Possession (17 page)

"Yeah. The wife put her foot down. Said I was working too hard?" The ranger looked at Joanne appreciatively, and Danny put a proprietary hand on her hipbone. She nodded and smiled.

"This is your dog? He's beautiful."

"Thanks. He's called McGregor after that mountain over there." He turned back to Danny. "You going backpacking?"

"Tomorrow. The wife's got it all plotted out—up to Rainbow Lake, camp out there, and head back here probably. How's the fishing?"

"Fishing's good. Mosquitos are better. You got some insect repellant?"

"Hell, I hope so. She packed everything. You know women." The men laughed, and the ranger moved toward the door of his truck.

"Be sure you sign in at our office over there before you head up—so's we know where to find you if you don't come back."

"We'll do that."

Duane had a coke and a burger on the deck, watched Danny leave the Forest Service office, and waited until he'd disappeared into the lodge. He strolled over to the office, pulled the register toward himself and pretended he was about to sign it. When the ranger on duty turned away, Duane read down the list and saw "Lindstrom, Danny, Joanne: Rainbow Lake. Est. Ret: 9-7-81." He closed the book and grabbed a handful of maps and trail guides.

He knew where they were going, and he could study how to get there. Lucky he had his sleeping bag, and there was a

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little grocery store to stock up. He would not have to wait for them and follow them; it would be better if he went on ahead to reconnoiter. It would give him the advantage. When he walked out, he saw Joanne and Danny climbing the steps toward the lodge office, and felt the pang of knowing that she would be with the other man for one more night at the very least, closed in behind shingled walls.

It could not be helped; he would not think about it.

He caught the shuttle bus with the summer baby-ranger, jammed in with hardcore hikers eager to start up and make camp before nightfall. Three miles to the trailhead. He could have just as easily walked—and should have, damn it. Duane was out and turned away from the rig when the kid called him back, "Sir?"

He turned back, keeping his expression bland and free of the annoyance he felt, the slight apprehension.

"We need your destination, sir. If you'll sign this, put in your name, where you're headed, and when you're due back, I'll let the head ranger know."

"Sure. Fine. But I'm not coming back in. I'm going over the top and pick up the trail to the highway. What do you figure it will take me?"

"Ten hours—depending. Watch out for the rattlesnakes."

"Thanks." He scribbled on the clipboard held out to him: "David S. Dwain, Portland, Oregon. Destination: North Cascades Highway."

And it was true. That was his initial destination, a hop, skip, and a jump from the Canadian border, and once over, endless freedom. He liked the name Stehekin, liked its meaning: "The way through." He always found a way through, no matter how narrow the opening or how difficult. If the body could not insinuate itself through blocked passages, the mind always could.

His pack was light, his elation diminishing the weight on his back. He was alone, with the river rushing behind him, the empty trail ahead.

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Danny watched her unpack, carefully putting away the jar of instant coffee, powdered cream, sugar, eggs, and bacon in the kitchen that was as equipped as their own at home.

"Joanne," he teased. "You call this roughing it? We've got a bathroom with a shower and a tub and a goddamned flush toilet! We've got electricity and a smoke alarm."

"Only for tonight. Tomorrow: the wilderness." She bent over to look under the sink, and he moved behind her, his arms encircling her waist, pulling her back against him.

"He wanted you," Danny whispered into her ear. She held her breath. "Who?"

'Who? That guy."

He forced her against the hard sink, one hand holding her buttocks, the other on her breasts, reassuring himself that he owned her.

"You mean the boatman? Or the kid who brought the sheets? That's who, right? The kid who brought the sheets?" She laughed but it came out hollow; she didn't really enjoy this game.

"The ranger. He thought you were some kind of woman."

"The dog liked me too."

She twisted around until she was tight against him. "Does that turn you on? Is that what it takes?"

He stepped away from her, startled. "What does that mean?"

"What if I was ugly? What if nobody else wanted me? Would you still want me?"

"Come on, Joanne. I came over here to be a little bit friendly, and you—"

"I should be enough by myself; you should be able to get turned on without seeing me reflected in some guy's eyeballs."

"That's kind of sick, Joanne."

She walked over to him and put her head on his chest, tugging his arms around her. "I'm sorry, Danny. I guess I'm nervous. It seems like a honeymoon. Remember how nervous I was the first time? I'm sorry." 1 23

"Just don't take offense at everything I say. O.K.?" He brushed her hair away from her face and looked at her, and she thought that it was all right again.

"O.K. Kiss me?"

"You got it."

His hands moved down to her buttocks and he pulled her close to him, responding to her.

"Wait. Let me just take a quick shower."

"I like you the way you smell now."

She pulled free of him carefully. "Just a few minutes. Wait right here for me."

"You're not going to slip into something more comfortable, are you?"

She grinned. "I'm not going to slip into anything at all."

"That's more like it."

"Stay right there, and close your eyes."

"You close your eyes. I'll be looking."

She showered for a long time, trying to wash away the awkwardness and her feeling that she was only playing a part. Wanting to let go, and be what "he seemed to want. Naked and feeling slightly foolish, she stepped out into the living room.

He was asleep, fallen on his side on the plaid couch, his legs sticking out through the maple arms, one cushion held viselike against his chest. She tried to wake him and move him into the bedroom where he would be more comfortable, but he only groaned and she gave up. He deserved to sleep undisturbed; he had to be exhausted.

The room, so recently bright with sun, had darkened and she felt cold. She wrapped herself in a blanket and crouched by the window watching the sun lose itself behind the clouds eating up the mountain peaks. Lightning darted jagged tongues into the lake, and moments later the building shook in sympathetic vibration with the thunder that followed. Danny jerked in his dreams, but slept on.

She wondered about the hikers who had headed uptrail when they docked. Were they up there now seeking shelter under a rock ledge or a mass of fir boughs? Were they

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frightened, sorry that they'd left the safety of the lodge down below them? No. They would be prepared for storms or they wouldn't be up there. She was grateful for the roof over their heads. She had not expected that the mountains would be so high or the forest so thick that the sun died in it.

She shivered; a rabbit had walked over her grave.

Joanne wondered if she asked Danny to stay with her in the lower valley if he would. Not likely. She'd heard him tell the ranger they were going up and maybe over the top, and his pride wouldn't allow him to change his mind even if he wanted to. They would be out there by tomorrow night, somewhere on the mountain in a place hidden now behind the clouds, beyond returning.

She turned on the kitchen light and the illumination made the room look normal and safe again: white enameled stove and refrigerator, linoleum in the same pattern as her mother's kitchen, red-and-white checked curtains, a bunch of wild sweetpeas in a water glass in the window. The light warmed her and she made coffee and a bologna sandwich, chewing and sipping in deliberate movements as she pored over the pamphlets on how to stay alive and healthy in the wilderness.

The storm drained itself of fury, leaving only a soft rain that picked at the roof and then pattered gently into the ferns and berry thickets outside. He did not wake, and she left him in the dusky living room and carried a paperback novel into the bedroom, reading in the narrow light of the bedside lamp. She was caught up easily in the story of the gothic heroine who worshipped the cruel, brooding wastrel son of a wealthy English family. The heroine came together with him every twenty pages or so, but the sex was only vaguely erotic. There was nothing for her to match herself against and come up lacking. Crashing waves and shooting stars and heaving breasts. She wished it was really so easy.

Without expecting to, she slept—through the evening and into the night, lulled by the rain. When she woke near dawn, Danny was beside her, still dressed in his T-shirt and jeans. She molded herself against him and fell softly asleep

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again. When she woke, it was daylight. Good strong daylight, and Danny was in the living room checking out their gear. The strangeness of yesterday had evaporated with the raindrops.

The shuttle bus hurtled north along the Stehekin River Road toward the High Bridge turnaround, apparently without shocks to cushion the jolting, bucking ride. The driver, a young temporary Forest Service employee, kept up a steady monologue.

"That log cabin there on the right is the grade school, fifteen students up to grade eight, and the little cabin out back—well, that's just what it looks like. They got some flush toilets in there but the ecology guys won't let them use them. The Field Hotel was over there, but it went when they dammed the lake in '27. The Golden West Museum back by the lodge still has some of the wood from it. Over on your right—that's an organic vegetable garden. The guys who run it sell to the restaurant at the lodge and they bake the pies too. Boysenberry this week. Great pies. You eat there last night?"

Danny shook his head. "We meant to, but we overslept. Have to give it a try when we come back down, unless we decide to go on over and into Okanogan County."

"Food's good. Now, look back there to the right, way back in there behind the trees there. That's all that's left of the Rainbow Falls Lodge."

They looked and saw only what looked like a pile of weathered boards and a sagging roof. Joanne had a momentary flash of the dead barn at home and heard the sighing beyond it again. She shut her eyes and it washed away.

"Old gal named Lydia George ran the Rainbow Falls Lodge in the early 1900s. Her brother—forget his name-—

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was a miner, lived there with her. Winter of 1909-1910, it snowed and snowed and snowed. They finally had to use thirty-two lengths of stovepipe to clear the snowpack on the roof. Kind of took the heart out of Lydia's business."

"What happened to her?" Joanne asked.

"Don't know. Must be dead by now."

Danny laughed. "Unless she's 110."

Joanne looked back at the sad little pile of timber, wondering what lost dreams Lydia might have had. "Do they have a cemetery up here?"

"Someplace, but only the old-timers know where it is. People die up here now, they take them out on the boat and bury them in Chelan or Wenatchee." The boy was so young, a college boy from Indiana or Ohio, and she could see cemeteries were of little import to him. He was pointing to trees on the left of the road, hard by the river. "Notice how they're all charred black on the south side? A firestorm blew through the valley in 1889 and took out most of the timber. The ones that survived still have those burn marks on them, but they kept on growing just the same. The Indians say there'll be a forest fire every ninety years. Always has been; always will be. When it comes down the valley, it takes everything in its path."

"Then you're due for one," Danny said. "Is that why they never built up farther into the trees?"

The driver shrugged. "Might be. The only way out would be the lake."

The shuttlebus slowed and stopped, and the driver climbed on top of it and threw their packs down. He gave his instructions to Danny.

"You've got eleven miles up to Rainbow Lake. It's not easy, but it's not too rough either. Watch for the signs and be careful of rattlers and rock slides. If you go on over, it's seventeen miles to Bridge Creek. Be sure you hang your food up when you make camp. You can't just put it up a tree; the bears will shinny up and have it. You have to suspend it ten feet up and five feet between the trees on a rope—that frustrates them."

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"Are there bears?" Joanne asked.

"They're up there. Black bears mostly. They won't bother you unless you get between a she-bear and a cub; so don't ever do that. There might be a few grizzlies left, but the last verified sighting was in 1965. We haven't seen any kind of bear down in the lower valley this summer, so I wouldn't worry about it. Just follow normal precaution."

They started up, with Joanne leading the way. Yesterday's rain might never have fallen; it was dry and rocky underfoot on the steadily upward trail. They passed a reservoir and she worried at leaving it behind, although their canteens were full. She tried to concentrate on the vegetation, all of it proof that living things had defied the fire and the animals and rockslides: ferns, bracken and fiddle-head, elderberry, daisies, butter-and-eggs, mock orange, salmonberry, wild sweetpeas, wild phlox, kinnikinick, and flowering moss. They moved easily as their muscles warmed and their breathing coordinated, although Danny puffed more heavily than she did. She felt happier, and then simply happy.

The trail switched back and the incline's angle was steeper now. They stopped at a knoll and looked down, seeing the tops of evergreens below and the lake, blue as cornflowers between the mountains that held it. He draped an arm lightly over her shoulders.

"You had one hell of a good idea, kid. We're on top of the world."

"Not yet. Look behind us."

He looked over at the trail still ahead and groaned, flopping down on the grass, pulling her with him.

"I'm going to tell you two secrets—if you promise never to tell anyone."

She nodded her head and realized he had never told her even one true secret.