The Cabin on Souder Hill Read online

  She wiped her eyes as she walked toward the front door, the knob rattling as someone tried to open it from the outside. The door had no peephole, and she didn’t want to pull the curtain back. But what difference would it make now? Whoever it was knew she was in the room, and she had no way out.

  She unlocked the latch and slid off the chain. Cliff rushed in “Are you okay? Jesus, I thought I heard glass breaking.” Michelle turned away from Cliff and sat on the bed next to her purse. She wondered if Darcy had told him about the gun.

  Ed arrived. “Everyone okay here?” he said. “Ma’am, you okay? Looks like you cut yourself.”

  Cliff grabbed her hand to see how bad it was.

  “I got a first aid kit in the office,” Ed told them. “Be right back.”

  In a few minutes Ed was cleaning her wound, wrapping it with a Band-Aid. “Ah, you’ll be fine. Just a little cut but one heck of a bleeder. Must be a full moon coming, though you can’t see it for all the clouds.

  “Thank you,” Cliff said. “We’ll pay for the window.”

  Ed glanced back toward the bathroom, the broken glass on the floor. “Those windows are old. Needed replacing anyway. I’m just glad you’re okay, ma’am.”

  “Come on, Michelle. Let’s go home.” Cliff reached his hand out to her.

  “If you’re checking out, here,” Ed told them. “Let me refund your money. I’ll be right back.”

  “No,” Michelle said. “Please, I’ve caused you enough problems tonight. Keep the money and send me a bill for the window. You have my address.”

  Ed stayed behind when they walked from the room.

  Michelle headed into the parking lot. The night was brisk. Michelle had nothing but her lightweight cotton blouse. Snowflakes floated down onto the hood of a parked car. Cupping the bottom of her purse, she felt the pistol. She ran her fingers along the barrel. What was she doing with a gun? What was she doing here? She bent her head back and looked up at the night sky, milky black and bloated with snow. It had been nearly seventy degrees at noon, Michelle thought, wondering how the day could have changed so completely. Maybe she hadn’t been paying attention.

  “Here, put this on.” Cliff slipped his jacket over her shoulders.

  Cliff unlocked the passenger-side door. Michelle climbed in and started shivering. The windows fogged. Cliff turned the key, his profile a dark silhouette against the lights of the motel. She watched Ed walk toward her room carrying a piece of cardboard and a roll of duct tape.

  When Cliff turned from the motel parking lot onto Main Street, a string of yellow traffic lights flashed above the street, blinking haphazardly, like a swarm of frenzied fireflies. The street was abandoned, the dark windows of businesses reflecting other businesses, most of the signs unlit. They passed Pink’s real estate office. Darcy’s Explorer still sat where Michelle had left it that morning.

  “Cliff, stop. I’m gonna drive Darcy’s car up to the cabin.”

  “We’ll get it tomorrow. On the way home.”

  He hadn’t even bothered looking over, as if he’d already made up his mind to leave it, had already decided their future. She felt a heat rising up in her chest against Cliff’s assumption she was flawed in some way, weak, feeble, incapable of directing her own life.

  “Stop the fucking car!” Michelle grabbed the wheel.

  “Christ, Michelle, you trying to kill us . . . !”

  “Pull over, Cliff. Pull over now!”

  Cliff glanced over briefly before shifting his eyes back to the road. Snow blew past the headlights. He eased the car to the shoulder.

  “I’ve had it, Cliff,” she said. “You’re not making all the decisions. You’re not telling me what to do! I’m driving Darcy’s car back to the cabin.”

  She was almost out the door when Cliff grabbed her arm. She glared back at him, at his hand squeezing her bicep. “Be careful, okay?” he said.

  “Jesus, Cliff, I’m not fucking helpless.” She was almost out the door then stopped.

  “You called the police on me, Cliff?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Christ, Cliff, I saw them in front of the real estate office. How could you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Michelle. I didn’t call the police. I came into town for groceries and saw Darcy’s Explorer, so I made a quick left and cut some guy off and he ran into a parked car. Luckily no one was hurt. That’s why the police were there.”

  She stared at him a second. “Fuck.” She jumped out and slammed the door.

  Cliff’s car sat motionless, the brake lights burning bright red across the snow-dusted pavement, as Michelle walked back to Darcy’s Explorer. The cold felt good on her face, the snowflakes refreshing. She looked back. Cliff’s vehicle hadn’t moved. Why did he have to come? For once, why couldn’t he just let it be, leave her to figure this out on her own? She didn’t want his help. He couldn’t help anyway. They might as well have been strangers who’d never met before and having him here was frustrating.

  Chapter 19

  Pink drove his Suburban. Claire sat in the back seat, Kenny in the front, his back against the door, gun pointed at Pink. Occasionally Kenny glanced back at Claire, smiled and then brought his eyes back to Pink. Pink wasn’t sure if Kenny was crazy enough to shoot them or not, but when they were younger, he’d seen Kenny wound rats with a pellet rifle down by the water treatment plant. Kenny loved to watch them spin in circles trying to get up. Eventually he’d walk over and crunch their skulls with his boot—but not until he’d heard a good bit of squealing.

  “What’s that on the seat, Claire?” Kenny pointed the gun at something shiny next to her. She picked it up.

  “A camera.”

  “Hand it here.”

  Claire reached it over the seat.

  “This is one of them digital cameras, like you got—isn’t it, Claire?” Kenny said. “Looks like the same brand.” Kenny poked Pink in the shoulder with the tip of the pistol. “You get a two for one special on cameras or something?”

  “I bought my camera with my own damn money!” Claire said.

  It was true, she had paid for it with her own money, but Pink had gotten both cameras from a man who dealt in stolen goods. Claire had wanted a digital so she wouldn’t have to wait for her pictures. She’d shown Pink how to take the memory card to Val-U-Mart and print out the photos. “See how easy it is?” she’d told him. Pink thought it was a lot of unnecessary trouble, but it did save time with newspaper listings. For those, he only had to take the card to the Ardenwood Press and Ramsey took care of copying the images.

  Kenny turned the camera on and perused the pictures in memory. “Why in hell did Clarence take pictures of his nasty toes? Did you see these, Claire?” Laughing, Kenny turned the camera display so Claire could see.

  “Oh, stop it, Kenny. Let’s go back home. This is silly.”

  “What’s silly is you and Pink, Claire.” Kenny laughed again, studying the photos of Clarence’s feet. “You’re cousins, for Christ’s sake. That’s disgusting.”

  “Second cousins,” Claire said. “And I don’t know where you got the idea Pink and me is having an affair. That’s just stupid.”

  Kenny turned in the seat, held up the camera and snapped a flash picture of Claire. Claire was shouting, slapping her hands on the seat for Kenny to stop when he snapped one of Pink.

  “Are you having fun, Kenny?” Pink switched on the wipers. The snow was getting thicker but still melted when it hit the windshield. “Where we going, Kenny? Storm’s getting worse. Weatherman said a hell of a blow is headed this way. We don’t want to get caught out here.”

  “You got four-wheel drive,” Kenny said, snapping another picture of him. “Besides, if I were you, I’d be more concerned about what’s going to happen to you instead worrying about the damn weather.”
Kenny held the camera out toward the windshield and took a picture of Pink’s face from the front.

  “Goddamn it, Kenny! Let’s go back home and stop this nonsense,” Claire said, leaning forward in the seat to grab Kenny’s arm. He shoved her away.

  “Now there’s no need . . .” Pink said—but then fell mute when Kenny pushed the cold ring of the barrel against his temple and clicked the hammer back.

  “When you come to Highway 29, turn toward Curly’s Marina,” Kenny said, easing the gun away from Pink’s head.

  Pink had no idea why Kenny was taking them toward Burtran Lake, or Curly’s Marina. Kenny and Curly were old friends, and Curly was about as corrupt as they come. Every few years or so, after a storm, Curly would go out and sink a few of his small fishing boats, tell the insurance company they broke free and sunk out in deep water. But when Hurricane Ivan came inland and tore the roof off Curly’s Marina, Curly went out and sunk two of his houseboats. The insurance adjuster finally arrived in early March needing proof, so Curly took him for a boat ride in thirty-degree temperatures, running his sonar, drinking beer, until the agent was too cold to think and told Curly to take him in. By spring, Curly’s fleet was back at full strength with two brand new houseboats for the summer tourists.

  “You hear about that feller down in Georgia who broke free from that sheriff woman and shot her with her own gun, then shot the courtroom clerk and the judge?” Kenny was talking to Pink. Pink kept his eyes on the road, trying to figure out how to get out of this mess before they got to Curly’s.

  “They got some kind of law down in Georgia that if a man commits a felony crime, the state pays for his defense. Ain’t that a hell of a deal?” Kenny said, scratching the barrel of his pistol across his whiskers. “I read that it’s gonna cost them government folks a million dollars to try that feller. A million dollars, Pink. I don’t have a college education or nothing, but I think if they’d a just given that sorry bastard the damn million dollars to begin with, he wouldn’t had no call to shoot anybody. He’d a probably said, ‘Thank you,’ and gone about his business.”

  They passed a blue sign with yellow letters: Curly’s Marina, 5 Miles Ahead. To one side of Curly’s name was a drawing of a houseboat and on the other, a woman in a bikini.

  “Hell, if some state feller was to come and offer me a million dollars to let you and Claire go, I wouldn’t have to think about it twice. You and Claire could get back to whatever it was you were doing when I pulled in the driveway, and I’d go spend the rest of my days on a beach in Costa Rica.”

  “There was nothing going on, Kenny,” Pink said. “I’m telling you—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Pink. And don’t you even start, Claire. Christ, who haven’t you fucked in Ardenwood, Claire? Is there anybody?”

  “Only you, Kenny!” she said.

  Kenny swung his gun toward the back seat and pulled the trigger. The blast from the .357 Magnum lit up the interior of the Suburban. Smoke filled the vehicle, the piercing whine ringing Pink’s eardrums. Pink nearly drove off the road. The reverberation of the gunshot caused Pink’s jaw and teeth to throb. He checked the rearview mirror expecting to see Claire slumped over, her chest opened, blood covering the seat. What he saw was Claire holding her ears, her face scrunched. She screamed, kicking the back of the seat. “You cocksucker! You dirty motherfucker!”

  Pink stole another quick glance at the smoking hole in the fabric. Kenny laughed and pounded the dashboard with his free hand. “She’s one crazy bitch,” Kenny said. “Her and her damn sister, right, Pink? That’s why we married ’em.”

  Claire had always seemed a bit foolish, but not Isabelle, Pink thought. Isabelle had never seemed ridiculous or silly. In fact, she had been the most stable and real thing in Pink’s life. That’s why he married her. Pink’s father had hardly ever spoken to him, not even when Pink was young, and his mother always practiced witchcraft, saying, doing, and wearing bizarre things. Pink and Isabelle would run off to the woods and make fun of his mom, making up chants and casting spells on unsuspecting possums, then laugh and go skinny-dipping in the waterfall. Isabelle had only turned a little crazy when she learned she couldn’t have children, even though she said she never wanted any. When the illness overtook her, Isabelle became irritable and impossible to talk to, but she was nothing like Claire, who never had any sense at all, good or otherwise.

  “Don’t miss the damn turn, Pink.” Kenny pointed the revolver at one of Curly’s signs boasting a girl in a bikini driving a jet ski, waving. Vandals had painted nipples on the bikini top, making the woman into a modern-day Lady Godiva.

  “You wouldn’t catch me riding one of those,” Kenny said, as he clicked through Pink’s camera erasing all the photographs. Pink looked over.

  “Keep your eyes on the road, Pink. Snow’s getting bad.”

  When they approached a bridge that crossed the lake, Kenny told Pink to pull over and leave the engine running. “Leave the lights on. We don’t want to get killed by some crazy drunk,” Kenny said.

  “We’re in the middle of the damn bridge, Kenny,” Pink said. The bridge was more like a highway overpass, with no steel structure above, just a short concrete wall on either side to keep cars from driving off.

  “Get out, both of you,” Kenny said.

  Pink got out first, the sharp wind invigorating him. Claire protested, telling Kenny she wasn’t getting out of the car without a coat. Kenny walked around to her door. When he reached for the handle, she locked it. He shot out the driver’s side glass, reached his arm through and unlocked the doors. “Now get out of the fucking car!”

  Reluctantly, she popped open the back door and stood on the pavement next to Pink.

  “Get undressed.” Kenny waved the gun like a pointer at Pink then nodded at Claire. “Come on, now. Both of you get undressed. Hell, I thought you’d like this part as much as you two seem to like getting naked with each other.”

  “Nothing’s going on between us, Kenny!” Claire screamed. “Now let’s go back home, go to bed, and have breakfast at Shoney’s in the morning.”

  Pink knew why she added the part about Shoney’s—it was Kenny’s favorite place to eat—yet in the context of the situation, it seemed not only inappropriate but stupid.

  “That’s a great idea,” Kenny said. “I’ll go there for breakfast and celebrate our divorce, if it takes. Now get your damn clothes off, Claire.”

  Pink stripped first, nodding toward Claire. Tears rolled off her cheeks as she undid her blouse, then her jeans, stepping out of her sandals.

  “You can leave your damn underwear on. Both of you.”

  A pile of clothes sat on the shoulder of the highway. Pink hoped maybe someone would come along, even though he knew it would be a miracle if they did. It was too early in the season for kayakers, bicyclists, and hikers, and too cold and late at night for fishermen.

  “All right, now. Pink, you help the little lady up onto the concrete ledge.” When Pink hesitated, Kenny jerked the gun toward Pink. “Come on, now. Help her up.”

  Claire’s skin felt warm against Pink’s hands as he made a stirrup of his fingers for her to step into. She put a hand on his shoulder and balanced herself on top of the cement railing. It was over two feet wide, with plenty of space to stand, but Claire was wobbly between the shivering and sobbing. Pink tried to steady her legs by holding her ankles.

  “Don’t grab my damn ankles, Pink! You trying to knock me in the goddamn lake?”

  Pink let go, the beam from the Suburban’s headlights causing Claire’s legs to glow a pale, beautiful white.

  “Now you, Pink,” Kenny said. “Climb up next to your girlfriend, there.”

  Pink tried to find a foothold in the concrete wall.

  “Get your fat ass up there, Pink!”

  Pink scraped his knee on the rough edge of the cement, wriggling to get up. There was nothing to hold onto. When he finally m
anaged to land both knees on the top, he stood up slowly, balancing himself by holding gently to Claire’s knee. He looked into Claire’s eyes and thought he saw anger at first then a sort of sad love. Or was it terror? He wasn’t sure. He slid his palms onto her arms and pulled her close. She melted into him, and Pink didn’t care if Kenny shot them both for the transgression. Pink closed his eyes, felt the warmth of Claire’s breasts against his chest and squeezed her tighter. It was then Pink saw a flash of light through his closed eyelids, then another. He had heard no explosion, felt no sting of steel. When he opened his eyes, Kenny was steadying the camera to take another snapshot.

  “Aw, now that’s sweet,” Kenny said, the flash causing spots before Pink’s eyes. “You two look so damn cute together.”

  “Stop it, Kenny,” Pink said. “You’ve humiliated us enough. If you’re going to shoot us, then get it over with. Stop being an asshole about it.” Claire whimpered into Pink’s chest.

  “Hell, Pink. You think I brought you all the way out here to shoot you? I could’ve done that at the house, buried you in the damn yard, and been asleep by now.” Kenny started laughing and took another picture. “Now turn toward the lake so I can get your backsides.”

  Pink held Claire tightly and eased her in a small arc away from Kenny. From his peripheral vision he saw the flash of the camera. Kenny took two more shots before he told them to jump.

  “On the count of three.”

  “Christ, Kenny. It’s over thirty damn feet to the water,” Pink said.

  “Yeah, I know. You’re lucky. If the lake was still at winter pool, you’d be looking at a seventy-foot drop. That would surely kill your fat ass. Thirty feet, you might actually survive if you don’t go and drown yourself.”

  Claire let out a long wail, stomped her feet, and shook in Pink’s arms. She said something into his chest that he couldn’t understand at first.