Chapter 7

"Hello, Rafe."

Rafe Kolsky jerked around suddenly. His expression become a montage of embarrassment, fear, and confusion. He would have no doubt fled off through the forest if Mildred hadn't put a quick hand on his arm.

She'd been worried about the boy. He had come late at night for his jeep, slipped in and driven it away like a thief without a word to anyone.

Then a week passed and Mildred could well imagine the agony he'd gone through. When indirect inquiry proved that he'd dropped out of sight completely, she had been tempted to call on his mother by way of investigation.

The whole episode had been nonsensical of course. Rafe had lost his head, and that was Mildred's fault. She realized that. She should have seen the signs and staved off the possibility of the incident. An intelligent woman is able to do this, she realized full well, and she wondered if it hadn't been her vanity, pleasure from Rafe's admiration, that had made her ignore the danger.

At any rate, she had to repair the damage she'd done, put Rafe on a firm footing again, and now chance gave her the opportunity.

Hiking along up Rebel Hill Road, she'd turned a corner and found the jeep pulled of the side of the road. At first, she thought it was abandoned there. Then she saw Rafe's red jacket. He was crouched at the roadside pulling foliage away from some kind of a plant.

The danger of flight averted, he pointed vaguely at the ground and said, "Poison oak. Worse than poison ivy. Every time I see the stuff I stop and pull it up."

"You must be pretty busy," Mildred said. "There's an awful lot of it."

"It could be a lot worse."

He straightened and turned back toward the car, glancing at Mildred uneasily. "You're out hiking?"

"Yes, getting a little exercise."

They walked toward the road. "It's a beautiful day," Rafe said.

"Yes. You haven't been at our house lately, Rafe. I see the other boys, but not you."

"Oh, I've been pretty busy."

Mildred groped around for a way to open the subject that had to be opened. She could not let this opportunity get by. There seemed no way but to plunge in.

"That's not the reason at all, is it?"

"No, I guess not."

"Rafe, you're being foolish. I know what's been going on in your mind. You've got to forget it."

His hand was on the steering wheel and he seemed anxious to get into the jeep and drive away.

"That's pretty hard to do."

"For a boy of your character, it would be, but you've got to be sensible. That can never happen again. We both know that. So why should that break up a friendship?"

His look was doubtful. "A friendship?"

"Don't you consider me your friend?"

"Of course. It's just that-"

"I'm aware of all the facets involved. But you mustn't let them bother you. They're to be forgotten."

He kicked at the dust in the road and Mildred saw him as a little boy. It gave her a warm feeling.

"I was on the way over to Cow Hollow to see Verne Getchall--take him some money."

"You promised to take me to Cow Hollow sometime."

"It's an awfully dirty place."

Mildred smiled. "I think we went through all that before. I'm not fragile."

"All right," Rafe said, making up his mind suddenly.

Mildred sensed resignation in his voice but she felt that she could lift his spirits and get him back to normal in the time the trip would take.

He helped her into the jeep and gripped the wheel tight while he drove in silence and Mildred again found herself in search of something to talk about.

"Rafe the other day you mentioned your writing.

I doubt if you take it very seriously, though. You said you'd never submitted anything."

"Dad's the writer in the family, I'm afraid."

"That's no attitude to take. Are you afraid you can't measure up to him?"

"Maybe."

"But why don't you think of him as a challenge rather than a barrier?"

Rafe's hand slid nervously along the wheel. "That's pretty easy to say."

"And it's not hard to do."

"I'd-I'd like to write poetry."

"Then why don't you?"

"There's no market for it."

"Frost and Housman and even Ogden Nash did all right."

"Yes, but the medium in general is ignored."

"Great poets are still honored."

"Great ones-yes."

Mildred should have been annoyed with him. She realized this, but compassion and sympathy predominated. He needed help more than criticism. He needed someone to draw him out of himself.

"I like languages," he said with a little more enthusiasm. "What I'd like to do in this world is to hit at all the misunderstandings. I think they all come from lack of the ability to communicate. There ought to be a universal language."

"That's quite true. People get wrong meanings even in their own language." Mildred smiled briefly. "You and I are good examples."

Again, Rafe gave Mildred that odd impression of his being terribly frightened, almost as though he wanted to jump out and run away.

But this did not become an issue because Rafe had turned into a road even more narrow and impossible than the previous one and now, quite suddenly, Cow Hollow lay just below them.

It was situated in a ten or twelve acre saucer surrounded by trees and rocks.

"Good lord," Mildred gasped. "It looks like a municipal dump!"

Rafe grinned, happy now at having shocked Mildred. "A lot of the building material came from dumps."

The buildings-the shacks and hovels-Mildred thought, looked like refuse in a dirty ash tray the morning after a party. None, so far as she could see, had been finished. Some had front doors without porches, some without even steps up to hip-high doorsills, leaving thresholds that tenants would literally have to jump out of.

Tar paper fastened on with slats and boards was the prevailing style for outer walls. Three of the shacks within sight were roofed over with dirt and sod.

In most cases it appeared that the occupants had labored to a point of bare livableness and had then stopped.

Incredibly dirty children played here and there in the mud and dirt. Dogs of bewildering variety as to shape, size and breed infested the place, more dogs than Mildred had seen in one place since she'd attended the Westminster Kennel Club show.

Slovenly, snaggle-toothed women, weird witch-creatures, eyed the approaching jeep from windows and doorways. They were all silent, their faces devoid of all expression except stupid curiosity.

All along the approach, the dogs set up a racket and charged the jeep like a nondescript rabble-army resisting invasion. The larger beasts appeared ready to eat the jeep and its occupants. Mildred looked fearfully at Rafe, but he remained calm so she decided they were not going to be torn to pieces.

"It's-it's incredible," Mildred gasped.

"At least it proves that the south doesn't have a monopoly on shiftless populations."

"They not only live here but they'd be highly insulted if they heard you call it that."

Mildred realized now that she'd seen some of these people before, in Warrenton in front of the stores and taverns. They came in battered old cars filled with ragged children. They cashed their relief checks and bought beer, whiskey, and groceries and disappeared again, back into the hills.

Rafe pulled up in front of one of the hovels-a standout in the community in that it was the largest residence. It had three rooms strung together with the improbable precision of three huge boxes dropped end to end and nailed together.

Rafe killed the motor and yelled, "Hey, Verne!"

Immediately, a huge, forbidding figure appeared in one of the three doorways. He was a giant of a man with red hair and a weather-beaten face, a Norseman who had gotten landlocked for some reason or other.

This impression hit Mildred as a girl appeared in a second doorway. And at that same instant, the third one was filled by a woman.

The dramatic contrast froze Mildred in her seat; the mother-toothless, shapeless, filthy; the girl-clean, pretty, bright-haired.

And between them, the dominating giant of a father.

"I brought your money, Verne. You didn't wait for it the other day."

The giant strode forth. He scowled down at Rafe's right front wheel. He kicked it and rumbled. "That tire's ready to go."

His demeanor and tone of voice awed Mildred. It was as though he were giving the tire permission.

Now he turned his attention to Rafe. "There was no charge," he said.

"But it was a lot of work. You fixed the lawn mower and the pump and-"

"The books you gave me last month were payment enough." His deepening scowl indicated that Rafe was under censure for some transgression.

"You haven't introduced the lady."

Rate gulped guiltily. "Oh, I'm sorry. This is Mrs. Vance Hager. Mrs. Hager, I'd like you to meet Mr. GetchaO, a friend of mine."

The giant bowed as though he wore the raiment of a more gallant age and stood in the midst of great lords and ladies.

"I'm honored, Mrs. Hager. Let me help you down."

It was ridiculous, a lampoon on good manners, as Verne Getchall handed her out of the jeep amid the blank stares of the squalid Cow Hollow natives.

Rafe glanced fearfully at Mildred, trying at the same time to hide the look from Verne Getchall. Obviously, he regretted having been talked into this. "We can't stay long," he said.

Mildred pitied him. "Rafe picked me up on the road and gave me a lift. I was out hiking and strayed too far from home."

The words were inconsequential, Mildred knew that, but it was difficult to know what to say in this strange situation.

"You can come in for a few moments," Verne Getchall assured them.

Resigned to the inevitable, Mildred laid a hand on his arm and they approached the hovel as though it were the Palace of Versailles.

The place wasn't really so bad inside, but Mildred was able to arrive at this conclusion only by way of comparison; in relation to what she'd expected. The main room into which Getchall ushered them was musty and untended rather than dirty. It was a place of books. Books on shelves, books piled on the floor, books in open boxes, books in the way to a point where care had to be exercised in crossing the room.

"This is my wife," Verne Getchal said with a careless wave of his hand and while his contempt was obvious, Mildred felt there was nothing personal in it.

The crone simpered and grinned, showing a toothless maw. Then she appeared to go back into neutral semi consciousness.

"My daughter, Bonnie."

Verne Getchall's contrasting manner was dramatic. As he spoke, his eyes adored her, but far back behind the adoration, Mildred glimpsed pain.

Bonnie smiled and extended a clean, well-kept hand. It was flaccid in Mildred's grasp.

The girl had a pretty face, marred by an expression of child-like simplicity. This was all the more tragic when contrasted with her voluptuous, woman's body.

"Do you like my dress?" Bonnie asked.

"I think it's very nice."

"I made it myself," the girl answered, and the pride in her voice was that of a child seeking praise for having drawn an acceptable picture with colored crayons.

But the simple shift she wore was spotless, as clean as her visible skin, as neat as the short, chic hair in which her father's Nordic red predominated.

Verne Getchall turned his scowl on Rafe. "Those two books were interesting, but they were a lot of trash," he stated.

Rafe was not offended but he did put up a mild defense.

"Ellis is the latest thing in psychology and psychiatry," he said.

Getchall snorted. "He would be. He advocates everything the modern world wants to be told."

"I have another you might be interested in. It's a penetrating study of Freud."

Getchall's scowl turned into a sneer. "A study in depth and breadth, no doubt."

"Well-"

"The whole field of modern psychiatry is a device. People want to be excused for their weaknesses. They want someone to tell them that what they do is all right. Psychiatry tells them this."

Mildred could not help being impressed by this man. At the very least, he was a person of positive convictions. Whatever he believed, right or wrong, he believed whole-heartedly.

There was more talk along this line and Mildred was given a glass of not-too-bad wine.

Then the place became stifling. She had to leave.

"Rafe told me about an old estate called Full Moon that sounded quite fabulous. I persuaded him to show it to me. He said the trail into the Cutoff starts in this neighborhood."

Verne Getchell's glance was piercing but unreadable. He seemed about to reply, but when he did speak, Mildred was sure his tack had changed.

"The way hi is rough. Ace you sure you can make it?"

Mildred laughed. "It took me quite a while to persuade Rafe that I could."

You had better get started then. It will be harder coming back-when you're worn out."

Mildred wanted to make the same protest she'd made to Rafe. She resented being considered an old woman. But she shrank from making the issue with Verne Getchall.

"Perhaps you're right," she said.

When they were back in the jeep, Verne Getchall's imperious eyes on them from the doorway, Rafe said, "We can go another mile before we have to walk."

And Mildred felt a great sense of relief when Cow Hollow vanished into the forest behind them.

"That girl," she said. "I never saw a more pathetic case in my life."

Rafe, immersed in the subject, forgot to be self-conscious. "She's a big problem to Verne."

"You can see that he adores her."

"In a way it's a pretty terrible situation. It's even difficult to talk about-the way he has to watch Bonnie. She's so pathetically innocent. He can't let her wander away into the woods or anything like that."

"You mean she could get lost?"

"Oh, Verne could always find her, but-well, let's face it. There are some pretty scaly characters in Garns County, types who would be willing to take a chance."

"I don't understand-"

Rafe's self-consciousness almost returned but not quite. "If a man found Bonnie alone in the woods, she'd be defenseless. Of course, if Verne ever caught one, he'd kill him. But as I said, Bonnie's a beautiful girl."

Mildred wondered about her own innocence. How could she possibly have been so dense? Why had Rafe had to spell k oat for her?

"Why doesn't Verne Getchall take her away? I'd think he'd try to do something for her."

Rafe shrugged. "Who knows about things like that? Maybe it uncovers a weakness in Verne. He's a very proud man. You can love someone and be ashamed of them at the same time. I think that's how it is with Verne. He's giving his life to Bonnie, but he still hides her from the world."

Mildred looked at Rafe, regarding him suddenly in a new light. "You're very adult."

"In some ways maybe." He braked the jeep. "It's time to walk."

Armand Beck was also roaming the woods that day. Armand was a secretive youth, not given to talking much about what he considered his own private life.

This was logical. He'd learned as a small child that lying to his father was safer than telling the truth. Not that he avoided punishment that way, but he was able to keep better control of things and reduce whippings to a minimum.

So his journeys into the Garns County woods, journeys that always led him toward Cow Hollow, were not generally known about.

These hikes had rewarded him with one exciting incident. On one occasion, he'd been lucky enough to meet Bonnie Getchall.

But he had not had the courage to take advantage of the situation, although his animal desires were strong and she was a beautiful girl with whom preliminaries would not be necessary, a gorgeous partner waiting to be taken.

The urge was strong but fear of Verne Getchall stood in the way. Armand had the awareness to know that a slip could be fatal. A mention of his name afterward would turn Verne into an avenging madman. Armand could have used a fictitious name in his beguilement of Bonnie; he could have called himself Prince Charming so far as her gullibility was concerned.

But Verne was smart as Satan. He might discover the truth.

So Armand, even while cursing his own chicken-heartedness, let the opportunity slip by. But perhaps next time, he'd told himself, it would be different. And with the vision of Bonnie deep in his fantasy-world, he returned again and again to the area, not really looking for her, telling himself, rather, that he liked solitude and liked to hike.

But his aimless route always took him in that direction. And he was always listening hopefully for the sound of Bonnie's voice singing some nursery rhyme that her father had taught her.

But now, on this particular day, he heard a sound off through the trees.

And his hopes arose.

The way to Full Moon was hard indeed. Rafe had to help Mildred over several of the rough spots. Once he had to put his arm around her and steer her through a swamp that could have swallowed both of them.

But they made it, and so far as Mildred was concerned, the trip was well worth-while.

Quite suddenly Rafe had pushed a bush aside and said, "There it is. Full Moon."

The effect was eerie. The sun had dropped westward, there was a moon in the sky and the feeling Mildred got was one of melancholy desertion and loneliness.

"It's fantastic," she breathed.

The overall effect having been gotten, she began seeing it part by part; the huge, brooding manor house, long unpainted, its walls colorless with graying age; the artificial lake, its surface like dark glass behind the man-made wall that imprisoned its waters; the riding stable, a long lonely-looking, low-roofed building that seemed to be waiting patiently for the earthy sounds of the life it once had known; a pathetic little summer-house crouching sadly at the far side of a vast, overgrown lawn.

Mildred reached out unconsciously and grasped Rafe's wrist. "So eerie! So terribly eerie!"

Then her hand was warm in his and the closeness brought her comfort.

"I thought you'd like it," he said.

"Let's explore."

They moved forward across the lawn and Mildred felt as though a thousand eyes were upon her, the eyes of many ghosts from long ago.

"The house first?"

"Yes. You've been here before. You'll have to guide me. I probably wouldn't have the courage to go in alone."

"The front door is unlocked."

"It-it all seems to be alive!"

"Do you get that impression too? My first feeling was that dozens of people were hiding here, peeking out the windows, looking at me over the stone walls."

"Are you sure there aren't?"

"The place is absolutely deserted."

"Doesn't anyone ever come here?"

"Occasional hunters and hikers come through. Every time I expect the place to be gone."

"What could happen to it?"

"Fire. But it seems to bear a charmed life. Watch those steps. They haven't been inspected lately."

The steps creaked, the front door creaked, and Mildred cried, "They left most of the furniture!"

"A lot of it. Nobody wants the stuff."

It was a dark, baronial hall; a huge tapestry, ragged and weary, still dominated the brooding loneliness.

"What do you think of that staircase?"

"It's magnificent."

"It will still hold our weight. Let's go up."

The impact of the unusual dulled from repetition; room after room added bizarre, deserted individuality to the total picture; impression after impression, until they all blended back into the overall impression and Rafe said, "We'd better start back. We don't want it to get dark on us."

"I suppose so."

They turned with one motion and looked at each other. And at that moment there was nothing between them, no difference in age, no husband, no families, no yesterday or tomorrow as the blocks between them vanished.

Their cry of need seemed to come on the same breath.

"Rafe! Oh, Rafe! My darling!"

Rafe's cry was choked and desperate. "Mrs. Hager! You're-you're a goddess!"

He fell to his knees, his arms around her, his face buried against her skirt. She could feel his warm breath through the cloth.

"No, Rafel No!"

But she was not denying him. She was merely saying: Not like a bewildered child; like a man, on his own two feet, taking his woman as she wanted to be taken.

She pulled him up and they were in each other's arms, their lips meeting.

"I fought," Rafe sobbed against her lips. "I fought, but I wanted you so bad."

"I fought too, darling, but that's over now. Love me! Love me-please!"

And he became a man. They started to sink to the floor but this time he held her erect. He drew her toward a canopied bed that dominated the room. The bedding was still there, dirty and fragile from years of disuse. But that was not the problem. The bed itself. Would that hold them?

If the bed had crashed they probably would not have noticed. On the bed they were two frantic, twisting lovers, in the grip of overwhelming passion and need.

But there was a frustration that Mildred realized first, realized with a laugh of gladness because that gave her an opportunity to serve him.

"Gently, darling, gently."

"But I want you! I want you!"

That was the mixed demand of a child and a man; a man who wanted a manly thing but knew of that only in the terms of a child.

"Gently. This way, darling."

She guided him, retarded and disciplined his passion, showed him how to do the things that had to precede the ultimate delight. She worked carefully and there was glory in the restraint she had to enforce upon herself in order to enforce that upon him.

She resolved that he must not suffer the humiliation of premature love that had embarrassed him so terribly in the graveyard.

In the graveyard. The words rang in her consciousness. Somehow, the somber mood of the word always touched a response within her.

Rafe! The assurance of his clean, strong body against hers. The indescribable delight of their passion.

Tom Bendixon.

Macklin Penrose.

Vance Hager.

The nameless ones known only in the hunger; those who had arrived at sundown to depart at dawn.

But all one, now. None of them husbands or friends or strangers.

Only the man in her arms a tie to reality, The past a fantasy.

Reality only in this mounting ecstasy.

"Oh, my darling-my darling!"

Their mingled cries of unbearable fulfillment, the only true sound in the universe....

"It's dark."

"Yes."

"We should have started out a long time ago." She reached out to the warmth of him with her hand, added that to the warmth of his total closeness. "Yes."

He laughed and touched her lips with a fingertip. "Is that all you can say?"

"Yes."

He kissed her. "I know where there are some candles."

"It's so dark. Can you find them?"

"I think so. I'll try. Don't go away."

"If you leave I'll vanish in a puff of smoke."

"Not without your clothes. I'll take them with me."

"I'll float out the window wrapped in this sheet."

"I'll pull the sheet off. You'd be a nude ghost. Very embarrassing."

He went and found candles and brought them back and lit them. The shadows were eerie but their mood of closeness, of love, cancelled out all else.

Back on the bed, he kissed her.

She turned her head. "That shadow-the tall one. It looks mad."

"It looks like an old man who doesn't approve of love."

"Move the candle and he'll disappear."

Rafe obeyed and she lunged across his body to catch the burning taper.

"Rafe! You'll burn the place down."

"Wouldn't that be wonderful? We could both go to glory in a flaming pyre."

"Don't say a thing like that!"

He was all penitence as he kissed her. "I'm sorry. Forgive me!" He held her close. "Love me."

Her arms went around him. He laughed.

"I'm going to love you. I'm going to perform for my teacher. I want to show you what you taught me!"

"You're crazy...."

Later, exploding with energy, he thought of something else. He sprang off the bed, grabbed a candle, and left the room.

Mildred was frightened. "Where are you going?"

He didn't answer.

A few minutes later, he came back lugging all sorts of things.

"Rafe! What on earth?"

"I'm going to build our bower-our haven-a place only for us. A place we'll return to again."

"You're mad!"

She watched as he rushed around the room. "An alter for my love goddess. A shrine to worship her in!"

And when he was through, it was a room for people instead of an unreal sanctuary for ghosts.

Perhaps that was what brought the sting of uneasiness to Mildred. "Rafe," she said, "we've got to go. We can't stay here all night."

He looked around at his handiwork. "I suppose so. But well come back."

"What time is it?"

He had not removed his watch. It was all he wore and he laughed when he realized this. "Not late. Just going on eleven."

Mildred's eyes jerked toward the window. "But it's light out there. I had no idea-"

"That's the moon."

A chill drenched Mildred. The moon. The night. The sad beat of a funeral march in New Orleans so long ago. A nameless body sinking into a deep, deep grave.

"Rafe! Take me out of here."

The moonlight was helping Armand Beck, too. He'd heard that sound telling him someone else was in the forest and his imagination had given that someone a name.

Bonnie Getchall.

But his searching had been fruitless. He'd been able to locate no one although a few times he had heard, or thought he had heard, a voice that might have been a simple-minded girl singing. At least that was the slant his hope gave it.

But if it was Bonnie, she was too illusive. He did not make contact. The search carried him farther than he'd expected to go, onto an old path, the one that led to the deserted mansion at the Cutoff.

That gave him an idea. Maybe that was where Bonnie went. It was the kind of setup that might attract a half-wit, a place where she could weave all kinds of childish dreams.

He moved on. He got lost and found his way again. He became frightened but then he saw the moon and it gave him the thin edge of courage he needed to continue.

And he finally came upon the place where the path fed onto the lawn of the mansion. He peered out.

It was spooky, so ghostly that his ardor for Bonnie was dampened somewhat. This was hardly a place where a guy could concentrate on things like that.

But then he saw the light and he got a genuine ghost-shock; a light flickering eeriely in one of the windows of a house reputed to be haunted. Of course he didn't believe in rot like that, but it still hit hard-seeing the light.

He didn't turn and run. He was too grown-up for childish fears of that sort. But neither did he venture on in. He waited in the shelter of the trees, knowing the light was real and that something would have to happen eventually.

Then the light moved away from the window. It was coming downstairs.

Armand got flashes of it through the unearthly windows of the lower hall. He waited. The door opened.

Two people came out.

He was disappointed. He hadn't actually expected Bonnie to be in there alone, but he could hope.

That possibility dashed, he became curious. Who were the two? What were they doing there? The candles had been snuffed out and Armand peered through the pale light as the two figures moved toward him. They became people halfway across the lawn. They came closer. Perhaps one was Bonnie.

He identified them.

He crouched there, frozen, as they passed within three feet of him and moved on along the path.

After they were gone he still remained frozen, his mind in a whirl from what he'd discovered.

Could it be possible? He'd heard rumors, whispered accounts of some of the things that went on in Warren-ton and on Rebel Hill. This man and that woman; this husband and that wife.

But he had never really believed the stories.

After a while, he got up and followed Rafe and Mildred toward home. And his reaction was one of supreme envy. That lucky dog! Having a woman like Mrs. Hager to play around with!

He thrilled at his secret knowledge.

But it was far too early to decide what to do with it. Enough to play with it, to roll it around in his mind.

Enough to know that he held the key to a scandal that would rock the Hill.

Armand almost enjoyed the return trip. He stayed far enough back to remain out of earshot, going carefully so as not to blunder onto their heels.

He came out at the logical place, timing it so perfectly that he heard the motor of Rafe's jeep just dying out on the road that led into Cow Hollow and the Cutoff exit.

He walked carefully around Cow Hollow, not wanting to be seen in the neighborhood.

But he'd almost forgotten about Bonnie. Who was interested in a half-wit when there was a woman like Mrs. Hager in the picture?

The possibilities the question brought to the fore frightened Armand. He wasn't of the caliber needed to function as a blackmailer.

But the possibility still existed.

There was no harm in thinking about it.

Thus the situation stood; one that quite possibly would not have taken an explosive turn. Armand Beck had lethal knowledge but he probably would never have had the courage to use it.

But destiny took a hand.

Destiny touched Bonnie Getchall the next morning and sent her wandering off into the woods.