The Woman. Part 4

"Why?"

"Because your dad wants you to. You don't have a problem with that now, do you Brian?"

"Nah. Where do you want us to put all this stuff?"

"Throw it in the dump trailer. If it's small and burnable, put it in the burn barrel. You'll need some gloves. There's a few pair out in the barn. You feed the dogs yet?"

"It's Peggy's turn."

"Peg?"

She sighed again. The girl was big on sighing these days.

"Oh, all right. I'll feed the dogs. I'll get the gloves."

"Good girl."

Belle watched her trudge up the stairs.

"Are there mice down here?" asked Darlin'.

"Could be," Chris said.

"Should I get some cheese?"

Chris patted her head. Even Belle had to smile. Their daughter was pretty adorable.

"Nah, honey," Chris said. "I don't think that's a good idea."

He turned to Belle. "You organize things down here, okay? With the three of you? Shouldn't take too long. Keep this little one out of trouble. I've got things to do upstairs."

"Chris? Why are we doing this? I mean..."

"You'll see. Trust me on this one."

She repressed her own urge to sigh. Trust me Trust me was one of his favorite phrases. Usually she did - and things worked out okay in the end. But there was something really odd about this. was one of his favorite phrases. Usually she did - and things worked out okay in the end. But there was something really odd about this. Why now? Why now? She guessed he was off on one of his little projects again. When that was the case there was no stopping him. She'd known Chris Cleek for over twenty years and was fully aware that for a lawyer her husband could be a highly impulsive man. Only last summer he got it into his head at ten in the evening to paint the barn doors a darker shade of red than the rest of it. Thought it would look better. So there he was, working under the floodlights until well after twelve, coming to bed smelling of Dutch Boy and turpentine.

She called to him on the stairs.

"Check the oven, will you? Maybe do a basting for me?"

"Will do, cap'n," he said.

Agnes, George and Lily greeted Peg warmly. To say the least. They were all over her when she stepped into the cage - the entire north side of the barn - to retrieve their food and water dishes, presenting heads and necks and floppy ears for scratching and three warm wet tongues. They were big dogs. Forty to fifty pounds at least she guessed. You had to watch your balance when they got up on their hind legs on you. She indulged them awhile. In truth that while she griped at having to do the ch.o.r.e she didn't really mind. How could you hate handling a dog?

Even Agnes, the mother, who could be nippy - who could be who could be d.a.m.n d.a.m.n nippy with everybody but Peg, even with her own pups nippy with everybody but Peg, even with her own pups - elicited a kind of warmth in her exceeded only by her affection for Darlin'. Peg didn't question it. It was just there. - elicited a kind of warmth in her exceeded only by her affection for Darlin'. Peg didn't question it. It was just there.

Dogs were like big sloppy children.

Unless of course you f.u.c.ked with them.

When she stepped outside the cage to hose off the dishes and closed the chain-link door they all set to barking. She thought that nothing else on earth has a voice like a c.o.o.nhound. It was a voice bred to command the night. To be heard from literally miles away, trailable in full darkness. In the enclosed s.p.a.ce of the barn they were like a series of small sonic booms.

They quieted again when she returned with the dishes, snuffing at her legs and heels as she set them in their given places along the concrete floor. Then shrunk away when she brought in the hose. The dogs were wary of the hose. The hose meant fresh water or a clean floor but it could also mean a bath, which they didn't particularly want. Or under higher pressure, in the hands of Brian or her father, occasionally worse.

She didn't like to think about that.

She filled the three water dishes and the one inside the doghouse, rolled the hose up and draped it on its hook, pried open the lid of the metal food bin and set to scooping out kibble. The dogs dug in. She filled the dish inside the silent doghouse too - filled that one carefully and gingerly.

She shut the cage door and found three sets of work-gloves neatly stacked on a shelf amid her father's tools.

She left the dogs amidst chomping sounds and flying drool.

They were always hungry.

As always she felt a twinge of guilt at closing the barn doors on them. Cutting them off. There was a time they were allowed free run of the yard. Now they only got out on nights when her father and his friends wanted to do some c.o.o.n hunting. Which wasn't all that often anymore. And these guys were meant to run.

They were hunters. Her dad said they could pull down a deer if he let them.

As always she put those thoughts behind her.

She had other ch.o.r.es to do. She had not the slightest idea why.

First things first, Chris thought. He dialed Betty's number from the kitchen. Betty was his paralegal, his office manager, his secretary. And she never minded him calling on a Sunday.

She had caller ID and picked up on the second ring.

"Hi, Betty," he said. "Just want to run a few things by you, okay?"

It was okay. It was always okay.

Betty was a treasure.

"I won't be in until after lunchtime tomorrow. If at all," he said.

Anything wrong? she said. Real concern in her voice, bless her. Real concern in her voice, bless her. No, there was nothing wrong, nothing at all. No, there was nothing wrong, nothing at all.

"Just some business I need to take care of here. We've got the Oldenberg will and power of attorney ready for her signature, right? And she's due in at ten. Good. We're also expecting the police report on that Blakely business. That kid's gonna be the death of his poor parents. One more thing. Give Dean Bluejacket a call. He's supposed to come in tomorrow morning to talk to me about his property. Tell him I'm tied up here and I'll meet him for lunch on Tuesday, say noon. Then if the phones are quiet you can put the machine on and take off early. How's that sound?"

It sounded good.

"'Night, Betty. You have a good one."

He heard a shrill scream from outside and the screen door flew open and suddenly Darlin' was hugging his leg for dear life. And there was Brian behind her holding a small, very dead brown mouse by the tip of its tail. He dangled it into her sightlines, grinning. She squealed and giggled and buried her face in his pants leg.

But then she couldn't resist. She peeked up at her brother.

He opened his mouth and pretended he was going to eat it.

"Eeeeewwww!" she said.

Chris smiled at his son and shook his head. Kids. Kids.

"Burn barrel," he said.

And remembered he was supposed to baste that d.a.m.n ham.

Chris was late for dinner. Baked ham, corn on the cob, baked green beans and mashed potatoes. Everybody seated around the table except him. Brian was mowing the food down. He'd want seconds. Peggy was barely picking at it. Darlin' was swirling it around into a big goopy mess with her fork. It was Belle's turn to sigh.

What the h.e.l.l was Chris doing out there?

He was acting very strange.

He'd taken down the 5'X 9' authentic wide-mesh fishing net off the west wall of the living room and denuded it of all its ornamental starfish and sh.e.l.ls, folded it and taken it out to the fruit cellar. Then she'd heard him on the stairs just now and looked out from the kitchen to see him carrying four of Brian's plastic-coated hand-weights, which the boy never used - the weights were a total waste of money - across the foyer and out the door. She crossed to the dining table and through the window in front of it saw that the weights were going into the fruit cellar as well. By then the food was already on the table.

She opened the window and leaned out.

"Chris!"

"Be just a second, hon!"

She closed the window and sat down to eat with her kids. She b.u.t.tered and salted her corn. The corn was good this year.

Finally the front screen door slammed and Chris was at the table, smiling at them. He sliced a piece of ham and cut it into pieces. Tasted it. Chewed.

"Good," he said. "Um...a little cold." Like he was surprised.

She almost laughed. What did the man expect?

"Want me to zap it for you?"

He handed her the plate.

She didn't know whether it was the hammering or the dogs that woke her.

She rolled over into his empty s.p.a.ce and switched on the standing bedside lamp he would read by with its too-expensive pale silk lampshade and filled the room with sixty watts of light. She got out of bed and found her robe and belted it around her waist. The hammering stopped. Then continued.

She padded barefoot down the hall to the stairs. She had nearly fallen down this staircase once when she was six months pregnant with Brian riding delicate in her womb so that now as ever since her hand went automatically to the railing.

At the bottom she walked to the front door and looked out the window panel. The hammering had stopped again.

The door to the fruit cellar was flung wide and she could see his shadow moving below in the flickering light.

"What's he doing?"

She jumped at the voice and then had a single strange moment of utter disorientation. Sitting on the couch in the dark in the palest shaft of moonlight, staring out the window, her bathrobe pulled tight around her, arms crossed beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Peg might have been a younger Belle, the Belle of twenty years ago, a slim young woman sitting alone on that very same couch in just that pose and bathed in just that light of the waning moon, wondering. Wondering had she done the right thing.

Marrying him.

"d.a.m.n, Peggy. You scared the h.e.l.l out of me."

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep."

"Well, try. School in the morning."

"What's dad doing?"

"We'll find out tomorrow. Go to bed, Peg. It's late."

She watched her daughter place one bare foot on the floor and pivot her weight off the couch in a single smooth motion, tighten her belt and move gliding to the stairs. Again she had the uncanny sense that she was seeing herself giving in to the necessities of life in some other distant time.

Belle had been a soft and pretty woman then just like her daughter.

Now she was all angles.

"'Night, mom," she said.

"'Night, Peg."

When she was gone and Belle heard her bedroom door click shut and saw the shaft of light disappear from under her door she peered out the window again and heard the dogs barking and then went to where she and her daughter had sat upon the couch.

It was still warm.

SIX.

She awakens before dawn, before the gulls and the terns. She hears only the gentle susurration of the waves. In the dim last moonlight she inspects her wounds. Her eyes need little light. The wounds are puckering, knitting, a wide purple bruise surrounding each and connecting at her side as one.

She stretches on all fours like a cat, tailbone high, working out the soreness the hastily fashioned browse-bed and damp night air have left throughout her body. The fire has fallen to ashes now. Beside them lie the blackened bones of wolf and fish.

She crouches down at the entrance to the cave. She studies the dawn. The graying sky. The first gull-cry.

It is time to depart this place. She is still not far enough away from where she left her family and the others cold and dead. She has cut a wide pouched sling from the pelt and in it she now places the wolf's left rear thigh. All that is left of him. She drapes it over her shoulder. Across the other shoulder, the remainder of the pelt. It will be colder to the north.

She belts the knife and steps outside.