The Backwoods

by Edward Lee

  Only a woman after my own heart could be so enthused over finding morels, he realized absurdly. He walked over with his collection bag, tried to focus, but only remained dizzy in the fugue of his passion. Her breasts bobbed when she jerked upright, grinning. She extended her earth-smudged hand, which was full of morels.

  “Five more!”

  He smiled back, so distracted, and put the morels in the bag, then . . .

  He dropped the bag.

  “What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

  “You know,” he whispered, embracing her. He urged her back against the tree, his groin pushing into hers. His voice was parched in his need. “Let me make love to you—right here. In the forest, with the moon and stars watching.” His hands ran up her bare sides; sweat misted her skin from the warm night. She felt so soft. . . .

  He was tasting her neck, breathing hard already. The jasmine essence in her hair stiffened him at once.

  Ethel giggled. Her fingers slipped around his back. She pressed her breasts more urgently against his chest, then raised one leg and half wrapped it around him. “Hmm,” she breathed into his ear. “So you want to take me right here, on the ground?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Hmm, let me think about that. . . .”

  Her thigh slid up and down his leg. Her hand squeezed his buttocks; then it came back around, dawdled over his chest, then began to pop open his shirt buttons.

  “Let me think,” she repeated.

  Wilfrud was going nuts in his passion now. He kept trying to kiss her, but each time their lips met she jerked away, smiling. Eventually her fingers spidered down his unbuttoned chest, lingered a moment, then proceeded to his crotch, which she slowly—and excruciatingly—began to caress.

  “My love, my love, my love,” he kept murmuring into her neck. “Please! Now!”

  “Hmm, yes, let me think . . .” As her fingers were toying with the top button of his trousers, were just about to open them—

  “On second thought,” she said abruptly, “no.”

  Her hand pulled away, and she gently began to push him back.

  “Don’t torment me!” he pleaded.

  “Wilfrud, you’re so much fun to tease!” She was grinning at him in the moonlight, her bare breasts standing right out. Then she picked up the collection bag and gave it back to him. “We’ve got to get back to our gathering.” The grin sharpened. “We’ll make love later. When we get back home.”

  Wilfrud groaned, his eyes rolling in agony.

  “Thinking about me more will make you want me more,” she cooed at him.

  “No, it won’t! I want you now!”

  “Oh, Wilfrud. You’re a wonderful husband, but honestly, sometimes you’re just like a goat. You can wait a bit longer.” And then she disappeared around a stout tree to continue her search.

  Wilfrud stood like a horny fool. Women, he thought uselessly. Oh, how they love to make idiots of men.

  He shuffled after her into thicker woods. Denser networks of boughs overhead drained off the moonlight—he could barely see. After a time he wanted to call out but thought better of it: he mustn’t distract her while she was divining. Instead, then, he filled his mind back up with images of her nakedness, her breasts and the pebble-hard nipples, all that smooth, warm, white skin that he could indulge in, the nest of down between her legs soft as kitten fur. . . .

  Minutes more, and he still hadn’t found her. He stood and listened . . . and heard no traces of her footfalls.

  “Sweetheart?” he finally called out.

  Ethel didn’t answer.

  “Ethel?”

  Another step, then—

  “Oof!”

  He stumbled and fell.

  What a clumsy clod. . . . He must’ve tripped on a downed limb. But when he put his hand out to push himself up it landed on a bare foot. Alarmed, he patted upward, up a bare leg. . . .

  In slivers of moonlight coming though the trees, he saw Ethel lying prone on the forest floor.

  “Ethel! Are you all right?” He slid up to her, got an arm around her back to lean her up.

  But her head just lolled on her shoulders.

  And he noticed blood on her forehead.

  No!

  Wilfrud felt crazed in the sudden fear. “Ethel! Ethel!” He shook her. “Please be all right!”

  A voice snapped behind him. “Don’t worry, Squatter. She ain’t dead. All’s I done is conk her lights out.”

  In the dimmest darkness, he spotted the figure standing over him. Enraged, Wilfrud attempted to jump up, to fight.

  “Yes, sir. Conked the bitch’s lights right out with this here beer bottle.”

  Conk!

  The unseen swipe knocked Wilfrud out cold.

  It was a harsh gagging sound that Wilfrud regained consciousness to. Grainy, sooty vision began to fire in his eyes; each time his heart beat, a heavy thud of pain throbbed in his head. In a few more moments, he could see. . . .

  Ethel lay naked on her back in some deep, moonlit clearing. A beefy man humped vigorously between her sprawled legs, his overalls pulled down to show pasty buttocks.

  The atrocity raged but for a split second before Wilfrud’s mind managed to separate the horror from logic. What happened to me? The pain in his head felt like a nail had been driven into his brain. He and Ethel had been gathering morels, hadn’t they? Yes, the clan cookout was coming up. And she’d dashed off into darker woods with her divining bone. That’s when I found her, he remembered. I tripped over her and—

  That figure . . . All Wilfrud recalled was the stocky shadow before he’d been hit in the head with something, and now he was waking up . . . to this.

  Wilfrud realized now that he’d been tied to a tree, his wrists bound behind the trunk with rope, and a shorter length of rope had been tied around his head—between his teeth—to gag him. In horrid glimpses, he noticed that Ethel had been gagged similarly. All either of them could do was croak out some feeble noises, nothing even close to a scream that could be heard by others.

  The man raping his wife looked over his shoulder while his fornication didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, looky there, sweetie. Your husband’s finally woked his old ass up.” A chunky face grinned back. “Hey, Wilfrud? You don’t mind me raping the holy ever-livin’ shit outta this old bag you got fer a wife, do ya?”

  Wilfrud’s eyes bugged in rage; he recognized the portly face at once: Junior, one of the Caudill boys. Wilfrud struggled uselessly against his bonds, the rope digging into his wrists, and when he tried to shout, the only vocal objection he could muster was more of the same croaking.

  Worse were Ethel’s croaks. Junior was choking her with the leather cord of the pontica stone around her neck. He’d twist the cord down tight till her face darkened and her tongue began to protrude, but just before she’d either pass out or die, he’d release it—to rape her harder. He wanted her alive for the entire ordeal.

  But why was he doing this?

  And what would happen when he was done?

  Junior began to grunt, twisting the pontica cord harder, and then his pelvic thrusts slowed and stopped.

  He straggled to his feet, hitched up the overalls, and dusted himself off. “Ain’t exactly the best piece a’ ass I’ve had, but not bad fer an old box. What is this bitch, Wilfrud? About sixty? Me, I prefer ’em a tad younger, like about ten, but in a pinch? Any piece a’ ass is better than none, huh?”

  Junior belted out a piglike noise that sufficed for a laugh, but then his eyes darted back down to Ethel, who now lay utterly still. “Aw, shit! Don’t tell me she’s fuckin’ dead! I need her still kickin’ for the rest a’ the party !” He dropped to his knees, slapped her face several times, then put an ear to her bare chest to listen for a heartbeat. “Whew!” he said next. “Ya lucked out, Wilfrud. Her ticker’s still tickin’.” He stood back up. “Let’s give her a splash or two a’ water in the face, to spark her up. . . .”

  Wilfrud roared in his throat through the gag, surging against the bonds
. Junior had opened his fly and was now urinating liberally into Ethel’s face. The revolting process did indeed revive her, soaking her.

  “Well, there goes another six-pack!”

  By now Wilfrud was oblivious to the pain of the flesh around his wrists grinding away. He brokenly barked out through his gag, “Cut me loose! Cut me loose!”

  Junior zipped back up. “What’s that, Wilfrud? Cain’t rightly understand ya, what with the gag. Oh! You want me to cut ya loose?” Another piglike guffaw. “Come on! Why in tarnation would I wanna do that?”

  Now Junior leaned against a tree, arms casually crossed. “You don’t even know this, Wilfrud, but in yer own little way you n’ this creepy old tramp are playin’ a part in a big plan that’ll make things around here a damn sight better fer everybody.” He scratched his belly. “Well, I should say almost everybody, ‘cos things just got a damn sight worse fer you and the little missus.” Junior looked up at the moon in the sky. “And I’m afraid it’s gettin’ late. Time for this party to end, don’t ya think?”

  Ethel shuddered in the dirt, hacking up urine through the gag. Without a moment’s hesitation, Junior reached behind the tree and pulled out an inordinately large fire ax, then stepped up, parted his legs, hoisted it up over his head in a great arc—

  “Nooo!” Wilfrud gagged.

  —and—

  Thhhhwunk!

  —dropped the massive blade into Ethel’s belly. Then—

  Thhhwunk! Thhhwunk!

  —two more downward plunges of the blade cut her naked body in half in a straight line just above her hips.

  Her bare heels thunked in the soil, white legs quivering. The upper half convulsed, back trying to arch reflexively.

  Wilfrud was choking on his tongue, straining ever harder against his bonds, but all for nothing. He choked out some final, faulty bellows as the whites of his eyes hemorrhaged red in outrage.

  Junior grinned, his own eyes beaming down. He set the ax aside. “How’s that for a piece a’ work?”

  Ethel’s legs finally fell still, while the upper half of her body remained miraculously alive. She actually managed to flip herself over and began to crawl toward Junior.

  “Bitch’s got some spunk; I’ll give her that,” Junior remarked. He grabbed the pendant cord, hoisted her up, then looped the cord over the crook of a broken branch. He stood back to watch as Ethel slowly strangled against the tree, innards uncoiling.

  “God, that was fun. . . .”

  By now Wilfrud’s horror and exertion left him limp. Junior unsheathed a buck knife and approached. “Her ticket’s punched, so I guess it’s time to punch yours too, Wilfrud.”

  “Uuugh!” went Wilfrud.

  Junior pigstuck him low with the knife, one deep jab just below the navel.

  “But I got tell ya,” Junior went on, “all this choppin’ and chokin’ and stabbin’s got my dog barkin’ again, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled, showing brown teeth. “And there ain’t exactly anyone around who’s gonna call me a pervert, huh?”

  Wilfrud groaned in the lowest agony, blood and bile eddying from his wound.

  Junior shrugged and approached the sprawled legs on the ground. “So I just say . . . what the hell!”

  He lowered his overalls again, then crawled between the legs, and this was what Wilfrud Hild got to watch for the remaining ten minutes it took him to die.

  Six

  (I)

  Looks like she’s sleeping in, Patricia realized. It seemed understandable. Patricia had risen early to the sound of cicadas and chirping finches. She’d left her window open last night, a luxury she was beginning to enjoy—the fresh night air flowing over her as she slept, and no police sirens and ambulances, like at home. And unlike yesterday morning, she didn’t waken feeling guilty and embarrassed. She recalled snippets of intense sexual dreams, but this time her frolics didn’t involve making love to Ernie in front of her husband. Simply strangers this time, and dreaming of strangers didn’t constitute infidelity. Just a bunch of silly, dirty dreams, she dismissed them. Everybody has them. Byron has them. I’m not going to feel guilty. It was a solid resolve to begin the day with.

  But at one point during the night, had she awakened and imagined herself being watched by a peeper through the window? She even recalled masturbating again, to a delicious climax, but that had to have been a dream too.

  And dreams are harmless, so I’m not going to stress over it.

  After she’d dressed for the day, she noticed Ernie’s door open, and when she peeked inside she found it empty. That was when she went upstairs to check on Judy—to find her still heavily asleep. Last night she’d eventually passed out, but maybe now that Dwayne’s ashes were officially scattered, Judy could put her despair behind her and focus on pursuing the positive things in her life. I can only hope, Patricia thought, and gently closed the door.

  Back downstairs, she rejected the idea of making herself breakfast, and instead headed out to the backyard. Something she couldn’t identify seemed to be pushing her out of the house, and she could only suppose she was ignoring what “home” had always reminded her of, and, in place of that, she was enjoying the beautiful natural environment here. This was opposite of the city; this was refreshingly different from what she’d grown so used to looking at every day in D.C. She stepped out onto the fieldstone path and stood stunned for a moment. A cloudless sky hung overhead, the clearest blue, which only made the sun seem more vibrant. The patches of grass between the flower beds almost glowed, they were so green, and the flowers themselves were explosions of razor-sharp reds, yellows, and violets. Yeah, I guess coming back home this time isn’t going to be as bad as I thought. . . . Perhaps she was evolving past her trauma, and was proving Dr. Sallee wrong in his insistence that she should avoid Agan’s Point at all costs. Racy dreams, an inexplicable burst of sexual awareness, masturbating far more than usual? This was so unlike her, but today she was feeling better and better about it.

  She kicked her sandals off to stride barefoot across the more expansive tracts of grass farther off in the backyard. I don’t know where I’m going and . . . I don’t need to know, she realized. Finally a day without an agenda.

  Then she thought: The Point.

  Why not? She’d spend the morning walking around the Point.

  More stretches of deliriously green grass took her away from the house. Stands of high trees seemed to funnel her down. If anything the Point appeared more beautiful than she could ever remember it, and it seemed much larger. Agan’s Point could be described as a wedge of verdant land that shoved itself out into Virginia’s widest estuary off the Chesapeake Bay, while the other edge of the wedge was determined by a sprawling river. She hopped over several meager creeks, noticing salamanders and toads, then found herself wandering the path that marked the river side of the Point. Across the water, next, she could see several office trailers and what appeared to be foundation molds for the construction project that would hopefully instill the local economy with more money from a new, well-heeled community of residents. Nothing seemed to be going on at the project today, though: ce- . ment mixers sat static, tractors and backhoes unmanned. When a door on one of the office trailers opened, a man walked out toward a parked pickup truck, and Patricia could tell by the short, bright-blond hair and purposeful gait that it was the man she’d met last night at the reception, Gordon Felps, the executive of the entire construction endeavor. Not quite sure what to make of him, she thought. Her sister clearly found him enlivening, but Patricia’s own first impression was one of suspicion. He’s a businessman trying to throw money at Judy, to get her land, she reminded herself. I don’t care how much money he’s got . . . I don’t trust him. She half frowned and half smiled at herself. But then again, I’m a lawyer. I’m not supposed to trust anybody, because nobody trusts me. Across the river the distant form of Gordon Felps paused at the open truck door, spotted her, and waved. Patricia put on her best fake smile and waved back.

  A flock of crows squaw
ked overhead, and at the crest of the riverbed she noticed butterflies sitting idly atop tall blades of grass. Down here near the water the always-heard but seldom-seen cicadas flew to and fro in dramatic numbers. Patricia felt staggered by this outburst of raw nature that she’d banished from her mind long ago. But then she frowned at the dichotomy. Nature untouched right here . . . and another condo project over there. It was the way of the world, she supposed, and as a real estate attorney she was as much a culprit as Felps.

  She dawdled on, the sun in her face. A half mile of ambling through the woods eventually brought her to the widest spur of the Point—Squatterville was the area’s nickname. There, surrounded by trees, was their little plantation; so to speak, a crude but close-knit community of shacks, tin sheds, and age-old trailers. Set in the background stood the Stanherd house; it was the oldest dwelling on the Point, and it looked it, dating back to the original plantation days when Virginia broke from the Union. A rickety wraparound porch defined the home’s shape of sloping angles and high, peaked rooftops. A century of periodic whitewash left its wood plank walls more gray than white, shingles blown off in storms had been replaced with cedar slats and tar, and most of the functional shutters had long since been nailed shut. Judy had no use for the house, so she let Everd Stanherd and his wife live there for nothing, along with several other elder couples of the clan. Judy, in fact, charged no rent of any kind to any of the Squatters; nor did she charge for electricity—which was wired to every dwelling—nor water or sewage, which was provided by the communal washhouse where Squatters could shower, get water for their homes, and go to the bathroom. It wasn’t much, but it was better than welfare, and the Squatters themselves couldn’t have seemed more content with their lives here, however unsophisticated those lives were.

  Looks like happy simplicity to me, she mused, looking down at the ramshackle community. Women were taking laundry out to hang on myriad clotheslines, chatting, laughing amongst themselves as they worked. Patricia thought a moment then. Was it really happy simplicity, or ignorance and oblivion that milled before her? It was easy for an elitist attitude to dismiss the Squatters as subcitizens with no education and unable to achieve anything more in life. Maybe this happy simplicity is just holding them back, blocking them from any real achievement.