The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl (4 page)

She stopped screaming.
Must have gotten tired,
Denis thought. She still had a fair bit of air, probably.

Denis remembered his fantasy of stabbing Jane, gouging her out of his life with swift penetrations. That was no good. That was
messy
.

This was better. Seamless. Clean, in its way, despite the mud.

Besides, it wasn’t
his
fault. She’d tried to steal his clothes, his phone. If she had succeeded, she would have been doomed just the same. “Far be it from me to interfere with your choices,” he said aloud. “I won’t impose my patriarchal paradigm on you. A man rescuing a woman is such an antiquated notion anyway, isn’t it?” He dressed methodically, brushed dirt from his jeans, and began the long walk back down the hill to town. She’d told him to walk back, hadn’t she? He was only doing what she wanted.

Two days after leaving his lover to die, Denis sat down on the tile of his kitchen floor, leaning back against the white refrigerator. He wondered if Jane was dead. He wondered how he could have done such a thing to her—but in a way, he didn’t regret it. He hadn’t taken the knife, after all, hadn’t stabbed her in the back, hadn’t given in to his homicidal urges. If he was guilty of anything, he told himself, it was simple negligence.

His cell phone probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. Wireless service was spotty in the hills. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t tried to make the call, did it? Not really.

Denis got up from the floor and went into his living room. He looked at his reproduction of Rauschenberg’s famous 1951
White Painting,
the triptych of blank white panels. Rauschenberg had been making a statement about content in art, but Denis just liked the idea that something so clean and simple and unadorned—indeed,
anti
-adorned—could hang in museums, be reproduced in art books, be talked about by critics for decades. He disliked most of Rauschenberg’s other work, especially the horrendous goat-with-a-tire sculpture, but this one . . . this was something special.

Normally, looking at the triptych soothed him, as much as counting to nine did.

Not tonight. It reminded him, in a melodramatic way, of Jane’s pale skin.

He suddenly remembered that he’d left the knife, the blanket, and their trash in the hills, so close to Jane’s tomb. What if the police found those things, and suspected foul play, and somehow traced it back to him? He couldn’t let a loose end like that dangle.

Denis sighed. He would have to go back. Take his car up into the hills, to the site of the mudslide, the site of Jane’s burial alive. Not just to get the things he’d left behind, but to stand by the mud and think. That might provide closure for him. It was such a painful cliché, returning to the scene of a crime—but he hadn’t actually committed a crime, he reminded himself, not in any
real
way. So it would be more like . . . visiting a grave.

And he could try his cell phone, just to prove to himself that it wouldn’t have worked anyway, even if he’d tried.

Denis got his coat, put on his muddy boots, and headed for the hills.

Fireguard

Marzi sat at her drafting table and worked on inking the next issue of her comic. She was winding up a major story arc in this issue: Rangergirl had finally found the rattlesnake sphinx, and now she was faced with its peculiar riddles, which would give her the key to stopping the Outlaw’s latest assault on reality.

But Marzi couldn’t concentrate. She kept thinking of Jane, covered in mud, reaching for her with clawed hands. She’d washed her hands in the bathroom at Genius Loci, and showered when she got home, but she still felt dirty. And afraid, which was worse. Being afraid had caused her serious problems in the past. She found it too easy to hunker down and hide from the fear, rather than go out into the world and face it. When she managed to stop thinking about Jane, she found herself thinking about Jonathan, which was almost as uncomfortable, for entirely different reasons. It wasn’t even
him,
particularly—it was the very possibility of closeness.

Marzi sighed and pushed herself back from the table. Maybe she could go out . . . though it was cozy at home, too. She lived in a small apartment on Rosewood Street, just a couple of blocks from Genius Loci and the downtown core of Santa Cruz. She liked living downtown; she hardly ever had to drive anywhere, since her job, grocery stores, bookstores, and bars were all within easy walking distance. Marzi had lived in the apartment for four years, since her sophomore year in college. The landlord lived down in Florida somewhere, and was apparently unaware of the way rents in Santa Cruz had skyrocketed in recent years. Marzi hoped he never got clued in. The cheap rent was the only way she could afford to live by herself and have a job that paid as little as managing the coffee shop did.

The apartment was cluttered and jumbled, caught between coziness and chaos, with a blue thrift-store couch, a cedar chest, and brightly painted bookshelves filled with trade paperback and hardcover comics: almost everything by Alan Moore, the whole run of
Preacher,
Tomine’s
Optic Nerve,
McCloud’s illustrated nonfiction,
Sandman,
some Frank Miller, Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Dori Seda, Art Spiegelman’s
Maus,
Richard Moore’s
Far West,
and scores more, shelved and stacked in most of the available space. Her single issues of comics were boxed and stacked under the long dinner table she’d gotten for a steal at Goodwill. Most of her noncomic books were Westerns by Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, and Joe Lansdale, along with a formidable collection of nonfiction about the West. Most of the reference was piled around her drafting table, so she could reach it easily when working.

She did her drawing in the living room, at a drafting table that faced away from the windows, to keep her from staring into the world outside when she should be working. If there were windows, she would look out of them. Sitting at the table, though, with nothing before her but the walls, forced her to open the windows in her head, and look out on stranger vistas. A land of tumbleweeds, painted deserts, wagon trains, dusty-robed necromancers, rainmakers, gullies filled with gold, treachery, cowardice, and heroism. The world of her comic,
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl
.

Marzi rose from her place at the table and went to the windowsill, looking at her prickly garden, a dozen cacti in terra-cotta pots. Marzi laughed.
She
was the cactus girl, right? Keeping everybody at a distance, even Lindsay, being prickly to protect the soft stuff inside. Why was she so resistant to Lindsay’s matchmaking attempts with Jonathan? Admittedly, there had been no blazing flash of light when their eyes met, no string music playing in the background, but he was cute, and seemed nice enough, and they had some interests in common . . . so why was her immediate reaction so negative? Had she just been out of the game for so long that it would be easier to avoid playing at all?

She touched the spine of one of her cacti, pricking her finger, but not breaking the skin. It was so tempting to stay here, safe, to avoid the possibility of seeing Jane, to avoid the pleasanter possibilities that Jonathan represented. But did she want to live that way, safe, locked away?

Maybe tomorrow she’d talk to Jonathan. See if she liked him. He and Lindsay had gone out drinking tonight, and they’d wanted Marzi to come along, but she’d declined, thinking she wanted time alone. Maybe she still did, but the more she thought about it, the more she didn’t want to spend time alone
here
. She could feel the creeping edge of agoraphobia as she contemplated going out, a manifestation of her old anxiety that she hadn’t experienced in months. She looked at her closed front door and shuddered. How could she
know
what was on the other side of the door? How could she be
sure
—

Marzi shook her head and went to put on her shoes. She was stir-crazy, and shaken up from her encounter with Jane, but that didn’t mean she was having a relapse. She decided to go for a walk. Through sheer force of will, she didn’t hesitate when it came time to open the door; she just grasped the doorknob, turned it, and stepped into the perfectly ordinary night. No strange vistas loomed behind the door, no monsters, no alien landscapes. No whatever-it-was that she’d once feared so much.

She stepped outside, onto the sidewalk. The weather was lovely; May in Santa Cruz was perhaps her favorite time and place. The sun stayed out until quite late, and the afternoons were warm, turning cool in the evening. She carried her leather bookbag slung over her shoulder, filled by a notebook and an oversized sketch pad. She was seldom overcome by an urgent need to draw
right now,
but she was fairly certain that if she ever left her bag at home, she would be struck by a powerful and transitory inspiration that would disappear before she could find a pen and paper.

Maybe she thought too much. The curse of the artist: too much introspection. But that wasn’t always true. Lindsay had a pretty happy and carefree life, and she painted almost as diligently as Marzi drew. Lindsay took every day as an adventure, every problem as a challenge, every surprise as an opportunity. Why couldn’t Marzi be more like her? That would certainly simplify her feelings toward Jonathan, who at best embodied an intriguing set of possibilities at this point.

Then again, Lindsay had never suffered a nervous breakdown. Maybe Marzi was right to be careful, to analyze her reactions and behaviors. She had to watch herself.

Marzi went down Rosewood Street, crossing Ash. Genius Loci was still open, with Bobby-O and Caroline running the counter, and Hendrix probably lurking in the back somewhere. He hated working evening shifts, but Marzi refused to work every night. It wasn’t like Hendrix had a family or something to go home to—as far as Marzi knew, he just sat up naked at night watching pornos on a thirteen-inch television, eating peanut butter straight from the jar. Not that he’d ever said so; it was just the image that sprang to mind.

She continued toward Pacific Avenue, the main street downtown that had all the best shops, the good restaurants, and the wonderful bookstores, then changed her mind and turned back. She didn’t want to walk downtown tonight. The street performers, the tourists, the students—they would be too much. She didn’t want the crush of humanity around her.

There was a little park a few blocks away, and Marzi decided to go there, sit on the grass, and maybe have a cigarette. She’d stopped smoking regularly a couple of years ago, but she still carried a pack of cigarettes with her, and every once in a while, when she needed to calm her nerves, she had one. And after that altercation with Jane, surely she had a good excuse to calm her nerves?

Thinking of Jane made her glance around at the street, looking for Jane’s mud-covered hatchback. Lindsay insisted that Jane was usually a nice, unassuming girl, but for Marzi, Jane was only and always savage and mud-streaked, like some totemic monstrosity. For the first time, Marzi wondered if they should have called the cops. They’d just laughed off Jane’s assault and had a beer. For Marzi, the cops had always been something bad that
happened
to you, busting up parties, giving out tickets, being high-handed bastards. The cops weren’t something you turned to for help. But surely they’d be interested in a madwoman who assaulted people in the middle of downtown? Was it too late to call them? Probably.

Marzi turned a corner and went toward the park. There was someone else there, standing in the shadows beneath a tree, nothing visible but the general human shape and the glowing ember of a cigarette hovering near the mouth.

Marzi hesitated. Could it be Jane? But Jane probably wouldn’t smoke; Lindsay said she was a super-healthy activist type. Then again, Lindsay also said it was unlike Jane to coat herself in mud and try to kill people. Probably it was just someone else out for a walk, like Marzi herself. The park was pretty safe, even at night. Insofar as Santa Cruz had a “bad part” of town, this wasn’t it—that was down by the beach, maybe, where you could buy drugs and whatever else you wanted. You could buy that stuff downtown, too, but you had to know where to look. Closer to the beach, that stuff knew how to find
you
.

The figure approached, tossing the cigarette into the grass. At first Marzi thought it was a man, but then she recognized Alice Belle, Lindsay’s new love interest.

“Hey, Marzi,” Alice said. She was six feet tall, three inches taller than Marzi, with close-cropped blond hair and clear blue eyes, her features a bit too strong to be conventionally pretty. Marzi had never really looked before, but now that Lindsay had mentioned it, she saw that Alice
was
in great shape—her biceps clearly defined, her stomach taut beneath her tight white T-shirt. She didn’t have any breasts to speak of—or else she kept them taped down—but she had nice hips and long legs. Marzi didn’t feel any particular sexual attraction—girls sometimes turned her on, but it was a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing—but she could certainly see what Lindsay saw in this woman, physically, anyway.

“Hey, Alice. How you doing?”

Alice frowned, then shook her head. “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I’m all sort of scrambled up in the head. Just taking a walk, trying to figure things out.”

“What’s wrong? Is it . . . about Lindsay?”

Alice looked startled, then laughed. “She said she was going to tell you about us—I guess she did. She didn’t want to make too big a deal out of it.” Alice shrugged. “I don’t know if it is a big deal. We have a lot of fun together, but who knows where it’ll go? I feel like a cradle robber, truth be told. I’m turning thirty next month.”

“It’s only six years’ difference,” Marzi said.

“I feel like I’m a long way from being in college, though, you know? Even if she is in grad school. No . . . it’s not Lindsay. Things are good with her. I don’t know what it is.”

“You want to talk?”

“You don’t even know me. It’s not your problem.”

Marzi shrugged. “Lindsay’s my best friend, and you’re important to her, so . . .”

Alice nodded and sat down on a nearby bench. Marzi sat with her. They looked out at the grass for a while, then Alice said suddenly, “I used to start fires, when I was a kid.”

“Yeah?” Marzi tried to sound neutral.

Alice laughed. “My dad was a firefighter. I guess I did it to piss him off. I’d burn napkins, piles of leaves in the yard . . . Once I burned a bunch of Barbie dolls he gave me. I doused them in lighter fluid and put them on the grill. It drove him nuts. He was sure I’d burn the house down some day.”

Another long silence. “Did you?” Marzi asked at last. “Burn the house down, I mean?”

“No. I never did. I think I used to like the destruction, but now, I just think fire’s beautiful. I do fire-dancing, you know?”

“Lindsay said.”

Alice smiled at that. “And there are lots of candles at my house, and hurricane lamps, shit like that. Having flames around relaxes me. It’s not like I’m a pyromaniac or anything. But lately . . .” She took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, offered one to Marzi, took one for herself. She flipped open a filigreed silver Zippo and lit both cigarettes. They puffed for a moment, quietly. Marzi enjoyed the rush of nicotine, like having a balm rubbed on from the inside. Soothing.

Talking to Alice is a lot different from talking to Lindsay,
Marzi thought. Lindsay was an onrushing torrent, while Alice . . . well, it wasn’t exactly like pulling teeth. More like waiting for molasses to run downhill. Steady, but slow.

“I was riding my bike up in Oakland a few years ago,” Alice said. “During wildfire season. And there was a fire, a bad one. I saw it from the road. The flames came jumping up the hillside, crackling, like something alive . . . it was beautiful, but dangerous. Like a tiger.” She half-smiled. “Like a motorcycle. I sat on my bike and looked at the flames for a long time. Way
too
long. Wildfires are tricky. They can cross roads, catch the wind right, and go flying over a pretty good distance. I could’ve been trapped, burned. I should have hauled ass out of there, but I couldn’t seem to get motivated. I just watched the flames turning the dry grass into ashes, spreading, so fierce and wild and alive. I finally snapped out of it and rode away, didn’t get trapped, didn’t get hurt. People died in that fire. Not me, though. I was lucky.” She took a long drag.

Marzi wasn’t sure what to say, whether she should say anything.

“You know those signs up by the university, that say ‘Chance of Wildfire Today,’ and then ‘Low’ or ‘Moderate’ or ‘High’?”

“Yeah.”

“When I see it on ‘High,’ I think, ‘Maybe this’ll be the day. Maybe this’ll be the day I get caught in another fire.’ ” She glanced at Marzi. “Fucked up, huh?”

“I think people have always been fascinated by fire,” Marzi said slowly. “From our earliest myths, even. Prometheus stole fire from the gods. So did Raven, according to some Native Americans. It’s dangerous and powerful stuff.”

Alice seemed to visibly relax. “So you don’t think I’m obsessed?”

Marzi laughed. “I don’t see any reason to think that, no.”
And I would know,
she thought.
I know about obsession.