Authors: Stanley Gordon West
A sudden sadness assaulted him and he strained to recall the scent of lavender soap.
Diana called Sam on New Year’s Day, back from San Diego. She suggested they go for a drive and made only two demands: they could not even skirt the topic of basketball, and he should bring a swimsuit and towel. He told her how Stonebreaker had put his Ford in the shop and her voice became hesitant, as though she were contemplating canceling the invitation if Sam couldn’t drive.
“Would you mind driving my car?” she said in an apologetic tone, “I’m really beat from all the driving.”
“No, not at all. Always wanted to drive a Volvo.”
When they hung up he grew excited at the thought of being with her in their bathing suits. He scrounged through drawers, closets, and overstuffed boxes, unable to recall if he owned one or not, finally discovering a scant silk red-and-white Speedo he remembered buying a few years ago at Krazy Days in Bozeman. But though it had been a good deal for a couple bucks, he wasn’t sure he’d have the courage to wear what there was of it.
Since he started running, his waist had diminished noticeably, but as he tried on the Speedo in front of the bathroom mirror he could see that he filled it completely and that it left little to the imagination. He quickly put on clothes over the swimsuit.
Diana pulled up in front of Sam’s house and stepped out of the black Volvo. The car looked road-weary, with dirt and winter scum streaking its fenders and wheels. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her but she quickly danced around the car and slid into the passenger seat. He settled in the stylish leather bucket seat beside her and smiled.
Wearing jeans, a pink sweater, and a light pink-and-blue ski jacket, and with her long hair flowing free, she unsettled him to such a degree that he made a horrendous noise with the starter, engaging it when the engine was already running. She grimaced.
“Hello. How was the trip?” he asked quickly in an effort to cover his embarrassment.
“Fine up till now.” She laughed.
“Sorry about that. The engine’s so quiet I thought—”
“It’s all right.”
He drove tentatively out of Willow Creek and tried to use his memory of Amy to mortar some kind of defense. But he knew a desolate part of him ached to fall in love with this delectable woman.
“Why a Volvo?” he asked, searching for a normal heartbeat.
“It’s the safest car on the road.”
“That’s it? No thoughts of resale value, gas mileage, affordable parts?”
“It’s the safest,” she said emphatically. “The other things don’t mean much if you’re dead.”
They cruised along the grandstanding Jefferson River, through its twisting cavernous gorge, and out into the magnificent valley south of Whitehall. More and more Sam felt at home in the mountains, where their permanence gave him a sense of security.
He brought her up to date on Willow Creek’s adventures while she was gone, including Hazel’s raucous behavior with the Chippendale dancers, at which Diana hooted.
“They ought to lock him up and burn down the jail,” she said with bitterness when he filled in the details of George Stonebreaker’s berserk highway assault. “Next time he’ll come with a gun.”
Startled, he glanced over at her, as if for an instant she
knew.
He stared back at the highway and calmed himself.
Next time he’ll come with a gun.
Thankful for the reminder, he gained his balance and got his feet back on the ground. He would not fall in love with her. Maybe they could be good friends, even lovers, but he would keep his heart out of it. Oblivious to the turmoil boiling in him, Diana seemed to be transfixed by the magnificent mountain landscapes.
Suddenly, she grabbed his arm.
“Stop! Pull over, please, quickly!”
Sam pulled the black sedan to the shoulder and stopped. She unbuckled the seat belt and got out. He watched her in the rearview mirror walking
back down the highway. Then he got out and followed her. She stopped and was kneeling over something at the edge of the blacktop. It was a large jack rabbit, fluffy white in its winter coat. It lay on its side in a peaceful pose, except for the dried blood on its muzzle.
She picked it up gently and walked down into the ditch and over to a fence line where there was a thick bed of dried grass. She knelt and carefully laid the animal in a soft winter bed.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Would you leave the body of a
person
lying alongside the highway?”
“Of course not.”
“We slaughter creatures such as this one without a thought,” she said, gazing down at the pure white animal. “We kill them for sport, we destroy their living space and consider them a nuisance to be trapped and poisoned, and yet they’re our fellow residents of this earth. Our future and theirs is irrevocably intertwined. The least we can do is to show them our respect.”
She stood, glanced once more at the rabbit, then turned for the car.
Sam followed her, wondering what would be next with this woman.
Through Twin Bridges, they followed the Ruby River Valley to Sheridan and then on to Virginia City as a sallow January sun ducked behind the foothills far to the southwest.
“I think we’re going to lose Peter,” he said.
“Ah, ah, ah.” She shook a finger. “None of that.”
They stopped to eat in Ennis, and she insisted on paying for their food.
“My idea, I buy the chow.”
He fumbled for his wallet and left an overly generous tip in an effort to even things up, recognizing her attempts at keeping things light, friendly, anything but a romantic date.
Out the door into the sudden winter darkness she said, “Want to go hot potting?”
“Where?” Sam’s mouth went dry.
“Norris, Beartrap Hot Springs, you’ve never been there?”
“No.”
B
LEACHED WHITE FROM
sun and steam, a rough wooden fence enclosed the hot spring and appeared as though it hadn’t changed since the
miners and railroad men soaked their weary bodies in the soothing flow a century ago. The dressing room was a wooden shack tacked on the west edge of the pool, where frayed curtains covered cockeyed doorways and one bare light bulb illuminated the interiors. Sam hurried, wanting for him and his Speedo to be in the water before Diana appeared.
When he came out, she was nowhere in sight. He stepped down the wide stairs until he was waist deep into the clear, steaming water. One low-watt spot halfheartedly illuminated the rustic bathing hole, allowing him to detect the few people who were soaking in the wooden pool, which appeared to be about thirty foot square.
He could scarcely make out a young couple lurking in the far left corner. Three middle-aged men to the right of the stairs drank beer and prattled in tones that implied an alcohol-induced loosening of the tongue. A family of five played on the left side, where a pipe shot water high into the air and allowed it to fall back into the pool like a small waterfall.
With the satin-smooth water covering him, Sam glided over the water-logged timbers and settled in the far, unoccupied corner. From there he could hardly even see the others lounging in the tingling, blissful bath, and he was left to anticipate the vision he expected to emerge from the women’s dressing room.
Finally, Diana stepped out into the dim light, her bright yellow bikini stretched as snugly as her San Diego tan. Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders as she descended the rough wooden steps and let the water lap against her rib cage. The three men became silent, unconsciously lowering their Bud cans, gaping at her across the steamy pool. Even the male half of the couple in the corner allowed himself a direct stare.
She stepped close and half-whispered from her natural pout: “I figured I might as well wear the bikini. I mean, it isn’t as though you haven’t seen me before.”
“It’s not that.” Sam swallowed. “Why don’t I want other men seeing you in it?”
“I don’t know, but I think I like that.”
He settled on the submerged bench that ran along the edge, leaving him chest-deep in the soothing water, and she stood, between his knees now, her hands on his shoulders. With hungry eyes, he shamelessly traced her
sumptuous body. Then he glanced up into her mischievous eyes, overcoming his reluctance and nervousness by allowing his hands to grasp her willowy waist.
“How long will Stonebreaker be in jail?”
He broke eye contact and glanced over her shoulder, catching the three men ogling her, men, he imagined, who were aching inside and wondering what a goddess such as her was doing with him. It was, he knew, a common male response.
Tenderly she brushed aside his damp hair and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
“Thirty days… ah, twenty-six now,” he said with his lips on her ear.
She turned and sat in his lap, his hands still around her waist.
“A monster like that should be put away permanently,” she said, leaning her head back on his shoulder so they were cheek to cheek, gazing out over the steaming pool.
“It’s funny you should use that word,” he said
“What word?”
“‘Monster’… I ran into one of them a long time ago…”
“What happened?” she said.
“I suppose you could say he’s the reason I’m in Willow Creek.”
“Who was he?”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He held on to her, his arms tightly around her waist as though fearing he might be blown away by a sudden wind. Then something gave way in him and, soaking in that primitive hot spring somewhere in the mountains of Montana, he told Diana Murphy about Amy, about their love for each other, about her sudden, shattering death, about his flight from the sadness, about his clinging to something he couldn’t name.
“I grew up with the illusion there was someone out there who would love and cherish me,” he said, “in the way commercials and movies and love songs promised. After years of searching and meeting flaky people, I gave up. I realized there
was
no one like that out there. It was all a romantic illusion. Then I met Amy.”
Diana didn’t speak, but he felt her shudder and tremble in his arms.
“Why didn’t I
know
?” Sam said so loudly some of the other soakers turned his way. “There had to be a warning of the madness as we approached that terrible force field.”
“The horror,” she said.
“You’ve seen it?”
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“Why didn’t I sense what was coming?”
“We can’t,” she said. “Don’t torture yourself with that. The horror strikes when we least expect, demolishing our lives.”
He felt her tummy heave with a sob. She turned, standing in the water, and cradled his head against her breasts.
“When the sadness came, I realized it had been there all along,” he said, “underneath it all. Everyone tries to hold it down, deny it with the routines and busyness of everyday life, never calling it by name. Preachers sugarcoat it, teachers hide it, therapists duck it, but people in the mental wards see it. Parents never let on to their children, telling them to smile for their photos, pretending they’ve never caught a glimpse of it. For years I’ve kept myself busy, hurrying, working, reading, channel surfing, never taking my eye off the TV screen, afraid that lurking in a corner I’ll notice a shadow of the sadness.”
When he’d told it all, she held him. They didn’t speak for several minutes, listening to the others in the pool, laughing and splashing and drinking to avoid their own sadness.
“Do you still miss Amy terribly?” she said.
“Sometimes.”
“I miss Jessica terribly sometimes.”
“You lost her when she was four?”
“Yes.”
“That’s got to be tough,” he said with his lips against her collar bone.
“It’s the horror,” she said softly, and he sensed it was still too painful for her to talk about.
She held his head against her and whispered into his ear, “I’m so sorry… for you… for Amy. So sorry.”
He lost it then, and sobbed quietly in her arms, shrouded by the steam and the night, letting his sorrow pour out of his eyes and into the pool,
mixing with the water of the creek, from which it would flow to the Madison, then the Missouri, the Mississippi, and out into the Gulf of Mexico.
After several minutes, Sam looked up, and he felt released, forgiven in some way he couldn’t explain or understand, suddenly free to be with this woman without any paralyzing freight from his past, to be alive and passionate and completely there with her.
Though they were less and less visible in the thickening steam and fog, he wished the others would leave. He’d even bribe them to leave—fifty bucks to everyone if they would just head out.
“Your ex-husband must have been mentally deficient, an imbecile, a lunatic, a half-wit, a congenital idiot, a simpleton, a moron, a mutant, a—”
She gently put a finger to his lips and silenced him with her eyes. She took his trembling hands and placed them on the back of her neck, pressing them against the bow of her bikini string.
“Pull,” she said.
Sam glanced around, checking the others around the pool. The family was heading for the dressing rooms; he wondered if he owed them fifty dollars. The two lovers appeared to be breaking camp also, and he wondered if they could read his mind. The bullshitting, beer-drinking trio occasionally cast a lusting glance through the suspended mist and it appeared as though they were almost out of beer.
With her up to her armpits in the water, he gently tugged on the string and her bikini top drifted into his lap. He pulled her close, his Speedo straining to its stitched-nylon limits, his breath coming in such short gasps he thought he might faint.
“You know what you’re always telling the boys—we’re here to have some fun.”
He kissed her, following his instincts and vaguely recalling from some clouded past that he mustn’t fall in love.
Within minutes they were alone, the others having shuffled off to their cars. Sam and Diana were two hungry, lonely people, trying to escape the madness with their frenzied love.
Sam released a cry that carried out over the steam-blanched walls into the silent sky, and he noticed that a winter moon had been brazenly watching them.