The Cabin on Souder Hill Page 10

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A path,” Pink said.

  He walked several yards and studied the trees, pulling at a ladder of boards nailed to one of the trunks. He put one foot on the bottom rung then pulled himself up by the next until he’d climbed to the top. Soon he was standing on the platform twenty feet above her.

  “Come on up,” Pink said. “If it’ll hold me, it’ll surely hold you.”

  Michelle climbed the wooden rungs and stood next to Pink on the narrow boards. The wood was weathered and seemed a bit rotten. “Is this safe?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, leaning against the tree, his eyes drifting out over the valley.

  “This is amazing,” she said. “If you keep showing me these marvels, I’m going to run out of adjectives.”

  Pink laughed a little, then smiled. “I’m clean out of marvels, Mrs. Stage. I done showed you everything I got.” Pink turned from her and picked his way along the boards, stepping carefully as he walked from tree to tree, holding onto branches and limbs. She followed. Pink was at least ten yards away from her now, walking the boards like a tightrope. Farther ahead, Michelle could see that someone had fashioned a rope railing along both sides of the wooden path. Pink waited for her, holding both ropes.

  She looked down and saw a squirrel hopping along the branch beneath her.

  “I should have put up more ropes,” said Pink.

  “You built this?” she asked.

  “When Isabelle was twelve, she told me that when she died she wanted to come back as a squirrel because they could run through the treetops and never had to touch the ground. I built this path so she wouldn’t be in such a hurry to die. It’s held up better than Isabelle or me.”

  “She must have loved it,” Michelle said.

  “We had fun up here,” Pink said. “You wouldn’t have believed how beautiful she was then. She made me want to live forever, halfway made me believe I could.” Pink looked over at Michelle, surprised, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  “Aw, hell. Listen to me going on,” he said. “You got your own problems.”

  “Isabelle must be crazy about you,” she said.

  Pink scratched his cheek. “I don’t think she’s crazy about anything anymore,” he said. “We should get going.”

  When they got back to the Suburban, Pink started looking under the front seat then leaned over the back and searched under some newspapers, visibly perplexed. Michelle slid in across from him.

  “Can’t find my camera,” Pink said. “Clarence probably has it. He takes pictures of his dang feet to check the progress of his fungus.”

  “Fungus?” Michelle turned in the seat to see what Pink was doing.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go back and get the camera. I can’t list your property without a picture.”

  “It’s okay. I’m in no hurry.” That wasn’t true. With Cliff here now, time had become a precious commodity. She needed to ask Pink about the cabin, about Isabelle, about everything Sheriff Fisk had told her, but couldn’t figure out how to broach the subject without sounding like a mental case. She wasn’t even sure there was anything to know. After all, she was running on memories and speculations. All she really knew was this wasn’t the life she’d been living before she’d gone down the mountainside.

  Pink slowed as he passed the cabin. “Looks like that feller is gone,” he said. “Want to stop?”

  “No, let’s go back to your office.” Pink had to know she’d lied about wanting him to see the property, and that embarrassed her. “The path in the trees was magical,” she said.

  Pink glanced across the seat. “Magic might be the only thing holding it up.”

  *****

  The drive back to town went by quickly.

  “What the hell is going on?” Pink said.

  Michelle looked up, amazed they were already at Pink’s office. Three police cars sat angled in front, lights flashing, partially blocking one of the lanes. In the middle of the fray sat a green Range Rover and Darcy’s Explorer, the police cars blocking them in. Cliff was talking to the police.

  “Please don’t stop,” Michelle said.

  Pink switched off the blinker and accelerated. After they drove through an intersection, Pink made a right turn toward the highway and told Michelle the coast was clear.

  “Shit.” Michelle sat up and looked back at the police surrounding her car.

  “Husband or something? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “Yeah.” Michelle said. If Cliff had called the police, Darcy must have told him about the gun. Why wouldn’t he at least give her a chance to explain? Cliff was a stranger to her now. The old Cliff would never have called the police. Did he tell them the Explorer was stolen?

  A sign above the highway read Dedmonson, 49 miles. “Why are we going there?” Michelle glanced over her shoulder, then back at Pink. “What’s in Dedmonson?”

  “Nothing,” Pink said. “I’m just driving till you had a chance to gather yourself.”

  “Pull over,” Michelle said, suddenly antsy. “I’m sorry, pull over. Please.”

  Pink veered the Suburban to the shoulder. Michelle popped the door open and got out. Maybe she could hitchhike to Dedmonson, but what would be the point of that? What would she do in Dedmonson? She’d have to rent a car. But where did she have to go? The only man who could possibly have any answers for her was sitting in the seat of the Suburban like a rosy-cheeked Buddha. She got back in the vehicle and closed the door.

  “Pink?”

  He swiveled his head toward her. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Would you take me to a motel?”

  *****

  The Ruby Motel was constructed in the shape of an L, two levels, thirty units, and a clean-looking pool with no water. Folded lawn chairs leaned against the fence.

  “Is this okay?” Pink said. The man inside waved. Pink raised a hand, bringing his eyes back to Michelle. “I could take you up to the highway to one of them chains, Comfort Inn, Days Inn, Hampton Inn. My buddy Ed owns this, keeps it real clean, and he’ll treat you right. I bring folks here who want to spend a few days looking at real estate. Affordable rates and all the amenities . . . except hi-speed internet. If you need a computer, I have a few at my office you can use.”

  Michelle was leery of Pink’s kindness, even though it seemed genuine. Why wasn’t he asking questions? He’d not said a word about the cabin, Cliff, or the police, just drove to the Ruby Motel and now sat patiently waiting, the engine running, for her to decide if this would work. Was he expecting sex? Did he think that she had troubles and would be an easy mark?

  “I didn’t mean anything when I said Ed had affordable rates,” Pink said, “just that some of these chains charge more than they should for the use of four walls, a bed, and toilet. I’m sure you . . .”

  “This is fine, Mr. Souder.” She called him by his last name to reinstate a more formal relationship in case he had other ideas. “Thank you.”

  She got out and held the door. She didn’t want him to leave but was afraid if she asked him to stay it would send the wrong message. But finding him was the reason she’d returned to Ardenwood. That, and hopes of seeing the dusk-to-dawn light again, which would be impossible now that Cliff was at the cabin.

  “Would you mind waiting until I see if he has any rooms?”

  “Ed always has rooms. But I can wait. I’ll pull over there.”

  Michelle went in the office. The man smiled and pulled a clipboard and pen from under the counter. “Just your name. Don’t worry about the rest of that stuff. Cash or credit card?”

  Michelle opened her purse and saw the gun. She was relieved she hadn’t left it on the table for Cliff to find. She tilted the bag away from the man and pulled her wallet out, sliding some cash across the counter.

  He slid the money into a cash
drawer. “I hear there’s a big snowstorm coming,” he said. “Almost May and they’re talking about snow. Can you believe it? If you get caught here, I’ll discount the room.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Here you go, ma’am.”

  Michelle looked up at the clerk and took the remote from his hand. “What’s this for?”

  “Television. Needed a new battery.” He handed her the room key attached to an old-fashioned green plastic diamond with the numeral 7 incised in white. “Ice machine is in that back breezeway down from your room. Let me know if you need anything.”

  It felt strange not having a suitcase or two to throw on the bed and unpack. All her clothes were at the cabin.

  Pink appeared in the doorway of her motel room, hands in pockets. “This going to work?”

  “Yes, fine. Can you come in a second?”

  “Just for a bit. Clarence’ll forget to lock the dang office when he leaves if I’m not there.”

  Michelle closed the door and motioned for Pink to sit at the small round table.

  “I feel I owe you some explanation,” she said.

  “None of my business, ma’am. I’m just a real estate salesman with a funny name and a weight problem. Folks is dealt all kinds of hands, none of them easy.”

  She wanted to leave it at that, but there wasn’t time.

  “My husband’s up here to take me back to Atlanta,” Michelle said.

  Pink nodded as if he understood, leaving his arms lashed over his belly. “But you have your own car, don’t you?”

  “It’s my sister’s. She . . . lent it to me.” Michelle hated to keep lying, but she needed Pink to listen, and if he thought she was crazy, he might just leave. He nodded again, this time leaning forward, his elbows on the table as if waiting for a supper plate to be set between his thick wrists.

  “I need to tell you the story and would like for you to listen until I finish, okay?” Michelle said.

  He nodded again.

  Michelle took a deep breath before she started.

  “Last week, my husband and I drove up from Atlanta to spend some time at the cabin, your cabin, the one you built. We got there late and I was tired, so I went to bed. Cliff is restless and has a hard time getting to sleep and decided to go out on the deck for fresh air. I guess I dozed off, because a short while later I woke up and heard him rustling through the drawers in the kitchen. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was looking for a flashlight. Then he told me to get up, that he wanted to show me something.

  “A few minutes later I’m standing on the deck in my nightgown looking down the dark mountainside. I could barely focus my eyes. He directed my attention to a light down through the tangle of trees and limbs. I shrugged and said so what. He became very agitated, saying that there wasn’t supposed to be light down there. Cliff was convinced there was a house below us, that the light was one of those driveway lights, you know . . . ?”

  “One them dusk-to-dawn lights,” Pink said. “That would have been my mama’s place. You remember. Why did that bother him?”

  Michelle had to think a moment before she spoke. “Um, it wasn’t over toward her place. It was more toward the south, I guess. In that direction.”

  “There’s nobody lives below you in that direction,” Pink said. “That’s all my mama’s property almost to the highway.”

  “Okay, well anyway, Cliff was really angry saying that the real estate agent who sold us the property had lied to him, that she had told him that there was nobody living within miles of the cabin, that it was very secluded—”

  “Sherri Franklin,” Pink said.

  “What?” Michelle said.

  “Sherri Franklin,” Pink repeated. “She’d shave her head and dress up like one of them Hare Krishnas if she thought she could sell you prayer beads and a stick of incense.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s who sold you the house. Sherri had the listing.”

  Michelle couldn’t recall the woman’s name and didn’t care.

  “Okay.” Michelle cleared her throat before she continued. “Well, Cliff was so upset, he got in our car and drove down there to check on it. I went back to bed. A while later he came back and stood out on the deck, staring down the mountain. I found my robe and went out. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. I asked him what was wrong, and he pointed down the hill. He said, ‘It’s not there.’ I asked him what wasn’t there? He told me he drove all over down there and saw nothing. He couldn’t find anything. ‘But there it is,’ he said, pointing at the light through the trees. I could see it too. We heard noises, like people talking and closing doors and such.”

  “Your husband must be a bit persnickety,” Pink said, his brow squeezed to ridges.

  “Yes, he can be intense at times. Anyway, Cliff decided to go down the mountainside toward the light—”

  “On foot? In the dark? He a hunter or something?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, that’s insane. Folks not used to this area get lost in broad daylight. At night . . . well, hell . . .” Pink laughed a little, shaking his head.

  “Anyway, I went back to bed, and the next morning when I woke, I saw Cliff wasn’t there. I thought maybe he went for a walk, but when he wasn’t back by noon, I called the police.”

  “He got himself lost,” Pink said. “I’m telling you, not hard to do around here.”

  “Sheriff Fisk showed up with his deputy—”

  “Elmer? Elmer Bogan.”

  “I believe so. Anyway, they searched for him, even had some men come out with dogs—”

  “Yeah, them dogs could find Sasquatch in a snowstorm. That how they found your husband?”

  “No, actually the dogs had the trail for a while, but lost it. Sheriff Fisk even had a helicopter come out and search the area.” Michelle left out the part about the disappearing house. It was too strange, and she was never sure if the sheriff had really understood what the pilot was saying. After all, it had been very noisy with the craft right above them.

  “So that night I went down the hill to find Cliff.”

  “By yourself?” Pink said. “That’s gutsy, ma’am. Though probably a might early for rattlesnakes. But still, gutsy.”

  Rattlesnakes. Michelle had no idea there were rattlesnakes up there. “So I worked my way down the mountainside until I came to a cabin that looked exactly like the one we own . . . the one you built . . .”

  “Yeah, that don’t surprise me none,” Pink said. “You can get turned ass-side-up in these woods even in the daylight. You just came round on yourself and ended up where you started. It happens when you’re lost . . . or in the dark.”

  Michelle paused a moment. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  Pink’s expression soured, but he listened quietly as Michelle continued.

  “Anyway, the queerest thing is that Sheriff Fisk’s car was there, and when Cliff opened the door, he was relieved to see me . . .”

  “So Fisk found him and brought him back?” Pink said. “Where’d your husband end up? Down by the highway? Keep heading down the mountain and eventually you come to the—”

  “No . . . Sheriff Fisk didn’t find him. At that point it seems Cliff was never lost. But everything had changed. He had a scar on his forehead that had never been there before, and one of his fingers was missing from an apparent car accident that happened a year earlier. And even though Sheriff Fisk was inside with Cliff, he didn’t recognize me from only a few hours earlier . . .” She paused her story to study Pink’s eyes for signs of skepticism. Pink sat stone-faced as a professional gambler with a royal flush.

  “They said I was the one who had gone missing,” Michelle said. “That they had been looking for me all that time, and that Cliff had never gone down the mountainside or searched for any light.”

  Michelle didn’t tell Pi
nk what the sheriff had said about him killing his wife, about the authorities digging up the yard searching for the body, about Pink and his mother disappearing. She also didn’t tell him about Cassie. It was too painful, too dangerous to acknowledge that aspect to another person, as if talking about her death could make it real.

  Pink stared at the wall behind her head. “Why doesn’t your husband remember hiking down the mountain?” Pink finally asked after a long silence.

  Was Pink trying to punch holes in her story, make her see how ridiculous it all was? Yet he seemed genuinely perplexed by the riddle, as was she.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He claims to remember nothing about any light either.”

  “Well, I know there’s nobody below your cabin on my mama’s road because like I told you before, she owns all that land,” Pink said. “There may be somebody below her land, but it would be a long way off.”

  The way Pink was talking—as if he believed her—put her at ease, but there was more to tell him and she wanted to get it over with. “When I rode down there with the sheriff and deputy—”

  “You’re talking about Loudon and Elmer again, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, hell, I’ll talk to Fisk and see what he remembers . . .”

  “No. You can’t. I mean . . . that won’t work,” Michelle said, trying to smother the urgency from her voice. “They don’t remember any of it either. Cliff talked to them at the hospital. They said they’d never seen me before.”

  Pink’s expression changed from hopeful to strained, as if he’d bitten into something sour. When he toggled his head back and forth, she knew she’d lost him. She’d been hoping for validation, a knowing smirk, a shrewd glint to his eye, something to betray his complicity. But it was obvious none of this made any sense to him.

  Michelle felt something give way inside her, like a faulty wall collapsing.

  “So, what you’re saying is, Loudon and Elmer remember looking for you but don’t remember looking for your husband. That about right?”