Devil Creek

by Stephen Mertz

  With the comfort of other vehicles whooshing by him on the highway as he drove home, his eyes alternated fifty-fifty between his rearview and the road ahead. There was no sign of a snow-white pickup truck.

  His fists remained tightly wrapped around the steering wheel, the knuckles showing white in the fading daylight. His fists would not unclench, no matter how much he consciously directed them. His heartbeat was slowing, but his mouth and throat were parched, dry as dust.

  He told himself that the guys in the white pickup hadn't given chase to him because they didn't care about him. They just didn't want people trespassing. The No Trespassing signs were in fact clearly posted on trees surrounding the sprawling construction area. They wanted him gone, and he was gone. They would leave him alone. Until tomorrow, that is. He intended to call Olson in the morning. Or better yet, go see him. He wondered if he should report what happened to Chief Saunders?

  By the time he turned off the highway, onto the gravel road they lived on, despite his tension or maybe as an extension of it, he saw one thing with perfect clarity. He must not tell Robin about what had just happened. Honesty was a big thing between them, but this . . . no, this would worry her sick.

  The county road was a mile and a half from town, washboard rough in places, bordered on one side by irrigated pastureland where cattle grazed. Opposite, the land rose to the tree line and rolling foothills beneath a steep mountain slope. Beyond the mountains, the clouds that had been gathering in the far distance were taking on traces of purple and scarlet as the sun began to set.

  He turned into their driveway and parked behind Robin's Subaru in front of a small adobe house. He shut off the engine and sat for a moment, forcing himself to breathe normally. After less than a minute, his normal breathing did return. He even unclenched his fists.

  But when he licked his lips, his tongue felt like sandpaper. My God. He had just been shot at!

  Chapter Six

  Paul knew it was going to be bad, and it was.

  A half-hour after Mike was due home and a half-hour before he actually showed, Mom had taken down the silvery balloons that said Happy Anniversary, which they'd bought earlier that day on their trip to the Las Cruces Wal-Mart.

  They lived in the same modest adobe home he and his mom had moved into when they first came to Devil Creek. They had made this place their own, and in fact his mom and Mike now owned the property. Paul really liked living here. Most of the time, anyway. Hardwood floors. White walls. There were two bedrooms, a bath with a shower, a small kitchen-dining room combination and an airy living room. Life in the household usually centered about the home entertainment center in the living room, or the kitchen table where Paul sat and watched his mom keep dinner on a low simmer: her special casserole, which Paul and Mike both loved.

  The aromas of her cooking usually made him salivate, but not this night. When it became apparent that Mike would be nowhere near showing up on time, Paul had pretended to be engrossed in a handheld video game. She'd had him set the table earlier. Paul had been glad to be part of this.

  Some among his friends didn't have live-in fathers. Some had biological or stepfathers who they were in a constant conflict with over everything from music to choice of friends. Paul had none of that to deal with. He genuinely liked and respected his stepfather, whom he called Mike.

  But he had watched his mom step into the next room after she'd taken down the balloons, and he'd heard sniffling sounds that could only be crying. So he was kind of pissed at Mike, too. Mike had pulled a serious fuck-up.

  Paul wasn't sure how to feel that when Mike finally did show up. The casserole and side dishes were reheated in the microwave, and everyone at the dinner table then proceeded to eat in awkward silence. Paul had no appetite. After picking slightly at his casserole and sampling exactly two forkfuls, he pushed his plate away.

  Robin observed this with a mother's eye. "Paul, don't you like the casserole?"

  "It's okay."

  Mike said, "I think it's great," although he hadn't eaten much of his portion, either.

  None of them had more than touched their food.

  Robin pretended not to hear her husband speak. "Are you finished eating?" she asked Paul in that same tone of motherly concern.

  Paul was starting more and more to resent everyone insisting on knowing every little detail about him: about what he was feeling and what he was thinking about everything, twenty-four hours a day. But he didn't want to make things worse than they already were in the house.

  As uncomfortable as he felt, sitting there at the table with the glacial coolness existing between the two adults, at what was meant to be a fun celebration . . . well, even this was better than what he had grown up with. So much of his earliest years had been spent hearing the shouting matches between his mother and his biological dad when he was a little boy in Chicago, before his mom had moved them out, and Paul was glad they'd left. His father had been a cold man with no time for a family life. On holidays and at Sunday dinners, there was little conversation and no communication. It was a lot better now. His mom and Mike had never fought in his presence in the year of marriage they were celebrating.

  He pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. "I'm going to my room and start studying. There's a test in French tomorrow."

  Mike said, "Ah, oui," in another attempt to ease the tension.

  Again, Robin ignored him. She said to Paul, "I guess it's okay for you to skip dinner. You had a big lunch in Cruces. And you'd better do well if you want if you want that foreign exchange trip to happen."

  "It's going to happen," said Paul.

  Mike said, "Are you ready for the French test?"

  Paul nodded. "I think so, but I want to ace it."

  Robin smiled widely. "Good for you, Paul. We had a fun day today, didn't we?"

  "Sure did, Mom."

  "You're excused from the table."

  In his room, Paul hauled out his textbook and notebook from his pack, spread them out upon his desk and was soon conjugating verbs and speaking phrases aloud to himself in le francais.

  His French teacher, Mrs. Gruder, had praised him before the class, and had told him more than once in private conversation that he seemed to have a natural gift for the language. As for his other grades, he wasn't so hot in math, and history and social studies bored him. The two areas he excelled in were sports, primarily in soccer, and French. This was not a coincidence.

  Paul had come to love soccer as much or more than his former first love, reading. He still liked to read, but there was something about soccer—the action, the immediacy, the sort-of exotic nature of it—that made him want to devote his life to it. He played the whole field, having started as a forward until Coach Matthews moved him to defense. His best friends, Bryan and Todd, were on the team.

  Then there was the new feeling of girls beginning to pay attention to him, partly because he was one of the hot soccer players in school. He had a definite interest in hanging out and making out with the girls who came on to him, though such opportunities were limited. Sometimes after school, four or five of them would gather at someone's house and watch a movie, or go out on a double date on the weekend with someone who had a driver's license.

  During and after school, sex and drugs were easily available, but Paul had made a pact with Bryan and Todd. They wouldn't drink or do dope, but instead would channel their energy into being a great soccer team. Paul's mom and Mike liked his friends. Other parents they knew were dealing with drugs and teenage vandalism. And Paul was in the top ten percent of his class.

  He knew that in America, soccer would never equal football or baseball or basketball as a national pastime. He was so jacked on soccer, he had thought about it and decided that the coolest thing would be to submerge himself in a foreign culture where soccer was the dominant sport. He was taking just one year of French, thanks to Mrs. Gruder allowing him to sit in on her class. He had applied and been accepted to become a foreign exchange student the following year, to liv
e for a year in France.

  He was going to play soccer in Europe!

  His was the smaller of the two bedrooms in the house, but that suited him just fine. It was his fortress of solitude. He wished he had his own computer. The family computer was in the den. But his room had everything he needed: bed, desk, CD player and a standing rack of CDs. He wasn't a big music fan, but music helped him get in gear in the morning for the ride into school with his mom. He thought rap and hip-hop were okay, but they weren't his favorites. He liked what they were still calling alternative rock.

  Mom and Mike left him pretty much on his own when he was in his room, although Mom had drawn the line a couple of months earlier when he had put up a Christina Aguilera poster.

  Tanned skin, pouty lips, black curly hair falling onto her shoulders. A couple of bandanas barely concealing vital portions of smooth, sweaty skin. Nope, Mom had made him take that one down. So instead there was a poster of Beckham in mid-kick, and some music posters. But heck, he could still think about Christina, couldn't he?

  School, homework and soccer occupied his weekdays, and the weekends were taken up with more soccer, more homework and, of course, fun with his friends. He still liked to read. There was a stack of science fiction paperbacks on his nightstand. He just didn't seem to have time anymore, with so much happening in his life.

  The fact that his mother was a teacher at the same small-town school he attended had been awkward at first, but she had been real cool about not bugging him in any way during the school day. She left that to his teachers! And since she taught the senior year, he didn't have her as an instructor in any of his classes. Mom kept up on how he was doing, on his grades and if his homework was being completed on time. It was a ten-minute drive in on schooldays, and he and Mom easily passed the time conversing about everyday subjects or just listening to the soft rock station that she pulled in on the car radio from Las Cruces.

  The acoustics of the older adobe house were so good that he rarely heard anything being said or done in other parts of the house when he had his door closed, as it was now. But as he sat there, working on his French, he heard the outside front door slam shut, harder than was usual. It had been difficult to focus on homework. The chill at the dinner table, Mike coming home late . . . Paul had an itchy feeling in his stomach. Even when he was focused on his homework, he couldn't completely relax.

  The slamming door had something to do with an argument between his mom and Mike begun after he'd left the table.

  His stomach tightened. He rose from his desk and crossed to the window. He nudged the curtain aside slightly at eye-level, using an index finger. He peered out.

  Mike and Mom stood next to Mike's Jeep, engaged in a conversation that appeared to be pretty intense, although Paul could not hear what they were saying. But he could tell from their body language. His mother stood with her arms crossed, hugging herself and as if she were cold, except that it was a mild evening. And Mike boarded his Jeep without giving her a hug. They were always affectionate with each other around the house.

  His window was open a crack, but he was glad that he couldn't hear what they were saying through the screen window. He didn't want to know. The feeling in his stomach was a cold ache.

  Yes, Mom and Mike kept their disagreements from him. But naturally there were times, like tonight at the table, when he could tell from a noticeable, chilly silence that something had made them upset, and they were trying to keep it from him. That really wasn't so bad. What put him on edge was the concern—call it a fear—that at some point the chilly silences would escalate to the sort of shouting and yelling and name-calling that had pounded his ears so often during his childhood. He remembered so well hiding in his closet as a little boy in Chicago, while Mom and his biological father screamed and shouted at each other. He would cringe. He couldn't wait to grow up.

  He knew what could happen, and the fear of it happening in his life again, in this perfect life they had made for themselves in Devil Creek with Mike, filled him with a restless feeling.

  Chapter Seven

  "Michael, please don't leave."

  He stared back at her from where he sat behind the Jeep's steering wheel. She read his expression in the light from the house. A mixture of anger and regret.

  "Don't leave? That's rich. I thought that's what you've been trying to tell me all through dinner, since I got home."

  The sky overhead was an ebony bowl studded with icy stars. A night breeze carried the scent of pine down from the mountains.

  At first, when her silent treatment had driven him to storm out of the house, she had been glad to see him go. She bristled with displeasure. But being glad to see him go lasted for about five seconds. Then she had followed him out here to the driveway.

  "I have a right to my hurt feelings. I'm a woman and I intend to act like one. You made me feel like a fool tonight in front of my son. What sort of father figure are you?"

  "Honey, I can't keep telling you all night how sorry I am. Get over it, okay? Jeez."

  "Get over it?" Her back stiffened and she felt her lower lip tremble the way it always did when she was truly upset, and she knew her emotions were sweeping her away. "Michael, it doesn't seem like that long ago when you were a very romantic man."

  "Look, I know I screwed up. And you should know that I love you and how sorry I am. I'm sorry the roses didn't do the trick."

  "The roses were nice."

  "Then what—"

  "Why were you late, Mike?"

  The conversation hit a brick wall.

  He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead into the dark, as if he could see something there, except that there was nothing to see beyond their house except the darkness.

  She said, "Michael? Where were you? I would like to know. Where were you and what were you doing that was so important, you stood me up on our wedding anniversary?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "Can't, or won't?"

  His eyes returned to meet hers. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  She said, "You're being very secretive."

  "Maybe there's a reason for that." He reached for the ignition key. "Look, I'm going to back off from this until you cool off. I've got work I can do at the office."

  Fury swept through her like a forest fire, out of control. "Then you can damn well sleep in your office."

  He paused, his fingers on the key in the ignition. "Robin, be reasonable. Let me make this up to you."

  "And how would you do that?"

  He misread that as an invitation, and reached to gently stroke her hair at the nape of her neck with his fingertips. "We'll think of a way." His eyes and voice were softening.

  "That," she said, "is so male. A quick grope under the covers and everything's all right, is that it?"

  His fingers returned to the ignition key. "Now who's being unromantic? I never thought of us in bed as groping each other."

  The hint of good nature remained in his eye and voice. "And I don't remember us ever being quick about it unless we had to be somewhere."

  She was tempted by his charm. He truly was a sweet guy, this husband of hers. But darn it. . . .

  "Mike, I just want to hear you say it."

  "I'll say it anytime. Robin, I love you."

  "And I love you. But right now that's not what I need to hear."

  "Well, what do you need to hear?"

  "I need to be told that everything is all right between us. You know. That our relationship, our marriage, is solid."

  He blinked. "Of course everything's solid, except for you being mad at me."

  "There isn't. . . ." Her words faltered. She thought, Oh, am I really saying this? She said, "There . . . isn't anyone else?"

  He studied her for a long moment. "Well that's a hell of a thing to say, even if you are ticked off at me."

  "I'm sorry, Mike. But it must have been something real important to have made you late tonight."

  "You're right about that. But let me g
et this straight. Are you suggesting that I'm seeing another woman?"

  She wished that she had followed her first impulse and remained behind, indoors, to let this cool down. But it was too late now. She could only forge on.

  "I'm not suggesting anything. I'm asking."

  "You're asking me if I was late tonight because I was spending time with another woman on our wedding anniversary? That's what you're asking me, right?'

  Girl, she told herself, you've gone too far, and she said, in a quiet voice, "I'm sorry. I know you're not seeing anyone. I guess I'm a little crazy. That whole time I was married to Paul's father, I was lied to and cheated on and verbally abused, and it started with the small things. I sound like a control freak, don't I?"

  His warm fingertips returned to caress the nape of her neck, the way she loved him to.

  He said, "I'm not your ex-husband. I'm your current husband, for better or worse. I'm glad we're making up."

  "Then why don't you come back inside? We've had dinner. I bought a bottle of wine for us today. Paul is giving us privacy."

  "Something did happen tonight, Robin, that made me late coming home. I need to get down to the office."

  And just like that, the spell was broken. The temperature cooled between them, just as his hand dropped from its caress of her neck and returned yet again to the ignition key.

  She said, "This something that happened, that made you late, you don't want to talk about that. You don't want to tell me what happened."

  "Honey, it's better that way."

  "Mike, what are you up to? It has something to do with that resort they're building. How serious is this?"

  "I'll know after I get to the office." He turned the ignition key and the Jeep's engine turned over and came to life. "I'll be back in a few hours. "Let's cool down and we'll try a fresh start."