The Cabin on Souder Hill Page 15

  He kicked his legs again, hoping for an adrenaline surge, the kind of crazed, instantaneous strength that allows a man to lift an automobile off a trapped child. Just then, Claire’s struggled ended. She went limp in his arms. He knew she wasn’t dead—she had screamed too much to have any water in her lungs. The absence of her fight buoyed him.

  In minutes he was sliding her up the mud bank, her body pale and lifeless against the dark weeds. He couldn’t stop shivering.

  “Wake up, Claire.” He slapped her lightly on the cheek at first, then harder when she didn’t respond. “Come on, Claire.”

  Pink grabbed her wrists and tried dragging her up the hill, moving her only a few inches before exhaustion set in. Out of breath and perspiring, he felt the cold overtaking him, sweat freezing in his hair.

  Claire’s breasts bobbed in her wet bra as he seized her wrists and leaned back to get her moving again. Catching on branches and undergrowth, her panties began to roll down her hips until Pink could see the top edge of her pubic hair. Her backside must have come against something sharp because her eyes shot open and she yelped. She yanked her arms away from him and knotted them across her chest, shivering, then shaking. “I’m freezing to death, Pink.”

  He touched her hair. It was cold and brittle. “Come on,” he said, reaching out his hand to her. “Let’s get to the road.”

  “Then what?” she said, staring up at him, her body wound into a tight ball. “Freeze to death up there? Let’s make a fire. Can’t you make a fire or something?”

  “With what, Claire?” Pink tugged at his underwear. “You think I’m hiding matches in here? I ain’t no damn Boy Scout. Now get up off your ass.”

  He climbed the hill without her, thinking about Kenny, about how he would kill him. Pink heard Claire rustle to her feet and scrabble up behind him, grabbing his ankle. “Wait for me.”

  Pink had no idea what they would do when they reached the road. There would be no one to drive by and give them a ride, not out here. Snow came down heavier now, making it difficult to see more than a few feet.

  Within several yards of cresting the hill, Pink thought he spotted a light up on the bridge. “Come on, Claire. There’s a car stopped up here.”

  He clawed at the steep bank, scraping his bare knees on rocks and sticks. Limbs swept past his crotch, poking him. With every jab to his testicles, Pink planned his revenge. “That bastard.”

  “What’d you say, Pink?” Claire tried to keep up, grabbing at his legs.

  “Nothing.” Pink glanced up at the bridge again, the presence of a car obvious now, the amber flashing lights.

  “Hurry up, Claire, before they leave.” Pink fought through a bramble at the edge of the scrub, the stickers ripping at his arms and legs, picking at the fabric of his shorts. He broke free and jogged toward the red glow of the taillights, then stopped dead. Claire ran up next to him, hugging her arms across her chest.

  “Come on, Pink. What are you stopping for?”

  He grabbed her wrist as she started toward the vehicle, exhaust pouring from the tailpipe.

  “That’s my Suburban, Claire.”

  Shifting her gaze between the vehicle and Pink, she tried to twist free from his grasp. “So what? I’m freezing my ass off. Come on.”

  “Kenny could be waiting for us,” Pink said quietly. “Do you see him anywhere? If he didn’t take the car, where is he?”

  Claire stopped struggling, and Pink let her hand fall. He told her to wait, and then approached the vehicle, the gravel pricking his bare feet. Snow dusting the windows made it impossible to see if someone was inside. He looked past the passenger side of the car, at the ground where he and Claire had disrobed, hoping to see their clothes. Nothing. Stealing up on the back bumper, Pink felt his heart clunking in his chest. How cruel a bastard could Kenny be, Pink thought, making them strip on the side of the highway, jump into freezing water, then struggle up the fucking hill only to be shot next to his own Suburban while Kenny laughed, his big, fat teeth shining in the dash lights?

  Pink peeked in the back window, then the front, then he hurried past the hood. “Come on, Claire. He’s not here.”

  Pink jerked the door open and threw himself into the warmth of the interior, the heater turned to high. Claire shot in the other side and slammed the door.

  “That crazy fucking husband of yours left the heater on for us. Can you beat that?” Pink rubbed heat back into his knees, then shoved his hands at the vent, leaning his face into the warm stream of air.

  “Yeah, but he didn’t leave our clothes. Let’s get out of here,” Claire said, sniffling.

  “Where we gonna go without clothes, Claire.”

  “Your house.”

  “Sure, we’ll walk in naked and ask Isabelle to round us up some hot chocolate.”

  “Hot chocolate sounds good,” Claire said, teeth chattering, looking past Pink at the jagged hole where the driver’s side window used to be. “I feel a draught.”

  “Jesus Christ, Claire, scoot closer to the damn vent. And get out of those wet underwear.”

  “What will I put on?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Let’s drive to your office.”

  “Why? I don’t have clothes there.”

  Claire rubbed her thighs and knees, rocking back and forth in the seat. “Where do you think Kenny went?” she finally said.

  “I don’t know. Probably called that lunatic Curly to come get him.” Pink twisted in the seat and leaned over the back between the headrests searching for something Claire could cover herself with so she’d shut up. On the seat, next to the ragged hole Kenny had blasted through the upholstery, Pink spied their mound of clothes. He spun around to tell Claire when he noticed she was naked, huddled near the vent, her underwear in a wet lump on the floor mat. Each time she rubbed her upper arms, her breasts jiggled. The sight was wildly erotic.

  “Find anything?” she asked, turning toward him. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Pink! What are you doing with a boner? We nearly drowned, now we’re freezing to death, and you have a boner?”

  He slipped his soaked underpants off. “I can’t control this anymore than you can keep your nipples from getting hard.”

  “Why did you take your shorts off?”

  “Come on, Claire. We might as well make the most of this. It’ll warm us up . . .”

  “You’re crazier then Kenny!”

  “It’ll do us both some good. Besides, it’s kind of romantic.”

  “Romantic my ass. It’s creepy is what it is.” Claire looked out the window, then over at Pink. “Why didn’t you protect me?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? You’re alive.”

  Unfolding her arms, she eased her hand across his lap and took him in her palm. “I guess it would warm me up, that big ol’ body of yours on top of me.” She scrunched down in the seat, wrestling her right leg under the steering wheel, guiding him between her knees.

  Chapter 22

  Snow had drifted up against the sliding glass doors of Michelle and Cliff’s bedroom. Glare off the frozen white surface washed the room in light, making it difficult to see. Michelle pushed up on one elbow, squinted, then rolled away from the windows and wrapped the blankets around her shoulders. For just a moment she’d thought she was still at the Ruby Motel. The previous evening flooded back—breaking the bathroom window, Cliff’s flattened expression as she walked past him from the motel room. She recalled the ride up to the cabin, the horrible accusations she’d made, blaming Cliff for ruining everything. She felt terrible and wanted to apologize but wasn’t sure she could.

  Sitting up, Michelle noticed she was wearing her nightgown but couldn’t remember changing out of her clothes. She smelled coffee brewing and swept her feet along the floor, searching for her slippers. The cabin was cold. She went to the bathroom and pulled her robe from the door. Not wanting to confront
Cliff yet, she considered heading back to bed. He would want to get an early start back to Atlanta, get on the road by nine. She wondered if the highways were bad, if they could even get off the mountain. But that wouldn’t stop Cliff. That’s why they had four-wheel drive, he would remind her. The Rover would get through the snow without a problem. She had always wondered why they needed four-wheel drive living in Atlanta, and he would always reply, “You never know. Better to be prepared.”

  Better to be prepared? she thought. How could you prepare for every possibility? Shuffling toward the kitchen, Michelle smelled the fresh coffee; brewing coffee was the first thing Cliff did every morning.

  Her head throbbed, and she wondered if it was from the corn liquor. Corn liquor. What a strange night it had been, drinking homemade moonshine—was it moonshine?—dancing with Pink’s friend at the Hilltop, Pink walking out on her. It seemed as if it had all happened to someone else, or hadn’t happened at all.

  Michelle slid the carafe from the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. She went to the thermostat and turned it up to seventy then sat on the couch and tucked her legs under her robe. She looked out and thought how beautiful the snow was, billowy and perfect, as though overnight the world had been made new again. Branches thick with snow hung low and heavy and still, and she was suddenly relieved Cliff wasn’t around. He’d often go for morning walks along the gravel roads before she woke, yet she saw no footprints in the snow leading to the steps. He would probably come back with damp clothes imploring her to come for a hike with him and see how glorious the morning was.

  Sunlight glistened across the crust of snow on the deck. Michelle got up, wiggled her feet into her slippers and went outside, her feet sinking in the thick powder. It was not nearly as cold as she had expected. The snow was deeper near the edge of the deck, nearly a foot or more. She didn’t care her feet were getting wet. The landscape brought to mind pictures she’d seen of the moon, everything rounded and formless and puffy. Even the deck chairs and table looked like some sort of alien topography or contemporary art, smooth and elegant as a Henry Moore sculpture.

  One of the chairs looked oddly formed, as if she or Cliff had left something sitting in it the last time they were at the cabin. She walked over to it, curious about the queer mound. As she scraped her hand across it, the snow turned from white to pink, then more reddish the deeper she dug. At first her mind refused to register what she was looking at. The eyes looked like Cliff’s, only waxy and hard, like a statue. Using both hands, she cut and carved the snow from his nose and chin, the flesh unnaturally frozen and firm. She brushed snow from his lips, his hair and ears, as if digging a man out of an avalanche. His skin was almost a translucent blue. She refused to see the matted and frozen hair around the wound on the top of his head, and the torn flesh of the red, gnarled hole beneath his chin.

  She thought she screamed, but with no one around to hear, the scream seemed to catch in the brittle air, soundless as the cold itself. She scooped more powder from his arms and legs. She knelt next to the chair and cleared his pants, his shoes, his hands. His right hand sat on his stomach, Darcy’s gun resting against the belt of his jeans. She tried prying the gun from his fingers, the digits solid, inflexible.

  “Wake up, Cliff. Come inside,” she said with urgency.” You’ll freeze out here.”

  She leaned over his body and tried patting life back into his cheeks then his hands. After struggling to her feet, she tugged at his hand, the flesh rigid and unyielding, his skin the texture of a rubber glove. She leaned in close, pulled his head to her chest. “No, Cliff !”

  Grabbing the back of his chair, she tried pulling it toward the house until Cliff’s body shifted, the weight of it taking the chair over, dumping him in the snow.

  “No, no, no, no.”

  Michelle grabbed Cliff’s jacket by the shoulders to move him toward the cabin, get him inside, into the warmth, unable to look at him still bent into a queer sitting position. She thought of a hot bath, soaking his body to thaw it, denying the injury to his head, as if heat alone could restore him to life. She threw open the door, then ran to the bathroom and turned on the faucet in the tub, then hurried back to Cliff. She tried prying his arms away from his body, but his limbs were stiff, and she had to lean back trying to find traction on the slippery deck.

  “We’ll get you in a hot bath, then wrap you in blankets until the ambulance comes.”

  The ambulance. Michelle hadn’t called yet. She ran back inside and grabbed for the phone, knocking it from the table. It lay silent on the floor and for a moment Michelle thought maybe it was dead, until the dial tone began its low and steady drone, a sound Michelle had always found annoying. 911. She’d never had to dial those three numbers before. How many people had occasion in their life to dial 911? Was this an emergency? Or had the emergency already passed? She wasn’t sure if those three numbers would even work in a small town. Maybe it only worked in large cities. A man answered.

  She would not allow herself to mention the wound in Cliff’s head or the glassy sheen to his eyes, the unbending limbs. “Send an ambulance. Please.”

  The man asked questions, wanted to know what was wrong, if she was in danger, her name, the address. Michelle rattled off answers, could hear herself speaking, uncertain of the words. Her attention went to Cliff’s body outside the glass doors, the side of his face lying in snow, his knees bent oddly, his hand still clutching the pistol to his lap. She had to put her eyes somewhere and looked down at her own feet. Her slippers were gone, probably buried under the snow outside, even though she didn’t remember losing them. Her toes were bright red, the tingle of numbness slowly burning away. The bottom of her nightgown was wet and caked with snow, beginning to melt and drip onto the floor.

  Then there was the smell of freshly brewed coffee. That was the worst trick of all. Cliff always measured the grounds the night before, filled the reservoir with water, then set the timer so he could wake up to the sweet aroma of Irish cream. The fragrance had given her no reason to believe anything was wrong, that Cliff was gone, or worse. And the gunshot. Why had she not heard the gunshot? But she had. She remembered now, the loud bang in the night that shook her from sleep. She had opened her eyes and waited to hear it again, as she had on other nights when awakened by what seemed a loud noise or someone speaking her name in a dream. But there had been no other sound, and she’d fallen back asleep.

  “Is your husband dead?”

  Michelle looked out toward Cliff’s body, the unmoving reality of it. If that wasn’t him lying there in the snow, then where was he? Out walking in the woods? Sitting in his office back in Atlanta? Buying cars at auction?

  “Ma’am? Are you there?”

  They will want to know whose gun it is, Michelle thought. How did Cliff find it? Had he gone through her purse or had she left it out for him to find? If she hadn’t taken it from the store, this would never have happened.

  “I’ve dispatched the police, ma’am. And an ambulance. They should be there soon if the road is passable.”

  Michelle did not recall saying goodbye or hanging up the phone. She heard water spilling onto the bathroom floor and figured the toilet was overflowing again. But it was the bathtub. She sat on the edge of the tub and twisted the nozzles off, water welling up over the edge, soaking her gown. No amount of warmth would help Cliff now, she realized. She reached down and pulled up the stopper to release the water, then sat until the last of it swept down the drain.

  On her way back to the deck, she pulled the comforter from the couch to cover Cliff’s body, the one she always wrapped herself in to watch a DVD or read a book. She brushed the hair from Cliff’s forehead and tried to ease his eyelids shut. They would not close. She pulled the blanket up over his face and held the fringed edge between her fingers. Icicles hung from the railing like Christmas decorations. She sat down in the snow next to Cliff’s body and watched them drip, the sun burning high above the
mountains.

  Chapter 23

  Claire looked awfully good sleeping on the couch when Pink got up to use the bathroom. He had half a mind to wake her for sex, until the phone rang.

  “I can’t get off the mountain because of the snow,” his mother said. “I need Lulu’s ashes.”

  “Can’t it wait, Mama? Snow looks awful deep here too.”

  “You have four-wheel drive, Pink. And I need them for tonight. Now, please go, and don’t give me a hard time, okay?”

  Even though Pink didn’t feel like driving into Emerson’s, he was glad to get out of the house before Isabelle woke. He knew she would still be angry from the night before when he and Claire came back so late.

  He pulled on his pants and shirt then paused at the couch a moment to peak under the blanket at Claire’s breasts then her hips and pubic hair. Claire always slept in the nude, and even though it was too early to run the sweeper, Pink knew Isabelle had taken her sleeping pills and would certainly remain comatose through a quickie. Claire barely stirred when he tweaked her nipple, except to grimace and push his hand away.

  He sat on the chair and tied his shoes. He wasn’t really in the mood anyway. Besides, he was still a little upset with her from the night before. They had agreed on a story, but as soon as Isabelle questioned Claire about Pink being at her house, Claire said he came over to get something.

  “Soup,” Claire had told Isabelle. “Pink said you couldn’t keep anything down, and the stores were all closed. Anyway, Kenny didn’t believe a word of it and told us both to get out.”