The Retreat

by David Bergen

  “You wanna go away from here,” he asked. “A ride maybe?”

  She wanted to say yes, but she was confused by the mix of desire and anger she felt. She said, “Just like that? You abandon me and then come back and you think everything’s the same? That I’m just gonna hop in your truck and go for a ride?”

  He shrugged, and as he did so she wanted to slap him, make him feel something. He said that she could think what she wanted, but he hadn’t abandoned her. “We married or something?”

  She put her hand against his chest and pushed him so that he stumbled backwards. “Or something,” she said. She saw them both as teetering on the edge of a cliff and she understood that the wrong words might send one of them tumbling. She didn’t want that. She walked around to the passenger door and climbed into the pickup. Raymond got in, shaking his head and smiling.

  “I’m not interested in fighting with you,” she said, and she slouched in her seat and told him to drive.

  They went through town and then west on the 71 towards the Manitoba border. After a while Raymond slowed and took a side road down towards a small lake and he parked at the entrance to a boat ramp, which appeared to be no longer used. He lit a cigarette and threw the match out the window. They hadn’t talked much during the drive, but Lizzy had been aware of Raymond’s sense of purpose, even in the silence, and how he appeared older. Her anger gradually subsided and what remained was resignation. She sat and looked straight ahead and told Raymond that she felt like a person who had been lost in a desert and then suddenly, before her, he had appeared holding water in his cupped hands. Only the water was quickly disappearing and she wasn’t even sure if the water was meant for her. She looked at him. “I missed you,” she said.

  He said that she told a great story, did she know that? “The desert, the water. Where do you come up with that stuff?” He reached out and touched the back of her head. “I missed you too.”

  “Really? You’re not just saying that because you’re supposed to?”

  “Am I? Supposed to?” He slid his hand down her neck. “Trust me,” he said.

  “You’re not in trouble, are you?” she asked. “When I was up there, at the park, the police made you out to be criminals. I don’t want you getting hurt.” She said that those men, Lionel and Gary, maybe they were like the Doctor at the Retreat, who just kept talking until his vision sounded perfect. Maybe the leaders of the occupation were the same. She said that adults could be pretty fucked up. “I was worried about you.”

  He closed his eyes and said that he felt something bad was going to happen. “You know?” He patted his stomach. “Right there. Hard to breathe.” He said that the feeling had been there for about a week.

  Lizzy put her hand on his stomach. “Maybe it’s excitement,” she said. “All that power.” She punched him lightly and laughed, but he didn’t laugh with her. She slid towards him and took his face in her hands and kissed him and he let her do this. She pulled away and studied his face, the darkness she could not gain entry into. She kissed him again, resolute now, desperate even, and then she fell back and said that he’d changed.

  He lifted a hand and let it fall onto his thigh and he said that he was no longer sure about anything. He said he’d dreamed recently that he was a small animal on a string. She laughed. “You silly boy,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.” She put her head against his chest. “Everything’s fine.”

  Driving back up into Kenora she leaned against the passenger door. His smell was all over her, in her nose, on her fingers, her breasts, inside her. She felt a sleepiness brought on by a feeling of well-being, and her eyes closed briefly, and she may have slept. Raymond, turning once in a while to look at her, saw that she did sleep because her fingers jumped lightly, and this allowed him the freedom to observe her. She had taken off her sandals and had tucked her legs up beneath her and her feet lay very close to his thigh. He saw the bones of her feet, their smallness, her naked ankles, and though he had just seen her completely naked, he had not felt then her vulnerability and her hopefulness. Her hair fell dark across her left cheek and obscured her jaw. Her shoulders were thin and her breasts were small and he knew that her spine resembled a column of pebbles laid out in perfect symmetry. Lying back on the grass, he had kissed her shoulders and the small of her back just half an hour earlier.

  After making love they had stood in the sunshine and Lizzy had asked about the tarp covering the back of the pickup, what was underneath it. He’d shown her the groceries. He said that the job he’d been given by the leaders of the occupation was to get food and deliver it to the park. He was going to go out there later. He said that the police had closed the park entrance and there was no way of bringing in food and there were children going hungry. He paused, as if uncertain about the words he was using, and then he said that he delivered the food by boat.

  She hadn’t registered any particular surprise. She’d lifted the tarp and said, “Diapers,” and she’d wondered if the sex had made her soft.

  About halfway back to Kenora, Lizzy woke and sat up. Her cheek was creased from sleeping against the side of the door. Raymond reached over and touched her face. Perhaps because of the distraction of Lizzy, or perhaps because of his own sense of happiness, Raymond didn’t see the vehicle or the flashing lights behind him. Only when the short burp of a siren sounded did he look in his rear-view mirror. He did not understand at first that the police cruiser was asking him to stop. When he finally caught on, he slowed and he muttered, “Shit,” and then he said it again as he stopped on the shoulder.

  “Who?” Lizzy said, and she turned to look back.

  A local constable. And Raymond’s hands began to shake as the policeman climbed out of the cruiser. It was Earl Hart.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  Hart approached the driver’s side. Raymond sat straight, both hands on the wheel. And then Hart was standing there, leaning in slightly, and he said, “Mr. Seymour.” He surveyed the cab, took in the floor, the gun rack, then Lizzy. Rested his gaze on Lizzy for a long while and then he said, “Well, well.”

  Raymond took out his cigarettes and lit one. His hands were shaking.

  “Thought it might be you,” Hart said. “Saw the gun in the back window and figured that that was mighty brazen. And I wondered, does this boy have a permit for such a weapon and such, and so I thought I’d make enquiries. Same someone new. Some people have all the luck, eh?” Raymond just looked straight ahead.

  “What’s your name again?” He was speaking to Lizzy, but he was watching Raymond.

  She said her name, first and last.

  “Right. Right.” He asked if she had ID.

  She said she didn’t.

  “Not on you.” He nodded, as if this were to be pondered.

  Raymond spoke into the windshield. “I’m not in the wrong.”

  Hart chuckled. “You’ve been in the wrong most of your life. I hear you’re having a good time up at the park. Pretty big event. Playing warrior. Scaring little children. Must feel like a real man. What’s in back?” He straightened up and turned, leaning towards the box and lifting the edge of the tarp. He let the tarp drop. “Setting up a trading post are we? Step out of the vehicle. Both of you.”

  Lizzy reached for the door handle and Raymond said, “Don’t.” She turned to look at Raymond who reached for his own door handle and said, “Stay in the truck.”

  Hart moved back to allow Raymond room, and as he did so, Raymond turned and swung his feet up and kicked out against his door. The door bucked outwards in a wild arc and caught Hart on the chest and waist and crotch. His face showed surprise as the air went out of him, and then he fell.

  Lizzy screamed.

  Raymond climbed from the pickup and bent over Hart. He tugged Hart’s pistol from the holster and heaved the gun into the ditch. Then he walked over to the cruiser and reached inside and switched off the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition and threw them across the road into the ditch on the other side. When he came back
to the pickup, Hart was attempting to rise. Raymond stepped around him and climbed in. He leaned out his window and said, “Watch your feet.” He pushed the stick shift up into first and drove off.

  Lizzy turned to look out the rear window and then back to Raymond and said, “Why? Why? He asked you to get out of the truck, that’s all.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He wasn’t going to do anything. Jesus, Raymond.” She began to whimper. “Now what?”

  “Listen.” He looked at her. “Calm down. I’ll drop you off at the Retreat later. Okay? He doesn’t care about you. He wants to get me. Even more now. You’re over there somewhere, so don’t worry. You’ve got to leave me deal with this.”

  “I’m a witness,” Lizzy said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” She began to hiccup and this brought on more sounds similar to laughter. Raymond took her hand.

  She said that there would be more than just one policeman coming to look for him. Didn’t he know that? “You can’t assault a cop and just get away with it.” Then she said that she wouldn’t leave him. That they should go to the police station and turn themselves in and she would be a witness for him. At this, Raymond turned on her and said, “I don’t need a witness. No witness. Never had one before, don’t need one now.”

  She sat upright and stared straight ahead as if she was gauging the light that fell across her arm and onto the dashboard where it revealed the dust that lay there. She felt the warmth of the sun on her right arm and imagined that she was sitting with the ease of a young girl out for a ride in the country. The light on the hairs on her arm made them appear more golden than they actually were. Her feet were resting on the dash and her legs were bent and they were at the level of her eyes and the light that fell across her arm and partially across her chest also fell onto her legs. And so she was warmed by the light that came from the sun.

  Nelson was at the cabin. He was sitting on the swing and when they pulled up he raised his head and watched them. They went to him and Raymond said he’d hit a cop, Earl Hart, and that Hart would probably be coming after him. He looked over his shoulder, back down the road, and he said that he thought he should pack and leave.

  He went to the truck and took three beers from the case in the back. He found a screwdriver in the cab, popped one cap, and gave the bottle to Lizzy. He did the same for Nelson. Then he opened his own beer, drank, and said that there might be a convoy of police cruisers coming down the road any time.

  “I don’t think so,” Nelson said. “You’re not that important.”

  “What’ll I do?” Raymond asked. He was leaning towards his brother, who waved a hand and patted the seat beside him and said, “Sit, relax. If he comes, he comes, but he won’t come. Isn’t that right, Lizzy?”

  Lizzy squinted and looked away and thought that she should be back at the Retreat with Fish and William. Down by the pond. Getting ready for dinner. Margaret would be calling for them right about now.

  Nelson lit a cigarette and handed it to Raymond. They sat side by side, with Lizzy standing and facing them. Raymond told the story again, as if by retelling it the facts might change, but they didn’t, and as he spoke the sun dropped behind the cabin and then below the trees. Then, as if rising from a deep sleep, Raymond sat up straight and said, “We gotta go. Now.” And he stood and went into the cabin. When he returned he sat down again and by the time dusk arrived he was well into his fourth beer. He appeared to have shrugged off what had transpired on the highway and the conversation had turned to alcohol and its comforts and dangers. Raymond said that he was not a happy drinker, and that it would be wise for Lizzy to leave before things turned wild. Nelson could drive her home. But no one made any move to rise, and Lizzy understood that she remained outside of the world these two brothers inhabited.

  For the next while she tried to convince Raymond that he should turn himself in. She said that she would vouch for him.

  Nelson laughed and said, “Vouch for him? Maybe you could write up some sort of warranty promising that he will behave, and that he is in no way dangerous, and that the world would be a better place if we had more boys like Raymond.” He raised his beer bottle and pointed it at Lizzy. “Who do you think you are?”

  “Leave her the fuck alone,” Raymond said.

  Lizzy ducked her head and stood. With the sun having set, the air was cooler and she felt the cold on her back. She shivered and went inside. She sat down and rested her elbows on the table and watched the flame bend and waver in the smoky glass of the lamp. She heard Raymond and Nelson talking, their voices rising and falling. She laid her head on her arms, and she must have fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes Raymond was standing beside her. He put his hand on her back and said that he was worried about her. He would drive her home, okay? She stood and studied him and said he couldn’t drive, he’d been drinking too much, and besides, Hart would be looking for him. She would walk back by herself. He began to protest, but she waved him away and said it would be safer to walk.

  She went outside, past the swing where Nelson still sat. He watched her walk by but he said nothing. She walked down the trail beyond the pickup and into the dark corridor of trees that led to the main road and then down that road. The noises of the night were all around her, the sounds of animals scurrying in the ditches, the call of night birds. At one point, she saw an arc of light from an approaching vehicle. She slipped down into the ditch and crouched there and when the vehicle passed she saw that it was a police cruiser. She watched the tail lights disappear and she considered returning to where she had come from, but the possibility of what she would find there frightened her, and so she turned and continued down the road towards the Retreat.

  Hart arrived from the rear. He had parked a hundred yards down the trail, got out of the cruiser, and worked his way through the bush up towards the cabin. He approached the Seymour boys from the back, as they sat side by side in their piece-of-shit swing, admiring their pitiful rifle. He laid the muzzle of his pistol against the back of Raymond’s neck and he said, “Slow, boys. No sudden movements.” To Nelson, he said, “Empty the chamber of the rifle and then lay it down on the ground.”

  Nelson began to turn, but Hart swung his pistol away from Raymond’s spinal cord and caught Nelson across the cheekbone. Nelson swore. “Do as I say,” Hart said.

  Nelson dropped the shells he was holding onto the ground and then laid the gun at his feet. He spoke then, sidelong to his brother, in a voice that revealed no fear, no anger. “This would be Hart, then,” he said. He turned and saw the man holding the gun. In the darkness, he looked him up and down, and he laughed.

  “Don’t do that,” Raymond said.

  “Let’s go.” Hart gestured at the cabin, the open door. They walked, the three of them forming a triangle, towards the cabin. Inside, the flame of the lamp fluttered and danced and in that dancing Raymond saw the darkness at the corners of the room. He moved over towards his brother, who was leaning against the far wall. He felt sluggish and weary.

  Hart held the pistol at chest level and moved it back and forth, from boy to boy. He asked where the girl was.

  “What girl?” Nelson said.

  Hart pushed his chin out at Raymond. “You know the one. Liz something. Bird.”

  “She flew away.” This was Nelson again. He wouldn’t stand still and he wouldn’t shut up and this seemed to make Hart nervous.

  Hart looked around, motioned at the bedroom and said, “What’s in there?” He stepped backwards and looked into the room and then at the boys. “Regular palace you got here.”

  Then he said that Raymond had made the wrong decision that afternoon. He said all he had wanted was a show of respect. And now look where he was. “Stuck in a shit-hole cabin, looking down the barrel of a gun.” He said that he had come alone. “Wanted to deal with this myself. My way.”

  He looked at Nelson and asked him his name.

  “Geronimo,” Nelson said.

  Hart nodded. He reached down to his belt an
d unlatched the handcuffs there and held them in his left hand. He said that he wanted Raymond to put them on. He didn’t want any more trouble. Things could go from bad to worse or they could get better. He reached out with the hand that held the cuffs and asked Raymond to move away from the wall, to put his hands behind his back. He said, “Geronimo, you back over towards the door.”

  Neither of the boys moved. A low groan rose from Raymond’s belly and went up his chest and floated out his mouth. It was like the sound of a boat grinding against its mooring, and as the sound erupted, Nelson turned to his brother and saw that Raymond’s shoulders were shaking and his chest was heaving.

  Nelson stepped towards his brother, who waved him away. Nelson told Hart that his brother wasn’t interested in handcuffs. And where would he take his brother, in any case? Back out to that island? He said that this time anywhere his brother went, he would go as well. “Take me,” Nelson said, and he hunched towards Hart and held out his wrists. Hart, wary, moved to snap on the cuffs, and as he did so, Nelson swung outwards with his left fist and caught Hart’s gun hand, on the meaty part of the palm. The gun fired and the bullet went through the ceiling and the gun landed in a corner of the room. He jabbed with his right hand at Hart’s mouth and caught his ear because the man had ducked, then kicked at Nelson’s feet. Nelson went over and fell hard on his back and he felt the air go out of him. He heard Raymond cry out, and he saw Hart’s boot coming at his head, and he knew the man was quicker than he’d thought and that he could not avoid the blow. He pulled backwards to lessen the impact and Hart’s heel caught him across the jaw. The pain stunned him briefly and then he rolled sideways, scrambling around the legs of the table, rocking the lamp, which stayed upright and remained burning, a flickering and unholy light that cast long shadows. Hart chased him, calling him a nasty little motherfucker who had all kinds of suffering coming his way. Then, as if he were a magician, he produced a club in his right hand and a knife in his left. Raymond moved in and Nelson told him to get back. Nelson feinted and dodged, aware of his brother’s voice dropping down on him as if from a great distance. He saw Hart’s small forehead and the round nose, the half-closed eyes, which in turn watched his own. The two men circled the room, alert to each other’s movements and the initiation of fear; enacting a dance that was age-old and final. Nelson felt no fear. The purity of this act, the notion that you could strip down to this one single purpose. Hart jabbed with the club and then his other arm arced and the knife passed across Nelson’s chest and opened him up, just below the nipples. His shirt blossomed with blood. He looked down and saw the blood and he heard his own small grunt and the larger “Ahhh” of Hart’s voice. Raymond made a keening noise. Hart pounced forward, sure of himself now, driving the knife towards Nelson’s throat, his face full of anticipation, just as Raymond leapt onto Hart’s back, wrapping his arms around his face. Hart stumbled and bellowed with rage. The knife fell to the floor and Hart flailed with his club at the heavy burr stuck to his back. Nelson, seizing the advantage, reached for the knife just as Hart, still carrying Raymond, lunged at him. Nelson held the knife out, and Hart, blinded by Raymond’s grasp, fell forward and the blade went deep into his chest. He gave a slow, long moan.