Aaron Elkins - The Dark Place

The woman at the writing desk, unable to bear the noise of the game table any longer, swept up her papers with a snort and marched out. On her way she stopped briefly near Gideon and Julie, her writing materials gathered against a formidable bosom.

"They shouldn’t allow those things in here," she said.

"I agree with you," Gideon said. When she was gone he turned to Julie. "Did she mean the machines or the kids?"

"I don’t know," she said, laughing. "Both, probably."

"Well, I agree with her."

"Gideon," Julie said after they had both looked into the fire again for a while, "I’ve been wondering why those Indians would have left anything as valuable as a spear behind for the Zanders to find. It must take a long time to make one."

"They were probably surprised and left in a hurry. Anyway, I don’t imagine that time management is a particular problem for them. Besides, the binding was rotten and the shaft was split. Those are what take all the time, you know. The point’s nothing."

"No, I didn’t know. There’s a lot they don’t teach you in school. Do you think they’ve deserted the place now?"

"I think so. The Zanders may have been the first people to stumble on that ledge. And now us. They’ve probably gone even farther from the trails and the people."

"That would mean going higher into the mountains. It’s going to be awfully wet and cold up there." She moved her head slowly back and forth, letting her lips brush the rim of the glass. "What a horrible life they must have. Shouldn’t we be trying to find them?"

"I’m not sure if we should or we shouldn’t," he said, debating with himself as well as with her. "Looking at the historical record, it’s hard to make a case for primitive people’s lives being much improved by contact with the outside world. They don’t have immunities to common diseases, their mores can’t stand the shock, their values get screwed up. What would we do with them, anyway? Put shoes and socks on them and send them to junior college? Put them on a reservation?"

"I know all that," she said impatiently, "but this is a tiny, frightened band of people cowering out there in the woods, living in leaky huts in a rain forest, for God’s sake. And if they really move higher they’ll be in the snow! We could at least get some clothing to them, and food, and tell them they don’t have anything to be afraid of."

"Except the FBI. Don’t forget, your wee, timorous, cowering band has committed at least two murders, if we’re right. Probably three."

"You don’t really think they’d be taken to jail…put on trial…?"

"I don’t see what choice the FBI would have. If they could find them."

"So we just leave them there?"

Gideon hadn’t meant to mislead her. "No, I want to find them, too, but it has to be done right. I want time to do some research, to think through the implications for them and for us, to get ready. I’d like to go next spring, after the rainy season."

"You? Do you mean alone? In the rain forest? Just you?"

"Your confidence is heartwarming."

"It’s just that, anthropologist or not, you’re basically a…a city person," she said, laughing. "You’d have gotten lost twenty times without me yesterday. I’m going with you."

The hell you are, he thought. Not with wild men running around with spears. Not now. Yesterday you were just another nice girl. Today you’re…more. "We’ll see," he said. "Maybe."

"Definitely. Now that I’ve found you, I’m not about to lose you." She looked suddenly at him. "That sounded possessive," she said soberly. "I’m not that way. I was only joking."

Sorry to hear that, Gideon thought. He had liked the sound of it. He could see that she had, too. He said nothing, but smiled at her, and they finished their sherries in an easy, companionable silence, gazing into the fire.

They walked into the dining room hand-in-hand and were conspiratorially asked by the hostess if they wanted a private booth. Julie said yes and Gideon said no, and they all laughed. They took a table at the window. In the cold, ashen light, the lawn was gray, the lake almost black. It was comfortable to be in the warm, clean dining room, awaiting a hot meal prepared by someone else. What would it be like to spend a gray, chilly winter out there in a hut of twigs?

A relish tray of raw vegetables was plumped heartily before them. "My name is Eleanor," the waitress proclaimed without recognizing them. "Enjoy."

In the morning they breakfasted in the window nook of Julie’s kitchen, looking out on a day that was colder and more drearily overcast than the one before. They munched hot bran muffins with butter and jelly, and drank steaming coffee, and felt very cozy and protected.

"Winter’s coming," Julie said dreamily. "It’s the time of year I start wishing I was a bear about to hibernate."

"I thought you liked the wet weather."

"Oh, I didn’t really mean hibernate. I meant I’d like to hole up in a nice, snug house like this one, and have fires in the fireplace, and eat hot soup out of mugs, and listen to music, and have some lovely male animal at my beck and call."

"To light the fires, and make the soup, and turn on the phonograph?"

"And other duties as assigned. Kiss, please."

"Is that illustrative of other duties, or is it a request?"

"A request. Demand."

"Yes, ma’am." Gideon slid along the cushion of the window seat and kissed her gently. "Umm," he said, "delicious. You taste like apricot jelly."

Julie laughed and put her arms around him. "I can’t tell whether you’re amorous or hungry."

"Are they incompatible?"

"Well, would you like to go back to bed, or would you rather have another bran muffin?"

Gideon frowned, thinking hard. "Do I get jelly with the bran muffin?"

"You’re awful," Julie said, pushing him away. "I’m not even going to respond to that." She resettled herself. "Gideon, I’ve been thinking. You really can’t wait until next spring."

"Why not? They’ve managed to get along in there for a century."

"Maybe, but there’s never been a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on them, or a hundred-thousand-dollar reward. The woods have never been so full of crackpots with guns. Someone’s bound to find them, maybe shoot them. And don’t forget about the FBI. John will be here tomorrow, and he’ll want to go right out and check the ledge."

"You’re right," Gideon said. "They won’t be at the ledge anymore, but the FBI’s likely to come up with a lead on where they went. Do they still use bloodhounds?"

"I don’t know. I think maybe they do."

"You know, as good a person as John is, he has to go in regarding them primarily as murder suspects. That’s some way to introduce them to civilization, isn’t it?"

"So what’s to be done?"

"There’s nothing we can do. I don’t know where they are, and if I did, I couldn’t communicate. And if I could, what would I say? ‘Greetings from Great White Father. You are going to prison.’ Maybe nobody’ll find them, and maybe by next year I’ll have learned some more."

"Maybe and maybe. Not too satisfactory a resolution, is it?"

Gideon agreed, but before he could reply, the telephone rang and Julie went to answer it. At the kitchen doorway she turned and muttered, "You’ll figure something out. And whenever you go, I’m going with you."

"Hello," she said into the mouthpiece. Then she paused and darted a sidewise look at him, a little uncomfortably, he thought. "Uh, well, no, I don’t exactly know where he is, but I can probably find him. I’ll let him know."

She came back from the kitchen. "For you."

He smiled. "Don’t tell me you’re a little shy about letting people know I’m here at seven-thirty in the morning?" He was sorry, as he said it, for the flip, sleazy sound of it.