Holland Suggestions (21 page)

The proprietor was an old man with white hair. I had to wake him to get a room, and he was none too happy about the business. He grumbled about tourists who don’t sleep at night, like normal people, and he was still grumbling as he handed me the key. I got the room on the far end; I went there without unloading anything from the car and collapsed in sheer exhaustion into the bed.

I
T WAS A LOUSY
way to sleep. Sometime during the day I must have roused myself and taken off my wet clothes, but I never remembered it afterward. I slept without any other interruption for ten hours. When I opened my eyes the window was the same pale shade of early morning gray, and a full minute passed before I realized that the morning had gone; I had slept through the day. My watch was still running; if it was right the time was six-thirty. I lay on the bed for a time, feeling heavy-headed; when I did get up I went to the window and parted the curtains.

Snow flurries were falling and the highway was slick. The motel sign was on; it was one of those flashing red signs that always remind me of three o’clock in the morning, and I did not want to think about it. My stomach growled and I realized that I was a full day past my last meal; I crossed the room and found to my great surprise and delight a hotplate, a pot, and a package of instant coffee. I put on some water to boil and sat at the window to wait for it.

It was a long wait. The hotplate, like the man who owned it, was old and slow. I was awake and functioning long before the coffee was ready. I splashed water on my face and again sat at the window to think. There were things to be considered and decided; the game was hardball now, and I had to react accordingly if I was to survive. The thought of Vivian cutting down a man with a shotgun was too much for me to handle; somehow, even after all the hate was out, I couldn’t imagine her doing something like that. Then I touched the lumpy scar on my neck and it all came back. Yes, she was probably capable of anything. Had I forgotten that once she considered smothering our daughter?

Judy.
There was a comforting thought. I would give a pretty penny to hear her voice now; it would sweep away this insanity and perhaps give me a better grip on what I must do. I went out into the blowing snow and crossed the courtyard to the office. The old man eyed me suspiciously as I entered.

“You got a phone?”

He nodded toward the phone at the end of the counter. “Calls is ten cents.”

“I want to make a long distance call.”

He shook his head.

“You can get the charge from the operator and I’ll pay it now.” I did not wait for his answer; I picked up the receiver and dialed it. No answer. I looked at my watch: seven o’clock; nine there. Well, they weren’t home and there would be no Judy for me tonight. Bitterly I hung up and turned to the old man.

“You stayin’ another night?” he said.

“I haven’t stayed this one yet.”

“Your money went on yesterday’s rate. The day starts at noon in the motel business. Technically you owe me for another day anyway.”

He brightened somewhat when I paid him. “Listen,” I said, “has there been a man named Willy Max looking for me?”

“Nope.”

“You sure of that? You been here the whole time?”

“There ain’t nobody else to be here.”

“Well, look, if he shows up in the next half hour, tell him I’m in the cafe, will you?”

“Cafe’s closed.”

“Closed?”

“George Hawkins—he’s the man that runs it—George always closes for a week in springtime to go fishin’.”

Frustrated, I faced the cold reality of my empty room. The water was boiling and I mixed the coffee strong and black. As an afterthought I added some of the powdered cream; at least there was some food value in that. I covered old ground in new thoughts: There were a lot of changing factors in the game now; a body, a killer, my ex-wife. Basically my decision still centered on the same two alternatives, but with complications. Legally I had a duty to perform; I grappled with that and rejected it consciously on the same grounds that my subconscious had rejected it earlier. In their own way, police represented only a new threat. I visualized myself trying to explain to some local sheriff about a murder in the big house, and the house had fingerprints all over it, and some of them were mine and I had been an intruder—no, a prowler—when the murder was committed. All I drew from that imagined encounter was a big zero. When the law learned, as it had to sooner or later, that the woman of the house was my former wife and that I had come here in a beeline from the East Coast after months of “acting funny” in my job and home life, the conclusion would not be a good one. Leaving, under the circumstances, might be even worse in the long run. Nothing but bad news came out of any imagined contact with the police. I tried to remember if I had touched the shotgun; looking back on it, I couldn’t be sure of anything.

Thankfully I was past the point of blind fear. I examined the problem from several different angles, and if I did not come up with any easy answers, at least I didn’t panic. I sat at the window, sipping my coffee and taking each part as it came to me. Then I tried to analyze it and act on it. My first move had to be one of self-defense; I needed a gun. I went outside and found my car, incredibly dirty and streaked with mud, where I had left it. The drive into town was short and futile. The only hardware store was closed; there were two cafes, both closed. I returned to the motel feeling frustrated and just plain unlucky.

By then it was dark. The snow flurries had stopped and the streets were slush; the town, dismal even without the snow, took on a sinister appearance. In my room I drank some more of the coffee and tried to think, but I still came up empty-handed when I groped for answers. The only answer seemed to be
stay loose and let things happen.
That hadn’t worked so far, but there was always tomorrow.

Maybe, but I couldn’t quite buy it. I lay back against the propped-up pillow and tried to watch some TV. The only clear station was showing five-year-old
Bonanza
reruns, so I turned it off and turned off my lights and lay in the darkness.
What the hell?
More than anything, at that moment, I was bored; wanting something to happen and at the same time fearing it. I closed my eyes, but my entire sleep cycle was off and I knew I would not rest easy this night. I thought wild thoughts: of sneaking back to Gold Creek and prowling the house again, to get some line on Vivian and what she was doing. But I had a hunch I wouldn’t find much there; just a dark, empty house and an empty garage. Possibly she was in another state by now. In that case she would dump the black Oldsmobile and disappear and that would be the end of it. But I couldn’t buy that either. It was inconsistent with her character, as I remembered it. Vivian was here for a reason, and her purpose hadn’t yet been fulfilled. I could never write her off.

I heard a noise just outside my door, then a gentle tapping. It startled me; I jumped up from the bed and knocked my empty coffee cup to the floor. I waited. The rapping came again, louder.

“Jim?”

It was Max. I opened the door a crack.

He was alone. “For Christ’s sake, open up.”

I opened the door and went back to my place on the bed.

“Can we have some lights?”

“Sure.”

He turned them on and sat on a chair across from the bed. ‘What’s the matter with you?”

“Is something the matter with me?”

“We’re just going caving, not scouting behind enemy lines. I thought you were going to ask me for a password before you let me in.”

“Sorry; I’m just jumpy. Coffee?”

“Is it any good?”

“Not much. It’s instant. All I’ve got, though.”

“I’ll take it.” He poured as I stretched out on the bed. “You act like you’ve been cooped up here all day.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you’re so jumpy. You look like a man who’s been waiting for a reprieve from the governor.”

“I came over here too early, I guess. The inn was getting on my nerves too. When I got up this morning there wasn’t anybody around.”

“I know. Miss Sargent was leaving just as I got up. We just passed a few words and she was gone, just like that. Strange girl.”

“I couldn’t find Gould either.”

“Harry’s often up before dawn. Sometimes he likes to drive up in the hills and watch the sun come up. So if you got the feeling that you were alone, you were probably right.”

“Well, I didn’t like it.”

He looked at me curiously. “Jesus, you really are jumpy, aren’t you? You been having second thoughts about our expedition?”

I thought about that. “A few, I guess. I’m having second thoughts about what the hell I’m doing here anyway. I don’t relish the thought of tackling that goddamn ledge again.”

“You won’t have to; just point me to it.” There was a long pause, then he said, “Listen, it’s up to you, you know. If you’ve changed your mind we can forget it here and now with no hard feelings.”

“What about all the equipment you bought?”

“That was a drag, but I can use it sometime. You call the shots and let me worry about the equipment.”

I ended the pause that followed with more stalling: “I don’t know; let’s sleep on it and see how it looks in the morning.”

“All right.” He looked around the room. “I guess I’d better get a room for myself.”

He went out and I turned off the lights. Soon I heard him unloading some things into the room next door. The walls between the rooms were very thin and I could hear most of his movements; I heard it when he dropped a glass and when he sat on his bed and later when he showered. It was after nine when he came again to my room.

“Let’s get an early start, either way,” he said; “I’ve got a lot to do if I’m going to ship this stuff back to Philly, and if we do go I’d like to be in the high country by sunup.”

“What time?”

“Leave here at four.”

I nodded and he left me. I heard the cracking of ice and the tinkle of a bottle against a glass. The springs of his bed squeaked as he got in. For a long time he watched TV; he turned it off at ten and there were no more sounds from his room until his alarm clock went off at three-thirty. By then I was awake anyway. I had slept intermittently, for no more than an hour at a time, and now I dressed as though the place had caught fire. At three forty-five Max came to my room, fully dressed for the climb.

That was the curious manner in which my decision was made for me. Max took charge of the day from the beginning, and he ran it like a gentle taskmaster. “You better eat something,” he said; “it’s going to be a long day and we’re not going to find any open restaurants this time of morning. You’ll find some milk in an ice chest in my room and I bought some corn flakes last night. It’s not much, but you’ll be glad later you had it.”

I was glad now. There was no sugar, but I ate three bowls of the corn flakes anyway. I was washing the bowl when he came in again. We exchanged almost no conversation on my indecision of the night before; he brushed it aside as though he had never taken it seriously and neither had I. “I assume that crud last night was just a mood talking,” he said once; “to tell the truth, you’d surprise the hell out of me if you backed out of this now.”

I looked at him. “Why?”

“No reason, except I’ve got you pegged differently. Your curiosity is a lot like mine; it would never let you rest till you satisfied it.”

We got out quickly after that. I took my boots and parka and locked my car; Max put out the lights of both rooms and we were off. We took a jeep parked near my car behind the motel, and I had to squeeze in among the equipment piled everywhere. The morning was cold though the snow had stopped. Max worried that the weather in the high country might be bad, and I remembered all too well how bad it could be. We passed the turnoff to Gold Creek and some of my tension dissolved. It settled in again as we turned into the graveled road to Taylor’s Gulch.

“It could be a bitch,” Max said; “if it’s snowing we’ll have to come back some other day.”

Clearly I did not want to spend another day in that motel. I shook my head and Max caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Even if it’s not snowing, the road over the top might be snowed in.”

“What road?”

“There used to be an old road over the top. It was used by forest rangers and lumber men about twenty years ago. Now it’s used only by explorers. It can be hairy in places, but I’ve driven it. I was counting on it to get in close with the equipment; otherwise we’ll have to pack it in from Taylor’s Gulch. And from what you tell me that’s quite a hike.”

I did not say anything. Soon we turned off the gravel road and started up the jeep trail. As we climbed higher the moon broke through the clouds and the cold, pale light spread across the bald mountains ahead. Max stopped the jeep and got out. I waited there while he walked along the trail and looked for his lumber road. The wind came up suddenly, and Max was clutching his hat when he came back.

“I think maybe we’re in luck,” he said; “it doesn’t look like there was any more snow up here than we had in town. I think there’ll just be a light crust on the road.”

“Did you find it?”

“Not yet; I think it’s up ahead somewhere.”

We went through that long stand of timber at the base of the Taylor’s Gulch plateau, and on the other side Max found what remained of the lumber road. It wound behind the plateau, running along the foot of the mountain.

“The trail is on the other side,” I said.

“I know it; I told you, this road goes over the top. I’m hoping we’ll come down somewhere near your cave without too much of a hike.”

I had my doubts, but I didn’t burden Max with them. Trees closed in around us and cut off the road ahead. Max used his low gear and pushed through them. In one place the six-foot pines were so thick that they blotted out all windows and the windshield. Max crushed them under the wheels and emerged at a stream. We splashed through it, and for perhaps five hundred yards on the other side there was no road at all. At the base of the mountain Max parked the jeep, sat back, and lighted his pipe.