Santos shrugged, as if to say that he wasn’t going to argue.
Martin walked back to his car. Ella said, ‘What are we going to do? I’m starving!’
‘I’m going to try and see if I can find us someplace to stay. There are plenty of bed-and-breakfast places here in Bear Lake. Santos doesn’t think it’s a good idea because he’s convinced that Wrack’s people will find out where we are, God knows how. But we all could use a rest.’
‘It’s me, isn’t it?’ said Saskia. ‘Your Native American pal thinks that if I can get near a landline, I’m going to put in a call to Empire Security Services and tell them where we are. I wouldn’t be surprised if he believes that I tricked you into letting me come along with you, so that they could track you down.’
Martin smiled and shook his head. ‘Saskia – he’s an old-school Serrano, and you know what happened to them, even if it was a hundred and fifty years ago. He doesn’t trust any of us.’
‘Well, let’s go find a bed and breakfast, just so’s I can prove him wrong.’
They drove a half mile further along the lakeshore, until they came to a three-story Bavarian-style building with a carved wooden shingle hanging outside saying Tyrol Bed & Breakfast. Martin blew his horn again and they parked outside. Lanterns were shining along the hotel’s verandah and all of the windows were lit but there were no other vehicles in the parking lot, and when they switched off their engines, they could hear no voices or music or people laughing.
In fact, the whole city of Big Bear Lake was unnaturally quiet, with only the distant barking of a dog and the warm breeze whispering in the trees.
‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ said Martin, opening his door.
‘I think this place is spooky,’ said Ella. ‘It’s like something out of one of those horror movies.’
Martin climbed the steps and pushed his way in through the hotel’s front door. There was nobody behind the front desk, only a stuffed elk’s head hanging on the wall, staring down at him in glassy-eyed panic. He could faintly hear a television in another room, but otherwise there was no sign of life. He went up to the desk and called out, ‘Hallo? Anybody at home?’
There was no answer, so he picked up the brass bell beside the register and jangled it loudly.
‘Hallo?’ he repeated. Then, ‘Hallooooo!’
He heard a door close, and measured footsteps. After a few moments a large red-faced man appeared, his greasy hair parted in the center like Oliver Hardy. He was wearing a red checkered shirt buttoned up to the neck and red suspenders. As he crossed the reception area he was slowly and meticulously wiping catsup from around his mouth with a crumpled paper napkin.
‘Yes?’ he said. He was plainly irritated at being interrupted in the middle of his meal.
‘Hi. Are you the manager?’
‘Brett Vokins. I’m the owner.’
‘I was wondering if you have any rooms free for tonight?’
‘Rooms?’
‘There’s twelve of us altogether, eight adults and four kids, but it’s only for the one night.’
‘I’m closed,’ said the owner. His eyes had the same unblinking stare as the stuffed elk just above his head.
‘You’re sure you can’t open up just for us? The kids are dog tired. We wouldn’t even expect anything to eat. Just beds to sleep in.’
‘I’m closed because the water supply has been cut off,’ the owner told him, speaking very slowly and very precisely, as if he had been obliged to explain this over and over. ‘If I was to let you stay here without my having an approved water supply and sewage disposal system then I would be breaking every regulation in the book, and then I’d be closed for good and all.’
‘You’re right on the shore of a damned great lake. How can you have no water supply?’
The owner continued to stare at Martin as if he couldn’t believe his ignorance. ‘The lake water isn’t drinkable. The city pumps all of its water from underground wells, and there’s never enough to go around even when it’s been raining, which you’ve probably noticed it hasn’t been doing a whole lot of, lately.’
‘Oh. OK.’
‘I’ll tell you,’ the owner continued, as if he were determined to make sure that Martin understood what he was saying. ‘Big Bear Lake has some of the strictest regulations on water abuse in the whole state of California. If your home address ends in an odd number, you can only water your plants on odd-numbered days, and you can’t water them at all on public holidays.’
‘All right, but we don’t need to water any plants. We don’t even need anything to drink and we don’t need to wash. All we need is a few hours’ sleep.’
‘So what do I do with all of your soiled laundry, after you’re gone?’ the owner asked him. ‘And don’t tell me that out of eight adults and four kids, none of you is going to need to go to the bathroom. More important, supposing the place catches fire? What am I going to put it out with?’
Martin said, ‘I can’t appeal to your better nature then?’
The owner didn’t even blink. ‘When you run a bed and breakfast, mister, you can’t afford to have a better nature. You have to smile, but there’s no law that says you have to smile because you mean it.’
‘So what do you suggest I do?’
‘I have no idea. There’s plenty more B and Bs in town, and hotels, too, but you won’t find none of them prepared to take you in. The whole city’s water supply has been shut off for thirty-six hours already and it don’t look like there’s any prospect of it coming back on again any time soon. Folks have been leaving in droves, although who knows what the point of that is. According to the news, every place is just as dry as every other.’
‘Oh, well. Thanks for your humanity.’
‘No need for no remarks like that, mister. This is my livelihood, this business, and my family’s livelihood. Charity begins at home.’
Martin left the red-faced owner behind his desk and went back outside.
‘Well?’ asked Saskia.
‘The water’s off here, too. They can’t take us in because it’s against health and safety regulations. It looks like we’re going to have to spend the night in the woods after all.’
He went across to tell Santos that the hotel was closed. Although it had been Santos’ original plan to camp out overnight, he was looking gray and strained and he seemed almost as disappointed as Susan and the rest of the children. All the same, he nodded and twisted the key in the Suburban’s ignition and said, ‘Let’s go. The sooner we set up camp, the sooner we can give these kids something to eat and settle them down.’
‘Are you OK, Santos?’ Martin asked him.
Santos grimaced and gave him an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
‘Do you want to give this up, and go back? Saskia and me, we can always take our chances.’
‘No,’ said Santos. ‘I think I was always meant to do this. Like it’s my destiny. One day you’ll be able to look up Lost Girl Lake on Wikipedia and you will see my name there too. Santos Murillo, the man who showed that the Yuhaviatam still know their own land better than the bacon stealers who took it from them.’
They drove out of Big Bear Lake and continued eastward. The night was warm and black and moonless but it was thick with stars. Lightning was flickering in the distance, although Martin doubted if the storms would bring any rain. The air was so dry and so heavily charged with static that it made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
After about forty minutes Santos slowed down and signaled that he was turning right. He led them down a narrow road which had been tarmacked for the first three-quarters of a mile but then degenerated into nothing but a rutted, dusty track. Their three vehicles jostled and jolted like three small boats in a choppy sea. Martin could see nothing ahead of him but the rear of Peta’s turquoise-blue Hilux, and nothing on either side but grayish-green chaparral and a few scrubby knobcone pines.
‘My God,’ said Saskia, clinging on to her doorhandle. ‘Where’s he taking us?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Are you OK in the back there, Ella?’
‘I feel sick,’ said Ella.
‘Do you want to stop?’
‘No, I’m all right for the moment. But I’ll tell you if I need to barf, I promise!’
The track rose steeper and steeper, and they found themselves climbing at a sideways angle, too, their suspensions squeaking and banging with every deep rut that they had to drive over. On their left-hand side, the pines grew increasingly dense and close together, and then they began to crowd into their right-hand side, too, until they were engulfed by forest.
Just when branches were beginning to scrape and scratch against the fenders of Martin’s Eldorado, Santos turned to the left. They followed him and saw in their headlights that they had reached a wide and level clearing, thickly carpeted with brown pine needles. Seven small wooden cabins were clustered around it in a semi-circle, and a broken wooden sign said Camp Knobcone.
Martin took his flashlight out of the glovebox. Then he folded his seat forward and helped Ella out of the back seat. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked her, putting his arm around her.
She took three or four deep breaths. ‘Better now. But I felt so pukish. It was all that jiggling about and all of those exhaust fumes.’
Everybody was climbing out of their vehicles now. Santos came over and Martin said, ‘Camp Knobcone. It’s not exactly Day’s Inn but I guess it’s better than sleeping in a tent. How did you know about this place?’
‘My uncle used to take me hunting up here,’ said Santos, stretching and looking around. ‘Then, when I was older, I used to take girls up here. So … it has some good memories.’
Martin went to the nearest cabin. The door wasn’t padlocked but it had jammed solid so he had to kick it open. He shone his flashlight inside and saw that there were two wooden bunks, one on each side, and a table in between them. The cabin smelled musty, and there was a dented collection of empty Coors cans under the table, but apart from that it was reasonably clean. Peta came up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘I brought plenty of blankets,’ she said. ‘We should be all right for tonight, anyhow.’
Martin looked at her. He couldn’t tell by her expression if she was suggesting that they should sleep together. Before he could say anything she turned away and went to talk to Ella.
Along with Santos and Tyler, he went from one cabin to the next, pushing and kicking the doors open. They wanted to make sure that no raccoons or skunks had made themselves at home there, and that no snakes were hiding beneath the bunks. The roof of one cabin had collapsed and it was filled with debris and two old birds’ nests, and in the cabin next to it they found the remains of a long-dead coyote, so gray and mangy and decayed that it was hardly recognizable.
‘Poor creature probably came inside to take a look and the wind slammed the door shut,’ said Santos. He peered down at it, and then he said, ‘Either that, or it was some guy who pissed off a Yuhaviatam shaman, and got turned into a wa ya ha to teach him a lesson.’
‘Oh, for sure,’ said Martin. There was a folded copy of The San Bernardino County Sun on the table, so yellow that it must have been as old as the dead coyote. ‘And I suppose he was reading the sports pages when it happened.’
Santos said, ‘You should never mock magic, my friend. What is this drought, but the Great Spirit, punishing us with weather magic? You even half believe that yourself.’
Martin looked at him sharply. He was tempted to say, ‘How the hell did you know that?’ but he decided to leave it. He was never sure if Santos were ribbing him or not.
SEVENTEEN
They lit a fire in a natural hollow in the rocks. From the soot-blackened granite and the heaps of ashes they could see that campers had lit fires in this hollow many times before, because it acted as a natural hearth. For them, though, the greatest advantage was that nobody on the highway would be able to see it, and it was sheltered by so many trees that it would be difficult to spot from the air.
‘Before dark tomorrow we should reach Lost Girl Lake,’ said Santos. He had taken three Tylenol with the coffee that Susan had brewed, and now he was sitting upright and his eyes were brighter. ‘To start with we can make a camp in the cave there, and then we can think about building a better shelter.’
They grilled hot dogs in front of the fire on sticks, and heated up cans of baked beans and vegetable soup by burying them in the embers. When they had eaten, Peta and Susan made up blanket-beds for the younger children in one of the cabins so that they could settle down to sleep. The moon had risen over the treetops, and Camp Knobcone was now illuminated by a hard white light.
For Rita’s sake, they had taken nine six-packs of Budweiser from the Chevron food mart, and she had already managed to drink five cans. None of them had been happy about bringing along so much alcohol for her, especially Peta, who never drank; but even Peta understood that if Rita suddenly stopped drinking altogether, she was liable to suffer from hallucinations and tremors and even a stroke or a fatal heart attack.
‘Let’s sing something!’ said Rita. ‘Here we are, sitting around a campfire, we should sing something! How about Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts? We always used to sing that when I was at camp! Come on, all of you! Join in!’
She started to sing, shrill and off-key, waving her beer can from side to side so that it sprayed into the fire.
‘Yankee Doodle went to town a-ridin’ on a gopher
Bumped into a garbage can and this is what fell over:
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat, chopped up parakeet.
French-fried eyeballs rolling down the street.
Oops, I forgot my spoon!’
After she had finished, there was silence, except for the crackling of the pine branches on the fire. She looked around her – at Martin and Peta and Saskia and Ella and Tyler and Santos and Susan, and Mikey, too, because Mikey had been allowed to stay up later.
‘Do you know something?’ she slurred. ‘You are the stuff – I mean, you are the stuffiest people I have ever come across – ever – in my life. And I mean ever. But do you know something else? I love you. I love all of you. I love you from the bottom of my heart.’
Susan put her arm around her and said, ‘Come on, Mom. I think it’s time you hit the sack. It’s going to be another long day tomorrow.’
Rita took a last swallow from her beer can and then tossed it into the flames. ‘You’re right,’ she blurted. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
She allowed Martin and Susan to lift her up between them, and then she staggered with Susan to the cabin where she would be spending the night.
‘You don’t mind sharing with her, do you?’ Martin asked Saskia. ‘She’ll be dead to the world for the next eight hours.’
‘Me too, probably,’ said Saskia. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt so exhausted in my life.’
‘Can’t we have a ghost story?’ asked Mikey. ‘I never went to a camp before, and aren’t you supposed to tell each other ghost stories?’
‘Aren’t you scared enough already?’ Tyler asked him.
‘Me? Nah. I’m not scared of nothing.’
‘OK,’ said Martin. ‘Once upon a time there was a boy who really hated school. One day he drew a picture on the chalkboard of his teacher Mr Wolfe looking like some kind of a monster, and underneath he wrote “Werewolf”. Well, actually he spelled it wrong and wrote “Where wolf”.’
Mikey pulled a face. ‘That’s not a ghost story. That’s about me. You know that. The principal asked you to come to the school and he showed it to you.’
‘Just hold on,’ said Martin. ‘I’m not finished yet. Not too long after, this boy who really hated school spent the night in a cabin, way up in the mountains. That same night, back in the classroom, when the moon came up, it shone through the window on to the chalkboard. The chalk drawing of the werewolf came to life. It jumped down from the chalkboard and it left the scho
ol and it ran through the streets with its chalky claws scratching on the sidewalk. It followed the boy up into the mountains.’
‘Now that is scary,’ grinned Santos.
‘When the boy was asleep, the chalk werewolf crawled through the gap under his cabin door. It could do that, because it was only a drawing. It tippy-toed over to the boy’s bunk and it used its claw to write on the wall – “Where wolf? Here wolf !” When the boy woke up in the morning and saw what the werewolf had written right above his bunk, his hair turned as white as chalk.’
‘Hey,’ said Mikey. ‘That’s a really cool story. Nobody ever put me into a story before.’
‘Maybe you could,’ Martin suggested. ‘Maybe that’s what you could be one day. A story writer, with you in all of your stories. The continuing adventures of Mikey Murillo.’
For a fraction of a second, Martin saw in Mikey’s eyes a flash of that enthusiasm that he always looked for when he was trying to give difficult children a reason to behave and to knuckle down to their studies. But then Mikey said, ‘Nah. You have to learn all of that spelling. I couldn’t even spell “werewolf” right. That was the whole point of that story, wasn’t it, me not spelling right?’
As midnight approached, and the fire was dying down, they retired to the cabins. Peta was sharing a cabin with Ella, while Saskia went in with Rita, who was already deeply asleep. Tyler and Mikey took the next cabin together, and Martin shared with Santos.
‘Goodnight, everybody,’ called Martin, but not too loudly, in case he woke up the children. Peta was standing by her cabin door, under the moonlight, as if she were a character in an amateur stage play. She looked at him but she didn’t say anything and she didn’t wave. She just went into her cabin and closed the door behind her.
‘“Goodnight, everybody”?’ said Santos, who was already pulling up his blanket over his shoulders. ‘You sound like The Waltons.’
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