Rudy came back. His hair was disheveled but he appeared otherwise unscathed.
“Are you all right?” Bonnie asked.
Rudy nodded. They heard the bikes firing up in the lot.
“I wouldn’t count on this being over, though,” he said.
He put a hand on her shoulder. She was about to take it when she noticed that all eyes remained fixed on her. She cupped her hands around her mouth, shouted: “Next round is on the house.”
“I’m telling you, it was nothing,” Bonnie said. “A simple misunderstanding.”
They were lying in bed under the skylight with a fire winding down across the room.
“Really?” Jim said. “Because you came back drenched in beer and looking white as a sheet.”
He seemed genuinely worried, and Bonnie felt a pang of guilt as she realized she didn’t even want that much from him anymore.
“I promise, it’s all fine,” she said. “But now I really need to get some sleep.”
She rolled onto her side, fought back a gasp when she spotted what looked like a male figure watching them through a part in the curtains. She leapt out of bed, started for the window, watched the figure dart off.
“What is it?” Jim asked.
“Just shutting the curtain,” she said.
CHAPTER 6
BONNIE ROSE EARLY, fixed a three-course breakfast for Jim and the kids.
“It’s French themed,” she announced. “French toast, French roast, and—just to make sure you get enough carbs—French croissants.”
“I could really use that coffee,” Jim said. “I guess I’m not used to wine at altitude.”
“Help yourself,” Bonnie said.
She’d hoped for a picnic in the meadow, but the sky was overcast, so they sat in the dining room of what Rudy called the proprietor’s apartment: a five-room home set off in the main lodge. The kids were still in their pajamas, still blinking sleep from their eyes. Bonnie watched them lick syrup off their forks and felt as though she were watching a memory—the memory that would carry her through their long, five-day absence. Just a few more months to go, she reminded herself. Seventy-two days, to be exact, before they’d be living here instead of visiting.
After breakfast, Jim Jr. insisted on a round of Uno.
“Why don’t you kids get washed up and changed first?” Bonnie said. “I’ll meet you in the living room.”
Jim helped her clear the table, then said he was going out to grab some air.
“I’ve got a long drive ahead of me,” he said. “And I’m feeling a little fuzzy.”
“Better hurry,” Bonnie told him. “It’s going to start thundering any minute.”
An hour later, Bonnie and the children were sitting on the living room floor, arguing over whether Mindy had remembered to say Uno before her last discard, when Jim came rushing in, yelling Bonnie’s name.
“What is it?” Bonnie asked.
“You need to come see this,” he said. “Now. Kids, you stay here.”
She followed him through the lodge, asking again and again what was wrong. But as soon as they stepped outside, she saw. The windshield on her Jeep was smashed to bits. Someone had pegged it dead-center with an object large enough and hard enough to suck the whole sheet of glass inward.
“My god,” she said. “Who the hell …”
“It must have happened while I was out walking,” Jim said.
Bonnie stood at the edge of the porch, staring, her arms akimbo, her mouth wide open. She figured the fear would come later, once Jim was gone. Right now, she wanted to kill someone. Starting with that biker at the bar.
Jim walked over to the Jeep, opened the driver-side door, and pulled out a red brick wrapped in a pale-blue sheet of paper.
“Let me see that,” Bonnie said, running up to him. He handed it over without objecting. Bonnie tore off the rubber bands, let the brick drop to the ground as she straightened out the note.
It read: LAST WARNING, YOU RICH BITCH.
* * *
The thunder was short lived, though the rain lasted into the late afternoon. They sat by the bay window in the dining room and watched the storm while they played Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Go Fish. Jim was quiet and on edge, would snap at the children when they broke the rules or asked for a do-over. Bonnie chatted nonstop, laughed when nothing was funny, praised the kids for nothing in particular.
“Are you guys fighting?” Mindy asked.
“You’re not supposed to ask that, stupid,” her brother scolded.
“Hey, don’t talk to your sister like that,” Jim said.
“I think we all need snacks,” Bonnie said. “I’ll go heat up some cookies.”
“And I’ll help,” Jim said.
Bonnie should have anticipated that: the last thing she wanted right now was to be alone with Jim. In the kitchen, out of earshot of the children, he launched right in.
“Last warning?” he quoted. “You want to tell me how many others there have been?”
“None that came with property damage.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said, transferring a batch of snickerdoodles from tin to tray. “You told me you don’t want to be involved in lodge business. Well, this is lodge business.”
“No,” Jim corrected her, “business is ledgers and balance sheets. This is a death threat.”
Bonnie slid the tray into the oven and set the timer for five minutes.
“Stop being so dramatic,” she said. “They’re just trying to scare me off. If they wanted to hurt me, I’d be hurt.”
“They? So you know who’s behind this?”
“I have an idea. No proof.”
“Then why won’t you go to the police?”
“You know, if you’re really going to pretend to help me, you could at least pour the milk.”
“Answer my question.”
“I told you, I’ll call once the kids are gone. I don’t want to frighten them. I don’t want them to be afraid of this place. And don’t you say anything to them, either.”
Jim punched the counter with the side of his fist.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll fill them in at your funeral.”
“Just pour the damn milk,” Bonnie said.
The rain let up around four p.m., then stopped altogether. Bonnie hid the Jeep before seeing Jim and the kids off. Mindy cried, clutched her mother’s leg, begged to stay.
“Soon, love,” Bonnie said.
“I bet that makes you happy,” Jim said under his breath.
Bonnie brushed him off, leaned into the car and gave Jim Jr. a kiss.
“Sleep well,” she said.
* * *
That night, Bonnie sat at her desk in her office while Rudy paced the room. She unlocked a drawer, slid it open, pulled out a folder containing a half-dozen pale-blue sheets of paper. She placed the first threatening letter side-by-side with the one Jim had taken from her car.
“The writing is the same,” she said.
“Of course it’s the same,” Rudy said. “I’m begging you to let me handle those rednecks.”
Bonnie raised one eyebrow.
“You want me to sanction violence?” she asked.
“You tried the cops. They’re not going to do anything until you’re dead.”
“That’s not exactly what they said. They need proof.”
“Yeah, well … I don’t.”
Bonnie slid both letters back into the file.
“Calm the testosterone,” she said. “Why don’t we try setting up some cameras first?”
Rudy grinned, walked around behind the desk, began massaging her shoulders.
“I’m worried about you,” he said. “These guys run around in the dark like cowards. They are cowards. But cowards can be the most dangerous. They go too far without meaning to.”
Bonnie stood, turned so she was facing him.
“The wisdom of Rudy Manuel,” she said.
Their kiss
was long and fiery—the kiss of new lovers who’d been kept at arm’s length for days on end. Bonnie was only mildly disturbed by the fact that she felt no guilt.
Rudy pulled back, smiled.
“I swear,” he said, “I never did this with the Edwards Group.”
CHAPTER 7
THE NEXT MORNING was sunny and mild. Bonnie decided to spend the day adding markers to the section of a hiking trail where several of her guests had lost their way. The trail led from the backside of the meadow upslope through forest dense with sequoias to a waterfall fed by a winding creek. The cascade itself was so small that no one had bothered to name it, but Bonnie found the algae coloring the surrounding stone mesmerizing, and the sound of the water itself was calming even on the most stressful of days. She loaded the markers, nails, and a hammer into one compartment of her Swiss Army backpack, and a picnic lunch complete with an airline-sized bottle of red wine into the other.
She set out at a little after eight a.m., knowing full well that there were more important things she could be doing. The guests who’d complained were intoxicated at the time, and she was pretty sure the incident wouldn’t repeat itself. But this was the best excuse she had to give herself the kind of day she needed after an awful, high-anxiety forty-eight hours. She needed to reconnect with the mountains, to remind herself of why she’d fallen in love with Camp Nelson in the first place.
Most important, she needed to be alone. Away from Jim and Rudy and even the kids. Away from demanding guests. Away from phones and fax machines. Someplace where she couldn’t be reached and wouldn’t be disturbed. It wasn’t that she wanted to think—she wanted to take a break from thinking.
According to her inebriated guests, the trickiest part of the trail came in the long stretch between two granite outcroppings. The forest was thick and steep there, and the path was continually covered with a fresh layer of duff. Bonnie passed the first outcropping and had to admit that it was harder to pick the trail back up than she’d remembered. The markers were scarce, and as she hiked upslope she sometimes had the sensation that she’d gone off course and was simply standing in the middle of an untamed forest. More than once she had to backtrack, return to the first set of rocks, and start over.
In theory, it was impossible to get lost since at least one of the two outcroppings was never more than a few steps from view, but Bonnie could understand how, if you ventured here in the dark, or in an altered state, you might start to panic. And her guests had spoken the truth: there were no markers to be found anywhere. It was, Bonnie thought, simply a matter of spelling out the straightest line possible between the two clusters of granite. From there, the trail became crystal clear as it followed the creek the last mile up to the waterfall.
She chose a place to start, knelt down, and opened her backpack. The markers she’d brought with her were oval reflectors like the ones you’d find on the back of a bicycle. Shine your flashlight around until some of that light came back at you, and you shouldn’t have any difficulty at all.
Her plan for the day was succeeding. She lost herself in the sun and shade, the quiet, the thin mountain air. Sometimes she would remember where she was and think: I’m kneeling at the base of a 140-foot tree, five thousand miles above sea level. This is my life now. This is the life I’ve made. When she was done working, she would continue on to the waterfall. She knew exactly where she’d spread her blanket and eat. She could already feel the wine moving through her body, warming her from the inside. And then she would lay back, shut her eyes, and listen to the water.
She was about halfway done when she heard a birdcall she didn’t recognize coming from maybe a hundred yards below. It sounded to her like the highest pitch of a tin whistle played in a long-short-short pattern. She was tempted hike back down and see if she could identify the species, but then she heard the same call coming from roughly the same distance in the opposite direction.
They must be talking about me, she thought. Warning the forest that there’s an intruder.
She smiled, took a sip of water, went back to work.
But then what had to be another of the same kind of bird perched somewhere to the east joined the conversation, repeating the exact same call. She stood and listened, trying to envision the bird: she guessed small, maybe the size of her fist, and yellow-breasted with black wings. She wanted very badly to see one, to know if what she pictured was accurate.
She tried to talk back to them by imitating their call, but her attempt came out breathy and uneven. Still, they responded, or seemed to, with each bird sounding off in rapid succession. Not only that, but she was sure they were inching closer. She tried her hand at their call again—tried, even though she knew it was impossible, to make her version sound friendly, nonthreatening.
But her whistling appeared to rattle the birds. Their song altered. The pitch dipped an octave lower; the long opening note dropped off. And then the call changed completely. Instead of a single pitch there were two, one high and one low, and the sound no longer resembled a tin whistle. More like a parrot imitating human speech, Bonnie thought.
And then she understood: these weren’t birds closing in on her.
She concentrated until the two short syllables came into focus: rich bitch, rich bitch, rich bitch. From the north, the south, the east. Rich bitch, rich bitch, rich bitch. One at a time, and then in unison.
They were on her now, no farther than twenty feet in each direction. She could see them darting between the trees, bandanas hiding their faces as if they were grown men playing cops and robbers.
Despite herself, Bonnie screamed. And then she grabbed her backpack and ran, the voices behind her chirping rich bitch, rich bitch, rich bitch all the way to the meadow.
CHAPTER 8
A WEEK HAD passed since the incident at Camp Nelson Saloon, and Bonnie was determined to put in another appearance. She walked the access road at a little after sundown. Rudy followed close behind.
“You don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” he said. “Least of all that inbred trash.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Bonnie said. “They can’t think I’m backing down.”
“Then let me go alone.”
“Ha! Thanks, but I don’t feel like making a trip to the hospital or the morgue tonight. Besides, they need to see my face. If I send you, it looks worse than if I do nothing at all.”
“And what if they decide to start something? How are you going to—”
“I’ll play it by ear.”
They walked the rest of the way without talking. At first glance, it seemed Bonnie had already won. Apart from Kelly and a large red-haired biker at the far end of the bar, the place was empty.
“Looks like they’re trying to hit me in my wallet,” Bonnie said.
“Or maybe it’s just early,” Rudy said.
“Let’s find out.”
They sat dead-center at the bar, took two of the same stools the delinquent bikers had occupied a week earlier.
“Evening ma’am,” Kelly said. “Rudy. What can I get you all tonight?”
Bonnie remembered how Kelly had smirked while she wiped beer from her pants. She decided to have a little fun at her employee’s expense.
“I could really go for an Old Fashioned,” she said.
“That a microbrew?” Kelly asked.
“It’s a cocktail. Part bitters, part … You know, never mind. I’ll just take a Manhattan.”
Kelly gave a blank stare. Rudy covered his grin.
“How about a Sidecar?” Bonnie asked.
“This is a beer and shots bar, ma’am,” Kelly said.
“Well, I guess we’ll need to fix that, won’t we?” Bonnie said, smiling. “Meanwhile, pour me a Pilsner.”
“I’ll take a Jameson, on the rocks,” Rudy said.
They carried their drinks to a nearby table. Bonnie sat down, then popped back up.
“There’s something sticky on my seat,” she said, reaching for a napkin. “I’m telling you, that woman
really needs to go. And this jukebox needs an overhaul. Or at least a song with more than three chords.”
“Country and Western sells booze,” Rudy said. “More than rock or pop or jazz. That’s a fact. There have been studies.”
“Well, maybe we don’t need a bar at all,” Bonnie said.
“Let’s take one thing at a time.”
They were quiet for a while, Bonnie casting glances at the door, Rudy staring down into his drink, giving the ice an occasional stir.
“No family this weekend?” he asked.
Bonnie frowned. “Jim says he won’t bring the kids back until it’s safe. Can you believe that? He’s never thought twice about anyone’s safety—he just wants to drive a wedge between me and this place.”
Rudy went back to poking at the ice in his glass, pushing a cube down with his straw and then watching it float back up.
“You know you’re supposed to drink that, not play with it,” Bonnie said.
Rudy’s smile looked more like a grimace.
“I’m out of practice,” he said. “To be honest, I kind of gave it up when I moved out here. I guess you could say that I moved out here in order to give it up.”
“I’m sorry,” Bonnie said. “I had no idea. I’ll take these back and get us two Cokes.”
“No, it’s all right,” Rudy said. “I’m ready now. I’m all grown up. I should be able to enjoy a drink like anybody else.”
“You should be able to, or you are?”
“I am.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I promise.”
He lifted his glass in a toast.
“To growing up,” he said.
They drank, then sat grinning sheepishly at one another.
“Let me ask you something,” Bonnie said.
“Shoot.”
“You’ve been living out here for a while now. Does it ever get old? Are you still happy?”
“Happier now than ever,” Rudy said, winking.
“That’s not what I mean,” Bonnie said. “You could have met a girl anywhere. Do you miss … civilization? Do you ever feel like you made a big mistake?”