Eve

CHAPTER TWO

AT a gas station in San Bernardino, they told me there was a tornado warning out.

The attendant, in smart white overalls with a red triangular badge on his breast pocket, advised me to stay in San Bernardino for the night, but I wouldn’t listen.

When I got into the hills, it began to blow. I kept going and a mile further on the stars were blotted out and then torrential rain came down like a black steel curtain shutting in the night with mist and water.

All I could see through the half crescent clearing made by the wind-shield wiper was the rebounding rain on the car’s hood and a few feet of the shiny black road in the light of my headlights.

The noise of the wind and the rain against the car made me feel that I was imprisoned in a giant drum upon which some lunatic drummer was beating. All around me came the sound of trees falling and rocks shifting, and above all this, the noise of water against the wheels of the car. Rain flowed down the side windows and reflected my face, lit by the yellow light from the dashboard.

Then I nearly ran off the road. I had the hillside on my left and nothing but a clean drop into the valley on my right. My heart raced as I wrenched at the driving wheel and I fed more gas into the engine. The wind was so fierce that there was hardly any increase in the car’s speed. The needle of the speedometer flickered between ten and fifteen miles an hour which seemed to be the best speed I could squeeze out of the engine.

Coming slowly around the next bend, I saw two men standing in the middle of the road. They had lanterns and they wore black slickers that shone in the rain and lantern light.

I slowed down to a crawl as one of them came over.

“Why, hello, Mr. Thurston,” he said, rain from his hat dripping onto my sleeve, “Making for Three Point?”

I recognized him. “Hello, Tom,” I said. “Can I get through?”

“I don’t say you won’t make it.” His face was the colour of bruised meat from the wind and the rain. “It’ll be bad though. Maybe you’d better go back.”

I started the engine. “I’ll take a chance. Do you think the road’s open?”

“A big Packard went through two hours ago. It ain’t come back. Maybe it’s still all right, but you’d better watch out. The wind up there’ll be hell.”

“If a Packard can get through, I’m damned sure I can,” I said and wound up the window and drove on.

I drove around the next sharp bend and edged up the hill, keeping close to the mountain-side. A few more minutes’ driving brought me to the narrow mountain track that led through to Big Bear Lake.

The forest stopped abruptly at the foot of the track, and, except for a few jagged boulders on the mountainside, the rest of the track to Big Bear Lake was bare and exposed.

The wind crashed against the car as I drove out of the shelter of the trees. I felt the car rock. The outside wheels lifted a few inches before thudding back onto the road. I cursed. If that had happened when I was pulling around a bend, I would have been flung into the valley. I shifted into low gear and decreased my speed. Twice the car was brought to a standstill by a sudden gust of wind. Each time the engine stalled and I had to act quickly to stop from rolling backwards.

My nerves were badly frayed by the time I reached the crest of the hill. The rain drove against the windshield and I had to lean out of the window to see where I was going. The road was not more than twenty feet wide and I rounded the next bend more by luck than judgment with the the wind tearing at the car, shaking and lifting it. Once round the bend, I found shelter. The rain continued to drum on the roof of the car, but I felt easier knowing that the rest of the run was downhill, out of the wind.

Three Point was only a few miles further on and although I knew the worst part of the journey was over I continued to drive with caution. It was as well for, without warning, a stationary car suddenly appeared in my headlights and I only managed to slam on my brakes in time. The wheels locked and for one unpleasant moment, I thought I was going to skid off the road; then my bumpers hit the back of the other car and I was thrown forward against the driving wheel.

Cursing the fool who had left this car in the middle of the road without a warning light I stood on the running board of my car while I groped for my flashlight. Rain poured down on me and before stepping to the ground, I turned the light down to see where I was going. Water was up to my hub caps and sending the beam of the flashlight over to the other car, I now realized why it had been left like that. Water was up to the front wheels and had probably got into the distributor.;

I could not understand why there was a miniature lake in the road, which, I knew, went steeply downhill for the next few miles. Cautiously, I lowered myself into the water which rose to my calves. Gluey mud sucked at my shoes as I splashed over to the other car. By now, the rain had reduced my hat to irritating sogginess. Impatiently, I pulled it off and threw it away.

When I got over to the stationary car, I peered through the windows. It was empty. I climbed on its running board and worked my way towards the front of it so that I could see the road beyond. The beam from my flashlight showed me that the road had ceased to exist. Trees, boulders and mud completely blocked the track, forming a kind of dam.

The car was a Packard and I decided that this must be the car Tom had told me about.

There was nothing for me to do but walk. I went back to my car and lifted out the smaller of my two bags. I locked the car doors, climbed past the Packard and splashed through the water to the jungle of trees and rocks that blocked the road. Once out of the water, I continued to climb without difficulty. I soon reached the top of the rubble and could look down onto the road below which was, as far as I could see, clear of any further obstruction.

The climb down was more difficult and once I nearly fell. I had to drop my bag and clutch frantically at the roots of a tree to save myself and there was more delay before I found my bag again. But finally I reached the road.

Once past the obstruction, my progress was straightforward and in ten minutes or so, I reached the white gates of Three Point. I had not gone far up the drive before I saw a light in the sitting room. I immediately thought of the driver of the Packard and wondered a little angrily how he had got into the cabin.

I approached cautiously, anxious to catch a glimpse of my visitor before I made my own presence known. In the shelter of the porch, I put down my bag and peeled off my soaking wet bush jacket which I tossed onto the wooden bench against the log wall. I walked slowly to the window and looked into the lighted room. Whoever had broken into the cabin had lit a fire which blazed cheerfully. The room was empty, but as I stood hesitating, a man came in from the kitchen, carrying a bottle of my Scotch, two glasses and a syphon.

I looked at him with interest. He was short, but his chest and shoulders were powerful. He had mean blue eyes and the longest arms I had ever seen on anything more civilized than an orang-outang. I disliked him on sight.

He stood in front of the fire and measured out two stiff whiskies. One glass he put on the mantelpiece, the other he raised to his lips. He tasted the Scotch as if he were a connoisseur and was a little doubtful of this particular brand. I watched him roll the whisky round in his mouth, cock his head and eye the whisky thoughtfully. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied, and gulped down the rest of it. Having refilled his glass, he sat down in the armchair by the fire with the bottle on the table within reach.

I guessed he was on the wrong side of forty. He didn’t look like the kind of man to own a Packard. His suit was a little shabby and his taste in shirts, to judge from what he wore, was violent. I heartily disliked the prospects of spending the night in his company.

The second whisky on the mantelpiece also disturbed me. It could only mean that this intruder had a companion and I was in half a mind to remain where I was until this other person appeared. However, the wind and my wet clothes decided me. I wasn’t going to stand out there any longer. I picked up my bag and walked around to the front door. The door was locked. I took out my keys, opened the door noiselessly and entered the lobby. I put my bag down and as I stood hesitating, wondering whether to go into the sitting room and make myself known or to go straight to the bathroom, the man appeared at the sitting room door.

He stared at me in ugly surprise. “What the hell do you want?” His voice was coarse and rasping.

I looked him over. “Good evening. I hope I’m not in the Way, but I happen to own this place.”

I expected him to collapse like a pricked balloon, but he became even more aggressive. His mean little eyes snapped at me and two veins at his temples began to swell.

“You mean this is your cabin?” he demanded.

I nodded. “Don’t let it embarrass you. Have a drink — you’ll find whisky in the kitchen. I’ll run along and take a bath, but I’ll be right back.”

Leaving him staring blankly after me, I walked into my bed-room and shut the door. Then I became really infuriated.

Across the room, like stepping stones, lay various feminine garments; a black silk dress, lingerie, stockings, and finally at the bathroom door, a pair of black suede, mud-covered shoes.

A pigskin suitcase lay open on the bed from which spilled other feminine garments. A blue tailored dressing gown with short sleeves was draped over a chair before the electric heater.

I stood staring at this disorder, angry beyond words, but before I could do anything — I was on the point of walking into the bathroom and expressing an opinion of such bad manners — the bedroom door opened and the man came in.

I turned on him. “What’s all this?” I asked, waving my hands at the scattered garments on the floor and the confusion on the bed. “Did you imagine this was a hotel?”

He fingered his tie uneasily. “Now, don’t be sore. We found the place empty and—”

“All right, all right.” I snapped, fighting down my annoyance. It was really no use making a fuss. They happened to be unlucky that I had returned. “You certainly know how to make yourself at home,” I went on. “But never mind. I’m wet and irritable. It’s a hell of a night, isn’t it? Excuse me, I’ll use the spare bathroom.” I pushed past him and walked down the passage to the guest room.

“I’ll fix you a drink,” he called after me.

I liked that too. To have a stranger offer me my own Scotch is something I go for in a big way. I slammed the bedroom door and got out of my wet clothes.

After a hot bath, I felt better. After a shave, I felt sufficiently human to wonder what the woman would be like. But my mind recoiled when I thought of the man. If she were anything like him, I was in for an indescribable evening.

I put on a grey whipcord, fixed my hair and glanced at myself in the mirror. I did not look my forty years. Most people thought I was in my early thirties. All right, I was flattered by this. I’m as human as they come. I looked at my square jaw, my high cheekbones and the cleft in my chin. I was satisfied with what I saw. I was tall, rather on the thin side, but my suit fitted me excellently. I could still qualify as a distinguished playwright and novelist, although that was a tag a newspaper had yet to put on me.

I paused as I reached the sitting room door. The man’s voice came faintly through the panels of the door, but I could not hear what he was saying. Squaring my shoulders and settling the casual, disinterested expression on my face that I reserved for press meetings, I turned the knob and went in.