Wilderness

CHAPTER 17.

"Did you know that Chris prowls around our yard at night?" Janet said.

Newman shook his head. "What do you mean prowls around?" he said.

"I got up about four in the morning a couple of days ago and looked out the bathroom window and he was standing under that big white pine tree in the back, with a rifle. And I thought, "What the hell is he doing?"

And so last night I was up till about two doing some stuff for the affirmative action task force and I thought, "By God, I'm going to check." So I turned out the lights and went and looked out all the windows and he was there. He was out front, in the bushes between us and the Erasers."

They were lying together in bed. Newman was reading the book review section of last Sunday's New York Times. Janet was watching the Johnny Carson show. Her hair was in rollers, a blue kerchief was tied around it. She had on pajama bottoms and an old white shirt of Newman's. There was cream on her face.

"That figures," Newman said.

"Is he guarding us?"

"Yeah, partly. But he's playing too."

"Playing?"

"Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. The Lions and the Packers.

Rangers and gooks. I think this is a kind of game for him. It's the most fun he's had since he got cut by the Lions."

"What could be fun about standing around in the dark all by yourself all night. When does he sleep?" "He told me once that he only slept three or four hours a day. Always been that way, he said. And it is fun to be a guard. Or at least it's fun for a little while and if you're a certain kind of guy. Think of the high points in his life." "Football and Korea," Janet said.

"Combat, in a sense."

"Yes. He does karate too, doesn't he?"

"Black belt."

"Formalized combat."

"And since he was cut by the Lions, how have things been going for him?"

"Not good," Janet said. She had turned the sound down on the remote control mechanism by her bed. On the screen Robert Goulet sang soundlessly. "He hasn't been very successful or made very much money.

His marriage didn't work. I don't know how the new place is doing, do you?" "He doesn't talk about it," Newman said.

"So you're saying," Janet said, "that this situation came along and gave him a chance to do something he's good at, and to feel good about himself." She had turned on her left side, facing Newman, and rested her head on her propped left elbow.

"A chance, as the jargon would have it, to maximize his potential. I mean, for cris sake he's the Michelangelo of machismo and for twenty years there's been little call for it from the society he moves in."

"So he can stand out there with his rifle, the silent protector.

Tireless, brave, deadly. Yes. I see."

"I think so," Newman said. "I don't mean to put him down. We need him badly in this. And he is tough. Toughest bastard I ever knew. And it's comforting to know he's out there. But he's also beginning to scare the shit out of me."

"You think he takes too many chances?" she said.

"I think he doesn't want this to end," Newman said.

Janet thought about that as she looked at her husband. Behind her the voiceless Carson show ended and Tom Snyder appeared.

"That would make sense," she said. "If it ended he'd be back at his restaurant doing what he was doing, nothing bad. But nothing exciting.

Nothing that engages his, what, physical self? Beyond throwing out an occasional drunk."

Newman nodded. "I think if he really wanted this finished we could have done it already. I think it could be over with. But Chris.

"Let's check down this alley," he says. "Let's take another look at his house." We go over it and over it. We plan and talk. "You can't know too much," he keeps saying. And I'm afraid he's going to get us killed." "Jesus," she said. "All this time I've been feeling better about it all because Chris was involved. You think it's worse?" "It's both," Newman said. "I don't know if I could do it alone. But Chris's goals aren't the same as mine. I mean, I want this over. I can't write. I'm scared all the time. I worry about you. You know what we're doing tomorrow? We're going to get outfitted for the woods.

We spent most of Tuesday finding a spot to stay near Fryeburg and surveying the area. The spot to stay took an hour. The rest of the afternoon and evening we checked the cabin where Karl stays. Looked at the woods, walked ridge lines." Newman shook his head. "Goddamn," he said.

"What are you going to do?"

"Christ, I don't know. Even if I could do it without him, how could I tell him to screw? He's already risked his life for me. He's in a conspiracy to murder. If we get caught he's an accessory even if he bails out now. And this is the biggest thing in his life. How can I tell him we don't want him? That he's counterproductive?"

"I know. I couldn't say that to him either."

"What would help, would be if you came with us."

"You mean to Maine?"

"Yes, and stayed right with us through the actual shooting and everything." "I'm not saying I won't," Janet said, "but why?"

"It would help control Chris. He'd feel protective of you, because you're a woman, and it would give me courage. I'm much braver with you than I am alone."

"Do you worry about my safety at all?" "Yes," he said. "But I'm trying to really look at things. I'm trying, as someone suggested recently, to grow up. This is life or death. I can't romanticize. I need you.

There's risk to you but I can't make it without you. I know it, and I'm willing to risk you to help me through this. It's not a posture I'm proud of, but there it is." She said nothing for a long time. On the television Tom Snyder threw his head back in pantomime laughter.

"Yes," she said, "I'll go. I want to go. I am not afraid. I would kill Karl in a second and never feel a thing. It's my problem as much as yours. But I want you to teach me to shoot."

Newman wasn't looking at her now. He was staring at the silent television. "Yes," he said. "I'll teach you. It's easy. You just point the gun and pull the trigger. Just like the movies. You can learn easy." "Okay," she said.

"Are you mad?" he said.

"I don't know," she said. "I want to go to sleep now. I have an early class, I have to get some sleep. I didn't get to bed till three last night."

"But you don't think I'm that swell to ask you to go, do you?"

"It doesn't matter. I said I would."

"But it matters if you think badly of me."

"I don't think badly of you."

"But you're mad."

"I'm getting mad, Aaron. I said I'd do it, now let me alone. I want to sleep."

She turned away from him, shut off the bedside light, shut off the television, and shrugged the covers up over her shoulder, settling her head on the pillow.

The twisted knot in his stomach that had been there since he'd seen the murder twisted a little tighter. He shut off his light and lay on his back and felt it tighten.

Outside, in the shadow of now green forsythia bushes, along the fence Chris Hood squatted with the Ithaca pump gun across his thighs and looked carefully at the yard and empty street. Then he moved silently toward the backyard, staying close to the bushes, the shotgun butt braced on his hip, looking slightly sideways so as to see better in the dark. He was dressed in black and had put burnt cork on his face. On his belt, at the small of his back, was a bowie knife with a nine-inch blade.

In the backyard he stood motionless and nearly invisible in the shadow of an old sugar maple, and watched the house, barely breathing, listening for enemy footsteps.