Wilderness

CHAPTER 32.

Bundled in his down vest and nylon parka, but still shivering, Newman waited in silence while Janet found the canoe. He was almost entirely inside himself as they paddled it out onto the still surface of the lake and headed straight across toward the cabin. His arm hurt as he paddled but he showed no sign of it, and the pain barely registered.

Halfway across they let the canoe drift and dropped everything but the first-aid kit and the clothes they wore overboard. The carbine was the last thing. He didn't like to drop it. It was compact and shapely. It felt good in his hand. He held it barrel-down for a moment at arm's-length and then let it go. It slid smoothly into the water and sank.

"It's funny," he said.

"What is?"

"To be without a gun. I don't feel right." She smiled. "You didn't need a gun at the end." "I couldn't shoot," he said. "I wanted to. I knew I had to, but I couldn't, not up close, with him looking at me." "You did what you had to," she said.

He shifted the paddle as the canoe began to veer off course. Even with the wounded arm he was so much stronger than she was that the canoe wouldn't hold straight if he didn't compensate.

"And you did it alone," she said.

The sun was directly overhead, and there was no wind. The lake was slick and the canoe moved over it as if without friction.

"Without me," she said.

He could see the float in front of the cabin now, and the small wharf that slanted up from it. The foliage had begun to change and there were scatters of gold and red in the shoreline forest.

"When we came back from Korea," he said, "we came into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and they tied in the ship's speaker-system to a disc jockey in San Francisco, so that before we even saw land we heard American radio, and commercials, and when we went up the bay we could look up the hilly streets into San Francisco and see American buildings and people and cars." His voice was as flat and still as the surface of the lake. She looked back at him over her shoulder. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking past her at the dock. She turned back and dug in her paddle.

They left the paddles in the bottom of the canoe when they docked. His arm hurt when he had to put weight on it to climb from the skittish canoe. On the dock they stood together. He looked back across the lake. On the far side the woods were unbroken and uniform, patches of color blotching the green. The lake remained smooth and calm. It had healed over the wake of the canoe as it had closed over the carbine, as it had closed over Adolph Karl.

"It's pretty," he said.

"Yes." "From a distance," he said.

"Looking back," she said.

They turned toward the cabin. He swayed slightly. She put her hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?" she said.

"Yeah. It's just that I'm tired. Fighting makes you tired. And I haven't eaten. And I suppose I've lost some blood, and I feel a little dizzy." "Come on," she said. "We'll go to the cabin and you can lie down."

He was very slow as they walked up the path. She walked close beside him although she didn't touch him. The side door was unlocked. They went in. It was empty and still and strange. He stood swaying in the center of the room, his teeth chattering.

"Get out of the wet clothes," she said. "And lie down. I'll put a sleeping bag over you. And I'll make a fire."

He nodded. She went to the bedroom for a sleeping bag. Only the three bags and the full refrigerator gave sign that they'd ever been there.

Chris was careful, she thought.

Newman with his head down, still fully dressed, stepped uncertainly toward the couch. When his shins hit the edge of it he swayed forward and fell facedown on the couch. He didn't move. When Janet came back with the sleeping bag he was asleep with his mouth open, breathing evenly. A fire was laid in the fireplace. She put down the sleeping bag and lit the fire. Then she went to the couch. She took off his boots and socks. There were large holes in both socks at the big toe and on the balls of both feet. She threw the socks into the fireplace.

She worked her hands in under his stomach and got his belt unbuckled and his fly unzipped. Then she inched the wet pants down over his thighs and finally worked them off. She did the same with his underwear. She un zippered the sleeping bag, spread it over Newman's half-dressed and motionless body, picked up his pants and underwear, and went to the bathroom.

In an alcove off the bathroom was a washer and dryer. She let the water run into it. When it was full she added soap and dropped his pants and underwear into it. Then she stripped off her own clothes and put them in. She shut the top of the washer and walked naked to the shower. With the water as hot as she could take it she stood under the shower. She shampooed her hair twice. She lathered her whole body with soap and rinsed and did it again. There was still grime around her ankles and she squatted in the shower with the hot water cascading over her to lather and massage them a third time. When she was through the water rinsed them clean. She stepped from the shower into the cold bathroom, shivering. She had no other clothes and she wrapped the one towel around her as best she could and walked to the living room. The fire was dancing now and the living room was warm and rich with the smell of hardwood burning. Her husband had not moved.

She stood close to the fire naked and rubbed herself dry. She didn't like being naked. It made her afraid. Whenever she was naked she felt people were staring at her. She looked down at her naked body. The scratches on her belly had faded. She couldn't see them anymore. Her hair, still wet despite toweling, was in tight ringlets. When it dried it would soften. She heard the washer thump to the end of its cycle.

She walked, still clutching the towel to cover her front, to the washer and transferred the wet clothes to the dryer. It was awkward to do holding the towel with one hand. But she managed. Still holding the towel she went to the kitchen. In the refrigerator there were beer and wine, in the freezer there was steak. In the cabinet there were canned baked beans and a bottle of bourbon and a loaf of rye bread, un sliced in a cellophane sack, tied with a small green wire twist. She took the steak from the freezer. She took the bourbon down from the cabinet, got a glass, put two ice cubes in it, and filled it with bourbon. She drank half of the bourbon, shuddered, and put the glass on the counter.

In a cabinet under the sink she found a casserole and got it out. She took down two large cans of baked beans with pork. There was a hand can-opener in the drawer. She got it out and tried to open the beans and hold the towel. She couldn't.

"Shit," she said. She let the towel drop and opened the beans.

Standing at the counter, she ate half of them cold, with a piece of bread. She put the rest in the casserole in the gas oven on warm. She left the steak thawing on the counter and took the bourbon bottle and the glass. She looked at the towel on the floor, but her hands were full, so she walked naked into the living room and sat naked in an armchair close to the fire and began to sip the bourbon. The heat of it moved through her and the heat of the fire thickened around her.

The fire hissed softly. At one end of the nearest logs, moisture bubbled out and dropped to the coals and turned into steam and disappeared. The lower logs began to sag, reddening into coals. She got up and put two more logs on the fire. She walked over to look down at her husband. He was as she had left him. Motionless except for the slow, easy rise and fall of his upper body as he breathed. Saliva had trickled from his open mouth, and there was a small wet circle on the sofa pillow. She still had the glass in her hand, almost empty now.

She made a small gesture with it and raised it slightly toward him.

"Not bad," she said out loud. He didn't move and she drank the rest of her drink. There was a small ice cube left in the bottom of the glass.

She tipped it into her mouth and sucked on it, moving it from one cheek to the other as she stood watching him sleep. Then she went back to the kitchen, got more ice, went to the living room, poured more bourbon, and sat naked by the fire looking at the coals and sipping the bourbon.