by Rio Youers
“Where’d you go, Ollie?”
He checked the computer to see if Oliver had left a note. He usually did when he was going away for a few days. There was nothing.
“We got three parcels here for Oliver Wray,” Bobby said to Vern Abbott, postmaster and friend-to-all. “His box is jammed, too. You know if he’s on a business trip?”
“That’s a big ten-four,” Vern said. “Called his house yesterday. Voicemail says he’s on a jaunt. Don’t know when he’s back.”
“Probably on his yacht in the Caribbean,” Bobby said, and couldn’t keep the acerbity from his tone.
“That man works hard and gives harder,” Vern said. He put a box of mail on Bobby’s workstation. The front of his hairpiece lifted under the force of the A/C. Bobby saw the bonding on his scalp. “He’s entitled to be wherever he chooses to be.”
“One of God’s faithful foot soldiers,” Bobby said with a thread of sarcasm. Vern nodded in agreement (he was a sometime-sermonizer at New Hope as well as a friend-to-all; references to the Big Guy were certain to win approval) and sauntered away, whistling tunelessly, the sound quickly enveloped by the A/C’s fierce drone.
He thinks I’m jealous, Bobby thought, and then remembered the look he saw in Matthew’s eyes when they had talked about Oliver—how they crimped at the edges and danced fleetingly away. Matthew thought he was jealous, too. And what had Oliver said to him? The only reason you don’t like me is because I’ve got everything and you’ve got nothing. But riches and success had nothing to do with it. The shark’s grin, however, and the way his mask would sometimes slip . . .
Look at you, Oliver had snarled. Fat as fuck and one heart attack closer to the grave. Was that really the same person who wrote a six-figure cheque to keep the school open, and whose plaque adorned a bench in Blueberry Bush Park?
You’re just an overweight prick seething with envy.
There was more to Oliver. A darkness that, apparently, nobody else could see. But Oliver had guile as well as money. A blinding combination. And besides, Point Hollow was guilty of its own disingenuous smile.
“Crooked as a barrel of fishhooks,” Bobby muttered to himself, sorting through the box of mail, angling his broad back toward the A/C vents and feeling the delicate hair on his nape flutter. He’d give anything to see Oliver—King Oliver—fall on his ass just once, and hard enough to shatter that goddamn smile.
He had, on occasion (though he would never admit it, not even to his mom) opened Oliver’s mail. Just a few letters, was all. Poking his nose in again, but eager to discover something—anything—less than perfect about the man that everybody loved. He came up empty, though (the most interesting thing he uncovered was an invitation to a party at former governor Spitzer’s house). Bobby shredded the opened letters and swore to himself that he’d never do it again. But sometimes his curiosity got the better of him.
Even now his eyes flicked to Oliver’s uncollected parcels. He wondered, if he were to open them, what he’d find inside. Black market firearms, perhaps, or the chemicals and fillers required to make dirty street drugs. Better yet, what would he find if he cycled up to that isolated house and peeked through the windows? A meth lab? A prostitution ring? Clothes made from human skin?
Ain’t nobody home, he thought. Why don’t you find out?
“Dumb idea,” Bobby said to himself. Oliver could return at any time. What would he say—what would he do—if he found Bobby snooping around his house?
That won’t happen. He’ll be gone for days. He always is.
“Maybe,” Bobby said, but it was still a crazy idea. Besides, it was in the high nineties out there. Too damn hot. No way was he cycling all the way to Oliver’s house. Not going to happen, baby.
“So just forget it,” Bobby said.
But he couldn’t.
———
Oliver perched on a rock like a mountain lion, baring his teeth at the sky. The sun slammed him like a hammer and Abraham’s Faith clanged in his soul. His mind had ceased operating like it used to. No longer a sequence of feelings and notions. More a collage of prescience, beta waves, and snap imagery. He was an animal, tuned to instinct. He hungered and howled.
A hawk circled above him, its shadow rippling over the rocks’ grey skin. It saluted him with a cry and he responded, mimicking the sound, flapping his arms. In the ticks and beats of his mind his response could be translated as, We fly together, hawk-brother. The hawk drifted from view, pumping its wings just once, and Oliver watched it with shining eyes. He then turned back to his kingdom—spread below him, a breathtaking panorama—and puffed out his chest in pride. He roared, and with lithe movement clambered from his rock, scenting the air as he stalked on all fours. At the foot of the mountain he reverted to two legs—like a human—and ran amid the thickets and trees. Sweat coated his body, mingling with the mud, the blood, and the pigment he had used to paint his skin. He ran hard, until the breaths jerked from his lungs and his skin dripped. Abraham’s Faith boomed at him, but he sensed that he was nearing the end. Not only of this contemplation, but of his communion with the mountain.
It would all be over.
Soon.
He came to a stream and drank deeply. He didn’t use the water to clean his wounds or to soothe his sunburned shoulders. He simply drank until his stomach ached and moved on. Back on all fours. His mind flashed constructs that he would not have understood yesterday, and would not even conceive tomorrow, but in his present condition . . .
Rest. He needed rest.
Oliver’s burned shoulders worked as his forelegs tracked across the forest floor. He soon arrived at a clearing, where a band of coyotes regarded him with suspicious yellow eyes. Oliver made a sound deep in his chest, then curled among them and slept.
———
The post office wasn’t busy. A few languid customers staggered in to take care of correspondence that couldn’t wait, but the little bell over the door barely chimed, and at one-forty—a whole hour and twenty minutes before his shift was supposed to end—Vern told Bobby to pack up and hit the road. “I can hold the fort, Bobby,” he’d said. “Go home and jump into a bathtub full of ice cubes.”
So Bobby had a little extra time on his hands. He’d arranged to meet Matthew at six P.M. They were going to Middletown for dinner at TGI Friday’s (another night off the rabbit-food diet, but every now and then wouldn’t hurt, even Dr. Ruzicka said so) and a movie. He figured he had at least three hours to kill. Maybe he’d sit on the porch with a jug of Mom’s lemonade and read some of the new Lee Child book he’d borrowed from the library. Or he could sit in the living room with Mom and watch Dr. Phil and Oprah set the world to rights.
Or . . .
Oliver’s uncollected parcels caught his eye.
Or I can cycle up to Oliver’s house—take a quick peek through the windows.
“Too hot,” he said, pulling his cap from his back pocket, slapping it on and stepping outside. The heat was like something solid and he retreated into the building for a moment to gather himself. He popped the top two buttons of his post office shirt and stepped outside again. His bicycle was propped against the wall, not secured to anything (there was no need for such measures in Point Hollow). He swung his leg over the crossbar, dropped his ample ass onto the seat, and wiped away the sweat that had instantly formed on his face. Sixty seconds later he was pedaling east on Main, imagining the blissful taste of his mother’s homemade lemonade and the rattle of ice cubes against his teeth. He’d be home, guzzling that lemonade, in less than five minutes, and slumped on the porch, in the company of Jack Reacher, in less than ten. (Bobby’s guilty pleasure, reading the Reacher novels, was to cast himself in the starring role—a little slimmer, of course, and the scar on his chest was made by a .38 rather than a surgeon’s scalpel.) Then he could grab a cool shower and get ready for Matthew.
Happy days.
So
Bobby surprised himself when he cycled past Grace Road, which would take him home, and stayed on Main, which led toward Tall Pine Way and Oliver Wray’s house. Just a quick look-see, was how he answered this surprise. Besides, I could use the extra exercise if I’m going to Friday’s tonight. He smiled at the thought. Maybe he could have a dessert, too. Vern had told him that the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie was to die for.
———
Feverish.
Dreams? Hallucinations? Visions—yes, visions. In the first of them he faced a black bear named Ohkwari who stood on his hind legs and cut a shadow as broad as the river. Fire danced in Ohkwari’s eyes and he spoke to Oliver in the language of Old Earth. Oliver listened carefully and responded in the same tongue.
“M’kendu ra den karra d’ni,” Ohkwari said.
“Pashan fi tooc,” Oliver said.
The black bear shook his head and roared. “Shar mal lacca ke.” His mighty teeth snapped, eyes blazing. “Ra wak e ka’hai.”
“Keeshpa ra,” Oliver said calmly. He pulled his shoulders square and looked at the mountain behind Ohkwari. “Keeshpa ra mi. En t’al.”
In another vision he ran with mountain lions. His muscles were firm liquid and the high grass smelled like a thousand summers. Everything breathed. The trees, the flowers, the rivers. His senses were heightened. The earth seemed young. He shared this with his catamount friends and they laughed good-naturedly at his unworldliness. One of them, a female named Kopa, purred and offered herself to him, and he took her as the mountain trembled, penetrating her tight but ready slit, eyes like drops of amber.
The third, and final, vision was the most powerful. Surrounded by coyotes, Oliver—the whelp of the band—whined and looked for his mother. An older male growled and snapped at him, while a grey-snouted female offered her withered teats. He snarled and turned away, then padded from the clearing to the foot of Abraham’s Faith. A dark man stood amid a cluster of rocks. No, not a man, but fire in the shape of a man. Black fire. It licked and flickered.
“I’m looking for my mother,” Oliver said to the black fire. “I need to feed.”
“I am your mother,” the fire said. “Your father, too.”
“Can you feed me?”
“I’m the one who needs to feed.” And the man-shaped fire stepped toward him on flickering legs, leaving a trail of smoke that soaked into the mountain and made it darker. Oliver dug his claws into the ground, his hackles spiked, teeth showing. The black fire crackled, and Oliver saw that his mouth was twisted. A fishhook smile.
“You’re him,” Oliver growled. “The darkness. The poison in the mountain.”
“The heart of the mountain.”
“You’re darkness.”
He came closer still and Oliver felt the black heat shimmering off him. He stomped his fire-foot. Smoke bloomed. The mountain shook and grew darker.
“Burn with me,” he said, and his twisted smile glimmered.
Oliver snapped from this final vision with such a start that the coyotes leapt up and scattered, leaving petals of dust and their wild scent. He crawled to the nearby stream and took full, coppery mouthfuls—vomited powerfully, and then drank again, until his throat was lined with sediment. He shook the crow feathers from his hair and watched them flicker to the ground. Like black flames, he thought, and whirled to the foot of the mountain, expecting to see the man-shaped fire standing there. But there were only rocks, shadows, and broken trees.
Oliver got to his feet, held out his arms, and flew for a moment. A sweet, lazy circle over the treetops. Then he came back to earth—back to body—and started to trek through the untouched wilds.
Breathing deeply.
Cleansed. Pure. Ready.
It was time to go home.
———
Modern concept, split-level. Redwood siding and broad panes of glass. It effused a certain desperation, Bobby thought, like city wealth that was trying too hard to fit in. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the owner was a Manhattan buckslinger without clue-one about country life, or a pretentious actor who needed to see trees in every direction. An Arcadian retreat from lights, cameras, and action.
Bobby stood astride his bicycle (he had pushed it the last quarter-mile), fanning himself with his cap and regarding Oliver’s chichi residence with the same contempt with which he regarded the man himself. His heart drummed a tad too fast for comfort, making his chest ache and his breaths come in wheezy bursts. He didn’t think he was in any danger of blowing a rod, but thought it prudent to take a moment to compose himself and try to bring down the BPM. Blame it on fatigue; the heat was a bitch and the ride out here had been tougher than expected. Tall Pine Way was uphill most of the way. Not a steep gradient, but long and gradual, and you damn well noticed it when you were pedaling a bicycle in plus-ninety-degree heat.
There was anxiety, too. A goodly heap of it. Strip away the heat and fatigue and his ticker would still be doing the funky chicken. Being on Oliver’s private patch of land was unsettling, pure and simple. Also, he was that much closer to Abraham’s Faith. Never a good thing.
Let’s get this over with, he thought. There was nobody around so he took off his shirt, used it to wipe his face, and tied it to the bike’s crossbar. He took a single step and paused, listening, wanting to make sure he couldn’t hear Oliver’s car tearing along Tall Pine Way before going any farther. Insects droned and birds whistled. Nothing but the calm of a summer’s day. Bobby let out a trembling breath, counted to five, and continued across the driveway to Oliver’s house.
I’m just going to take a quick peek through the windows, he thought. Do the nosy neighbour thing, settle my curiosity, then make like horseshit and hit the trail.
But he was nervous. Being Jack Reacher was all well and good when he could close the book, but in real life he wasn’t designed for anything more exciting than a splash of hot sauce in his sandwich. Fat beads of sweat sizzled down his bare back and over the dome of his belly. He cast a wary glance at Abraham’s Faith, looming behind Oliver’s house. Protecting it, Bobby thought. He sensed it watching him, disapproving, and offered a paltry smile in return.
He clutched his chest and felt his heart bouncing against his palm. Coming out here had been a mistake, almost certainly, but it was too late to second-guess his decision. He leaned his bike against the garage door (if it had been open he would have seen all three vehicles inside, suggesting that Oliver had not gone far), and started to walk around the house, peering into windows along the way, careful not to leave hand or nose smears on the glass. The rooms appeared orderly, spotlessly clean. Bobby groaned. Had he really—deep down, where his weak heart beat hard and fast—expected to find evidence of criminality? Maybe not, but he had hoped to find proof of Oliver’s imperfection. A collection of snuff DVDs, perhaps, or pornographic materials next to the bed. But there was nothing. Not even a box of Kleenex. His instincts were usually on the money, but maybe Oliver’s smile was genuine, after all. Looking at his house, the only thing Bobby could pin on him was a possible case of OCD.
He made his way to the rear of the property, thinking he’d step into a lush garden. Copious, colourful blooms and a vibrant lawn, perhaps a topiary or a gold-plated bird bath upon which doves perched and cooed Oliver’s praises. But there was no back garden, as such, only a large rear deck with steps leading down into . . . well, into the Catskills, as if to suggest it was all his garden. Bobby stepped around the deck (pausing to peer beneath it, looking for bones and burial mounds), then huffed and puffed up the steps. There was a huge hot tub on one side (Bobby imagined Point Hollow’s luminaries wallowing in there, drinking Champagne and smoking Camachos while getting hand jobs from high-class hookers) and a patio set on the other. But the view was the star of the show. Smoke-coloured ranges and a million trees, with Point Hollow gathered among them like stones clustered in an open palm. He could see Old Friend Pond and a flickering bend of Gra
y Rock River. And, of course, Abraham’s Faith, rearing over the treetops in the east, like a cut face peering over a hedgerow.
Oliver’s kingdom, Bobby thought, swatting bugs with his baseball cap and dropping into one of the recliners. His legs—his heart—rejoiced, and he sat there for a moment, taking in the view, imagining King Oliver sitting out here every morning, wearing a kimono or achkan, something like that, and sipping angostura bitters in hot water.
“Like an asshole,” Bobby snapped. He was crotchety because he was hot, thirsty, and exhausted, but also because he hadn’t found any dirt to dish on Oliver. It appeared the dude was as squeaky-clean as the house he lived in. Bobby sighed and stood up, then shuffled to the patio doors. They looked in on an open plan kitchen and living room, every surface polished to a high sheen. Bobby should have noted nothing out of the ordinary and carried on his way, but the sight of the refrigerator locked him to the spot and filled his volcanic mind with frosty fantasies: chilled cans of Sprite and Pepsi, polar bears skiing down glaciers, freeze pops and ice cream, Eskimos making snow angels. Dear God, Bobby thought, and a dusty sound escaped his throat. His eyes targeted the refrigerator’s icemaker. He imagined hitting the button, catching a handful of crushed ice, and cramming it into his mouth. Oh, dear God.
“May as well be on the moon,” Bobby croaked. The door was surely locked. His desperate thirst would have to wait. Unless, of course, he wanted to graduate to the more serious misdemeanour of breaking and entering.
Locked? You think? his volcanic mind queried. I don’t know many people in Point Hollow who lock their doors, for the same reason you never lock up your bike outside the post office. This is a safe, crime-free environment. Just saying.
“It’ll be locked,” Bobby said. “He didn’t go to the Rack for a beer. He’s on a business trip. Europe, probably. He’ll be away for weeks. Of course it’ll be locked.”
Sure. Okay. You’re probably right.