The Torment of Rachel Ames

by Jeff Gunhus

He looks like he wants a real answer, so she gives him one. “I think time rubs down the edges, sure. But it’s like this picnic bench we’re on. Someone sanded this thing at some point. The weather and time wore it down a little more. But it’s still here. It’s still a bench. And when you least expect it to, it’s still capable of lodging a major splinter right up your ass.”

  John bursts out laughing, little pieces of egg spraying from his mouth. Fortunately, his reflexes are good enough to turn away from her first.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping his mouth. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “I’m here to please,” she says. “Be here all week. Tip your waitress.”

  “You paid for three months, so you’re welcome to stay here longer than a week. Up to you.”

  She doesn’t remember paying, or for how long. The disturbing idea that she can’t recall the transaction sticks with her for a second, but then she lets it go. Her friend Jack has been around a lot in the last few months, so forgetting things unfortunately isn’t an uncommon occurrence for her. Besides, three months seems like a good amount of time to her. She looks out over the lake, wondering if this place will be different than the others she’s tried, or if it’ll all end the same way. More blank pages. More frustration.

  “I wanted to warn you about your one neighbor on the lake,” John says. “He’s kind of a character.”

  “If you’re talking about Granger, I already met him,” she says.

  “When?” John puts down his coffee mug a little too hard, rattling the plates.

  “Late last night. Calling him a character is like saying Cujo was a dog with an attitude problem.”

  “What did he say to you?” John asks. The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes are gone, replaced by lines on his forehead, a mix of concern and anger.

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” she says. “Besides, I can handle myself. I don’t know if you think I need some big strong guy to come riding in to save me or something, but I don’t.”

  “That’s not what I...” John takes a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry, it’s just that Granger’s kind of a wild card. You’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. I should have warned you about him yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  “I forgive you,” she says, picking up her last piece of toast and munching on it. God, she could have eaten an entire second breakfast if it was put in front of her. She looks past John and out over the lake that seduces her senses with its easy grandeur and effortless beauty. When she shifts her attention back to John she sees that his eyes are welled with tears.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  He stands up, grabbing both of their plates and clearing his throat. “So, you’re going to be all right here? You feel good about this place?”

  She feels like there’s a question within the question, but it’s a slippery thing, one second in her hands and the next right through her fingers and gone like smoke. He stands, plates in hand, waiting for her answer.

  She looks back over the lake, the trees on fire with their changing colors. Then her eyes drift over to the only break in the trees on the far bank. Her eyes aren’t as good as they once were, but her visibility is strangely sharp for the distance. Clear as day, she sees the only other cabin on the lake and Granger sitting in a lawn chair at the edge of the water, legs stretched out in front of him and propped up on a dead tree stump. He could pass as just an old man passing time except for the rifle laid across his lap and the binoculars up to his face, staring in her direction. She thinks for a second that he must be looking at something else, that it’s just the distance and her own paranoia that makes her think he’s staring at her. But then the asshole raises his hand and gives her a little wave, removing all doubt.

  “I’ve always imagined a place like this, a little cabin on a lake to just get away from the world for a while. And in my head, it looked just like this.” She nods over to Granger’s cabin. “But I admit an old-timer Peeping Tom was never part of the mental image.”

  John turns to where she’s looking and scans the far shore. She can tell he’s not picking Granger out. Probably needs glasses and too proud to admit it.

  “Granger has his own way about him, to be sure,” he says, his back still to her. “Jury’s still out on whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” When he turns back to her, his expression is so serious that she involuntarily sits up straighter on the bench, a splinter stabbing painfully through her jeans. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to anyway. When he tries to tell you something, just be careful. It won’t always be the truth.”

  The words make her throat constrict. It’s the same thing Granger said about the cabin. She thought it was a strange thing to say then and she thinks it’s strange that John would use exactly the same words. But, as a purveyor of fine words, she doesn’t mark these as particularly unique, not so much that it’s out of the realm of possibility the two men just stumbled upon the same turn of phrase. It occurs to her she’s spent a bit of effort over breakfast explaining away the coincidences. It’s put her on edge and she can’t put her finger on why.

  “But if you want, there’s a pretty easy way to get rid of him,” John says, the mischievous look back in his eye.

  “How’s that?”

  “Strut around here in the nude and the old geezer would have a heart attack.”

  She laughs and it feels good to break the built up tension. John, looking pleased with himself, disappears into the cabin, taking the remains of their breakfast with him. By the time she turns her attention back to Granger, he’s gone.

  “And no nudity required,” she says to the empty world.

  Chapter Five

  John’s been gone for a couple of hours and the pages are still blank. Rather than force it, God knows that doesn’t work, Rachel grabs her backpack, a small number better suited for schoolbooks than the bottle of Jack she throws into it. She adds a Moleskine notebook and two pens to the mix. Just in case. She’s ever the optimist.

  Which is why she leaves the gun behind.

  The day can’t be any more beautiful. Giant puffed clouds drift overhead against a bluebird sky. The sun’s warm but not hot, not even when it peeks out from behind the clouds and sends its radiation crashing into her skin at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. All that speed and energy and all she feels from the collision is a gentle deep warmth and a peaceful sense that regardless of what the human race throws at her, nature means her well.

  Walking trails lead in all directions from her new home and she picks one without much thought. On a whim, out on a limb, as she remembers someone saying to her when she was young. She supposes it must have been her parents. Or maybe her grandparents as it has the ring of a saying from a different age. But her parents were part of a disappeared age too. Long dead and gone, ghosts from a different time when they might have said things like On a whim, out on a limb and thought themselves clever and funny to have such a saying.

  She’s already well into the woods before she realizes she’s wandering so deep in the maze of her own head that she hasn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. She stops, takes a breath and gets her bearings. The path behind her is the same as what’s ahead. So identical that she has a flash to the road that brought her to the cabin to begin with, long, straight and seeming to go on forever.

  She sees a beautiful thing up ahead of her. A doe walks out from a wall of tall ferns, not tentative as deer in her experience tend to be, but brave and clearly unafraid. Rachel holds her breath, afraid that her slightest movement might make the animal dart away.

  The deer glances at her, only for a second, and then turns away as if Rachel were no more than another tree in the woods. The doe lowers her muzzle to the ground and eats. Soon, a fawn steps from the protective shield of the ferns. The little guy is not as self-assured as his mother and he takes short, hesitant steps into the open. The youngster knows Rachel is not part of the woods; that she’s not just another tr
ee mutely bending to the soft breeze. Rachel is different, foreign. She realizes the doe knows the same thing. She knows the human is an intruder, but she’d deemed her as not a threat to her or her baby. For this, Rachel feels a swell of gratitude. And then a pang of fear. There are humans who would betray this trust and she knows in a rush of insight that the doe’s putting herself and her baby in danger.

  “Shhaa!” she cries out, thinking there really isn’t a typical sound used for shooing away a deer, but shhaa! seems like it ought to do the trick. Only the fawn doesn’t run, it just looks at her with even greater curiosity. The doe keeps eating.

  “Shhaa!” she shouts, waving her arms in the air for good measure. Finally, the doe looks up, munching a mouthful of grass. Not worried. Not a care in the world. Then she walks on, not because she fears anything, but because it is time to continue her walk, her little one in tow.

  Rachel watches them go until the fawn disappears into the thick foliage of the forest. A sense of dread grips her and she thinks she might chase after the doe, to scare her, show her that humans can’t be trusted, most of all around her baby. But before she can run after them, she hears a new sound that changes her mind.

  There’s a voice, carried on the wind as delicately as a spiderweb. One second there and then gone, coming and going at the impulse of the breeze. She listens close; it's a song she knows all too well.

  “Amazing grace. How sweet the sound...”

  She walks toward it, deeper into the forest.

  “That saved a wretch like me...”

  She's careful. No telling who might be in the wood. Singing the gospels didn't make a man either trustworthy or good. Ten thousand kids knew that story from their childhood, lives wrecked by men who know all the gospels by heart.

  “I once was lost, but now I’m found.

  Was blind but now I see.”

  The voice is stronger now, overpowering the breeze that swirls and tries to send the melody in the other direction. It's a man's voice, that much was clear from the beginning. It's deep and hoarse, a soulful voice filled with pain and hurt that only real loss can bring. She's caught by the voice, like its owner is the pied piper from a fairy tale. For the third time in the last day, she tears up, hating her fragility at the same time as she allows the voice to sink into her.

  "When we’ve been here ten thousand years,

  Bright shining as the sun,

  We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

  Than when we’d first begun.”

  The man steps into view and the image is so odd that it stops her tears. He's a large man and his enormous body, all three hundred pounds plus of him by her estimation fills out every nook and cranny of his blue jean overalls. He wears brown leather work boots and a baseball cap, the kind with the plastic mesh on the panels except for the front.

  But the thing that stopped her tears mid-stream is what the man is doing. Slowly, but with immutable certainty and following the cadence of the hymnal pouring out of him as if he were performing for the Pope himself, the man brandishes a broom back and forth across the forest trail, scattering a mini-tornado of dried leaves and dust with every pass.

  He stands in the middle of a large clearing although the canopy of trees still extends overhead. A single shaft of light shines through like a spotlight on a stage. She wonders if that's why the man chose to stand in that exact spot and the sweeping is just part of some show that he’s rehearsing.

  But she sees that the path that leads from where she stands all the way throughout the clearing is swept perfectly clean, not a single leaf remains.

  "I can see you there, miss," the man says. His voice still sounds like sunshine. No, the rumble of water over boulders in a river. "I won't hurt you. I promise."

  There’s a childlike simplicity in the man’s face and the barest touch of something slowed in his speech. Her heart immediately trusts the big man, but her head withholds judgment. She timidly steps out into the clearing.

  "My name’s Oliver Leonard Peterson," he says, sounding each word out carefully, reminding her of a grade school student reciting his name to a teacher. He snatches his hat from his head like he’s been caught wearing it inside a church and clutches it to his chest. “But people usually just call me Ollie. You know, like the game?” He suddenly calls out, “Ollie Ollie oxen free." He tilts his head to a side, sizing up her reaction. When she smiles at him, he returns it and looks relieved. “What’s your name, miss?”

  "Rachel," she answers, walking toward him. She scans the forest on either side to see if there are other men there. Ones that don't sing like angels.

  "Just me out here," Ollie says, picking up on the fact that her head is on a swivel. "Well, me and my best girl here," he says, lifting up his broom toward her. "But she’s never hurt no-one. Except to give me a few blisters every now and then, I guess."

  She smiles and feels guilty for being suspicious. "Sorry, just didn't expect to come across anyone out here is all."

  "You and me both," Ollie says. "Don’t see a lot of people when I’m working. At least any that stop to talk anyway.” He pulls his hat on and his posture relaxes. He leans forward and whispers, “Between me and you, I'm just glad I got my shirt on. Gets hot after awhile working, so sometimes I take it off. Momma’s always telling me, No one wants to see you with your shirt off so you leave it on, Ollie.” He chuckles at his own expense, and the sound is soothing, like far-away thunder. "I suppose she’s right about that."

  She laughs with him, her brain catching up with her heart that Ollie Peterson isn't a threat. Maybe odd, but no threat.

  Ollie curbs his laughter but the joy stays in his eyes. She isn't sure how long he's been at work in the forest, or why, but he seems to be enjoying the break.

  "I don't know anything about your shirt, off or on," she says, trying to match his warmth, "but you have a voice. Man, do you ever."

  "Geez," Ollie says, taking a swipe at a leaf near his feet. "I don’t know about that. Now Momma, she had what my Aunt Vie called a carryin' voice. Carried right up to Heaven itself. I can’t sing anything like that."

  "Your voice is beautiful," she says. "And it carries just fine."

  Ollie looks embarrassed by the compliment and swipes the air with his hand as if to push it away. Still, he looks pleased by it. "You visiting or staying for good?" he asks.

  "Visiting," she says. The second she says it she wonders where she plans on going when she leaves. She doesn’t have a good answer.

  "You don't look too sure about that," Ollie says. "Don’t worry, lots of people aren’t sure when they first get here. But they figure it out."

  "Figure what out?"

  "If they need to stay or not.” He looks around the forest, leaning on his broom. “Worse places to be, I suppose."

  She slides the backpack off and lets it fall to the ground. Bending down, she unzips it and pulls out the bottle of Jack, then twists off the cap. She has Ollie's full attention.

  "Want some?" she asks, holding the bottle out.

  It's Ollie's turn to check the forest around them. "That’s not really allowed," he says, but his hand is already outstretched toward her. "But don't want to be rude, seeing as how we just met."

  "Neighborly of you," she says, assuming a man sweeping the woods with a broom must live close by. She hands over the bottle and watches as he takes a swig. His eyes open wide in surprise at the taste, but he takes a heavy pull before handing it back. She does the same. They're likely family now, she and Ollie, this strange man whose mom bestowed on him a voice able to make the angels weep. They're family and family shares stories, so she decides to ask for his.

  "Can I ask you something, Ollie?"

  "Sure, miss," he says. "Anything you want."

  She nods at the broom. "I appreciate a man who likes to clean up, lord knows that's a rarity. But what's the point?"

  "How do you mean?" Ollie says, his eyebrows puckering together in a confused look.

  "You're standing in the middle of
the forest. Sweeping leaves. There's never an end. It's pointless."

  Ollie looks around him and she feels terrible for what she's said. The man’s eyes turn sad, like a light’s gone out, and she feels responsible.

  "Miss, I've been cleaning up long as I’ve been able. I clean up after adults, after kids, after dogs, or even after thousands of trees shedding their leaves. You clean because it’s a job. But even when it stops being a job, you clean because for just a little while, the world's better for it.

  She should leave it at that. But she doesn't, because she can't.

  "But it's... it's..."

  "Futile?" Ollie offers up.

  Rachel nods. It's the perfect word and she chastises herself for being surprised he comes up with it. There was clearly more to Ollie than met the eye. "Yes, isn't it futile?"

  "Momma used to tell me stories when I was growing up on account we didn't have a TV and the radio hardly ever worked. Her favorites were the Bible stories, of course. But she was pretty charged up by the Greeks too. Ever heard the Greek stories with all their gods and heroes and creatures?"

  She’s more than heard the stories. She's written dozens of papers about Greek and Roman mythology. She's read them in the original Greek and defended a thesis on Dante’s use of ancient mythologies in his fourteenth century epic poem, Divine Comedy. All of this rattles off in her mind even though she can't recall clearly where she was a week ago.

  "Have you heard any of ‘em?" Ollie asks again.

  She nods. "A few of them."

  "My favorite was about Sisyphus, you know that one?"

  She does but she wants to hear his version. "I heard it a long time ago but I’d love to hear you tell it."

  "The way Momma told it was that there was this Greek king who angered the gods. She never did tell us what the man did, but it had to be bad because the gods sure were pissed off at the poor guy.” A horrified look appears on his face. “Pardon my French," he says.

  "French all you want," she says and gets a smile from the big man.

  "So Sisyphus dies and finds himself at the bottom of this big mountain, and he's got a big round rock at his feet. Zeus, he’s the main god, tells him that to get into Paradise he only has got to do one thing. Roll that rock up to the top of the mountain. So Sisyphus rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. The rock is heavy, real heavy, but he's a strong fellah and he has time. He strains. He pushes. His arms and legs get all scratched up and bloody, but he's making progress higher and higher up the mountain. Then, just as he's about dead on his feet, exhausted, beaten down, he sees that he's almost to the top. He gets all excited. The power in his muscles comes back and he heaves that stone up. He’s almost there when the worst possible thing happens." Ollie pauses for effect and it works. She knows the story but she still leans forward, waiting. "That rock slips away, gets past him and down the mountain. It rolls and rolls and rolls down the hill, all the way to the exact spot where he started.