Michael’s Wife

by Marlys Millhiser

  Larry Bowman reached for the other man’s throat and rolled on top, his breathing coming in grunts, his hair falling into his eyes.

  Sunny could see the muscles in Larry’s arm through the tears in his sleeve; his teeth bite at his lip over the dark beard. She couldn’t recognize the bloodied face of the man on the bottom, but he soon stopped kicking and lay still.…

  She stood rooted, unbelieving … trying to blink away the sunspots that blurred her vision.

  Larry Bowman rose, straddling the still figure at his feet and looked at his hands as if he couldn’t believe they’d just strangled a man. Then he pushed his hair back from his face and glanced around him. His glance stopped with Sunny …

  “Sunny?” He swallowed as though it hurt. His chest heaved. “Sunny … we … have to … talk about … this. Sunny!”

  She didn’t remember turning; she was running away from the gully and Larry Bowman, crashing through low bushes, in no particular direction, just away from the crashing and running footsteps behind her.

  “Sunny!”

  How long or how far she ran, she couldn’t tell. When she could run no longer, she walked until she had to stop to vomit.

  The mountains were far behind her and the sun had set in front of her. No sounds of the chase now, but she kept walking until she came to the double track and continued along it, gulping air into her lungs with each step.

  A woman’s voice behind her said, “Congratulations, Mrs. Devereaux. You have a son.”

  And Sunny was running again.

  24

  Laurel sat on the ground beside the Volkswagen, the taste of vomit on her tongue.

  The desert waited quietly in the sun.

  She pulled herself up by holding onto the car. “Clyde?”

  No sound. No movement. No cars on the road. The gaunt saguaros pointed to the sky and waited.…

  Laurel walked toward them, and it was like stepping into a forest of armed giants, even though they were widely spaced, with large patches of barren salmon-pink earth between them. No trees here and the bushy growth was shorter, greener than that around Florence.

  She tried whistling for Clyde, but her mouth was so dry she couldn’t make the sound. Had he found Jimmy and Larry Bowman?

  A still world, motionless, lifeless.…

  “Sun-ny … Sun-ny.…” A mocking whisper. In front of her? To her right?

  She stopped and waited, shuddering off the little tingle that raced down her spine. He had her where he wanted her. Why did he taunt her?

  “Sun-ny.…” Much farther ahead of her now. He was drawing her away from the road … so he could dispose of her more easily. If only he would spare Jimmy … or was Jimmy already dead? Laurel began running in the direction of the voice.

  The toe of her shoe caught in a hole and she sprawled forward, hitting the packed earth so hard the air in her lungs pushed out of her mouth in a groan. Her thick hair came down over her face. She lay still, trying to pull in her breath through the pain in her chest. Finally she smoothed back her hair and lifted her head.

  There were small holes all around like the one she’d stepped in, burrows where animals hid from the sun. Dazed and still fighting for air, she rolled over on her back, the glare of the sun full in her eyes, and stared down at her legs to see if they were broken.…

  A head with short clipped hair and impersonal eyes peered over the paper sheet that draped her knees. “You’ve begun to dilate. I expect to see you within the week, Mrs. Devereaux. We’ll get a look at that baby very soon now.” He stood up and moved to the tiny basin to wash his hands.

  Laurel slid her feet out of the stirrups and sat up on the examining table. She winced as the baby jabbed her bladder.

  “You’ve had a healthy pregnancy, kept your weight down. I don’t expect any trouble.” The doctor turned, drying his hands carefully on the paper towel, his eyes searching her face. “Why so glum?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t let those old wives’ tales scare you. It’s not really very bad at all. When the neighbor ladies start giving you a blow-by-blow acount of their childbirths, change the subject.”

  “It’s not that. I’m afraid for my baby. I … I don’t have the right to bring a child into this world … not the way it is now.”

  “Isn’t it a little late to be worrying about that.…”

  Laurel moved her hands along her legs. One ankle was sore, but that was all. The sunlight made transparent green and red splotches dance in front of her eyes. She put her hands to her face and the relative darkness was comforting.

  She must keep control, keep returning memory at bay. Every minute she lost in these little excursions into the past might bring Jimmy a minute closer to death. Was he afraid? Was he crying for her now?

  Jimmy lay flat, his arms and legs flung outward, his eyes half-open to the darkness. He didn’t move. Only a forelock of his hair lifted from his forehead by the wind and then lay back. Moonlight outlined the clean rounding of his chin, the curve of his baby nose, the dull glow of his blond hair. The little dog lay still at his side, the Teddy bear propped up at his feet watching them both.

  Shadows moved all around them, dark furry creatures scurrying near and away, then approaching again, drawing closer each time. Another shadow, that of a bird with widespread wings swooped across his face.…

  The scream stopped halfway up her throat, choking her. Laurel took her hands from her eyes to let the brilliant sun wash away the dark vision and stood up carefully, testing the sore ankle. She could walk on it, but the cars and highway were gone.

  “Sun-ny.…” Which direction?

  She was going to her death on the slim chance that she could save the life of her son. How could she hope to persuade.…

  “Sun-ny … Sun-ny.…”

  Laurel began walking slowly and then faster as she found the pain in her ankle would not hinder her much, listening for the summoning whisper, trying hard not to put a name to the feeling inside her. But the word shaped itself in her mind despite her efforts.…

  Terror!

  She knew the meaning of it, if not the name, even before she opened her eyes. The kind of terror that screams at you to escape first and analyze it later. The room was empty. Good. Maybe, just maybe, she could escape if they thought she was still asleep.

  When she sat up and put her legs over the side of the bed she felt the pain. They had hurt her and they would be back. Clothes, she needed clothes. A metal cupboard, the same dead white as the walls. Two dresses, one too big, the other she would take. Underclothes in a drawer under the mirror, shoes on a shelf above the dresses. She must hurry. Time. Not much time. They would come back and hurt her more. Don’t think about what they’d done. The pain was in her breasts and even worse between her legs. Don’t think. Hurry!

  She slipped into the clothes and carried the shoes. Opening the door just enough to peek around it, she looked into a hallway. The room was situated toward the end of the long hall.

  Her breathing came in little cries and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Musn’t make noise. Hurry!

  She was in the middle of the hall when a door opened and a blond woman wearing a white dress and white shoes stepped out. The woman looked startled to see her, was about to speak.

  She plunged through the closest door, across the hall from the room she’d just left and couldn’t believe her luck. A stairwell.

  A sharp pain made her take the stairs slowly, look up to see if the woman would follow. Hurry! She had a chance now. If there was an unguarded door to the outside leading off this stairwell. Dizzy. Tired. Hold onto the railing.

  She must not think about what had happened to her. Couldn’t quite remember anyway. That was good, plenty of time later. Blood, burning hot and sticky, oozed onto the pad between her legs.…

  Laurel stood in the middle of a shallow wash; a cool breeze had come up to blow her hair about her face. Weak and tired now. Too much was coming, at the wrong time. Difficult to tell the r
eal from the remembered. Must keep them straight, the remembered no longer mattered. The sun was moving farther down the sky. Getting late. Must get to Jimmy. Very tired.

  A dog barked. And kept on barking. Clyde. Where? The sound seemed to come from all around her. Did she really hear it or just imagine it?

  “Sun-ny.…”

  The wind was rising, carrying away the sounds she strained to hear. As she began walking she felt the desert on either side of the wash watched her with an impersonal interest. Would she retain control of herself long enough to save her child? No matter. She was just another animal with the female instinct to protect her helpless young from a predator. Struggles such as this were dramatized daily here.

  “Jimmy!” Laurel screamed as she ran and then stopped suddenly.

  About ten feet to her right in a clearing between cacti Jimmy revolved slowly, looking about him, dragging the Teddy bear by one leg. His blue corduroy bib-overalls were dirty, and as he moved toward her she could see the clean streaks on his cheeks where tears had washed away the smudge.

  He wasn’t looking at her and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t run to him because if he wasn’t really there.… If she tried to pick him up and he wasn’t real.…

  Time seemed to wait, to hold its breath. He saw her now but still moved slowly as though he wasn’t sure she was real either.

  “Jimmy?” It was barely more than a whisper but it brought him racing toward her, and she was on her knees to catch him. He didn’t dissolve. He was warm and dirty and he clutched her with that silent stiffness that she knew to be his reaction to fear.

  She sat back and rocked her body, burying her head in the smooth warmth of his neck and cried out with terror and exhaustion.…

  “Hi.”

  Laurel stared over Jimmy’s shoulder at the cowboy boots, the rumpled blue jeans … the dull blue-black luster of the revolver he held loosely at his side.

  “You’re one very hard gal to get rid of, you know that?”

  She looked away from the revolver and up into the soft hazel eyes of Evan Boucher. “Evan?”

  Yes, cut the long hair to collar length, trim the mustache, shave off the shaggy beard, and Larry Bowman became Evan Boucher. She wasn’t really that surprised … just hadn’t had time to work it out herself … it didn’t matter anymore.…

  “You know me now, don’t you, Sunny?” He sat down in front of her, the gun resting on his lap. “I couldn’t believe it when you didn’t remember me in Tucson.…”

  “It was you in the courtyard.…”

  “I knew you’d remember sometime. But I thought I’d be clever and pin it on someone else, and when I saw how your husband felt about you and when old Professor Devereaux told me about how he’d chopped up his room with an ax and about his hot temper … and even showed me the ax … well, it seemed like the thing to do. But it was dumb. I’m not really clever.” He shook his head slowly and ran a finger over the handle of the gun.

  “Even tried to fix your stove one day when you weren’t home.” Evan grinned and picked up the gun. “But nothing came of it. So you see I’m not very clever.”

  “Evan, don’t hurt Jimmy, please don’t hurt him. He’s no threat to you.”

  “Never wanted to hurt anybody.” He laid the gun down again. Why was he talking so much? “Didn’t mean to kill that guy last spring either. All I did was sell his girl some hash and he came looking for me. They didn’t live out there. Sunny, he just came at me … calling me names … then he hit me … and I hit him and pretty soon … he was dead.”

  What was wrong with him? Something different. “You could turn yourself in and claim self-defense.…”

  “No way. They’re trying to pin a drug rap on me now. I’m out on bail because they’re looking for someone who’ll talk. That’s all they’d need. No, Sunny gal, I’m all done being clever.”

  He was tense, trembling, talking too fast. Could he be high on something? Speed? But Larry Bowman never touched his own stuff. She felt so tired and hopeless. It was hard to think. But, yes, she did think he was on something, probably for courage. He didn’t want to kill again, but he had to and he knew it. And so did she.

  Clyde wandered into view and started his incessant yapping. Evan swore and aimed the trembling gun, firing it twice, but so erratically that the dust flew far short of the puppy. Clyde ran yelping with fear until they couldn’t see him. But they could still hear him.

  Jimmy shuddered in her arms.

  “Damn dog! I shouldn’t have brought him … but he ran out the door when I opened it and I let him in the car so he wouldn’t start barking again.” The two vertical furrows formed on his forehead. “That wasn’t clever either.” He held the revolver up for her to see. “But a gun isn’t meant to be clever. It’s straightforward and to the point, clean, fast.…”

  “Please let Jimmy go. He.…”

  “No, no, Sunny. You see I have to kill you because you saw me kill a man … and I’ll have to kill him because he’ll see me kill you.” He smiled apologetically and turned the end of the gun toward her. “I shouldn’t have drug this on so long, I’m sorry, but it’s not easy to kill people … you know? Sweet, gentle, little Sunny … with the big eyes.…”

  Clyde’s barking was suddenly very close, and Evan whirled and fired at nothing, swearing savagely. She couldn’t believe he’d turn his back on her, couldn’t believe the swiftness of her own reactions when she hurled Jimmy aside, jumped up, and ran full force into Evan Boucher. Her shoulder landed in the middle of his back; the gun flew as he hit the ground.

  “Run, Jimmy. Run.” Laurel sat on his back, with her hands clamped to his hair, pulling his head up and smashing his face down on the ground.

  He bucked her off with one heave and was on top of her, his hands pinning her arms. Blood dripped from his nose and he spit dirt from his mouth.

  “Run, Jimmy!” And she just went on screaming, bringing her knee up to hit him in the groin. But he flattened himself on top of her, effectively pinning her legs, too.

  Laurel screamed and squirmed, and when Evan let go of her wrist to fasten his hand on her throat, she ripped his face with her fingernails. One of his eyeballs filled with blood.

  Just as his other hand found her throat, Michael’s enraged face wavered above her. The edge of Michael’s hand sliced down.

  Evan’s body jerked with the cracking sound. The hands at her throat relaxed and he lay heavy on top of her.

  Michael lifted the weight off and pulled her to her feet. Laurel coughed, gasped. Her throat burned. He held her upright. Jimmy grabbed onto one leg, his face buried in her tattered skirt.

  There were uniformed policemen everywhere. “Who is this man?”

  “He’s … Evan Boucher and … Larry Bowman … he uses both names.”

  “He was.” The policeman kneeling beside Evan stood up and looked at Michael. “Neck’s broken. That’s some chop you have, Major.”

  “Evan killed the man in the sixth grave.…” She looked up at Michael. “The fool turned his back on … me.…”

  25

  The room lay deep in darkness when the sedative wore off and Laurel awoke, cold and alone in the big bed in Tucson.

  Michael insisted that she and Jimmy come here to rest after their ordeal. They’d been examined by a doctor and then questioned by the police. There would be a routine hearing into the death of Evan Boucher, but under the circumstances Michael need have little cause to fear. They’d exhumed the body in the new grave at the Milner Homestead but had not yet identified it.

  Myra sent her rescuers down the old road to Tucson, and the red Jaguar clued them where to stop. Clyde’s barking directed them to the general search area and her own screams to the very spot.

  Laurel pulled the covers tighter, but the cold was inside her where she couldn’t warm it. She’d been so sure she would die today that it felt strange to be alive. And just as strange was the knowledge that she had been ready to kill, that, given the strength, she would have killed Evan Bou
cher without hesitation.

  She rolled over on one side and then the other and finally gave up, leaving the bed to find a warm robe and fuzzy slippers. But Laurel still shivered as she stepped through the connecting door to Jimmy’s room, stepped gingerly because of her bandaged ankle.

  The puppy growled as she came up to the crib and then licked her hand when she tried to pat him. Jimmy slept with his knees under him, hunched over the bedraggled Teddy bear. As she covered him, Laurel felt a surge of pleasure just to find her child warm and breathing.

  This was an exciting, terrifying world that would often challenge her courage. But her father was right. It was the only world she had. The only world Jimmy had.

  Laurel did the one thing her father could not forgive. She quit trying. The detective would have written him that she’d gone to live in a hippie colony in the mountains. To John Lawrence that would be quitting. He hadn’t known she’d gone one step further and forgotten what she couldn’t face.

  Back in her own room, she switched on a lamp and stood staring at the empty bed. She couldn’t hope to control this world or even to understand it. She would never understand the violent streak in people, the almost stupid cunning of Evan Boucher, the naked pleasure on Harley’s face when he confronted Michael on the desert, the change that came over the gentle Sid when he donned his John the Baptist robes and exhorted others to violence.

  And she would never understand Michael Devereaux who was more explosive than any of them. Laurel just knew inexplicably that she wanted him.

  She moved into the hall and stood listening to the quiet. Would this house always make her feel so small? Would she have the chance to find out?

  Light from the entry hall below gathered around the balcony railing, the carpet and back wall of the upstairs hall.

  The door to the salon stood open, and as she started down the stairs, she heard the faint sound of voices, Claire’s nervous giggle.

  Laurel hesitated at the base of the stairs. This hall was larger than their entire apartment in Denver. The morning Michael kissed her good-bye and left for Vietnam, she’d crouched on the floor of that apartment, feeling the emptiness, realizing that he’d taken his strength with him.