Holland Suggestions (16 page)

I lay there panting, hallucinating, dreaming that I had fallen into a silky bed somewhere and could sleep all day. I came back to reality with a jerk, the way a truck driver will jerk when he catches his head bobbing on a busy freeway. When I opened my eyes again I thought darkness had fallen. The mist had cleared away above me, but the mountains were black outlines beyond it. The thought of night falling while I was propped on that slope was too much to bear. I pushed down hard against the tree and there were more ripping sounds, but it did not give. I did not look down again; I kept my eyes on the path all the time I was clawing and pulling my way up to it.

Jill came along just as I had cleared the edge and flopped over on my back onto the path. I saw her from a strange perspective, my face pressed into the snow, and at first I thought she must be another hallucination. I blinked but she did not disappear; she came closer, then knelt beside me and asked if I was okay. I gasped out something, I don’t remember what, and I felt her hands on my belt, pulling my legs over that final hump where they had been dangling. For a long time I just lay in the snow while she rubbed my cheeks and ears.

“You going to make it?” she asked.

“How much farther?”

“Thirty minutes. Maybe less.”

I struggled to my feet. Now the walk was very tough; my left foot felt numb and I didn’t make good time. She led the way, pausing occasionally to warn me of a slippery place. By the time we reached the bluff overlooking Taylor’s Gulch a premature dusk had fallen and I could hardly see the outlines of the buildings. We crossed the flat above the town and started down. The trail from the bluff into the town was much steeper than I remembered and we slid most of the way, landing together in a pile of snow at the foot of the alley. Quite without warning I began to laugh. Jill lay on her back, breathing very hard and apparently unable to see the humor of it. Then she laughed too. She rolled a small ball of snow in one hand and threw it at me, hitting me squarely between the eyes. That set us both off; we laughed insanely for a full minute. Then, with a great effort, I got to my feet and pulled her up.

I stood in the desolate street of the ghost town and wondered what to do. Both of us must have been thinking about the long journey down to Gold Creek, but nothing was said. I assumed that it was out of the question and let it go at that. We pushed ahead into the town; I mentioned something about a place to spend the night and she didn’t argue. By the time we reached the stone building the storm had settled in for the night. We crawled inside and I collapsed just below the window where “Jake Walters” was cut into the stone.

“We can’t stay here,” Jill said.

“I know it,” I said, and I did. The snow filtered down through the cracks in the timbers. The boards creaked, and all around us was wet and drippy.

“We could sit in my jeep,” she said.

I didn’t say anything, and for a time she was absolutely still beside me. A large lump of snow dripped from the boards and splattered against the back of my neck. I was too tired to reach up and scoop it off. I turned my head to look at Jill, and the water dripped down my back. She was not even a silhouette in the darkness.

“What about that cabin?” Her tone was impatient now.

“We’d probably have to break in.”

“So what?”

“My flashlight batteries are about shot.”

She opened her backpack and pressed her flash into my hand. The beam was strong, and that was the end of the excuses. We charged into the storm again, half sliding down the alley to the main street. From there it was a long walk through the upper part of town to the rim where her jeep was parked. In places the snow was knee-deep, and it was a wet snow that gripped our legs and could not be kicked aside. The walk took at least ten minutes, and even when we had reached the jeep I could not see the cabin for the blowing snow. “It’s there!” Jill shouted above the wind. She took the light from me and led the way to the slope. The path was completely snowed under, but she found it as though she had committed its location to memory. She plowed through the unbroken snow, slipping twice, and both times I tried to push her from behind and slipped all the way down from the effort. At the edge of the cabin was a narrow level spot, and Jill had a long wait for me there while I struggled up the hill for the third time. The cabin looked strong and impenetrable. Of course the door was locked. There was a window on each side and Jill easily found the latch. She broke a pane nearest the latch, reached her hand in, and flipped it open.

“Hold the light and boost me through,” she said.

“I’ve just got two hands.”

“Then put down the light.”

She held up her leg for my hand, but she wouldn’t fit until she took off her backpack. The second time she went through head first and hit the floor with a thud. I passed the light to her through the broken window. In another moment she had the door open and we were both inside.

T
HE CABIN HAD EVERYTHING
but running water. Somewhere, I reasoned, there was a generator that would start the pump working, but I had no intention of looking for it. There were two Coleman lamps, which threw all the light we needed, and a stove that operated on gas. That was enough for me. The gas bottle was either empty or turned off, but that didn’t matter, because we didn’t have anything to cook anyway. There was a wide double bunk, a couple of rollaways, and an old sofa that probably made into a bed. A bathroom opened from the one large room. Later I could melt some snow and bring in a bucket of water, so we could at least flush the commode. We would be here awhile.

Already Jill had collapsed into the bottom half of the double bunk. She lay absolutely still, and just when I thought she had either passed out or was asleep, the lamplight flashed in her open eyes and she raised her arm to her head. I went to the back door and looked out. There was a woodpile, small but sufficient if we used it carefully. It was covered and most of the wood was old and dry; it had been here since last year, I guessed, and it would burn well. I took several small sticks and a few logs into the cabin and knelt over the fireplace to light them. Jill sat up as the flames began to warm us. “Lovely,” she said.

I nodded. “This cabin is better than the Hilton Hotel.”

“We should pay the owners for the broken window at least.” She came close to the fire and knelt beside me, warming her hands. “Are your clothes wet?”

“Probably. I’m so frozen it’s hard to tell. My ears are really bad.”

She was taking off her coat and feeling the sweatshirt beneath it. “Soaked through,” she said. “God, listen to that wind.”

“I can see why people get lost up here.”

“We were lucky. What on earth made you climb so far?”

“Just got carried away, I guess. I can’t say I wasn’t warned.” Jill pulled off her sweatshirt. Under it she wore a flannel shirt, which almost came up with the sweatshirt. It stopped just short of her breasts, then flopped down over her stomach. She felt the arms and body of the shirt. “It’s pretty damp, but maybe it’ll be okay if I stay near the fire for a bit. How about you?”

I hadn’t even started yet. “I’m still in shock,” I said. I did take off my coat then and moved closer to the fire. I had worn only two layers of clothing, and my shirt was very damp and cold.

“Did you bring any extra clothes in your pack?”

“Just a couple of T-shirts and shorts. How about you?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t plan on spending the week. Maybe you better get out those T-shirts and we’ll put them on. It’s probably best to have something dry next to the skin, don’t you think?”

I did not think anything. I opened the backpack and took out the T-shirts, revealing the unopened bottle of bourbon beneath them. I passed one of the shirts to her and played perfect gentleman while she stood, turned away from me, stripped to the waist, and pulled the T-shirt over her head. My eyes never left the fire, but I sensed every movement. When she turned, so did I, and my eyes moved quickly up her body and met hers. She was smiling with her eyes, that alluring, concealing way she had. I saw at once, and so did she, that the shirt was almost twice her size, and she crossed her arms in front of her breasts as she came close to the fire.

“You’d better get yours on too,” she said.

Mine fit snugly. Jill hung our clothes over chairs near the fireplace. She took a blanket from the bunk and wrapped it around my shoulders, then got the other one for herself. The blankets were very heavy and warm. For a long time we sat like that, without saying anything. Then she said, “Did I see a bottle of something in your backpack?”

“You might have. I packed it for emergencies.”

“Wouldn’t you call this an emergency?”

“I would.” I threw off the blanket and rummaged in the cupboard until I found two glasses. “Water?”

“I guess I better. Scoop up half a glass of snow; that’ll be fine for me when it melts.”

The melted snow made less than a quarter of a glass of water. I poured her a stiff one and made mine even stiffer.

“How long since you’ve eaten anything?” she asked.

“I haven’t even thought of food. I don’t know when it was—last night’s dinner, I guess.”

I saw her point. Obviously she had not eaten during the day; the liquor would affect us both quickly. I savored mine; she finished hers first. She declined my offer of another, but when I had one she had one with me. We began to loosen up and both of us knew it and neither of us cared. She was taking her drink slowly now; I sipped mine steadily. We were feeling good.

“I don’t even care any more,” she said. “I am hungry, though.”

“I wish I had something to give you.”

She smiled and touched my cheek. “It’s all right.”

I poured her another half shot. The stinging taste of the first drink had long since worn away and the liquor was smooth and mellow. Jill was a little dizzy and clearly enjoying it. She laughed easily and her laugh was deep and sensuous. We began to talk about ourselves, but I tired of that because I could never be sure that what she was saying was the truth, and here, tonight, I didn’t even want to think about that part of it. I listened, but when she asked about me I begged off until a time when I was more sober.

“You’re too cautious when you’re sober,” she said.

“Yeah, well, so are you.”

“I know it. I wish I could do something about that. I inhibit men. I really do, really; I always have. Men won’t even tell a dirty story when I’m around.”

I looked at her. “I would.”

“Go ahead and tell one, then.”

“What for?”

“Just for the hell of it. You tell one then I’ll tell one. Then you tell another one and I’ll tell another one. You ever played that game before?”

“What game?”

“It’s called gross. The jokes get worse and worse and you see who grosses who out first.”

I laughed. “You’re high.”

“I think I’m a little more than that.”

I poured each of us a small, final shot and put the cork back in the bottle. We played her game for a time, but in the end she was right: She did inhibit me. The jokes got gross to a point, and did not cross that point. My grand finale was a five-line limerick that I remembered from my college days:

A disgusting young man named McGill

Made his neighbors exceedingly ill

When they learned of his habits

Involving white rabbits

And a bird with a flexible bill.

She threw back her head and her rich laughter filled the room. Her head hit the floor and she was sprawled helplessly, laughing like that, for almost a minute. The shirt was up to her ribs, and it was the simplest, most natural thing at that point to reach over and touch the firm flesh around her navel. I did, and her laughter stopped at once. She looked up at me and her eyes were wet and unclear. She was not focusing well; she was not handling it at all. She covered my hand with hers, and I knew then that it would be all right, that there would be no problem unless one of us passed out. She tried to rise, but it was too much effort; she sank back and her head hit the floor with another dull thump. She giggled and I rolled my blanket and made a pillow for her head. She liked that; I liked her liking it. My hand touched her breast softly and she said, “Do you know the one about the man from Nantucket?”

“Yes, I know that one.”

“Tell it.”

“Not tonight.”

“I’ll tell it, then, except I can’t remember the words. … There was a young man from Nantucket, something something, whose…”

“Hush.”

“I told you I intimidated men.” She rose and kissed my hand through her shirt. “This must be the new Parker Brothers’ game.”

I smiled. “It’s called fondle.”

I tried to carry her to the bed, but the John Wayne bit didn’t become me. I slipped, dropped her, and knew that I wasn’t in any better shape than she was. We each made it under our own power. A fitting end for my most strenuous day in years.

Sometime during the night my eyes fluttered open and I was wide awake. Jill stirred, and I felt her warm flesh next to mine and her head under my chin. She was breathing deeply. Across the room one of the Coleman lamps was still burning; it cast a semiglow over our bed. I shifted my body, and my hand dropped, only partly by chance, into her bare lap. I moved my fingers softly but she did not stir again. But before I could begin to think about it my attention was drawn outside by something else. What else? I don’t know. I listened for a long time and the sound, if in fact it had been a sound, did not come again. All I heard was the wind and the unbroken rhythm of Jill’s deep breathing. I decided to look around, though I truly hated to pry myself away from her. She rolled over and mumbled, “Where are you going?” as I got up, but I didn’t say anything and she was asleep again at once. I poked the fire and added more wood and watched the flames lick at it, aware of a dull pain—the early effect of a hangover—behind my eyes. Then I moved to the opposite end of the cabin and put out the lamp.

With sudden darkness inside, I saw a light outside. I moved around the table and chairs for a closer look through the front window, but it was gone. I watched for perhaps fifteen minutes, but it never did come back. I went to the fireplace and felt my clothes; they were still damp. I dressed anyway, pulled on my boots, and went outside. The storm was as bad as ever; I moved a few steps away from the cabin and the snow swirled around my head. My visibility was limited to about thirty yards, though occasionally the snow flurries died away for a few seconds, allowing a good view of the dead buildings below. It was during one of those lulls that I saw it again, a quick flash of light somewhere up the mountain on the other side of town. Just a flashlight, perhaps, but who would be there in a snowstorm at this time of night? I half closed my eyes and peered into the misty gloom, and as it swirled past I saw a very faint glow directly across from me. The glow of a campfire? The mist covered it again, and for a time I considered crossing the valley to check it out. All things considered, that would be a damn fool idea, so I shelved it. But I wasn’t satisfied.