by Rex Burns
She should go to the library, too. Goldman’s term paper was due in another couple of weeks, and she still hadn’t finished her first studio project. But it was hard even to think of going. It was hard to keep her mind on anything, really, and all this—the outside world, school, her studies and deadlines, they all seemed so unreal. More and more, the only life that had any meaning was what she found with them. It was as if she only really woke up when she was with them, and the rest of the time she sort of drowsed through the hours. Her father had noticed it over Christmas break, wondering why she was so irritable, why she spent so much time alone in her room, why she didn’t do more of the things happy families were supposed to do at Christmas.
“Just leave her alone.” Her mother’s thick voice drew on her nerves like a knife blade across a taut wire. “Leave her alone if she wants to be alone.”
“Well, I’d like to see a little of her!” Her father’s voice rumbled angrily down the hallway from the living room, accompanied by the jingle of holiday music on the stereo. “Goddamn it, it is Christmas, after all, and it’s not only depressing, it’s damned bad manners—my mother was very hurt when she wouldn’t even come out of her room to say hello.”
Her mother’s voice muttered something that her father didn’t bother answering. She heard the icy tinkle of a drink and then he snorted something. “Boy troubles. It’s probably boy troubles. Be damned glad when she grows out of this stage.”
It wasn’t boy troubles and she didn’t grow out of it. It was simply that she hadn’t felt alive without them and she had been counting the days and hours before vacation was over and she would be back with them and away from the guilty memories held by this room, this house, by her mother’s unfocused eyes.
Last night she had felt truly alive. A lot of it was a blur now, and hazy with fragmented memory and the frayed consciousness that had come with the Potion. Warmth and chanting. The glare of candles and fire. The pale glimmer of flesh as she gazed down between sweaty, taut breasts at the gold chalice resting on the flatness of a stomach. Then, her body had seemed distant and she could watch with eyes that belonged to someone else as if the altar was the flesh of another person. And when she was brought back to her body it was with the relief of timelessness—there was no future, especially no past. There was only what Dwayne had promised: the Now. Intense, all-encompassing, blissfully exclusive. The Now! Reborn into the Now by the close deliciousness of caressing hands that stroked her body with slowly increasing yearning and fervor, spread the gentle Oil of Anointment and, with soft persistence, touched the hot smoothness of her skin; dallying, edging closer, the dozens of hands, male and female and exciting not to know which was which, teasing themselves and her and focusing their hunger on her, surrendering her sense of self to them; she, the center of that energy, a goddess to fulfill the dreams that made them moan and writhe and twist out of their own robes to press their arms, their chests, their lips against her with more heated urgency until she again moved away from self to become their instrument and gasped and lifted spreading thighs with want, oiled breasts aching and mouth hungry to unite with the smooth, scented flesh that closed around her, lifting her and obliterating her on the surging thrust of communal yearning and fulfillment.
But with the gray sky and the chill rain, last night’s memory seemed distant, and into that distance went the intensity and anonymity of being the center of others’ desire. If the soreness in her groin was hers, so was the sated, turgid feeling that made the day seem cushioned and muffled. Last night, it had seemed to go on forever and she didn’t want it to stop. But of course it had; all of them had finally slept until the thick, suety candles guttered out in that heavy odor of rotten sweetness they had. Jerry was right; like him, she had awakened to feel completely, totally at rest. Like a rock on the earth, he had said, with no burden, with no guilt, with no hungers. And it was true. She hadn’t wanted to move, had no reason to move.
But the night had passed, and today she woke to the rain.
CHAPTER 17
GLIDING FROM BENEATH the airplane’s shiny aluminum wing, the wrinkled and thrusting earth lifted abruptly from the yellow and red and brown of desert. First shadowy valleys and then snow-gleamed faces of pale blue rock slid silently past. Dark pines patterned the massive slopes, ridges ran in every direction. Above timberline, the paler green of tundra looked soft and pristine against the snow. Cliffs of a thousand feet dropped sharply from the edges of sun-filled meadow, and fingerlike spires jabbed upward from the heads of snow-clogged canyons. Close enough to the airplane to reveal blue shadow and winking glitter, snowfields lay under the shelter of wind-scoured rocks.
I turned from a study of the achingly bright mountains below and began gathering up the plastic remnants of the flight meal. The stewardesses hurried the serving cart up the aisle, a final sweep before landing. A nasal squawk from the speakers told us that the temperature in Denver was seventy-two, and reminded passengers meeting connecting flights that they should proceed immediately to their boarding areas.
Henry had not hesitated when I telephoned to tell him about the gas receipts.
“Grand Junction? In Colorado?”
“My guess is she was heading for Kremmling. That’s a small town about a hundred and fifty miles west of Denver. But it’s only a guess.”
Henry remembered. “That’s where she made that long distance call to?”
“Right. But the number’s been disconnected, and Colorado’s a big state. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Well, a place like Kremmling can’t be that big a town, can it, Jack? Can you go there? Look around, see if she’s there?”
“It’s not much of a lead.”
“But it’s the only lead we have, isn’t it? I’d go myself, Jack, but I can’t right now. You know how upset Margaret’s been—especially since you asked her all those questions. Look.” He governed the impatience in his voice. “You know how important it is to have someone on the ground asking questions. I can’t go. Period. I’m willing to pay you to do it—I want to pay you. You’d probably do a better job than I would anyway; it’s not my line of work, after all. And if you can find out something, maybe Margaret can get a grip on herself. …”
We both knew there was nothing keeping me in San Diego. But only I knew the urgency that would have sent me to Colorado even if Henry had not authorized the trip. “If I can locate her, what do you want me to tell her?”
Henry hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I suppose find out if she’s all right—if she needs anything. Money, whatever. And we’d like her to call us. If that’s where she wants to be, fine. But tell her to at least call home and tell her mother she’s all right.”
If I found her. And if she—and her unborn child—were all right.
The car-rental agent drew a map of the quickest way from Denver to Kremmling: 1-70 west to Dillon, north on State 9 to the town. Depending on the traffic, she added, figure about a three-hour drive. The interstate, a double band of concrete lanes, rose steadily from the shallow bowl of prairie that held Denver. Then it arced between faces of harshly blasted rock and up valleys into the cool pine forests of the Divide. Cross-continent traffic was heavy. A steady line of laboring semi trucks blocked the climbing lanes to the snowy Eisenhower Tunnels. But I made good time and enjoyed seeing a part of the country I hadn’t viewed in years. Denver had been a frequent stop—to change planes, to attend seminars or conferences at one of the military installations along the Front Range. But there had been little time to get into the mountains that formed the western horizon. Now, despite the worry, I enjoyed the views of peaks with their green bases and white crowns against the clearest and bluest sky I’d ever seen.
The road north from the tinseled and tourist-filled town of Silverthorne followed the valley of the Blue River. Picnic areas and camping grounds were spotted with parked cars and brightly colored tents. All but the highest ski areas were closed this late in spring, and low on the mountains, the steep runs cut through dark
pines were beginning to melt to bare rock or still-brown grass and mud. New billboards advertised mountain bicycle tours and scenic chairlifts. Dude-ranch signs showed that the coming summer would have its own attractions. Gradually, the major tourist centers fell behind as State 9 led north into high desert and a broad, treeless valley covered with knee-high sagebrush and sinuous ridges of wind-packed snow. Traffic lessened, too. Most of the tourists sped far over the fifty-five limit on their way up to Steamboat Springs or back to the fun and games of Summit County. Working ranches replaced dude ranches. Scattered and wind shaken, small factory-built houses staked out a lonely bare patch here and there in the sagebrush and grimy snow.
A sudden burst of colorful sails and cold, wind-chopped water marked Green Mountain Reservoir. A scatter of summer cabins made tiny dots on the distant shore. On this side was a flicker of yellow, blue, and red tents, and the glitter of vans and cars. A few sailboards were pulled up on the stony beaches, and dust plumes from dirt bikes blew along unpaved service roads. Then the empty sagebrush stretched north to a distant rise glimmering with white snow. On the eastern side of the valley, sandy benches hid all but the peaks of distant mountains. On the west, the jagged Gore Range looked cold and isolate and windy.
It was hard to believe, after the shoulder-rubbing crowds of Southern California, that there was so much space with so few people. I felt a kind of psychic expansion—akin to the feeling that came on an empty sea—that stretched the boundaries of self and at the same time made me aware of isolation and smallness. If I were in search of some kind of spiritual knowledge, it could be found in the emptiness and vastness and silence of these jagged mountain faces. And, unlike the sea, one could drive or walk to it. I hoped that clean feeling was the reason Dori had come here.
The strip of asphalt turned away from the Blue River. It climbed a treeless ridge to slant down again to the Colorado River on the other side. Here, the stream was about a hundred yards wide and rimmed with willow and cottonwood breaking into leaf. Just across the bridge Kremmling was marked by a sign saying “Elevation 7,364 feet.” In other states, the town limits announced population figures; in Colorado, it was elevation. Scattered homes and businesses, a lumberyard, leafless cottonwoods that towered over almost empty lanes. I followed the state highway around to its junction with the town’s main street, U.S. 40. A gas station attendant told me that the sheriff’s office was in Hot Sulphur Springs, the county seat, about twenty miles east on 40. I headed that way. At worst, I would lose a little time letting the sheriff know I was looking for someone. At best, I might get some help.
“Well, Mr. Steele, you know you don’t have any jurisdiction in this county.” The deputy was a head taller than me and weighed half as much. Narrow shoulders, only a little wider than the large red ears that stuck straight out from the side of his head, made rigid, square corners under his western-style shirt. But what he lacked in bulk he made up for in wiriness. And in the weight of official rules.
“I don’t have jurisdiction anywhere—I’m not a law officer and I’m not a licensed PI. I’m just trying to help a friend locate his missing daughter.”
“How come your friend’s not doing it himself?”
“He’s looking after his wife—the girl’s mother. Her health isn’t good, and the worry’s made it worse.” It was close enough to be true.
“But this missing daughter’s over eighteen?”
Despite the risks of stirring up bureaucracy, I had hoped there would be more benefit than loss in going to the sheriff’s office. Now I wasn’t so sure. But just as the deputy could not arrest Dorcas without cause, so he couldn’t stop me from looking for her. “She’s free to go wherever she wants. I’m just trying to find out if she’s all right or if she needs help. I don’t even know if she’s in this county.”
“Let me get this straight, now—” He had been getting things straight for the last forty-five minutes. I kept the mask of a smile on my face as he went over it again. “This girl, Dorcas Wilcox, her father just wants to know if she’s all right. And the reason you think she’s in Grand County is you got a disconnected phone number?”
“And some gas receipts that indicate she was headed for Colorado.”
“Uh-huh. And you want this office to help you locate this person.”
“I’m asking if you’ve had any report on her or her car—the white Mustang with California plates.”
“Get a lot of California plates coming through. Don’t remember that vehicle, though.” He propped a narrow cowboy boot on the edge of his desk. “I don’t know that we can do much for you, Mr. Steele. There’s no warrant out on this person.”
“I realize that, Deputy. But I wonder if you could find out who might have had the telephone number. It’s a Kremmling prefix.”
“Covers a lot of territory.”
“That’s why I’m here asking.”
“Uh-huh.” He glanced again at me and apparently made up his mind about something. Picking up the telephone, he punched in a series of numbers. “Let me speak to Mr. Richardson, please.” Covering the mouthpiece, he explained, “He’s the phone company’s district manager. I need his okay to find out about numbers.” Then back to the telephone. “Mr. Richardson? This is Gary Norris over at the sheriff’s office. I need to know the name on a telephone number … right—just a minute.” To me: “Is this an unlisted number?”
“Not that I know of. Just disconnected.”
“No, so we don’t need a warrant. But it was disconnected a while back. I guess the name of the last person is what we need … thanks.” To me: “He’s giving me somebody.” We waited a minute or two. “Yes, Miz Glover. How’re you today? That’s fine … Yes’m. Well, here’s the number I need.” He told her and we waited another couple of minutes. Then Norris leaned forward to write something. “Okay, thanks, ma’am … yes’m, you, too.”
Norris pushed the slip of paper across the desk. “Gaylord Pettes. Disconnected four months ago from a cabin up on Blacktail Creek Road. Turnoff’s about ten miles up One-thirty-four. Probably near Radium—most of that’s National Forest in there, except down near Radium.”
“Do you know if Pettes left a forwarding address with the phone company?”
The deputy clamped his mouth into a tight line, peeved either at me for wanting still more or at himself for not thinking to ask. He dialed again. “Miz Glover? Gary Norris again … yes’m. Did Pettes leave a forwarding address?” He wrote again. “Thanks again, ma’am.” Another slip of paper. “Moved to Ward, over on the eastern slope in Boulder County. Here’s that number and address.”
I had to be certain. Pettes could have turned his cabin over to Dorcas without a telephone. Or she could be living there with out permission. There was only one way to find out. The drive along dirt county roads took me in a loop between the steep and wooded peaks of the Gore Range and down into warmer valleys empty of everything except a few cows and an occasional camp van parked in the shade of a pine. The deputy said the address was located in Township One South and Range 82 West. On the map, the area was a square of public land crossed by the Colorado River. At its center a small cluster of black dots marked the town of Radium. The cabin had a fire-fighting number—A 207—but it took me the rest of the afternoon to finally locate it. A two-rut track branched off Blacktail Creek Road and twisted down a steep mountain face to the creek itself. The cabin, several rooms of rambling logs nestled under tall aspen, was empty and apparently had been since Pettes moved out. No other tire tracks marred the pine needles in the turn-around. A film of powdery dust coated the painted boards of the porch. The padlocks on the outbuildings were rusty with disuse.
I’d made certain.
Bumping the growling car back up the track to the county road, I turned south. Rattling over the washboarded dirt for mile after country mile, I finally swung with a relieved sigh onto the pavement of Highway 131 at State Bridge on the Colorado River again. In another twenty or so miles I picked up 1-70 and headed east toward Denver, a hun
dred long miles away.
I made it as far as Boulder before night and weariness forced me into a motel. Henry answered the telephone on the second ring and I told him what little I’d found out. He told me he’d never heard Dorcas mention a Gaylord Pettes.
“I’ll start again in the morning,” I said. “I’ve got an address for him.”
“All right. Keep us informed, please.”
And a jolly good evening to you, too, Henry. I stood under the hot shower and let it beat stiffness from my back. At least the scenery was pretty, though my neck and shoulders said I’d seen enough of it. Colorado was, indeed, a big state, made bigger by steep mountains and jolting, unpaved roads.
CHAPTER 18
THE MORNING SUN spotlighted what I had dimly seen last night as I crossed a ridge into Boulder Valley: an abrupt barrier of foothills and, rising from their wooded feet, massive slabs of tilted, gray-green rocks that jutted out like the petrified plates of some ancient animal. Notches between the foothills gave glimpses of higher peaks ten, twenty miles west, whitened with a coat of snow against that cloudless blue sky. The narrow highway running north and south where the prairie met the mountains was crowded with cars. But the empty, pine-scattered foothills and the level sweep of farm and pasture to the east emphasized space. There was a feeling of light and volume about the scene that Eleanor would have studied with a delighted eye. As I drove, I tried to imagine what kind of vision she would have found in this landscape.
Ward was about twenty miles west and up a winding canyon. The old mining town sprawled over a steep slope under the junction of State 72 and Lefthand Canyon Road. Most of its buildings clustered in the bottom of a gulch whose snow had only recently melted. A few others scattered up rock faces marked with yellow mine tailings and black and rotting timbers from a century or more past. A lot of dirt roads led off into the trees. None of them had names or numbers. Some of the homes were new or newly rebuilt. Most were sagging frame structures that had rooms tacked on as the inhabitants needed more space. A few were empty. Through glassless windows, the scraped rock of the building’s hillside excavation could be seen out the other side. Many cabins had cold frames or window boxes to extend the growing season for vegetables, herbs, and possibly something to smoke. Long stacks of split wood gave further hint of the length of winter. I wasn’t sure what the population was, but the elevation was 9,253 feet. It didn’t seem to bother the occasional jogger or bicyclist cranking up the mountain. Porches and front doors were a step away from the single paved road, bringing a reminder of European villages built before the automobile. A single post with stop signs on two sides marked the town’s center. I pulled my car into a gravelly space behind a two-story frame building that crowded the paved street and bore a sign: “Ward Store.”