Hush (27 page)

put.
He clamped a hand on Davy's shoulder. The boy shrank away but Chet paid it no

mind. His eyes were on Mrs. Griswold. "You know something, Davy, a man once said

that luck is a funny thing. No matter how much you got, it always runs out. He

was a wise one."
Mr. Griswold climbed in the cab, and Mrs. Griswold waved to him from the deck.
Oh yeah, Chet nodded, he's definitely going on a trip, saving his life and he

doesn't even know it.
Mr. Griswold suddenly climbed back out and walked over to his wife. He took her

hand.
Sure, go ahead. Chet nodded some more. It'll be the last time you ever do it.
He kissed her and turned away. Chet wondered what Mr. Griswold Agency would

think when he remembered the last time he did that. That's if he could remember.

He'd probably blubber. He looked like a blubberer, but a lucky one at that. He

must live right or something. He gets to go on a trip, she gets to die. And I

get to use the blade.
He'd planned on taking along his gun. You can't manage two of them without one.

You need it till you get them all cozy and wired up, but even then it

can...spoil the experience. Not that he would have ever used it given the

choice. He never had. A gun was cowardly, for people who lacked the courage to

cut, to feel the moist heat steaming off their skin, first as sweat, then as

blood. But now she'd be alone, no dogs, no husband...no guns. A prize waiting to

be taken, a sweetness waiting to be tasted.
He watched Mrs. Griswold standing on the deck as her husband drove off, like she

missed him already. She didn't even know how much. But she would, she would.
The pickup rolled down the driveway, mostly hidden by the row of young firs and

a fair amount of brush, then turned onto the county road. No more than fifteen

seconds later Chet heard it drive by. And then it was gone. And she was alone.
Meant to be. Truly, truly meant to be.
Mrs. Griswold walked back in the house. Chet cracked his knuckles and stretched

his arms wide, open to the day, the sun, every reward and possibility.
He rubbed the boy's short hair. "You know, Davy," he said in a surprisingly soft

voice, "when the cat's away, the mice will play."
36
The Bear Haus catered to the summertime tourists who spilled over from Mount

Bentman State Park, and apparently also to the lovers who arranged their trysts

at this rustic inn. Jack had never even noticed the large log building nestled

in the woods well off the highway, but after making love last night in the vault

Helen had lain beside him, rubbed his chest, and said she'd spent some very

romantic weekends there.
Though dearly interested, Jack had refrained from asking with whom, how

recently, or whether she'd had a blood test since then. Instead, he'd replied

airily, "Really."
"Yes," she cooed as she nipped his shoulder, "and it was with Ralph, in case

you're wondering."
"No, not at all."
But now, as he lugged their bags to the inn, his worries assumed a new cast, to

wit, that he would run into someone he knew. He fully expected to find Ruth with

her suspicious gaze moonlighting as a desk clerk when he walked in the front

door. Even more reason, he decided, to give her a raise. But much to his relief

an old man rose from a stuffed chair and greeted them.
Helen might have sensed Jack's unease because as he lumbered to the room with

their bags she told him to relax. "Honey, if we see anyone from Bentman it's

probably because they're doing the same thing we're doing."
But Jack owned an insurance agency and therefore was accustomed to much better

odds than those afforded by the word "probably."
Helen unlocked the door to a room with a stunning view of Mount Bentman, but

that was all that he found impressive about their accommodations. As he rested

the suitcases inside the door, she stepped down into the recessed living room

and parodied a game-show model by throwing out her arms and smiling at a bear's

head mounted on the far wall. It's tongue hung out of the side of its mouth at a

peculiar angle and its eyes held a curious gaze. In short, it possessed the

vacant look of a voyeur mindlessly strumming himself to ecstasy.
"Don't you just love it!"
Before Jack could reply Helen pirouetted over to the sunken hot tub that took up

most of the floor space. She danced along its perimeter and shook her hips,

ushering back uncomfortable memories of last night's naked rumba in the front

office.
"And...check this out!"
She hurried over to a red-rock fireplace more than capable of dwarfing the

four-foot logs stacked neatly to the side. "We can have a romantic little fire

to warm us up."
Actually, it looked large enough to melt the polar ice cap. Hardly what he had

in mind, given the unseasonably high temperatures.
"Don't you think it's a little warm for that?"
She pointed to an equally imposing wall-mounted air-conditioning unit.
"You can have the best of both worlds when you stay at the Bear Haus."
"Well, how about that."
Jack didn't want to bust her balloon but the Bear Haus struck him as a

bit...excessive. The sofa and chair were made out of logs, ditto the footstool,

end tables, bed and bar. Then there was the...well, hell, he didn't know what to

call it. Art? Every wall had become a gallery for old saw blades of various

sizes and shapes on which forest scenes had been painted in lurid colors above

the vicious-looking teeth, a means no doubt of memorializing the pastoral peace

they had so rudely put to rest.
He was relieved when Helen suggested they go for a hike. He'd feared she'd want

to start up the hot tub, the fireplace, the air conditioner, and make love under

the bear's horny gaze. He figured after last night's vigorous lovemaking he'd be

good for no more than one round of it today on this, his final weekend of

infidelity. From now on it's going to be different, he vowed silently. It will,

he said again as if trying to convince himself.
They padded down a path from the back of the inn to the trailhead. To Jack's

relief they encountered no one, much less a familiar face. Helen took the lead

along the narrow needle-strewn track, and Jack watched her move with girlish

enthusiasm in her freshly pressed khaki shorts. Her legs lacked Celia's sculpted

definition but he found them amply appealing nonetheless. Now that they'd

escaped the oppressive confines of the Bear Haus, his ardor returned.
"Let's go this way," she said cheerfully as they approached a fork in the trail.
He noted with dismay that the trail marker said it was six miles to the

campground near Mount Bentman's modest peak. He wasn't up for that kind of

punishment and—bless her— neither was Helen as it turned out.
She slowed down as the path widened, and Jack moved up beside her. They'd been

out only fifteen minutes but already he felt winded. She didn't appear to

notice. As soon as he took her hand she started a running commentary on the

trees and ferns and other vegetation, surprising him with the breadth of her

knowledge. She identified numerous species of moss; berry bushes, which had been

stripped clean ("The bears," she explained casually. The what! he said to

himself); and of course the trees that towered over them from both sides of the

trail. Even Jack could tell a pine from a fir, but she amazed him with her

knowledge of deciduous trees as well.
"Isn't it beautiful?" She gestured to the surrounding forest. "I love this time

of year. There's something so special about it. Some things start to die but

other things come to life." She finished on a suggestive note and squeezed his

buns gently.
Despite this bit of encouragement, Jack hiked along feeling extraordinarily

stupid. "How did you learn all this stuff?"
"My daddy." She smiled. "He was a park ranger here."
"Is he still?" Jack tried unsuccessfully to hide his bald panic. The very idea

of running into Helen's father proved acutely uncomfortable. ("Nice to meet you.

Yes, that's right, I'm Helen's forty-five-year-old... friend.")
"No, silly. Do you think I'd bring you here if he was around? Do you have any

idea how much he spent on my wedding? He'd kill me if he ever found out. No,

he's retired now."
After this they hiked in silence until Helen stopped and jerked his hand.
"Do you see those leaves?" She pointed to a large leafy tree that Jack couldn't

have identified if his life depended on it. "Aren't those the most incredible

colors?"
"Yeah, sure," he panted.
"That red is a chemical called anthocyanin. It's in the leaves all the time,

even when they're green. It's like the leaves have to start dying before all

that red can come out. It's just like...it's just like blood!"
"Wow"— Jack caught his breath—"you have quite an imagination."
She turned to him and smiled. "I do, and you haven't even seen the half of it

yet. Come on, Buster Brown." She tugged on his arm. "I've got lots to show you."
37
The day was slipping away far too quickly. Celia had planned to go hiking a lot

earlier but she'd cleaned the house and treated herself to a leisurely lunch,

and then made the mistake of switching on the TV, which had sucked her into a

special on young gymnasts. She watched them bouncing and jumping, flipping and

twirling, and before she knew it, three-thirty had rolled around. It was so easy

to get lazy after a busy week. But that's it, she promised herself, you're going

to get moving.
She exchanged her athletic shoes for hiking boots, and locked the door behind

her. She took a deep breath and noticed that the acrid smell of the forest fires

hadn't faded completely. It still nipped her nose, and a slight taste of smoke

remained in the hazy air.
But she smiled as she walked to the edge of the deck. The orchards had all

changed color, and the reds and yellows danced on the vast stage below her. The

sun, however, now floated dimly over the mountains to the west, and she realized

she'd better get started before it slipped from the sky completely. Of course,

if she ran late it wouldn't be the first time she hiked home in the dark.
She planned to cut through the meadow just west of the house and then south into

the forest that ran along the ridge. She guessed she still felt a little spooked

about the incident with Mr. Boyce because she had no desire to take the deer and

elk trails on the other side of the county road; she'd rather stay closer to

home. But as she jumped down from the deck she remembered turning off the road

yesterday afternoon and seeing the broken sign. It was as if it had been hanging

in the corner of her eye just waiting to come into focus: our name, only half of

it. Is that right?
She stood by the deck clearly puzzled. She actually put her hand on top of her

head as though to hold on to her thoughts. Is that right? she asked herself

again. She recalled coming up the road and turning into the driveway. No, that's

right. It wasn't there. Half of it was missing. She found this curious, but

hardly alarming.
She started down the driveway and heard the crunch-crunch-crunch of her boots on

the gravel, loud in the afternoon hush while all of the forest around her

remained quiet and peaceful.
I'm all alone, she thought, and this heightened her good mood even more.

Finally, after a week filled with hassles she could do what she wanted to do. In

fact, she was feeling so good that she started skipping down the driveway. It's

true that she felt a little silly and childish, but she also felt free to do as

she pleased so she didn't stop whipping up dust until she reached the fence

post. That's when she saw the sign. Indeed, it had been split in half recently—

she could tell by the unweathered seam of broken wood— and when she looked down

she spotted the other half lying by her feet.
I'll be damned. Maybe a bear or a deer knocked it down. Some kind of animal. And

she'd heard about the cougars and coyotes, how they'd started stalking people,

even stealing babies out of backyards; but she was sure a lot of those stories

were gross exaggerations, the rural versions of those urban legends that had

crocodiles roaming the New York City sewer system.
She looked closely at the sign. Probably a gust of wind; we've got enough of it

up here. Some of the trees even leaned leeward, listing over the land like the

masts of big ships.
She walked back up the drive and dropped the broken piece of sign into the burn

barrel by the wood shed. They had recently bought four cords of red fir for the

woodstove and stacked it neatly inside the open-faced enclosure. Jack had left

the small ax he used to chop kindling lying on the ground where it would go to

rust if it ever rained. She picked it up and thought, he's so careless, as she

sank its narrow edge into one of the logs. The fir was dry and the ax was sharp,

and it cut deeply into the wood.
She returned to her point of departure by the edge of the meadow and worked her

way down to a trail. It meandered to her left in a southerly direction for about

half a mile. She passed a patch of orange poppies and saw that their petals

already had closed for the day.
The trail wandered into a dense forest canopied with Douglas fir and

thick-barked ponderosa pine. Minutes later it skirted a large hole that had

formed when another giant had toppled over. As she inched past the rotting trunk

she saw a meadow up ahead and remembered how welcome she'd always found it. She