The Vanishing (29 page)

Lilley’s voice grew even quieter. ‘‘Her name was Alma. I knowed her back at th’ fort. We was almost . . .’’ His voice trailed off into nothing.

Maybe the father came back periodically to feed it.

Marshall ducked under the sill to get outside and away from the closeness of the shack, breathing deeply as he hit the fresh air. He looked up at the rock walls nervously. There was only one way out of this canyon. It was an easy place to get trapped. He glanced across the pond, grateful to see that their mounts were still in place and unmolested. ‘‘Let’s go!’’ he called out to Lilley. His voice echoed in a way he did not like.

The other man emerged from the shack, and the two of them walked back around the side of the pond in silence. Marshall stared at the ground as he walked. He saw now why the tents and shacks had sprung up here in this place. There was gold for the taking, actual nuggets lying in the sandy soil by the edge of the water. One the size of a bullet sat atop a flat piece of sandstone. Another, equally large, was surrounded by shimmering gold dust that could be easily panned by even the most incompetent prospector. He had not noticed any of this on the way in, yet now that he was looking, he saw that gold was everywhere. He slowed his pace, measuring and comparing the pieces he spotted, but while he could not take his eyes off the shiny metal, he refused to touch it.

He reached his horse and mounted it. Lilley got on the mule.

The two of them started back the way they’d come, neither turning for one last glance at the encampment. Or the shack.

‘‘Lot of gold there,’’ Marshall noted a few minutes later.

‘‘You take any of it?’’

He shook his head. ‘‘No.’’

‘‘Wise choice,’’ Lilley said as they rode out of the canyon.

Twenty

‘‘That looks like the cat we saw when we were hiking,’’ Alyssa said. ‘‘The dead one. I bet it’s his brother. Or sister.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Andrew said thickly, not trusting himself to speak.

They were unloading the ice chest and backpacks from the van, and the cat stood on the side of the parking lot staring at them. At
him
. It was the same cat. He could tell not only by the white paws, white head, red collar, and dried blood where its tail should have been, but by the long scar that bisected its body—at precisely the point where his hoe had cleaved the animal in two. Its second death had made it look even more disturbing than before, if that was possible. The animal’s fur was still matted and bloody, but there was more dirt now, and the head and upper torso were slightly off center, as though the two halves of the body had not fused together properly.

He stared at the creature, thinking of that old wives’ tale about nine lives.

‘‘It looks like the same one to me,’’ Johnny said, peering at it.

‘‘You and your sister pick up the handles on that ice chest and carry it back to the cabin,’’ Andrew told him.

The kids obliged. Robin was already in the cabin, and he waited until Johnny and Alyssa were out of sight before running over to the cat and stomping his foot in an effort to scare it away.

The animal did not budge.

Glancing quickly around, praying that no one was watching, Andrew hauled off and kicked the cat. He did not merely push it with his foot but drew his leg all the way back and booted the creature as hard as he could. It skittered head over heels across the ground . . . but then landed on its feet several yards away.

And stared at him.

‘‘Meow,’’
it said.

Overhead, a bird fluttered by, its flight as erratic and drunken as Woodstock’s. He saw it in his peripheral vision, but even without looking at it directly, he knew that it was one of those he’d killed and dumped at the edge of the wood. Glancing one last time at the unmoving cat—

—Andrew picked up the remaining backpack, closed and locked the van door, and headed toward the cabin. He resisted the urge to turn around.

They’d gone on a rafting trip, but it hadn’t been fun. The day was chilly and overcast, the river guide hostile and unfriendly. Johnny and Alyssa had fought. None of them had enjoyed the experience.

On the way back, they’d passed a carnival set up in a vacant lot in the middle of town between the grocery store and a Shell gas station. SUMMER FAIR read the banner strung over the street.

‘‘Hey, let’s check it out!’’ Johnny said excitedly.

‘‘No,’’ Robin told him. ‘‘We’re going back to the cabin. I need to take a shower and wash this crud off me.’’

So here they were.

At least the sky had cleared a little, the uniform ceilingof gray that had been hovering over the area since dawn breaking up into smaller combinations of differentiated clouds, allowing shafts of sunlight to beam down on the town and forest.

Andrew turned at the sound of the cat’s voice, expecting to see it following him along the path to the cabin. But though the cry had been clear, the animal was nowhere to be seen and he hurried on.

They put away their supplies. The kids from Nevada were playing in the meadow, throwing a Frisbee, and he told Johnny and Alyssa that they could play, too, as long as they stayed within sight of the cabin. The two ran off, and Andrew helped Robin unload the plastic cooler. He dumped the melted ice water off the side of the porch, looking around all the while. He felt like an Edgar Allan Poe character. All he could think about was the cat. In his mind, he was trying to come up with ways to dispatch the animal once again. But every scenario that came to him ended in discovery.

‘‘I think we should go home,’’ Robin said. She hadn’t spoken since the kids had left, and her voice startled him.

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘You know why. Besides, what more is there to see here? Or do? Why don’t we start back and spend the extra time sightseeing along the way? We could check out Yosemite or the redwoods or even make a detour to the Grand Canyon.’’

He didn’t answer. She was right. There was no real reason to stay and plenty of reasons to leave early.

But he didn’t want to.

It was an irrational position and not one that he totally understood. Despite the resurrected animals and Robin’s history here, he really enjoyed being in gold rush country, but that didn’t explain his firm tether to the place. For it was not just a vague connection he felt but a concrete attachment that stubbornly refused to acknowledge either logic or reality. From the beginning, it felt as though he’d been
called
here, and while he did not know how or why, he wanted to stay around and discover how this played out.

That was wrong, he knew. He was a husband and a father, and his first priority should be his family. There was definitely something about this trip that did not seem safe, that was totally at odds with his duties as a spouse and a parent, but he felt all of this at a remove, as though he were underwater and hearing the muffled sound of voices from the surface.

He’d been thinking a lot about Bill Fields on this trip. He hadn’t thought of Bill for years, and though it was only the notoriety of his murder that had placed him back in Andrew’s mind, the fact remained that there seemed to be some sort of link between his old friend and the feelings he had for this part of California. It was not something intellectual but instinctual, a below-the-radar recognition that there were connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of his life. A six degrees kind of thing.

He had no idea what it meant.

There was a pounding of feet up the steps and onto the porch. ‘‘Mom! Dad!’’ Johnny called, the screen door slamming shut behind him.

‘‘What is it?’’ Andrew said.

‘‘Are we doing anything today?’’

‘‘We went on a rafting trip. And—’’

‘‘No, I mean later,’’ Johnny said.

‘‘Why?’’ Robin asked suspiciously.

‘‘Alyssa and I want to go to the fair.’’

Robin was already shaking her head.

‘‘Terry and Claire’s parents said they can go.’’

‘‘Only if we come with you,’’ Robin said firmly.

Andrew saw the look of shame and embarrassment that crossed his son’s face, a look he remembered well from his own teenage years. He felt sorry for the boy, but he agreed with Robin. That cat—

—was still out there, along with God knew what else, and it frightened him to the core of his being to think of his children encountering one of those resurrected animals. He could easily imagine the creatures attacking his children, making them pay for what their father had done, and that was something he could not allow to happen.

‘‘But Tony, Dexter and Pam are going to be there! They’re the ones that invited us!’’

‘‘And who are Tony, Dexter and Pam?’’ Robin asked.

‘‘Those kids from town we played with yesterday.’’

‘‘No,’’ Andrew said.

Johnny looked at him. ‘‘Dad . . .’’

In his mind he saw a line of dead animals advancing toward his children while zombie birds zoomed in from the sky. ‘‘We don’t know those kids. Besides, you can go to a fair or carnival or amusement park anytime. Better ones than this. We’re here to learn about gold rush country and enjoy the sights of California.’’

‘‘From our room? We’re just going to sit inside until it’s time for bed.’’

‘‘I said no,’’ Andrew told him.

Johnny left the cabin much more slowly and considerably more discouraged than when he’d arrived.

‘‘Let’s go home,’’ Robin said again. ‘‘Let’s get out of here.’’

‘‘No,’’ Andrew said. ‘‘Not yet.’’

Yet?
Why had he said that? It made it sound as though he was waiting for someone or expecting something to happen.

Maybe, he thought, he was.

They had sandwiches for dinner. Robin hadn’t been in the mood to cook anything elaborate, and he didn’t feel like driving to the store to get more charcoal for the barbecue, so they made do with what they had. The kids didn’t seem to care. Johnny’s earlier disappointment had disappeared, and he and his sister chatted happily through the meal, retroactively making even the rafting trip fun.

It was the kids’ turn to do the dishes, but afterward they came out on the porch where he and Robin were watching the sunset. The sky in the west had turned bright orange as the sun started to drop slowly behind the hills.

‘‘Can we go to the lodge with Terry and Claire?’’ Johnny asked. ‘‘They’re having a slide show about volcanoes.’’

‘‘That sounds fun,’’ Andrew said. ‘‘We’ll all go.’’

Johnny looked crestfallen. ‘‘Dad . . .’’

‘‘This
is
supposed to be a family vacation.’’

‘‘But Terry and Claire get to go by themselves! And Claire’s the same age as Alyssa and Terry’s younger than me! Couldn’t you just hang out with their parents and let us go to the slide show?’’

The last thing he wanted to do was ‘‘hang out’’ with Terry and Claire’s parents. But he understood his son’s desire for independence, his need to do things on his own. He glanced across the meadow at the lodge, which was clearly visible from the porch.

‘‘It’s more fun without you,’’ Alyssa said bluntly.

Andrew had to laugh, although Robin didn’t even crack a smile.

‘‘It’s still light out,’’ Johnny said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice.

‘‘All right. You can go,’’ Andrew said gently. ‘‘But you have to stay with your sister and both of you have to come back right after the talk ends. Right after. Do you understand me?’’

‘‘But, Dad . . .’’

‘‘Then no.’’

‘‘Okay! I’m sorry! I won’t complain!’’

‘‘Andrew,’’ Robin said grimly.

‘‘They’ll be all right,’’ he reassured her. ‘‘It’s only the lodge.’’ But he thought of the cat sitting somewhere in the path on the way to the lodge and already regretted his decision.

‘‘Thanks, Dad!’’ Johnny said, grabbing his sister’s hand and running down the steps as if afraid he might change his mind. ‘‘I’ll watch Alyssa! Don’t worry!’’

‘‘Andrew . . .’’ Robin said.

He knew how she felt. He felt the same way. But he forced himself to smile at her. ‘‘They’ll be fine,’’ he told her.

Robin watched them speed down the path through the meadow. They were both getting so big. Even Alyssa. A lot of the women she knew missed the days when their children were babies. She didn’t. What she missed were the preschool years, when the kids were old enough to talk but everything was new to them, everything was exciting, everything was fun. Those days had been almost too hectic at the time for her to enjoy them, but she looked upon them now as the happiest of her life.

If it were up to her, the two of them would have remained four forever.

But time passed, kids grew up, and as much as she hated and feared Oak Draw, she was at least grateful to have the opportunity on this trip to spend time with Johnny and Alyssa. For most of her workaholic friends, family vacations were distant memories—they generally grabbed a three-day weekend here or there when they could, often
without
the children—and Robin knew how lucky she was that the four of them did so many things together.

But she
did
hate Oak Draw.

And she feared it.

For the second night in a row, she’d had the same dream. Or nightmare. She was still not sure how to classify it. She had been walking down a yellow-brick road, as in
The Wizard of Oz.
Only it was really a pathway lined with bars of gold, not yellow bricks, and it ended not at an emerald city but at a black mountain. There were monsters crawling all over the mountain, the same sorts of monsters who had raped her and her friends, and wherever they crawled they left behind trails of rapidly growing grass.

Andrew walked back inside the cabin, bringing her with him, and closed the door behind them. He wanted to have some quick sex before the kids came back. She didn’t know what had gotten into him on this trip. He seemed to want it all the time now, despite what had happened to her here—