He slipped his knife into his buckskin pouch as the swift river bore him away. It had taken him weeks to find the stone, then to shape it as he wanted, chipping away the slivers of quartz as his father had taught him. With it, he could kill. With it, he could defend himself against the cave people.
He thought of the woman he had killed. He had seen her first by the river’s edge, then followed her to the crest of the hills. He had called to her then, but she had mocked him, jutting her chin out, pushing her breasts at him, slapping her thick upper lip with her tongue, and saying, “Maa-naa, Maa-naa,” as she turned to show him her behind.
He had wanted to lure her from the track, to entice her into the deep gully beside the huge banana trees where the ground was soft and mossy, but she wouldn’t budge from the clearing. He watched her prance in the bright sunlight, flicking out her pelvis as if to entice him. He rushed out from the safe patch of underbrush, and she scooted away, giggling. Enraged, he had grabbed his new quartzite ax and struck her.
He would stay with the river, clinging to the thick log of bamboo. His grandfather had told him tales, stories told to him by his grandfather, of hills beyond hills, of other people, tall and slim like running giraffes, who wore the skin of animals, and told tales of giant mountains where the rain was white and cold.
These were only tales, he knew, shared around warm fires on cold nights, when the old people huddled and sang stories of lands beyond the river, stories they said that came to them in dreams, when the body sleeps, and the spirits sail with the moon, and they painted such songs on their cave walls.
He did not believe the old men’s stories. He knew only what he saw, only what he tasted in his mouth, only what had happened to him.
He had killed the woman, and the cave people would kill him. He did not want to leave his own woman, his children, or his mother and father, but he did not want to die from a flying spear and have his eyes sucked from his head.
He clung to the bamboo stump and was happy to be alive, happy, too, that he had killed her. She had laughed at him with her eyes and jutted out her sex as if it were the lush fruit of a berry bush, but would not mate with him. Yes, he was glad that he had killed her, and he kept sailing away on the tide of the wide river, heading toward the rising sun and the land of white cold rain and tall slim men.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
JENNIFER BOLTED THE BATHROOM door and spun around to face herself in the mirror. Under the bright lights, she was amazed at how frightful she looked. It was as if she had stuck her finger in an electrical outlet.
She thought of Kirk, of how he had come out of the night and helped her get away from the farm, of how he had been so nice to her. Her mind whirled as she linked together all the strange coincidences that had brought this man into her life. She had been trapped and double-crossed by this innocent-looking guy.
“Oh God!” Jennifer exclaimed. The familiar rush of fear crippled her, and she slid to the bathroom floor, trembling.
It was so obvious. He had been sent out onto the lonely Minnesota road to pick her up when she ran away from the farm. He had been sent by Kathy Dart to keep an eye on her. No wonder he was so willing to indulge her whims, to go along with her scatterbrained theories about the farm and Habasha. He was one of them.
She curled herself into a tight fetal position, sobbing, but part of her mind had already begun to sort out what she must do to save herself.
Why did they want her? she kept asking herself. Who was she that they kept coming after her?
She forced herself to stop guessing and concentrated on how she was going to escape. Kirk would be returning soon, perhaps with Simon in tow.
She would call the police, tell them she was being kidnapped. She remembered reading stories about cult groups and how they always fled once the police became involved.
Jennifer pulled herself up from the floor and glanced around for a telephone. When she saw there wasn’t one in the bathroom, she leaned against the door and listened for sounds of Kirk moving in the room.
Slowly, quietly, she pulled open the bathroom door and peeked into the bedroom. Kirk was standing in the door, filling the frame with his body. He was grinning at her, still sweating from his early-morning jog.
Jennifer jumped him.
“Jesus Christ, what’s going on?” He ducked her swinging fists.
Jennifer tried to grab him by the hair, but it was too short. Frantically, she flailed out with her arms. Swearing, Kirk caught her arms in his hands and pinned them to her sides. She kept struggling, and he picked her up and dropped her on the bed. Then, with some effort, he turned her face toward him and forced her to look at him.
“Hey,” he said softly, as Jennifer kept kicking. “Hey, what the hell is going on?”
Her nightgown had torn open and exposed one pale, milky breast.
“Christ,” Kirk murmured, keeping her arms pinned to the pillow above her head.
“You! You’re one of them!” She tried to keep fighting, but then, exhausted, she broke down into tears.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, holding her gently now.
“Simon
in the car
” She kept sobbing and explained how she had seen him talking to McCloud in the parking lot
“Yeah, I know who he is. He wanted to know where the restaurant was, for chrissake!” He let go of her and stood up. “What are you talking, anyway?” He grabbed his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head.
“He’s after me!” Jennifer said, sitting up. “Kathy Dart sent him after me.”
“Jesus, you are paranoid.” He glanced over at her, shaking his head.
“Why is he following me?” she shouted.
“He asked me where the restaurant was. He told me he was driving to Madison. He’s giving a lecture or something,” Kirk explained, returning to the bed. “And what else, he doesn’t know you’re even in this motel.” He stared down at her.
“He’ll ask at the desk!”
“And no Jennifer Winters is registered.” Now he allowed himself to smile.
“I’m so scared,” Jennifer whispered and, reaching over, touched Kirk. Her eyes were puffy from crying.
“It’s okay,” he answered softly. “It’s okay.” He pulled her into his arms.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jennifer pleaded.
He was shaking his head. “We’ve got time. He’s having breakfast. Let him finish and get back on the highway.”
“We can’t stay on that road.”
“Okay, we won’t. We’ll take another route. Don’t worry, he won’t find you. I won’t let him. Okay?” He smiled at her.
Jennifer nodded, unable to speak, overwhelmed by his closeness and his strength. She realized that all she wanted at that moment was for Kirk to hold and comfort her.
He moved her then, gently eased her down onto the pillows. His eyes never left her, but his gaze moved from her face down to her breasts, then to her slender hips and thighs. He swallowed hard, and his gray eyes darkened. There was a long silence as they stared at each other.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I saw you, and
I started to get paranoid again.”
“Hey, I said I’d get you to O’Hare.”
“I can’t go to O’Hare.”
“Okay, come with me.”
“And what?”
“I don’t know! We’ll figure something out.”
Jennifer kept looking into his eyes. “You mean that, don’t you?”
He nodded, and she saw him swallow hard again. He didn’t take his eyes off her. She saw the blind, moonstruck look in his eyes. With a mixture of fear and desire, she waited for him to touch her.