off. Now I could hear nothing but my heart, pounding like a blacksmith's hammer. I returned to the phone. 'Beth,' I whispered.
'I'm calling the police.'
'I didn't call you. I got home five minutes ago, and that means someone has been in my house. You said this person has called you before?'
'Yes.' Her voice trembled.
'Why didn't you tell me?'
'He said he'd kill me and my children if I told anyone. He said he'd know.'
'You have to believe that wasn't me,' I said. 'I promise you, Beth. Do you believe me?'
'Yes,' she said, though still hesitant.
'You're in danger,' I said. 'We both are. You have someplace you can take your kids?'
'Yes, I have an…'
'Don't tell me. Just go. Go right now and stay there till you hear from me. I'll leave a message on your answering machine. Don't tell anyone you're leaving. Not a soul.'
'What about the police?'
'Not even them.'
'This has to do with Walter, doesn't it?'
'We don't have much time,' I said, glancing at the living room, then up the staircase towards the darker second floor. 'I'll explain it to you later. You have to trust me now.'
'I have to know about my husband,' she said, crying again. 'Please tell me.'
'If you don't leave now, you and your children will die tonight. Now go.' I hung up the phone and wiped my sweaty hands across my jeans. A gun, I thought. Shit, I don't have a gun. My Glock, Walter's 9mm, the silencers, and even the boxes of rounds sat on the bottom of the lake. So I grabbed a butcher knife from the cutting block and walked towards the staircase.
My footsteps echoed through the house as I ascended the steps. The second floor hallway was dark, along with the open guestroom. I moved from the hardwood steps into the carpeted hall and flipped on the ceiling lamp. The white walls became yellow under the orange light, and the sickening pulse of fear ran through me, making my stomach hurt, my legs weak. Turning right, I walked towards the end of the hallway to my bedroom. The door was closed, but I couldn't remember shutting it.
With the knife in my right hand, I turned the doorknob and cracked the door, then kicked it open and turned on the light. My bedroom seemed empty. The two windows on the left wall, which looked out on the meandering drive, were hidden behind their blinds. I walked quickly through the threshold to the walk-in closet on the right, and without giving consideration to my fear, opened the door and pulled the light switch. Empty. Moving to the bathroom beside it, I opened the door, and in the dim glow of the nightlight, ripped off the shower curtain. Empty.
Coming out of the bathroom, I noticed an impression on the bedspread. I ran my hand across the warm, ruffled blanket, sat down, and picked up the phone on the bedside table. Pressing redial, the numbers blitzed through silence, followed by two rings.
'Hello?'
'Beth, it's Andy. I wanted to make sure you're leaving.'
'I'm packing now.'
'Good girl. I'll call you soon.' I hung up the phone and stood up. My hands shook, still holding the knife. As I walked towards the door, something on the dresser facing the bed caught my eye. An unmarked envelope, which hadn't been there before, lay on a stack of
Setting the knife on the dresser, I closed my eyes for a moment. I was tired of this. Tired of the fear. When I opened my eyes again, I looked into the circular mirror above the dresser and gasped. In black magic marker, there was something written on the glass, and I couldn't imagine how I'd missed it:
RENT A CAR AND DRIVE TO THE C.M. RUSSELL
WILDLIFE REFUGE FIRST THING 11/22
WAIT FOR ME WHERE 19 CROSSES THE MISSOURI R.
I collapsed onto the bed. For a long time, I stared up at the bumpy ceiling, my eyes traversing the tiny clumps of paint that looked like a vast, snow-covered range of mountains.
# # #
Fifty miles north of Billings, Montana, in the midst of an empty, nothing land, I pulled off the road to piss. I left the car running on the flat shoulder and stepped out into swaying grass. It was bitter cold, and dry, sterile grassland extended in every direction, as far as I could see. The crystal sky had clouded, now a uniform gray, and a biting wind blew incessantly across the plain.
I climbed back into the warm rental, a red, four-door Buick, and continued north on 87. This time, I carried no gun. I’d packed only a small suitcase with provisions for several days. In a way, I was calmly putting my head to the chopping block, leaving my life in Orson's hands. He’d won. Invulnerable, he'd already set in motion the events that were destroying my world. Walking out of my lake house yesterday morning, I listened in the doorway as Detective Prosser left a message on my answering machine, all but ordering me to come to Winston that afternoon for more questioning. They suspected me, and it was only a matter of time before they indicted me. Then what? How hard would they have to look to find that I'd been to Vermont with Walter, now missing? It didn't surprise me that at my weakest hour, Orson had wanted to meet.
I entered the C.M. Russell Wildlife Refuge on highway 19 after five o'clock. The sun had nearly set, and on the horizon, above a distant range of mountains, it managed to peek through the clouds and set the prairie on fire. Yellow grasses turned gold, and miles ahead, I saw glittering radiance like sunbeams dancing on moving water. I hadn’t passed another car in the last hour, and I was beginning to understand why Orson had chosen this place. The vacancy was overwhelming. A distant migraine pounded in my head, and I knew it'd torture me in the coming hours. Only fear would overshadow it, and I felt it, too, deep in my gut. The river was close.
The prairie became a network of bare, rolling hills. There were gentle slopes and ridges now along which the highway ran and below, the valleys, cut by streams. Thickets of pines followed the water which meandered towards the Missouri, the first trees I'd seen since Billings.
As I crested the rounded peak of a low foothill, the Missouri opened up before me, like a river of crimson gold beneath the brilliance of the falling sun. More than a quarter mile wide in places, it flowed quickly eastward, out of the breaks, towards the flatlands of North Dakota. I wondered what remote mountain spring gave birth to such a mighty body of water.
The highway descended to the river, and approaching the water, I saw the bridge, barely noticeable in this oversized country. It crossed the Missouri in a narrow spot, traversing only fifty yards of water before ascending another treeless foothill on the other side and disappearing over a yellow ridge.
When the road straightened and widened as it prepared to cross the water, the sky turned purple and gray. The sun slipped behind the mountains, and the red and orange escaped from the clouds, leaving a dreary darkness upon the plain. I slowed down and veered off the road, into the tall grass. The ground felt soft beneath the tires, like after days of steady rain. I turned off the car and took my brown leather jacket from the passenger seat. A raw wind whipped my face as I slipped into the jacket, stepped outside, and slammed the door. With the loss of the sun it was much colder, and I dug my hands deep into my pockets. From where I stood, the hillside sloped down a hundred feet to the river. Pines and shrubs grew along the sandy bank. I looked into the trees but saw no movement, only branches swaying in the wind.
