Nightlight (9 page)

“It's probably pretty at other times of the year.”

“Give me the map!” He stopped the car, and wrenched the handbrake into position. “We have to cross a bridge. The cabin is just beyond that.”

“I could have told you that.”

“I'm sorry. I just can't believe this.”

Lise accepted the map with a slightly hurt expression. “I'll tell you how we're doing. Just keep driving.”

Paul released the brake. “I can't help feeling we're lost.”

The road had slumped away at some points, and Paul had to maneuver the car over rocks, until the road resumed. At last a creek roared under a bridge of hairy logs and pale, gray planks.

“We should be there,” said Lise, as the car rattled across the bridge.

Paul got out of the car. Redwoods shivered in the wind, and redwood needles had turned the ground tobacco-brown as far as he could see. The road ended, abruptly, after the bridge. Paul understood that this was the end of the journey, but he could see no cabin. He could see no sign of human beings at all.

He untangled a nylon raincoat, put it on, and huffed his way up a long slope through the redwood trees. The trees pattered the ground with gentle drops of water, as the heavy rain filtered its way through them, becoming peaceful. There was great quiet, except for the sound of the drops of water padding on the needle-carpeted ground.

When he saw it, he stood, amazed. A small cabin, built of round, gray stones. Dark windows stared out at him, and the chimney was a lifeless stump. Paul backed away from it, until a tree nudged him from behind.

He ran down the slope, back to the car.

“Did you see him?” Lise asked, pulling on her raincoat.

Paul picked up his suitcase, and gathered a load of groceries under his arm. “No.” But he added quickly, “I didn't really go up to it. I didn't want to leave you alone in the car.”

“Can't we drive any closer?”

“No. It's surrounded by trees.”

They walked, each carrying a load, through the dripping water. “It's beautiful!” she said when she saw it. “Such a charming cabin. I'm so glad it's not built of logs. And that it's not one of those hideous A-frames.”

“Built of native stone,” Paul said. The words sounded cheering, somehow.

Lise deposited her suitcase on the front step. “It's really fairly large, when you get up to it. Look, it has a second story.”

Paul tried the door, which did not even creak, it was so firmly locked. He drew back his hand. What disturbed him was that he had not bothered to knock. Without thinking, he had assumed the place was empty. And there was something else he had not bothered to think about: there was no other car.

“I don't think he's here,” said Lise.

“I don't think so either,” said Paul, fishing the key from his pocket. He slipped the key into the slot, but did not turn it at once.

“Hurry. We can't stand out here in the rain all afternoon.”

He turned the key, and the door opened silently.

There was a tangle of half-burned logs in the blackened fireplace. A deer head thrust from the wood-paneled wall above a disheveled sofa. Newspapers were scattered across the floor, and a hatchet was sunk deep into a block of wood.

“It's cold in here,” said Lise. Their breath made wisps of vapor before them.

“I'll build a fire,” said Paul. He stood before the fireplace. It was a source of great cold. He knelt, and crumpled a sheet of newspaper. The date in the corner was weeks past. He wadded the paper tightly, and found some scraps of blond wood to thrust under the charred logs.

The act of lighting the newspaper with a wooden match released some tension in him. He watched the fire spill across the newspaper, and pause like a living thing at the first shard of wood. The wood shrank, and a bright flame rose like a blade from its heart.

“It will be much cheerier when that gets going,” he said.

“Oh, I think it's very cheery as it is. Cozy, even. We'll have a little vacation out here in the woods, where no one in the world can bother us.”

“Why not?” Paul was eager for the solitude, and now that a fire snapped in the fireplace, he felt the absence of his cousin much less.

“It's a large kitchen,” he called. “Propane stove. Big and black, maybe a modified wood-burner.” Water burst from the tap. “Good water pressure.” He shook a tin of oregano, and stopped.

On the table, beside an empty cup, was a camera. He stood over it for a long while before he could touch it. It was cold, as was everything else. And heavy. Paul knew nothing about cameras, but it seemed expensive. He held it like a gun, and put it down gingerly.

He opened the small refrigerator. A single can of beer remained in the plastic loops of a six-pack. A jar of mustard. Some frozen dinners in the freezer. Paul closed the door quickly.

“It's warm!” said Lise happily, her back against the fireplace. “You make a good fire.”

“We have to do something unpleasant,” said Paul.

Her expression grew serious when she saw his look. “What's the matter?”

“We have to do something maybe even horrible.”

“What on earth?”

“I don't think Len is gone.”

“Of course he's gone.”

Paul shook his head.

“He's not here. No car, no nothing. What are you talking about?”

“There's a camera in the kitchen. One of those expensive Leicas. He wouldn't leave a piece of equipment like that.”

“I might.”

“No, you wouldn't. And if you did, you'd come back for it.”

“What are you saying?”

Paul did not speak.

“He's gone. He's not here.”

Paul looked up, at the ceiling. “I'm looking upstairs.” He did not move at once, but waited, he did not know for what.

“This isn't funny,” said Lise. “I don't know what's the matter with you.”

Paul put his hand on a hand-hewn banister. A step accepted his weight without creaking.

“Stop creeping around, for Christ's sake,” said Lise, crossing her arms. “You're jumping to conclusions.”

Paul took the steps slowly. “I don't jump to conclusions,” he said.

All the doors opened onto the landing. He touched the first doorknob, which was icy. The door revealed an expanse of green linoleum, and a sloppily arrayed throw rug, the sort of fabric that reminded Paul of tripe.

He hooked a finger and slowly drew back the gray shower curtain. A tube of shampoo. A rust-freckled drain grill. A washcloth folded neatly over a rail, and a bar of green soap. A toothbrush waited on the sink, beside a tube of toothpaste with its cap on tight.

Paul could not breathe. He opened the cabinet, and had to touch the razor to be certain that it was really there.

He leaned against the wall, unable to take the next step. He regretted accepting this errand of responsibility, this kindness to a favorite aunt. Move, he commanded himself. Do what you have to do.

The bedroom was tidy. A bed was made neatly, and an assortment of books was lined across the dresser. Paperbacks, mostly. Books about photography, and books of paintings by Monet and Turner. Art criticism. The sort of books a person would enjoy having nearby, without looking at them very often.

Clothes hung in the closet. Wool shirts, and jeans which had been neatly ironed. A pair of hiking boots gaped beside a pair of slippers. He glanced under the bed.

The bedroom opposite was a naked place. An army cot had been set up in the corner, and the closet was empty, except for a single metal hanger, which hung from its hook like a thing that was not really there, an abstraction of an idea, a mathematical proof. Paul touched it, and it swung back and forth without a sound.

“I looked in the downstairs bedroom,” Lise called from the stairs.

She backed down the steps when she saw the look in Paul's eyes.

Paul was silent.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“He's not here,” he said.

She relaxed against the banister. “You frightened me!”

“But there's something wrong. His toothbrush, his toothpaste. Everything is here.”

“He went for a walk. He'll be back soon.”

“Maybe.” Paul hurried into the downstairs bedroom, eager to be reassured. A photographer's tripod gleamed in the middle of the room, and a cassette tape recorder sat in the center of a card table. A microphone poised on a stand, pointed upward, toward the center of the ceiling. On a table in the corner gleamed a gray metal box with a padlock.

“I hate this room most of all,” he said. “This equipment. This presence of interrupted activity.”

“You're getting on my nerves, Paul. I don't know where he is, but this is a cozy place, and I am going to spend a few days here, curled up with a book in front of the fireplace. That's what we wanted to do, cousin or no cousin. I'm glad he's not here. It's romantic.”

Paul sighed.

“We'll wait here for him,” she continued. “He'll turn up. Or else he won't. Maybe he and his lover went for a fling in Reno.”

“I think he was alone.”

“So, he got tired of being alone and went in search of companionship. Wouldn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And if you went away for a couple of days, you'd leave your cameras, wouldn't you?”

Paul shrugged. “Probably.”

“We'll stay in the guest bedroom upstairs.”

“It's only a cot.”

“Oh, that's awkward.”

“Anyway, it's a cold room. I mean, forbidding as well as chilly. We could sleep right here, in front of the fire.”

“That would be wonderful. Look.” She wrestled the cushions off the sofa. The piece of furniture groaned, and a mattress sprang from it, as Paul jumped away. “A sofa bed!”

“Wonderful,” Paul muttered.

“Probably the first sofa bed ever manufactured, from the look of it. It smells musty. The fire will warm it up. Isn't it romantic?”

“It is indeed,” Paul said, smiling with effort.

He stirred the fire with the poker.

12

There was no question about it. The cabin was romantic, and cozy, and he was happy to be standing, looking into the fire. But he found himself remembering things he had forgotten. Fragments, scraps of nightmares, fairy tales, closet doors that had to be closed before he could sleep.

It was ridiculous. He was a grown man, and he did not like feeling uneasy for no apparent reason. But he found himself remembering his one brush with horror. He had been a grown man then, too, a fledgling reporter.

Ham had assigned him to it: an exhumation.

“And we want details,” Ham had said. “Not just pathos. We want to know all about it. If he's wearing a pinkie ring, we want to know about it.”

Paul had driven in a daze, repeating the word to himself:
exhumation
.

A highway was being cut across the old Hanford estate, and a grave was in the way. This distinguished pioneer was being removed, to be reburied in Sacramento. All that had made sense, the way things generally did in a world which was, to a young reporter, pretty chaotic. What did not make sense was that Paul would have to watch them do it.

He parked his car at the appointed hillside, and introduced himself to a man named Franklin. Franklin worked for the county. He was an engineer, an expert on soils, including percolation tests for mineral content, if Paul understood him. “I am also,” said Franklin, “by default, their head grave man.”

The grave itself was marked by a headstone that was disfigured with splotches of lichen.

“And Skip here, he's a pretty fair hand with a backhoe.” He indicated a young freckled man sitting without expression or apparent interest atop a yellow, earth-spattered tractor.

The engine had started, and the backhoe had flexed. And Paul had thought, trying to steady himself: Maybe it won't be so bad.

“What we want,” Franklin called to Skip, “is to pull this stone out of the way.”

The engine coughed. A black plume scattered in the wind. The mechanical claw jerked, unfolding through the air. It creaked, and stopped. The steel tubes that worked it telescoped in and out of themselves as the claw flexed.

When it was warmed up, the claw lowered in abrupt stages to the earth. It sawed back and forth, then lifted again. It fell with a thump, and the engine poured bruise-colored smoke into the wind.

“Can't you work it any better than that?” Franklin called.

The backhoe kid frowned.

“This is pathetic,” called Franklin.

Skip's lips were tight. The ground trembled with the heavy rumble of the engine, and the arm squeaked as it lifted and fell again, working on the grass like a horse too weak to bite. The claw jumped into the air, and creaked up and down while the young man worked levers topped with black knobs. The serrated teeth of the scoop thudded into the ground, and with a rip a scoop of sod separated from the grass.

The claw hesitated. “Over there!” called Franklin.

A small amount of grass and dirt sprinkled onto the field. “Very good,” called Franklin. “Now, what we want to do is pull the stone out of the way.”

The claw crashed into the stone. Steel clanged against granite, and then jerked back and upward, as if injured. A white scar gouged the lichen.

Franklin bunched his fists. The claw trembled its way to the headstone and nudged it. The stone did not move. The engine rumbled, and the arm squealed. The stone moved, in the wrong direction, as if fighting the machine.

“Good,” called Franklin. “You got it loose.”

The claw drew back, and the headstone fell over, exposing a white, jagged root.

“Terrific,” said Franklin. “Real, real good. Now you want to more or less push it along the ground there.”

When the stone had been pushed, Franklin stepped to the hole it had left, and bent to peer into it. “They seated that thing in there pretty good, didn't they?”