"We had nearly enough to hang Mr. Nims. In court, in public, in the media. Nims dead is a bad thing. We needed Nims."
Anna studied him. It sounded plausible and it would be easy to check. For tonight she'd let it go. As if she had much choice.
"Why did you sneak up and scare me half to death?" she growled.
"Why do children play with scorpions?"
FOR ONCE EVERYONE was present and accounted for, and the shelter was crammed with bodies. The fire pit was gone, raked over to make more space. Morale was low. When Anna and Joseph squeezed themselves in nobody even bothered to speak.
"Tomorrow, Base said," Anna told the others. "We've only got to get through tonight."
"Everybody cuddle up," LeFleur told his crew. "I don't want anybody freezing to death."
Anna squashed herself between Stephen and Lawrence as the lesser of the bundling evils and felt some small warmth from their closeness.
Headlamp on and pushed down in the sand so it shined upward casting a faint and shadow-filled light over the group, Hugh Pepperdine was wasting batteries. No one remarked on it. They only had to survive one more night and they were all glad of the light. By its feeble glow Anna studied her companions.
Lindstrom had his gloves off and was sucking on the little finger of his left hand where rough leather had worn it raw. Lawrence had his hands and arms pulled inside his brush jacket and the sleeves tucked behind his back in the classic style of a straight jacket. Jennifer had set herself slightly apart. Knees hugged tightly against her chest and her face buried in her folded arms, she sat near the shelter's opening.
"Jen, it's too cold where you are. Move in." Anna sounded harsh but there wasn't anything she could do about it.
"I'm fine," Jennifer mumbled against the fabric of her sleeve.
"John?" Anna pleaded.
LeFleur was seated between Joseph Hayhurst and Neil Page, his legs stretched over the cold fire pit. "Shove over," he said to Joseph. Half crouching, he reached out, grabbed Jennifer by the upper arm and pulled her across the Apache's lap, stuffing her into the space between them.
"They want your body," Lindstrom said.
Jennifer made no reply but allowed herself to be arranged in the relative warmth between the two men.
To Anna's left was Stephen, then an open space, then Howard Black Elk propped against the yellow packs. On his far side, against the thin fabric of one of the fire shelters that made up the tent, was Paula Boggins. Shivering in an oversized NoMex shirt, she squeezed her hands between her thighs for warmth. Pepperdine sat apart, like a leper.
Boggins was somehow changed and it took Anna's tired mind a moment to figure out what was out of place. The brush jacket: Paula had taken it off and spread it over Howard's legs.
"Put your coat back on," Anna ordered sharply. "And move over here between Stephen and Howard."
"Howard'll get the draft," Paula protested as she struggled into the jacket.
"No he won't," Anna said. "Hugh, move up beside Howard, between him and the shelter wall."
"Why can't Paula stay where she's at?" Pepperdine asked sullenly.
"Because she's little and hurt and you're big and fat," Anna snapped. "You'll block more draft."
Hugh opened his mouth, noted the eyes on him from the others, closed it and moved. As if for spite, he turned out his lamp.
"Snug as bugs in rugs," Stephen said when they'd all done stirring. His words were light but the fun had gone out of him. It had gone out of all of them, Anna guessed.
Tucking her hands in her armpits for warmth, she leaned her head back against the boulder and closed her eyes. Bodies were piled together like puppies in a basket. One would have thought that would engender a sense of safety. Not in Anna. The dark was absolute, fatigue clouded everyone's mind. No one was farther than an arm's reach away. Black Elk was unconscious, Jennifer half comatose with grief. A knife, sudden and well placed, a heart stopped, who would be witness to it? Likely not even the victim.
Someone began to snore. Not the rip-snorting variety that destroys marriages and sets dormitories to warring, but the soft purring snore of a contented child. Out of deference to her sex, Anna guessed it was Paula or Jennifer but it could have been anyone.
The purr was soporific and Anna could feel a welcome sea of sleep lapping at the shores of her mind. Lest she give in to it, she marshaled her thoughts, laid out what facts she had.
Nims had been killed during the burnover. Eight shelters, nine survivors; the man or woman who didn't have one at the firestorm's end had shared with Nims. Paula had seen Page with his, Pepperdine had seen Lawrence, she and John could vouch for Howard, Jennifer saw Stephen. That left John, Joseph, Paula, Hugh and Jennifer.
Hugh's cowardice cleared him in Anna's mind. He'd turned Len out to die. The only motive Paula had, viewed from the perspective of business economics, ceased to make much sense. Joseph needed Nims alive so he could hang him later.
That left only John LeFleur and Jennifer Short and neither one of them had a motive that amounted to anything.
Threads of thought began unraveling. Anna let her mind drift. Dimly she was aware of the rock, unrelenting against the back of her head, the earth icy beneath her rear end, the faint warmth of the men at thigh and shoulder.
Nims: why had he needed killing? He blackmailed a young woman for sex and tried to blackmail a high-school boy into committing arson. He took kickbacks for oil and lumber leases, abandoned Hamlin to the Jackknife. The warden in Anna's mind was quick to remind her they had all abandoned Newt and she amended the thought; Nims had been quick to abandon the boy. The rest of them had dithered humanely for a moment or two.
Nims was divorced. He'd left a wife and half a dozen kids in Susanville. Single mom to six? Maybe the ex-Mrs. had a reason to do in Leonard.
Without Mrs. Nims at hand, Anna was inexorably brought back to Short and LeFleur. LeFleur and Short. Short and LeFleur. Despite her best efforts, sleep crept up, not in a slow drift but in a sudden fall, as if she had been pushed off a cliff.
Chapter Twenty-Six
ANNA WASN'T SURE what woke her. In the impossible dark beneath the shelters, down in the wash, under the fog, it was difficult to be sure that she wasn't still sleeping or, better yet, dead. Cramping in her legs penetrated the swamp of dreams. She was awake and alive. However short her nap, her body was somewhat revived. Her brain remained a questionable resource. Too long without light or food, dreams tangled unpleasantly with reality and she doubted the reliability of its workings.
Butt and heels were numb with cold and her knees ached from being too long straight. Sandwiched as she was between Lawrence and Stephen, movement was almost impossible. Breathing enveloped her, the deep even breaths of Gonzales's young healthy lungs, the uneven exhalations from Stephen's uneasy slumber, rasping from Black Elk.
The purring snore had stopped. In its place was a faint whispering, gentle and all-encompassing, the sound of feathers sweeping powdered snow. Wind, she realized with a rush of gratitude, high distant wind. The weather was breaking. Fog would be blown from the canyons and they could go home. Better than reindeer stamping on the roof.
Furtive sounds, then something nudged her boot. Feet and legs were so numb it felt as if someone had kicked a block of wood on which she stood. It was touch that had pulled her from her dreams. Not because it was violent or unexpected, but because a woman waiting to be knifed is sensitive to these things.
The bump triggered the uneasy musings that had preceded sleep and a spurt of adrenaline was loosed in Anna's bowels. Resuming her rest became out of the question. Were she not called upon to defend her life, she would still have to crawl outside to go to the bathroom—euphemistically speaking: no room, no bath.
To prepare for either event, she began wiggling her toes in an attempt to wake them. Excruciating tickles from toe to hip rewarded her as nerves practiced their signals.
Another stealthy sound; Anna stopped the toe action the better to listen. She thought to unsheathe Howard's Buck knife but in the dark and crowded confines of their bivouac an accident was practically guaranteed. Finding herself to be the dreaded night slasher would not be a good joke.
The creepings and sneakings leaked from the darkness to her right. Closing her eyes—as if it made a shred of difference— Anna tried to remember where everyone had been when the lights went out. Right: Lawrence, then John, Jennifer, Joseph and Neil. Anna opened her eyes again and listened till her head swelled with the effort. Or so it felt in the dark. Neil was on the end, nearest the foil tent wall. Unless he moved in instead of out, the noise wouldn't fit. Joseph, like Page, was close to the outside.
Anna's foot was bumped again and someone grumbled, "What the hey..." John's voice. Not John then.
"Got to pee." Jennifer Short.
Anna had a strong need to avail herself of the facilities as well and began inching from between Lindstrom and Gonzales, squirming forward one heel at a time till she'd cleared their legs. Lindstrom never stirred and she was saved any commentary on the sociology behind yet another group ladies' room event.
This joint venture was half necessity and half concern. Jennifer was not in any shape to be left alone. Exposure, grief and, Anna had to admit, possibly guilt, had robbed her of much rational thought. The knowledge they were going home might have poured the nearly inexhaustible strength of hope into the veins of the others but that wasn't necessarily true for Jennifer. There was the possibility she had no intention of leaving this spectral forest.
Slithering like something unpleasant from under a rock, Anna left the shelter and pushed herself to hands and knees, allowing the nether parts of her anatomy to come back to life before she attempted to stand. An icy breeze cut across the back of her neck. Miserable as it was, the fog had kept the temperature constant. Clearing skies and wind chill would drop it into the teens or lower.
On a night like this, one little woman could very easily shake off the mortal coil if she so chose. A simple nap in the snow would do the trick. An hour or two and Jennifer would wake up dead. The more prosaic explanation of having to pee was probably the truth but Anna didn't feel lucky enough to gamble on it.
By the sound of her steps Jennifer was headed downstream. The accepted ladies' room was upstream of the boulder. Perhaps Jen required virgin territory. A luxury that could be indulged now that rescue was close at hand.
Having shaken some function back into her lower limbs, Anna limped down the creek bed, following Jennifer's crunching progress. With a little care, she was able to time her footfalls with the other woman's and mask the sound of her own passage.
Though nature and altruism were the vaunted reasons for tailing Jen, Anna didn't use her light. Short was one of two people left on the prime suspect list and it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that this nocturnal adventure was inspired by ulterior motives.
Jennifer reached the pile of rocks downstream of the bivouac where the creek divided into the north and south forks. She hesitated and Anna stopped as well, wondering what went through her mind: self-destruction? Urination? Humans were a complex jumble of the divine and the ridiculous.
Jennifer began to sway, her light to swing. Sweat pricked in Anna's armpits, trickling down in icy rivulets; the sweat of fear.
Jennifer was an inch or so taller than Anna and perhaps ten pounds heavier—but Anna believed, if she had to, she could overpower her. Age had robbed Anna of some physical strength but it had toughened her. Women were taught not to hurt, not to let themselves be hurt. They were taught to give up. Anna wouldn't quit and that sometimes gave her an edge when size and strength failed. She remembered a self-defense instructor saying that maybe in opera it ain't over till the fat lady sings, but in defensive tactics it ain't over till the fat lady's dead.
Insanity was what frightened Anna. Were Jennifer crazy then all bets were off. Actions, reactions, couldn't be anticipated. Jen could give up or bolt or attack. If she attacked she'd fight like a crazy woman. Anna'd seen that once when she was putting in her requisite sixteen hours in the psych ward to get her emergency medical technician's certification. A smallish woman had taken it into her head that the orderlies were IRA out to kill her. She fought like a cat with its tail on fire. Anna didn't relish walking into another buzz saw like that.
Jennifer came to a decision. From the light reflecting back off the snow, Anna could see the silhouette of her head and shoulders as she turned left and started down the south fork, the part of the creek quarantined because of Nims's body.
A path had been trampled to Leonard's temporary resting place but it hadn't had the foot traffic of the other areas and it was difficult to walk without making noise. Anna stayed where she was till Jennifer had gone ahead twenty or thirty feet, then matched the other woman step for step.
