Last Chants (21 page)

“How do you do industrial spying living in a lean-to in the woods?” Edward wondered.

“My gut feeling?”

“Go for it.”

“You get Billy Seawuit convinced you're living like a Native American.” He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. “I never trusted that phony shaman.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I never trusted Seawuit. Goddamn Louis stuffed him down my throat—made me take him in. And Toni! Jesus, she thought he walked on water!” Again he tapped the photo. “Look at this hokey Indian crap!”

Edward seemed pleased, though he hid it when Nelson glanced back up. “And the other guy, the one who stole my camera, you don't recognize him, huh? Or his friend?”

“No.” Nelson seemed reluctant to return the pictures. He glanced at the drugstore. “Do you mind if we take the film back in? Get a couple more sets made?”

Edward hesitated. “If they can do them same-day. They went and closed on us yesterday.”

“They close early on Wednesdays,” Nelson said absently. “Rhonda's daughter has treatments. They'll do them right away for me,” he assured us.

“Look,” I said, “you guys have your errands and I have mine.” No way was I going to visit the police with them. “I'll see you later.”

Nelson shook his head. “The police will want to ask you about Pan.”

“Edward saw him, too.”

Edward, never slow on the draw, said, “Yeah, that's right,” though he'd had the barest glimpse and hadn't spoken to him. “Go ahead, Alice. Meet you back at the place.”

I took off before Nelson could voice other obvious objections. As I rounded a corner, I thought I heard him calling me back.

I dashed down rural sidestreets. I seemed to be doing evasive maneuvers a lot lately.

I stopped when I noticed where my circuitous route was taking
me. I was approaching the road leading to the Nelsons'. I turned back around.

Not soon enough. I heard a woman shout my name. I glanced behind me. It was Toni. Though she wasn't close, I recognized her size, her hair, her fisherman's sweater.

I picked up my pace, pretending I didn't hear her. But when she shouted again, she was obviously closer. In fact, she had to be running to have covered so much ground so quickly.

Maybe it was cowardly, I didn't care. She was too weird for me to risk meeting her alone.

I broke into a jog. I had visions of hurrying back into town and encountering Galen, of being trapped between them like a horror-movie heroine. I looked over my shoulder. Toni was running like an athlete, unself-consciously pumping every limb. The sight of it scared the hell out of me.

I took a sharp turn down a road I'd never seen before. (I wondered how many tombstones bore that epitaph.)

As I ran, my devolving brain fed me potential disasters: that Toni Nelson would claw at me, beat me with her fists, stab me with the knife that had disemboweled Billy Seawuit. It was countered by social shame: Jesus, here I was, a grown woman . . . running from someone who probably just wanted to tell me her house had been broken into.

Whatever the reality, another glance over my shoulder told me she was gaining fast.

I took off across a field and behind a house. Then, because I didn't want to be alone with her in the middle of nowhere, I hesitated.

In my moment of indecision, she pounced on me.

She grabbed me from behind, saying, “What's the matter with you? Didn't you recognize me?”

There wasn't much point in being coy. “What do you want? Leave me alone!” I wriggled sideways in her arms, trying to see her face.

Either my rudeness made her angry or she'd started out that way. She'd scowled herself scarlet.

“Let go of me.” I tried to bat her hands away. “You're always grabbing me.”

But she didn't let go.

“Leave me alone.” I struggled, but it seemed to make her more determined to keep me there.

“What's wrong with you?” she demanded.

“Wrong with me? I didn't punch you in the nose and pin you to the wall.”

“I didn't punch you in the nose. And I didn't lie to you about who I am, either.”

I froze for a second.

“I know a liar when I see one!” she continued. “Maybe Galen didn't recognize you, but I did.”

I found my strength, wriggling free of a woman at least six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than me. I ran again.

I didn't believe her; didn't believe she'd been present the day of my interview with Curtis & Huston, the day I'd first seen Galen. I'd have noticed her, remembered her. But I ran anyway.

Whoever she thought I was—assuming her accusation wasn't generic—that person wasn't safe with her.

I made for the road this time. I wanted to be around people.

But a glance over my shoulder made it clear Toni would outrun me and overtake me before I made it.

I pushed the thought away—I didn't want to consider it. But I had to admit, and quickly, that I couldn't outrun her. I'd have to hide from her.

I veered off into a margin of oak and madrone. I was panting, nearly out of breath, my legs close to cramping. I was a good walker, but never a jogger, and it had been a tiring few days.

But I had to make it into deeper forest, I had to take cover, that was the most I could hope for.

I could hear her crashing along, not far behind. God, I hoped she wasn't a distance runner.

I grew hot in my sweatshirt. I heard myself gasping. I had to create enough of a lead to take advantage of a hiding place—
if
spotted one.

Anger helped: Damn this woman. What did she have against me? Who did she think I was?

A second later she tackled me, sending me sprawling over dried leaves and clumps of bark and dirt, over prickly berry vines and sharp saplings.

Exhausted and in distress, I blurted out the babyish truth: “I hate you!” I cried.

Her voice had a similar sobbing breathlessness. “I hate you, too. You liar!”

Not since childhood had I had a fight that was based purely on antipathy and stress. We rolled and punched and cried and pulled hair. And I knew even as I succumbed that it was pathetic and stupid and fruitless, an embarrassment in every regard.

I just couldn't stop myself. She'd pushed me too far: I was willing to sink to her level. Hell, even lower.

Maybe there was more to it. I'd been frightened all week: running from the police; hiding in the woods; startled by pipe-playing, Jeep-breaking, lean-to inhabiting men. I'd been forced to depend on Edward, a former boyfriend I'd barely begun to forgive. And I'd had to keep a tight rein on Arthur through all of it.

I transferred all my frustration and fury onto Toni Nelson. I lashed out at her, hitting her anywhere I could, rolling in the duff with her like an animal. Though I'd worried about running out of energy, I suddenly had an inexhaustible supply.

And her blows, though I registered their location and intensity, didn't really hurt. She wore a fanny pack facing front—that did smart when it burrowed into me. But I knew she felt it, too, so I didn't mind. In fact, I seemed to detach from my body, using it only as a vehicle to express a primal, generalized anger.

But even I couldn't remain irrational forever. There came a moment when self-knowledge reared its shamed face. Then temerity crept in, reminding me that the odds were against me, that I was going to get trounced, that there was no way I'd walk out of these woods the winner.

And then, with a sudden, swooping, almost Tarzan-like entrance, Pan was with us. He appeared out of nowhere—from behind trees, I later supposed—a blur of naked, hairy flesh. I didn't notice much more, didn't focus on his face. I watched his vast arm reach down and yank Toni off me.

I scooted back in the duff, so startled I couldn't wrap my thoughts around it.

Pan pulled her farther back, farther away from me, both his
arms around her so she couldn't hit him. He lifted her off her feet so she had no traction, no leverage.

He'd seen her on top of me, and he'd assumed she'd attacked me—which, in fact, she had. He'd freed me from her.

I watched him hold her as if oblivious to her wrigglings, too powerful even to stagger.

She still stared at me, hot-eyed, red-cheeked, not seeming to care who'd pulled her off me, ready to renew the attack.

She'd jump back on me if she got the chance, I was sure of it.

I scrambled to my feet and ran. Ran without regard to course or direction, without regard to anything but getting out of there.

I ran without concern for the stitch in my side or the hot pain in my lungs. I crashed over vines and through brush, doing a broken-field run around trees and stumps, down hills, and up seams of eroded dirt. I ran until I fell from exhaustion.

Somehow the terrors and worries of the last few days had crystallized into this one morning. I'd been running on fear, not real energy.

I lay on the ground in the middle of the forest, having absolutely no idea where I was. Every part of me hurt—my head, face, trunk, arms, legs, lungs, heart. I was so hot I thought my skin would blister.

I felt worse in repose than I had in motion.

I lay there groaning.

That's when it occurred to me: Maybe Pan hadn't been rescuing me. Maybe he'd seen Toni as his Syrinx; maybe he'd grabbed her to ravish her.

I sat up. He'd talked about spotting Syrinx in the woods. He'd talked about consummating an ancient longing.

Oh God, what if I'd left Toni Nelson with an insane rapist?

What if I'd run off—congratulating myself for having escaped—and all the while . . .

I struggled back to my feet, lurching along like a zombie. My calves were in spasm, my body was stiff.

I tried to scream “Toni,” but it sounded more like croaking. I did better the second time, but I got no response.

I staggered around calling her name, fearing I'd run too fast on my adrenaline rampage; that she was too far away to hear me. Or worse, that she couldn't respond.

I was totally lost, not sure whether I was heading back or going in circles, never seeing a landmark to make me certain.

The forest seemed unique everywhere I looked and yet exactly like hundreds of other parts I'd passed through.

I tried to find traces of my passage: branches I'd broken, scuff marks in the dirt. But when I did see broken twigs or vines, I had no way of guessing whether I'd done it.

I tried scanning the sky, but I didn't know how to navigate by changing sun positions.

Finally, I sat back down, forcing myself to catch my breath.

I tried to reassure myself. “Pan” was really an Oxford-educated Welshman. When Arthur and I spoke to him, he'd seemed literate and restrained and perfectly gentlemanly, in his delusional way.

But I wasn't Syrinx, his long-lusted-after, perfect mate. And unless I'd misinterpreted him, Toni Nelson was.

What if I didn't find them? How would I tell the police without revealing my identity? How would I avoid putting Arthur at risk; in effect, putting him in prison forever?

I started to panic. It would be far too late by then. I needed to find Toni now.

I forced my knotting muscles to bear my weight. I tottered on, screaming her name.

I could feel sweat or tears on my lips, taste it on my tongue as I called for her.

I couldn't stop: I'd abandoned her to a crazy man obsessed with the dryad he thought she was.

I pushed on, barely able to keep upright, my throat raw from shouting Toni's name.

It was the middle of the hot afternoon before I gave up. I sat in the breezeless woods, smelling the warm duff and evergreens, insects buzzing around me, birds hopping and pecking and flying from limb to limb.

It all looked so normal and benign. The great outdoors on a sunny, blue-sky day.

Except that I had no idea where I was. And no idea what might be happening to Toni Nelson because I'd abandoned her.

I
wandered the woods, feeling desolate, unlucky, unworthy. I continued trying to console myself with Pan's fine accent, his obvious education. But I couldn't sustain optimism in the face of the worst possibility.

I grew to feel jinxed, lost forever. How big could the forest be? I had trekked through oak and fir forest, shady redwoods, now hot chaparral.

But I knew this was a mountain of parks and timberland with few pockets of habitation. Either I'd traveled deep into the wilderness or I was going in circles through the same near-city margin.

I walked and walked, dragging my frustrations.

I stepped through a scratchy stand of chaparral plants. I had no idea I would finally encounter a landmark.

I found myself before a lean-to of garbage bags and tree limbs. The shaved-headed young man we'd seen yesterday—and whose
photograph we'd seen today—peered out at me. Judging by his face, he was far less disconcerted to see me than I was to see him.

“Howdy,” he said.

I stood there, numb with surprise. “Hi.” And then, because it might not be too late to help Toni Nelson: “That man we talked about yesterday? Pan?” Could I trust him? Did I have a choice? “He attacked the woman I was with.” I had to try something, after all. Anything I could.

He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Where?” he asked. “What can I do?” He looked bewildered.

“I don't know where.” I gestured behind me. “I've been walking and walking, trying to find the spot again.”

“You think . . . Pan?” He took off his hat, wiping his brow. His head was thoroughly stubbled. “Tell me what happened.”

“The person who thinks he's Pan, he jumped out of nowhere. He grabbed her.” Was it important to tell him we'd been fighting? “I ran away, and then I couldn't find her again. I still haven't found her. I don't know what he's doing to her.”

The young man strode over to me. “You better relax a minute, have some water. Then we'll talk about where this was. Maybe I can get us back there. I know the woods pretty well; I've been living here a long time. Okay? So relax.”