I figured they would never be missed. Then I committed the worst mistake of my life.
“ I opened the back door to leave, and as I turned to close it, the moonlight reflected off an object in a trash basket, by the washing machine. Curious, I went back in. It was a child’s locket on an old gold linked chain. So old that it was frozen shut. I supposed that’s why it had been tossed in the trash. I thought it would make a great gift for Carolina, so I took it.”
“ Let me guess,” Sarah said. “It was the magic locket.”
“ And she wants it back,” John Coffee said.
Sarah thought about what he’d said and decided that when he got back with the clothes, she was going to get them on and get out of Dodge. He was a nice enough man, and a wonderful lover.
He made her wonder what she had ever seen in Miles. True, Miles was successful. He was well read in a day when most men were stuck in front of the television. He dressed well, talked well, lived well. He cooked her gourmet meals, took her out on weekends, showered her with presents, and he wrote poetry to her. On the surface he was every woman’s dream.
But he was stick-in-the-mud boring when it came to talking about anything he wasn’t interested in, and he was a coward.
John Coffee on the other hand was a man of few words, with powerfully attracting eyes. He wouldn’t write you a poem, or send you flowers, or spend all day in front of a stove for you.
But he would die for you. And that had to count for something.
Still, he belonged in an institution somewhere. He needed help and she didn’t have it in her. The last few days had used her up. All she wanted was some clothes, so she could go to the bank and get enough money to travel to Europe or South America. Someplace where she could sleep till noon and eat all the junk food she wanted. It was what she needed. A vacation from life.
She slid out of the sleeping bag and peeked out of the tent. She looked at the sky and wondered what time it was. She should have asked John before he went into town. She knew it must be late, because the sun was hanging low in the sky. Probably around four or five. Still a couple of hours of daylight left.
She pulled her head back in the tent and put on her socks and hiking shoes. She had a hard night, followed by pleasant sex, and she wanted a bath, needed a bath. She stuck her head out of the tent again and roamed her eyes around the clearing.
Deserted.
Should she, she asked herself? She had always been a shy person, and until now, had never even slept without a nightgown. She had always disliked being naked outside of her bedroom or bathroom, but last night she’d been all over northern California without a stitch on, and now she was thinking about going to the river and splashing some of the cool water on her bare, naked skin.
She climbed out of the tent, and stood in front of it, feeling deliciously wicked and giddy. She was exploring uncharted regions of herself and finding that she liked what she found. The slight breeze, whipping around parts of her body that had never seen the sun, sent a pleasing chill through her. Maybe she was a closet nudist, she thought.
She laughed as she walked through the clearing. Every nerve was alive. She felt like the forest had a thousand eyes, each one on her. Every tree an admirer, every branch waving homage, every leaf and pine needle rustling in the breeze, making sweet forest music for her. She had never felt so free. She wrapped her arms around her breasts, grabbing her shoulders with her hands and hugged herself. Then she did a full spin and laughed again. She was having fun.
But she was cold, too, so she hustled back to the tent and started rummaging through his duffel bag. She found a tee shirt, way too big for her, but scads better than nothing at all. She pulled it over her head, then pulled off the shoes and wiggled into a pair of his well worn Levi’s, surprised to find that they fit round her waist pretty well. John Coffee had broad shoulders, but a thin waist. She remembered last night and she remembered that she liked that.
She would splash that cool water on her bare, naked skin another day, when it wasn’t so cold, she thought, as she cuffed the Levi’s. She was lacing up her shoes when she heard the laughter.
She recognized it immediately, Brad Peters, her perennial problem child. She tucked the shirt in, ran her hands through her hair. Counted to ten, and stepped out of the tent.
“ Over here,” Brad said, to Ray Harpine, then he turned and saw Sarah standing in front of the tent.
“ Brad Peters,” she said in her best school teacher voice.
“ Miss Sadler, what are you doing here?”
“ No, Brad, I’m the one that asks the questions. Remember?”
“ Yeah, sorry,” the boy said.
“ I’d really hate to think you two boys were coming up here to get into some kind of mischief.”
“ Not us,” Brad said.
“ Over where, Brad?” Sarah said.
“ What do you mean?” Brad said.
“ You said, ‘Over here,’ what did you mean?”
“ Nothing,” Brad said.
“ You didn’t mean that there was a tent over here, did you?”
“ No.” Brad said.
“ Did he, Ray?”
“ Yes, ma’am,” Ray Harpine said, without thinking.
“ I’d hate to think you boys were going to be sticking your noses into tents that don’t belong to you,” she said.
“ No, ma’am,” Brad said.
“ And I’d hate to have to call your parents and tell them I thought that. You wouldn’t want me to have to do that, would you, Brad?”
“ No, ma’am.”
“ Then go home. It’s getting late and this is no place for boys to be playing after dark.”
“ We play in the woods all the time at night,” Brad said.
“ Not tonight you don’t. Tonight you go straight home. Unless of course you want me calling your parents.”
“ No, ma’am. We got studying to do, so we’ll go to my house,” Ray said.
“ When?” Sarah asked.
“ Right now,” Ray said.
“ Then get going,” she said. She watched as they turned and crossed the clearing, heading for the path.
“ Stupid,” she heard Brad say to Ray, just before they reached the path and left her sight.
She laughed to herself. Then she heard laughter of a different kind, a primitive, high pitched, staccato laughter that froze her to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Then she thought of the boys, so soon out of her sight, and she shivered again, because she knew they were in great danger.
John Coffee had been telling the truth after all. She had been so blind, not wanting to accept what she couldn’t understand. She had seen his eyes, and they radiated truth, yet still she refused to believe. The wolf, the bear, the old woman, and still she refused to believe. But this, this could not be explained away. She had spent too much time in Africa.
She dropped to her knees and dove into the tent, shooting her hands under the duffel back and coming out with the forty-five. She ejected the magazine and started pulling clothes out of his duffel, until she got to the two boxes of shells at the bottom, and with frantic, fumbling fingers she started popping shells into the magazine, ramming them home with her thumb.
Once full, she slammed it into the weapon and jammed a full box of shells into her hip pocket. Then she saw the spare magazine at the bottom of the duffel. She checked it, found it full, and shoved it in her pocket along with the shells. She didn’t know if a normal, lead forty-five slug could stop a soucouyant, but it damn sure could stop a hyena.
Again the hyena’s laughter ripped through the night, reminding her of the Kenyan bush. Normally the hyena preferred to feed off another’s kill, scavenging what the lion or cheetah was willing to leave, but they were not
