He looks over his shoulder. “I don’t know. I thought she was right with me.”
I wait until I can’t hold my breath any longer, which in my agitated state, isn’t very long. I mutter something about staying put, pull the mace gun from the holster and charge in. When I come around the corner I see nothing but more huge rocks and a narrow passageway. I rush forward and then turn into an area in the middle of which are standing Becky and Aileen. Becky’s back is to me, the backpack we fought over hanging off her shoulder, her hand reaching out as though to touch Aileen, although she doesn’t.
“What are you doing?” Aileen blurts and then steps away. “No! Get out!”
Becky withdraws her hand, but says nothing. Images suddenly fill my mind; images that I can’t get my inner eye to understand, at least not at first. They are emanating from Aileen.
“Get out of here!” The low resonance of Aileen’s voice gives a higher definition to the images. She turns and rushes out.
“Holy shit to hell!” Becky says to no one. I know what her words are referring to and I have the urge to utter my version as well. Becky turns around. Her eyes meet mine and for a few brief, silent seconds, we confirm for each other that we saw the same thing.
Matt is pacing in front of the Rhino like an expectant father waiting on the word of premature twins. “Let’s go,” I say and climb into the ATV.
“We can’t all fit in here!” Becky complains.
“You can sit on my lap,” Matt offers as he climbs in.
“No! I don’t think so.” There’s an odd level of panic in Becky’s voice. As though to justify her reason she adds, “There’s not enough room.”
“Sure there. . .”
“I’ll walk!” She starts down the hill.
“You can’t! There’re cats.”
She turns back. “They’re gone, Matt. Sam has taken them away.”
“What?” He jumps out of the ATV. “Where is Sam? She didn’t come out with you guys?”
Becky’s eyes roll. “Apparently you lost count. Only two of us came out. Sam said that she’d meet us back at the house, which is where I’d like to be right now. Let’s go.”
Matt is yet to be convinced. He looks at the entrance to the rock maze and then at me. “She’s right,” I say. “Sam will be fine. We need to go.”
“I don’t like it,” he stammers. To Becky he says, “Get in. I’ll ride on the back.” With that he climbs onto the box and gets a secure grip. Without response Becky climbs in. I start it and slowly move out. Cognizant of Matt hanging on, I attempt to gently navigate over or around the rough parts, only knocking him off twice. He throws himself back on like a rodeo clown.
Becky displays nothing but a stone face all the way back. I’m hardly stopped next to my Blazer before she is out and speed walking to the front door and into the house. Matt stares after her and says, “What happened in there after I came out? What happened with Sam?”
I have no idea what to tell him; I’m not even sure what it was I saw. “I think you’ll have to ask Sam that question.” I look around half expecting to see her wandering out of the woods with a pack of sabre-toothed cats in her wake, like loyal hunting dogs waiting for orders from their master, or for a meaty bone. Instead all I see is a squirrel skittering up the side of a tree. He stops, jabbers a rapid squirrel complaint, and then dashes out a branch and jumps to the neighboring tree. I turn toward the house. “I need something to drink.”
Reba
I have got to shower, but all I seem to be able to think about is Sam and her buddies, the cats. I pull off my boots and socks and then kick myself out of my smelly jeans and underwear. Who the hell is she? More precisely, what the hell is she? I shed my shirt and bra and remain sitting on the floor. Can I believe what I see in someone’s mind? There is no rule that says that we can only speak lies, that we can only think truths. But, on the other hand, I am not necessarily seeing her conscious thoughts, but her subconscious memories. Can our memories create lies?
Maybe what I saw was her memory of a movie I’d seen.
No. Dad saw it too, at the same time I did. That’s confirmation . . . of something.
The bathroom is down the hall. I peek out the door, see no one, hear no one, and then run into the bathroom. I turn on the light and instantly freeze at the image in the mirror. A face belonging to someone who spent the day being the target of a mud-throwing frenzy looks back at me; or maybe it was a deer-shit-throwing frenzy. Something tries to rise up into my throat as I quickly turn on the shower and impatiently pace while the water comes to temperature. When I am finally in the water, I flood my hair and face and grab whatever soaps and shampoos I can get my hands on and wash my entire body at least three times. When I’m done I stand in the hot water until I find it necessary to wash my hair one more time. Once rinsed I force my eyes open against the spray just in case there is any leftover deer shit hiding away in there somewhere. Wrapped in a towel, with a second as a turbine around my hair, I sprint back to the guestroom where I become terribly aware of one thing. All of my clothes are in my car, except for the dirty heap lying on the floor. I’d rather burn them than put them back on.
“Damn!” I slip my feet into my boots, which I probably need to wash as well, and then with my laces trailing behind me and wearing nothing but a couple of towels, I quietly go down the stairs and out the front door. The truck that was previously hiding my car is gone, and I don’t see Dad or Matt anywhere. The ATV is still sitting where Dad parked it. I go past it and open the back door of my car.
I don’t care about the mess I’m making in the backseat as I dig for something to wear. I pick out my 26th Annual Dallas Mustang Swim Classic t-shirt, matching shorts, what appears to be clean underwear, sandals, and my toiletry bag. With everything bundled in my arms, I kick the door closed and look around. I don’t see either of them. They’re probably in Sam’s huge living room drinking a beer and laughing at me. Is Matt old enough to drink? Doesn’t matter. That’s what guys do to stress down from a hard day.
I’m two steps from the car before I realize that the corner of the towel is caught in the door. I suddenly find myself hanging onto it under one arm, totally exposed except for the bundle of clothes held tightly against my chest. “Shit, shit, shit to hell!” I scream as I throw the clothes onto the top of the car and extract the towel. For about five second I’m buck naked, standing out in the open for anyone and everyone to see. Once I have the towel wrapped around me again I expect to find Dad and Matt standing by the front door laughing at me. They’re not. I recover my dignity and march up to the door. As I open the door I look back and scan the yard, the trees and then the garage. Just inside the open garage door, in the darkened interior, is the fuzzy shape of Matt leaning against a truck as though he’s been there for sometime contemplating the hot Montana afternoon, and my bare bottom. What the hell. He’s already seen me pee. As gracefully as I can I go in and shut the door as if it’s no big deal and then head up the stairs. “Shit, shit, shit! Damn, damn, damn, all the way to hell and back a million times!”
“Becky?”
I turn around. Dad is standing at the top of the stairs that lead down into the living room. “What!”
“Just wondering what was wrong.”
“Nothing, Dad. There’s not a damn thing wrong. I just had to go out to my car like this to get clothes.”
“You’re covered. What’s the big deal?”
I feel blood rising into my face. “No big deal. No big . . .” I want to say the f-word. I bite my tongue until it hurts. “. . .deal at all.” I continue up to the guestroom where I throw myself onto the bed and then silently scream at the ceiling.
Zach
What’s up with Becky? She had a life changing event with a bunch of sabre-toothed cats and suddenly she’s more concerned about going outside in a towel. She’s turning into her mother—impossible to understand, and totally unpredictable.
I’m standing in the foyer with three-quarters of a can of beer, the f
irst quarter weighing heavy on my stomach. I return to the kitchen and dispose of the contents and the can. When we came in Matt grabbed a beer and the portable phone and went back out. I go looking for him.
Outside, it is hot and eerily quiet. I nervously hug close to the house and automobiles, watching for cat-eyes and huge teeth. Matt is just inside the garage leaning against a Blazer not too much unlike my rental. A crushed beer can lies at his feet. “Any sign of her, yet?”
His grin makes no sense. “If you mean Sam, no.”
I try to read him but he is of the type with a tight, nearly invisible, aura. He keeps his emotions close. I follow his eyes to Becky’s car. Did he get a kick out of her running around in just a towel? I look at him. The grin disappears and he turns away but he is unable to suppress a smile. I have a parental urge to wipe it off. “How well do you know Sam?”
His face turns serious. “Not very well. She’s been around a while but I haven’t had dealings with her. She’s not in my age bracket.”
“I’m not asking if you dated her. What do you see her as? What does she do?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “There’re rumors. Basically, until today, I figured she was just a rich hermit. I had thought that what Dad was saying was bullshit, the old Indian story-telling side of him getting carried away. I came to these meetings just for fun.”
“What was he saying? That a spirit has come back with the cat with great white teeth to take back the forest, and that Sam is that spirit?”
“Something like that.”
“You say, ‘until today.’ What happened?”
He looks around as though wondering what he did with his beer. He spots the can lying on the garage floor in front of him. “When Sam came into the rocks, she pointed at the cats and they turned around and ran out. She had no fear. It was as though she was faced with no more of a challenge than herding out a couple of domesticated sheep.” He pushes himself erect and kicks the can. “Her domesticated sheep. I’m still not sure about being a spirit—that’s a bit of a reach—but I know for sure that she’s weird. Maybe she’s able to throw off some kind of vibes, or odor, that they don’t like. Who really knows?”
“Maybe she has a way of communicating with them,” I inject.
“Sure, and during a full moon she turns into a sabre-toothed cat and roams the countryside in search of tasty venison.” He looks at me, expecting me to laugh. “That’s a joke,” he says.
“I know.” From what Becky and I saw, he may not be far off the mark. “Did she say anything when she came in to where you were in the rocks?”
“No.” He thinks for a minute. “Yes. She said to us, ‘Get out now.’”
“She didn’t say anything to the cats?”
“Not a word. She pointed at them and they dutifully ran out.”
The phone is lying on the hood of the truck. “I take it you called your dad.”
“Yeah. Had to leave a voice message. He’s probably ass deep in something having to do with the construction.”
I sense a definite shift in his voice. “What did you tell him?”
“That we had a run-in with a couple of cats, that we’re okay.”
I nod my head and we remain silent for a time, looking out into the yard and the trees beyond. Then he says, “Who is Aileen?”
It takes me only a few seconds to realize that he probably got the name from Becky, and she got it in her mind-reading frenzy on Sam. I ask anyway. “Where did you get that name?”
“From Reba. She said she read it in your . . .”
“She read it in my what?” The only place that name is written down is in my . . .
“Journal. She was reading your journal on her computer.”
My anger rises before I grab it and wrestle it down. She already knows about our sexual interlude. What difference does it make? “What did she say about it?”
“That Aileen Bravelli is Sam’s real name; that you knew each other a long time ago.”
My silence is my confirmation. Sam’s secret is out and there’s no way I can pull it back. I can only attempt some damage control. “Who Sam was is in the past and it’d do no one any good to make it known beyond you, me and Becky, but it could harm Sam.”
He appears to chew on that thought for a bit.
“Aileen Bravelli is dead,” I add. “For Sam’s sake, leave it that way. You owe it to her.”
“How do I owe it to her?”
“It appears to me that she saved your life.”
He jams his hands into his pockets and leans back against the truck. “Yeah, but she’s weird."
“And she’d appreciated it if that’s all you ever say about her. She’s a weird, rich hermit.”
“Sure.” He pulls his hat off, pushes his long hair back and then replaces the hat. “Tell me, Mister Price; how did Aileen Bravelli survive after being carried off by a sabre-toothed cat?”
How much did Becky learn from that brief psychic connection?
"Let me make my point again . . .”
He holds up his hand. “I got your point.”
I follow his eyes to something in the yard. Becky is bent over in the backseat of her car, her posterior presented for Matt’s pleasure, whether she’s aware of it or not. “She’s only seventeen,” I say, as though it would make any difference to a twenty-year old hot-blooded male.
He drags his eyes away from her. “I Know. Don’t worry. I’m not planning on shagging your daughter.”
I consider taking the three steps and picking him up by his “Woodstock +40-2” t-shirt and pounding some respect into him. Woodstock was my parents’ generation, not his. He also has no right to talk to me that way. I don’t want to know who he’s planning or not planning to shag, especially if it’s my daughter, and I don’t like the way the kids today have adopted the word shag from the British. It doesn’t sound the same without the accent.
He holds my eye contact for some time and then looks away. “Sorry,” he says.
Becky shuts the door and then walks over to us. “The starter is out on my car again,” she announces to me.
“How do you know it’s the starter?”
“I guess I don’t. It’s making that clicky sound.”
“Battery,” Matt says.
Becky doesn’t look at him, or acknowledge his comment.
“Probably,” I say.
“You got jumper cables,” he asks Becky.
She looks toward the car. “In the trunk.”
“Keys?”
“In the ignition.”
“Your keys, Mister Price? I’ll jump it from that.”
I throw them to him and he takes off. During the time it takes Matt to get the Blazer moved into position, Becky stares off in the distance. He opens the hood and she says, “I’m going home.”
“When are you leaving?”
“As soon as he gets it started.”
“What’re you going to do the first time you turn it off and it doesn’t start again?”
“I won’t turn it off.”
I refuse to entertain the comment.
“I’ll only turn it off at gas stations. There’s always someone around to help me jump it.”
“You also have to sleep.”
“I’ll leave it running.”
“No! First of all people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning that way. Second of all, if I have any say in it—which I should because you’re only seventeen—it’s not safe for you to be spending any amount of time sleeping at a rest stop. We’ll take your car into Kalispell and get the battery and the alternator checked in the morning. If it’s just the battery, we can replace it and then you can take right off. If it’s something else, you can leave when repairs are done. There are two double beds in my motel room so you can stay with me tonight. I’ll give you money for motels on the way home.”
She considers it for a moment and then says, “Okay.”
I’ve actually decided that we’ll drive back together, but I’m hoping she comes up with that
idea herself. Matt gets in her car but nothing happens, except for the clicking. He gets out and starts fooling with the jumper cables. I’m wondering how corroded her battery terminals are and feel guilty because I haven’t taught her anything about preventive maintenance. She bought it from a friend who received something newer for Christmas. Becky always had friends richer than her. It seemed at first that she got a good deal on the car. We later discovered it wasn’t so good. Things started breaking down. I’m surprised it made it all the way to Montana. I suddenly feel guilty about a lot of things. I never helped her buy it. I never even looked at it. I never helped her with repairs, although I think Tanya did. I never approved of the $199.00 backpack, although I paid for it. I cheated on her mother.
The car starts. Matt disconnects and puts away the cables. He moves the Blazer and shuts it off.
“What about Aileen?” Becky says. She’s looking directly at me now.
The showdown.
The truth.
“Her name is Samantha,” I say. “What happened eight years ago is not only water under the bridge but water that’s passed into the ocean. It is history that your mother and I have long ago dealt with. Neither of us should be made to have to deal with it again.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to find you. I had no idea Aileen was still alive. I was floored when I saw the two of you together this morning.” Matt walks up and hands me my keys. “Thanks,” I say.
“Thank you,” Becky says, but still makes no eye contact with him.
An awkward silence emerges. We all stare at the trailhead where we expect Sam to appear; not at all sure of what we’ll see when she does. . . if she does.
Chapter 32
An hour has passed. Brian called back and said he was on his way. Aileen hasn’t appeared. Matt and I are waiting on the porch steps, the sun is still a ways from touching the top of the trees. It is starting to beat hot on my face. Becky is inside. I stand to climb the couple of steps and sit in one of the wicker chairs when I hear a truck. Brian’s Silverado is barreling down the hill. A cloud of dust billows up in his sliding stop and then hangs in the dead air as he steps into it and rushes up to us. He slows down as he gets closer, pleased to see that his son really is okay. I have a feeling that if I wasn’t sitting there he’d be like a mother, touching and feeling him, hugging him, needing the physical contact to ensure that his son is in no way damaged. He places his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Quite a scare,” he says.
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