by Philip Craig
“Great. The ledge is three feet wide and then it gets thin. Three feet is thin enough! Aren’t any of you people afraid that you’ll fall off?”
“We never go on the really thin part,” said a twin. “John and Mom made us promise. We go on the ledge as far as the corner and look around, though. That’s not dangerous!”
I looked at Billy Jo. “Not dangerous?”
She shrugged. “Well . . .”
“You can go on your hands and knees,” said the twin. “I did that the first time myself, but I don’t anymore.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said to her. “I’ll go with you to where the ledge starts and have a look. But I’m pretty sure that’s as far as I’m going. I don’t like it up here. I mean, it’s beautiful, but I’d rather have a big thick glass wall between me and out there, so I can look, but can’t go over the edge!”
“Oh, you won’t go over the edge, J.W.,” said the twin, unsympathetically. “Come on.”
I got a grip on my spruce limb and arranged my legs under me, then noticed Billy Jo’s hand reaching down. I took it and she tugged and up I came. In hospitals little nurses toss big patients around like they’re made of feathers, so I wasn’t surprised at her strength. Our hands lingered a moment longer than required, then parted. I felt a bit breathless.
“This air is thin,” I said, looking down at her.
“Come on, you guys,” said the twin. “Mom and John want to see you!”
“You have to let go of that tree before we can go,” said Billy Jo.
I let go of the spruce and Billy Jo put out a hand as if to catch me should I fall. I didn’t fall. After a moment, she smiled, turned, and followed the impatient twin. I trailed gingerly after her, feeling the cliff sucking at me, enticing me over its edge.
We entered a tangle of spruce and aspen trees and fallen logs. The roots of some of the trees were exposed, thrusting out into the air beyond the lip of the cliff. Why the trees had chosen such a place to grow, I could not imagine. It was another of Nature’s myriad mysteries.
Suddenly, the twin grinned at us and was gone.
“Careful now,” said Billy Jo. She put out a hand and I took it, and she led me around the stump of a lightning-blasted spruce and over a rotting log. She stopped and pointed with her free hand. “There.”
Where? I looked and saw nothing, then looked some more and saw bent grasses at what appeared to be the very edge of the cliff. I inched forward and abruptly saw the beginning of the ledge slanting down on my left. The twin appeared around a corner of rock, grinning and beckoning. “Come on, come on! Mom and John are right here!”
But I had gone far enough. I raised my free hand. “No way. You go and tell John and Mattie that I’ll be waiting up here whenever they decide to return to solid ground. Be careful now.” The twin made a face and disappeared. I pulled on Billy Jo’s hand, and she turned into me, tipping back her head so she could look up at me from beneath her hat brim. “Lead me to the promised land,” I said. “I don’t know where it is, but it’s at least fifty feet away from this cliff. A nice log to sit on would be nice. One looking out over the trail we followed to get here. You know what I mean?”
“Trust me,” she said. She led me through the grove of trees to its far side, where we could look west over the rolling meadowlands through the dancing shade of aspen trees. “See? There’s even a log for you.”
I sat down. She sat beside me. I looked at her hand, which was still in mine. I took a deep breath, then another.
“Thin air.” I looked at our hands again and then into her eyes. “I’m a little old to be holding your hand.”
“I think it feels pretty good,” said Billy Jo. “I haven’t done this since my boyfriend and I split up this spring . . .”
It did feel pretty good. Billy Jo’s hair and eyes were dark and Celtic, her hand was small and strong.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.
I thought of Zee. “I have a woman friend. She’s not a girl.”
“I’m not a girl, either.”
“But you had a boyfriend.”
“That’s why we split up. He’s still a boy. I was a girl when we met, but now I’m twenty-one, and I’m not a girl anymore. She’s left you, hasn’t she?”
They say there’s a little bit of woman in every girl and quite a bit of boy in every man. I was considering this old saw when I heard voices behind us. “This will have to wait,” I said. I pressed her hand and let it go, and got up to meet John and Mattie and the twins.
I kissed Mattie and took John’s hand.
“What a nice surprise,” said Mattie. “What in the world brings you out here?”
“I need the love of a good woman,” I said. “So I came straight to you.”
“You’re a smooth-talking city slicker, J.W. So you took John’s advice and came out, eh? Good! The girls will have you riding like the Lone Ranger before you go home.”
“Yeah!” chorused the twins, who could imagine nothing better than riding horses every day.
I looked at John. “Show me your cliffs,” I said. He looked surprised. I smiled at the women and girls. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse us. This is manly business. You understand.”
Mattie looked at me with curious eyes, then nodded. “Of course. When manly men get together, they must do manly things. Come along, girls. You too, Billy Jo. Let’s go find some wildflowers for a bouquet for camp.”
“Very womanly of you,” I said.
“Don’t be long.”
“We won’t,” I said. “Come on, John.” I started back toward the cliffs. After a moment, he followed me. I made my legs carry me through the grove of spruce, right to the edge of the cliff. The air tried to suck me over, but I put my back against a tree trunk and stabilized myself.
John came up to me, a thoughtful look on his face. “Why are you here, J.W.? Why did you want me away from Mattie and the girls? Something’s wrong. What is it?”
I decided to get right to it. “Did you ever hear of a man named Gordon Berkeley Orwell?”
“Gordon Berkeley Orwell?” He stared at me and then at the ground, and then at me again. “No. Who’s Gordon Berkeley Orwell?”
“How well did you know Bernadette Orwell?”
“She was a student of mine. Medieval Literature. Year before last. Smart girl. Pretty emotional at times. I know she was into campus activities. Student government, marches for women, gay rights, that sort of thing. The idealistic type. This Gordon Orwell a relative of hers?”
“You were never anything more than just her teacher?”
His face was suddenly expressionless. He cocked his head slightly to one side. “What do you mean?”
“Were you her lover? Were you her confidant? Were you her special friend? Anything like that?”
He studied me. “This isn’t like you,” he said. “I’ve never known you to ask people such questions.”
“I’m asking them now.”
“My private life is none of your business.”
“I know.”
He looked at me through professorial eyes. “You talk to me and then I may talk to you.”
“All right.” I told him about the shootings on Martha’s Vineyard and about Gordon Berkeley Orwell. “I think Gordon Orwell is after your ass,” I said finally. “All I can think of is that it has something to do with Bernadette Orwell. Maybe he’s mad at you because of her.”
All of the blandness had disappeared from his face. “You mean that he tried to kill you, because he thought you were me? Good God!”
“That’s why I need to know if there was anything between you and Bernadette. I need to know why he’s after you. You need to know that even more than I do.”
He looked at me, then turned and stared out over the valley. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked at me again.
“Bernie Orwell was one of my better students. From the first time she started attending my class, though, it seemed like she wanted something more from me. You wouldn’t
know, because you’ve never been a teacher, but now and then every teacher has had a student who has what we used to call a crush. I don’t know what the current slang word would be. It’s always awkward for the teacher at the time, and it’s generally embarrassing for the student after the crush runs its course. Anyway, Bernie liked to stay after class and walk with me to my office. She began to make appointments with me, and then would come by without them. At first I thought she was just an eager student.
“Then I learned that her father had died that summer, and I guessed that I was a substitute. A father-lover figure, if you will. She was at a fragile time in her life. You know: emotional, quick to change mood. I felt sympathy for her, but I figured that before very long she’d see that I wasn’t what she thought I was. That’s usually how these crushes work out. But it wasn’t until the end of the term that she stopped coming around. I figured she’d probably found somebody else, maybe somebody more her age. I didn’t see much of her after she finished that one class, though we were friendly enough when we happened to meet. If Gordon Orwell thinks I was romantically involved with Bernadette, he’s dead wrong.”
“He may be wrong,” I said. “But you’re the one who may be dead.”
— 17 —
John looked out over the gigantic cliffs, frowning. I looked too, and felt a wave of nausea and weakness. I forced myself to keep looking.
“I don’t care about your private life one way or another,” I said. “I hope you understand that.”
“Yes,” he said. “I understand.”
“I wanted to ask you when Mattie wasn’t around . . .”
“You don’t have to explain. You thought that if Bernadette and I did have something going, you didn’t want Mattie to hear about it from you.”
“Something like that.”
“Is this Gordon Orwell related to Bernadette?”
“I don’t know. They both live in New Jersey. It would be a funny coincidence if they weren’t related. I expect to find out more when I talk with the local cops. The chief, back in Edgartown, is checking Orwell out and sending what he knows on to them.”
John was looking out into the vast space that hung between us and the mountains across the valley, but he wasn’t seeing it: he was blind to all but his thoughts.
“The chief thinks Orwell may be coming out here. Is that it?”
“That’s a possibility. Orwell got your mailing address from my desk. I found your mother’s ranch by using the phone. Orwell could do the same.”
“But I’m not there.”
“I found out where you are.”
“You think Orwell can do that, too? Find me up here?”
“I don’t know.”
An ironic little smile flitted across his face. “If I stay up here, he may come; if I go to the ranch, he may be waiting; if I go back to Weststock or the Vineyard, he can find me at his leisure. I think I have a problem.”
“Maybe not. A lot of cops are aware of him. Maybe they’ll find him.”
“And what if they do? What charge can they bring against him?”
A good question. “Using a stolen credit card to rent a car?”
“How long will that keep him in jail?” “Not long, if at all.”
He turned away from the cliff. “We have to tell all of this to Mattie. She and I don’t keep things from each other.”
The wind pushed me toward the cliffs as I stood away from the tree I’d been leaning on. I thought of The Book of Five Rings and the wisdom that advised warriors to hold themselves already dead so fear of death would leave them. But the wind still pushed at me and my belly felt awash with acid and I had to force my legs to carry me after John, away from the cliff and into the trees where the ground beneath me felt more solid.
The women and the twins were leading the horses down from the edge of the cliff and across a meadow as we emerged from the trees. They carried wildflowers.
“Are you through with the manly stuff?” asked Jill or Jen.
“There’s not enough time in one life to do all the manly stuff that needs doing,” I said. “But we got some of it done.”
“Good. Let’s race back to camp!”
Billy Jo laughed. “I don’t think that J.W. is up to a race back to camp!”
“Sure he is! Sure you are, J.W.! Come on! We’ll give you a head start!”
“Forget it, Jill,” I said. “Race with your sister, if you have to race with somebody.”
“I’m Jen,” she said.
“No, you’re not,” said Mattie. “You’re just giving poor J.W. a hard time. You and Jen go on ahead, if you want to, but J.W. probably wants a very slow trip back to camp.”
“Very slow,” I agreed.
“Gee whiz,” said Jill. “Well, okay. Come on, Jen!”
The two of them swung up onto their horses and were away at the gallop.
“Youth,” sighed Mattie, looking after them. “I hope they don’t break their necks!”
“We have to talk,” said John.
“I thought as much,” said Mattie.
John looked at Billy Jo.
“She knows about most of it,” I said.
“Tell the whole thing then,” said John.
I repeated what I’d told John. When I was through, Mattie asked the key question.
“What are we going to do?”
“I think that you and the girls should go to your mother’s house for a while,” said John.
“Forget that idea,” said Mattie firmly. “We’re a family. We do things together.”
“Just until we get this misunderstanding straightened out.”
“No.” Mattie looked at me. “It is a mistake, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you said? Well, if it’s a mistake, and this Orwell knows it, then he’ll stop this, won’t he?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He apparently doesn’t think it’s a mistake.” I looked at John. “You’re sure you never heard of this guy?”
John’s face looked like an honest one. Of course the same can be said for the face of any good con man. “Not that I remember,” he said. “But I’m not the world’s champion name rememberer.”
“He’s good at names before 1500 A.D.,” said Mattie. “It’s the ones since then that he forgets. What if we can get ahold of this Orwell and tell him he’s after the wrong man? Can’t we do that somehow? Can’t the police get him and hold him at least long enough to tell him he’s after the wrong man?” She put her hand in John’s.
“If they get their hands on him, they can try to tell him that. It can’t hurt.”
“If we’re going to get to the truck and trailer before dark, we’ve got to get started,” said Billy Jo, glancing at the afternoon sun.
“Look,” I said to John and Mattie. “Even though I knew you were up here somewhere, I’d have been a long time finding you if Billy Jo hadn’t brought me to your camp. This guy’s in the same boat. Why don’t you all just stay up here for a few more days, and give me a chance to find out what’s going on. I’ll talk to the local cops and phone east, and then I’ll come back up here and you can decide what to do.”
They looked at one another. There was an appearance of innocence about them that I thought might be misleading. Some unspoken agreement was reached and they turned back to me and nodded.
“All right,” said Mattie. “We’ll stay here for a while longer.”
“I’ll be back in two or three days. Maybe sooner.” I put a smile on my face. “I may come back with good news.”
“Do you think so?”
“Sure,” I said.
“We’d better get back to camp,” said John. “And you two had better head on down the trail while you still have some light.”
Billy Jo had been working on her saddle and now ducked under her mare’s neck and handed her scabbarded 30-30 to John.
“Here. Just in case.”
He looked down at the rifle in his hands. “Just in case of what?”
“You never know. The magazine is full, but
the firing chamber isn’t, so you’ll have to jack a shell in before you shoot. You know how to use one of these things?”
Mattie frowned skeptically at the rifle, but said nothing. John slid the rifle partway out of the saddle scabbard, looked at it, and slid it back in. “My father had one of these when I was a kid. Model 94 Winchester. I think I can still remember how it works.”
Billy Jo grinned. “Good. I never met a Skye who didn’t know about rifles, but I wasn’t sure an East Coast English professor would remember such things.”
“I wasn’t always an English professor,” said John, with a crooked smile. He lifted the rifle. “Thanks.”
Billy Jo nodded and mounted her mare. “We’d better be moving, J.W.”
I climbed up on Maude and we rode down through the meadows and woods to the camp, where the twins had long since been waiting. Their parents dismounted.
“Hey,” said a twin, “I thought you were going to stay, J.W.”
“Not tonight. No sleeping bag . . .”
“We’ve got extra blankets.”
“No change of clothes . . .”
“You can borrow some of John’s!”
“No beer!”
“Oh, so that’s it! We should have known. Are you coming back?”
“In a couple of days.”
“Well, bring your sleeping bag and clothes and a pack-horse loaded with booze, so you can stay awhile! We want to teach you how to ride!”
Oh, wretched thought. “Thanks,” I said. Behind them, I saw John carry the rifle into his tent. Then I followed Billy Jo out of camp.
Going down the Goulding Trail was worse than going up. My legs were rubbery and sorer than ever when we finally reached the pickup and trailer, parked now in the long shadow of the cliffs. I got off Maude and almost fell down, but managed to lead her into the trailer and tie her halter rope to the front rack. Then I crawled into the cab and admired Billy Jo as she smoothly turned us around and headed us down to the highway. There, she turned right, and we started for Durango. I looked up out of my window at the darkened cliffs and the bright sky that topped them. I liked them better from down here.
