Blowback

Three

The cabin Harry gave me was Number Three, well up into the trees toward the center of the camp and positioned back into a kind of niche that had been hollowed out of the slopeside. You could not see any of the lake from there. It was shady, a little cooler, very quiet except for the natural sounds of birds and squirrels and summer insects. Random shafts of sunlight slanted down to the needled ground, hard and yellow and solid-looking, like spires of pure quartz gold.

Inside, the cabin had an old blackened wood-burning stove, twin rollaway beds, a table and two wooden chairs, a rattan settee and a rattan captain's chair, a standing water cooler in one corner, and a heavy insulating mat rug on the floor. Against one wall was a cabinet sink and a two-burner kerosene cookstove; a closed door at the rear led to the shower and toilet facilities. Short on luxury, long on simple comfort. I could have lived there the year-round with no trouble at all.

I had packed a single bag with a few things before leaving my flat, and I put it down on one of the beds, along with my fishing gear. Harry set the bag of groceries he'd insisted on carrying on the side of the cabinet sink. Then we went out again and sat down together on the porch steps.

I said, “I'm going to need to know a few more things.”

“Whatever I can tell you,” he said.

“How long has this thing been building with the Jerrolds?”

“Ever since they came in a week ago yesterday.”

“He was strung out when they got here?”

“It looked like it to me.”

“Were all your other guests here then?”

“All except Walt Bascomb. He came on Sunday.”

“Okay. If Angela Jerrold is playing around, would Cody be the most likely candidate?”

“Probably. He's the kind of pretty boy a lot of women go for, and he can be damned charming when he feels like it. He'd be liable to make a pass at her out of sheer boredom, if nothing else. He doesn't like it here-not even a little bit.”

“So I gathered.”

“He tell you about himself?”

“Enough. So why do you let him stay?”

“His old man is good for three hundred a week if I keep him here and keep an eye on him. I need the money, buddy, it's as simple as that. The old mercenary ethic.”

“What about the others?”

“Well, Bascomb is a commercial artist, from your town, and a decent enough guy. Keeps to himself mostly-paints a little, fishes a little. He split up with his wife not long ago; one of the reasons he's here, I think, is to get himself over it. He doesn't strike me as the type to initiate a pass, particularly now, with a married woman; but then again, I'm not sure he'd shy away from one thrown at him. If Mrs. Jerrold wanted him badly enough, she could probably have him.”

“Considered opinion, Harry: Is she on the make?”

“All I can do is guess. You'll be able to draw your own conclusions when you meet her.”

“I'll take yours for now.”

“Then the answer is yes, but she's choosy about it. I guess maybe I don't blame her, with a man like Jerrold for a husband. I've seen him go after her the way he went after Cody a little while ago, right out of the blue, no provocation or warning signs.”

“Did he get physical with her?”

“No.”

“You think he ever does?”

“Not while they've been here, anyway. She walks around half-naked, like I told you, and she'd show marks if he was slapping her around.”

“How about this Knox and Talesco? That's their names?”

“Right, Sam Knox and Karl Talesco. Well, the same is true with them as with Bascomb. But who knows what goes on inside people's heads?”

“Cody said the two of them are practically inseparable.”

“Yeah, they've been good friends for years.”

“You known them long?”

“Ten years. They run a freight line out of Fresno.”

“They been here the same time as the Jerrolds before?”

“No. Ditto Cody. And this is Bascomb's first season.”

“Either or both of them married?”

“Knox used to be. Talesco's like me, an old bach.”

“For what it's worth, Cody thinks they might be closet gays.”

“Oh bullshit,” Harry said. “Guys like Cody give me a pain in the ass. They see two men together a lot, close friends, right away they think there's got to be something sexual between them. Knox and Talesco are as straight as you and me.”

“Fair enough. Now, who's in which cabin?”

“Cody's in Two, Knox and Talesco in Four, Bascomb in Five, the Jerrolds in Six.”

I nodded, and then I said I would spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the camp, seeing what I could see, meeting Mrs. Jerrold and the others. “Will you be at your cabin?”

“Working in the shed, probably,” he said.

“Well, I'll drop down later. If I haven't found out anything, there's always those old times to kick over.”

“Make it around six-thirty,” he said. “I caught three fat bass this morning and I thought I'd fry them for supper.”

“Sounds good.”

When he had disappeared into the trees, I went into the cabin and took off my shirt and washed some of the sweat off with water that was piped in directly from the lake. There was a small sign in the bath alcove, and another over the cabinet sink, that told you this and reminded you not to drink any of it. I took a lightweight knit pullover out of my bag, slipped it on, and recombed my hair; the image the mirror gave back to me looked presentable enough, if a little drawn and a little tired.

Outside again, I made my way through the pines, following the narrow path that wound through the camp. Cabin Four seemed to be deserted; Knox and Talesco were apparently still out on the lake. Cabin Five also appeared deserted, and I would have moved on if, in the stillness, I had not heard the soft sound of a woman's laughter. It came from behind the cabin, and it was followed by the murmur of a man's voice; then there was silence again. I hesitated, because if something was going on back there, I was not sure I wanted to walk in on it. Still, I did not like the idea of circling around through the trees to where I could spy down on the rear of the cabin. Maybe part of the reason I didn't like it was because it was stereotypical; the other part of the reason was that I might make enough noise for them to hear me.

So I went along the side of the cabin, quietly, and stopped before I reached the rear corner and listened again. Silence. A fat green fly drifted lazily through a beam of sunlight; a small brownish-yellow chipmunk stared down at me from a low bough on a lodgepole pine, forepaws tucked under its chin in a way that made it seem to be meditating. High up in one of the other trees, an unseen jay screeched like a whiskey-voiced harridan. Behind the cabin, still nothing. All right, I thought-and I backed off a couple of steps, made enough noise with my feet to send the chipmunk scurrying out of sight, and then walked out to where I could see them.

Only there was not much to see. It was about as innocent a scene as you could imagine. A lanky guy wearing chinos and sneakers and a blue polo shirt was sitting on a pine stump in close to where half a cord of firewood was stacked against the cabin wall; his left arm cradled a large sketchpad and his right hand held a piece of charcoal poised over it. Fifteen feet away from him, sitting tailor-fashion in a patch of bright green grass, was a busty redhead in white flared-bottom slacks and the kind of sleeveless pullover that looks as if half of it is missing and leaves the stomach bare. Both of them were looking toward me, the guy-Bascomb-without much of any expression and Angela Jerrold with guileless interest.

I felt both relief and disappointment and was not sure which of them was the stronger. I put on a smile and said, “Hi. I was just wandering around, getting acquainted with the camp, and I heard voices back here and thought I'd come introduce myself. I hope I'm not intruding.”

“No, that's all right,” Bascomb said, but he did not smile.

Mrs. Jerrold got to her feet, slowly, and whether consciously or unconsciously she made it seem like a showcase number. Nothing overt; it was all subtle suggestion. When she moved toward Bascomb-as I moved toward him from a different angle, like a pair of cops converging on a subject-there was no exaggerated hip-sway or breast-bouncing. Her movements were clean and economical; she knew what kind of body she had, and that it was so ripe already, artifice of any sort would only have spoiled its effect.

She had a smile for me, even if Bascomb didn't. She said, “Are you a new guest?”

I said I was, for a few days at least, and we exchanged names and shook hands all around. Bascomb's was hard and firm, Mrs. Jerrold's soft and firm. He was about forty, good-looking in a smooth, ascetic way, with silvering hair combed into a widow's peak and eyes that were gray, steady, unreadable. She was a couple of years on the fair side of thirty, and she wore her hair in long layered waves that made her look a little like Raquel Welch. Her breasts were very large, too, the type that some men found exciting; I thought they were a little too much of a good thing. Her skin was a rich light-brown color, silky in texture, and her mouth was sensual without being pouty. Up close this way she projected an aura of sexuality that was almost hypnotic; in spite of myself, I could feel the palms of my hands turn moist and I found my eyes settling on her twice as often as they did on Bascomb.

She said, “My husband and I are in Six, the next cabin down. He went out hunting, and so I came up here to bother Walt for a while.”

“Hardly a bother,” Bascomb said dryly.

“I've been trying to get him to sketch me ever since we met,” she said to me. “Walt's an artist, you know.”

“So I see.”

She took the sketchpad from him and held it up so that both of us could look at the charcoal drawing on the open page. It was pretty much finished-a very good likeness of her as she had looked sitting in the plot of grass. But in his portrayal he had taken some of the softness out of her, some of the veneer-if that's all it was-of innocence. Her beauty as he had interpreted it was almost that of a predator.

Mrs. Jerrold seemed not to notice this; or if she did, she did not change expression. She asked me, “What do you think?”

“Nice work,” I said.

“Oh yes. Walt, you must let me have it.”

“Won't your husband mind?”

“Why should he?”

“You can answer that better than I can.”

“He won't mind. He appreciates good artwork.”

“I'm sure he does.”

Bascomb said that last a little stiffly, looked at her for a long moment, and then took the sketchpad back. He tore out the drawing, handed it to her, said “Nice meeting you” to me, and went over and sat on the stump again. Dismissed, both of us. I watched Mrs. Jerrold frown slightly, as though with annoyance, and I thought that if they were putting on an act for my benefit, they were good at it. So far I was buying the whole thing.

Her frown smoothed away after six or seven seconds, and she said, “Well, I should be getting back, I guess. Thank you again for sketching me, Walt; it's been fun.”

“Hasn't it,” Bascomb said without inflection. He was sketching again and he did not look up.

She put her smile on for me. “Are you going down by the lake?”

“I'd planned on that, yes.”

“Good. You can walk me to my cabin, if you like.”

“Sure.”

I said something to Bascomb about seeing him later; he did not answer, but when Mrs. Jerrold and I started away, toward the side of the cabin, I sensed him watching us.

We went down through the trees on the narrow path. She walked close to me, and twice her body touched mine-breasts and hips; it may have been accidental, but then again, it may not have been. Eventually she said, “Why are artistic people always so moody?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“I'll bet you're not in the arts.”

“No.”

“You look like a teamster or longshoreman.”

“Do I?”

“Oh, I meant that favorably. I'm not a snob.”

Good for you, I thought. “Actually,” I said, “I've got a mundane white-collar job. What does your husband do, Mrs. Jerrold?”

“Call me Angela, won't you? Well, Ray is in advertising. He owns his own firm, you know; he's devoted his life to building it into what it is today, which is a very successful business, but of course he's not satisfied. He'll do anything to make it even more successful, to bring in more money and bigger clients.”

“He sounds like the American Dream in action.”

That got me a wry look. “If the American Dream is a nervous breakdown or a coronary before the age of fifty, then, yes, I guess he is. He's never learned how to relax; even up here, our one vacation of the year, he spends half of the time in The Pines telephoning Los Angeles on business matters. My God, do you know that the only times we go out at home is when he's wining and dining customers or potential customers?”

She delivered all of this innocuously enough, but if you wanted to do some reading between the lines, you did not have to try very hard to come up with an invitation, real or imagined. And which one was it? I wondered. At fifty, or coming in on fifty, I had a belly from too much beer and too much deli food, and a gray plodding shaggy look. Not much there for someone like Angela Jerrold. Unless she was a nympho, or at least had catholic tastes to go with the old roving eye. The other possibilities were that she was as innocent as she appeared, and frankly personal even with strangers, and too witless or careless to understand what sort of impact she had on men; or that she knew exactly what impact she had on me, and that she was, as Cody had described her earlier, “nothing but a prickteaser.”

Well, the only way I was not going to find out which of these fitted the real Angela Jerrold was by making a pass at her. I might have liked it-a part of my mind had already gone through the kind of fantasy sexual encounter you sometimes have when you meet a woman as sybaritic as this one-but too many things would get in the way. Things like moral attitudes and business ethics and friendship and even the fear of rejection that had lingered on since my youth. Funny how rigidly a man will adhere to the code of conduct that has governed his life, even when that life may soon be ended by something as terrible as lobar carcinoma.

I said, “You must spend a lot of time by yourself.”

“Oh, we have quite a few friends. It could be worse.”

“Sure. Things can always be worse than they are.”

“It's here at the lake that I sometimes get lonely. I mean, with Ray in The Pines so much, or out fishing or hunting with Harry Burroughs, I have to amuse myself. I hate that; I enjoy people.”

“There are the other guests.”

She smiled. “Yes. Thank God for that.”

I would have liked to press it further-she had taken it in each of the three possible directions, and yet in none of them-but before I could say anything else we came out of the trees into the cleared area where Cabin Six was situated. And sitting there on the porch, with his shirt off now and a tumbler of colorless liquid in one hand, was Ray Jerrold.

He did not remain sitting for long. He saw us at about the same time I saw him, and he got up in one quick jerky motion and came down the porch steps as if they were carved out of blocks of ice. That drink he was holding was either gin or vodka, and it was by no means his first. When he reached solid ground he stopped and leaned his left hand back against the porch railing; his face was damp and splotchy, and even from where Mrs. Jerrold and I had come to a standstill thirty feet away I could see the same half-wildness in his eyes that there had been when he braced Cody.

He said, “So you found another one, huh?”

“Another one what?” she said.

“You think I'm blind? That what you think?”

“Ray, you shouldn't drink so much in this heat-”

“Don't tell me how much I can drink.”

“I was only-”

He cut her off. “Where you been?”

“Up visiting Walt Bascomb.”

“Him too,” Jerrold said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Now, honey-”

“Don't give me that honey crap.”

“Ray, for heaven's sake!”

“Get over here. Now, damn it.”

She gave me a look that had embarrassment and apology in it, and maybe just a touch of fright; then she said softly, “Thanks for walking me down, I'll see you again,” and went over to where Jerrold was. He watched her all the way, the fingers of his right hand tight around the tumbler, and when she brushed past him and started up the steps, I tensed a little, leaning forward on the balls of my feet, because I was afraid he might make a grab at her. But he just let her go on past him without moving anything except his head; his eyes followed her all the way into the cabin.

When the screen door banged shut behind her, his head snapped around to me like a doll's on an elastic pivot, and he raised the hand with the glass in it and pointed it in my direction, and the hand shook enough to rattle the ice cubes audibly. “I don't know who you are, mister,” he said, “but I'm telling you this: Stay away from my wife. You and all the rest of them in this place, sniffing around her ass like a pack of dogs in heat. I won't stand for it much longer, you hear?”

“I hear,” I said. If I had said anything else, it would only have provoked him; he was in no condition to listen to what anyone had to say except himself.

I went along the path to where it looped into the trees again and snaked down toward the lake, and he watched me all the way, just as he had watched his wife, without moving any part of his body other than his head. Once I got into the trees I stopped looking back; but when I was far enough into them so that he could no longer see me, I stepped off the path and doubled back slowly and quietly until I had a screened view of the cabin.

Jerrold was still standing there at the foot of the porch steps, still staring off toward the empty path. Watching him stand like that, completely motionless, made me uneasy. Another full minute went by, and then, as if there had been no abnormal time lapse, he raised the tumbler and kept it raised until it was empty. Then he went up the steps and slammed his way inside the cabin.

I waited five more minutes, listening, but there was nothing to hear. Whatever was going on in there, if anything was going on, it was a quiet confrontation.

But I did not like the way this thing was shaping up. It was like watching something bubble and froth in a pot-sooner or later, unless you turned the heat down or off, it was going to boil over, and if that happened, somebody was liable to get hurt. Badly.