A lot of bad things probably happened to him over in Vietnam, and he must have started to lose his mind. That must be why he had gotten so bad with Baby. The drugs probably finished the job. That’s all it could have been.
But surely, even crazy, he wouldn’t do anything like that to us or to Baby. He was madly in love with Baby. As soon I thought it, that fact made me worry about her all the more.
Baby was outside. What if Bean had kidnapped her and taken off across the country? She wouldn’t be able to get to a phone and let anybody know where we were. Nobody would ever think to look for us down here—hardly anybody even knew these caves existed.
I prayed then like I had never prayed in my life. I promised God that if He would get us out of this fix, I would stop every sinful thing I was doing and go to church every Sunday, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and volunteer to teach at Vacation Bible School. I hoped He bought it, but I was afraid that God was wise to people who only prayed to Him when they were in bad trouble and wouldn’t believe I would follow through on my promises. But I meant it. I really did. I prayed hard enough for it to get up to the surface and all the way to heaven.
—
“Tripp? Are you okay?” He hadn’t said anything in a long time. Maybe he was asleep. I may have dozed off myself, and I was in a cramp, but I was afraid if I let go of Tripp’s hand I would never find it again, so I shifted as best I could and kept hanging on. “Tripp?” I shook his hand. He stirred. Thank goodness he was still alive.
“Okay, Cherry . . . I’m okay. My leg hurts . . . I’m . . . just tired.”
His voice had gotten so weak. I tried to squeeze his hand to let him know it would be all right, but it was hard for me to flex my fingers. I had to move, though, or my arm was going to fall asleep. It was starting to hurt. If I could back out of this passage into the big room, I would be able to stand up and stretch. I wouldn’t go far. I would stay close enough to reach out and feel the entrance.
It was harder to back out than it had been to get in. I could just about get up on my knees, but they were so skinned that it killed me to put much pressure on them. I tried to push myself up on the tips of my toes and my elbows and scoot out backward, which took forever, because I kept collapsing. I never could do one single push-up in gym, and I wished now I’d worked harder at it.
It’s weird, but somehow the dark made it seem less claustrophobic, and while I can’t say I was getting used to it, I wasn’t as panicky as before. If I could get into the bigger room, I could yell. Maybe there were people looking for us right now.
I managed to get out and stand up. The air was a lot better outside the passage. I tried to remember what the room looked like. I know there were two big stalagmites right beside the entrance. But I was afraid to move more than a step or two.
I heard what sounded like a whirring sound. Oh Lord. It was the bats. They seemed like they were gearing up to take off. How did they get out of here, anyhow? There must be a hole nearby. Maybe somebody would be passing by the place where they flew out and would hear me if I yelled.
“HELP! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME? HELP! WE’RE DOWN HERE!”
I yelled until my throat was raw, then I sat down inside the beginning of the passage. It must be nearly night if the bats were leaving. I felt the air move as they flapped their wings, making a sound like dead leaves rustling. I was afraid they would bump into me and get tangled in my hair, so I tucked myself into as small a ball as I could and huddled in the entrance to the passage where Tripp was. And for the first time all day, I cried.
69.Baby
“Forgive me, Park, for awakening you at this hour, but I must tell you something of great import.”
“Dionisio, come in.” Park rubbed his eyes, then held the screen door open. “What has happened? You look awful.”
“I am afraid there is a dead man down by your restaurant.”
—
Dionisio sat in the kitchen of Park’s little house on the banks of the lake, and while Park made coffee, told him the story of Pilar and Frank and the film. It was difficult for Dionisio to talk, because he had always kept his own counsel, but this was one secret he couldn’t carry alone.
Park clenched his teeth, and his hands shook with rage. “If you hadn’t done it, Dionisio, I would have. I knew that O’Reilly was trouble, from the way he used the waitresses, but I never thought he would prey on children. Where is this film?”
“In my car. I will burn it tonight. Should I call the sheriff? What should I do? Help me, Park.”
“No. We cannot call the sheriff. He is not to be trusted, and would never understand. Come. I will go with you to the Water Witch. We will take care of this ourselves.”
—
The body lay where it had fallen. The head had rolled against the wall, leaving a slick trail of blood. The weathered boards of the deck were stained with a thick splash of red, already coagulated to jelly.
“Dionisio, my friend, go home. You have done your part, and now I will do mine. Go. Burn the film, and we will never speak of this evening again. You will have enough to do dealing with your daughter. You are blessed, Dionisio, with four beautiful daughters. I would have done the same if they were mine. Now, go.”
Dionisio did as his friend suggested, and Park stood for a moment in thought, then went inside the houseboat. He looked across to the cliffs of Nehi Mountain, then peered at the other boats in the marina, deserted and shuttered against the chill October nights. There was no movement, and no sound, anywhere.
It would be impossible to drag the body into the houseboat without smearing a lot of blood, but it wouldn’t matter. Park picked up the feet, shod in the soft leather loafers with little tassels, and struggled until he got the body inside, on the floor of the small kitchen. Then he went back, picked the head up by its hair, and carefully arranged it in its proper position on the neck.
Stepping around the body, he opened the cabinet doors until he found what he was looking for.
“Wesson oil or bacon fat? I think bacon fat, don’t you, Frank? You did like bacon, didn’t you?” Underneath a counter were several large coffee cans full of the bacon drippings, soupy and pale brown, pungent and rich. Park took the first one and poured it over the head and body of Frank O’Reilly, until it oozed onto the floor. Then he dribbled a trail into the living room and out onto the deck of the boat. He poured the remainder on boxes of pictures and spools of film he found in closets and drawers, then brought the cans back and laid one on the floor beside the body. He stacked the others neatly under the cabinet.
Reaching
into the container of matches that hung beside the stove, he took one and struck it, then watched the fat become transparent as it melted. Soon, flames began to spread across the body.
—
Park stood for a moment in the driveway of the Water Witch looking at the familiar green-and-white awning. It was like a beautiful woman who hid a cancer inside. He loved the restaurant, as he loved his brother, but neither Jackie nor the Water Witch would ever change. They would always be rotten under the skin.
He walked back to his little house on the banks of the lake, washed the coffeepot and cups, and went to bed.
70. Cherry
I don’t know how much time went by after the bats all left, but I went back into the big room and passed it by yelling awhile and then sitting awhile, doing toe touches and jumping jacks to keep the blood flowing, and then yelling some more.
I had crawled back into the passage entrance, trying to talk to Tripp, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, when I heard somebody calling my name. I forgot where I was and jumped right straight up, whacking my head on a rock. I know now what they mean when they talk about seeing stars. It was the first light I had seen in hours. Or maybe there was a real light flickering off in the distance. I started yelling.
“Here! We’re down here!” I kept it up until I saw for sure that it was a light, and then I was hugging Baby and hugging Ricky Don and hugging another girl I had never seen before. She was Oriental, and for a minute I thought she must be some relation to Baby.
“Who are you?” I said after I had practically broken her ribs hugging her so hard.
“Faye Barlow. Tripp’s wife. Where is Tripp?”
I have never been so speechless in my whole life.
Windchill Summer Page 45