‘Time off? But, Mike,’ I said, frantically treading to keep my job afloat, ‘I have no idea what happened today. It was freakish, but I can guarantee you it won’t happen again.’
‘That’s right, it won’t,’ he said and I realized that was his final word on the subject. Never one to whine, I knew my case was beyond begging, so I went to my locker, took off my uniform jacket and walked away, unsure of what to do next.
TWENTY-NINE
It was getting dark as I neared home. For the first time in what felt like weeks, it wasn’t snowing as I passed the Greenes’ house. As usual, it looked warm and inviting, glowing warm within, grey smoke curling from the chimney. While my road always represented peace and tranquility to me, this night it felt not only lonely but foreboding. I supposed it was my reaction to all the things that had taken place in the preceding weeks. So much in such a short period of time. My suspension from work was just another layer of shit in an already dense cake.
The only thing lightening the load was the existence of Duane. He had texted me early in the morning, manna from heaven that read: GRETA, SO GLAD YOU’RE YOU. SPECIAL DOESN’T BEGIN TO DESCRIBE YOU. I hadn’t picked up the text until after the incident with the bomb, but it sure helped to assuage some of the mixed emotions I was having about my dubious performance at work in recent days. Maybe Neverman was right. Maybe my noggin was a bit screwed up from the avalanche and the carbon monoxide.
There hadn’t been another text from Duane since the early morning, but I had no doubt he’d call me later. He felt like a sure thing, like a familiar pair of old socks that I could slide right on. Or right into. Or him into me. I assumed his day had been more insufferable than mine, burdened with thoughts of his friends and their daughter while dealing with dozens of torn ligaments, broken wrists, sprained backs, banged heads. The ER had probably been humming all day.
Caught up in my own emotional tizzy, more than anything I longed to hear his voice. Needed to hear it. He was the light at the end of my tunnel. I wanted him to be with me to take the edge off my pain as I had taken the edge off his, to take my mind off the thought of doing great harm to Neverman.
I let myself into the A-frame, popped a beer open and plopped down in the Barcalounger. I sat in front of the blank television screen waiting for the phone to ring, willing it to ring. A popular song started playing in my head about a woman putting on a dress so her boyfriend could take if off. Suddenly that seemed like a very good idea.
I only had one dress, but it was cute and sexy, purchased for a wedding a couple of years ago. It was cut away at the shoulders and the midriff was a thin transparent sheath and the skirt reached to my knees with a slit up the side. Black, of course.
I changed into my sexiest underwear and put on the dress and went back to the Barcalounger to wait for his call. I waited and waited and waited. One beer turned to two turned to three as the clock marched past seven and eight and ten and eleven.
By midnight, the six-pack was gone and so was I. Realizing he wasn’t going to call, I peeled off the dress, donned my sweats and climbed up to the loft. I’m not usually a big drinker, so I was unsteady making my way to my bed. I crawled across the floor and flopped on to the mattress. The only good thing to be said about being drunk was that it helped my unemployed, unloved self fall directly asleep.
The sound of a car coming down the road woke me. The clock’s digital readout glowed three a.m. I sat up in bed, my ears primed in the darkness. My heart gave a hopeful thump that it was Duane coming to see me after all. I hoped he remembered the key under the planter. I crawled on hands and knees to the small upper window at the front of the loft hoping to see his Porsche come round the bend, my heart trilling in anticipation. I could see the glow of headlights painting the road from behind the trees.
And then the road went black.
I stared out the window into the dark, wondering what this meant. Maybe his car had died. Maybe he wanted to surprise me. And then gradually, another less attractive thought occurred to me. Maybe it wasn’t him. The sky was clear, but it was a moonless night, and even the snow seemed washed in black, making it difficult to see anything other than the darkness out of my window.
I climbed down the stairs and waited. Five minutes passed in silence. I was beginning to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing when there was the sound of someone or something on my front deck. The snow muffled the footsteps, but the creak of loose boards told me it was real. Fear having sobered me up, I pressed an ear to the door and listened. The voices were low, but I could tell there were two of them, because it was clear that one person was answering the other. And then there was a loud shhh and all talking ceased.
Minutes more of excruciating silence. And then the void of sound was replaced by a scraping coming from the east side of the building. Had I not heard the voices I would have thought it was an animal foraging for food. I had no idea who was out there or why. What I did know was it didn’t bode well for me.
Fear is a disabling thing. But, being the sort of person who can stand at the top of a run with a drop-off of ten stories, give or take, a run that would unnerve most skiers not to mention ordinary people, where a mistake can mean sure injury, I’ve found myself rather insensitive to fear. I’ve jumped out of airplanes or off cliffs with chutes, and aside from the initial adrenaline rush, the moment I’m floating earthward I’m as calm as if I were sitting at home in front of the fire reading a book. I’ve hiked treacherous trails, biked rim trails with fifty-foot drop-offs, rafted down whitewater rapids rated as five with insides as untroubled as if I were walking a garden path.
But the fear taking hold of me now was unlike any I’d ever known. I could only conjure up one time that even came close. It was the time I climbed Capital Peak with Jack, back when I thought he was my true love. Capital has a notorious knife’s edge that has to be crossed in order to summit the 14,000 foot peak. Fear had to be conquered in order to navigate a section of the climb where there was no foothold other than on the side of the actual knife’s edge. If a hand slipped or a foot failed, the plunge meant certain death.
Jack had taught me basic climbing skills and convinced me that I’d have no problem on this most challenging of peaks. And true to his word, summiting hadn’t bothered me at all. But when we started back down and it came time to go back across the knife’s edge, I was gripped with a lethal fear that rendered me frozen halfway in. It was as if my precarious position suddenly dawned on me, that I was a rag doll poised over razor-sharp cliffs below. My mouth went so dry it extended to my lungs where the sacs stuck like collapsed gum bubbles with each breath. I was paralyzed with fear. I started fantasizing a helicopter rescue and wondered how long it would take.
Jack was in the lead and was nearly across the knife’s edge when he turned to check on me. What he saw told him I was in big trouble.
‘Greta, c’mon,’ he prompted.
‘I’m afraid,’ I howled. ‘I don’t think I can get back across.’
Now Jack had always been a calm guy, fairly immune to panic, seldom one to lose his cool. But it was clear that the sight of his girlfriend frozen on a cliff side like a horse refusing to be led past fire had taken him unawares.
‘You can do it,’ he shouted over the wind.
‘No I can’t. I’m afraid.’
‘You can’t be afraid. You’ll freeze.’
‘It’s too late,’ I called back. ‘I’m already frozen.’
He acted oblivious to the fact that I was near a meltdown, my heart pounding so I was near fainting and I was frightened beyond rational thought. In my mind, there was no way I was going to cross that knife’s edge again. I wondered if they might be able to air lift me off the peak and wondered how long I could last while Jack went down for help. I stood there a trembling mess, fighting back tears. And then Jack did what I thought at the time was the most insensitive thing imaginable. Instead of trying to coddle or persuade me into action, he turned back to crossing the dangerous stretch, moving as gracefu
lly as a tightrope walker on a sidewalk. When he had safely made it to the turf at the other end, he stretched and sat down on the ground with his back to me.
I was furious. Somehow, I’d had the notion that he was going to save me. I came to realize the only one who could save me in this instance was me. If I did nothing, my body might be frozen on that precipice into perpetuity. My anger transformed my fear and the survival instinct kicked in. I mentally shut my eyes to the danger and imagined the ridge was in the middle of a park, not out in the open with a bottomless drop to either side. It was completely negotiable. I coolly set out hand after foot, hand after foot until I reached Jack sitting on the other side.
His ears must have been primed for me, because the moment my foot touched safe ground, he jumped up and hugged me in a manner he never had before, and it occurred to me that he was nearly as frightened for me as I was. Knowing there was no way to help me across the ridge, turning his back was the only psychology he knew. And it had worked. He had taught me there are times when one has to completely depend upon oneself. I had taken control.
But this situation was different. It was the outsider who had the control and I was a cornered animal pinned down inside my home. I listened to the muted scraping, barely drawing breath as if the rush of air in and out of my lungs might make the invaders aware of my presence. My only consolation was that whoever was outside couldn’t see me in the dark. I focused on what could be taking place out on the deck in the snow as the scraping sound became louder.
My mind kept looping around to Ted Bundy and all the women he had murdered. I thought of Kimmy Woods dead at the foot of the Castle Creek Bridge. I thought of sounds I’d heard in the night recently. There was something evil out there and it was after me. My heart was beating harder than peddling up the Smuggler Road on a thirty-pound mountain bike, and I was sweating a cold sweat that soaked my armpits and glued my hair to my brow. Visions of torture ran through my head, being tied up and dismembered and left until someone like Judy came looking for me. Unlike the night when I feared Toby was an intruder, there was no backing away from the situation. This time there was no escape. I had a front door and rear windows, but I was unsure where the intruders lurked. And since the windows on the side of the house faced skyward, there was no way for me to see what was happening on the outside of my house.
I needed to call for help. My cell, of course, was useless and I’d left the cordless phone up in the loft next to the bed. But the old-fashioned rotary was hanging on the wall in the kitchen, its ancient cord brushing the floor. I moved through the inky night into the kitchen and reached for the phone. I could dial 911 and not even have to talk. They would pinpoint my location by the phone number. I picked up the phone and any worry about making noise talking was immediately put to rest. The line was deader than my Wagoneer had been two nights prior.
My fear was reeling out of control, rendering me useless to act. Someone wanted to do me harm, of that I was sure. But why remained the big question. My heart was pounding two beats for each of its usual ones, the blood pooling in my ears. My mouth was like a paper towel.
And then I remembered Sam’s rifle on the top shelf in the bedroom closet where it had lain untouched since he died. Before he got ill, Sam was a dedicated hunter and aside from his dozen pairs of skis, his Remington was his prize possession. I’m no fan of guns, and while I make allowances for hunters, I have no idea how anyone can really take pleasure in shooting another living creature for sport. But Sam had insisted I learn to shoot, in case a wild animal threatened, and he took me to the clearing several times for target practice. He’d taught me how to load and clean the rifle at the same time. One of his last bits of advice was you never know when a weapon can come in handy. Now his words seemed prophetic.
The scratching had grown stronger as I stole into Sam’s former bedroom. The night was so dark that the bedroom window was as ebony as if there were no window at all. I moved along the wall until my hand found the closet.
The doors were bi-folds and I cringed as they squeaked open. The storage shelf was high, and upon reaching up the only thing my hand met was some old blankets, carefully folded by Sam and untouched ever since. I cursed myself for not leaving the rifle closer and tiptoed back into the living room. I carried one of the chairs from the kitchen counter into the bedroom, careful not to make any noise. Once up on the chair, I had no trouble locating the rifle and was glad it had been left loaded.
I felt in the dark for the safety and slid it off. Now that I was armed, I understood for the first time the power of a gun. Crouching in the corner on the bedroom floor, I waited with the Remington pointed at the door. My heart rate had slowed and my breathing had returned to normal. Taking action had dulled the raw fear to something more manageable. I had changed my position from being a victim to being more in control.
The scratching stopped and the newfound silence was unnerving. Knowing whoever it was still lurked outside my home, I decided to use the element of surprise and take action. I stole to the front door and looked out the side panel to make sure no one was on the front porch. I turned the knob to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again, but it was stuck. Something was locking me in.
It was then I smelled smoke. I gave the door another pull and it still wouldn’t open. I looked around in the dark for a tool. My ski boots were sitting at the door. I put one on and kicked the handle with all the thrust I could summon. The knob gave way.
The door fell open and I stepped outside waving the rifle. There was a slice of wood laying on the deck, knocked to the ground from where it had been wedged into the door frame making it impossible to open the door. I fired an angry round into the air, and the noise reverberated across the surrounding mountains. I fired off a second shot. A moment later I could make out motion along the Aspens at the edge of the clearing. Feeling emboldened, I considered giving chase but smoke coming from the side of the A-frame commanded my more immediate attention.
As soon as I rounded the structure, I understood what the scraping had been. Whoever it was had been scraping snow off my foundation to make a platform for building a fire. I clomped off the deck with a ski boot on one foot and my other foot bare. The light from the fire illuminated the side of the A-frame, and I could see the snow had been cleared from beneath the rafters that supported the roof. Wood had been piled up in the open space and was already burning strong, the flames teasing the subfloor of my home. I grabbed an armful of snow and threw it on to the conflagration. The fire sizzled and hissed in protest. Using both hands as shovels, I started scooping snow on to the flames until the fire slowly died out and the night turned black again.
I stood in the dark, breathing hard and sweating from the effort to save my house. The sound of an engine starting round the bend broke the silence, but this time no lights illuminated the road. The vehicle retreated without ever revealing itself, leaving me standing in the snow next to my A-frame in total shock. I could make out a bulky shape in the snow. I picked it up. It was a half-filled gasoline canister. Shivers ran the length of my spine at the realization that I had stopped the culprits in the midst of the act.
At this point it became clear to me that someone wanted me out of the house, either by burning me down or burning me up. My demise seemed to be the clearer goal since if they wanted to burn down my house, they would have done it while I was out. My first impulse was to jump into the Wagoneer and drive into town to the police. But what if the culprits were waiting in ambush further down the road? I thought of going to the Greenes for help and ruled that idea out too. The couple was old, and I didn’t want to endanger them.
I clomped back into the house and took the ski boot off the one foot, massaged my other frozen foot with my hand. I was pissed enough that my fear had retreated. I jerry-rigged the door shut with some wire and decided the best move would be to sit up the rest of the night. Spinning the Barca in the direction of the door, I sat down with the Remington in my lap and waited. I stayed that way for much
of the night in the cold, afraid to start a fire with its soothing but distracting noise. All my senses needed to remain on alert.
I did my best to remain vigilant, but my eyelids grew stone heavy after a while and, despite my best efforts to protect myself, I fell sound asleep.
THIRTY
Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the draining trauma of the fire, maybe it was the sheer exhaustion of the night’s events, but by the time the morning light fractured my eyes it was already eight o’clock. I shook myself awake, seated in the Barcalounger with the rifle across my lap, and thought over what had transpired in the early hours of the morning. At first, I wanted it to be some weird dream, but the Remington in my lap was no dream. I went to the splintered door, pulled on my shearling boots and went outside to investigate. The crisp air pinched my face as I trudged through the knee-deep snow to the side of the house. Sure enough the evidence was still there, the heap of shoveled snow, the gasoline canister, the black stain of burnt wood on the rafters. I put the gasoline canister on the deck and went back inside.
After dressing, I grabbed a quick cup of coffee, went out and fired up the Wagoneer. As I rounded the bend to the Greenes’ house, I saw Don out front shoveling snow. He was wearing what was possibly the world’s oldest wool jacket and an equally old wool cap that covered his ears. He waved and I slowed the car. He walked down his driveway to the road at a slow, deliberate pace. His thick face was red with cold, his blue eyes bright beneath the sagging lids. We hadn’t spoken in a while, but he seemed not to notice. I leaned over and rolled the passenger-side window down.
‘Heard a few shots last night,’ he said, matter of fact. ‘Figured you were scaring some animal off.’
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