She decided to stay quiet, hoping he would calm down if she didn’t say anything. He didn’t slow down, but they were coming to a stop sign. He would have to stop, and she could get out then. She could flag down another car, with any luck.
He slowed down between fields of new corn, with no other cars in sight. Nevertheless, she’d take a chance at this stop sign. He glanced at her, and she looked back at him. Don’t betray any emotion, fear or anger or anything. Don’t try to placate him with a smile. Anything could trigger this man.
When he stopped, she grabbed the door handle and jerked it back. Nothing happened. The door was locked by the master lock on his door.
“Oh, no, Mouse,” he said, his voice oily-slick. “Don’t think I want to lose you.”
“Johnny, this is ridiculous. What do you think you’re going to accomplish by kidnapping me like this?”
Wrong thing to say. Reason and rational discourse did not have a place here. His face took on a growling animal look again. “Shut up, bitch.”
Okay, she was not beaten yet. There must be another strategy. His phone rang. It was on the seat beside him, a plain black cell phone with a large display. It rang again. She looked at the display. “Michelle,” she read aloud.
He jerked, almost like jerking awake after sleep, and picked up the phone. “Yeah? What?” He looked at Mona, this time with a calmer expression. “Okay,” he said to Michelle. “Okay, I’m on my way back now.” He hung up. “Well, you’re in luck,” he said. “I’m letting you go this time.” He stopped the car abruptly and unlocked the doors. “You can get out.”
The road was still deserted. Farm fields surrounded them, and no other cars were in sight, but Mona didn’t hesitate. She opened the door and stepped out, and before she’d gotten it completely closed, he roared off. She stood still, reeling with shock, shaking, the open sky and fields tilting around her until she had to sink down and sit on the side of the road. Thank God for Michelle. She must have offered to take him back. But Michelle must be some kind of saint—or a masochist—to put up with that.
Mona stood up, her bottom damp now from the wet grass, and looked around. Fields everywhere, a silo and barn in the distance. What could she do? She had her phone. Whether it worked out here was another question. She took it out of her bag, and yes, thankfully, it worked. She called Heather.
31
IT WAS ONLY THIRTY MINUTES, but it felt like hours before Roz’s big red Dodge Ram pickup appeared, barreling along toward her from the west like a bull that had swallowed the flag. She hadn’t been able to stop searching the eastern horizon for Johnny’s Mercedes. Would he come back? What if he’d changed his mind? What if Michelle had called him back, saying she’d changed her mind? And what if Johnny, feeling rejected, had pumped up his need to overpower someone, and was coming back to pummel her? She’d looked around for a hiding place, but the corn was only a few inches high at this early date. That barn and silo were about a half mile away. Maybe she’d be able to sprint over there ahead of him.
When Roz pulled over and parked on the shoulder, both she and Heather jumped out, and Heather put her arms around Mona. She hadn’t cried yet, but now the tears came as Heather held her. Roz stood behind them, kicking at the gravel and swearing. “That goddam son of a bitch!” she shouted. “I’d like to dump him in that silo over there and throw away the key.”
“Roz, take it easy.” Heather rocked the sobbing Mona.
By the time they got into the truck and started home, with Roz driving, Mona in the passenger seat, and Heather in the extended seat behind them, both Mona and Roz had quieted down.
“What were you doing in Johnny O.’s car?” Roz barked. “I thought he knew something about the fire. He wrote me some letters.” She told them the contents of the notes.
“But those were threats!” Roz nearly exploded again. “Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I thought he’d be more likely to tell me if I didn’t bring anyone else in.”
“Well, I called Luke, and we’re meeting him at the station,” Roz announced.
“Yeah, okay,” Mona agreed. “You think we should report it?”
“Well, duh! They need to arrest that crackpot.”
“Johnny will probably be in New Hampshire by the time we get there.”
“No matter, we can put a restraining order on him for Vermont, and Luke can put out an all-points in New Hampshire.”
Roz started swearing again as Heather tried to calm her down. Mona had never seen Roz so hot-tempered. Roz, usually so controlled. She’d never said so, but Roz must have disliked Johnny from the start.
When they opened the yellow door at the station, Luke was waiting for them, and Roz immediately launched into telling him what to do. “Sock him with an RO, then put out an all-points in New Hampshire, and put that sucker in jail.”
“If he’s in New Hampshire, we’re not going to have much luck,” Luke replied. “Especially for a he said/she said situation. There was no physical harm—am I right, Mona?” She nodded. “No witnesses, and it just isn’t likely they will bother to get involved.”
“But what about the letters?” Heather asked. “What letters?”
“He wrote me some threatening letters,” said Mona. “They were kind of vague, but it sounded like he had something against Roz and Heather, and knew something about the fire.”
“Johnny O. always hated me,” Roz said. “He’s a lot more likely to have done the arson than Gus, and—”
Luke held up his hand to silence Roz, and addressed Mona. “What exactly did the letters say?”
She repeated the few sentences: “You better stay away from your dyke friends. Something else will happen if you don’t meet me at the hotel.”
“And that’s why you met him?”
“Yeah.”
“This is a different story, and it does put a whole new situation on the fire investigation.”
“I’d say so!” Roz exclaimed. “It sounds like Johnny did it.”
Luke gave Roz a withering look—though of course, Roz was not a person to be easily withered. “Gus is still under suspicion,” he said, and turned back to Mona. “Can you bring me those letters?”
“Sure.” Luckily, she’d kept them instead of following her first impulse to heave them into the woodstove.
32
JUNE
FRANK SLIPPED INTO A FLANNEL SHIRT AND JEANS, and sat on the bench to lace up his hiking boots. This matter of Gus was like a Chinese puzzle. There were too many pieces, too many aspects and parts, and none of them seemed to fit together. Gus was a hermit, like a wild animal who had ferreted himself away, living in a cave on roots and berries, snarling at civilization. But he was still that slim and tender boy who’d loved to talk about wind power and solar power and sustainable living, the idealistic one who’d called himself Thunder. He’d been Mona’s friend in high school. He’d been a respected teacher. And now, it seemed, he’d discovered something truly momentous. Frank gazed at the daybed in the corner, where Erica’s turquoise jeans lay inside out, a beaded muslin scarf haphazardly strewn across them. When we know someone, do we ever really know him or her, or do we see just one facet, one side, a reflection of ourselves in a many-sided diamond? Was Gus crazy, or was he wise—someone to dismiss, or to revere?
He pulled his backpack off the hook, gathered his water bottle and trail mix from the counter, took the flashlight, compass, and binoculars from under the bench, and stuffed them into the pack along with the map that Chief Spinelli had drawn.
Gus had found an ancient stone circle and that remarkable stone chamber—but he was strange, reclusive, off-balance. How did all this fit together? And could it add up to someone who would commit arson? Had he started the fire?
Frank wrote a note for Erica: Gone hiking up on Wild. He opened the door and took a deep breath, opening his lungs to the valley and mountain before him. Then he beat his chest and let out a yodel. He used to do this to make Patsy laugh, but then he’d discovered that it
felt cleansing, restorative. He nodded to himself. He was on a quest. An adventure. It was a reason to yodel.
He climbed into his car, bumped and jolted down to the main road, and cruised along River Road, the same route he’d taken yesterday on his bike. Ahead, a bald eagle soared across his path, some creature hanging from its beak. As it flew over the car, its massive wingspan cast a shadow like a passing cloud.
On Wild Mountain, he parked at the trailhead and trudged along the now-familiar path. The trees, the undergrowth, the rocks poking out here and there, were the same ones he’d passed back in the old days when he’d explored the mountain around the commune; and as he walked, he began to feel lighter, more energized, as if he were walking back in time. His step quickened, and his senses flashed back to the body of nineteen-year-old Frank.
Why had he never gone back to the site of the commune? When he’d left, he’d been ready for a new life, looking ahead, not back, and willing to forget that time of wanton youth. When he’d come back, he’d assumed that those shacks and teepees were gone, or at least abandoned. But now that he knew that Thunder was still here, that this odd guy named Gus was actually Thunder, the past was seeping into the present like the sound of distant drumming growing louder.
What was important now was to find Gus. If he was innocent, he, Frank, could help him. Gus was likely to say anything, spouting off as he did about Anu, and Frank could at least translate for him, explain to the law that it was just talk. But what if he was guilty? Could Gus tolerate time in prison?
He stepped gingerly onto a log placed across a streambed, and leapt to the other side. How did Gus survive? As Thunder, he used to preach about simple living; he must have really figured it out—how to pare his needs down to the basics—and be living it now. Frank adjusted his designer backpack and looked down at his expensive hiking boots. Living simply was his goal, too, he reflected, but he loved these boots, and he couldn’t give up his running shoes, his biking gear, his state-of-the-art bike and ski equipment. He didn’t want to live in a teepee or a shack, or whatever it was that Gus inhabited. It was as if Gus had gone back in time, to the mindset of a twenty-year-old. Frank wanted to cut back, figure out a way to live more simply—but when you grew older, the layers grew exponentially, so that each year, there came more information and greater levels of complication, and you lost sight of that single-track road that used to be so lucid.
When he reached the site of the stone chamber, Frank looked around, confused. The brush and understory had been cleared away, and now, the whole area was open. Was this the same place? He found the boulder he’d sat on when he came up here with Erica—or at least he thought it was the same one. Bird sounds, call-and-answer, rang out from the trees above him, but otherwise, the place was quiet. Gus must be around here somewhere.
He took his trail mix out of his pack and munched. It was quieter here than anywhere else on the mountain, and the air was still. The birds had stopped singing, and he felt his body begin to relax, settling into the seat on the stone and letting go of the forward-pushing energy of climbing. Maybe this would be the way to live. Just being up here in the silence. Just being. There it was, the entry hole of the stone chamber. What a marvel of construction, with its carefully-placed layers of stone forming a curved, arched ceiling. Who were the people who had built this, and what had they done here?
A creaking sound came from nearby, and he peered into the woods. A bare trunk swayed in the breeze, creaking with each swing of its pendulum, and a light wind darted around him, teasing, like a wood sprite. Up here, nothing was green yet, except the pine and hemlock. The beginnings of pale buds on the poplars and choke-cherry trees, along with the new openness of this place, filled him with a deep serenity.
Frank’s eyes closed, and his chin fell to his chest.
He awoke with a jerk. The air was colder, and he shivered and looked at his watch. Six-thirty. And it was still light. Well, it was May, and this was a northern latitude, so the days were growing longer. He took out his compass and positioned it in front of him. Due west.
“She’s not ready yet.”
Frank started. Standing before him, a little too close, was Gus. A disheveled, lumpy, middle-aged man. Could this really be that beanpole of a kid who’d called himself Thunder? Yes, there was no mistaking those deep-set eyes, that habit of looking away from the person he was addressing. Back then, that habit had seemed like shyness, but now, it had become ingrained, hardened into eccentricity.
“Hello, Thunder.”
Gus flashed a quick half-smile, then shifted back to staring straight ahead.
He does remember me, Frank thought. But if I push the connection, push through to that other reality, the past, it might violate this world for him, and scare him away. “Who’s not ready yet?”
“Anu.” Gus pointed to the sun in the western sky before them.
“Anu is the sun?”
Gus gave him a condescending smile out of the corner of his eye. “She comes in a couple of weeks, when the sun is ready.”
A couple of weeks. Frank did the calculation in his head. June twenty-first. “Are you talking about the summer solstice? Anu comes on the solstice?”
Gus sat down on a boulder beside Frank. “You see that ridge, just below the sun?” He pointed ahead. “Now, if you look a little to the right and down, you see a dip. That’s north. That’s where the sun goes down on the solstice. And over there,” he turned and pointed to a ridge behind them, “that’s where it rises. Right at that peak.”
With the terrain cleared of the shrub poplar, witch hazel, and other understory plants, Frank saw that the whole area was shaped like a wide, shallow bowl, with ridges along its front and back. A natural amphitheater. “So, this is some kind of astronomical site. Like Stonehenge.” In the book he’d gotten from Jake, there had been no mention of a site on Wild Mountain. “Cool! Did you discover it?”
Gus nodded. “I don’t need a calendar. I know the solstice and the equinoxes, and act accordingly.”
“Act accordingly?” The book said the Indians used these sites for rituals. “What do you do?”
Something flickered in Gus’s eyes, and he shifted out of the rational professorial stance and into a condescending manner as he said in a singsong voice, “Why do you think she chose us to begin with?”
“She chose us?”
“The Moose Clan.”
Frank stared. Was this a delusion? Or was there really a female spirit that had somehow brought the commune into being? Patsy, with her passion for the female divine and goddesses, might go for that notion. “What do you mean?”
“She is a moose.”
Frank groaned. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he down at his cabin working on the bridge campaign, instead of up here talking nutsy stuff with this nut?
Gus smiled serenely at the treetops. “Have you ever heard of power points?”
“Sure. PowerPoint is a program I use a lot.”
Gus emitted a strangled kind of gurgle, paused for an awkward few minutes, then seemed to regain his professorial attitude. He raised his hand, as though speaking to the stone circle. “There are points on the earth where the energy is most intense, places like King Tut’s tomb and Stonehenge—due to the electromagnetic fields.” He looked at Frank now, just a glance, then lowered his eyes again. “The lines that connect them are called ley lines.”
Frank found himself staring. “Oh, yes, I’ve read about that.” Was Gus beginning to make sense? “So, you think this spot is a power point?”
“I don’t think. I know. That’s why the spirit energy is more active here. It’s why they put these stones here to begin with.”
Frank stood up. “Of course!” Now it was all making sense. He scratched his head. “So this is a power point. And that means it’s like a holy spot.”
“It is a holy spot.”
“Wow!” He gestured with his arms out wide. This was what he’d been searching for, the answer he’d been seeking. “This is incredible!
We can get some real scientists up here to do research! We can write a book about it.”
Gus’ eyelids were fluttering, and his hands were trembling slightly. “No,” he whispered. “This is a place to protect, not for everyone. A place of healing.”
“But there’s so much we can learn from it. This is a gift, a legacy from the ancients. It’s a place the world needs to know about.”
“Not the world. Anu keeps it holy. Lesbians restore female energy…we need them…Anu bestows new understanding….” His voice trailed off.
“But more people knowing about it means more understanding!” Frank was almost shouting, as if he had to speak louder to get through to Gus.
Gus was standing now, and his eyes had glazed over. Slowly, he started walking, and while Frank waited for him to respond, he disappeared into the woods from which he had come.
What the—? “Gus!” he called. “Thunder!” But now the woods were silent again.
And in the midst of his excitement, he’d forgotten to ask Gus about the fire—whether he’d done it. But Gus, he thought, though disconcertingly unpredictable, was a gentle soul, and Frank couldn’t believe he would commit arson. Or would he? He’d probably chosen the name Thunder to counteract that gentleness, that meekness, to project strength. Would he set a fire for the same reason—to make himself seem more powerful?
And what was that he had said about lesbians and healing?
33
WHEN FRANK GOT BACK TO HIS CABIN, a red number two was blinking on his answering machine, but the fire was out and the cabin was cold, so he scooped the ashes out of the woodstove and tramped out to the woodpile. The wood was almost gone again, so he’d have to buy some, or else go out and find some dead trees. He picked up a bundle of split logs and sighed. When he rebuilt, he would get a more efficient stove, one that burned more slowly and evenly. He wouldn’t cave in and go to oil. Why support the big oil companies, especially when you had such an abundant supply of fuel in your back yard?
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