Honeymoon for Three (18 page)

The nomad life he had been leading was
getting old. He was going to return to civilization. In order to do
that successfully, he had to leave no tracks. That meant no
witnesses. He had to kill Penny along with Gary. He hadn’t faced
that problem before. He hated to do it, but he realized that once
he killed Gary, Penny would be dead to him anyway.

The police couldn’t prove he murdered the
man in the grocery store. There shouldn’t be anything to connect
that murder with the ones he was contemplating now. Even if the
authorities hassled him about that one, he should get off. He would
be able to start a new life with a clear conscience.

He had to make a plan. He had to restrain
his impetuosity. Until the time he saw them enter the laundry, he
hadn’t considered the consequences of murdering Gary. If he did it
out in the open, he would be arrested. That idea hadn’t bothered
him before, but now that he had decided to forge a new life for
himself, he needed to be much more careful.

Alfred returned to the parking area, making
sure he wasn’t visible from the laundry. He found the green
Volkswagen. People were constantly coming in and out of here. A lot
of tourists wanted to see Old Faithful. This might be a dramatic
spot to commit a murder, but it was a very foolish one. He
remembered that they planned to stay in Yellowstone for three
nights. They had one night to go. They would undoubtedly stay in a
campground.

He had a map of the park, showing all the
campgrounds. He had a pretty good idea where they might stay. He
could also follow them because they wouldn’t recognize his new car.
He had to do it carefully. On the narrow park roads, it would
become obvious after a while if he followed them too closely.

He got into his car and looked at his map of
the park. As he studied the map, what he should do became clear. He
would drive to West Thumb, which was a major intersection. The
direction they took from there would determine where they were
going to stay for the night. That way he wouldn’t have to follow
them much, if at all.

Alfred started the car and drove away,
chuckling at his brilliance, until he remembered that he still
hadn’t eaten lunch. He would have to tough it out until West Thumb.
There would be a place to eat at West Thumb.

***

Fishing Bridge Camp, northeast of West
Thumb, was a rustic campground, with trees and aromas that spoke of
the outdoors and the mountains. There was only one thing wrong with
it, Penny discovered just after they started making an early
dinner: bears.

The seventeenth bear they had seen since
entering Yellowstone came ambling through the campground, obviously
looking for food. Gary grabbed the pot on the stove and they
retreated to the car.

No sooner had they started cooking again
than bear number eighteen approached. He was headed for the car,
itself, which cut them off from retreat. He put his paws on the
front of it and peered into the open hood, which served as a
storage area for the rear-engine VW. Gary banged on a pot to move
him along. The bear walked away at a leisurely pace.

“Do you think we’re ever going to be able to
eat our dinner?” Penny asked. “Or are the bears going to eat our
dinner? They seem to think we’re running a restaurant here.”

Gary shrugged. “Eat fast and keep your eyes
peeled.”

They did, and no more bears intruded on
their repast. That afternoon they had driven north and enjoyed
spectacular views of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, including
the upper and lower falls. The multi-colored cliffs of the canyon
and the ferocity of the dashing waterfalls showcased nature in all
its beauty, along with the aura of constant danger.

It was still early when they finished
eating. Not wanting to be outside in bear country and too pumped up
from the sights of Yellowstone to go to bed, they drove back to see
the canyon in the setting sun.

***

After Penny and Gary passed Alfred at West
Thumb, he followed their car. He stayed some distance behind them
until he verified that they were going to Fishing Bridge Camp. He
had plenty of time to kill. He wouldn’t actually do anything until
late tonight when everybody in the campground was asleep. He was
getting smarter.

He drove along the park roads, glancing idly
at a canyon and some waterfalls. It was pretty, but nothing to get
excited about. Later, he stopped at the restaurant at Fishing
Bridge and ate dinner there. He dawdled, drinking coffee, until
after dark.

He was acquiring a lot of patience. Patience
was a virtue. It would soon pay off for him. When the last orange
glow of the sun had dropped behind the hills, he drove into the
campground. There was no chance that they would spot him in the
dark if he inadvertently drove past their campsite. They wouldn’t
recognize the car.

He found a campsite for himself and parked
the car there. Then he set out on foot to find their campsite. He
wore his jacket with the hood up to keep warm. The moon was partly
obscured by clouds and provided minimal light. He had found a
flashlight in the glove compartment of the Falcon, but he only
flicked it on occasionally to help him see into the depths of a
campsite.

The easiest way to find their site in the
dark was to spot the green VW. After a half hour of tramping around
the campground, he hadn’t seen it. Had he covered the whole
campground? Or had they decided not to camp here, after all? He
leaned against a pine tree to rest and think.

A large black shape glided down the path.
Alfred froze. It was a bear. Had it seen him? He tried not to
breathe or do anything that would give himself away. The bear
ambled along, taking its time. The way it walked, in a somewhat
disjointed fashion, made it look clumsy, but there was no doubt
about the strength of the muscles rippling under the brown fur.
Alfred watched, scared and fascinated, as it disappeared into the
dark. He was sweating, in spite of the cold.

***

It had been dark for some time when Gary and
Penny returned to the campground. They parked the car at their
campsite, got out their toilet articles, and cleaned their teeth at
a restroom. They met in front of the building and started walking
back to their campsite. Gary put up his arm to stop Penny. A bear
walked by, not ten feet in front of them. They waited until the
bear went on its way, and then returned to the tent.

Gary said, “Are you sleepy yet?”

“We could light the lantern and sit at the
table, but it’s too cold to write postcards.”

“Let’s go for a walk. That will keep us
warm.”

“What about the bears?”

“They haven’t hurt us yet. They’re only
after food.”

“Okay, but if we turn out to be their food,
it’s your fault.”

***

The existence of one bear meant that there
were bound to be more. Alfred kept looking over his shoulder as he
resumed his patrol through the campground. Bears were just another
reason he didn’t like the outdoors. He stepped as lightly as he
could, hoping they wouldn’t hear him. Hoping he would hear them
first. He would be glad when he was safely back in Los Angeles.

It seemed like forever, but it was probably
not more than another half hour before he spotted the Volkswagen.
He surreptitiously shone the flashlight on it to make sure the car
was the right color, because in the dark all cars looked black. He
thought he had passed this way before, but it was hard to tell. All
the campsites looked alike.

Quiet encompassed the campsite of Penny and
Gary. They must be in the tent with their arms around each other.
That picture infuriated him. He wouldn’t think of it. Concentrate
on what had to be done, he told himself. It was dark at almost all
the campsites, especially the ones with tents. Lights shone in a
few of the camper shells that sat on the backs of pickup trucks,
but not many people were outdoors in the cold. Still, he had better
wait until everybody was asleep before he did what he had to
do.

To pass some of the time until then, he
would make sure he knew the route from here back to his car. He was
getting tired of walking; in fact, he was getting downright
exhausted, but he had to stay alert, and this was the best way to
do it. It would soon be over.

CHAPTER 20

Midnight. This was the time he had agreed on
with himself. The cautious part of him had argued that it would be
better to wait until one or two in the morning, when absolutely
nobody was awake, but he was too cold, too stiff, and too tired to
wait any longer. The flashlight showed the hands of his watch
coming together at the top of the dial. He stood up. It was time
for action.

With this decision, his adrenalin started to
flow faster. Gone was the cold. Gone was the tired feeling. It also
stimulated his bladder, so he peed against a tree. As his pants
became wet from flying spray, he discovered a cardinal rule of
outdoor life: don’t piss into the wind. Now his pants were more
soiled than they had been already.

He had been sitting in a grove of pine trees
near their tent, staying away from the bears, getting up and moving
from time to time to generate a little warmth in his body. During
that period, no sound had come from the tent. They must be sleeping
the sleep of the young and naïve. Soon they would sleep
forever.

A few cars had driven slowly past. Three had
stopped and flashlights had been shone around the campsite from the
cars—or maybe it was the same car each time. The trees surrounding
Alfred blocked the light, keeping it from exposing him. He figured
that a Park Service employee was checking to make sure Penny and
Gary were all right. That meant people were looking for him. That
was not good news.

Alfred swung his arms in circles to make
sure they were operational. He lifted his feet and silently marched
in place. He drew the hunting knife from its sheath under his
jacket and practiced wielding it with his right hand. Holding the
knife gave him a confidence he wouldn’t have felt without it. It
was better than a gun, more reliable, as well as quieter and more
efficient.

He had almost mastered the art of walking
silently on the forest floor. His night vision, after several hours
outdoors, helped him see the occasional pinecone that might make
him stumble. He felt like an Indian guide, at one with the woods.
He had never felt this way before. He padded toward the tent, his
ears attuned to the slightest noise from within. There was
none.

All the patrols in the world wouldn’t keep
him from doing what he had to do. Or keep him from making his
escape afterward. He was smarter than the police, smarter than
Penny and Gary. In the future, when people put him down, he would
have the secret satisfaction of knowing what he had done here
tonight.

He could see well enough to avoid the rope
that stretched from the top corner of the tent, diagonally down to
where it was fastened to one of the stakes that held the tent in
place. He went carefully past the stake to the tent and lowered
himself to his knees. He would have to crawl through the opening in
the triangular front of the tent.

The lack of space within was a blessing,
because he wouldn’t have any trouble finding his prey. One thing he
didn’t know was which one of them slept on the right and which one
on the left. He should learn that information with the first stroke
of the knife. He wanted to dispatch Gary first.

Alfred reached forward and touched the
canvas material, feeling for the vertical zipper he knew was there
from the time he had gone into their tent at Crater Lake. His
fingers moved silently until he found the zipper handle. The zipper
separated the two flaps of the front of the tent—forming two
triangles within the larger triangle.

The zipper was zipped, of course, and so
were the two horizontal zippers, one for each of the flaps. He
paused, listening. All was quiet inside the tent. The noise of a
zipper might wake them. He would have to work fast. It would take
two hands to undo one zipper. He didn’t have time to undo both the
vertical and horizontal zippers. He would undo the vertical zipper
and then go in.

He carefully placed the knife on the ground
where he could instantly locate it. He grasped the handle of the
zipper with his right hand and held the tent material just below it
with his left hand, to keep it from snagging as he unzipped it.

He took a deep but silent breath and yanked
the zipper upward. It went halfway up and stuck. He quickly moved
his left hand up, grasping the two flaps of the tent just below
where the zipper was stuck. He yanked the zipper again with his
right hand. This time it went almost to the top of the tent.

He didn’t have time to raise it any further.
He grabbed the knife and parted the unzipped triangles of canvas
with his arms by simulating a breaststroke. He hit a vertical tent
post as he did so. He dove through the gap into the interior,
knocking the post over and bringing the tent down on top of him. He
landed on his left hand and tried to raise the knife with his
right.

His knife hand hit the top of the tent,
which now covered him like a blanket, making it difficult for him
to wield the weapon. He made a few clumsy thrusts with it until he
realized that something else was wrong. Gary and Penny hadn’t moved
or made a sound. He couldn’t feel their bodies beneath him, and his
knife wasn’t hitting anything but the sleeping bag, the tent floor,
and the ground underneath.

It dawned on Alfred that they weren’t inside
the tent. He stopped slashing and felt all over the sleeping bag.
It was empty. He put down the knife, fumbled in his jacket pocket,
and pulled out the flashlight. He had been going to use it to make
sure they were dead. He turned it on now and shone it around the
collapsed tent as well as he could. This only verified what he
already knew.