Trial by Ice and Fire (10 page)

ELEVEN

M
Y RENTED CABIN,
nestled on a hillside above Cache Creek, is only about fifteen minutes from the center of Jackson. Cali talks most of the way out there, her voice getting more and more slurred, saying repeatedly, “I want you to get him, Anton. I want this to stop.”

I reassure her the best I can. I want to get him, too—not only for her, but also because whoever he is, he's made a complete fool of me tonight. It could have been far worse, though. He could have taken her out of there and carried her off into a waiting car in the alley. The thought of what might have happened then makes my empty stomach clench and my head ache.

We walk up the three steps to the porch with me holding her elbow, steadying her. The alcohol and the attack seem to have taken away her center of balance. Over the sound of young aspen leaves rattling in the wind, I hear the cabin's rear door being shut softly.

I freeze, thinking,
Roberto, you maniac.

“Stay here for a sec,” I tell Cali. “Don't move.”

I unlock the front door with the keys in my left hand. My right is up under my shirt and resting against my lower ribs, touching the gun again. Just in case. There's no sound of anyone walking up the hillside behind the cabin, no sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs. But then Roberto has always moved like a panther—he wouldn't make a sound.

When I push the front door open the main room is brightly lit and empty except for Mungo, whose body faces the rear door although her head is craned back to look at me. With a glance I see several bottles of beer are on the kitchen table and that the labels have been peeled off. Roberto does that when he drinks. He shreds the labels down to the glue and the glass. I hear myself blow out a short, exasperated breath.

Cali steps past me through the open door. Suddenly, at the sight of the animal, she is fully animated again, saying, “A real wolf! I can't believe it!” She rushes the poor creature.

With her yellow eyes wide, Mungo tries to slink away but Cali soon has her cornered. Mungo lowers her head and stands shakily with her legs spread wide in abject submission as Cali reaches out to scratch her ears. “Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?” she coos, bending over to hug Mungo around the neck. Mungo's lips are pulled all the way back and she's shaking. I'm impressed by the speed with which Cali has recovered her spirits. Or maybe this, too, is a reaction. I've seen assault victims seesaw wildly between euphoria at their survival and abject terror at what could have happened.

“She's probably not full-blooded. I think she's got something else in her—some husky or German shepherd, maybe.” I say this as I go to the back door and raise the lace curtain to peer out the window. There's nothing out there but night. I push the button to lock the door and make a mental note to install a dead bolt.

“Look at that shit-eating grin! You sure look like a real wolf, like you've been up to something. I've never seen a dog do that!” Cali is saying, addressing first Mungo then me. “How long have you had her?”

“Only a few weeks. She was at a private reserve in Ft. Collins. The reserve was going to be shut down if they didn't get rid of some of the animals. Timorous neighbors didn't like wolves being kept near their pets and kids. They were going to put Mungo to sleep.”

“You poor thing. What the hell kind of name for a girl is Mungo, anyway?” Cali asks, trying to peer into her scared eyes. “No wonder you look so unhappy.”

I open the front door again so Mungo can escape. She slides around Cali and darts for the door. I hope she won't try to follow my brother to wherever he's headed. Her tail rises from between her legs as she scurries past me.

“This place looks like a hotel room,” Cali informs me, looking around. “I know this isn't very PC, but seriously, Anton—you could use a woman.” Her eyes—the whites now very red and watery—are crinkled with amusement for the first time in hours. She peeks into the second bedroom with all the gear strewn around and laughs. “So the famous Antonio ‘QuickDraw' Burns is a slob.”

I wince at the nickname but say nothing. I look around me at the main room and realize again how stark and barren it is. How empty. There are no pictures on the walls but the standard Ansel Adams prints that came with the place, no personal effects of any kind. Not even a photo of Rebecca to remind me of what I'm in the process of losing.

“Give me a break. I just moved in.”

She studies a cardboard box full of books that's shoved against one wall. They are mostly outdoor adventure books with titles like
Touching the Void, Kon-Tiki, Endurance, The Worst Journey in the World
, and
The White Spider
. There is also a compilation of old magazine articles called
The Sharp End
that includes a chapter on my brother and me and a climb we did on Foraker. I notice her pause when she sees to one side the book I'd bought the day before,
Smoke Jump,
after I'd done my Internet search on her. She looks like she might say something about it but then decides to hold her comment in.

After a while she says, “So, where am I going to sleep?”

“Either the couch or I can dig out the bed in the back room.” Cali makes a face at both options. “I sleep upstairs,” I add, pointing up at the open loft, “and I don't have any clean sheets.”

She takes a second look at the piles of ropes, skis, and boots in the back room and decides on the couch.

“Mind if I take a shower? I'm feeling pretty grungy after crawling around on the bathroom floor.”

“Go ahead.”

She disappears into the bathroom and I hear the shower start up. A little later I hear her use my toothbrush, then gargle and spit. I try to quiet down my stomach with a banana and a glass of milk.

When Cali comes out she has a towel wrapped tightly around her body. Her short hair is still wet and pasted to her skull. If it weren't for her bloodshot eyes, she would look far younger than her twenty-six years. I go to the front door, open it, and whistle for Mungo. She glides in like a gray ghost. Her eyes slip past Cali and me almost guiltily, and then she looks back out into the night before I shut the door. She pads across the room on her oversized feet and collapses onto her sleeping bag.

“Do you have anything I can wear?”

The towel isn't particularly large—it barely covers her thighs—and Cali's hands twitch over her stomach and hips as if she's aware of it.

I fetch her a scratchy wool blanket for the couch and a random, oversized T-shirt from the stack in the gear room. She looks at the shirt, frowning, as she unfolds it. Too late I realize it's a T-shirt my brother gave me years ago. Paper-thin and black, it has worn letters in red that read, “The Dead Kennedys.” And underneath, “Too Drunk to Fuck.”

Cali lets out a whoop then covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God! That's the truth! If only Mom could see me in this!”

“You want some water? Some aspirin?” I wonder what my brother will do if he looks in a window and sees this pretty young woman in the T-shirt. I bet I'll be able to hear him laughing out in the night. It's better than the other image I have of him, alone and rejected, curled in a sleeping bag in the woods.

Cali agrees to both. I fill a glass from the sink and find some ibuprofen—climber's candy—in my toilet kit. She washes four tablets down while giving me her steady pink-and-green-eyed gaze over the rim of the raised glass. I turn away from it to busy myself checking that the windows are locked and turning off all the lights but the bathroom's. She might need it unexpectedly.

“Good night,” I tell her as I climb up the ladderlike stairs that lead to the loft. I take the copy of
Smoke Jump
with me but discreetly place its cover against my hip and hide the back of the jacket with my hand.

Upstairs I turn on the little light by the bed. Before settling in, I lean out over the railing and glance down at the main room. Cali remains standing below, still in her towel, and looking down at the T-shirt in her hands. It looks like she might be smiling. I remember what I'd thought of her this morning: that she looked like trouble. But once again I can't help but be impressed. It's hard to believe she's a lawyer.

TWELVE

I
WAKE UP
to hear the electronic chime of the “Mexican Hat Dance.” The sound is coming from below, in the cabin's main room. It takes me a moment to realize it's the new cell phone I'd been issued, the one that some wag at the main office—certainly McGee—had programmed to play that tune. It takes me another groggy moment to remember that I'd promised to call Rebecca tonight, to make arrangements for her to come up so that we can have our “talk.” How could I have forgotten? I sit up in bed and rub my face. I'll have to go down and get the phone then call her right back.

I hear the rustle of blankets below. Too much rustling for Mungo. There is a quiet feminine curse. With a jolt, I remember that Cali is sleeping on the couch down there.
Don't answer it.

“Hello?”

Shit. I scramble up, smack my head on a solid rafter, and look for my pants.

“Yeah, he's here. Hang on a sec. Anton?”

Where are my pants? The steep stairs to the loft creak as Cali starts coming up them. I can't find my pants so I flop rigidly back in the bed like a condemned man and pull a sheet up to my chest.

Cali climbs up into the loft with the cell phone in her hand. Near the top of the steps she loses her balance but manages to catch the rail with her free hand. She laughs at herself. In the bright moonlight coming in through the skylight I see she's wearing my old T-shirt. Her strong legs are pale and bare. The blonde hair, still wet and shaped by a pillow, stands out from her head in a lopsided tangle. After handing me the phone she sits Indian-style on the far corner of the bed.

“Hello?” I ask into the phone.

Rebecca's voice sounds hesitant, as if it's wavering between feeling hurt and angry. “What's going on, Anton? Who is that?”

“That's Cali, the assistant county attorney I'm looking after. She's the one who's being stalked by a guy who tried to break into her house two nights ago. And tried to attack her again tonight.” Even to me, my voice sounds guilty although I haven't done anything wrong. I tell myself this again and again. But it's the appearance of impropriety that has me feeling almost as guilty as if I have done something.

Cali's smiling at me apologetically. In the moonlight I can see that her eyes, though, are sparkling with mirth. She mouths the word
Sorry
and covers her lips with a hand.

“She's sleeping here on the couch, 'Becca. She was afraid to go home. So how are you?”

There's a long silence on the other end of the line. These silences and the sinking feeling in my chest that accompanies them are becoming too familiar. Then Rebecca says in a weary voice, “I'm not sure.”

I sigh, struggling to sound normal. “If you're not sure because another woman answered my phone, then put your mind at rest. I was tired and forgot to bring the phone upstairs with me, that's all.” It's not like Rebecca to be jealous. To not trust me. We've drifted so far apart in such a short time. Doesn't she know me anymore?

Cali nods, moves her hand down from her mouth until she's holding it out to me, and mouths with another bleary smile,
Let me talk to her
. I shake my head vigorously and try to wave her off my bed.

Again Rebecca doesn't respond right away. When Cali doesn't budge, I pivot to face the skylight so that I can at least pretend that she's not sitting half-naked a few feet away.

“Okay, Anton. I'm just calling because I thought you were going to call me tonight. And I wanted to tell you that I'm coming up there in a couple of days. You were right about what you said this afternoon. We need to talk. In person.”

“I'm glad you're coming, 'Becca. Really glad.” I try to make my voice enthusiastic, but I feel nothing but dread. I figure this “talk” will be the end. “When will you get here?”

“I don't know. Maybe Monday night—I've got a story to knock out before then. I think I'm going to drive.”

“Why don't you fly? It would be safer and faster.”

“I've got some thinking to do,” she answers tiredly before hanging up.

I wait a few seconds before hitting the
END
button. Then I turn to the girl on my bed and say, “Goddamn it, Cali!” There is the strong urge to punch out a window, to overturn the bed, to throw everything including the girl down the stairs. “What the fuck were you thinking!” My voice is low and hard and the words wipe the smile off Cali's mouth.

Wide-eyed now, she pulls her knees to her chest and peers out at me from between them. She looks like Mungo. Craven. “I'm sorry, Anton. I . . . I don't know. The phone rang next to my head and I picked it up. I didn't know . . .”

“Fuck!”

This time I'm berating myself instead of her. She didn't intend for this to happen. I can't blame her for my own stupidity. I lift up a pillow and shove it down over my face. “Forget it,” I say, my voice muffled by the down. “It's not your fault.”

Whatever grasp I'd once had on Rebecca has slipped. I'm holding nothing but air. For the first time I'm pretty certain that I've lost her.

I feel Cali's fingers touch my ankle through the sheet. “I'm sorry, Anton. For whatever's going on with her. And for making it worse. I should have thought of that.”

I don't move. Her hand doesn't move either. She no longer sounds the slightest bit drunk. “But I have to say something. . . . I think you're a pretty cool guy, Antonio Burns. If she doesn't see that, well, then it's her loss.”

She unfolds her legs and turns away, spinning around slowly so that she ends up lying down next to me. Not touching, but only a few inches away with her back to me. I can feel the heat coming off her skin. We both lie very still for a few minutes.

Then, almost feeling like it's someone else doing it, I put a hand on Cali's shoulder and roll her gently onto her back. She obliges, raising her hands over her head either in surrender or preparation to embrace me. I rise up over her on an elbow and stroke her hair and face with one hand as I bring my mouth down to hers. With my other hand I pin both her wrists above her head. Her slack mouth tastes of tequila and mint. Her tongue traces my teeth and I remember the way she'd licked her ski's edge before leaping off the cornice, the way she'd shouted with delight as she carved her way down Teewinot's East Face. Her breasts are soft and hot against my chest through the thin cotton of the T-shirt.

Maybe this is what I need,
I tell myself. To just fall into space. Like letting go when a climb gets too hard.

But I'm fooling myself. I think of Rebecca and my ribs constrict around my heart with a white-knuckled grip.

Without a word I let go of her hands, get out of the bed, pad down the stairs, and stretch out on the couch. Mungo's claws click-clack across the floor. I can sense her looming over me, studying me. She sniffs the air inches from my face. “It's me,” I tell her. “It's okay.” She thumps down on her elbows and chest beneath me.