Possession (36 page)

"Seems fair."

"So what the hell constitutes ahead? It all looks the same to me." Ling unfolded the map from the National Park Service. On the side it carried a banner headline, "Touch the Wilderness Gently," and the other was swirled in concentric circles that reminded Sam of the whorls and ridges of fingerprints—all of it a far cry from the Texaco maps he was accustomed to. Max ran his finger along a thin red line of ink and stopped, tapping.

"Over Bowan Mountain—here. That's maybe six miles to the Pacific Crest Trail or on out to the North Cascades Highway. And there ain't no way we're going to make it before dark. I'm good, but not that good."

"We'll lose them."

"That's another twenty-five bucks a day." Ling folded the map. "If you feel that way, we've already lost them. They have—what?—nine days start on us? But they didn't come out on the other side yet, did they? And if / can't move in the dark, they can't move in the dark. And if you keep pissing and moaning, you aren't going to see what you're 267

supposed to see. We pack our butts out of here at dawn. In between, we eat; we sleep a little. You with me?"

"I better be—I can't afford your rate hikes. You know, Ling, you must be really insecure, you don't handle rejection well." Sam laughed.

"My mother abandoned me. I was raised by wolves in Spokane and they never understood me. Go build me a fire."

Sam woke in the deepest part of the night, used now to having to orient himself to where he was. He had slept in the woods, in his truck, in jail, in Ling's house, and—he remembered—now in the woods again. He lay unmoving, trying to figure out what had wakened him; he listened to the sound of Ling's snoring next to him, a shudder of wind in the quaking aspens, an owl—and something more. There was another presence.

He listened and tried to see into the darkness beyond their own outlines without moving his head. The sound came again, a stealthy murmur that seemed human and then not human. A soft whistling of air drawn into heavy lungs, followed by a grunt of displeasure. It was not Max's labored snoring; the snores continued in a counterpoint to the alien noises.

It scared the hell out of Sam as he realized that something moved fifteen or twenty feet away, some live thing watching him while he lay swaddled and damn near helpless. He eased one arm free, and then the other, still unable to see what thing had come upon them as they slept. The thing was heavy. A padding, thudding noise—feet, booted feet, stomping on the turf—emanated from somewhere near the pine tree where Ling had hung their food.

Sam felt his pistol in his hand and he cocked it and pointed it toward the coal black nothing in front of him, waiting for his pupils to adjust so that he could see some outline. And even as he did, he was sure he heard something coming up from behind, through the line of trees. His shoulders tensed and he braced for the blow.

It did not come. The thing was still in front of him as his

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eyes adjusted to the dark and the moon's cloud cover shifted. He saw the pack jounce on its rope and then begin to swing back and forth as if something batted it. And then he saw the animal on its hind legs, one foreleg outstretched. A dark pelted mound of muscle. He moved slightly and a twig cracked beneath him. The creature froze and turned its head toward where they lay. He saw its eye-whites and a yellow blob that was its nose. And in that instant, saw that he had been wrong. All wrong. A damn, stubborn fool. There was a bear.

He nudged Ling who came awake immediately and made no sound at all. He turned Ling's head with his hand, and Ling's breathing seemed to stop when he saw the bear. The little man's hand snaked out of his sleeping bag and Sam heard the whisper of the zipper, loud in the night. And then, before he realized what Ling was about to do, the tracker was on his feet, grabbing for the mess kit that lay beside the dead embers of their recent fire. The clang of metal beaten against metal was louder than a gunshot as Ling ran suicidally toward the bear. Sam's zipper stuck and he tugged at it frantically, finally giving it up and shucking himself out like a corn cob. When he was finally on his feet in the frosted air, he heard a new sound: Ling laughing. The Indian walked toward him and Sam saw that the tree space was empty, the pack still swinging lazily on its ropes.

"Old bear liked to peed himself," Ling chuckled.

"You're nuts," Sam muttered. "I could have gotten a shot off if you hadn't spooked him."

"No, my friend," Ling said. "I thought you were nuts. I swear I wasn't really positive about you. Thought maybe there really was a grizzly up here. You know what that was? That was a plain old, soft-living, beggar black bear. Not even full-growed. Ain't no man—or small girl for that matter—couldn't have scared him off by shouting."

"How did you know that when you started out after it?"

"I could see it was only a yearling or so bear."

"It looked big to me."

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"White man is chicken, ain't he? Woods full of varmints and all. Sam, that little black bear wouldn't come in here if there was a mammoth grizzly around."

"So now you believe me. What'd you come up here for if you didn't believe me, you little fucker?"

Ling slid into his sleeping bag. "Because you're so damned pretty, deputy. I couldn't resist you. Go to sleep. In the morning I'm going to make a sign cutter out of you."

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He had not had any penicillin for days, and each morning he felt another layer of fever, a thin hotness that weakened him and made him sweat inside his sleeping bag. His hand and arm had ceased to heal, the wounds once again edged in pus. He bathed them often, sinking his arm in the tiny lake they had found, letting the frigid water numb and cleanse it, but the throbbing always came back as his injured arm warmed. He was at first impatient with it, annoyed that it had defied him and would not mend itself—and then frightened when he counted the days that he had not recovered but had only grown steadily weaker. He thought of being in a clean bed in a clean motel room, safe between ironed white sheets that would cool him. And at night when the air became icy and he could not get warm, he dreamed of a fireplace full of solid logs that would not burn out. He had been uncomfortable many times in his life, sleeping in fields and airports and bus stations, but he had always come to it with a strong body and a clear mind to find a solution. Now he felt trapped.

The more the woman clung to him physically, the more her attention struck him as sticky and cloying, and the thread of communication between their minds slowly unraveled. She talked at him when she should be listening.

He could not build anything in this meadow. The first serious winds would whip any shelter off the mountain and

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into the chasms beneath them, and most of the trees were dwarfs, blighted by the altitude, able to give only minimal shelter from storms. Worse, they were isolated but not safe from intruders. He could not be confident that some party of climbers wasn't going to stumble upon them.

And there were the cougars. He had gone downtrail three times to search for the passage through into the Pasayten Wilderness and each time the big cats had blocked him. Sometimes one or two of them, and once half a dozen. They watched him boldly and he had even heard them purr.

He was phobic about cats, all cats. Lureen had left him alone in the trailer one summer day with a big old tomcat she'd picked up off the road. And the thing had gone wild as the trailer heated up, snarling and hissing and leaping from counter to ice box, and ending, finally and horribly, a frothing monster in his crib. He could not remember if it had bitten him, but he did remember screaming until he was mute, alone with it for hours before anyone came and took the thing away. Somebody with greasy, hairy hands had strangled the cat right in the doorway of their trailer while he watched, still fighting for breath himself. After that, he had always skirted the cage full of bobcats although he'd been unafraid of the rest of the mangy menagerie that was part of the Hungarian's gig. In his adult life he seldom encountered cats of any kind but when he did, the old terror came back.

He knew the cougars smelled his fear and that they rejoiced in it.

He argued with her on Wednesday morning. "What did you just do?" he asked her sharply, and saw her too familiar look of alarm.

"You just poured half a day's food away. We could have eaten it later."

It's hot out — the sun would have spoiled it. Besides, you haven't eaten anything since yesterday. You don't like anything I fix."

'We don't have endless supplies. We can't run down to 271

the supermarket. You've wasted more than we've eaten." r He plunged his hands into his pack and came up with only four envelopes, staring at them in shock. "Where's the rest of it?"

"That's all that's left. Some of them were torn and I thought they might have gone bad, so I threw them away. You said you could hunt." She smiled.

"I found some berries—a whole lot of berries."

He said nothing.

"I'm sorry, but I'm so tired of powdered food. Couldn't you find us a fish or a wild turkey or something?"

He mimicked her sarcastically. "Couldn't you find us a wild turkey or something? I'm tired, and there aren't any wild turkeys." Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

"You're sick again, aren't you? Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"

"I'm not sick; I'm only tired." He forced himself to hold out his arms, and she moved into them and let herself be petted and stroked. "You make things so difficult."

She shook her head against his chest and he held it still with one spread hand so that she couldn't move.

"You have to listen to me. You remember how it was—a long, long time ago when you were my mother? You made things difficult then because you never could understand anything. You tried to do it your way and it didn't work out and they took you awayjfrom me."

She managed to pull away from him and she stared back at him without comprehension. "I don't know what you mean. I never knew you. I wasn't your mo—"

"You remember. Tell me you remember."

"You're scaring me."

"You knew me when you saw me. I know you recognized me. You were afraid to say anything, but you knew me."

She couldn't remember the first time she had seen him. She thought that she had been with him for several months, and she loved him, but he made no sense to her. His games: were so bewildering, but he was so urgent about them.

"You did know me, didn't you?" His hand around hers had begun to hurt her, the vise tightening.

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"Yes," she lied. "I knew you."

He relaxed and let her go. "That's better. You must never tease me like that."

"I'm trying to be what you want me to be." She thought she perceived an opening, a calm place where she could tell him what she had been thinking of continually. She massaged his thigh, making circles with her fingernail. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I want to go home."

He froze; she felt the muscles beneath the jeans tense. "We can't go home. We have no home."

"I want to be in a house. I want a roof and walls."

"You're trying to get away from me. You always tried to get away from me."

"No!" She tried to pull his head onto her shoulder and felt his rigid neck. "No. I want to be with you. You said we could have a place for us and that's what I want too, but I'm cold and I'm getting hungry, and I need a bath, and people to talk to."

"You have me to talk to. You don't need anyone else."

"That's true, but wouldn't you like a warm place to sleep? Couldn't we go down the mountain now, and find some place? We've never made love in a bed. We could make love all day and all night, and I would bring you food when you were hungry and we could take a shower together. Would you like that?"

She had not changed. He felt his heart a cold stone beneath his ribs and his throat constrict with the horror of it. She had let him think she believed, weakened him with her constant craving for sex, and all the time she'd been planning how she could abandon him again. He had always known that he would find her some day. He had found her. And she did not love him.

"Honey?"

He turned to look at her, his green eyes quite calm.

"What?"

"Do it to me now."

"It's too hot."

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"In the lake. It's cool in the lake."

"Whatever you say. Whatever makes you happy."

He followed her to the pebbly edge of the water, and she laughed because she thought she had won. He let her undress him and toss his shirt and jeans into the shallows where tiny fish nibbled at them. She nibbled at him and; drew blood into his penis, wizened and soft in the cold water and then engorged when he looked down and saw how wantonly she serviced him. They stood in the water further out, waist deep, and he lifted her onto him. Their hips' undulating changed the lake's wave pattern, and he felt exultation when she was impaled on his penis. But with his ejaculation, he lost the sense of power. Even before he slipped out of her, he remembered that he could not trust her any longer, that she mated with him simply because there was no one else. If another male came, she would betray him. She had always betrayed him. If he allowed her to live, she would turn on him.

She followed him back to their camp, unaware that he had seen through her. She chattered at him while she cooked the last of their food. When the sun began to slide down the sky, he knew that it had to be their last night together. The fever was suffocating him, blunting his strength until he knew he could not keep her if someone came to take her away. He would much prefer to have her dead. Dead, she would still belong to him, and he could find her again when he was well. This time, she had been almost perfect, but she had slipped back into being a slut, just as all the others had.

"Dance for me," he ordered.

"I'm tired. I'll dance for you tomorrow."

"I said I wanted you to dance—like you used to for the others."

"I don't understand you—"

"Damn you. You do understand. Don't make me angry."

She moved slowly near the fire, swaying awkwardly, teasing him.