by Jean Andrews
I stopped at a booth and asked for a pen and a piece of paper and wrote, “Levade, you were phenomenal! Huge congratulations! Love, Taylor” I included my cell-phone number. A young boy in jeans and boots was watching me, and I said, “You see that woman over there who just won the big trophy? Would you take this note to her?” I handed him a ten-dollar bill for his effort. He headed in her direction, and I headed for my car. I hung around for half an hour in the parking area, hoping she might call, but she didn’t.
I drove back to Muskie so thrilled that I’d seen Levade ride and so upset that another woman had her arm around her, perhaps at this very minute! I tried to remain calm and rational—being jealous was ridiculous—focusing on Levade’s incredible performance. Who would ever have known that the woman with the white horse on the Point was a talented equestrian? Most of the people in Muskie had written her off as odd, which in fact she appeared to be. But she’s also much more. And who is that fucking woman who had her arm around her?
* * *
Physical chemistry is a strange phenomenon. It’s as if your body no longer belongs to you, but is owned by someone else who calls it like a siren, day and night, never letting up and keeping you in a state of euphoria and unrest, alternating with anxiety and irritability.
August was drawing to a close. Levade hadn’t returned, and I couldn’t stay away. I walked to the Point almost daily and was always disheartened because I saw no sign of her. Why would she be staying in Pine City? Or had she driven there from Duluth for her meeting with Frank? Should I go back and try to find her?
On this particular, sunny morning, I ran into Sheriff Sam out on the Point. He had Levade’s dogs with him.
“Noticed you come over here quite a bit,” he said by way of greeting and tipped his cowboy hat. I liked the fact that he was his own man and chose a cowboy hat over a Northwood’s ball cap.
“It’s pretty over here” was the best I could muster.
“I sometimes trailer Alizar for her, feed him his grain when she’s not here, and check on him, put him in at night. If they’re gone, then I kind of use that time to get things in shape. Lotta horse manure in these parts,” he said, kicking pine needles out of his way unnecessarily.
“You can say that again,” and I figured Sam knew I was referencing the human kind. “I bet her horse misses her when she’s not here,” I said, meaning I did. “And you take care of her dogs too.”
“Charlie and Duke are my dogs. When she’s out here, I have these two stay with her, just in case.” Just in case seemed to include everything Sam feared and couldn’t talk about. “Besides, I got six more at home.” He laughed, and it dawned on me that Sam had an almost familial fondness for Levade that went beyond the role of caretaker.
“Lots of pretty places to walk…” He seemed to want a better answer about what I was doing there.
“None where I might get lucky and run into a beautiful white horse, but unfortunately not today.” I kept my eyes on the ground like I’d found something interesting to look at. “So how did you get this assignment?”
“I’ve known Levade’s family for forty years. When I was a young man, Angelique befriended me. That’s how I knew Levade, who was just a kid herself, and everywhere we went, Angelique would make me promise that I’d take care of her. She was always into something.” He laughed, obviously enjoying the memories. “Anyway, Levade knows her horse is safe if I’m keeping everything shipshape for him. There’s a six-stall barn out back that her aunt used to keep her horses in, but nowadays I store the hay there, plus the tractor and some tack. Lock it all up, of course. And her aunt created a big dirt arena back there, where she worked her horses, so I keep that cleared and dragged for Levade and Alizar.”
“Will Alizar be coming back here?”
“I sure hope so.” He seemed surprised I would ask.
“Sam, tell me about Frank. I just can’t seem to get what happened to his wife out of my mind.”
“Not much to tell really. It’s all just out there in the open.”
“You mean that a killer roams free and everybody knows about him? I’m sure you know a lot more than that.”
Sam puffed his cheeks up and then slowly let the air out, deflated like a balloon after the party. “Could have been an accident. He took her hunting, and Dolores was an animal lover. He said he went to shoot a wolf, and she shouted ‘no,’ and she jumped in front of the animal just as he pulled the trigger. Frank’s so damned odd, it’s hard to know how much is kinky and how much is killer.”
“Levade seems to be afraid of him and wants me to stay away from him.”
“That’s not bad advice.” His voice was upbeat. “Gotta get to work. See you on my next round.” Sam strode off, climbed into his truck, and drove away.
“Alizar.” I spoke his name into the air as if he were here. “Talk to me. Levade said you communicate. Tell me what’s going on. I wouldn’t tell this to anyone else, Alizar, but I miss her terribly.”
A breeze blew in off the lake and shook the pine boughs overhead. The needles quivered and rustled like the voluminous taffeta skirt of a woman who couldn’t quite get settled in her chair. Then a powerful gust of wind followed, blowing my hair into my eyes. Storms blew up quickly on the lake, so I decided I’d better get back home.
As I walked by the long porch, the card tucked into the screen blew off. I don’t know why I chased it, but I couldn’t bear to have anything she’d touched be lost. I snatched it off the ground and turned it over in my hand. On the backside, she’d written, “Late Saturday.” The L looked like the L on the postcard at my cabin. I was overjoyed to know that’s when she would be back. I glanced up at the sky, thanking someone, or something, for the encouragement.
* * *
I was waiting on the porch when Levade returned. She jumped slightly, obviously startled to see me.
“How did you know I was coming back tonight?” She looked weary and spoke absently, as if not mentally present but preoccupied with thoughts of something else.
“I found your note.”
She examined the card and the writing that said “Saturday Late,” and smiled. “This side isn’t my handwriting.”
That registered as a strange thing to say, but all that mattered was her presence. She was back.
“I drove to Duluth and watched you perform. You were absolutely brilliant!”
“I got your note, and it meant a lot. I thought you might come over.”
You could have called me, and I would have been there in a heartbeat. Why didn’t you call me? “I didn’t want to interrupt. I also thought I might be a little difficult to explain to your horse crowd…like the tall woman who put her arm around you and walked you to the concession stand and then took you out for dinner.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Ah, the jealous type.”
“That has not been my trademark. You were spectacular! Why didn’t you tell me you were competing? I had to find out about the show in the frozen-food section at Muskie Market, for God’s sake,” I teased.
She smiled and shrugged. “I don’t really like for anyone to know where I am.”
“You mean Frank. Threatening Alizar was so horrible and unthinkable. Would he really do something like that to such a beautiful animal?”
“To the animal I love…to the people I love.”
“Knowing that, why would you even meet with him at the coffee shop?”
“I told you my mother died. I was in town to sort out some of her things. I ran into Frank on the street, and he said he had something important to tell me.” She sounded a bit irritable.
I wanted to believe her, but I didn’t. She’s seeing someone, maybe the equestrian woman in Duluth, I thought. Why not? We’re not “seeing” each other. In fact, this moment felt awkward, as if I’d arrived when she had other plans or something else to do.
“Is Sasquatch doing okay? Do you want me to take him?” she asked.
“No, he’s fine. He’s safe with me. He’s actually
good company.” I knew it was crazy, but I felt that if I had her cat, I had a connection to her, and I didn’t want to lose that connection.
After an awkward pause, she finally said, “Do you want to come in?”
Her question had an obligatory tone that seemed to say, since you won’t leave, would you like to come in.
I’ve spent too long feeling bad about relationships, I thought. I’m not going to continue doing it. I have more pride than that. She may be a brilliant horsewoman, but I make a living in the toughest city in the world. I need to get a grip here.
“Actually, no. I just wanted to say I won’t be available much. I’m sorry for the loss of my gender-compass. It’s clear that I’m straight and—”
“No one’s anything—straight, gay, bi, whatever.” She sounded like she was schooling a child,
“Well, I know what I am.”
“In another place and time, I would show you what you are,” she said, and in her eyes, I saw a longing, clearly a desire, yet a sadness, and I felt she had made a decision to pull away from me. “Good night, Taylor.” She spoke quietly and went inside.
That non-breathing, fuzzy-headed, weak-kneed feeling washed over me. I turned to walk home just as a car pulled into her drive.
I hate spying. Yet I stepped behind a large tree, hidden by its girth. It was Casey, the young girl from the drugstore. My mind raced. Was Levade seeing young girls? After all, Casey said she thinks Levade is hot. That very thought made me think less of myself. This kind of insane behavior is exactly why I need to move along, get completely away from this woman.
Skinny and nervous, Casey walked onto the porch steps, looking back over her shoulder as if demons were following her. She sat down at a small table, and Levade joined her, their heads inclined toward one another as if they were having a secret conversation. Levade lit three candles, and the glow cast an eerie shadow over their faces. After several minutes, Levade took out her tarot deck, and they bent their heads once again over the table as they whispered, staring at the cards.
After she’d finished the reading, Levade made a rapid motion with her hands as if dusting them off in the air. Casey reached into her pocket, I assumed to pay Levade, but it appeared she handed her something instead, something small. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I hoped it wasn’t some personal girl-crush gift. Casey left hurriedly, and a tiny part of me was glad Levade hadn’t turned her hand over and touched her palm, as she had mine.
Sass was waiting for me when I got home. He smacked up against me, and it felt good to have someone who was truly glad to see me and wanted to sleep with me, even if he was shedding.
Chapter Fifteen
The next evening, Judith the law professor stopped by the cabin to see if I’d be interested in a night-time swim, making good on her assertion that we needed more fun in our lives. She was wearing blue capri pants and a tight blue T-shirt and carrying what looked like scotch and water in a drink glass.
Apparently sensing my trepidation, she said, “I haven’t taken a moonlight swim since I was a kid, but I know where all the sandbars and drop-offs are, so you’ll be perfectly safe.”
“I didn’t bring a suit,” I said.
“Even better! We’ll skinny-dip. Haven’t done that since my high school graduation.” She slurred the word skinny, and that was enough to make me worry that she might try to swim drunk. For a split second I envisioned Marney staring out her cabin window at naked Judith lying on the shore, as I performed CPR on her, my butt-naked, skinny-dipping ass in the air. “Meet me down on our dock at midnight. Are you game?”
I snapped back to reality. “Sure.” I was already deciding if a pair of shorts and a T-shirt would work as a makeshift swimsuit. I could always say I was cold.
* * *
I locked the cabin, hid the key in the screen door, and walked down to the lake. Judith was in the water at the end of the dock paddling around when I arrived, which I thought was incredibly brave. What if I hadn’t shown up and she dog-paddled to death? What if she bumped into bloated tourist bodies bobbing around in the dark? What if a sixty-five-pound muskie bit off her toes, mistaking them for minnows? Clearly, I wasn’t the adventurous type, but I made up for it with a bizarre imagination.
“You’re here!” she called out as I dumped my rubber flip-flops and started to wade into the water. “No, you don’t! I’m out here buck naked, and I’m not swimming with a fully clothed person. Shrug the shorts.”
I slung the towel over my shoulder toga style and slipped my shorts off behind the towel, then wrapped it around my waist and yanked my shirt off, tossing shirt and towel onto the beach only after I was sitting in the cold, shallow water. I had always been shy about my body, for no rational reason. Years without positive feedback, I thought. But I could give myself positive feedback.
“Are you afraid of leeches?” Judith laughed. “I wouldn’t put my bare derriere on that clay in the dark.”
“Ahhhh! I forgot.” I dove out into deeper water to the harder sandy bottom and away from what kids used to call bloodsuckers. They were black or dark brown, and could be eight inches long and an inch wide, or they could be very tiny and hide in your bathing suit. Either way they “leeched” onto you like a suction cup. When pried off, they felt disgustingly gelatinous and left a small bruise where they’d attempted to suck blood. I was freaked by them as a child, and even more so as an adult.
I was no sooner out in the lake, flopping around naked, than a long, slender, black leech swam by. I shrieked and swam toward Judith, who caught me mid-stroke. “Well, I have worse news for you,” she said, clutching my waist and holding me vertically in the water as we both dog-paddled. “You have one on your arm.” I began thrashing around like a spastic chicken as Judith laughed. “Here, here. Settle down for a minute, and I’ll pull it off.” I closed my eyes and paddled, shivering in the cold water, as she plucked the leech off my arm and tossed it farther out into the lake.
“I’ve always loved Minnesota because there are no snakes, but I don’t remember this many leeches when I used to swim here. I wish I’d brought an inner tube so I could get my legs out of the water.”
“You’re drawing them to you because you’re afraid of them.” She brushed against my chest and bent her knee, sliding it up between my legs, nesting it in my pubic hair and suspending me in the water. “You okay now?”
“I think my midnight swim is over.”
“Too bad. I was kind of enjoying it. You have a very nice body,” she said, like someone assessing a car. “Don’t be so shy! Show it off.”
“Thanks.” I clambered onto the shore. As I was toweling off and yanking on my shorts, I caught a glimpse of a figure in white on the dock on the Point, facing our direction. My heart raced.
“I think I’ll call it a night. Thanks for the leech rescue.”
“I’ll think of something more fun we can do. Take care.”
I yanked on my T-shirt and flip-flops and covertly made my way through the woods to the Point, but the porch lights were out now, and I didn’t see a sign of anyone.
Then I heard a scuffling sound inside and a male voice arguing with Levade. She opened the door and forcefully pushed the man out of her cabin. Small, tough, and bald as a pipe post, he tumbled down the front steps, and the dogs were on him in an instant, snarling and threatening to tear him apart, as he lay on the ground. He looked like the man with Frank on the island, the night I had dinner there with Levade.
“Don’t ever rifle through my belongings again, Tony, and stay away from my cabin.” She signaled the dogs to let him up.
Maybe there’s a reason for Gus’s trash talk in the tavern. Maybe Levade is somehow involved with everybody on the lake. I wanted to approach her and ask what was going on, but she’d already made me feel unwelcome, and this didn’t seem like a moment that would change that. Besides, she seemed to be in control of her life, throwing a full-grown man out of her house. I watched Tony get in his truck and drive off. Levade, the two dogs trailing he
r, went back inside, closed the door, and turned off the lights. Just the act of watching her leave made me sad. She’s a complicated woman, I thought. There’s just something about her—alone and so strong willed, fearless and outspoken, sexual and aloof, and I’m drawn to her and can’t seem to help myself.
* * *
As I started back through the woods, the wind picked up. I saw someone in the shadows on the path and stopped, my heart rate increasing. Frank appeared out of the dark, all in black with a hunting knife strapped to his belt. His mere presence completely terrified me.
“What are you doing out here this late at night?” he asked, obviously surprised to see me. I had a feeling his presence in the woods meant he was waiting for Tony. Otherwise his appearance was too coincidental, since he didn’t live on the cove.
“Actually, what I’m doing is nobody’s business,” I said calmly.
“It is if you’re sniffing around Levade’s cabin.” It was a different Frank. Not the man who gave expert tours, or the jovial fellow at the bear pits, but an angry man with an undercurrent of hatred, over what I had no idea. “What were you hoping to get there?” he asked, twitching and menacing, like he was working up to something he couldn’t control. “Maybe this, huh?” He held my neck with his hand so he could kiss me. We were almost the same height, but he clearly outmuscled me.
“Get your hands off me!” I pulled back, and that response seemed to embolden him. I turned to run, and he grabbed my ankle, snagging me like a trip wire and forcing me to the ground, rolling me onto my back, and trying to rip my shorts off. My mind raced. This is a man who’s capable of wrestling a huge animal to its death.
He held me by the throat with his left hand as he unzipped his pants with his right, pulled out his cock, and attempted to shove it into me. I screamed and fought back, scratching, clawing, and beating at his crotch, fighting with what little air I had left, as we tumbled across the forest floor.