Ginny sat up in bed, ashamed of having slept so late; but she excused herself this time – there were plenty of reasons to let her off the hook just this once. Reluctantly, she climbed out from under the blanket, pulling down her nightgown as she stepped painfully on the floor, grimacing as a searing charge of pain shot from between her bruised, tender thighs.
She stepped gingerly to the bathroom, and turned on the faucets for a nice, long hot soak, and sat back to wait for the tub to fill. But the steaming water was so inviting, she decided not to wait, and hastily yanked the nightgown over her head, pulled down her bikini panties, and stepped into the still-shallow bath. She splashed a little on the cold ceramic tub so she could stretch out without touching the chilling surface.
The deepening water seemed to engulf her like an ocean wave, rising higher and higher, easing away her aches and soreness like gallons of liniment. In a few seconds, she caught herself falling asleep, sprawled in the whirling water, really relaxed for the first time since those horrible minutes in Marty Bondman's office.
Also for the first time, she was able to clearly think about what had happened, and more important, what to do about it.
She'd thought about calling the police – about putting that disgusting animal behind bars where he belonged, but it hadn't taken long to get that notion shoved out of her mind. Just a few brief thoughts about detectives, newspaper accounts, courtroom appearances, and most of all, about how she could explain what she was doing in this man's office alone, stripped down to her bare skin – that was all it took to convince her she'd have to forget going to the authorities.
And for another few short moments, right after she'd come in from her nightmare at Marty Bondman's, she'd thought of calling Fred, of the sweet relief that a few minutes of hearing his voice, even from so far away, would offer. But she knew he'd know something was wrong, that he would spot her anguish no matter how well she tried to conceal it. And Ginny knew he mustn't find out, not now at least; not when he was helpless to come to her side. She couldn't allow him to suffer like that – this was something she had to come to grips with alone, without anyone's help.
It wasn't easy, going it alone. All her life she'd had someone else to rely on, someone to lean on whenever problems stood in her way. But this time it was different – there was no one there with a friendly shoulder to cry on.
Daddy had always been around when she lived at home back in Indiana, and with three brothers, she had always been his special favorite. She'd always gone to him when Mother said no, and he'd never been able to turn her down. And even though they had never really been well off, she'd managed to have all the dresses and sweaters and new shoes she could use.
Thinking about Daddy like that always made her sad, and she tried to put those remembrances out of her mind. That cold night in 1967 ended all those warm, sunny days with her father – that dark night she'd spent with her mother and brothers huddled around his hospital bed while he choked through his last few moments on earth, one hand tightly gripped in his wife's, the other in Ginny's.
Fred had come into her life only a few months later, right after she'd graduated from high school. He had been working for the summer at the service station where her family always took their business, and she'd taken a liking to him right from the start.
She remembered it like it was yesterday; the way he looked at her when she took the family car in that sunny June day. He had seemed quite bold, she recalled, not like the boys she'd dated in high school, and a whole lot better looking. So brazen was he, in fact, he asked her for a date before she even knew his name.
And that was the beginning – two years later they were married, after Fred had dropped out of Sumter College and enlisted in the Army. Now he was halfway around the world, but he might as well have been in outer space, since the only letters she got were weeks apart sometimes. Fred had explained about that before he left. About how he hated to put his feelings into words, how it nearly killed him to have to write a letter. Ginny understood about that, and the interminable waits between letters were getting a little easier to swallow, now that she had been alone so long.
She knew she could have gone back to Indiana and stayed with her mother while Fred was overseas, or even with Fred's folks in Chicago. But she'd followed him half across the country to California before they were even married, and going home again seemed the furthest thing from her mind now. Even being alone, California was a lot better than Hammond, Indiana.
Ginny reluctantly brushed aside all her fond memories, and decided it was time to get out of the tub before she wrinkled like a prune.
She stepped dripping onto the cold tile floor and reached across her clean clothes for the towel she'd forgotten to place by the tub, sloshing a trail of water over her clean bra and panties.
Damn it, she muttered to herself, I'll have to go get some more or run around naked till these dry.
Tossing a towel around her shoulders, she marched into the bedroom and rummaged through the top drawer of her dresser, looking for a pair of panties that might have gotten shoved to the back.
Behind the slips and pantyhose, way against the back of the drawer, she found a stack of letters from Arnold and Florence, Fred's brother and his wife, bound together with a rubber band. The corners of the envelopes were all torn off, a habit she'd developed for her kid brother Mickey. He was a nut about foreign stamps, and they were living in northern Canada, so she always clipped the stamps off for him and mailed them to him.
It had been quite a while since she'd written Arnie and Flo, and Ginny made a point of putting the letters out where she'd remember them, right in the middle of the bed, and she made a promise to herself to write them that very night. She'd never known them very well, but she knew Fred was crazy about Arnie, who was ten years older than he, and that was enough recommendation for her.
Fred had talked often about going up to the Northwest Territories where Arnie operated a supply outfit for oil exploration companies and geologists headed up into the Arctic tundra along the Mackenzie River. Arnie had said many times that there was a standing invitation open to Fred to come to work for him, any time he was ready.
Ginny found her panties, then had a second thought about her letter writing, and sat down then and there to write Arnie and Flo a long letter. After all, they were sort of kin, and she knew Fred would never find the time to write them.
Surprisingly, the words came fast and easy, and it felt nice to have someone to tell her troubles to, even if she couldn't tell them about what happened the day before, and soon one page became two, then three, then four, as she emptied her mind of everything that had been weighing on her so heavily over the last long weeks.
I hope they don't think I've lost my head, she thought, writing such a long, personal letter, but I've got to tell my troubles to somebody, and they're about the only ones left.
CHAPTER FOUR
NORMAN WELLS, ON THE MACKENZIE RIVER
Like the steady fire of a million cannons, the ear-splitting roar of the river ice cracking up reverberated off the distant Mackenzie Mountains, still shrouded with their winter mantle of snow and ice. Locals knew better than to be caught out on the river this time of year, when the thick winter shell begins to split and break into huge, house-sized chunks, sometimes rising from the frigid waters like giant freshwater glaciers, slowly beginning the long journey downriver to the Arctic.
This was a time of year when you traveled by land, or by air, or you didn't travel at all. During this short transition from winter to summer, without the luxuries of spring, there could be no travel on the Mackenzie at all, and travelers found themselves stranded in the north country's few settlements until the river was clear enough for boat traffic to resume. Once in a while, some foolhardy soul would venture out onto the ice with his dogsled or modern snowmobile, and if he was lucky, he might make it back with only a wet chill and soaked clothing, but if his luck ran out, they'd never find his sled or his body as the surging Mackenzie carried him to the frozen Arctic.