Aaron Elkins - The Dark Place

"I saw the envelope on John’s door. I recognized your handwriting and I opened it up."

"You opened my letter to John?"

"Don’t look so shocked. I knew you were going to do something like this, and I thought that’s what the letter was about. So of course I opened it. Wouldn’t you have done the same thing if you thought I was out here alone?"

"You better believe it," he said, "but I thought getting anywhere near the Yahi was the last thing you wanted to do."

"I changed my mind. Woman’s privilege." She patted the bag into place and sat back. Her expression became serious. "Do you…do you think they’re near here?"

Gideon smiled at her. He loved her when she was an efficient, capable park ranger, and he loved her-maybe even a little more-when she seemed a frightened little girl with big black eyes. "No, I think they’re miles away, and I don’t imagine they’d be out wandering around on a night like this."

"But what about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, Julie, you’re going back to Quinault."

"The heck I am! If you think I came all the way out here for nothing-"

"Nothing? You’ve brought me sustenance, physical and spiritual, you’ve-"

"Damn you, Gideon, don’t talk to me like a child!" Her cheeks flushed a dull red, and he could see she regretted saying it, but she remained silent.

"Julie, tomorrow-"

"Let’s talk about tomorrow tomorrow," she said.

"Fine," Gideon said. They were both testy now. "I’m tired. Let’s call it a day."

There wasn’t room enough to stand in the tent, and with the sleeping bag and gear in a corner, there was hardly any floor space. They sat back to back on the sleeping bag and undressed themselves.

"You get in the bag first," Julie said, not turning around.

Gideon scrambled in and squeezed over, leaving her ample room. He lay on his side looking at her smooth, naked back, waiting for her to make a peace offering.

"Close your eyes while I get in," she said flatly.

"Why?"

"I don’t know. Because I feel bashful."

"Why would you feel bashful?" An inane remark but a good question. Why did he feel bashful?

"Just close them, please."

He shrugged, although she couldn’t see him. "Fine," he said, unhappy with the tiny, silly tension. He could see from the mopey way she moved that she was sorry too.

He watched her, of course, through his eyelashes, as she crouched on her knees to loosen the top flap of the sleeping bag. It was not quite dark, and her smooth thighs were dusky and gleaming. She bent forward to throw the cover back, and her small, perfect breasts swayed gently, pointed and exquisite, only a few inches from his face.

"You’re peeking, aren’t you?" she said, looking hard at him. He could tell she was searching for a way to make friends again, as was he.

"I can’t help it," he said honestly. "You look…I can’t tell you how beautiful you look, leaning over like that, your breasts pendant-"

"Pendant? Pendant? What do you mean, pendant?"

"Don’t get angry. I’m trying to say something nice."

"I hope I never hear you say something rotten. Pendant!" She jabbed him in the ribs with a knuckle. The spat, if that’s what it had been, was over, and he grabbed for her, getting his arms around her back and bringing her breasts down to his face. She pummeled him a little more and then stopped, stroking his hair and watching him with avid eyes while he slowly moved his head back and forth, brushing her breasts over his forehead and cheeks and against his eyelids. He kissed each nipple gently, feeling her tremble, and looked up at her face with a smile and a sigh.

"When I said pendant," he said, "I didn’t mean it in the sense of ‘droop,’ I meant it in the sense of ‘depend from.’"

"That’s better," she said. "I like it when you talk like a dictionary."

They both laughed, and she slid into the bag alongside him. Gideon moved his hands down her sides and cupped a round buttock in each palm, pressing her close to him. She kissed his throat and rubbed her cheek against the hair on his chest.

"Julie, Julie…" he murmured.

"Oh-oh, I think I hear a lyrical flight coming."

"You’re right. Let me rephrase it." He pretended to think. "Okay. You have a big, beautiful ass that I love to squeeze. And I really like it when your breast droops over my arm like that. How’s that?"

He had said it to make her laugh, but she lay on her side and looked at him with liquid, ink-black eyes. "I love you so very much," she said tightly, and pressed her head to his chest again. To his surprise, and to hers, too, he was sure, they fell asleep like that.

In the morning they made love the moment they awakened, or perhaps even before. When they were dozing afterward and Gideon lay sprawled on his back with Julie’s head on his shoulder, he jerked suddenly.

"What’s that?" he said.

Her lashes brushed his shoulder as she opened her eyes. "I don’t hear anything."

"No…maybe I was dreaming…" He realized abruptly what it was. "It’s not raining anymore."

The only sound was the soughing of a gentle breeze in the high branches. They dressed in the chilly, gray light inside the tent, unzipped the flap, and stepped out. With his first breath Gideon’s antipathy to the Olympic rain forest vanished. The air smelled of moist green leaves and pine bark, and the light breeze had a touch of faraway ocean in it. What they could see of the sky was a brilliant robin’s-egg blue, but it was early, not yet seven, and a morning mist clung to the forest in vertical, pearly sheets, one behind another, with clear spaces between them.

It was so beautiful it seemed contrived, a sfumato masterpiece from the Renaissance, with everything diffuse and muted yet marvelously crisp. Every surface was fresh and clean and covered with droplets of dew like clear glass beads. Nothing seemed sodden. The draperies of club moss and vine maple were translucent and ferny again, and the leaves and pine needles glowed with a thousand different greens-emerald, turquoise, Irish, olive, aquamarine.

"Don’t I hear water running?" Gideon asked.

She nodded. "Big Creek. I think it’s just a few hundred feet away, beyond that rise."

Her hand reached out to his and he took it, and they both stood basking in the freshness. After a while some birds began to sing. The sound was so perfect they looked at each other and laughed. "Winter wren," Julie said.

Ten or twelve feet away a tiny squirrel with its cheeks packed appeared on a log and sat up on its haunches, looking surprised to see them. At Gideon’s burst of laughter it scampered off into the brush toward the creek.

"I couldn’t help it," he said to Julie, still laughing, "I feel like I’m in the middle of a Walt Disney cartoon, with the sun coming up and all the forest creatures beginning to stir. Honestly, I thought that squirrel was about to rub its eyes and yawn and maybe start singing."

He turned to her, smiling and serious both. "Julie, you’re not going any farther. I’m going alone."

"No," she said firmly. "If it’s not dangerous, then I want to go. If it’s dangerous, then I don’t want to go, and I don’t want you to go either."

"It is not dangerous, and I am going by myself." He spoke at his deepest, most resonant pitch, and he backed it up with a no-nonsense scowl. "And it is not open for discussion."

"Baloney," she said brightly. "We’ll talk about it over breakfast." She picked up a pot and thrust it at him. "Go and get some water for coffee. I’ll scramble the eggs."

"Now, listen to me, Julie-"

She stood up tall and tucked in her chin. "It is not," she growled, "open for discussion. Now, git!"

The squirrel, cheek pouches bulging with tiny spruce cones, skittered over the rough ground, its gray tail floating behind it in a graceful, serpentine curve. Almost home, just a hundred feet from its nest in the old cedar, it halted abruptly, startled, and raised itself on its hindquarters. It stood trembling, nervously jerking its head from side to side. Then, reassured, it dropped to all fours and sprinted for the tree again, only to stop once more after a few feet. Again it stood erect and quivering, its forelegs hugged to its pale, furry chest, its nose twitching.