by Alan Cook
Now she said, “Bless you if you’ve fixed the problem. Don is so mechanically inept, he couldn’t tie his shoes if instructions didn’t come with the laces. He thinks the solution to the world’s problems is duct tape.”
“Now, Mattie, don’t start in.” The man frowned and spoke sharply.
“Where’s your campsite?” Mattie asked Alfred.
“Uh, it’s funny you should mention that. I guess…I guess I no longer have a campsite.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Don asked.
“Well, my wife and I were camped down the road a bit. Last night we had a fight. This morning I went to the restroom. When I returned, she was gone. Lock, stock, camping equipment, everything. Just took the truck and drove off.”
“You poor thing,” Mattie said. “How long have you been married?”
“About a year. The first few months were fun, but it’s gone downhill from there.”
“Well, come and have breakfast with us. It’s the least we can do since you fixed our engine. Don’t just stand there, Don, give—”
“Alfred.”
“Give Alfred a cup of coffee.”
“Hell yes,” Don said. “Mattie makes the strongest coffee you ever tasted. Do you take it black or do you adulterate it?”
“Black.”
“Good. We’re going to get along fine.”
***
Although Gary had done some writing in his time, it had been mostly journalistic reporting, when he was in school, and technical writing, both for school and his job with IBM. Thus he had a hard time finding words to describe the beauty of the Tetons while writing in the log.
Words like beautiful and gorgeous didn’t fill the bill. He needed a new vocabulary to tell about the soaring, snow-covered peaks that rose above the meadows and lakes and were reflected in the mirror-like surface of blue water. Gently waving grasses and the ubiquitous pine trees completed the picture.
Grand Teton Mountain, at a little under 14,000 feet, was just one of a number of peaks that lined the horizon. Gary had climbed some mountains, including a 14,000 footer in Colorado, but you needed training and a guide to climb Grand Teton. It was dangerous, otherwise. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that.
“Wow,” was all he could say to Penny as they drove the loop road, stopping often to drink in the view.
“This is the way I picture a paradise like that described in Lost Horizon,” Penny said. “A place where you would be perfectly happy and where the cares of the world couldn’t penetrate.”
“That sounds good to me. May I quote you in the log?”
“Only if you give me attribution.”
***
Mattie knew how to cook. Bacon, eggs, and coffee had never tasted so good to Alfred. It beat his own cooking all to heck. He gathered from what they said during breakfast that they were outdoorsy people who actually enjoyed roughing it in a campground. Don worked in a lumber mill, and Mattie was a nurse in Crescent City. They didn’t have any children.
“Where do you call home?” Mattie finally asked Alfred.
He had been working on an answer to that question. “Los Angeles. We’ve got an apartment not far from the beach. Of course, I don’t know whether I’ll be welcome there when I get back. First I have to get back.”
“You’re a long way from home,” Don said.
“Yeah, and I don’t have a lot of money.”
“Well, you know what,” Mattie said. “If it would help, why don’t you ride along with us to Crescent City?”
Don said, “Mattie—” Don said.
“No, it makes sense. You can sleep on the top bunk. You can be our resident mechanic. If anything goes wrong with this crate, you can fix it. And it’s a lot easier to take a Greyhound bus from Crescent City to L.A. than it is from here.”
Don glowered into the distance, but he didn’t say anything.
“That’s a very kind offer,” Alfred said, “but I couldn’t possibly impose on you. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll find a way to get home.”
“Do you play backgammon?” Don asked.
He had played a little. At least he knew the rules. “Sure.”
“Okay, you can come with us. Mattie won’t play with me. She’s a good wife. Best cook I’ve ever known. And she’s a nurse—takes care of me when I’m sick. But she won’t play any damn games.”
“After taking care of patients and taking care of you, I’m too tired to play games.”
So that was settled. Alfred was elated. It had been easier than he had hoped. He knew that Penny and Gary were planning to drive down the coast, so they would be going through Crescent City. He would be their welcoming committee. There was another advantage to riding with Don and Mattie. It would ensure that he would make a clean getaway from here. There was no way his movements could be traced.
“Where are we going today?” Alfred asked after he had graciously accepted their invitation.
“We’re going to stay in the Tetons tonight,” Don said. “Most beautiful place in this whole fucked up world. And it’s on our way. Then we’ll hightail it home.”
***
Penny and Gary were eating dinner at their campsite in the Colter Bay Campground. A small black shrew played in the dirt nearby.
“Well, that’s the smallest mammal we’ve seen,” Gary said.
“Be sure to put that in the log.” Penny voiced the thought that had been worrying her more and more as bedtime approached. “Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
“I think so. The whole world’s looking for Alfred. How can he get away? If he steals a car, they’ll know who did it and figure he’ll be following us. The police have our route. They’ll keep him away from us. Maybe they’ve caught him already.”
Maybe, but somehow Penny didn’t think it was likely. He had given them the slip so far. He was smarter than she’d given him credit for, and he was certainly obsessed with her. Enough that he wanted to kill her because he couldn’t have her. He wanted to kill Gary, too, apparently because Gary did have her.
They had been shocked this morning when they saw the sleeping bag. The stuffing was coming out of the slits made by the knife that Alfred had wielded. What if they had been in the tent instead of the hotel? Penny shuddered at the thought. She didn’t hate Alfred. She was more puzzled by his actions than anything else. What had she done to lead him on? She had been nice to him in high school—but then she had been nice to everybody. She had barely seen him during the last six years.
She didn’t know whether she would sleep tonight. She had thought of asking Gary if they could stay at one of the lodges, but their supply of traveler’s checks was dwindling. She couldn’t go through life being afraid. Alfred couldn’t risk the noise of a gun, and he’d lost his knife. Even if he somehow found a way to get there, she knew the odds were stacked against him trying to attack them tonight. She was trying to think rationally, but rationality and emotion often didn’t see eye to eye.
She mentioned her fears to Gary.
“I’ll rig up some of our cups and utensils on a string and hang them from the front of the tent. If Alfred or anyone tries to get in they’ll hit each other and make a noise. We’ll hear it, and, hopefully, it’ll also scare him off.”
He also tied the back of the tent to a low tree branch, enabling him to free up a vertical tent post, which he placed inside the tent to use as a weapon. Penny felt a little better after seeing their defense system, which also included her screaming, if necessary, to arouse neighboring campers.
When they went to bed, Penny couldn’t feel the rips in the sleeping bag as long as she didn’t move, but she knew they were there. The first breeze started rattling the utensils. When she heard this, she started, but eventually she got used to the noise, and it became a comforting background sound, lulling her to sleep.
***
Alfred had to admit that the Tetons were beautiful. He took Don to be a crusty guy who didn’t show a lot of emotion, but that man enthused over them. Mat
tie obviously loved everything about the scenery, as well as campground life. She didn’t mind the dirt and cold water and problems with the weather. She would have made a good cave woman.
Alfred was alert when they pulled into the Colter Bay Campground. There was a very good possibility that Penny and Gary were camping here tonight. That is, unless they had been so scared by what happened last night that they had decided to stay indoors—or if the condition of the tent had completely freaked them out and they had abandoned their schedule and gone straight home.
If they did that, Alfred wouldn’t get another crack at them until he returned to L.A. He would like to know what their decision was, but he didn’t want them to see him. First, because they could identify him. He wouldn’t try anything at this campground, because he didn’t want to jeopardize his ticket out of here. He also wanted them to forget about him, as much as that was possible, so they wouldn’t be watching for him behind every tree. Then, when their paths did cross, the surprise factor would make it that much easier for him.
He spotted the green Volkswagen Beetle as Don drove the VW camper through the campground. The honeymooners had decided to tough it out. He was pleased to see that Don took a site far enough away from Penny and Gary’s that he should be able to steer clear of them. Still, he wanted to make sure. He was cautious when he used the restroom. He sat where he could check anybody coming from the direction of their campsite as Mattie served them a mouth watering steak dinner.
After dinner, he helped Mattie clean up the dishes, using water heated on the Coleman stove. Don had gone off to the restroom.
Mattie said, “Don believes that doing dishes is women’s work.”
“I need to do something to help. I’d like to help pay for the food, too.”
“Nonsense. I’m just glad to have the company and someone to talk to. Don has these moody spells when he doesn’t talk. Of course, he doesn’t say much even when he’s feeling tiptop. Not that I’m complaining. He’s a good husband in many ways.”
Don returned and got out the backgammon set. He asked Alfred whether he wanted to play at the picnic table or on the small table inside the camper. It was cooling off, but Alfred didn’t want to act like a wimp. He suspected that Don would be just as happy outdoors in the elements. There was another factor. If Gary and Penny should take a walk through the campground, they might spot him if he were outside and concentrating on the game.
“Do you mind if we play inside?” he asked. “I get cold easily.”
“No problem.”
They set up the board on the camper table. Mattie sat on the backseat of the camper and knitted. Don also sat on the backseat, in front of the table. Alfred sat on a small seat on the other side of the table that faced the rear of the camper. Don pulled a couple of cans of beer out of the camper’s tiny refrigerator and offered one to Alfred. Alfred had never drunk much, and the taste of beer didn’t appeal to him. However, he took it to be companionable and sipped the bitter-tasting brew occasionally.
He soon found out what he suspected—he was out of his league playing with Don. When Don suggested playing for small stakes he accepted. He figured that if he lost five dollars a night, it would keep Don interested. It would be a lot cheaper than traveling on his own.
CHAPTER 22
The breakfast ride was Penny’s idea. Although he had lived for awhile on a farm owned jointly by his father and his aunt, Gary could only remember riding a horse two or three times in his life. The name of his horse was Goldie, while Penny rode Chic. Some of the other riders appeared to be not much more experienced than he was, but the horses were gentle.
Penny, on the other hand, had told him stories about how she and her girlfriend mucked out the stalls in exchange for an hour of riding. Why was it that girls liked to ride horses so much? He didn’t know the answer to that. Of course there were a lot of boys who liked to ride, too, but many of them lived on ranches and were born in the saddle.
They followed an old road and then a horse path. As they walked slowly along the path, Goldie decided that he wanted to climb the almost vertical cliff beside them. As he started up the slope, Gary tried to figure out how to convince him to return to the path. The wrangler had said to let the horse know what he wanted him to do, but Gary must have missed the lesson on how to accomplish that.
He tried not to panic as he pictured Goldie falling over with him underneath. He didn’t want to become a paraplegic on his honeymoon. Just about the time he was wondering whether it would be less risky to jump off the horse than to stick it out, Goldie came to his senses and made his way back down to the path. As the tension left him, Gary contemplated what people did for love.
Penny and the others were smiling as if the whole thing were a big joke, but Gary was never so glad to see their destination, a table at a cove on Jackson Lake, laden with all kinds of good food—breakfast. With a backdrop of blue water and snowy mountains under a cloudless sky, they couldn’t have picked a more scenic place to eat.
***
Alfred had been promoted to the front seat of the camper. He protested, saying that the front seat belonged to Mattie, but she said she’d rather sit in back and knit.
“You men can talk about male things. I have to finish knitting this sweater for my niece. You can read a map, can’t you, Alfred?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, you’re the navigator.”
So Alfred became the navigator and front seat companion for Don as they headed over Teton Pass toward Idaho. He wasn’t sure what to talk to Don about. That man had proved to be taciturn last night as he lined up his empty beer cans on the table of the camper and methodically whipped Alfred at backgammon. Alfred only managed to get through one beer during the evening.
Alfred did find out that Don had been in the navy during the Korean War and was wounded—he was vague about exactly what part of him—but he didn’t receive the wound in battle.
When it was time for them to go to bed, Alfred struggled to get himself onto the top bunk, which didn’t have much headroom. Once there, he was pretty much sealed in for the night, but the bed was a lot more comfortable than trying to sleep outdoors or in the car—and a lot warmer too.
Don didn’t have much to say about his naval experiences or about the lumber business, and he didn’t ask Alfred any questions about his life. By trial and error, Alfred found that the best topics to discuss were where they were going and how to get there. Don also opened up a little and talked about the places he and Mattie had been. It appeared that they had camped practically everywhere in the western United States, including Alaska.
Alfred studied the map and asked Don whether they had been to Craters of the Moon National Monument.
“Not for many years. Yeah, we got time to see it. It’s just a big fuckin’ lava flow. Makes you wonder what would happen if the area started erupting again. They got a scenic drive there, makes you think you’re on the moon.”
Alfred wondered how people knew what the surface of the moon looked like, when nobody had actually set foot on the moon.
***
Penny and Gary stopped at a motel in Idaho Falls in early afternoon to “recover from the horseback ride and the rigors of camping,” as Penny put it. “I appreciate you going on the ride with me. I really enjoyed it.”
“I’m sore. You wouldn’t think just sitting on a horse would do this to you.”
“Your muscles get stretched in ways you’ve never experienced. You get used to it if you ride every day.”
“I don’t intend to find out.”
“I loved the fall colors we saw going over Teton Pass. I guess that means we’ll have to go back to work soon.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Stopping early will give us a chance to do some washing and ironing and write wedding announcements for the newspapers back home.”
“I’ll write the wedding announcements.”
“You’ll do what I tell you to do.” Penny tackled him onto the motel’s double bed.
“Ouch. Be careful of my legs.”
“I’ll take care of you.” Penny climbed on top of Gary. “Show me where it hurts.”
***
Don pulled into a campground not far from Boise. Alfred suspected that he had a nose for finding nice campgrounds. Maybe he had been here before. They set up camp, which wasn’t difficult to do when you didn’t have to pitch a tent. When Mattie started cooking dinner, Don wandered off somewhere.
Alfred assumed he was going to the restroom, so he helped Mattie prepare the dinner.
“Do you play cards?” Mattie asked.
“I’ve played some pinochle.”
“How about poker?”
“A little.”
“If you’re not real experienced, you might want to pass if Don finds a game.”
“A game?”
“Yeah. That’s what he’s doing—looking for a poker game for tonight. Those old guys who can’t do much else, they really like to play cards. Campgrounds are hotbeds of vice. They’ll take your money, too, if you’re not good. ”
“Don’s not so old.”
“No, but sometimes he acts like he’s ninety. I don’t worry about him playing poker. He’s sharp enough so that he usually wins. It gives him something to do at night.”
Alfred wondered what Mattie meant by some of the things she said about Don. She was hinting at something, but he wasn’t sure what. Don eventually came back with a grin on his leathery face and asked Alfred if he played poker.
Having been clued in by Mattie, he said, “Not very well.”
“Good reason not to play tonight. Mattie will be pissed if I drag you into a game and you lose all your money.” He didn’t seem unhappy that Alfred wasn’t going with him.
And so it happened that when they finished dinner, Don walked off to his poker game, leaving Alfred and Mattie behind. After they cleaned up the dishes, Mattie went to the restroom. Alfred climbed into the camper, away from the cooling air. He wondered what he could do until bedtime. Mattie had her knitting. He had noticed several pocketbooks lying around. Maybe he could find one to read.
