Chapter 6
The sun was hot, as though the few thousand feet above sea level brought that fiery orb so close, it was almost touchable. Anabel dragged herself the last few feet to the shade of a pine and leaned against its rough bark gratefully. Wearily she pulled the bright pink scarf from her hair and used it to wipe her face. Finally she slid down the trunk to a squat and leaned back into the old tree. This trip was just about the last straw.
"You're early, young lady."
Anabel jumped and her feet slid out from under her and she bumped her jean clad bottom into the deep needles and dirt. One more man popping out at her and she'd run screaming into the hills! She saw with relief that it was Arthur Bello smiling at her with his pack still on his back. Tremulously she tried to smile back. Why had she ever come on this damn trip?
Bello shed his pack and hunkered down beside her in the shade. "You're mighty early. Must have been in this high country before." He sat then and began to ease his boots off, the sweat dripping from his face.
Anabel shook her head, still trying to get her breath. People had been snapping at each other all day and Kit had been so strange and remote when they were in public, but grabbing her like a maniac when they were out of sight for a moment. Her nerves had been shot before this trip and the exhaustion now was too much. She'd fled from the others when Nat Simmons tried to pin her inside a tent. Knowing only the direction of the meadow they called Fool's Paradise set beside the Lake of Sighs, she had set out alone ahead of the others and she'd made it. Kit would be furious but she didn't care at this point.
"I got tired of being the villain so I came on ahead," Bello said.
"You mean... about the property, I guess... ?"
Bello nodded, pulling out his water bottle and offering it to her. Anabel drank thirstily and handed it back. She had a bottle of water herself but it was in that damn pack she'd dropped a few feet back.
"Yeah, folks have gotten so riled up about it... if it wasn't my life's work... I'd just leave and let them wrangle... maybe strike out to Australia."
It sounded like heaven to Anabel at that moment. Not Australia particularly... but striking out. She couldn't even cope with her own life, her own problems, much less those of the city of Del Monte. The horrors and exhaustion and nervous tension of the last few days welled up in her and her head came down on her doubled knees, tears crowding up in her throat painfully.
"Hold on... you all right?"
"J... just dizzy, I guess."
Arthur's work hardened and hand lifted her chin and he saw the tears trickling soundlessly out of her eyes. Without a word he gathered her in his arms and held her to his big chest.
"No... I don't think it's the altitude. I think you're just all tuckered out." Anabel shook with sobs then as she heard the big man's kind words. It was the first time in so long that a man had tried to befriend her, to care about her without wanting to... to... shove a big whanger into her cunt. The thought brought another flood of tears but Arthur Bello just held her and let her cry.
Arthur thought about Ruth as he held the girl, smoothing her bright red hair with his big hand. Maybe in Australia he'd find another wife even. Plenty of women in Del Monte had been after him when Ruth died but he couldn't stomach any of them. When Ruth went, it was as though that part of his life was over... but holding this girl, young enough to be his daughter, something stirred in him that had been buried a long time.
He didn't bother to ask why she cried. Any fool could see she had heartaches enough if she'd been married to that phony from Los Angeles. She'd had the strength to divorce Hal but he'd followed her even here. Poor little thing.
The others straggled in by twos and threes all afternoon to Alpine meadow that dipped down to the deep clear lake on one side and the steep dropping cliff on the other. The laughing and splashing from the swimmers in the lake could be heard echoing through the clear mountain air.
Giddy with exhaustion and the altitude, the campers took a long time preparing supper and building a huge campfire and pumping up air mattresses for the night and all the other endless chores that were required for even a temporary overnight camp out. Their regular camp gear was mostly left behind at the tent city they'd erected below and three miles back.
With the laughing and the kidding, the endless wrangling over the Bello property went on. Only Anabel and Arthur Bello had nothing to say on the subject. Everyone else went right on arguing and Hal's voice could be heard above the rest. Kit would have flattened him if he hadn't been stopped.
After supper Bello brought out some whiskey. Nothing else seemed to stop them. Maybe this would calm them down enough to sleep. He took a big gulp himself and passed the big bottle to the others around the campfire. The whiskey glowed in his stomach and he felt better. Someone brought out a recorder and Arthur eased back onto his sleeping bag and closed his eyes to listen to the sweet sound wind up through the night air.
He lay listening to the music, lovely and lonely in the chill, but it was soon being drowned out again by the talking and the giggling. Arthur sat up. The whiskey bottle was passed around freely and they ignored the recorder player as though he didn't exist. Arthur got up and walked away, disgusted.
Other bottles were soon produced and then the singing started. All the old favorites were hauled out and rehashed over and over since they were the only songs everyone knew the words to. The untrained harmonizing began and the off key singing filled the meadow.
Harriet could see that no sleep would be possible for quite a while. She shrugged on a heavy sweater, took her flashlight and started walking in the direction of the lake. She could smell the Alpine wild flowers on the meadow and knew that, try as she might, she must still be crushing some underfoot. It was ironic that this conservation group gave so little thought to polluting the wilds and so much to conserving the areas around towns. Something had changed in Harriet since that night on the beach with Kit. She'd been in Del Monte too long. Either she had outgrown the town or the town was outgrowing her. Her family had been there so long and she was the last of them. Maybe it was time to move on.
Her flashlight shone ahead in a cone of light but the moon was out now. Harriet switched the flashlight off. She was almost to the lake. Suddenly her shin hit something solid and before she could fling out her arms for balance, she fell and went right on over to land in a heap in the soft dirt!
"Whoa there!"
"Ohhhhh..."
A pair of arms came around her where she lay in the dirt and she looked up into a bronzed face. "Oh... oh, dear... I'm so sorry..." Why it was Arthur Bello!
"You all right?" She nodded but he made no move to disengage his strong arms from around her where she lay and he was looking into her face so strangely. Before she knew what was happening she felt his lips come down on hers and his arms tighten.
Arthur was a little drunk and the sudden appearance of Harriet, falling so unceremoniously into his lap, was like an extension of his thoughts. He'd been thinking of Ruth again. It was as though she'd suddenly fallen into his arms in the flesh; though Harriet didn't really look like Ruth, there was a similar expression in their eyes. Without thinking, he simply gathered her closer and kissed her long and hard.
Harriet had never felt anything so natural in her life as being in Arthur Bello's arms and feeling his mouth on hers. When his head finally raised, his eyes were still kissing her and she made no move for fear of breaking the spell.
At last he said softly, "I guess old timers like us should have cut out long ago."
Anabel had had just enough whiskey not to care anymore. Not realizing how little alcohol it took to get high in these mountain altitudes, she'd had several long pulls of a bottle. She was getting madder and madder at the wrangling and arguing. The singing had long ago stopped as had the recorder music. There were only bodies sprawled around in the firelight on air mattresses and sleeping bags and they were drinking and fighting and all of them were, one way or another maligning Arthur Bello.
Suddenly she stood up unsteadily. "Stop it... all of you.... stop it! Leave that poor man alone! All of you are trying to grind your own little axes and you justify it by using him as a scapegoat. Well... I won't listen!"
"What do you suggest, Mrs. Crichton?" Doris' voice was dripping with venom and sarcasm, shriller than ever.
"I don't know... make love, not war, I guess. Maybe the kids are right!" Anabel shot back hysterically. Amid roars of drunken laughter Anabel felt herself pulled down and the tears were stinging the back of her throat. She didn't really know what she meant... she only knew she was miserable and she felt degraded and frustrated.
"You couldn't be more right, Mrs. Crichton!" Hal pulled her down beside him and caught her to him.
Anabel pushed on him frantically but she couldn't break his hold. His hard mouth came down to smother her and she felt her arms twisted behind as he held her squirming in his lap. It was as though it was a signal and all the furtive kissing and bottom patting and shoulder smoothing came out in the open then and Anabel's suggestion was being taken literally.