To Sleep Gently (27 page)

"What?"

"It's hard for me to say."

"Has everything else been easy to say?"

He picked up and moved a fallen branch from the trail. He couldn't look directly at her, even though he really wanted to. "Even before that night," he said, "I had a crush on you. And since that night, I've fallen in love with you, I think. I mean, I have. At school, when you take my hand, or when you hug me, when we're walking together, I feel like the greatest man in the whole world. I think about you all the time, and I think about you and me developing something. And then I see you with Mike, and you act the same way towards him. It drives me crazy."

Her voice was taut when she said, "You love me?"

Tears suddenly filled his eyes. He held them back, nodded, and the fog of tension thickened around them.

"Jack," she said, "I don't think any of us will ever be able to be happy with this situation. I know that. The way I feel about both of you, well, it was one thing.but now it's something else. I don't see you and me ever being truly happy together. And I don't see that for me and Mike either. But I think we all have an obligation now, and I think we need to stick together, even if hearts are broken." She touched his chin and made him look at her. "I can't give this baby up, Jack. There's a part of me that wishes I could, but I can't."

Jack looked at her a moment longer, and in that moment he hated himself more than he had ever hated anyone in his life. He wanted to grab her, hold her tight and never let go. He wanted to kiss her on the lips and whisper "I love you" and hear her say the same words back at him. Instead he looked down to the path, and as a squirrel scaled a tree the two of them began walking again.

He felt nauseous. He felt angry. He felt completely out of his mind but he managed to hold the conversation at the right level, and asked her if she'd thought about names.

"If it's a boy, Benjamin. If it's a girl, Kelly."

"And what last name is Benjamin or Kelly gonna have?"

They veered left onto a secondary trail. The sky was growing gray.

"I was thinking we could hyphenate all three."

The pond came into view. There were ducks on the pond.

"That'll be a mouthful."

They reached the pond. It was surrounded by limestone and lush vegetation. The wind was gone now and everything was quiet until a duck quacked.

Jack looked at the duck, then looked at Shelley, then looked beyond Shelley and saw a shadow move amidst the foliage.

"Some people say a duck's quack doesn't echo," he told her, and saw the shadow move again.

"What?"

"Yeah, but it's not true." Jack watched the shadow emerge from the foliage, a large rock in its hands. "Yeah, I guess high frequency sounds bounce better and create stronger echoes. Ducks just have quacks without much high frequency, and as a result their echoes are very faint."

"Oh," Shelley said.

Jack looked at her, wanted to tell her again that he loved her and he didn't know what to do without her. He wanted to tell her to reconsider, get rid of the baby and let's try again. We'll have a baby someday, down the road, when we're ready. He wanted to tell her that she had just taken something very important and special away from him and it was something he could never find in the same way again but in spite of that fact he still loved her and wanted to be with her and if things could only be just a little bit different then maybe it could have all come true but minds were made up and things were to be done in a very certain way now and that's all there was to it and that's when the rock hit her on the back of the head.

*****

Dempster snapped awake and heard a scream.

"God," Sandra said. "You scared me."

He blinked several times and finally remembered where he was. They were still on Interstate 25, headed south.

"What did I do?" he asked.

"You all of a sudden just thrashed about. I thought you were going to attack me."

"Sorry, just a bad dream."

They drove for a moment in silence, the Nissan moving at a steady seventy. The sky had lightened from blackness to lackluster and seemed to keep brightening before his eyes. There was still no sun, yet there was no moon that he could see. Clouds had moved in and were spreading about, adding melancholy hues to everything.

Then came the sign:

EXIT 242 RIO RANCHO AND PLACITAS 1 1/2 Miles

"That's where you wanna make a right," he said.

"I know, I'm not stupid," she told him.

He didn't look at her, just stared straight ahead, looking for the exit.

Then, "What do you have to do here, anyway?"

"I have to get rid of that suitcase."

She nodded, but it was clear she didn't quite understand.

"I take it to these guys here," he explained. "They give me my cut and work out the rest themselves, and we all go about our merry way."

"So you work for somebody," she said matter-of-factly.

"Everyone works for somebody," he said.

The exit came into view. Sandra drove the car onto the steep ramp and the speedometer dropped until it hit rock bottom and they halted at a stop sign. She checked for traffic, then turned right. It was still too early for traffic. There was hardly any at all. No residences of any kind around this part, chain restaurants and gas stations dominated the strip of road, giving it the look and feel of every other run-of-the-mill town in America.

"In a little while you're gonna see a casino on your right," he told her. "Right after that is a streetlight and there should be a sign that indicates the way to Corrales. Make a left there."

"All right," she said. Then she sighed, and her lips developed a tiny side-of-the-mouth smile.

"What?" he asked.

"I was just thinking how you said everyone works for somebody," she told him. "I wonder what my parents would think if they ever found out what I was doing right now."

"What about your aunt and uncle?"

"Yeah, them too." She looked at him, then back to the road. "Do you realize it's only been something like a week since we first met in Oklahoma?"

"Something like that, yeah. I finished your Goethe quote for you."

"You also told me not to be disappointed if I discovered I wasn't a genius." This made her laugh. He couldn't tell if it was genuine or covering up fear, but it was a pleasant sound.

He gave her a moment, then, "Have you discovered something?" he asked her.

"I've discovered that I'm not a genius," she said.

"Have you?"

"Or maybe I just don't care to try. I was never interested in being a genius. Like I told you that day, I'm interested in love and romance, life and death."

"There's been plenty of each," he said.

"Maybe I just want to live my life, spend my days with you and not really give a damn about anything other than being happy and living life the way I want to live it."

"I think that's genius right there," he told her.

"Life's gonna kill you," she said, "so we might as well enjoy it while we can."

They came to the casino. At the next light there was a sign for Corrales. She turned left. There was a lot of undeveloped land, and what was developed was residential. The road curved to the left then curved to the right and then straightened out.

"Your soul still intact?" he asked her.

"It is," she said. "I can feel it firmly attached to me."

"Good."

"How's your side?"

"It aches, nothing more."

"You didn't lose your soul when you got hit? I mean, it didn't leak out or anything?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Good." She nodded to herself. Then, "Do you think we maybe should have stopped and gotten a paper?"

"What for?"

"To see if there's anything about, whatever you did?"

"There wasn't enough time to put it in this morning's paper. I'll bet it's been on the radio and TV by now, though. It'll come out in the paper tomorrow, I'm sure, but it doesn't matter. We'll be in Indiana or Ohio or somewhere by then."

"On our way to Maine?"

"Or Maryland, or wherever. Slow down."

She eased off the pedal and touched the brakes. Dempster saw the street he was looking for. "Make a left here."

The road was windy, curved this way and that like riding on the back of a riled snake. The houses were small and huddled together. One house on the left had Christmas lights on—presumably they were on year-round—and several of the traffic signs flanking the street were handmade.

"Look for a street to the right called Sunny Day," he told her. "We take that for about five or so miles and we're there."

The small village was so quiet, so empty and lifeless at this hour. If not for the occasional porch light and the sporadic dog in the yard, it might as well have been a nicely kept ghost town. The road curved right, and as it did, Sunny Day appeared on the right. Sandra hit the brakes and cut the wheel as tight as she could. They turned onto a narrow road that quickly transformed from blacktop to dirt. The road climbed up, then down, with sharp curves and low-hanging branches. It was minimal road at best for a while, dark and downtrodden, contrasting its name with superb finesse. It was a bumpy road, too. Sandra drove it at about fifteen miles an hour, creating giant clouds of dust behind them.

Then, abruptly, the road opened up and gave way to blacktop again. It widened, straightened. A road dead-ended into this one on the right, and Sandra brought the car up to thirty-five.

"Interesting road," Dempster said.

"Very. Did you notice that there were a couple of small houses when we first turned onto the road and there hasn't been anything since until now?"

True enough, houses were sprouting up here and there again, each one on what looked like several acres of land. They were nice houses too, if not a little basic in their New Mexican style architecture.

"We're supposed to just drive on this road until it ends," Dempster said.

"Then what?"

"We probably spend about an hour or so chatting it up and working everything out, then we take off."

"Sounds like a blast."

"Doesn't sound like anything to me."

After another five minutes the houses disappeared again. The road narrowed and went back to dirt, though it wasn't as ominous and gloomy as it had been in the beginning. Tiny private roads without names ran off both sides from time to time, stretching so far away that neither Dempster nor Sandra could see the homes they connected to. Then the road made a sharp right around a high hill, then a left around another, and when they straightened out they saw a handmade sign stating that they were entering private property and to turn back. Then everything opened up to a clearing, a very large clearing and in the center was a nice house, surrounded by an adobe wall. It was not dissimilar to the houses just a mile or so back behind them. They entered the clearing and Sandra brought the car to a crawl and steered towards the house. Out front there were two cars, an obviously rented Mercedes-Benz, and a newer model Ford truck.

"Sure likes living out in the middle of nowhere, huh?"

"Park the car."

Sandra brought the Nissan to the left of the Mercedes, pulled up on the handbrake, then switched off the engine.

Dempster reached for the door handle then stopped and turned to her. "I dunno if it's better that you come in, or if you wait here."

She didn't reply, just looked at him, her eyes gleaming. Her face was so beautiful, like the dawn around them. Nature had pieced this woman into such a gentle beauty. The sight of her made his heart ache.

Then tears stood in her eyes and she leaned forward and kissed him.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, and feigned a smile.

It was very difficult to get out of the car.

"Go on," she said. Her smile became more genuine. "Go on and get it over with."

He kissed her. "I love you," he said, and as he said it he was getting out of the car, and then he was closing the door, and then he was standing there, looking at the house. He opened the back door and took out the suitcase, then closed the door and looked back at the house again. Everything was motionless. Everything was quiet. The house seemed very far away, even as he moved up the stone steps, opened the hand-carved gate and entered the courtyard. His feet were a mile down as he crossed the flagstone path. The sound the doorbell made when he rang it was a faint, distant blur to his ears. He turned around and looked out at the light forest of rolling hills and saw that the sun was still not quite ready to come up. It's very beautiful, he said to himself. Then he turned back to the door and knocked. He rang the doorbell again.

And waited.

No one answered the door. They knew he was coming; yet no one answered the door.

He reached down and turned the handle. There was a click, the door gave, and he pushed it open. He stepped inside. It was dark. All the lights were off. It was even quieter inside than it had been outside. The ceilings were high, with vigas stretched across them. The room was quite large, with pseudo-rustic oddball furniture strategically placed about here and there, as though compensating with aesthetics for the fact that comfort couldn't be found. Everything in the place wore a shroud of shadow.

He called out and no one answered. He looked across the living room, where the house opened up to a custom kitchen with a stove and a nook on its right, and to the left what looked like another large room. Directly in front of him as he crossed the living room was a large window over the sink, looking out to the forest. It really is very beautiful, he said to himself; and as he drew closer he saw a black car out there. A dark, menacing car and it was empty and all of a sudden he tensed.

Get out of here, he said to himself. Get out of here right now. Get out of this house.

To his left he heard a single footstep. When he looked he saw a man standing in the hallway on the other side of the room. In the room, by a window looking out over the rolling hills, was a gruesome pile of bleeding bodies. As the man raised his gun the front door opened and Sandra stepped in saying there was another car parked out back and she got a really bad feeling about it and what was it all about.