Michael Dibdin - Dark Specter

“Want me to take over for a while?” I asked.

He shook his head silently.

“I kind of enjoy outdoor chores,” I told him. “I’d be happy to help.”

The guy just walked off, taking the axe with him. I was about to try my luck with someone else when Mark suddenly appeared.

“You got a problem?” he demanded.

“I was just offering to help.”

“We don’t need help. Everything’s under control. Just let these people get on with their work.”

“You know where Sam is?” I retorted, to remind him that I had some official standing there.

Mark looked me up and down with undisguised hostility, then spat thoughtfully between my legs.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” he said.

This was the point at which I decided to remove my unwelcome presence and explore the island. There was still no sign of Sam when I got back, so I went to hole up in my room until he appeared.

At one end of the hall, four men were gathered around the TV watching a fuzzy video featuring a woman who claimed, as far as I could make out, to be an alien who had been sent to earth to foster relationships between humans and other inhabitants of the universe and had taken over the body of a “terrestrial” who had died in an accident. It seemed to me that in her position I’d have chosen a classier body than the pudgy, zit-ridden, bad-hair one she’d opted for, but maybe aliens see these things differently.

At the dining table, three children were watching a woman hold up flashcards with the names and pictures of animals. As I passed by, I recognized her as the one who had caught my eye the night before. I made a detour and went up to them.

“Hi there!” I said. “You all look very busy.”

The children, two boys and a girl aged about six or seven, eyed me solemnly. I thought they looked scared.

“We’re learning to read,” the woman said. “Aren’t we, guys?”

She was wearing a man’s shirt, open at the neck, and jeans. I could see her breasts moving slightly as she breathed.

“Yes, Andrea,” the children chorused.

“That’s great,” I said. “I wish you’d teach me sometime.”

The woman’s brow creased in a small frown.

“You don’t know how to read?”

She didn’t seem terribly surprised.

“Yes, but I only read writing,” I explained.

“What else is there?”

I waved theatrically.

“Looks. Portents. The future.”

The ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. By daylight, she looked older than she had the night before. Her figure was attractive, her face pretty enough but unremarkable. I still couldn’t understand why she fascinated me so much. Just as she appeared to be about to say something, a door opened at the far end of the room and Sam appeared. The children immediately rose to their feet.

“Good morning, Los,” they chanted in unison.

“Hi, kids!” he called out breezily.

He stopped for a moment to exchange a few words with one of the men watching TV. Then he caught sight of me, broke off his conversation and strode over.

“How you doing, man? Sleep all right?”

“Fine. I was just admiring the old school-house scene.”

He narrowed his eyes, as though realizing for the first time what was going on at the table.

“Oh yeah, we home-school here,” he said. “Can’t schlep them over to Friday every day.”

“What?”

“Friday Harbor. That’s the nearest school. Nearest stores, everything. But Andrea here does an OK job. It’s legal in this state, lots of people do it. You can buy kits and stuff.”

He waved toward the door.

“C’mon, let’s take a walk. We’ve got lots to talk about.”

I shot Andrea a quick glance, but she was already bent over the textbook, her short brown hair concealing her face. I followed Sam out of the hall and across the compound, where he responded with nods and smiles to the greetings of the people we encountered. Like the night before, everyone seemed excessively pleased to see him, hanging with childish eagerness on his slightest word or gesture.

“You’re sure popular around here,” I remarked.

He smiled smugly.

“I’m the landlord. They’ve got to keep me happy.”

“How do you mean?”

“I own the place, Phil. They don’t get along with me, they’re out of here.”

I stopped and looked at him.

“You own this whole island?”

Sam nodded casually. I stared at him in genuine amazement. If he was trying to impress me, he’d sure found the hot button.

“But it must have cost a fortune!” I gasped. “Where did you get the money?”

He smiled.

“Didn’t cost me a cent.”

This was the familiar old Sam, being mysterious in order to provoke further questions which would cast him as the source of wisdom and me as the humble seeker after truth. I decided to back off and let him make the first move. After all, he was the one who’d said that we had lots to talk about.

The shoreline was visible by now, a stony beach surrounded by smooth planes of inclined rock. Small waves surged in, teasing the pebbles, while tall grave firs looked on like parents watching their children at play. I felt again the sense of joyful tranquility which had overwhelmed me on my walk.

“It’s so beautiful!” I exclaimed.

Sam nodded like a teacher whose student has given the correct answer.

“I knew you’d get it, Phil,” he said. “It took a leap of faith, but I knew. Some of the others were opposed to having you come here, but I overruled them. Everything is coming together.”

He looked me in the eye.

“Amazing things will happen to you here, Phil. Things you wouldn’t believe if I told you.”

This was too gushy for me. I decided to get back to solid ground.

“Those people who didn’t want me to come, I take it they include Mark.”

I told him about our confrontation by the woodpile. Sam smiled and nodded.

“Don’t let Mark get to you,” he said. “He’s basically an OK guy, although he’s kind of in-your-face sometimes. But I can handle him.”

He turned off down a steep path cutting through the trees to the left. Eventually it came out on a rocky bluff, where we had to scramble down, using a series of knobs and ledges worn smooth by many hands and feet. At the bottom was a small cove where a slab of basalt protruded out over a natural pool formed by two curving lines of rock. On the other side of a stretch of open water, only a few hundred yards away, rose the precipitous, fir-covered flank of another island.

“You can swim here in the summer,” Sam said, pointing to the pool. “The water comes in at high tide and then gets trapped and warmed by the sun. We go skinny-dipping here a lot.”

He sat down on the smooth rock, his long thin legs extended in front of him. In addition to his regulation work shirt and jeans, he was wearing a pair of fancy sports shoes with inch-thick soles and the logo of a basketball player.

“Wow, cool shoes!” I remarked in a teen-speak voice.

Sam glanced at them indifferently.

“Oh, yeah. Russ bought a pair, and I said I liked them, so he got me some.”

He said it casually, as though this was standard operating procedure.

“On account of you being the landlord and he has to keep you happy?” I queried with a touch of irony.

Sam shrugged.

“I was just kidding about that.”

“So who does own the place?”

“No, I was kidding about them having to suck up to me. Everything they do is done out of love, man. No one lays any power trips around here. We’re all in this thing together.”

He gazed out across the water at the island opposite for a moment, then began to talk in a slow, steady voice, as though reading a speech.