Part 8 (1/2)

A logger with a furry beard punched a beardless logger who wore a plaid coat and in short order bottles were flying and teeth as well. The jug band upped the tempo and the lead man yowled a tune about a bad person named Black Bill coming into the hollow to rape the goats and carry off the women-folk. A fire started near the bar and Mich.e.l.le and Don took the opportunity to split.

All in all, Don thought as he revved the motor and burned rubber out of the parking lot, a typical evening abroad with his dear wife. He didn't allow himself to contemplate the trouble she got into when wasn't around to whisk her away.

He took a wrong turn and they lost two hours before stopping at a mill and getting directions from the fellow who was locking the place down. Don shouldered the blame with as much self-deprecatory grace as he could muster. Mich.e.l.le kissed his cheek and said nothing. At times during their journey she was entirely present and focused on him with the heated intensity he recalled from their courts.h.i.+p in school; at other moments she drifted miles away and was hardly with him in the car.

b.u.mpy blacktop road unwound before their headlights. A lonely night in the mountains; moonless, starless. The heat had dissipated with sunset. Mist rolled across the fields and through the trees and boiled in the ditches and conjured images of cloaked highwaymen and wolves howling on Scottish moors.

Don switched off the radio and pushed in the k.n.o.b of the dashboard lighter. He stuck a Gauloises cigarette into the corner of his mouth while he waited. He'd tried to quit since Sputnik with intermittent success. Recently, Mich.e.l.le had brought home a knapsack of brunes direct from Paris. ”It's dark-dark,” he said. ”Anything could be out there on a night like this.”

”What? Why do you say that?” Mich.e.l.le pulled the collar of her jacket tighter. ”Good lord, it was roasting an hour ago. Now it's practically winter.”

”We're getting pretty high.”

”How I wish. I wasn't going to tell you. But...” She rummaged in the glove box and came forth with a baggie. She expertly rolled a joint and had herself a toke. ”Don't you touch that window and whisk away my lovely fumes, Donald Miller, or I'll break your f.u.c.king arm.”

He sighed and released the handle as blue exhaust clouds swam before his eyes.

She said in a deep, rasping tone, ”Good kitty.”

”Excuse me?”

”What do you mean 'anything can happen'?”

”Just look. Might as well be in the Dark Ages, baby-”

”Don't call me baby, baby.”

”Okay. Here we are in the countryside at night in the middle of even Daniel-Boone-wouldn't-know-the-h.e.l.l-where. Peasants locked in their cottages, windows shuttered. That's how we lived for centuries. Huddled around fires, listening to the howls from the wilderness.”

”Take a ride with me into the non Anglo-world one of these days. Business as usual for a lot of folks.”

”Kinda my point. Baby. The night hasn't changed. It's the same as it was a hundred years ago. A thousand.” He didn't enjoy how the headlights seemed dim and yellow against the dark and the fog. The dashboard panel flickered ominously. It was a quarter past eleven. The lighter popped and he pressed its glowing coil to the tip of his cigarette. Despite, or because of, the pleasant fuzzy aftertaste of whiskey in his mouth, he wanted a drink; a single malt scotch, cooking sherry, shoe polish, anything. Nerves did that to him-excited his desire for booze and smokes. ”How'd the Wolvertons get so rich? How come Paul and Naomi don't brag about this relative?”

”They aren't braggarts, dear. It's the kind of clan where having a job as a banker is hopelessly plebian. Wolvertons aren't supposed to work, they're supposed to lounge around and admire their statuary. The original fortune was made by the family industrialists. Big wheels during the late nineteenth century. This was their bolt hole from civilization.”

”Railroads? Bombs? A zeppelin manufacturing company?”

”Rivets and doork.n.o.bs. The family died out, mostly. There's only a couple of them left. The guy who owns the property is one. He doesn't do anything. Lives in South America, or something. Rents the mansion out for tours and special events. They shot a movie on the estate last year. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls rip-off.” Mich.e.l.le coughed and waved her hand to clear the air. ”Aww, d.a.m.n. That's enough of that. Go ahead, and get some air in here.”

”You promise not to hurt me?”

”Never mind. You bruise easily. Just drive.” She lighted a cigarette and cracked her window. The wind whistled eerily. ”Ha! Funny you should mention it, but yeah, they made parts for zeppelins too. On the side.”

”No kidding?”

”I think it was a short-lived venture. I didn't do much research on that angle.”

Don tapped the wheel and frowned. ”I read something about that house. d.a.m.n it...a bunch of murders.”

”The place has a b.l.o.o.d.y history. One of the Wolvertons got p.i.s.sed outta his gourd and shotgunned the gardener back in the 1920s. There was a jealous mistress and a hatchet murder around World War Two-”

”This was more recent. The past couple of decades for sure. And a high body count.”

”You're thinking of that bloodbath in Amityville. Guy slaughtered his family in that big old house.”

”I'm not feeble, woman. Recent, but not last year.”

”Huh. It's possible, I suppose. After what I've seen I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Lizzie Borden style ma.s.sacre on the Wolverton property at some point.”

”Oh. It sounds lovely. That black book got anything about a kitten torturing festival? We could hit that next.”

Her eyes were large and dark. She placed her hand on his thigh.

They emerged into a stretch of field in a ma.s.sive, glacier-dug valley. With the fog and darkness pressing against the windows, it felt little different than the previous tunnels of forest. A moment later the road curved and they were in the firs again. Don resisted the urge to press harder on the pedal. Already the car floated as if unmoored from the pavement. If a deer jumped into his path, he'd never have time to brake.

He said, ”My dad hit a deer with our truck once. I was a tyke. I hate driving in this weather.”

”Want me to take over for a while?”

Don remembered how erratically his wife drove, and shuddered. ”No, no. That wasn't a hint. Just thinking aloud.”

Their weekend tour of the Wolverton estate might be the very thing to kick-start his ambition, galvanize a final push to completing the cursed book.

Don glanced sidelong at his wife, taking in her ”civilization camouflage” as she called it: bouffant hair and hoop earrings, lots of eye shadow, a slinky dress, heels, all a far cry from the pith helmet, mosquito netting, pants and hiking boots that often comprised her field attire. A strong, lean woman, Mich.e.l.le appeared much as she had during college. She wore the same yellow-tinted starlet gla.s.ses day or night, the same indistinct perfume from the same unlabeled bottle.

She said, ”There should be an intersection in a mile or so. Go right. It's about fifteen miles after that-the place is above the snow line. Too bad we got such a late start. d.a.m.ned thing is mostly over by now. There was a fancy dinner and a slide show.”

”A slide show!” He chose not to remind her that the reception was to be spread over the entire weekend. Very likely the mind-numbing biopic of Plimpton and his life poking and prodding surly country folk to get access to their burial grounds was yet to come. At least there'd be a boatload of free booze to dull the pain.

”Hmm, yes... So I'm mistaken that your eyes glaze when I show mine to my friends from the inst.i.tute?”

”I'm a victim of bad lighting. Not to mention a bit gla.s.sy-eyed by nature.”

The intersection was a T illuminated by a blinking amber caution light that seemed a forlorn reminder of civilization here among miles of peaks and evergreen forests. Don turned right and continued along a steadily ascending grade. Except for his impulsive adventure on the Yukon he hadn't strayed far from the suburbs for what had it been? Five, maybe six years? So, not only had he lapsed into the role of prune-dry fuddy-duddy with the sense of adventure G.o.d gave a stick, he'd slipped into a sedentary routine like a foot into a comfortable old boot. G.o.ds, the crow's feet around his eyes and the softness of his belly weren't just cosmetic; atrophy was spreading throughout the entire mechanism. Das.h.i.+ng Don the Caver out to pasture with nary a whinny of protest. This gloomy realization heightened the sense of mystery and danger plaguing him since Mich.e.l.le plucked that skinny black book off the tourist shop rack.

Despite that warning in the back of his skull, he did as he'd become accustomed and followed Mich.e.l.le's marching orders, cliffs be d.a.m.ned.

And he laughed ruefully a few minutes later to see that the Wolverton Mansion indeed perched upon a cliff. The cliff overlooked a swath of forest and the rocky sandbars of a shallow river. The house was a truly palatial cabin hewn from ma.s.sive timber, huge as the wood and rock castle of a Viking lord. Don recognized it instantly from his recollection of at least a half dozen exterior shots in low budget films, although its majesty deserved the cinematographic genius of an artist such as Bergman.

He was surprised to see a handful of smartly dressed guests standing around the colonnaded porch, drinks in hand, sweaters drawn up to their chins. The double doors were open and warm light from a chandelier illuminated their faces, rendered their figures soft around the edges in a bloom effect.

A valet trotted over and took the keys. The young man pulled the car down a side drive and disappeared into well-groomed ranks of hedges. Don breathed in the bitter pre-dawn air. Mich.e.l.le winked at him and moved toward the congregation. Their footsteps crunched on the gravel and Don had a vision of a carpet of dried yellow finger bones snapping beneath his shoes.

Mich.e.l.le introduced him to a man in a turtleneck-Connor Wolverton himself. He was a few years younger than Paul with a full head of black hair, the crow's feet just beginning to set in around his eyes. He smelled of good whiskey and fir needles and his entire demeanor was that of Christopher Lee welcoming victims to his castle. Don hated guys in turtlenecks. Guys in turtlenecks reminded him of the ivy tower princelings who'd lorded it over their domains during college years. Middle-age had tenderized him in many ways, but it hadn't dampened his fire-hot antipathy for preppie a.s.sholes.

Connor said, ”Ah, you made it! Paul was getting worried. These roads are h.e.l.l at night. One of my boys will come around to escort you to your rooms. Meanwhile, permit me to show you a much more important feature of Wolverton Mansion.” He led the way through a foyer with a ceiling that vaulted to imposing heights and into a drawing room. He left them at the bar with a bartender in a white tuxedo. Mich.e.l.le handed Don a Canadian Club and clinked gla.s.ses hard and the liquor splashed onto his fingers.

Standing there near the bar, slightly apart from his wife, Don watched guests trickle in to refresh their drinks. He inclined his head toward Mich.e.l.le and said, ”How many guests are there anyway?”

She sidled closer and hooked her arm with his. ”I don't know the roster. Not many. Twenty, twenty-five. It's an exclusive club.”