Vineyard Fear (24 page)

We reached the edge of the trees, and came to a fallen log. Suddenly she stepped onto the log, turned, and looked down at me with a hungry smile, her hands on my shoulders, pulling me close. My head came to her chin. Her breasts touched my face. I thought of how the Vineyard would be without Zee, and felt my will dwindle and fade and my passions rise. My arms went around Billy Jo's waist and I felt hers go around my neck and head, and then I lifted her off the log and let her body slip down until her lips found mine. I held her there, her feet not touching the ground, her body hard against me, her mouth searching, her breath short.

We were both gasping when I eased her to the ground. I saw a bit of blood on her lips, and touched it with my finger. She put up her own hand, touched the blood, and looked at her hand.

I tried to will my hunger for her away. It didn't want to go. My arms pulled her against me. I saw acquiescence in her eyes, felt it in her flesh. I put my hand to the nape of her neck and brought her face up to mine. When I let her go again, her eyes were wide and vague.

Some sound intruded upon us. I first brushed it away, then grasped at it. A voice, distant and high. I tied my
tiny will to that voice, bound myself to it like Ulysses had himself bound to the mast while the sirens sang. Billy Jo looked dazedly at me.

“It's one of the twins,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my ears. “Listen.”

And indeed it was one of the twins, or perhaps both of the twins. And the voices were getting louder.

“They're back,” I said. “They've found our horses in camp, and they're looking for us.”

“Ah.” Billy Jo, confusion on her face, stepped away. Her hands went to her hair, to her clothes, to her face. I handed her my handkerchief and she put it to her lips. I found her hat, which had fallen to the ground, and she put it on.

My heart was pumping and my breath was short. If desire at ten thousand was this exhausting, what would sex do to me? I remembered hearing that most people used up the same number of calories having sex as they got from eating one brownie. That was at sea level, of course.

I looked out into the meadow and saw a rider coming in the distance. I felt a surge of gratitude not unmixed with regret.

I took Billy Jo by the shoulders and sat us down on the log. “Look,” I said. “This won't make any sense to you and it doesn't make much to me either. There is a woman back in Massachusetts who means more to me than I can tell you. She's gone away and she may not be coming back, but I am, by God, not going to fuck around with you or anybody else until I know for sure. Do you understand me? You are the loveliest thing I've seen since she went away. Worse yet, you have allure. You attract, you have the power to entice. If I were in any situation other than the one I'm in with this woman, I would be in your pants right now, twin or no twin. But I'm not going to get in them, so just keep them on while I'm around!”

I gave her a shake and she looked at me with astonished
eyes. Then, unexpectedly, I heard myself laughing. I felt totally absurd.

“Jesus,” said Billy Jo. “What's so funny?”

“Me. Not you.”

“Hi,” said the twin, galloping up. “So, here you are. We saw your horses and Mom said you'd probably gone for a walk and she was right, as usual. What's so funny, J.W.? Are you telling her the Pig with the Wooden Leg joke again?” She looked at Billy Jo. “He always laughs when he tells that joke. He thinks it's great. Shall I bring you your horses, so you can ride back?”

Billy Jo adjusted her hat. “No. No, we'll walk back. Go tell your mom that we're coming.”

“Catch any fish?” I asked, still smiling.

“We got enough for a good supper. Are you staying?”

“I'm afraid not. Next time.”

“You never stay! Well, my sister is over the hill somewhere, looking for you, so I've got to go find her and tell her you're not lost anymore. See you in camp!”

The twin was off at a gallop.

“Here,” said Billy Jo, handing me my bloody handkerchief. She looked at me. “You're a strange guy. I don't think I know anybody like you.”

“And you're a woman and a half, and it's a good thing for me that I don't know many like you. Let's go find John and Mattie.”

We walked across the meadows and down to the camp and on the way I knew something had genuinely changed between us. We talked like friends. I have had occasion to observe that in the absence of love, lust will do. Now it seemed that maybe the reverse was also true.

“What happened to your lip?” Mattie immediately asked Billy Jo.

“Branch hit me. It didn't even hurt.”

“It's swollen.”

“It'll be all right.”

Mattie looked at me and then back at Billy Jo and said, “Hmmmph.”

John, oblivious to this small drama, said, “Well, what's going on down in the real world?”

I told him what had happened out at the ranch, what I'd learned about Orwell from the police, and about the phone call I'd received. “Orwell thinks John is responsible for Bernadette's death,” I said. “Suicide after love betrayed.”

“He's insane!” Mattie took John's arm in her own. She looked like a goddess protecting a mortal lover.

“He's wrong, at least,” said John.

“He doesn't think he's wrong,” I said, “but he wants to talk with you. Says he'll listen to your side. Whatever you decide about that idea, I think you two and the girls ought to break camp and go down to Clear Creek tonight.” I got out the radio and told them about the walkie-talkie plan. “He wants it to happen tomorrow.”

“Excellent. I think I will talk to him,” said John, turning the radio in his hands. His tone was thoughtfully professorial.

“You will not!” said Mattie, astonished.

“I'm sure I can convince him that he's wrong.”

“And what if you can't? What then?” Her tone was that of a mother speaking to a child proposing some wild idea.

John maintained his tone of academic detachment. “I'm sure I can. His idea is so completely absurd that only a madman could believe it once given the facts.”

“That's exactly the point,” said Mattie. “This guy is crazy!”

“Mattie could be right,” I said.

“There! J.W. thinks I'm right. The twins will think I'm right. You agree, don't you, Billy Jo?”

Billy Jo hesitated. “Well, you'll be safer if you all go down to Clear Creek . . .”

“You see? Everybody agrees. This man Orwell is obviously
disturbed. You can't reason with a disturbed man, and you know it. We'll break camp right now.” Mattie squeezed her husband's arm. “Please, John, be reasonable.”

He looked down at her in mild surprise. “Why, I usually think of myself as a reasonable man, Mattie.”

“I'd be careful with this guy,” I said. “He's pretty slick.”

“He's dangerous, no doubt,” nodded John. “But if we use these radios when he and I talk, he'll have no opportunity to do anything foolish before I have my say. Afterward, he'll have no reason to pursue this vendetta.”

Mattie snorted. “This man is a trained professional in the Special Forces or whatever, and you're a college professor! No contest! Be sensible!”

“Now, now, my dear, please be calm . . .”

“Calm!”

“Yes, calm.”

“And what if he doesn't believe you? We have to go back to Weststock. What then?” Mattie naturally asked the right question.

John answered it. “We'll be no worse off than we are now.”

“I want us to be better off!”

He patted her arm in that way men have of trying to calm the fears of the ones they love. “All I want is an opportunity to speak with him. I'm sure I can convince him of his error.”

I was not so sure. “Where do you want to do it? Up here somewhere or down in town? Or somewhere else?”

He squinted at the sky, then swept his eyes over the surrounding meadows and trees. “Up here, I think. He may be younger and better trained at this sort of hunting game than I am, but I know this country and have acclimatized myself to this altitude, and that will be to my advantage. It will balance things out. Yes, we'll meet up here.”

I looked at Billy Jo. She shrugged and looked at Mattie.

“We should leave this to the police,” said Mattie.

“The police have had their try,” said John gently. “If this plan fails, they can have another go. But with luck, we'll settle the matter before they need to.”

“All right, then,” I said. “You break camp and move down to Clear Creek. Tomorrow I'll bring Orwell here. I imagine he'll have that machine gun of his, just in case you and I are planning a double cross of some sort. Where will you be? Where do you want Orwell?”

John thought, and then pointed to the east. “I want him yonder, on the cliff where the twins brought you the other day. The meadow runs right up to the cliffs there beside that grove of woods where the ledge goes down to the cave. I'll be watching from that ridge between here and the cliff.”

“You'd better be hunkered down pretty good. I'll have to take him over the ridge, and this guy has good eyes.”

John gave me a small smile. “He won't see me. Neither will you, even though you know I'll be there. Nobody's born a professor, remember. I was a kid playing cowboys and Indians up here, then I was a real cowboy, and then I was a hunter, and then I was in the army, all long before I became the effete East Coast pointy-headed intellectual I am today. I want Orwell in the meadow, in plain sight on top of the cliffs, before I'll talk to him. That way I'll know where he is, and he won't have any chance at monkey business, if he decides to try any. He'll have to come across a half mile of open meadow to get to where I am, and by that time I can either shoot him or be long gone.”

Though I knew that people do things you'd never guess they'd do, I wondered if John could actually shoot somebody. I didn't want him to have to make that decision.

“I think being long gone is the best idea,” I said. “After you talk, we'll wait on the cliffs for half an hour, so you can pull out. Then I'll take him back down the trail, and that will be that.”

“And what if he doesn't buy John's story?” asked Mattie hotly. “What about that?”

“Why, I'll be gone,” said John. “I'll make my way down to Clear Creek. I'll be quite safe, my dear. And if worse comes to worst, I'll have Billy Jo's rifle, after all.”

“Wonderful.” Mattie shook her head. “A middle-aged literature professor with a deer rifle against a trained soldier with a machine gun!” She obviously hadn't bought the macho image of John in his pre-professor days.

There were, shouts from the meadow, and the twins came galloping over the waving green grass.

“What channel shall we use?”

“Thirteen,” said John. “One of my many lucky numbers.”

I looked at my watch. “About this time? That'll give Orwell and me time to walk up here and get out to the cliffs. I don't want him to have a horse, because that would let him move too fast. In fact, I want him to be tired when he gets here. I don't want him frisky at all.”

John looked at his watch and nodded. “All right. When I see him out on the cliffs, I'll call him.”

The twins rode in just in time to see Billy Jo and me climb into our saddles. They looked disappointed, which, compared to how Mattie looked, was not too bad.

“See you at Clear Creek,” said Billy Jo.

We rode out as Mattie and John were extolling the virtues of Clear Creek to their questioning children. I didn't seem to be getting any better at riding. Everything from my hips down seemed to hurt. I imagined that meant that any hopes I had of becoming a rodeo rider had best be set aside. I was glad to let them go.

All the way down the trail I looked for signs that someone had come up after we had, but I saw nothing. There was no one waiting for us at the truck and trailer and there were no car tracks or footprints on top of those we'd made coming in that morning.

“You're the keen-eyed Westerner,” I said to Billy Jo. “See any sign that we've had a guest?”

“Not a one, Kemo Sabe.”

I had her drop me off at the north end of Durango, just in case Orwell was watching the motel. I didn't want him to know that she was involved in this matter. She raised a hand to her bruised lip. “If you ever change your mind about this other woman . . .”

“I don't plan to.”

“But if you do . . .”

“Half the men in Durango will hyperventilate if you just bat your eyes at them. Believe me.”

“I'm not interested in half the men in Durango. She must be some kind of woman.”

“She is.”

I shut the door and she drove away. I walked south along Main Street thinking about Zee and worrying about tomorrow.

By the time I got to my motel, I'd worked a lot of the kinks out of my bones. It was beer time, so I had a couple out of my cooler while I thought things over.

Both John and Orwell had said they wanted to talk. If they were telling the truth, John's plan might work. Of course, people with vested interests in issues didn't always tell the truth. I ran four scenarios through my mind: John and Orwell were both telling the truth about wanting to talk; John and Orwell were both lying about wanting to talk; John was telling the truth and Orwell was lying; Orwell was telling the truth and John was lying.

I thought some more. After a while, I decided to give up thinking, and went out for some food. I had stiffened up again and knew now why cowboys walk funny. I drove downtown past sidewalks full of tourists and had a steak
at the Ore House. When in Steakland, eat steaks. I washed mine down with more Coors. Not bad.

I was home brushing my teeth and still thinking when the phone rang. I recognized the voice.

“I really don't think you're set up to trace this,” said my caller. “But just in case you are, I don't plan to stay on the line. You want to talk to me, you go down to the Main Mall and go to the public phones there. When one of them rings, you answer it. Ten minutes.” The phone clicked in my ear.