The Empty Warrior (10 page)

“The city was growing out toward the farm pretty quickly; it had been for a long time. There were neighborhoods, expensive neighborhoods, springing up around us even before I left for Nam, so the land was plenty valuable. I made it a point to learn how to subdivide it, get financing, and develop it. Then I got a few builders in there and sold the individual lots to them, contingent of course on them listing the homes that they built with me. I started with a small plot and worked my way up to larger parcels until the farm was all gone. I made a ton of money in the process, and I never spent much.”

What did I have to spend it on?
he asked himself.
A bucolic, ex-Marine confined to a wheelchair wasn’t exactly the type to have a glittering social life.

“So I had a lot of money sitting around in the bank,” he continued. “That’s when I started investing. At first it was just a few stocks and some rental properties. But as you might imagine, I didn’t have much else to do with my time, so I started to learn about options and futures and short selling and commodities and all that, and I just kept making more and more money. Eventually I bought this land up here and had the house built and now investing is all I do. With the computer here and the internet everywhere I hardly even need the phone anymore.”

“Wow,” Julie said, drawing out the word as if thunderstruck. “That’s like amazing.”

She had abandoned her recumbent position and now sat on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward toward him as he had told his tale, her elbows resting on her knees and the wine glass held between both hands, the cigarette dangling from between two slender fingers.

“I wish I could do that. But I’m not real smart about money, at least not yet. What else do you do?” she asked, now seeming to be genuinely interested. “Do you travel? I have some clients, a married couple that have a lot of money, and they like fly all over the world, just to go to parties and shop and stuff like that. I’m supposed to go with them someday. Do you do anything like that?”

O’Keefe felt a pang of bitter sadness, anger, and more than a little envy as he wondered exactly what abasements this married couple wanted from the girl, all the while knowing full well that he was about to ask for something very much along the same lines. But he had the right; he raged inwardly; they didn’t. They were married, for Christ’s sake. They had their whole and healthy bodies and they had each other. They weren’t trapped in a useless shell with a mind still overflowing with desires that could never be fulfilled. There was no other way for him, but they had no right to abuse her simply for pleasures they could readily attain from each other.

Abruptly he realized he was grinding his teeth. He took another sip of beer and forced himself to relax.
Take it easy, Hill
, he told himself.
She’s just a hooker, and no one is forcing her to do anything. She does what she does because she chooses to.

“No, I don’t,” he finally answered. “I don’t—” he paused again, wanting to say that he despised crowds, or maybe even just people in general. Rolling along through airports trying desperately to ignore the look of pity on the faces of people who were trying without much success to make eye contact with him without staring, having to be polite to well intentioned individuals who simply would not stop trying to assist him, negotiating obstacles that everyone else traipsed by without a second thought, and feeling a thousand eyes burning into him as he did so. He hated it. He hated all of it. If he didn’t have to eat he wouldn’t even go to the market. But he would never admit any of that to anyone. “I don’t like to fly,” he said at last. Besides, where could he go to have fun all by himself?

“They have courses for that now,” Julie said helpfully. “I had a friend who was like terrified to fly, and she…”

“Look,” O’Keefe said rudely, interrupting her, “I don’t want to fly. I don’t want to travel. I’m a country boy. I like to stay home, go out on my lake, and go fishing, okay?” O’Keefe immediately regretted his blunt and boorish response, but if it bothered the girl she gave no sign.

“You have your own lake?” she asked incredulously, her eyes suddenly sparkling.

“Well, yeah,” O’Keefe answered patiently.

“Where?” she demanded to know, speaking the word in two syllables, pronouncing it “wear-air.”

“It’s at the base of the mountain, on the other side. There’s a boardwalk that leads around there if you’d like to have a look at it.” He gestured toward the French doors that led outside, hoping that she would indeed want to see. He thought maybe he would feel more comfortable outside and besides, maybe something out there would keep her mind preoccupied enough to stop her asking so damn many questions.

He needn’t have worried about her reaction. “Show me,” she implored, springing to her feet like an excited child.

“All right,” O’Keefe muttered as he maneuvered the chair toward the doors. In seconds he was through them, rolling over the weathered boards of his deck with Julie walking along at his side. He steered the chair off the deck and onto the wide promenade of the boardwalk, the sturdy walkway that had been constructed for no other reason than to allow a person bound to a wheelchair to roll out and around the mountain to an overlook and gaze down upon his private lake. The boardwalk hugged the contour of the slope; supported by thick, cantilevered timbers; and not far from the house it entered a thick stand of evergreen trees, trees that they were now approaching.

This far up in the highlands it was comfortable outdoors, even at mid-afternoon and at the height of summer. The day became suddenly even more agreeable as they entered the shade under the tightly packed firs. This particular portion of his property had been a Christmas tree farm under its former owner and O’Keefe, not needing the money, had simply let them grow. The trees were well over thirty feet tall now and had to be trimmed back occasionally lest their limbs become impediments to traversing the walkway. As he and the girl passed through them, the coniferous fragrance engulfed them, the sweet smell protected from what little breeze there was by the thickly needled and naturally pleached branches that surrounded them.

Over the years, O’Keefe had become accustomed to and later very nearly blind to the charms of his winding walkway, but Julie was entranced. She walked beside him, her eyes sweeping left and right and up and down as she tried to take in every detail of their passage. And thankfully, she was utterly silent while doing so. The only sounds that marked their passage were the avian arias of the birds that inhabited the conifers, the clicking of Julie’s heels on the rough lumber of the boardwalk, and the crackling fracture of dry debris under the wheels of O’Keefe’s chair.

At length the walkway exited the trees and crossed into an area of boulder strewn slope where patches of high grass and twisted scrub pines covered the spaces between outcroppings. Beyond this was the overlook, just past where the back of the mountain fell away much more steeply than on its other faces. The platform was a wide expanse of oak planks that, although of even sturdier construction than the boardwalk itself, still looked to be perched precariously over a near vertical cliff face that fell several hundred feet to a more gentle, pine covered slope. Beyond and below the pines crouched the large, kidney shaped basin of cold, clear water that was O’Keefe’s private fishing retreat. They reached the overlook, and O’Keefe rolled up as closely as he was able to the railing and looked down over the lake. The sky and the scattering of fluffy white cumulus clouds reflected perfectly on its pristine and quiescent surface.

To the south his lake was bordered by the base of the mountain on which they stood, while two other green clad giants checked its expanse to the north and west. To the east an earthen dam held back the water, rising to some thirty feet above the level of its surface, except for a short expanse on the northern end where its top had been shorn away to form a wide, level spillway; populated only by a short cropped stand of ordinary grass; which sloped gently down to the water’s edge. O’Keefe paid a local with a tractor mower to keep it cut back, fearing that any denser vegetation would interfere with the spillway’s function should the lake ever flood.

And all he surveyed from where he sat he held title to; the whole of the vista spread out before them was his. Even expanses of acreage on the far side of the surrounding mountains belonged to him. It had taken him some time, and more money than he should have spent, but he had wanted the lake private, and now it was.

“It’s beautiful,” Julie cooed. She leaned forward against the thick timbers of the railing and gazed at the haze shrouded mountains in the distance, while the breeze that seemed to always flow upward from the lake blew the hair back from her face. “What’s that?’ she asked, pointing downward at a tin roofed structure on the edge of the southwest shore.

O’Keefe’s eyes followed the direction of her arm. “That’s the boat house,” he answered.

“You must have an awfully big boat,” she said in a tone that suggested he might be teasing her.

“Well,” he said, chuckling at her innocent suspicion, “there’s more than one in there.” He suddenly realized that he was close to smiling and quickly replaced the expression with a scowl. He had no business smiling.

Julie turned to look down at him, an expression that might have been concern etched across her face. “How can you live out here all alone and go out on all these boats. What happens if you fall in the water?”

“Like most people,” O’Keefe said, returning to his customarily caustic locution, “I wear a life preserver, and my arms are fine. See?” He held his arms out before him, palms facing outward, and spread them wide as if he were doing the breast stroke.

“At least you take precautions,” she said sweetly, apparently undaunted by his less than pleasant response. “So what kind of fish do you catch out there?”

This damn girl has more questions than the SAT
, O’Keefe thought irritably. But before he could answer there was the sound of speed over dry grass as the dogs broke from beneath the evergreens and ran along the side of the mountain toward the overlook. Ajay carried a large rawhide chew between her teeth while Bizzy sprinted along beside her, lunging every few strides, trying to grab one end of the toy in his jaws. He barked excitedly with each failure, while Ajay growled and periodically shook her head from side to side, attempting to make it more difficult for him to grasp the precious object which she carried. They came to a halt near the platform, next to the spot where the inclination of the slope increased to the point that it was nearly impossible to cross. An immediate tug of war ensued.

“Stupid dogs,” O’Keefe muttered, his near smile of a few moments before almost returning before he quickly quashed it.

“I take it they’re yours,” Julie observed.

“Oh, yes,” O’Keefe answered, bemused by their antics. Growling fiercely, both of them now pulled against each other with front paws splayed and hindquarters high in the air, taking turns shaking the bone and trying to tear it loose from the jaws of the other, while neither was apparently in any mood to release the filthy prize.

“They’re so silly,” Julie cried happily, laughing. “I had a dog once; when I was a little girl. She was part Lab and part who knows what. I named her Molly. She was either lost or abandoned, but she had no collar and since no one ever came for her my mother let me keep her. She was such a good dog.” She spoke wistfully, her eyes on O’Keefe but focused on the past. “I’d have a dog now, but I’m out of town so much. And even if I wasn’t it wouldn’t be fair to keep one cooped up in my little apartment. But I’ll have a yard someday,” she said assertively. Abruptly she refocused on O’Keefe’s face. “Are they like, allowed up here?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, nodding. “Would you like to meet them?”

“Yes,” she drawled, smiling coyly. “I love dogs.”

O’Keefe moved his chair to a spot near the railing that was closest to his pets and shouted though cupped hands. “Hey!” The dogs ignored him. “Hey, you two! Ajay, come here!” The Weimaraner reluctantly dropped her end of the rawhide bone and began to trot toward O’Keefe while Bismarck started to turn and run with the prize. He was frozen after two steps as O’Keefe sternly shouted his name. “Drop it,” he commanded. The big shepherd remained where he stood, looking back at O’Keefe, but still balked at releasing his grip on the chew toy. “Bizzy, drop it now!” O’Keefe repeated slowly. At last the dog unhappily obeyed. “Now come here!” Bismarck unwillingly turned and left the toy, following in Ajay’s wake while twice looking longingly over his shoulder at the dirty, saliva covered strip of dried, dead cow; a bounty he had fought for mightily and now hated to leave behind.

Moments later both dogs had ascended a flight of stairs that led to the boardwalk and were approaching the overlook. Ajay crossed immediately to O’Keefe and assumed a protective position, sitting at his feet, directly between him and the stranger while eyeing her warily. Bismarck on the other hand ignored him entirely, trotting over to Julie as if she were his best friend. He slipped his nose beneath her hand and pushed upward on her palm, an overt gesture he had learned would almost always get him a good petting.

Julie was more than willing to comply, crouching in front of him, taking his massive head between her hands, and gently scratching behind his ears while mouthing what amounted to baby talk about what a sweet dog he was. Bizzy was in heaven. He craned his neck ecstatically at her touch, and the moment she attempted to stop her ministrations he reached out with a big padded foot and pawed at her hands. She laughed gaily, childishly, and continued with her affections.