by Peter Heller
But he could not shake the scream.
He had hiked back to the cabin, undressed, and laid the rifle beside him. His thoughts had spun but after a while exhaustion overtook him and he finally slept. He dreamt of the Encampment, the three of them and the four horses stringing along the high trail, the roar of the gorge below and the slick tilt of the slab rock that his father was about to ride over. But this time his mother reined up and turned in the saddle and faced him, her eyes severe above a strange half smile, and she said, “You ride first today.”
It should have been a good dream but it wasn’t. It should have meant that her life would be spared. That he, on his stolid gelding Duke, would walk just fine across the slick angle of rock and she would follow. But he woke with a cry in his throat and his heart racing. Jesus. He needed to settle down. He needed to take stock and figure out where he was, who he was. He lay on the bed and looked out between the tied-back curtains and breathed. After Wynn had died he had suffered nightmares often, and wakings like this that felt less like release than a panic attack. One symptom. He had read about PTSD and all of this was classic. And survivor’s guilt. Even paranoia. Even imaginings—a softer word than hallucinations, which was softer still than psychosis. But tonight he was not imagining or hallucinating or psychotic, he was sure. He had seen what he had seen and heard what he had heard.
* * *
•
He watched the first light quicken the trees and then he roused and splashed himself with cold water. Then he did something that surprised him. He took the .30-.30 out into the pines and leaned it against the upstream side of one of the trunks. It could only be seen from a patch of woods no one would ever walk. If Kurt asked him about it he’d say he’d gotten rid of it. He hadn’t been fired yesterday, what was one more strike?
He found himself forgoing his own quiet cup of coffee here on his porch, found himself wanting to see Alison K. Somehow the thought of her by the hearth with her first cup was reassuring. He hoped she was there and walked down.
She was there. So was Mr. Silver Buttons and his partner, Neave. Alison K was standing by the fire, the couple were in a leather love seat, their cups on an exquisite coffee table made from a slab of petrified wood.
The man—what was his name?—smiled at Jack wanly. Jack did a double take. Mr. Silver Buttons did not have the quietly arrogant assurance of the possible hedge-fund billionaire Jack had met two nights before. He was different. He looked debauched somehow, his eyes shiny and too big but also veiled. He seemed ashamed maybe, like someone who had spent the night bingeing on something. Was he sick? Jack noticed a Band-Aid on the back of his left hand. She just looked exhausted, if not drugged. Her long black hair was pinned up and her smile was sincere and tired, but her eyes were hooded as if she were half-asleep. She wore a shirt with thumb loops that pulled the sleeves down to the first knuckles of her hand. To hide maybe a Band-Aid or puncture.
Jack nodded good morning and fetched his own cup. Someone with a sense of fun or kitsch had put out mugs with animal graphics. He chose a bull elk stepping out of golden aspen and bugling, his breath steaming in the autumn chill. Jack hesitated between pulling the spigot on Kona dark roast or Sumatran blond and chose the dark. He stirred in a teaspoon of honey. Then he was curious about which mugs the rich couple had chosen and as he joined Alison at the fire he raised his cup, Cheers, and the guests raised theirs: Silver Buttons lifted a wolf, his wife a mountain goat. Alison touched her cutthroat to his elk.
Her smile: what he had hungered for since his head had hit the pillow six hours ago. Since he had gotten back to the cabin safely and turned the dead bolt in the door and lain down. Safely? Had he been unsafe? He didn’t know. He didn’t really know a thing and every day it seemed he knew less. And he’d only been here two days.
She smiled and sipped from the trout cup and her eyes were steady over the rim. “You okay?” she said.
Over his own cup he blinked fast twice. He hadn’t meant to.
“Not really?” she said.
They were on the other side of the wide stone fireplace from the love seat and the fire was popping and shirring but still he glanced at the couple and kept his voice low. “Not sure,” he said.
“Didn’t sleep well?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“No?”
“I heard an owl. One of those screamers.”
Jack shivered. Didn’t mean to do that, either. Cardinal rule in guiding: Don’t scare easy. If you do scare, absolutely DO NOT LET THE CLIENT KNOW. Your job—one of many—is to keep your cool. Resolve the situation, mitigate the danger, go on with your day. And keep the client blissfully unaware of all of it if possible. Kind of a river guide’s creed. Probably a climber’s, too, and a platoon leader’s, maybe a parent’s.
“A barn owl,” he got out.
“Yes, that’s the one. Sounds like a woman being knifed to death. We had them at home.”
“What I always thought, too. Sounds grisly.” He wondered if she’d heard the same shriek, and how. No way she could have heard it from her cabin. “Window open?” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I was walking.” She sipped. His shock: if he’d been trying to hide his emotions, he wasn’t doing a very good job. She laughed. “You look gobsmacked.”
“I do?”
“Can’t a girl walk the hills at night?”
“Yeah, sure.” He steadied himself. “Like in ‘The Long Black Veil.’ ”
“Ooh, yeah. I was thinking more like ‘Walkin’ After Midnight.’ ”
“Patsy Cline.”
“You’re good.”
And she started to sing it, softly, just over the flutter and sighs of the fire. Despite herself. Jack might have stared. Her voice was as sweet and rough-grained and passionate as any he had heard in his life. Last night he’d been rooted to the earth by a shriek. Now it was song. “I stopped to see a weeping willow / Cryin’ on his pillow…” He knew the voice now, too. Holy crap. She had lifted her chin and turned her head and her eyes had closed, as if singing to the sky beyond the pitched roof of the lodge, or to a memory, and she opened them for a sec and caught his look, and the phrasing stopped midair. Just—Jack thought—as the scream had. “Sorry,” she said.
“Fuckin’ A,” Jack mouthed.
“Now you know.”
“Never be sorry.”
“Why, thanks.”
“Where were you walking?”
The bell chimed and they all turned and saw Shay rapping the clapper cord. She wore a deep purple blouse the color of a midnight sky.
* * *
•
“Where were you walking?” Jack asked again after Shay had poured them coffee.
“Upstream.”
“To the bridge?”
“Over it. And up.” She spread marmalade over a homemade sourdough English muffin. Jack was beginning to see last night’s foray as from owl view, or drone. At one point, they must have been very close.
“You walked over the bridge?”
She nodded and kept her attention on the second half of the muffin, blueberry jam this time. The camera would have recorded both of them for sure.
“Um, mind if I ask?”
“You mean what the heck was I doing up there in the middle of the night?”
“Just wondering.”
“Bird-watching.”
“Bird-watching. You had binocs?”
“Yep. I did it my first night, too. One of my hobbies, but that night I went for a walk upstream and I was looking and listening for real birds.”
“Goddamn.”
“Excuse me?”
“Kreutzer’s an old bird. A crazy old coot. Is that it?”
“Yep.”
“He shot at you, or me, and you were pissed, and you wanted to see what the heck
. Bird-watching.”
“Polite way of putting it. He shot at my favorite guide.” She lifted the marmaladed muffin, took a bite, let her hazel eyes settle on his. Jack thought that they were the color of stones on the riverbed.
“Did you see anything?”
“The windows were lit but there was no movement.” What he had seen. She said, “I heard an owl scream. One time. Owls usually repeat.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Usually.”
“I thought I heard a car.”
He wondered then if she had lain awake as he had, her head spinning with questions.
“You wanna start downstream this morning?” Jack said. “We can start at the fence and work up. Those two ledge drops are fun.”
“Okay.”
“I’m kind of sick of the bridge.”
“Me, too.”
* * *
•
They ate. Eggs Benedict with smoked trout. Dollar pancakes with whipped butter and real maple syrup. Two quarts of coffee, at least. What could be better? Jack’s mantra. What could be better than this? Nothing, if you focused on the breakfast, the company, the fishing they were about to do.
The early morning hadn’t been as cold and there had been no frost, and now the breeze huffed intermittently upstream, which was less normal in the morning, and it brought with it a breath of warmth and fleets of flat-bottomed clouds. Whatever rust Alison K had accumulated over a summer of touring she had now shed, and she worked the river with confidence and fewer and fewer comments from Jack. He was enjoying just watching her. He helped her with fly selection and performed the always-appreciated guide’s service of tying on, but then he stepped back. She caught fish and he netted them and she held and released them. She said it was important for her to touch them, help them recover.
Jack loved mornings like this. The clouds sailed together and multiplied, so that by late morning the sky was a running scud of overcast. The air over the river seemed relieved of relentless sun and released a wealth of summer smells—the damp of exposed roots, the faint sweetness of black-eyed Susans, a watery scent of crushed horsetails. And rain. The promise of it. As they waded above the second ledge and entered the bend below the lodge it did begin to shower. It was nearly lunchtime anyway, so they decided to trot up the trail to the lodge. She had caught so many fish, and she thought it might be a nice afternoon for a sauna and a massage, and she asked Jack if, after lunch, they might reconvene for a late-afternoon session.
* * *
•
He hadn’t noticed the awning before. It rolled out from a redwood casing under the eaves and covered two-thirds of the back deck and the rain ran off it.
Lunch today was more communal. In the shelter of the awning, which ticked and pattered. Jack smelled the spread before they had gone up the steps—a briny scent of ocean—and it evoked a sharp memory of coastal Maine, the paddling trips he and Wynn had taken to the Penobscot and the islands. Two long tables were laid with a bounty of seafood: warm lobster tails beside a boat of drawn butter, shucked oysters on ice, yellowtail sashimi, a bowl of ikura with lemons and another of beluga caviar. And because it was raining and the day was cooling: fresh clam chowder, hot. And three species of green salad and a grandma’s potato salad, and a chicken salad in case a guest wasn’t feeling maritime.
Shay glided out with a tray of warm salmon toast and she was wearing a sailor shirt and a Royal Navy cap cocked on her head. Whoa. Jack never thought the lodge would stoop that low. He thought of Uncle Lloyd talking about the Caribbean cruise he’d won at the Cattlemen’s Association banquet. When he got back, he and Jack were irrigating the narrow hayfields across the river and Jack had asked him how it was. Lloyd stepped into the shade of a cottonwood and leaned on his double-aught spade. He said,
“I didn’t have enough shirts.”
“Shirts?” Jack said.
“Well, first there was Hawaiian Night. I had a Hawaiian shirt so I wore that. Lucky damn thing. Then there was French Night. Were we anchored off of Haiti? Who the hell knows. I wore the Hawaiian shirt. Got some looks. Then there was Las Vegas Night. I mean. One genius who must’ve actually read the packing list wore a sky blue tuxedo.”
“You wore the Hawaiian shirt.”
“Yep.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“What I said.”
Jack figured that the types who patronized the lodge wouldn’t tolerate forced festivity, but he guessed this was more a themed meal. Well, Shay was cute in her outfit and at least the guests didn’t have to share a communal table.
The mood was a bit festive, he had to admit. The fleecy couple were there, as were Will and Neave, and the general energy was much improved. The two couples stood and conversed together, and a peal of laughter rang over the river. They turned and motioned Alison over and Jack stepped away to give her some space. Shay circulated with a tray of iced teas and bull shots—beef bouillon and vodka, with lemon—when the rain swept over the awning with a final rush, and ceased. Shay set down the tray and rolled back the awning.
“We’ll give this a try,” she announced.
The sky did lighten. Still a mass of moving clouds, but no longer low enough to scrape the rim of the canyon. Shay rang a handbell and everyone lined up. Jack was at the end of the line with Cody when they heard a faint drum and then the shuddering thwop of a chopper and all eyes turned skyward and the belly of a black Robinson helicopter sheared right over the trees downstream, heading up the canyon. It passed over, the shadow of a giant bird, and seemed to be descending. As fast as it had appeared, it was gone, the beat of the rotors fading in a trail of Dopplered low notes. But the thrum did not quite cease.
It had landed. That’s what Jack thought. Just upstream. He held his plate with the single lobster tail and turned to Cody. Who wore a half grin.
“The king has arrived,” Cody said.
“The king?”
“Den.”
“But I thought—”
“You thought he was in London or wherever. Yesterday. He probably was.”
That’s not what Jack was thinking. He was thinking that it sounded like the chopper had landed at Kreutzer’s, and he’d been told that the place belonged to an adversarial neighbor—
He shut his mouth. Cody said, “The dude has like twenty properties all over the world. Can’t say ‘houses,’ cuz some are like frigging towns. I hear he’s got a fishing lodge in Kamchatka makes this place look ghetto.”
“Kamchatka?”
Cody had the half grin but his eyes were flat, as they always were. “He invites special guests from everywhere. Supposed to be the best trout fishing on earth.”
Did Jack hear a note of wistfulness? Maybe. He took two oysters, skipped the yellowtail, which he knew was just about extinct, and spooned a heap of chicken salad.
* * *
•
They didn’t talk much over lunch. They sat at their table by the railing. Alison told him the helicopter was Den, and Jack said he’d heard, and their eyes met for a thoughtful beat and they let it go. For now. After that they ate. They had shared an easy, quiet closeness all morning in the river and both intuited that the best conversation now was silence. At some point, in the midst of it, Jack thought he heard the rising cadence of the chopper’s engines, but this time they saw no bird.
They skipped dessert. She was eager for a massage and a rest and they decided they’d convene around three to fish.
* * *
•
The rain fell again, softly, by the time he walked the road to his cabin. Almost his favorite kind of afternoon: intermittent squalls and drizzle so fine it was scarcely denser than fog. But today he barely noticed. When he got to his shack Jack changed fast into quick-dry hiking pants and zipped into an olive rain jacket. He dug eight-power binocs out of his fishing pack and slung them under the jacket and
stuffed his lightweight hiking boots into a CamelBak and went out the door. He tugged his wet waders and wading boots on again and picked up his rod as before and trotted down the trail to the river.
* * *
•
Between the lodge and his cabin the river made a shallow S-turn and in the middle of it was a stretch of water that could not be seen except by someone fishing, or hiking, into it. He crossed where the river was shallowest. He held up the rod and acted like a man on a mission to fish, finally free of clients and with only God as witness. He turned up the game trail as if angling to fish the top of the bend and he disappeared into the shadows of some big ponderosas and as soon as he was out of sight he set the rod down against a trunk. It was also good to be alone. Alone alone. It occurred to him then that he had not seen Cody or the fleecy young couple on the river all morning. Again. Curious. Where had they worked up such a hunger for lunch?
The rain had lightened to a near mist. He pried off the wading boots, slid off the waders, twisted the hiking boots out of the pack, and put them on. Then he climbed away from the river and up the rocky side of the canyon, trying to stay in the lodgepoles.
* * *
•
He wanted, as much as anything, to study the country. It always took a living look to understand how a piece of country tied together—how the ridges ran, and the drainages, and the peaks. But what he really wanted was to get a bird’s-eye view of the lodge; and of Kreutzer’s.
He found a game trail as he always did, and the north side of the canyon steepened fast. Soon he was climbing on a trace gritted with loose gravel and using his hands now and then to climb through the ledges of sandstone. He crossed pocket benches of wheatgrass and saw the scat of hare and deer, and the twisted links of a small predator, probably bobcat. None of the sign was very new, which made sense: in a summer this bountiful with rain most of the animals were up high.
