Spellbinder (25 page)

Steering carefully between the ruts in the road, she gripped the wheel, turned—

—and saw nothing but darkness. He’d gone. Either that, or he was asleep—at eight o’clock.

But, when she stopped the Toyota with its headlights on the gate, she saw a padlock. He was gone, then. For the day? Or gone for good—back to San Francisco? She got out of the car, unlocked the gate, swung it back and hooked it to a small stump, so the gate wouldn’t close before she’d driven through—as it used to do before Peter installed the hook. She drove through, unhooked the gate, swung it shut. After a moment’s thought she snapped the padlock. Tonight, she would stay here. Tomorrow, she would return to the city.

She drove up the driveway and parked beside the cabin, clear of the driveway. Because, even though he’d snapped the padlock, it was still possible that Peter might return. He could have taken Pepper and gone into town for groceries. He could have met friends, and stayed for dinner and drinks. For tonight’s story—for the occasional erotic fantasies with which she’d titillated herself during the long drive—there might still be a happy ending.

The porch creaked under her weight as she fitted her key in the lock, opened the front door and stepped into the small living room. The room was warm; embers glowed in the massive fieldstone fireplace, Peter’s pride and joy—the fruit of an entire summer’s work.

So he hadn’t gone. Not permanently. He’d only gone into town, as she’d suspected. He would be back. If he came back soon—within the next two or three hours—she would be waiting up for him. It would be a surprise for him, seeing the lampglow in the window, and her car in the driveway.

Or, better yet, she would wait for him in bed.

She was cautiously groping her way across the living room. Outside, the night was moonless; inside, the room was pitch black, with almost no light coming through the windows. But the glowing embers guided her to the fireplace. She could see the dim shapes of the two kerosene lamps that always stood at either end of the thick, hand-hewn redwood mantel. Beside one of the lamps, her fumbling fingers found the old tin matchbox—the one she’d discovered in a junk shop in Santa Cruz. She found a match and lit the closest lamp. In the center of the mantel, she saw a piece of ordinary typing paper that had been folded into quarters and propped against a stack of books. He’d left her a note.

She lit the second lamp, then held the note up to the warm amber glow, reading:

Dear Denise,

I hope you’re not reading this without me, or, at least, not without having heard about it from me.

Because,
you lovely creature with the body I crave so urgently (and, yes, with wit and whimsy, too), if you’re reading this alone, it will mean that we’ve missed each other.

Because,
at approximately 6
P.M.
on Tuesday, my faithful dog Pepper and I left for Jeff and Shelley’s. They’re adding a spur-of-the-moment room, and I promised to help them raise the roof. Or, more precisely, the roof beam (from the short story of the same name).

Yes, Denise, darling. We will be raising the roof without you. It’ll only take a day, maybe not even that. Then, tomorrow I’m going back to San Francisco. Where, I have to admit, I hope to find you alone. Very, very alone. Everyone should have a mother. But not for
this
long.

I should have gone into town and called you, on the off chance that you might drive up to try and find me. But I just heard about all this an hour ago. And Shelley and Jeff live in the opposite direction from a phone, as you probably remember.

And, besides, it’s a spur-of-the-moment room, like I said.

I’ve had a wonderful, crazy, very productive week. Which I’ll tell you about when I see you.

I miss everything about you.

Your admiring roommate, Peter

Written in Peter’s small, precise script, the letter covered the entire sheet of paper. Still holding the letter up to the light, she read it again, slowly. Then she carefully refolded it, and put it into her shoulder bag.

This letter, she would keep.

She slipped off the bag, put it beside the fireplace and began feeding the fire. Tonight, she would sleep in the cabin, alone. Tomorrow, she would return to San Francisco—where Peter would be waiting for her.

Yawning, she glanced at her watch as she opened the closet door. The time was almost ten o’clock; she’d slept longer than she’d intended. A glance out the window revealed the reason. During the night, a cold ocean fog had come in. The fog was so thick that treetops just across the clearing from the cabin were obscured. The bedroom was damp and chilly. Even wearing her sweater and jeans, with two pairs of wool socks on her feet, she was shivering.

As she took one of Peter’s old wool shirts from a hook in the closet and slipped it over her sweater, her foot touched the stock of the shotgun that Peter kept in the closet, loaded. She frowned. Whenever Peter left, he always hid the shotgun in the loft, concealed behind a board that looked like part of the paneling. During the past year, the cabin had been broken into twice. The first time, a transistor radio and a sleeping bag had been stolen. The second time, having removed everything that thieves might find attractive—and hidden the shotgun—they’d lost only a few cans of food and a towel.

The gun had always made her uneasy. Even though Peter had taught her to use it, she never liked to handle the big, double-barreled shotgun. Secretly, she was always afraid that it might go off accidentally while she was holding it. But, before she left, she would put it behind the loose board, where it belonged.

She closed the closet door, tugged on her heavy-soled shoes, and went into the kitchen. Probably because he’d left in a hurry, Peter had also forgotten to lay a fire in the big, black iron cookstove that was their most efficient source of heat, especially since the tiny kitchen could be heated so quickly. But at least there was plenty of newspaper and kindling in the woodbox. First shaking down yesterday’s ashes, as Peter had taught her, she crumpled up some paper, put the paper in the bottom of the firebox, and began breaking twigs into manageable lengths. She laid the twigs crisscross, not too close together. Then she struck a wooden match and dropped it down among the papers. The match flamed, faltered and finally died. She sighed, and struck another match—and another. If Peter were there, he would be amused.

After flickering uncertainly for a moment, the fourth match ignited an edge of the newspaper. Because of the dampness, the fire caught slowly. But, at last, flames were licking at the wood.

Smiling, she levered the round, iron cookstove cover into place, and took a pail from the counter. After she drew water from the pump, and after the stove top got hot enough to boil the water, she would make a cup of coffee. Elapsed time, at least a half hour.

At home, a flick of the thermostat dial would already have taken the chill off her apartment. A turn of the water tap and a twist of a knob on the stove would have produced boiling water.

She opened the door and walked behind the cabin to the old-fashioned iron pump that stood next to a small storage shed. Hooking the handle of the pail to the iron spout, she grasped the handle and began to pump. The sound of the mechanism was dry and squeaky: iron against iron, unlubricated, unpromising. But, finally, a dribble of water was beginning, spattering the bottom of the pail. It was magic—her own private miracle, a Wednesday morning spectacular. As she threw her weight against the rusty iron handle, the stream thickened: a rushing, foaming cascade.

Coffee was coming: another Wednesday morning miracle. Denise Holloway, the sorceress.

With the bucket half full, she lifted it from the hook and began carrying it to the kitchen door, leaning against the weight of the water. Was the fire still burning high enough to—

At the end of the driveway, opposite the gate, a car was slowing, stopping. Where she stood, half concealed by the corner of the cabin and partially hidden by a big blueberry bush, she probably wasn’t visible to the driver. Flexing her knees, she lowered the bucket to the ground, then straightened. Unconsciously, she’d stepped closer to the house, concealing more of her body from view. The car was an orange sedan, unlike any car she’d ever seen either the Andersons or the Taylors drive, the two families that shared the private access road with Peter. Yet the car was going toward the county road, not away from it. Which meant that the driver was coming from the Taylor place, a quarter of a mile farther up the access road.

Of course, the explanation was obvious. Either someone was visiting the Taylors, or else a stranger was lost. Or, possibly, the Taylors had gotten another car.

The driver’s door was swinging open. A slim, dark-haired stranger was getting out of the car. He was standing in the road, looking up toward the Taylors, then down toward the county road, in the direction of the Andersons’ place. He was plainly puzzled. The stranger was dressed in brown slacks and a tan poplin jacket, both of them new. Now he was turning toward her, walking across the road to the gate.

Fella about twenty-five,
Mr. Byrnes had said.
Slim, with dark-colored hair.

And, later:
This fella didn’t exactly add up.

But that had been in San Francisco, yesterday. This was Mendocino—today.

Could he see her? Only her head and half her upper body were visible around the corner of the cabin, with the blueberry bush concealing her body from the waist down. The distance from where she stood to the gate was perhaps a hundred yards, and the low-lying fog limited visibility. If she stood still, she probably wouldn’t be noticed.

Now he was standing before the gate. He was looking down, possibly at the padlock.

A relative
, Mr. Byrnes had said.

As she thought about it, she sharply shook her head. She was taking a coincidence and distorting it into something mysterious—something ominous. The incident at Mr. Byrnes’ store couldn’t be easily explained—not without questioning the stranger. But this incident—this young, neatly dressed man driving a shiny new car—this could be explained. At least once a day, a strange car wandered off the county road and up their access road, despite the warning sign. Their trespassers’ explanations varied, but were almost always innocuous—at least during daytime-hours.

This car—this man—was undoubtedly harmless: a stranger, wondering how to get to a nearby ranch, or the nearest town. The fact that he was slim, with dark brown hair, was mere coincidence.

But, still, it would be better if he returned to his car and asked his directions of someone else. She’d never before been here alone. There’d always been Pepper, at least. And she’d always known that, in the next hour or two, Peter would return.

Unconsciously, she’d shrunk away from the corner of the house, furtively peeking around the corner now. It was like a childhood game of hide and seek. When she saw her chance, she would run for the goal—home.

Yes, home. She would go inside and fix her cup of coffee, and hide the shotgun and close up the cabin—and leave for San Francisco. Without Peter—without even Pepper—the cabin was suddenly a stranger’s house, alien and empty.

She backed away from the corner, picked up the water pail and went into the kitchen. The fire had burned beyond the point of no return: nothing but glowing red embers and a few blazing twigs remained at the bottom of the firebox. She put the bucket on the floor, reached hastily for a handful of twigs, scattered the twigs on the meager fire. Now she must replace the iron cover—and hope.

With the cover in place, she walked into the front room and looked out the window. The stranger had returned to his orange car. As she watched, the car moved forward, disappearing behind the screen of pines that bordered the driveway. Turning back to the kitchen, she was aware that the relief she felt was strangely disproportionate to the significance of the incident.

A
S SHE LOCKED THE
cabin door and tested the lock, she glanced at her watch. The hour was almost noon. She’d spent the entire morning trying to stay even. First, she’d had to build the fire hot enough for her coffee. Then she’d had to replenish the fire to make it hot enough to cook bacon and eggs. After breakfast, she built up the fire again, this time to boil enough water to wash dishes. After doing the dishes, she decided on an after-breakfast cup of coffee, which meant another trip to the pump—and a trip to the woodbox, followed by another wait, while the fire got hot enough to boil water. By the time she’d done everything, it was time for lunch.

She unlocked the Toyota, tossed her canvas bag in the back seat and started the engine. Overhead, the fog was thicker; an oppressive blanket of heavy, leaden gray. The air was damper now, laden with the smell of imminent rain.

With the Toyota’s engine idling, giving it time to warm up, she drove slowly down the driveway and stopped short of the gate, leaving enough room to swing it open and drive through. If they were in Peter’s truck, it would be her job to jump down, open the gate, then wait for Peter to drive through before she closed the gate and locked it. It was, Peter said, the driver’s prerogative that the passenger must serve as gatekeeper.

Leaving the car’s door open, with the engine running, she walked to the gate and reached through the redwood slats to unlock the padlock. Now she must walk the gate back to the side of the narrow driveway, and hook it open. Otherwise, a gust of wind could send the gate crashing into the side of the car. It had happened once, to Peter’s truck. Except that, to Peter, one more dent didn’t matter. On the docks, he’d once said, undented pickups were viewed with some suspicion.

Bending down to hook the gate, she heard a car coming up the access road, from the county road. The car was coming slowly, its engine idling. Could it be Peter? Could he have called her in town, and missed her, and decided that—

Through the trees that bordered the road, she caught a glimpse of bright orange, moving toward the gate. It was the car she’d seen earlier. The stranger was coming back.