Go With Me (13 page)

“Nothing,” said Coop. “I don’t make nothing of it. Wingate didn’t know Scotty wouldn’t be going with her. He didn’t know Scotty wouldn’t be here.”

“Didn’t he?” said Whizzer.

Lester stopped. “We’re getting close,” he said. “You two wait here a minute. I’ll go on up to the corner there and take a little look.”

He went ahead up the track, carrying his parcel under his arm. He disappeared around a bend. Lillian and Nate stood in the trail. The long afternoon quickened its pace as the sun, white, then yellow, then gold, fell steadily toward the hills. Now the dips in the trail were in shadow.

Lillian sat down in the grass beside the trail. Nate stood. He looked down at Lillian, looked away. He was bouncing gently on the balls of his feet, pacing, restless. They had walked three miles over broken ground, and Nate couldn’t stand still. Lillian was all in. Her side hurt, her ankles hurt. Her clothes stuck to her. She pushed her damp hair back behind her ears with her fingers. She looked up at Nate.

“Take it easy,” said Lillian. “Rest. What’s the matter with you?”

“Who?”

“You. Dancing around. Relax. Here, sit down.” Lillian patted the ground beside her.

“I’ll stand,” said Nate.

Lillian looked up at him. “Rowena, huh?” she asked. “Rowena what?”

“She ain’t my girlfriend,” said Nate.

“Lester thinks she is.”

“Les don’t know everything.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Whose?”

“Rowena’s.”

“Pinto,” said Nate.

“Rowena Pinto,” said Lillian. “Are you going to get married?”

“Who?”

Lillian shook her head. She kept on shaking it. She began to laugh. She began, and then she couldn’t stop.

“What’s the matter?” Nate asked her.

“Nothing,” said Lillian. She went on laughing.

“Yeah, well, cut it out,” said Nate. “You sound like that one at the High Line.”

“I know,” she said. “I know I do.”

“Come on, now,” said Nate.

Gasping, Lillian let her laughter trickle away. It ran out of her like the last water runs out of a drain. This was not going to work.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” Lillian said.

“What?” asked Nate.

Lilllian shook her head. Blackway rose before her like a dark wall, he watched her. He broke Kevin like a pencil. He blew Kevin out like a birthday candle. He erased him. What had Kevin looked like? Lillian couldn’t remember. Blackway filled the rear of her little car with shattered glass, he caught her little cat in his hands and held her as she struggled. He took what he wanted, he did what he wanted. Nobody could stop him. Nate was big, but size wasn’t enough. And anyway, Nate belonged to Rowena Pinto, didn’t he? Nate and Rowena would marry. Of course they would. They weren’t like her. They would marry and start making babies, and all of them would be boys, every one of them; even the girls would be boys. You couldn’t get away from it. You couldn’t. If you tried, there was Blackway. Tears stood on Lillian’s cheeks. She brushed them away with her fingers.

“Are you okay?” Nate was asking her.

Lillian sniffed. She had stopped laughing, she had stopped crying. “I’m okay,” she said.

“Here’s Les,” said Nate.

Lillian looked up the trail where Lester came around the bend and approached them. He was limping worse than he had been earlier, and he leaned on a branch he had cut for a staff. Lillian watched him. Nate and Rowena’s boys would grow up and get old and soon they would be all shot. They would be like Lester and like the broken-down, cackling old clowns who sat around the mill all day, cracking one another up, and farting, and scratching their useless crotches. They didn’t like her. They didn’t like her hair, they didn’t like her mouth. They didn’t like anything about her. They had sent her out here with a sixth-grade dropout and a senior citizen who could hardly walk. They wouldn’t be her protectors, even if they could. None of them would. This thing was not going to work.

“I’m okay,” Lillian said again.

“Come on, Whiz,” said Coop. “You’re telling me Wingate had this whole thing down? He knew Scotty wasn’t going to be here when that girl came? He knew Les and Nate were? He knew you’d have them go with her?”

“You said it,” said Whizzer. “Not me.”

“You don’t believe that,” said Coop.

“Don’t I?” said Whizzer. “Well, maybe I don’t. Maybe I do. But I’ll tell you something else: Wingate knows plenty. You fellows don’t give Wingate much credit. He’s not so dumb.”

“Ain’t he?” asked Coop. “He fooled me.”

“Maybe he did, at that,” said Whizzer. “You wouldn’t be the first. You ever played cards with Wingate?”

“Cards?” Coop asked.

“This young fellow remembers,” Whizzer said, grinning at D.B. “Don’t you?”

D.B. was chuckling and shaking his head. “Like it was yesterday,” he said. “Like it was this morning. I never did know what that was all about, though, did you? Did Wingate really have that thing fixed?”

“You can take it to the bank,” said Whizzer. “Have what thing fixed?” Conrad asked.

Lester beckoned to them. “Come ahead,” he said. “It’s right around the corner.”

“What is?” Lillian asked.

“Blackway’s,” said Lester.

“Is he there?” Lillian asked.

“Nobody’s there,” Lester said.

“Listen, Lester —” Lillian began. Lester didn’t hear.

“We’ll wait for him,” said Lester. “It works fine. I’d rather him walk in on us than us on him. Come ahead.”

“Wait a minute,” said Lillian. But Lester had turned off the trail with Nate following. Lillian had no choice. She went after them.

Past the bend, the trail ran downhill into a shallow bowl in the mountains. On the right, the woods; on the left, a large barren, one of the old sawmill tailings, covering a couple of acres with a desert of packed sawdust: brown, hot, drifted into peaks and hummocks, practically void of growth except for a few weeds, a few tough dry stalks that hung on here and there, stirring in the little wind that passed over the waste.

“What’s this?” Lillian asked.

“This was Boyd’s Job,” said Lester. “There were fifty men working in here. First work I ever had was here — first work in the woods. Right after the war.”

“What’s that?” Lillian asked. She pointed across the clearing.

“That’s Blackway’s,” said Lester.

Standing in a far corner of the barren ground was a house — in reality not a house, but an old bus, painted sky blue, without wheels, sitting down on its axles in the sawdust. Some of the windows were covered with plywood, and a stovepipe came out of one of them.

“It looks like a school bus,” said Lillian.

“It is a school bus,” said Lester. “They brought it in for a bunkhouse. That was after my time.”

“They brought it here?” Lillian asked. “How? They didn’t drive it. How did they get it in here?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” said Lester. “Boyd didn’t do it. He was all done by then. Nobody’s logged in here in twenty years. More than that. It’s Blackway’s now.”

They left the trail and crossed the waste toward the bus. The sawdust was peculiar underfoot: soft and silent, but unmarked. They might have been walking on a bed. They might have been walking on the surface of the moon.

At the bus, Lester pushed open the doors and went up the steps past the driver’s seat. Lillian followed him. Entering the bus, she paused. The rows of passengers’ seats had been removed, and the rear two-thirds of the interior was taken up by three ranks of double-deck bunk beds hung on frames built of two-by-sixes. Forward of the bunks a wood-burning stove made from a fiftyfive-gallon drum with the pipe let out one of the side windows. Between the stove and the driver’s seat, in front, a small kitchen table and a single lawn chair, and on the table, an old railroad lantern painted red. The place was warm and close, smelling of sour ashes from the stove and, faintly, of kerosene.

Lester had come up ahead of Lillian. He was looking over the bunks. A sleeping bag lay on one of them; the others were nothing but bare plywood platforms without mattresses or blankets. An old double-bitted ax leaned in one corner. There was nothing else. Blackway was by himself in there.

“Don’t much go in for housekeeping, does he?” said Lester.

“Is it really his place?” asked Lillian. “How do we know it is?”

“It’s his,” said Lester. “Or if it ain’t, we’ll find out soon enough.”

“How?” asked Lillian. “We just sit in here and wait for him?”

“Not in here,” said Lester. He turned to the door.

“Wait a minute —” Lillian began again. But Lester had left the bus and was outside looking over the ground before and behind it. The sun was nearly down on the mountain ridges to the west. It sank into a broad, tranquil bay of low cloud suffused with vermillion, scarlet, and rose. Long shadows advanced from the hillocks of sawdust, darted from the surrounding woods. The windows of the bus flashed and flared with the final light. The farthest hills, blue, turned purple, then gray, then black.

“We’ll need a fire,” said Lester. He dug in his pocket and came out with a book of matches, which he handed to Nate. “Make a good one,” Lester told him. “Keep it going.”

Before the door of the bus was a fire ring of blackened stones. A small pile of wood stood beside it, with a camp grill on legs, and a camp teapot nearby.

“What’s the sense of that?” Lillian asked him. “He’ll see it. He’ll know somebody’s here.”

“That’s right,” said Lester. To Nate he said, “You best get more wood.”

“Wait, Lester.” Lillian stopped him. “Just wait a minute, okay? We can’t do this. This isn’t going to work.”

Lester turned to her. “No?” he said.

“No,” said Lillian. “It won’t work. We need to get out of here.”

“Can’t,” said Lester.

“What do you mean, can’t?” Lillian demanded. “Why can’t we? Nobody’s here. We turn around and leave.”

“No,” said Lester. “We told you back there: We’re down onto it. We’ve passed over. Now we got to go through.”

“Why?” Lillian asked. “Because we took Blackway’s keys? So what? We’ll put them back. He won’t know.”

Lester looked at her.

“How will he know?” Lillian asked. “Are you saying he knows already? Are you saying he’s coming now?”

“Go ahead,” Lester said to Nate. “Get the wood.” Lester had leaned his parcel against the bus when they went inside. Now he picked it up and turned to go.

“Wait,” said Lillian. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“Don’t know for sure,” said Lester. “Not far.”

Nate started walking toward the trees to find more wood.

“This is another trick, isn’t it?” Lillian asked Lester.

“This ain’t another trick,” Lester told her. “This is the last trick. After this, I’m all out of tricks. This one’s it. You better hope it works.”

He left her.

Someone had taken one of the old passengers’ seats from the bus and placed it before the fire ring. Lillian sat and waited for Nate to come back with the wood. Lester had disappeared around one of the sawdust hills. It was growing darker. Lillian was alone. She looked around her, above, behind. She got up and went to the corner of the bus. She peeped around the corner. Then she returned to the seat. The shadows spread, joined, the daylight departed. A single big star hung in the darkening sky over the black mountain rim. Lillian sat. She hugged herself and rocked back and forth a little. She waited for Nate.

Blackway was coming. Was he there already, in the woods, watching her right now? No. But he was close. Lillian could feel him nearby, she could feel him as a current of cold wet air off a brook or pool. Blackway was coming, and Nate and Lester couldn’t, they wouldn’t, get out of his way. They had to go through. Blackway held her little cat in his hands and left her on the step like a bloody rag. He was coming, and when he’d gone over Nate and Lester and nobody was left but Lillian, what would he do then?

Lillian held herself more tightly and looked into the fire.

Nate returned dragging a little dead fir tree, the whole thing. He dropped it beside the fire ring. Then he went into the bus and came out with the ax. He began hewing branches off the fir. With Lester’s matches, he soon had a fire. As it caught and grew, the light failed entirely, and the night closed around them like a great dark hand.

“What’s going to happen when he comes?” Lillian asked.

Nate stood before the fire and stared into the flames. His eyes didn’t move, didn’t blink. He didn’t answer.

“Nate?” Lillian asked.

“Yo?”

“What happens when he comes?”

“Les?”

“Blackway.”

Nate continued to gaze into the fire. He shrugged.

“I ain’t afraid of Blackway,” he said.

Lillian shook her head. “You keep on saying that,” she said. “Sit down here, why don’t you?”

“I’ll stand,” Nate said. He raised his eyes from the fire and looked at Lillian. He grinned.

“I ain’t afraid of Blackway,” said Nate. “But since Les ain’t here, I’ll tell you I won’t be sorry when this is over.”

“Come on,” said Lillian. “Sit.” She patted the seat beside her.

“I don’t mind,” said Nate.

“Poker game,” said Whizzer. “Five, six of us used to get together: D.B., myself, Wingate, whoever else was around.”

“Wingate was a regular, though,” said D.B. “In fact, we mostly played at his place.”

“Here, too,” said Whizzer.

“But mainly at Wingate’s,” said D.B. “He rented a room at the old hotel in those days.”

“Where was that?” Conrad asked.

“Right there on the edge of town,” D.B. said. “Place that’s the candle shop now. Wingate had a room in the back. We went there to play more than here.”

“Wingate had a better table,” said Whizzer. “And then, the hotel had a bar, so while you were playing you could order up a bunch of cold beers or a bottle of something to keep you sharp. It was more comfortable. Not everybody enjoys sitting around in here all day and all night.”

“Don’t they?” asked Coop. “Who doesn’t?”

“Anyway,” said D.B. “We’d play poker at Wingate’s. And one night there was this guy who used to sit in who thought he was something of a card shark.”

“Lucky Jim,” said Whizzer.

“Thought he was pretty cute,” said D.B. “And he was, sort of. He knew the games. He knew the odds. He usually came out ahead. We called him Lucky Jim.”