“Uh, Val, it’s kind of stuck. I can—”
“No.”
He feels her weight vanish. Then she’s standing over him with a half-stricken expression, smoothing her dress with her hands, her eyes riveted on the ground, face red as a Christmas tree bulb.
“I thought you just . . . I’m awfully sorry. It’s my mistake, John. Just forget it.”
“Come back.”
“Oh, no. Really, it’s not . . . I shouldn’t be—”
“You don’t have to.”
“Goddamnit.”
He laughs.
“Do not laugh at me.”
“You’re funny.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“It should be. You almost tore that belt in half, you know.”.
She still won’t look at him. “I’m trying to . . .”
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Ah shit, John, I don’t know how you do this.”
“I know you don’t.”
Finally she looks at him, just a glance. Then she shakes her head. “I’m such a spaz.”
“Come here. You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to do anything. Just come here and lie down with me and be quiet. Okay?”
Her face is still ablaze and her eyes are flittering everywhere again, like birds looking for somewhere to land. “You know I’m pretty good at just about everything. I can shoot and cook and think and get into vet—”
“Can you lie down and shut up?”
Eyes still on the ground in front of her, she moves toward the blanket, then lies down. Her back is to him.
“No reason to pout, you know.”
She says nothing, so he props up on an elbow and strokes her hair. “It’s even worse when you’re a guy, because you can feel it being over with before you’re even really started.”
“Can’t you fight it?”
“Not very successfully.”
“It’s just . . . kind of embarrassing, John.”
“Well, don’t be embarrassed. It’s kind of funny, anyway.”
“It is?”
“If you picture what you’re doing, or if you watched it on a screen, I think you might find yourself laughing.”
“I watched a dirty movie once, and laughed.”
“Then there you have it.”
“What do we do?”
“Why don’t we just wait until it happens?”
“I want it to happen now.” She backs her rump and shoulders into him. “Found what I wanted. Had my heart set on it.”
When she turns around to face him, her eyes are shiny and the pupils are big and her forehead beaded with sweat.
He moves on top and her legs part around his weight. He lifts them and the dress falls over her brown smooth knees.
“Don’t stare.” Her eyes are closed.
But he does stare while he sits back to work his pants down because she’s naked underneath the dress and he just can’t believe how good she looks. He scoots back into position and begins to see himself as a comic figure, not necessarily a good sign, he feels. But she’s got him in one hand, stroking him hard, trying to pull him inside herself.
“Uh, easy does it, sweetness,” he says.
“All right.”
In the next whirling moments John’s thoughts explode in rapid succession, like a line of bottles pierced by a single bullet. None stay whole long enough to name. They are shattered, derationalized, lost. He follows her adamant guidance, moving inside until he feels the threadlike sinuous resistance, then the quick gasp of her breath against his ear.
“Thought you were kidding, Val.”
“No.”
She uses her hands on his flanks to control him. She shudders and withdraws, opens and accepts. The increments of pleasure build and drop in John, whose thoughts careen back and forth between immensities of chaos and hyperfocus. He is a hawk streaking through blue. Does it hurt? He glides beneath a black tonnage of water. Does it actually tear? He is a thousand silver butterflies netted in skin. Are we smashing her hat?
“Oh!”
“Sorry.”
Her hands draw him deeper.
“Oooh!”
“Go slow . . .”
But he knows he is past it. She shivers and tightens around him—all of her—hands and fingers, arms and stomach, legs and mouth. He tries to be still but she forces him hard up inside her and John imagines the wash of dark red blood. Thinks it’s imagination anyway. She’s still shuddering and holding him tightly and he’s aware for the first time of the nails jammed into the twin peaks of his ass and the cool-wet pain around them, of the groans vibrating from her throat into his, of the hissing of her nostrils tight against his face, and of the power of her legs clamped hard at his sides. All he can think to do is just wait, locked here like this. So he waits while her arms close around his shoulders and head, and the inside of her is jerking and he hasn’t got clue one whether this is pain or pleasure until he looks down at her wide open eyes and the look of surprise on her face and the little lines at the edges of her mouth that suggest a smile. He tries to hold still but suddenly here comes a wholly unpostponable surge of effervescence that feels like a long fizzing string being drawn out of him. Out it goes. Then the riotous discharge of voltage, all the mixed up thoughts, the sweet shakes.
Time does pass.
“Oh,” he finally says.
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, my!”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
When they wake up it is almost two. During their sleep someone has brought the sides of the blanket over them against the afternoon breeze, but John can’t remember doing it and Valerie can’t either. John’s neck is stiff from the ground. Valerie’s hat has blown up on its side against a toyon tree and stayed there. Her dress, which twenty-three years ago protected Carolyn as Carolyn protected her, is now wrinkled everywhere and spotted with blood. She stands in the clearing, twisting the stained part around so she can see it, and looks down at the material. John packs up the basket in a heavy silence that seems to him breakable only by meaningful discourse. But he can’t think of anything to say that can approximate his feelings at the moment.
“The spring,” Valerie notes. “I’ll dip it in the spring to get out the stains.”
“Are they bad, Val?”
“They add a primitive cache to the garment. It’s a keepsake, after all. Imagine what I can tell my daughter about it.”
“You all right?”
“I’m great. Don’t you think so?”
She looks at him with the same matter-of-factness she looked at the stains with, then a little smile breaks across her mouth, but fades as her eyes well with tears.
“I sure do.”
“Let’s just walk with our arms around each other. We’ll go see the spring in the cave and I’ll wash the stains in the water.”
“You know you could just take it to a good cleaner.”
“I could tear it into gun rags, too.”
They emerge from the trees, John with the basket again and Valerie holding her big flowery hat.
“I feel like a teenager who just got away with something,” she says.
“Me, too.”
“Twenty-two years one way, then you’re another. I feel like I’m supposed to think of everything differently now. I don’t feel really different, though. There’s a pain down there, and some blood on my clothes. I know what it is to have a man inside. I’ve made the offer and had the taking. But I’m not so sure this is the most revolutionary moment of my life. I mean, I was really crushed when I found out there wasn’t a Santa Claus.”
“I guess I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, you know, just a time when the illusion is gone. Or the change is made. The page is turned. You’ve thought about it a lot and then it happens and you’re still the person you always were. It’s good. You’re still there.”
“I’m glad you’re still here.”
She turns her face to him and consumes him with the darkness of her eyes. He can tell she’s going to ask him how he feels about it and he wishes she wouldn’t. Too many gradients of the truth to register. Too much complexity to unite.
But she doesn’t ask that, exactly. She looks away, out toward the water and leans her head against his shoulder.
“Does this mean I have to love you?”
He laughs. Then, quietly: “I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do. So there.”
“Then that’s a good thing.”
John marvels for the millionth time in his life: How can a woman lead you to say something that’s true in the way you say it but not true in the way they hear it? Somewhere in between, the meaning changes direction, like a signal bounced off a relay. You both know it, which complicates rather than simplifies.
“Good?” she presses.
“Good.”
“Look, I gave my body to you. With it came my soul, my love, my devotion. You took all of me. And I expect all of you back. Every last cell of you. I demand love, affection, sacrifice— and I demand it forever. I demand that you love, cherish and honor me, ‘til death do us part. I expect to be your new religion.”
“Sucker,” he says.
“Get down on your haunches, raise your paws up to me, and bark. Bark your adoration.”
“Woof.”
She stops and faces him, drops her hat, plants her feet and swings a big arching cross with her right fist. She opens and slows just before it hits his cheek. Her other hand shoots up and both pull his face down to hers.
“I love you anyway. Brute. Simpleton. Oaf. Dope.”
“In that case I love you, too.”
“There. We both win. I’ll be satisfied with that, temporarily.”
The opening to the cave is now covered by a massive iron gate. It is connected to an equally stout frame, hinged on one side and fastened on the other by a long chain of forbidding size and heft.
“This wasn’t here when I was a kid,” he says.
“Is now.”
“Who built it?”
“Who do you think? Said he wanted his very own dungeon.”
“Quite the party gag.”
“Just like everything else on Liberty Ridge—doors but no locks. Dad said if he couldn’t build a safe home for his family here, he’d go somewhere he could. The electric fence might have something to do with it.”
She pulls out the chain a little, then it slides of its own weight to the ground. John steps away as Valerie uses both hands to pull open the gate. It creaks unmercifully, a long, shrill protest.
“Been a while,” she says. “After you.”
The sunlight gives way to a partial darkness as John moves into the cool of the cave. He remembers the way the ceiling is low at first so you have to crouch a little, then opens up maybe twenty yards further down to the big cavern with a high ceiling, the smooth dirt floor and at the far end the opening in the rock where the spring bubbles forth in its aromatic, mineral-heavy steam. He remembers that the size of the opening is just big enough to climb into if you want to sit in the hot water, and the rock ledge around the opening is a good place to sit. He can smell the clean, fecund odor of fresh water pooling up from the earth. He remembers that once your eyes adjust in the cavern you can see just well enough to keep from banging into the walls or tripping on the rock ledges surrounding the spring.
“Want to crank up the lantern?” he asks, turning.
“Let’s wait until we’re in, okay?” Valerie has her hat on. In this minor half-light—just as in the glare of the sun—he finds her absolutely beautiful.
He senses the ceiling rising as he steps into the big cavern. He can’t see the top but the echoes of their footsteps have extended resonance. He can make out the pale draft of steam rising from the pool at the far end of the vault. He feels Valerie’s body press up against his side, the brim of her hat nudging his neck.
“Let there be light,” she whispers.
John sets down the basket. He steps to the other side of it, kneels, lifts the lid. He looks up at her from across the basket, beholding her form in the faint light that has followed her in from the cave mouth behind her. He looks up at her face but he can’t see much except for the shine of her eyes. He gets out the lantern and turns the electronic ignition switch, hearing the click-click of the spark and the quiet hiss of the gas coming into the mantles.
“Thank you,” he says. “For what you gave me back there.”
“You’re really very welcome.”
“I feel more than welcome. I feel honored and blessed.”
“So do I, John.”
He smiles.
In the growing light he sees that she is smiling, too. She has knelt to face him across the picnic basket, her expression revealed by the whitening glow from the lantern that rests on top of it.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
“You’re just flattering me now.”
She turns her back to him and John unbuttons the dress. She drops the top and steps out of it in a motion of pure femininity, then walks to the bubbling pool in the rock. He watches her kneel and work the water into the material.
“I knew you’d come here,” she says.
“How could you know, when I didn’t?”
“From a dream.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No,” she says quietly, looking over her shoulder at him. “We’re only as interesting as our secrets.”
When they leave the cave the Santa Ana winds have just begun to blow again. They move greatly against John’s face as he leads Valerie into the formidable sunlight. John notes the high-desert smell, the dryness of the breeze, the clean outlines of the hillsides against the sky. He has Valerie by the hand. Time passing by, he thinks, the future marching backwards to meet us.
Back at the cottage, John has an e-mail asking him to call Adam Sexton. He e-mails back that he can’t—no phone handy. A few moments later, Sexton’s reply appears on his screen:
SENSE CHANGES IN VANN. PURELY A HUNCH. IF YOUR NOSE IS TO THE WIND, PICKING THINGS UP, WOULD MUCH LIKE TO COMPARE NOTES. ANY LITTLE BIT HELPS. VAL LIKES YOU. LUCKY GUY–
A. SEX
That night, late, Holt summons John to the Big House. John crosses the meadow in the building wind, his dogs bouncing out ahead of him, hunting birds in the moonlight.
He waits for his host in the living room, looking into the red-orange glow of the fire. When Holt finally comes down he has got a tumbler full of ice and Scotch in each hand. He gives one to John but says nothing, simply motions with his head and leads John down into the basement, the Trophy Room.
When the lights go on, John acts surprised by the wildlife dioramas around him. Even this, his second viewing, fills him with awe, almost a child’s sense of wonder. Animals from all over the world—the biggest, the best and the most beautiful. Animals he could never even identify.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, Mr. Holt.”
“You won’t. Half of them are illegal to take anymore.”
Holt guides him. He tells him about the hunts, the circumstances, the weather, the guides, the shots. He seems most proud of the Kodiak bear. It towers above them, ten feet tall, at least, with a gleam in its eyes that is utterly convincing.
“Biggest flesh eater on land,” Holt says. “Fifteen hundred forty-seven pounds. Took me three weeks on the island to find this one. Another three days to get a shot at him. Thought I was going to lose some toes to frostbite. Didn’t care. One shot knocked him ass-over-teakettle. Broke the backbone, clean. Should have heard him. Kind of sound that stays in your dreams for years.”
Holt leads the tour. Asia. India. North America. Africa. Central America.
“Talked to Baum?”
“She said Sunday noon would be her best time. Day after tomorrow. Does that fit your schedule?”
Holt ignores John’s question, as he often does. Instead of answering he takes a slow drink of his Scotch and
continues his tour through the exhibits.
“Where will she meet you?” he asks.
“Newport Harbor Art Museum. She’s going to a fundraiser that starts at one o’clock. She said she’d fit me in before.”
“Can you get her here with minimal drama?”
“I thought I’d meet her in the parking lot, when she’s heading in. It’s a good-sized lot, off to the side of the building. I’ve been there.”
Holt nods, perhaps pleased that John has given this errand some forethought. He looks up at the bull elephant, then moves toward Australia. John remains beside him. He notes that Holt’s brow furrows briefly then relaxes, as if some problem has been raised and solved.
“Good, John. When you come back in with her, the guard at the gate will wave you through. You won’t have to stop. Don’t stop at the Big House, either. Just head up past the groves into the hills. Bring her to Top of the World. I’ll be there.”
“Why Top of the World?”
They arrive back on Kodiak Island. Holt looks up at the bear. “We’ll have lunch there, Baum and I. Plan on joining us. Great view of everything. Nice place to talk. Don’t you think?”
What John thinks is: a nice place to off someone. No one around to see or hear.
“It’s perfect for that.”
Holt finishes his drink, still examining the towering bear. “Lane took off the right inside handle of your truck door. If she gets antsy once you two are on the road, too bad.”
“Thank you. I gave some thought to her appointment calendar, though. I mean, she probably wrote me in somewhere. It’s possible she’ll tell her husband or her bosses she’s meeting me before the function.”
“Don’t worry about that—you didn’t get to the museum after all. Truck crapped out, starter. You’ve got me for an alibi. Lane, too. And Val. Getting her here is the important thing. Nobody’s going to look for you here because nobody knows where you are.”
“That’s what I came up with.”
Will he kill me when he’s done with Baum?, John thinks. Half of him feels gratitude that he and Baum will be miles away from Top of the World when Joshua and his Federales take down Holt. The other half of him wishes he could be there to see it, to see this animal face his hunter.
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