Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  For the first time, I realized that the nearest shop on my left was Silvercloud, and I walked toward its windows, trying to get myself in hand.

  The Indian mask stared at me through the glass, its white teeth glimmering in the moonlight, slitted eyes watching me. Rick came up beside me, and as I was about to turn away, something moved in the dim interior of the shop.

  “Rick,” I said, “there’s someone inside.”

  We both stared intently through the window, but the faint stirring of shadows was not repeated.

  “Is Clara working at this hour?” I asked.

  “I doubt it. And if she was, she’d have turned on more lights. I’d better have a look. I’ve got my key.”

  I followed him into the shop, and just as we stepped inside a sound came from the back as if something was knocked over in the darkness at the rear. Rick flicked switches, and the shop blazed. As he ran into the back rooms, I stood among the counters, remembering the cruel act of vandalism upstairs, as well as the rock that had been thrown at me across the terrace.

  With a strange conviction that had little to do with reason, I believed in that instant that everything which had happened was connected. My father’s death, Sybil walking an empty corridor that led to his room, Orva’s machinations, even the desecrated blue cloth upstairs—and now this. Some connecting thread drew it all together, and no matter what I did, I could not escape being a bead on that thread. Even Brian and his drum were part of it, beating out a rhythm that warmed the blood and lulled the defenses.

  When Rick came back, I started as though I’d been in a trance. He didn’t pause, however, but rushed outside and was gone for a while as he searched the vicinity. The effort was fruitless, however, and when he returned he explained.

  “It’s the same sort of entry as upstairs,” he said. “A window at the back has been forced. What we heard was a chair being knocked over. Whoever it was could lose himself easily in these courts and passageways until he could get outside. I’ll phone Clara to come and see if anything is missing.”

  While he made the call to the sheriff’s office and then to Clara, I waited tensely. Such mischief seemed all too ominous, promising worse. Rick returned to say that Clara had gone to bed early but she would dress and come as soon as she could.

  It took a good half hour for her to arrive, and Parker came with her. A deputy followed shortly after—a woman officer who made notes in her book as Clara moved about the shop noting everything with a practiced eye. She had put on Levi’s with a zippered windbreaker, and her long hair was free of its braid, caught back with a ribbon. Rick and Parker and the officer went to examine the window at the rear.

  “The jewelry counters are locked,” Clara mused aloud. “And as far as I can tell, nothing seems to have been disturbed on the shelves or show tables. I’ll check my office.”

  When the others returned, we followed her into the small room where I’d waited earlier that day. Oddly enough, I was the one who discovered what was missing. Perhaps because my memory of it was still so sharp and recent.

  “Jed’s Fire People isn’t here,” I said. “Did you move the piece, Clara?”

  She went to the shelf where the sculpture had stood. “It was right there when I left today. That is what’s been taken. But why would anyone take that?”

  No one had the slightest idea of the answer, Clara least of all. It seemed oddly fateful that something Jed had made was the only thing missing.

  When the deputy left, Rick said he would have stronger locks installed right away. “You’re sure nothing else has been taken?”

  Clara shook her head. “As far as I can tell. I’ll check more carefully in the morning. Lindsay, are you really going home tomorrow?”

  I wondered if there was a hopeful note in her voice. “No,” I said, “not tomorrow.” And then I repeated what I’d told Brian. “First I want to know what happened to my father. Clara, may I come and talk with you soon? I mean about that night in Las Vegas when he died?”

  She looked startled. “I suppose—if you like. Though there’s nothing else I can tell you. All that ground’s been gone over again and again. All the questions have been asked.”

  “Yet something hasn’t been answered, has it? There’re things no one has ever brought out.”

  Clara stared at me, but Parker was watching her, and he must have seen the smudges under her eyes.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. “You’ve had enough for tonight.”

  We locked up and walked again through the moonlit plaza, but now the enchantment was gone, and only a sense of heaviness and loss remained for me. Rick was still a mystery, and he had moved away from me. I had no idea what the future held for us.

  On the drive home, he had little to say, and I wondered if he would always be something of a stranger to me, however well I might come to know him. Was the mystery, perhaps, even a little of his attraction? When we’d met in New York I’d thought of him as a Western man. The impression had grown. He was like his own red rock country—secret, knowing more than was ever revealed, yet at the same time strong and never to be shaken.

  When we turned into the drive, lights were on in the house, and lamps burned on either side of the front door.

  “Come in for a nightcap,” Rick said. “It will help you sleep.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to come in. My nerves had been scraped raw throughout this long day. I couldn’t take much more, and I was afraid of my own breaking point. Nevertheless, I moved toward the front door as Rick put the car away, but as I reached the step, I came to a stop.

  “Rick!” I cried. “Rick, look!”

  He was beside me in a moment and we both stared at the object that rested on the bricks of the front step. It was Jed’s red sandstone sculpture—the Fire People. Whoever had taken it from the store had brought it directly here and left it in this conspicuous place while we talked to the police and Clara searched her shop.

  “I’ll take it inside and return it to Clara tomorrow,” Rick said.

  “But what can it mean? Why should a thief bring it here?”

  The door was pulled open suddenly, and Sybil stood on the threshold, her fitted green robe flowing about her, and her fair hair as beautifully combed as ever. She too was staring at what Rick held in his hands, and her reaction was extreme.

  “Why are you bringing that into the house?” she demanded.

  “There’s been some mischief,” Rick said, walking past her. “Someone stole this from the store tonight and left it on our doorstep.”

  Sybil’s control vanished astonishingly. “Take it away! Get rid of it! I’ve always hated that thing. I knew from the beginning that Jed made it only to spite me.”

  I remembered what Orva had said about a war of nerves that might cause Sybil to betray herself. It looked as though the war was already under way.

  “I’ll leave it in the trunk of the car,” Rick told her. “Wait for me, Lindsay. I want to talk to you about tomorrow.”

  He carried the Fire People outside, and I followed Sybil into the living room, aware that she was close to the cracking point.

  She made a last effort to control her voice as she spoke. “I’ve talked to Orva on the phone. She is a little crazy, you know. All that nonsense about getting you here. But don’t think I’m not aware of why you really came. And I want you away—at once. Never mind the dinner, or anything else! Pack your things and get out!”

  I asked a single question. “You were in Dad’s room that night in Las Vegas, weren’t you?”

  She was so angry that I thought for a moment she might strike me. It was as if we’d slipped back in time to when I was a small girl and a bigger, stronger sister could indulge her cruelties without any fear of reprisal. For just an instant I was afraid, because I knew she was capable of anything—including Jed’s death.

  “Did you hear me?” Her voice rose shrilly. “I want you out of my house immediately.”

  “I’ll leave in the morning,” I said, and moved toward the
terrace door.

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind!” Rick had returned and he’d heard her words as he came down the room. “You forget this is my house too, Sybil. Lindsay is welcome here.”

  She answered him sharply, though she managed to bring down her voice. “My lawyer called me today. If you go ahead with divorce proceedings, Rick, I’ll make you regret it. God knows, I don’t want you as a husband, and I’ll be happy to have you leave this house whenever you like. I mean to go on living here, and Marilla stays with me.”

  Again I moved toward the door, not wanting to hear any of this.

  Sybil stopped me. “Wait, Lindsay. You need to listen to the rest. You’re forgetting something too, Rick. If you take one more step I’ll go to Parker. I’ll tell him about you and Clara, and that will fix this silly idyll of theirs nicely. Parker’s very old-fashioned.”

  “It’s not a good idea to threaten me,” Rick said.

  “But that’s what I’m doing! Don’t you think I know what’s going on between you and Lindsay? I’m no fool. It’s been pretty easy to go over the bridge and into her bed whenever you please, hasn’t it? That’s going to stop.”

  A dark flush had risen in Rick’s face and I could see the tightened muscles around his mouth. I came back to sit on the edge of a chair, not daring to leave now. Because if she pushed Rick too far …

  “I only wish it were true,” he said grimly.

  Something about his tone must have warned her that she could go no further. She whirled about and stalked out of the room, leaving devastation behind her.

  Rick poured us each a brandy and brought me mine. I felt torn, lacerated—and furiously angry.

  “You shouldn’t have been subjected to any of this,” Rick said.

  “I knew her before you did,” I reminded him. “I know what she can do.”

  “I never knew her at all. I don’t think anyone ever has. Lindsay, I want to tell you about Clara.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  “I’d like you to know. Clara has a generous heart and a hot temper. There was a time some years ago when we were both lonely, and we were working together. She knew what Sybil was like. For a little while we comforted each other. It was nothing more than that, but I’m fond of her and I owe her a lot. I don’t want to see her hurt. Sybil knows this, and she’s right about Parker, I’m afraid. I’m not sure how he would take it if he knew that I was a man in Clara’s life—however briefly. Not when she works for me now. But, even more important than that, I can’t allow Sybil to harm Marilla, as she surely will if she’s not stopped. I may have to call off my lawyers.”

  My anger against my sister had never been so great. I was Rick’s ally now, wholeheartedly. “She’s got to be stopped,” I said. “There’ll be a way. Orva told me today that Sybil was in Jed’s room the night he died. Orva saw her come out of his room.”

  Rick waited, questioning.

  “It was Orva who sent me those notes,” I said. “But she doesn’t know anything—not really.”

  The torment in Rick’s face made me utterly sad, yet there was no comfort I could offer him.

  “Are we still going to Flagstaff tomorrow?” I asked.

  He answered without spirit. “Yes, Alice Spencer is expecting us. But I can cancel the trip if you want to go home to New York. I won’t blame you for leaving now.”

  “Let’s go to Flagstaff. If Alice is part of your plans, then she’s part of mine too. I’d like to meet her. We have to go on with our lives somehow. Sybil isn’t invulnerable, and there’ll be a way. Though I’ll move out of this house as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you, Lindsay,” he said, and I heard the pain in his voice.

  I didn’t want his thanks. I wanted only what I couldn’t have.

  “I’m going to bed,” I told him and stood up as weariness surged through me.

  “Right—you’re nearly out on your feet.”

  He saw me across the bridge to my door and left me there quickly.

  When I was in bed, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. I fought to put the ugly scene with Sybil out of my thoughts, and tried to slip back in time to those tender moments beside a fountain in Tlaquepaque. Rick had said that he loved me. That was all that mattered. That was the thought I must hold on to. I must not think of Sybil’s vengeance.

  Perhaps these gentler imaginings helped me at last to fall asleep, and the early night hours slipped away.

  Then, quite suddenly, I was wide awake again, with all drowsiness gone, and a vivid picture uppermost, insinuating itself into my consciousness. A totally irrelevant memory of Brian Montgomery beating an Indian drum that my father had given him. With a maddening insistence the rhythm of the drum echoed through my mind—over and over, unendingly.

  And Vermilion was there. Listen. Listen to the drum!

  I was never going to sleep with this pounding in my head, and at last I got up and went into the kitchen, seeking hot milk. But instead of taking the carton from the refrigerator, I stood at the counter beside the sink and let my fingers tap on stainless steel.

  The sound wasn’t right. I took a wooden spoon from a rack, and without even smiling over my own compulsion, I tried Brian’s drum rhythm on the steel. It didn’t work. There was none of the resonance that taut rawhide over a hollow log could give. A drum had its own individual voice. The metallic sound was flat, and there was no soul to speak out to me.

  Nevertheless, I found the simple rhythm of the drum. Beat, pause, and then quickly, beat-beat-beat. Always the emphasis on the first beat, with an instant’s pause, followed by three quick beats. Over and over, hypnotically.

  I broke the spell by trying other combinations that Brian hadn’t played. I followed the first beat with a single, lighter beat. Then I tried it with four quick ones. It was never the same. My senses were confused, not satisfied, and I returned to the first rhythm until I seemed to float upon the sound, with nothing real about me.

  Then, almost of its own accord, the rhythm changed to the quicker, more insistent beat that Brian had played toward the end: BOOM, beat-beat; BOOM, beat-beat. Somehow a call to action, to arms, to war—to love?

  I seemed to become a part of the sound, as Vermilion was a part of it—so that it burned through me, throbbing with every pulse of my blood. In the cool night, I felt unbearably warm, and I flung down the spoon and ran into the outside air.

  On the deck there was no wind. The coolness of the mountains was on my face, relieving the heat of my blood a little. Mushroom lamps shed a dim radiance on the terrace. Lamps that probably burned all night. In the darkness against the terrace rail I saw another light—a tiny red glow that could only be the end of a cigarette. I had never seen Rick smoke, but I knew he stood there now, staring up at dark rock shapes, unable to sleep, as I too could not sleep.

  Vermilion glittered in my mind, urging, pushing. This time I was strong enough to erase her—to wipe her out of my consciousness completely. This choice was mine, and only mine.

  I stood for a moment longer, watching, while the echo of Brian’s drum thudded through me. Then I ran inside to pull on a coat and hurried across the bridge in my slippers. He heard me coming and turned. And the glow of his cigarette guided me as I ran directly into his arms. The last I saw of the glow was when he dropped the cigarette to the tiles.

  He held me with the hunger of long emptiness, and yet with a touch that was gentle and tender. When he kissed me I knew that nothing else mattered. Together we crossed to the guesthouse, and at the end of the bridge he stopped, looking up at the sky.

  Air that had seemed quiet a moment before rustled through the canyon and there was a stirring of leaves, a sighing.

  “The wind comes up at dawn,” Rick said. “You can see the sky is lightening a little.”

  I understood. He was giving me time to draw back before it all became irrevocable. Except that it was already too late for that. I put my hand on his arm and drew him toward the open door.

&n
bsp; 8

  When I woke up it was bright morning and Rick was gone. I had a faint, sweet memory of his kissing me one last time and then slipping away before the house should waken.

  I’d slept deeply until nine o’clock, when I’d come wide awake with all my memories happy ones. For a little while longer as I bathed and dressed, reality could be held away. All the questions, all the insurmountable problems, could wait while I moved about bemused, reliving the lovely hours of the night. Vermilion was there again, ready to gloat, but I could laugh at her. She’d had nothing to do with last night.

  I’d never dreamed that a man with so much darkness in him could be so loving, so careful of me. Yet so exciting. And of course he was all I’d ever wanted. Afterward, I lay in his arms with my head in the hollow of his shoulder, and we’d talked for a long while, not wanting to waste in sleep the precious moments of getting to know each other. Sometimes we’d even laughed a little—as we’d done when I was very young. Strange to find there was still the possibility of laughter in our lives.

  Today on the drive to Flagstaff I would be alone with him for as long as we were gone, and this I looked forward to. I didn’t want to think of Jed, or about what Orva had told me, or of Sybil’s vindictiveness last night. I didn’t want to remember my father’s carving left on the doorstep—because someone knew it would frighten Sybil? Yet as I came more fully awake, everything crowded back and the doubting began.

  Rick and I could not easily have each other, and I wouldn’t know until I saw him again how he would feel by daylight about what had begun so recklessly on the terrace last night. For the first time the other side of the coin became all too clear in my mind. Had we allowed Sybil to goad us into each other’s arms too soon, and might this not drive us apart?

  As I dressed I took special care, wanting to please Rick, wanting him to like me. My silk blouse was the color of a poinsettia, and I tucked it into slim-tailored beige slacks. Then I tied back my dark hair that was so unlike Sybil’s, with a ribbon of the same poinsettia shade, and was ready. Clothes, as always, were my armor.