They had perched on the phone wires strung along the county road behind her, an orderly row of them, like children lined up waiting for the school cafeteria to open. “She’s all yours,” Diana called to the crows as she shifted into reverse and slowly backed down the ramp. “Just give me half a minute.”
She’d backed almost the whole way back to the county road before a pickup turned into the ramp and came to a stop behind her, blocking the way out. She rolled down her window and called to the driver, “There’s a dead deer blocking the road.” In reply, the driver honked his horn.
She had to get out of the car and walk back to the pickup, a slate blue Dodge Ram. The driver took his time stubbing out his cigarette before he rolled down the window, releasing a gust of stale smoke into the pure winter air. “What’s the problem?” he asked, a gigantic, pockmarked farmer in a grimy red-and-black plaid jacket with a matching grimy cap. “You break down?”
“No. There’s a deer blocking the ramp. It’s right in the middle of the road.”
“A deer? Can’t you pull it off to one side?”
“It’s a large doe. And all bloody.”
“Can’t be that large.”
“If you’ll let me back out of here, you can deal with the matter any way you want. I’m not dressed to cope with a bleeding carcass.”
“Whatever you say.” He rolled up his window and let the pickup roll back to the road, backing into the eastbound lane. Diana, therefore, had to back up into the other lane, which set her facing the wrong direction. Or did it? She’d best check the roadmap in the glove compartment.
While she did that, the pickup headed up to the ramp, stopping where she’d been stopped and scattering the crows a second time. The driver got out and squatted down beside the deer so that only his visored cap was visible above the snowbank, one glint of red among the misty grays.
According to the map, she could drive west for two miles or so and turn onto Crow Wing Road, which paralleled 371 to the next entrance twenty miles south. Of course, it might be easier just to wait until Paul Bunyan cleared the deer’s carcass off the road, but that idea grated against Diana’s sense of independence. She did not like men tipping their hats to her, or opening doors she could open for herself, and this seemed to be in the same category.
In any case, Paul Bunyan was not just clearing the road. He had lifted the deer by its hindquarters and was dragging it to the back of his pickup. The crows, it seemed, would have to look elsewhere for their dinner. Diana was sure she was witnessing some kind of illegal, even obscene, act and did not stay to see more.
The road beyond the ramp was one she’d never driven and not at all the beeline indicated by the map, even though the land was flat on either side—a marsh to the right with rotted stumps and cattails penetrating the snow; to the left a shallow scrim of scrubby pines masking, in all likelihood, another dismal swamp. She punched the trip odometer again and, after a mile and a half, slowed down to thirty-five so as not to miss the turnoff onto Crow Wing Road.
The Camry fishtailed on the icy gravel road, not dangerously but enough to make her uneasy. The treads on the back tires were low, and if Crow Wing Road was anything like this one… Then, as she approached another bend of the road, she thought she saw something behind her, only a shadow at the edge of the rearview mirror, and only for a moment. As the road curved, the shadow vanished from the mirror, but there was nothing worse, on a road like this, than to be tailgated by someone wanting to go faster. She increased her speed, but even so, when the car came into view again it was much closer, and worse than that she could see it was the blue Ram pickup. Was he following her? No, surely not. He had the carcass in the bed of the truck, so he wouldn’t want to be seen on the highway. He was returning home, that was the logical explanation. But logical or not, she’d been spooked, and she increased her speed to fifty.
And then she saw the unmarked turnoff ahead and braked, but not in time, for as she made the turn, too fast, the Camry did a full one-eighty spin, and the car plowed backward through the snow mounded on the left side of the road and over the shoulder.
There was a jolt and then, to her horror, the airbag inflated and she was pinioned to the seat. She tried to push it to the side, but it pushed right back, all but immobilizing her. And she did not know how to deflate it. This had never happened to her before.
She heard the pickup come to a stop in front of her and felt relief, humiliation, and dread, all in a single rush of emotion. The driver knocked at the side window and asked, “Can you open your door? It’s locked.”
She twisted her left arm around until she could lift the latch. Then, at his bidding, she released the seat belt, and he was able to push the bag to the side till she could wriggle out of the seat.
“You okay?” he asked.
She was shattered. But she said, “I’m fine. I mean, I don’t think I’ve been hurt.”
“That’s good to hear. But it looks like you’ve got a flat. The left rear tire. You hit that pothole. Probably a lucky thing. It kept you from going over the shoulder with both wheels. And maybe rolling over.”
“I’ve got a flat? God damn.”
“Yeah, wherever you was headed, you won’t be getting there tonight.”
“Well, I guess I should be thankful it’s nothing worse. Thank you. That airbag… I panicked.”
“Hey, anyone would. You must be Carl Kellog’s sister-in-law.”
Diana’s alarm bells went off. “How did you know that?”
“I work with Carl at the Ravensburg lockup. Fact, we carpool together, so I been in the backseat of your car three or four times. And I’ll tell you, there ain’t much legroom for someone like me. I’m Tommy W., by the way.” He pulled his sheepskin glove off his right hand and held it out.
She looked uncertainly at his huge hand, raw with cold, the knuckles swollen. Then she realized he intended a handshake. She took off her own glove, accepted his hand, as cold as her own, and numbly shook it.
“It is cold,” he said. “Tell you what. I live just half a mile down Crow Wing. I can tow you there myself, and if you don’t mind, I can change your flat myself, too.”
“There’s no need to do that. I can phone Ruben at the Mobil station. Triple-A will pay for it.”
“Well, yeah. But I’d rather not have Ruben see what’s in the pickup. He’s a deputy constable, and no buddy of mine. I can have you back on the road sooner than him. If that’s okay with you. Where were you heading anyhow?”
“Down to the Cities.”
“Well, I wouldn’t advise that tonight. It’ll be dark before you hit 371, and you must be kind of shaken. That’s up to you, of course. Anyhow, the first order of business is haul you out of here before there’s another accident. Right?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I done this plenty times before. I got chains and rope, and you facing in the wrong direction actually makes it easier. Go have a seat in the pickup and let me take care of this. Okay?”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Mr… W?”
He laughed. “Call me Tommy.”
19
“Here,” said Tommy, sweeping a tangle of clean laundry from the plush recliner facing the TV and depositing it on the threadbare loveseat beside it, already piled with newspapers and magazines. “Have a seat. The phone’s over there if you need to make a local call. But if you want to call someone in the Cities, I’d appreciate you calling collect.”
Diana had been known to ask the same thing of visiting strangers, so she could not very well take umbrage. The man was acting like a genuine Good Samaritan, and if his cabin was a chamber of horrors, that was none of her business.
“I got to go out and bleed that carcass before it freezes. Shouldn’t take long. If you want some coffee, there’s a pot on the stove that might have some left in it.”
She nodded acknowledgment and sank into the recliner without removing her coat. The cabin was not that warm. �
��Thank you. I’ll just rest a moment.”
Outside the huge black German shepherd was still barking. It hadn’t let up for a moment since the pickup, with her Camry behind it, had pulled into the blacktop driveway. Though it was less a driveway than a small parking lot. Typical.
“Beast!” the man yelled from the back doorway. “Shut the fuck up!” The dog went on barking, and the man yelling. It was demented pedagogy. You can’t yell at children to make them quiet, and the same surely held true for dogs. Finally, a loud thwack silenced the dog. Momentarily.
She closed her eyes so as not to have to be aware of her surroundings, but when the dog began again, she knew there was no way she could compose herself in such a situation.
If you ignored the guns (four of them) in the rack beside the front door and all the hunting trophies mounted on the pine-paneled walls (fish, ducks, a moosehead, and a variety of antlers) and concentrated on such things as cleanliness and order, Tommy’s cabin was probably an above-average bachelor environment. The pile of clothing on the loveseat was, after all, clean clothing. The floor was swept. The sink she’d passed by in the kitchen area was not full of dishes. There was no noticeable odor, except the lingering aroma of woodsmoke from the stove at the far end of the single open space. The carpentry was all very do-it-yourself, with a staircase up to the sleeping loft constructed of two-by-fours and raw planks, and only a portion of the insulation between the ceiling rafters had not been covered by sheetrock, which meant that the cabin was still in progress and probably of his own construction. This was how all men would live, she supposed, if there were no women. The macho version of Good Housekeeping.
The dialogue outdoors between dog and man shifted in tenor, and a short while later, Tommy came in the back door to ask, “Are you okay with dogs? I mean, do they scare you? The thing is, the deer out there is driving Beast crazy. If I bring her in the house, she’ll behave fine. Like they say, her bark’s worse than her bite. She’ll stay where I tell her, no problem.”
“No. I mean, I’m not afraid of dogs as such. If she doesn’t mind my being here.”
He nodded. “ ‘Preciate it.” He gave a jerk to the chain he was holding, and Beast allowed herself to be led from the kitchen area and across the room to the woodstove.
“Sit!” Tommy commanded, after taking off the chain. Grudgingly, Beast sat.
“Stay!”
Beast laid her large head down on her extended paws without seeming in any way to relax. Her eyes were fixed on Diana, while Diana did her best to keep from constantly glancing in the dog’s direction and advertising her own unease. She tried not to think of the work Tommy would be returning to, while Beast (she imagined) could probably think of nothing else. Diana believed that the intelligence of animals, like that of children, was much greater than they are usually given credit for.
“Hey, you’re still in your coat. Is it that cold in here? I’m in and out so much that I usually keep my coat on most of the time and don’t notice if it gets down under fifty. You want me to get the stove going?”
“No, you take care of what you’ve got to do. I can get a fire going. Unless…” She glanced toward the dog and thought better. “Really, it’s not that cold.”
“I won’t be long,” he promised.
So she sat there quietly, thankful that she’d worn her sheepskin coat, despite the bloodstains on the hem and sleeve, thankful that the accident had been no worse, and thankful for Tommy W.’s hospitality, despite the certainty of how, inevitably, all this would get back to Carl. Gradually, she could feel her adrenaline diminish, her pulse quiet, the tension ease. And she realized she needed to go to the bathroom. She leaned forward in the recliner, which had already been tilted halfway back when she’d sat down.
Beast lifted her head.
“No,” she said, as to a second grader, pointing her finger authoritatively. “Sit. Stay. I’m just going to the bathroom.” And she got up and walked directly toward the door, near where Beast rested, that had to lead to the bathroom.
And so it did. She slipped off her coat and hung it over the bathroom door and, after spreading toilet paper across the seat (which seemed reasonably clean), she relieved her bladder.
And then she must have simply blanked out, for the next thing she knew the man was knocking on the door. “Are you okay in there? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”
“Yes, thank you.” Though, in fact, she felt invaded, as if he’d opened the door. And indeed, because the coat was hanging on the door, leaving it ajar by a good four inches, he might have looked in.
“Is there anything you need?”
“No. No, I was just… freshening myself.” She flushed the toilet to end any discussion and, when she’d zipped her fly and cinched her belt, emerged with what dignity she could muster.
Beast’s eyes met hers at once, but there was no sign of Tommy W. He called down from the sleeping loft, “I’m up here, just getting something.”
Closing the door after retrieving her coat, she crossed the room and draped it over the recliner. Beast’s eyes never left her.
Tommy thumped down the plank staircase with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his hand. “I don’t know about you, Miss… Sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Turney. But call me Diana. I think we must be on a first-name basis by now.”
“Okay. Diana. Anyhow, you’ll be glad to know that everything’s squared away. I changed your tire. But you should get some air in that spare. It’s a little low, but it should get you home okay. Before you head off, I thought you might like some of this.” He held up the half-full quart bottle. “To unwind.”
Diana looked at the uncurtained window above the kitchen sink—it was pitch-black outside—and then at her watch. “My God, it’s seven o’clock.”
“Yeah, well. I knocked earlier, but you just mumbled. So that’s when I went back outside and changed the tire. I figured it was just shock or like that. You’re feeling okay now though?”
She laughed. “Actually, I feel like it was seven a.m. It’s weird.”
“I guess this whole day has been pretty weird.” He smiled and tilted his head. “I was hoping you might want to stay and have dinner.”
Dinner and what else? she wondered, knowing the answer.
And knowing the answer, she said, “That’s very nice of you. I’d love to. As long as it’s not venison.”
Tommy laughed.
Beast growled.
“Beast!” Tommy reprimanded. And then, to Diana, “She’s jealous. She’s used to being the only female in the house. As for dinner, it’ll have to be spaghetti. The cupboard’s pretty bare. That’s one reason I was heading down to Stockholm.”
“What was the other?”
“I usually hang out at the casino there on Friday nights. And lose money. This is a much better idea.” He held up the bottle. “Let me get glasses.”
He got glasses, and poured their drinks, and even thought to ask if she wanted hers neat or with ice. “Not ice, not today,” she said with a rueful smile. Tommy squatted down beside the recliner (the loveseat being filled with the laundered clothes), quite like another Beast. He had that kind of large-framed, lumberjack body that reminds you that humans are, basically, just another species of large mammal.
They clinked glasses, and it tasted good.
This is providential, she thought. The very reason, really, she’d been driving to the Cities. She’d been hoping, she’d been certain, that Jack would be there at the ACoA meeting, and there was no reason to suppose that this fellow would be any worse than Jack. She liked large men. Often enough they were actually gentler, as though their size made them shy. Tommy seemed that type. The only reason to refuse what Fate was offering was that he worked with Carl, and no man could be counted on to be discreet about their so-called conquests. But, as they say, what the fuck. It wasn’t even the whiskey saying it. She’d had only a sip. It was a decision she must have come to hours ago at some point between the accident on Crow Wing Road and t
heir arrival here. Her intuitions were always ahead of her conscious choices, sometimes uncannily.
“You like saunas?” Tommy asked.
She offered a noncommittal “Mm” and took another, grateful sip. “Why?”
“ ‘Cause I got one. And it’s heated up. I started it up just for myself, while you were in there.” He nodded to the bathroom. “Then it occurred to me, you might like one too. I mean, we could take turns.”
“You have your own sauna?” she asked, evading a direct answer to his proposition. “That’s amazing.”
“Well,” he said, untying the laces on his boots and prying them off, “I had a choice. I had the money where I could build a garage or put up a sauna, which would cost a lot less, ‘cause it’s more of a sweat lodge really. At the lockup I had to help build one. It was state-mandated, would you believe it? Part of the ‘Native American’ religion. I’ll tell you, they got an easy life there. But can we use the thing, the C.O.’s, when it’s sitting there idle thirty days out of thirty-one? No way. It’s holy fucking ground now. Excuse the language. So I’ve got my own. You want some more Jack?”
She handed him her glass. “A little, thank you.”
While he played host, Diana untied her own laces and loosened them, but she didn’t take off the boots. Just the loosening was enough to inspire a sigh of relief.
THE SUB A Study In Witchcraft Page 11