Death Qualified (5 page)

    The other one laughed and started to move toward her.

    "Honey, you're a sight! That damn gun's bigger than you are."

    She raised the rifle, and they could all hear the click as she took off the safety.

    "I said back off. Just get in that truck and clear out. I'm Mrs. Kendricks and that tree doesn't get touched. You hear me?"

    The one with the paper in his hand froze; the other one threw one arm up in mock fear, but he kept moving, kept grinning. Deliberately she aimed toward the truck, and the crack of the rifle was startling in its loudness. The beer can flew, spinning off the hood.

    "Shit!" the one with the paper said, and turned from her.

    The other stopped where he was; a dark, mean look spread over his face.

    "You crazy or something? Put that damn rifle down!"

    "The left front tire next," she said, aiming again. When the man started to move toward her, she swung the rifle to cover him.

    "Or maybe a guy on my land threatening me." He stopped.

    "Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!" the other one called. He paused at the tree long enough to jerk down the line; he heaved it inside the truck, then yanked open the door on the driver's side and climbed in.

    Slowly, with obvious reluctance, the second man took a step backward, then wheeled and strode to the truck and got in the other side.

    "And tell Chuck Gilmore that if he tries something like this again, I'll come after him. And next time I'll shoot anyone who puts a foot on my property, not just a can.

    Tell him!"

    She did not start to shake until the truck was gone, until the trees stopped sending the echoes of the truck wheels and engine back and forth, as if examining them, until silence had returned, more palpable than she could remember.

    When her shaking eased, when it was no more than a slight tremor that raced through her, making her heart pump harder for a second, relaxing again, she walked slowly to the ancient fir tree and touched the trunk, as if to reassure it. In her head her grandfather's voice murmured, "Feel it, girl. You can feel the life blood racing up if you try." She never had felt that, but she felt something that had no name. She knew better than to stand at the foot of a mammoth tree and look straight up; that invited vertigo. But she looked up now, up past the patterned bark, so deeply cut, cleanly cut that surfaces reflected light plains separated by deep valleys and chasms, up higher to where the bark became a continuous gleaming wall, and finally into the darkness of the canopy that was so dense little light could penetrate, and nowhere was there a glimpse of sky beyond. It was as if the world ended in the top of the tree.

    She became light-headed and had to turn away from the tree, this time to gaze at her land, her private forest. Her enchanted forest, she had called it many years ago as a small child; her grandfather had agreed soberly that that was exactly right. From here it was downhill all the way to the houses, neither of them visible. On this side of the road her grandfather had helped his father clear out the deep woods to make room for the remaining trees to stretch out and grow up. He had kept it cleared until old age and fragility had stopped him, and then she had taken over the chore. This side was clean, no undergrowth of whips and saplings, no brambles, not even huckleberries, although brambles and huckleberries crowded the road on the other side. Here the trees were spaced park like and they were all giants: firs, spruces, some alders and cedars, a few vine maples because Grampa had liked their color in the fall. Down farther was the grove of black walnut trees that her great-grandfather had planted.

    Gradually the noises and movements of the open forest had resumed. Small rustlings in the high grasses; two thrashers revealed their red under wings as they flew by; a jay called, another answered. Nell nodded. All was well again.

    She returned to the truck, deposited the rifle on the passenger seat, and drove slowly back to the little house that she occupied with her two children. The big house was screened from view by lilacs as big as trees themselves, and blooming rhododendrons from palest pink to scarlet, yellow, orange, white. She parked in the drive outside the garage because she would have to go out again to pick up her daughter, Carol. She took the rifle out and walked into the house. It had been built by her great-grandfather of half-split cedar logs, and no one had ever seen any need to do anything in the way of maintenance beyond keeping the windows and doors in good repair. The cedar shake roof was the original roof. The garage was a recent addition, from thirty years ago, and inside the house insulation had been added. Other than those changes, it was the way her great-grandfather had planned it, the way he had left it finally.

    "Travis?" she called at the living room door.

    "Hey, Travis, where are you?"

    She went to the foot of the stairs and called again, but she knew he was down by the river. She had known that from the time she had raced away from Turner's Point. At first, all she had been able to think was. Dear God, let him not have seen that body! Halfway home she had kept a watch for him on his bike. If he had seen, he would be tearing off for another look; she would have passed him on the gravel road. But even so, she had to make certain.

    Her pace quickened as she left the house by the back door.

    There was a lawn, twenty feet wide, and then a steep descent to the river. The river made a sharp turn here, leaving her side with a stretch of gravelly sand and slow-moving water, while on the far side it was very deep and swift against the cliff.

    At the top of the bank she saw Travis out in the drift boat, fifteen feet from shore. He was lying back, one arm over his eyes against the late afternoon sun, one leg dangling over the boat rail.

    "Travis! Get in here!" She scrambled down the bank to the beach.

    He sat up, pulled in his foot, and grinned at her.

    "It's tied. Mom."

    "You get in here right now! Right this minute!"

    "I want to stay out. You know, I might be able to get in the Guinness Book if I stay out here a few days. Bet no one's ever done that before."

    "Travis, I'm warning you." She shook the rifle and saw his eyes widen.

    "You fire that shot?" he asked.

    "Why?"

    "You don't start hauling in by the time I count to three, you'd better hunker down in one end of that boat or the other, because I'm going to shoot it full of holes." She didn't wait for him to acknowledge the threat.

    "One."

    Travis began to pull hand over hand on the rope that tethered him to a great rock on shore.

    He was muttering as he came in.

    "You do it all the time.

    We all do it. Why not me? Even if I fell in, the water's only up to my knees. What's the big deal?"

    She knew all this. And they did it all the time; it was the only way fishing was possible. They had to get out close to the end of the shallow water or their hooks snagged when they reeled in their lines.

    "You never said I couldn't do it alone," Travis continued as he climbed out of the boat and finished pulling it in halfway up the beach where he tied the line.

    "I'm saying it now," Nell said.

    "You don't go out alone.

    Never. You don't go out there unless a grownup is here.

    Is that plain?"

    He shrugged. It was a lifting of one shoulder, a slight movement with his left hand, exactly the way his father always shrugged. More and more often Nell saw Lucas in her son. Right now he was studying her surreptitiously, the way Lucas used to do, to gauge her mood, to test her anger. Dark curly hair, brown eyes, dexterity, these were the products of her genes; his lithe and long body, the expressions that crossed his face, his gestures, those were his legacy from his father.

    He finished his evaluation of her mood and grinned widely at her.

    "What did you shoot, anyway?"

    "A beer can. Come on, let's get up to the house." As they walked, she slipped her arm across his shoulders and told him about the men who had come to cut down the fir tree. No way would she tell him about the body in the river; he would learn about that all too soon. It occurred to her quite abruptly that she was under siege. Strangers coming to cut down her trees. Bodies appearing in her river, and thank God Travis hadn't seen that. She knew now that he had not. He would have been unable to conceal his excitement, maybe even a touch of fear. And Lucas was in the state again. Just two days ago his parents had called to tell her: Lucas was back. She realized she was holding the rifle stock so hard her hand was aching.

    FIVE

    when nell and Travis entered the house, the phone was ringing. She answered, and Travis went out the front door to get the library books. Nell's daughter, Carol, was on the line, pleading to be allowed to stay at her friend's house for a cookout. Michele's mother would bring her home by ten. After speaking with Michele's mother, Nell said sure. She hung up as Travis came tearing in to announce that he was going to go with James Gresham to look at a sick pig; he needed his sweatshirt for later. Standing behind him was James, who was a veterinarian, and Nell's tenant. James was a tall black man, very dark, soft-spoken, and at the moment he was smiling broadly as he listened to Travis inform his mother about his plans.

    "I asked him," James said, standing at the open door.

    "We'll stop on the way home for a burger, if that's okay.

    Tawna has a class tonight. A guy's gotta eat, all that."

    After a moment she nodded.

    "But you keep out of the way, Travis. You do exactly what James tells you. Where is the patient?" she asked James then. Travis was already pounding up the stairs for his sweatshirt.

    James told her, nearly all the way in to Eugene, thirty miles.

    "I'm going over to Doc's to take Jessica her books," Nell said.

    "If I'm not here when you get back, will you keep Travis at your house for a while?"

    "You bet. No problem."

    Travis returned, panting, sweating, dragging a sweatshirt on the floor behind him.

    "Will you have to cut the pig open? Can I see the guts?" He waved to Nell casually and walked out with James to the station wagon, listening intently to what James was telling him.

    Now, at five-thirty, Nell walked through the woods, around the monolithic rock, on a trail that was hardly even perceptible, to the Burchard house. Nell and Doc were the only two who used the trail regularly, except for Travis, who managed to cover all the woods around here. But Travis cared little if there was a trail. Nell picked her way among exposed roots, over a mossy trunk, skirted a vigorous, newly sprouted poison oak vine, and then paused when Doc's house came into view. If houses were cars, she thought, hers would be a Model-T, and Doc's a Ferrari.

    It was boomerang-shaped, with the leading edge facing the river so that every room had a river view either due south or to the west.

    From now until the sun went down was the best time of day at Doc's house. He and Jessica would be out front on the deck, where they spent much of their time together.

    They would be facing south, and later, very gradually, they would shift until they were facing west, paying homage to the sunset, completing a slow dance. Nell was in no hurry to join them. Jessica would be avid for details of what she had seen at Turner's Point, who had done what, who had been there. Nell shifted the books from one arm to the other, and leaned against an alder. Her gaze had not lingered on the house but on the river, which had been hidden by the thick woods until this point. No boats were in sight, but they wouldn't be, not upstream. Had they found that girl's body yet? She shuddered at the thought of dragging a body through the water to shore, over the rocks, over submerged logs.. .. She bit her lip and shook her head, trying to clear away the image.

    Finally she gave the alder a pat and started to walk again.

    It seemed very strange to her that alders peeled the way they did, exposing a polished red, hard core under the pale bark. Like blood, she thought, and began to walk faster.

    Doc must have been watching for her. He hurried out as she emerged from the woods, and there behind the house, he drew her to him and kissed her.

    "You were down there today? It must have been awful for you. Are you all right?"

    "Okay," she said, her voice muffled against his chest.

    She breathed in the good, sharp smell that always clung to him. After a moment she pulled back, stood on her toes, and kissed him swiftly.

    "We'd better go on. I can't stay very long."

    He stroked her hair, then reluctantly let her go. They' began to walk side by side.

    He was a slender man of forty-three, with narrow shoulders and long, narrow fingers. His hair was thinning, touched with gray at the temples; his face was very an gular. He would be one of those cadaverous old men you sometimes see, she had said once, laughing, running her finger over a sharp rib. He walked with a quick, restless energy everything he did was with the same swift motions that became almost jerky, except when he was with a patient; then it was as if he shifted into a different gear altogether: His movements became fluid, his manner contemplative even leisurely. She had met him as a patient and later had been very surprised to discover this second man coiled tightly behind that serene mask.