The Strange Story of Linda Lee (24 page)

Linda was strong and healthy, her small case contained nothing heavy so did not prove a burden, and the going was not difficult. Spurred on by determination to escape, she had covered many miles since leaving the hotel, with only a few, brief halts. But now the sun had gone behind a mountain and dusk was falling, so even her courage was beginning to fail her.

It started to snow again, softly but persistently, drifting down to sprinkle her toque, shoulders and coat. It chilled her cheeks and now and then she had to brush it from her long eyelashes. Dusk merged into darkness overhead, but the snow-covered ground enabled her to continue to see her way between the slender tree-trunks.

So far the denseness of the forest had protected her from any wind there was. But soon the drifting snow began to fall faster and at a sharper angle. The wind got up and made a weird whistling. It came in fierce gusts, whirling the snow about, driving it from the branches of the trees and bending their slender tops under its pressure. Visibility ahead was reduced to a few yards and, in near despair, she realised that she had been caught in a blizzard.

Still she pressed on, but she was now tired. Before
making her break for freedom she had already walked several miles that morning. The calves of her long legs were aching and the little case seemed to have become much heavier. She had missed her lunch, so was hungry. Visions of a roaring log fire and big bowls of hot soup began to haunt her. The undulating slopes of pines seemed never-ending. Several times, as the only alternative to proceeding up steep gradients which she feared led up to mountains, she had had to change her direction. She recalled hearing it said that people lost in the Australian bush sometimes walked round and round in circles.

At last, overcome with fatigue, she tripped and fell. The carpet of snow was thicker now, so she did not hurt herself. But, as she struggled to her feet, she brought herself to face the awful fact that she could go no further and was utterly lost in this vast wilderness of snow-decked trees.

Gazing desperately round the limited distance she could see, she realised that no one spot was better than another in which to pass the night—that was if she could live through it. Many travellers who had lost their way and had to sleep in the snow had, she knew, never woken up again.

Sitting down with her back to the tree nearest where she, had fallen, she undid her case. Now at last she could bless the Canadian liquor laws. In order to be able to have a drink in her bedroom when she felt like one, she had bought a pint flagon of rum, with which to spike Coca-Colas. While hurriedly packing she had thrust it into her case, together with part of a slab of chocolate and the remains of a packet of biscuits.

The flask was three parts full. Avidly she took a long pull at the contents. The neat spirit made her gasp, but
sent a lovely glow through her chilled body. She was terribly tempted to eat all the chocolate and biscuits, but forced herself to put by half of them against the morning. After another drink from the flask she made her preparations for the night, using every item in the case which might help to keep her from freezing.

Opening her coat and, taking off her skirt, she drew on her spare pair of knickers. By the time she got her skirt on again, her teeth were chattering and tears seeping from her eyes. One pair of stockings she wrapped round her neck and another pair round her calves. Her silk nightdress she wound round her face, then turned up the collar of her fur. Using the soft-topped case for a pillow, she clasped her gloved hands round her body under her coat, turned on her side and settled down.

The soft cushion of snow on which she lay saved her from the hard, frozen ground, so she was not uncomfortable. Dreamily, scenes from her past drifted through her mind: the sunshine of Nice on the Promenade des Anglais; a wonderful dinner which she had had with Rowley at the Tour d’Argent in Paris; his first heart attack in the swimming pool at Venice; that awful wait she had had on the railway station when she had run away from home, fearing every moment that Pa would catch her; that fantastic night at the Empress on Victoria Island when Big Bear had shown her how a strong man could really satisfy a woman; and Eric, dear Eric. If only he had not proved so honourable when she had tempted him. At least for once in her life she would have known perfect happiness.

The blizzard had ceased. The wind no longer howled through the trees. The gently-falling snow had covered her, so that anyone passing by would now have
seen her as only a mound in the carpet of whiteness. She made no attempt to throw the snow off. She felt warm, comfortable and not unhappy. At length she drifted off to sleep.

During the day her fears had spurred her on to exertions that would have tried even a strong man, so when she did drop off it was into the deep sleep of exhaustion, and she did not wake until full daylight had come. It was not snowing and above the glistening white tree tops the sky was a cloudless blue.

She did not feel cold, but was conscious of a pleasant numbness in her legs and arms. It made her reluctant to move, and for several minutes she was tempted to doze off again. But suddenly the realisation that she was lying under a pall of snow rang an alarm bell in her brain. It must be such mental apathy which led to people who slept in the snow never rousing properly, and dying where they lay.

Hurriedly she sat up, shook her shoulders and kicked until she had cast off the white shroud that encased her. Opening her case, she took out the flagon of rum and gulped down several mouthfuls. The strong spirit swiftly brought feeling back to her throat, chest and stomach, but her limbs remained heavy and there seemed no response when she flexed her toes. Seized by panic that her feet might have become frozen, she grasped the nearby tree-trunk and pulled herself up by it. As she let go, she staggered, but managed to recover her balance; then for some minutes stamped about and flailed her arms until pins and needles in her feet told her that the circulation was restored.

Sitting down again she hungrily demolished what remained of the chocolate and biscuits, took another swig of rum and repacked in the case the extra garments
she had used through the night to help protect her from the cold, but keeping on her spare pair of briefs.

As she rewound her wrist watch, she saw that it was a little after nine o’clock. Fearfully she wondered what the day would bring. It was over twenty-four hours since she had had a proper meal, and then only an egg, toast and marmalade for her breakfast, so she felt half famished and badly needed hot food to keep up her strength. If she failed to get it within the next few hours she might feel unable to go any further, and another night in this accursed forest would prove the end of her. She could only pray that another blizzard would not blow up and impede her progress. The sun again gave her roughly the direction of the east. Resolved to make the best of the going while it was good, she picked up her case and set off.

Her long sleep had restored her normal buoyant energy. For two hours, with only three short rests, she kept up a steady pace. Striking another river which was too broad to cross, she followed its course until it flowed into a large lake. On the far side there was an opening in the trees with, beyond it, another tree-covered slope. As she halted for a moment on the shore of the lake, to her unbounded joy she saw a car driven at high speed pass across the further shore. It instantly told her that there must be a road between the lake and the distant slope.

Exultantly, her hunger and the police momentarily forgotten, she clapped her gloved hands and laughed aloud. Another quarter of an hour, striding over the crisp crust of snow round the lake shore, and she reached the road. It was broad and macadamed, so must be a main highway. Impatiently she waited at the side until a vehicle came along that would give her a lift. But
twenty minutes elapsed before one came in sight. It was a six-ton lorry. She waved, and the driver brought it to a halt within a few yards of her.

As he leaned from his cab, his face showed astonishment as he took in her mink coat and toque, her lovely face, fine, tall figure and the obvious fact that she was a lady; then he grinned, showing an ugly gap in his front teeth, and asked, ‘Want a lift, Missy?’

She smiled. ‘Please. I got lost in the forest. If you could drop me off at the first town you get to, I’d be grateful.’

His grin broadened, ‘For nowt, or you goin’ ter pay me?’

‘Oh, I’m quite willing to pay,’ she replied promptly.

‘Give us yer bag an’ hop in then.’

Two minutes later she was sitting beside him in the cab, and the lorry was on the move again. He was wearing a bearskin cap, from under the rim of which protruded a ragged fringe of yellow hair. His face was lean, with a big, flattish nose and a long, unshaven chin. She judged him to be about forty. After a few minutes he asked:

‘How come you got yourself lost?’

While waiting at the roadside she had got a story ready. ‘I came up here with a friend who has a chalet for fishing. We had a violent quarrel and this morning I walked out on him.’

She had decided against saying that it was a husband she had walked out on, as this would hardly have sounded plausible. However violent their quarrel, it was unlikely that a wife would have left a husband to go off into the forest. She would have waited until they had got back to their home, and she could leave with all her things.

The driver considered that for a while, then said, ‘Surprisin’ that a feller shouldn’t have treated a pretty girl like you decent. Guess yer must ‘ave played ’im up mighty bad fer ‘im ter let yer go off on yer own in this sorta country, with snow on the ground an’ all.’

She shrugged. ‘I was a fool to let him bring me up here, but he told me there would be other people staying. There weren’t, and I wasn’t standing for the sort of thing that happened last night. That’s why I left. He wouldn’t have let me if he’d known I meant to. I cleared out this morning early, while he was still asleep. I had to go without breakfast, so I’m terribly hungry. Have you got anything to eat?’

‘Yes, plenty. But yer’ll have to wait a while till we can find a place where I can light a fire. Got to heat the vittles up.’

For eight or ten miles they drove on in silence, only occasionally passing or being passed by other vehicles. Then he spotted a broken-down shack not far from the road, beside a small lake, and pulled the lorry up on the snow-covered grass at the edge of the forest.

From under the driver’s seat he got out a rusty tin box and, with her walking beside him, carried it to the abandoned shack. About a third of the roof had fallen in, but the earth floor in the larger part was free of snow and at the far end there was a fireplace.

She now saw that he was a tall, powerful man with gangling limbs. Opening the box he took from it a frying pan, a saucepan and several packages of food. With the dexterity of long practice, he smashed up some pieces of wood that had fallen from the roof, pushed two paraffin firelighters under them and soon had a good fire going. Having crammed the saucepan
full of snow, he put it on the fire to melt, then asked:

‘What’s yer choice: cod or tripe?’

When she said she preferred fish, he unwrapped a large cod steak, then took from other packages onions, potatoes and a loaf of bread. As he put the fish and vegetables in the saucepan, he said, ‘I don’t go fer char, but I can do yer a beer.’

‘Thanks, I’d like one,’ she replied. She did not much care for beer—the only form of it she had drunk for years had been Black Velvet—stout mixed with champagne—but at that moment any drink was welcome, and she was so famished that she could hardly keep her eyes off the bubbling pot.

He opened two cans and they settled themselves on rotting logs in front of the fire. Now that he no longer had to keep his mind on driving he became more talkative, and in answer to his questions she made up a story about herself. Having already indicated that she was not married, it would hardly have been plausible to account for her expensive clothes by telling him that she lived at home, as it was unlikely that rich parents would have allowed their daughter to go off to the Rockies alone with a man; so she said she was an actress and had just finished a tour with a company in Vancouver.

When the meal was cooked, she opened the tin box expecting to find plates, but there were none, and only a single knife, fork and spoon. Picking up the frying pan, he poured some of the hot water from the saucepan into it, then spooned out half the fish and vegetables and set it down in front of her, remarking: ‘Yer can ‘ave the cutlery. I use ’em only fer cutting up meat an’ such. Fingers is good enough fer me.’ And the moment the water had cooled sufficiently he began to cram chunks of the food into his ugly mouth. Hunger drove her to
eat her share of the mess almost as quickly as he did. Even the unpeeled potatoes tasted good, and she followed his example in mopping up the fishy, onion-flavoured water with chunks of bread.

When they had finished, he gave a loud belch, sat back, regarded her critically for a few moments, then said: ‘Now, what about the payment wot yer promised me?’

Opening her bag, she took out a small roll of dollar bills, smiled and asked, ‘How much are you going to charge me for the ride?’

His small, greenish, heavily-lidded eyes ran over her from her now tousled, light bronze, curly hair, good bust and hips under the fur coat that she had tightly round her, down to the shapely legs that protruded beneath it. Then they came back to her face: the big eyes with their long lashes, fine straight nose and wide, beautifully-shaped mouth. Displaying the ugly gap in his front teeth, he gave a great guffaw and cried:

‘Be yer age, girl! It ain’t dollars I want. Yer old enough ter know that. Yer got other goods yer goin’ ter pay me with.’

Linda’s eyes widened in sudden fear. For a moment she could hardly credit that she had heard aright. Back in that now misty past, when she had sweated in her father’s market garden, she had heard it said by her older school friends that their still older sisters thumbed lifts and paid for them with kisses; or, if they liked the man and by habit had already become permissive, let him go the whole way in some secluded spot.