My Three Husbands (23 page)

I had crossed the river. I'd done it.

I looked back. Marcello was no longer standing on the log bridge. He was sitting on it, holding tight to the guide ropes, eyes clamped shut, as if he were praying. That was my last view of him before I headed up Devil's Spring Trail and back into the forest.

C
rossing the river shot me full of confidence. I was radiantly proud of myself for not succumbing to my fears. I had actually conquered my age-old panic about heights.

I felt as though I'd entered a new world.

I strode into the forest, fearless as Wonder Woman, and began to clamber up a rocky spur of Smartypants Peak, following the next segment of the trail.

Pain and discomfort didn't signify in this new world. The blister on my left heel was worse and my clothes were soaked, but it didn't bother me.

I was on a mission.

Finding my husband, rescuing him if necessary, was all that mattered. I couldn't just leave him to an unknown fate.

When we met again, it would be the beginning of our life together. I would prove to him how much I loved him, how much I was willing to sacrifice. He'd see just how wrong he was to doubt my love and my allegiance.

I moved fast, determined to elude Marcello. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of stopping me from carrying out my mission. No doubt like all rich men Marcello was accustomed to getting what he wanted. I figured he wanted me the way sportsmen want a moose or a bear or a duck. If he wanted to chase after me, fine. I didn't care. But he'd have to move fast because I was determined to reach Tremaynne within an hour.

I doubted Marcello would come after me, though. If Chiron was as valuable as Kristin said he was, Marcello wouldn't leave the horse alone on an isolated mountainside in the middle of nowhere. That's one thing I do know about the rich: they take good care of their status symbols.

 

 

I climbed higher, exhilarated by my lack of fear. I gulped the thin, sharp mountain air as deeply into my lungs as I could. Pretty soon I was hawking up mouthful after mouthful of slimy green phlegm.

Spitting was a new experience. It was kind of disgusting, but I liked shooting my firm snotty wads like soft green bullets through the air. Spitting made more sense than reswallowing that gunk.

The trail was little more than a narrow track following the steep, rocky contours of Windy Ridge. The trees here were enormous. Their crowns, towering a hundred feet above me, nodded and swayed to the chorus of winds that must have given Windy Ridge its name. Scattered along the side of the ridge were giant boulders and jagged rock formations. The colossal scale of everything was enhanced by the view, which swept down to a vast high valley densely packed with pine trees and veined with glittering silver streams.

It was completely quiet except for the soft scouring sound of winds sweeping through this huge natural arena.

As I reached the top of the spur, the track I'd been following vanished. The map indicated that Devil's Spring Trail hooked up with a logging road on the opposite side of the ridge. To reach it I had to go down into a scoop of forest, cross a stream, and climb up to a still higher plateau. It looked pretty strenuous, but I didn't cut myself any slack. I was in this to win.

 

 

On one of my trips to New York, the dads took me to see St. Patrick's Cathedral and another cathedral that Whitman called “St. John Too Divine.” The sense of awe that came over me as I entered those gigantic buildings, one hand in Daddy's, the other in Whitman's, swept over me again as I made my way into the forest.

It looked like nothing had been disturbed on this protected shelf of land for thousands of years. The trees grew and the stream ran and the wind blew high overhead. It gave off the weirdest feeling, one that was hard for me, a city girl who knew nada about nature, to describe to myself. Without knowing what “holy” really means, I'd say it was holy. Or sacred, maybe. There was a sense of the eternal about it, a sense of something immortal, undying. It existed outside the realm of human anguish.

The stream was swift-flowing but shallow and easy to cross. I crouched down on a big stone in the middle of it, scooped water into the bowl of my hands, and splashed it into my face. Then I drank, greedily slurping down the sweet cold water until I was full.

That strange inner glow, as if I'd successfully passed some major test, came over me again. Something was different. I wasn't used to having this much physical energy or this much confidence.

If I'd read the map correctly, the logging-road segment of Devil's Spring Trail was on the plateau above me. I eyed the hillside, figuring out my route, and started up.

The map showed Moccasin Lake on top of the plateau. I envisioned pristine waters shimmering like a fat blue diamond in the green folds of the forest. But as I climbed towards the top, huffing and sweating, I started to get a strange feeling that something was wrong.

The upper hillside showed serious signs of erosion. There'd been landslides, and the earth felt unstable beneath my heavy boots. The wind blew harder and harsher up there. It didn't sing and hum, like in the forest. It sounded for all the world like a faint keening scream.

When I reached the top of the plateau, and saw it with my own eyes, I knew why it was screaming.

The whole plateau looked blank-faced with shock.

Every last tree had been cut. A massacred wasteland was all that was left. Moccasin Lake stared up at the sky like the cloudy-gray eye of a dead fish.

The plateau was like a battlefield where bombs had been dropped. Whole areas were gouged up and cratered out. All that was left of the trees were giant, overturned stumps that stuck up from the ground like corpses ripped from their graves.

A sense of dread clutched at the pit of my stomach. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.

The logging road wound through the devastation, past the lake, and into what appeared to be untouched forest. Devil's Spring wasn't far. But all my newfound confidence suddenly vanished, whisked away as if it had been nothing more than a magician's trick with smoke and mirrors.

A shadow passed over the decimated landscape like the wing of a huge dark bird. The sky lightened, then grew dark again. I looked up. Thick gray clouds were churning across the sky. When the sun disappeared, the temperature immediately dropped about fifteen degrees. Everything looked cold and desolate. That faint scream in the wind grew louder.

I forced myself to move ahead, to keep my feet going in what I hoped was the right direction.

I wondered what I was getting myself into.

 

 

It was like walking through a nightmare. The landscape was eerie and oppressive. What had been a teeming forest was now a huge, scarred absence, a nothingness. It was weird, but it was like I could sense the faint ghostly vibration of the forest still clinging to the battered earth.

There was no cover. Walking along the gouged and rutted logging road, I was completely exposed.

The sky grew darker. Sharp, bitter winds slapped up clouds of dust. I felt like I was the only living thing in a dead world. It was haunted, shunned by all creatures.

I hurried toward the forest rising up like a giant palisade in the distance. According to the map, Devil's Spring was about a mile farther. First, I had to locate Devil's Spit Creek. I could follow that up to the spring.

The air was buzzing with electricity. I could feel it crackling in my hair, a current that seemed to be sucking energy straight up through my body. A flicker of lightning, swift as a viper's tongue, forked through the dark sky. It was followed by a crack of thunder so loud that I cried out, like a scared kid. I felt like I was caught in the crossfire of gigantic forces that spit fire and crushed the bones of puny humans like me.

I began to run as more lightning bolts streaked through the air above nearby peaks and ridges. The sky swelled and glowed like a fresh bruise, all black and green and reddish purple. The winds that started to blow were unlike any gust or gale I'd experienced on the sidewalks of Portland or New York. All I could do was tuck my hands under my armpits and keep moving, hunkered down, as they swept over me. I thought my hair would be torn from my scalp. If I straightened up, I was afraid that the wind would catch me like a sail and blow me up and off Smartypants Peak. I could hardly catch my breath. The wind sucked it out of my mouth.

I couldn't see any kind of shelter on the clear-cut plateau. I'd be better off in the forest, surrounded by trees. I could hear them creaking, like the floorboards in the big old house I used to live in with Daddy and Carolee. I thought of that big comfortable house where once, for a short period, I'd felt safe and protected. The world around me howled, screamed, shook with terrific cracks and rumbles. I kept my head down and plowed into the wind like a linebacker.

The rain started just as I reached the perimeter of the forest. It came in a sudden drenching sheet, not falling straight down but blown horizontally by the winds that raged up and over the sides of the mountain. The drops smacked my face like cold BBs. I moaned but kept moving, moving, moving until I reached the perimeter wall of forest and darted in like a wet, shivering cat.

The forest was full of rushing movement as the wind bellowed its way in from the naked plateau. Branches flopped and swayed; tree trunks groaned. But as I penetrated deeper, it became quieter, like a sturdy house in a raging gale. The canopy was so dense that it kept out the worst of the rain.

I had the sense that everything—trees, animals, and anything else that lived or lurked here—was alert and watching, silently waiting for the storm to pass.

And it did pass, departing as suddenly as it arrived. The last of the black billowing clouds swept by like the ragged hem of a witch's robe. A moment later sunlight pierced through the branches high overhead, needling down into an understory steamy with floating mists. The forest filled with a soft dense light. Birds called out their relief. The air swelled with a wet earthy fragrance.

I followed a well-worn trail, climbing over and ducking under fallen trees along the path. The hard red droppings of hunters littered the edge of every open glade. Some of the discarded shell cartridges looked new.

Cardboard signs had been tacked high on some of the trees
. No Trespassing. Private Property. Parcel T-341. Leased by Lumina International.
The signs were riddled with bullet holes.

Like victims awaiting execution, the biggest trees were marked with stripes of fluorescent orange paint.

I wondered if any of the trees had been spiked. Tremaynne had told me about this tactic. In disputed old-growth areas about to be logged, radical environmentalists would sometimes hammer iron spikes into the trees at the point where loggers would cut. If a chainsaw bit into one of the spikes, the chain would snap in two. It might even fly back and rip open the face of the logger.

It was hard for me to picture forests as war zones, but that's what Tremaynne said they were. This was his battle terrain.

A hissing sound carried through the silence of the forest. When I got to Devil's Spit Creek, I saw that the water was actually steaming. It must have been heated by the hot springs higher up the narrow gorge. The air had a sulphurous edge to it.

 

 

The moment I heard voices I stopped in my tracks and hardly breathed. As quietly as I could, I inched over to slide down and hide behind a tree. The voices were too low to be heard clearly over the hissing splash of the creek.

I sat as still and wide-eyed as an animal hiding from a predator. What next? I had to get closer. I had to see if it was Tremaynne.

I had to be smart and careful.

The warmth of the water as it ran down its narrow rocky gorge heated the surrounding air and created a green belt of foliage around the creek. Beyond that, the forest trees were dense and enormous, and the underbrush thick. The steamy air cut down on visibility. Moving slowly and carefully, I made my way closer to the voices.

Six tents were pitched in a small clearing. Camping gear and a bunch of other equipment was scattered around the tents. I could see coils of rope, boards, and what looked like fish nets. Large plastic canisters were stacked on one side of the tents. Buckets and plastic containers were strung high on a rope between two trees. The air was charred from a recent campfire.

Beyond the tents was Devil's Spring. My view of it was partially blocked by trees and rocks. From what I could see, it was a series of wide stone pools. The water steamed out from a rocky shelf, dripped down from one pool to the next, and ran into Devil's Spit Creek.

The voices were coming from the hot springs.

I crept closer, on my hands and knees, alert to every snapping twig.

I got so close that I could clearly see them and hear what they were saying.

There were two of them. One was burly, bearded, and potbellied, his body covered with a mat of thick black hair. The other one was skinny with pale skin and long hair hanging down in dripping strands from a bald crown. The two of them lolled in the shallow, steaming pools of water, taking deep gulps from pint-size bottles.

I was certain I'd seen them before and racked my brain to remember where.

“That dumb fuck,” Blackbeard was saying. “If he screws up—”

“Then fuckin' do it yourself, man,” Skinny said.

“The point is, can he do it and get outta there fast enough?”

“Kind of late to be worrying about that shit now,” Skinny said. He lifted his pint and chug-a-lugged. Then he popped open his eyes and shook his head and cried, “Shee-it! That shit's got one fuckin' mean kick when you ain't had none for three years.”

“Cap was never one of us commandos,” Blackbeard was fretting. “He never trained in the woods with us. His fucking wife wouldn't let him join.”

“He ain't fuckin' got her to deal with no more,” Skinny said. “He's fuckin' ready.”