But it didn’t look right, the way they were lying, the boy sprawled back across the naked girl with one arm flung over her face. Messy, and he didn’t like messes. It was a lesson his mother had drummed into him when he was a kid, about the only good lesson he’d ever learned from her. And army discipline had reinforced it later on. Always clean up your messes. So he always did. His, and other people’s too.
He put the Glock back into his jacket pocket, picked up and pocketed the ejected shell casings. He nudged the two sprawled bodies around until they were lying side by side in the sleeping bag, pulled the flap up to their chins. Better. Tidier.
Then he began collecting the trash so he could take it with him when he climbed back up the cliffside path.
Early Fall
He sat on the hood of his car, smiling as he watched the sea lions. There were three of them, a fat graybeard and two sleek brownish-tan younger ones. When he’d first driven in along the river, the younger ones were playing in the silty brown water, zooming along on their backs, rolling over and diving and chasing each other. Fun to watch because they were having fun, like puppies or a couple of little kids in a swimming pool. Now all three were up on the sandbar near where the river flowed into the Pacific, the old one lying on his side with his belly exposed, the young ones boxing each other with their flippers.
It was late afternoon, cold and gray, fog already obscuring the river mouth and the beach and parking area where the road ended. There was nobody around except him and the sea lions.
Until the guy on the motorcycle showed up.
He heard the machine’s sputtering roar a long way off, knew by the sound of it that it was coming fast along the narrow road. It made a hell of a racket when it came barreling around a bend into sight. The rider geared down and braked hard, smoking his tires as he shot past, then pulled up a short ways ahead and sat there juicing the throttle. The sea lions didn’t like the noise any more than he did; they stirred around out on the sandbar, the older one rolling onto his belly and waggling a flipper, then edging closer to the water.
The noise finally quit. The rider, dressed in a black leather jacket and black leather leggings, shoved the kickstand down and took off his helmet; he had long straggly red hair and a matching beard. From one of the saddlebags he produced a flattish pint bottle half full of something that was probably whiskey, unscrewed the cap, and took a long swallow. Smacked and then wiped fat lips, glancing over in his direction.
“Colder’n a witch’s tit, eh?”
“Pretty cold,” he agreed.
The rider walked out onto the narrow strip of grass and rocks that separated the road from the river’s edge. Stopped halfway along, unzipped his fly and urinated onto a bush before continuing to the waterline. Stood for a few seconds looking at the sea lions, then emptied the bottle and hurled it at them. It landed short of the sandbar, making a flat splash. The man picked up a rock and threw that, missing wide; pitched a second rock that narrowly missed the graybeard. All three animals had started a confused barking.
By then he was off the hood and running through the grass. “Hey! Hey, you, don’t do that.”
A scowl and a red-eyed stare. “Do what?”
“Throw things at those sea lions. You almost hit one.”
“Too bad I didn’t. I hate those buggers. What’s it to you, anyway?”
“Plenty. It’s plenty to me.”
“Yeah? You want to make something out of it?”
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
The cyclist took an aggressive step toward him, one arm lifting, the hand bunching into a fist.
And died that way, without enough time to even look surprised.
He shifted his gaze to the sandbar to see if the noise of the shot had frightened the sea lions.
Damn. They were already gone.
Late Fall
From the trees behind the cabin he watched the old man cutting up tree branches with a chain saw. It was a windy day, and every time there was a fresh gust the harsh whine of the saw grew louder, more shrill. The noise was like needles poking into his ears.
Past where the old man worked sat brush piles and stacks of bigger logs from the trees that had been cut down in the land crease and along the bluff top beyond. The sections were naked now except for scattered stumps like blemishes on the hard earth. Must’ve been two dozen or more taken down—old-growth pines, maybe some redwoods too like the ones back here where he was hidden. Beautiful trees, the pines heavy with cones, the redwoods thick with burls. In the wind they had a kind of swaying grace that reminded him of dancers moving to the rhythmic beat of music. Ugly music now … that damn chain saw.
The old man shut off the racket finally, laid the saw down, and stood flexing kinks out of his back and shoulders. Seventy, at least, but wiry and spry in a lumberman’s jacket and a cloth cap. Pretty soon he went over to the cabin, a small place built out of unpainted redwood, and bent to take a drink from a water tap.
Time. He moved slowly out of the woods into the clearing behind the cabin.
The old man was on the way back to the logpile by then. Jerked to a stop, bent forward a little, staring. Startled at first, then puzzled, then guarded.
“Say, where’d you come from?”
“The trees back there,” he said.
“This is private property, mister. You’re trespassing.”
“Sure, I know.”
“Well? What do you want?”
“I followed you,” he said.
“What you mean, you followed me?”
“From the store in town.”
“I ain’t been to the store today.”
“Not today. Yesterday.”
“Yesterday? You been hanging around here since then?”
“Part of the time.”
“What the devil for?”
“I heard somebody in the store say you’d been clear-cutting trees. I wanted to find out if it was true.”
The old man said, “So it’s true. So what?”
“I don’t like it when people clear-cut.”
“Don’t matter what you like, this ain’t your property.”
“Why did you do it?”
“What difference does that make?”
“I asked you why. The trees weren’t dead or diseased, were they?”
“No.”
“Healthy trees, then. Why did you cut down healthy trees?”
The old man’s seamed face had reshaped into a glower. “Well, hell. Look at that view down the declivity and across the bluff—whitewater view now. You could barely see the ocean before—”
“I thought so.”
He took the Glock from his jacket pocket.
The old man said, “Jesus Christ!” and backed up a step, wide-eyed. He hadn’t been afraid before. Now he was. “What’s that for?”
“What do you think it’s for?”
“Listen, all I got on me is twenty bucks and there’s nothing in the cabin—”
“I don’t want your money.”
“God’s sake, what then?”
“I told you, I don’t like clear-cutting.”
“You ain’t gonna shoot me—”
“Yes,” he said, “I am.”
“For cutting down trees? You can’t kill a man for that!”
“It’s not the only reason,” he said, and fired.
B E T W E E N C H R I S T M A S
A N D N E W Y E A R ’ S
O N E
THEY WERE HALFWAY THROUGH the treacherous cliffside section of Highway 1 between Jenner and Fort Ross when the rain started.
Macklin thought, Damn! and flicked on the windshield wipers. It was dark now, just after five, and the twisty two-lane road glistened wetly in the Prius’s headlight beams. No other traffic in sight; there’d been only a smattering of cars in either direction since they passed through Jenner.