Twenty Plus Two

Chapter 25

The sun dipped behind the horizon and it became dark. It was almost four hours since the rain had stopped and a brisk wind had sprung up. The water had had a considerable time to run off and the wind helped to dry up the ground.

It was an early moon and when it came up, Alder and Nikki decided to try to get out.

Alder got Nikki’s car onto the graveled road with some difficulty, but once on the road it was all right for a few miles. They hit a low spot then and had to risk it, but made it and came to within sight of the lights of the hamlet of Dumas before they hit another bad spot. The car got through it, however, and they drove to the edge of the little village.

It was very small, one short street, two abbreviated side streets. Perhaps a dozen stores. The general store was still open.

Nikki remained in the car and Alder went inside. The store was of the kind found only in the very small villages and hamlets in the more remote areas. It carried groceries, meats, poultry feed, and remedies, clothing, refrigerators, even a couple of television sets on display.

Alder bought bread, a few packages of cookies, some sliced cold meat, and a cotton blanket.

As he was paying for his purchases, he asked the storekeeper, “By the way, can you direct me to the home of Jacques Pleschette?”

The man looked at him. “You wouldn’t be—” Then he shook his head. “Couldn’t be. Too young.”

“You thought I was one of the Pleschette brothers?”

“Talk is one of ’em’s gonna pay the old man a visit. Old Frenchy got a telegram.”

“Old Frenchy?”

“Folks were callin’ him that when I was born. Let’s see now. You take the north road. Kinda winds a bit and you want to keep your eyes sharp ’cause there’s two-three side roads, but you don’t want to get onto them. Keep on the main road. Two miles, mebbe a bit more. Then you take the left fork. Don’t amount to a goshdarn and you better hope the chuckholes ain’t too deep ’cause you’re gonna get bogged down.

“Three miles, more or less. You get down on the flats then. Otter Creek’s on your left, but you stay with the tracks on the right side. You’ll run into the shack.”

Alder carried the purchases to the car. “Nikki,” he said, after he had climbed in, “I thought we would spend the night in the car...”

“I slept in it last night. Then this morning it started to rain and I pulled off the road to that deserted house. What is it, Tom?”

“He’s coming here. The people here know it.”

“He’s dangerous, Tom!”

He nodded.

“Do you think you should have a gun?”

“They sell guns in this store, but they’re expensive, and I don’t have enough cash with me.”

She opened her purse and brought out a packet of bills, all of large denominations. He returned to the store.

There were three shotguns on display, two .22 rifles. Alder bought a repeater and a box of shells and returned to Nikki’s car.

He started the car and turned it onto the south road. He drove a mile along a winding road, found a small clearing on the right side of the road and drove into it. The wheels bumped along until Alder reached the edge of the poplar trees. He eased the car partly among the trees and shut off the ignition.

They made sandwiches and ate the rather stale cookies. They each had a soft drink and then Nikki moved close to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Tom,” she said, “if we are wrong—”

“I’m certain we aren’t.”

“There is, however, that tiny element of doubt. And if it is so, then — what about me?”

“I will still be with you.”

“That I know, but I was not thinking of myself this time. You and I have our lives and it will he enough for us. I was thinking of—”

“Your mother.”

“She has waited twenty-two years.”

“I have thought of it, Nikki, and I think you should go to her.”

“As a woman who killed a man? Can I tell her that, and the circumstances?”

“Your mother will ask you no questions.”

“She will accept me — with twenty-two years missing from my life?”

“If you were your mother, would you, Nikki?”

She thought of that awhile, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Your mother is you.”

She was again quiet for a while, then “Will you tell her — when I am not with you sometime?”

“I have thought of that also. Your mother is a very strong woman, as you are. But I do not think I will tell her. It would make no difference in her outwardly, but it would add a tiny bit of scar tissue to her heart — and I believe she has enough of that. As you have.”

“Tom,” Nikki said, “when this is over, I am not going to be strong. I am going to be the woman you should have, the woman who—”

“The woman who loved me in Honolulu, who watched me through the night, who held me when my heart was like ice—”

“It was not, Tom. You were ill.”

“Yes, I was. But you knew it.”

“As you knew that I loved you, in spite of — where we were, what I was.”

Later, when the chill of the night seeped into the car, he got the blanket and they put it around themselves, and shared the long night together.

With the dawn, they got out of the car, stretched and walked about for a while. Their breath came from their mouths in white puffs of steam.

They ate again and Alder loaded the shotgun. He drove the car back to the village and took the north road. He followed the storekeeper’s directions and as the sun began to rise over the horizon, the car rolled down to the flats, through which Otter Creek meandered.

Alder saw the smoke of Old Frenchy’s cabin before he saw the cabin itself. It was in a clearing in the center of a thinned out grove of cottonwoods. It was built of poplar logs, from which the bark had long ago been worn. It was no more than twenty by thirty feet, although there was a wing attached to it that was somewhat smaller and was probably a bedroom. A frame attachment to the west side was the kitchen.

There was a barn not too far from the house. It, too, was built of poplar logs. A pole corral was attached to the barn, but there were no animals in it. Chickens scratched in the barnyard. The creek ran past the cabin, a hundred feet from it.

An ancient Ford that had once been red, but was now rusted and battered, was between the cabin and the barn.