Beware the Young Stranger

14

Stabbing between the slats of the Venetian blind, a strip of early sunlight lay across Keith’s forehead like a scar.

The downward creep of the band of light measured the rising of the sun. When the light touched his lids, his eyes opened. He blinked, moving his head away from the dazzle.

He sat up quickly, immediately remembering the long stumbling hike through the night to the lake cottage.

In the familiar surrounding of the lodge’s living room, he sprang from the couch. He had intended to rest, not to sleep. But exhaustion had overcome him.

Noiselessly he moved from the stone and timbered room to the pine-paneled hallway. He stopped at the first door and inched it open.

He stood in silence, looking at Nancy. She was still here; she hadn’t run away. Fully clothed, she was sleeping relaxed, her young body curled like a child’s, one slender arm outflung. He looked at the firm lines of her thighs; the swell of her hips, the cups of her breasts warmed and thickened his blood. He took a step into the room. But then he turned and moved away.

In the stainless steel kitchen, he boiled water for instant coffee and opened a can of condensed milk from the generous supplies that Dorcas Ferguson had always maintained in the lodge.

He sat down to the coffee, playing with his thoughts. What would it be like with her — the long smooth body naked, the lips in fever, the buttocks writhing, demanding? Coffee slopped as he picked up the cup; he had to steady it with both hands. A picture leaped to his mind, of his hands undressing her, the slipping of a button, the slide of a zipper, the tantalizing peeling off of each garment...

He kicked his way back from the table. The light wooden chair tilted and fell as he jumped up.

He moved to the window, fumbling through his pockets for a cigarette. Why not? he thought bitterly. You’ve been kidding yourself. There’s no way out for you this time. In a little while it will all be over.

So why not?

You’ve already lost part of that wonderful miracle the two of you possessed. Admit it. It was too fine to last very long. She’s beginning to doubt you. You sensed it last night, after you slugged the old creep. You knew, as you brought her here, that regret and fear were building in her.

She didn’t run away because she was so damned tired; both of you were caved in when you finally got here. She must have fought sleep, waiting for her chance, thinking of Cheryl Pemberton, listening for a sound from the living room. In the end, exhaustion had slugged her, too.

He dropped his cigarette and ground it underfoot on the kitchen tile. Quickly, he passed through the cottage to the bedroom door.

She had heard him this time, swung her feet off the bed. She was sitting up, warm and wobbly from sleep.

An instant change came to her eyes. She was afraid, all right. Terrified. His lips twisted. Move a few feet, he thought, and you can confirm every rotten thing they’ve ever believed and said about you.

“I’ve got some coffee, Nancy, if you don’t mind the instant kind.”

“I’ll be right out.”

He turned away from the doorway, went back to the kitchen. He had coffee steaming in two cups when she came in.

The terror was still in her eyes, her smile.

“Went beddy-by as if I were drugged,” she said.

Small talk, he thought. She’s going to cut out. So it’s the same old story. He could have throttled her as she stood there.

She picked up her coffee and sipped it, moving about the kitchen opening cabinets, refrigerator, freezer.

“Eggs?” she asked. “Some cereal?”

“Toast will do.”

While Keith smoked and drank his coffee, she made toast, got out butter and marmalade. They ate silently. The food was tasteless.

Like, man, you counted on a first breakfast together once, he thought.

“Scram,” Nancy said. “Get some sun on the porch while I KP.”

Her bright pretense was touching, but transparent. He walked out of the kitchen, knowing that the decision was crystallizing in her head. He wondered how she would tell him and what he would do when the moment came.

He swung over onto the porch railing and sat hunched, legs dangling. It would be different now, being alone. He had glimpsed what it was like not to be alone.

He heard the hiss of water, the clatter of dishes. Why the hell hadn’t she sneaked out during the night?

She’d had her chance. She hadn’t taken it. She should have realized how the prospect of again being alone would hit him now.

A breeze soared through the hills, across the long surface of the lake. It carried sound within it.

His back straightened. He grasped the porch post beside him. His head tilted to one side.

Then he swung around and dropped to the porch floor. Nancy was at the sink when he ran into the kitchen.

“We’re leaving,” he said curtly.

“I haven’t dried the dishes.”

“Never mind the damn dishes. We’ve got to get out of here! A car’s coming around the lake.”

She stood planted at the sink as if she were paralyzed.

He crossed the kitchen and grabbed her arm. “Don’t you understand? We came back here because I figured they wouldn’t expect us to take cover in the same place twice. But it hasn’t worked out. Could be the police coming. Or your father. Somehow, he digs the way my mind works.”

“Keith, it’s no good.”

“So what?” he cried. “It’s never been any good. But we have to keep trying. Come on. Let’s go!”

She arched away from him, looking at him with pity and fright. Resentment boiled up in him.

“I should have taken you last night!”

The words brought no lessening of his pain, merely the turning of the invisible knife inside.

“It isn’t me you’re striking at, Keith. You don’t mean that.”

“I said it, didn’t I?” He started to pull her with him. “I don’t want to be alone, Nancy. Not now. You’d better hope we get out before your father walks in here.”

“All right,” she said quietly. “You can let go of me. I won’t run away.”

He chose the back door. The yard was on a grand scale, with redwood patio furnishings and a barbecue pit. They ran to the stone retaining wall. He jumped up on it, reached for her hand, hauled her up beside him.

“This way!”

They fled across the narrow stretch of open hillside to the cover of the woodland. The shade of the trees fell over them, soft and cool. Against the quiet of the lake and the woods the growl of the approaching car came to them distinctly.

Keith loping ahead, they moved through the trees for about two hundred yards. Nancy was breathing heavily.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll rest a minute.”

She sank to a patch of moss beneath an oak tree, folded her arms about her knees. Her head drooped.

Keith said, head cocked, “The car’s stopped.” That brittle clarity struck him again. He thought of the dishes she had left stacked on the sink drain, the cigarette he had crushed out on the spotless floor, the rumpled bed where Nancy had slept. He felt for the short-barrelled revolver hidden beneath his shirt.

“I wish I knew for sure,” he muttered, “who’s in that car.”

She raised her face. “You said dad...”

“A guess. But I can’t take chances on a wrong guess.”

Tears came to her eyes. She made a gesture, as if to reach for his hand. Then her hand fell to her side, on the moss.

He was looking in the direction of the cottage.

“Could be Aunt Ivy, or her husband. Even Mildred Morgan, the housekeeper, up to ready the cottage so the town house can be closed for a while after the funeral.” Murmuring his thoughts aloud was no help. He was unable to evaluate the risk of returning quickly to the cottage and trying to make off with the car.

“We’ll wait,” he said finally. “It’s safer. Get up.”

Nancy got to her feet. They worked their way along the spacious curve of the hill, the lake to their left, visible occasionally through breaks in the foliage.

When they had reached a position beyond and around the end of the lake, Keith veered their course downward. After several minutes of walking, they came in view of a house.

The place was smaller and less elaborate than the Ferguson lodge. It was a squat, stout log structure, the woods growing close at the rear, the lakeside road passing to the front of it.

Keith helped Nancy down an embankment. He had already noticed the lack of tire marks in the dirt driveway and the unflattened bunched leaves and pine needles which had drifted onto the back porch.

He inspected the hasp and padlock securing the back door. Nancy watched stolidly, leaning against the porch rail. He slipped the gun from his shirt, inserted the tip of the barrel in the hasp, and snapped the lock. He flipped the flange back and turned the knob. The door opened with a rusty sound. A smell of must flowed out.

“Lots more of the niceties than when the Indians were prowling,” Keith said mirthlessly. “But we don’t use them. Catch? The place is deserted. We keep it looking that way.”

He motioned Nancy inside. When she was in, he shut the door.

At the same instant, Ivy Ferguson Conway was rattling her key in the front door of the Ferguson lodge, not noticing that a key was really not needed.

The bulky shopping bag in her arms made her entry an awkward one, and she reached with a spike heel to nudge the door shut. She went down the paneled hallway and fumbled under her burden to open the door to the furthermost bedroom.

She set the shopping bag carefully on a bureau. Then she kicked off her shoes, unbelted her expensive polished cotton dress and, consulting the mirror, fluffed her short brown hair with a touch of her fingers.

She saw a trim, girlish woman with rather empty eyes and a haughty expression. She made a face at herself.

She picked up the bulky bag and carried it to the bed. Here she sat down, setting the bag on the floor.

The deserted silence of the cottage caught at her. That Keith... They said he had taken refuge here after Dorcas... after what happened to Dorcas. If somebody had walked in on a boy like him...

Ivy shivered and made an effort to put such ghastly thoughts out of her mind. She stopped and opened the shopping bag. It held a half dozen fifths of Scotch. She babied the first bottle from the bag and opened it.

She held her breath during the first long swallow. Gagging, eyes watering, she placed the uncorked bottle on the nightstand and stretched full length on the bed.

The rebellion in her belly was gradually quelled by the scotch. A wry smile lifted her lips. Why was the first drink always so damn difficult?

She reached toward the nightstand — toward temporary oblivion.