Year's Best Scifi 2 Part 33

She would have the other lower bunk, the twins could sleep together feet-to-feet in an upper (no doubt with much squealing and giggling and kicking), and Brook in the other upper-in the bunk over his own.

Thus would the family achieve its final and irrevocable separation for the first time; the Sibberlings (who had been and would again be) on one side of the cabin, the Bainbridges on the other: boys here, girls over there. The law would take years, and demand tens of thousands of dollars, to accomplish no more.

Boys here.

Girls over there, farther and farther all the time. When he had rocked and kissed Aileen add Alayna, when he had bought Christmas and birthday presents and sat through solemn, silly conferences with their pleased teachers, he had never felt that he was actually the twins' father. Now he did. Al Sibberling had given them his swarthy good looks and flung them away. He, Emery Bainbridge, had picked them up like discarded dolls after Jan had run the family deep in debt. Had called himself their father, and thought he lied.

There would be no sleeping with Jan, no matter how long she stayed. It was why she was bringing the twins, as he had known from the moment she said they would be with her.

He put clean sheets on the bunk that would be hers, with three thick wool blankets and a quilt.

Bringing her back from plays and country-club dances, he had learned to listen for them; silence had meant he could return and visit Jan's bed when he had driven the sitter home. Now Jan feared that he would want to bargain-his name on her paper for a little more pleasure, a little more love before they parted for good. Much as she wanted him to sign, she did not want him to sign as much as that. Girls here, boys over there. Had he grown so hideous?

Women need a reason, he thought, men just need a place.

For Jan the reason wasn't good enough, so she had seen to it that there would be no place. He told himself it would be great to hug the twins again-and discovered that it would.

He fluffed Jan's pillow anyway, and dressed it in a clean white pillowcase.

She would have found someone by now, somebody in the city to whom she was being faithful, exactly as he himself had been faithful to Jan while he was still married in the eyes of the law, to Pamela.

The thought of eyes recalled the watcher on the hill.

14:12 Somebody is on the hill across the creek with some kind of signaling device.

That sounded as if he were going crazy, he decided. What if Jan saw it? He added, maybe just a flashlight, although he did not believe it had been a flashlight.

A lion's face smiled up at him from the barrel of the red pen, and he stopped to read the minute print under it, holding the pen up to catch the gray light from the window. "The Red Lion Inn/San Jose." A nicehotel. If-when-he got up the nerve to do it, he would write notes to Jan and Brook first with this pen.

The coyote ate the food I put out for him, I think soon after breakfast. More food tonight. Tomorrow morning I will leave the back door cracked open awhile.

14:15 I am going up on the hill for a look around.

He had not known that until he wrote it.

The hillside seemed steeper than he remembered, slippery with snow. The pines had changed; their limbs drooped like the boughs of hemlocks, springing up like snares when he touched them, and throwing snow in his face. No bird sang.

He had brought his flashlight, impelled by the memory of the colorless signal from the hill. Now he used it to peep beneath the drooping limbs. Most of the tracks that the unseen watcher had left would be covered with new snow by this time; a few might remain, in the shelter of the pines.

He had nearly reached the rocky summit before he found the first, and even it was blurred by snow despite its protection. He knelt and blew the drifted flakes away, clearing it with his breath as he had sometimes cleared the tracks of animals; an oddly cleated shoe, almost like the divided hoof of an elk.

He measured it against his spread hand, from the tip of his little finger to the tip of his thumb. A small foot, no bigger than size six, if that.

A boy.

There was another, inferior, print beside it. And not far away a blurred depression that might have been left by a gloved hand or a hundred other things. Here the boy had crouched with his little polished steel mirror, or whatever he had.

Emery knelt, lifting the snow-burdened limbs that blocked his view of the cabin. Two small, dark figures were emerging from the cabin door onto the porch, scarcely visible through the falling snow. The first carried his ax, the second his rifle.

He stood, waving the flashlight. "Hey! You there!"

The one holding his rifle raised it, not putting it to his shoulder properly but acting much too quickly for Emery to duck. The flat crack of the shot sounded clearly, snow or no snow.

He tried to dodge, slipped, and fell to the soft snow.

"Too late," he told himself. And then, "Going to do it for me." And last, "Better stay down in case he shoots again." The cold air was like chilled wine, the snow he lay in lovely beyond imagining. Drawing back his coat sleeve, he consulted his watch, resolving to wait ten minutes-to risk nothing.

They were robbing his cabin, obviously. Had robbed it, in fact, while he had been climbing through the pines. Had fired, in all probability, merely to keep him away long enough for them to leave. Mentally, he inventoried the cabin. Besides the rifle, there had not been a lot worth stealing-his food and a few tools; they might take his jeep if they could figure out how to hot-wire the ignition, and that was pretty easy on those old jeeps.

His money was in his wallet, his wallet in the hip pocket of his hunting trousers. His watch-a plastic sports watch hardly worth stealing-was on his wrist. His checkbook had been in the table drawer; they might steal that and forge his checks, possibly. They might even be caught when they tried to cash them.Retrieving his flashlight; he lifted the limbs as he had before. The intruders were not in sight, the door of the cabin half open, his jeep still parked next to the north wall, its red paint showing faintly through snow.

He glanced at his watch. One minute had pa.s.sed, perhaps a minute and a half.

They would have to have a vehicle of some kind, one with four-wheel drive if they didn't want to be stranded with their loot on a back road. Since he had not heard it start up, they had probably left the engine running. Even so, he decided, he should have heard it pull away.

Had they parked some distance off and approached his cabin on foot? Now that he came to think of it, it seemed possible they had no vehicle after all. Two boys camping in the snow, confident that he would be unable to follow them to their tent, or whatever it was. Wasn't there a Boy Scout badge for winter camping? He had never been a Scout, but thought he remembered hearing about one, and found it plausible.

Still no one visible. He let the branches droop again.

The rifle was not really much of a loss, though its theft had better be reported to the sheriff. He had not planned on shooting anyway-had been worried, as a matter of fact, that the twins might get it down and do something foolish, although both had shot at tin cans and steel silhouettes with it before he and Jan had agreed to separate.

Now, with his rifle gone, he could not...

Neither had been particularly attracted to it; and their having handled and fired it already should have satisfied the natural curiosity that resulted in so many accidents each year. They had learned to shoot to please him, and stopped as soon as he had stopped urging them to learn.

Four minutes, possibly five. He raised the pine boughs once more, hearing the muted growl of an engine; for a second or two he held his breath. The jeep or Bronco or whatever it was, was coming closer, not leaving. Was it possible that the thieves were coming back? Returning with a truck to empty his cabin?

Jan's big black Lincoln hove into view, roared down the gentle foothill slope on which his cabin stood, and skidded to a stop. Doors flew open, and all three kids piled out. Jan herself left more sedately, shutting the door on the driver's side behind her almost tenderly, tall and willowy as ever, her hair a golden helmet beneath a blue-mink pillbox hat.

Her left hand held a thick, black attache case that was probably his.

Brook was already on the porch. Emery stood and shouted a warning, but it was too late; Brook was inside the cabin, with the twins hard on his heels. Jan looked around and waved, and deep inside Emery something writhed in agony.

By the time he had reached the cabin, he had decided not to mention that the intruders had shot at him.

Presumably the shooter had chambered a new round, ejecting the bra.s.s cartridge case of the round just fired into the snow; but it might easily be overlooked, and if Brook or the twins found it, he could say that he had fired the day before to scare off some animal.

"h.e.l.lo," Jan said as he entered. "You left your door open. It's cold as Billy-o in here." She was seated in a chair before the fire.

"I didn't." He dropped into the other, striving to look casual. "I was robbed."

"Really? When?""A quarter hour ago. Did you see another car coming in?"

Jan shook her head.

They had been on foot, then; the road ended at the lake. Aloud he said, "It doesn't matter. They got my rifle and my ax." Remembering his checkbook, he pulled out the drawer of the little table. His checkbook was still there; he took it out and put it into an inner pocket of his mackinaw.

"It was an old rifle anyhow, wasn't it?"

He nodded. "My old thirty-thirty."

"Then you can buy a new one, and you should have locked the door. I-"

"You weren't supposed to get here until tomorrow," he told her brusquely. The mere thought of another gun was terrifying.

"I know. But they said a blizzard was coming on TV, so I decided I'd better move it up a day, or I'd have to wait for a week-that was what it sounded like. I told Doctor Gibbons that Aileen would be in next Thursday, and off we went. This shouldn't take long." She opened his attache case on her lap. "Now here-"

"Where are the kids?"

"Out back getting more wood. They'll be back in a minute."

As though to confirm her words, he heard the clink of the maul striking the wedge. He ventured, "Do you really want them to hear it?"

"Emery, they know. I couldn't have hidden all this from them if I tried. What was I going to say when they asked why you never came home anymore?"

"You could have told them I was deer-hunting."

"That's for a few days, maybe a week. You left in August, remember? Well, anyway, I didn't. I told them the truth." She paused, expectant. "Aren't you going to ask how they took it?"

He shook his head.

"The girls were hurt. I honestly think Brook's happy. Getting to live with you out here for a while and all that."

"I've got him signed up for Culver," Emery told her. "He starts in February."

"That's best, I'm sure. Now listen, because we've got to get back. Here's a letter from your-"

"You're not going to sleep here? Stay overnight?"

"Tonight? Certainly not. We've got to start home before this storm gets serious. You always interrupt me.

You always have. I suppose it's too late to say I wish you'd stop."

He nodded. "I made up a bunk for you."

"Brook can have it. Now right-"

The back door opened and Brook himself came in. "I showed them how you split the wood, and 'Laynasplit one. Didn't you, 'Layna?"

"Right here." Behind him, Alayna held the pieces up.

"That's not ladylike," Jan told her.

Emery said, "But it's quite something that a girl her age can swing that maul-I wouldn't have believed she could. Did Brook help you lift it?"

Alayna shook her head.

"I didn't want to," Aileen declared virtuously.

"Right here," Jan was pushing an envelope into his hands, "is a letter from your attorney. It's sealed, see?

I haven't read it, but you'd better take a look at it first."

"You know what's in it, though," Emery said, "or you think you do."

"He told me what he was going to write to you, yes."

"Otherwise you would have saved it." Emery got out his pocketknife and slit the flap. "Want to tell me?"

Jan shook her head, her lips as tight and ugly as he had imagined them earlier.

Brook put down his load of wood. "Can I see?"

"You can read it for me," Emery told him. "I've got snow on my gla.s.ses." He found a clean handkerchief and wiped them. "Don't read it out loud. Just tell me what it says."

"Emery, you're doing this to get even!"

He shook his head. "This is Brook's inheritance that our lawyers are arguing about."

Brook stared.

"I've lost my company," Emery told him. "Basically, we're talking about the money and stock I got as a consolation prize. You're the only child I've got, probably the only one I'll ever have. So read it. What does it say?"

Brook unfolded the letter; it seemed quieter to Emery now, with all five of them in the cabin, than it ever had during all the months he had lived there alone.

Jan said, "What they did was perfectly legal, Brook. You should understand that. They bought up a controlling interest and merged our company with theirs. That's all that happened."

The stiff, parchment-like paper rattled in Brook's hands. Unexpectedly Alayna whispered, "I'm sorry, Daddy."

Emery grinned at her. "I'm still here, honey."

Brook glanced from him to Jan, then back to him. "He says-it's Mister Gluckman. You introduced me one time."

Emery nodded.

"He says this is the best arrangement he's been able to work out, and he thinks it would be in your bestinterest to take it."

Jan said, "You keep this place and your jeep, and all your personal belongings, naturally. I'll give you back my wedding and engagement rings-"

"You can keep them," Emery told her.

"No, I want to be fair about this. I've always tried to be fair, even when you didn't come to the meetings between our attorneys. I'll give them back, but I get to keep all the rest of the gifts you've given me, including my car."

Emery nodded.

"No alimony at all. Naturally no child support. Brook stays with you, Aileen and Alayna with me. My attorney says we can force Al to pay child support."

Emery nodded again.