Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

“So what are you doing keeping me on the phone?” Hampton complained.

Towering cedar, lodgepole pine, and Douglas fir climbed the low hill behind Katrina Romero, looking like ivy on a ruin. The low pewter clouds, broken into patchwork, streamed overhead while the sunlight that pierced through felt summer-warm and sublime. The breeze carried the smell of burning leaves and the cackle and chirp of chipmunk and squirrel competing to shore up their supplies before winter fixed its grip.

Katrina rode the buckskin with the dusty white tail. She wore a black riding jacket over a tailored white shirt with a dozen small mother-of-pearl buttons running down its front. “Mother-of-toilet-seat” an instrument-builder friend of Philippe’s called the plastic substitution. Katrina held herself erect, the cream riding pants stretched tight.

Philippe Romero, by blood her husband Ricardo’s uncle, but in life a younger half brother, stood below her, looking up. He was a smallish man in his late twenties, with dark features and thoughtful eyes. He glanced at the leather patch on the inside of her thigh, rubbed smooth and polished by hours of her locked embrace with the saddle. She leaned down and handed him the CD-ROM, a small disk in a plastic jewel case.

“This is the last one,” he said. “Seriously, Katie, I can’t thank you enough.”

“What’s wrong? Why’s this the last? And don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ ” She’d been burning these disks for him every day or two for the past three weeks. “You don’t look well, Philippe.”

“We suffered a great loss,” he said. “Not a lot of sleep last night for me. But what we have-this last disk-is more than enough for our needs.” He sensed a change in her.

“Then after tonight, you won’t need me.”

“To burn e-mails to disk? No. But I don’t like the sound of that. What’s going on, Katrina?”

“Why don’t we ride together?” she asked, looking to the woods beyond him. “Do you still ride? How long since we took a ride together?”

“I’m not sure Ricardo would love that.”

“Do you actually think he is capable of love?”

Stunned by the question, especially directed at him , Philippe felt he had no choice but to watch as she tapped her heels and rode off. Rising and falling in that saddle, timed perfectly as the horse trotted, in such a suggestive way that Philippe believed it had to be intentional.

Stretching back over her shoulder, she called to him, “Red Rock in half an hour?”

The choice of that place as the rendezvous set the record straight. He wasn’t imagining any of this.

The thirty minutes passed quickly as he readied a gelding to ride, left a few messages, and made a few calls to buy him time. He selected a circuitous route through the cedar forest-past the eighth green, a half mile out the Winifred trail, and then off-trail several hundred yards south to a small outcropping of rock covered in red lichen.

They’d shared this as their secret place while growing up as teenagers, the site of a coming-of-age sexual encounter that remained the most explicit and vivid sexual memory of his life. A violent summer rain. The two of them tucked into a small cave, her shirt soaked through, her nipples puckered and firm and inviting his fantasies. As he now rode closer to that spot, he recalled her crossing her arms, and his own embarrassment at having been caught staring. Her sudden change of heart, as she uncrossed them, stood with that proud posture of hers, and then disrobed right there in front of him. No words, no explanation. Never breaking eye contact with him, her nakedness revealed only in his peripheral vision.

She’d ordered him over to her: “Come here,” or something like that, leaving little doubt who was in control. Her sharp tan line from the point of her darkly tangled hair-and so much of it!-to the sloping curve on her chest.

As teenagers, they had kissed until his mouth burned and she’d whispered for him to touch her, and then, miraculously, had moved his hand to her breast so he might know what to do.

Their one and only encounter-not that he hadn’t want to relive it. She represented the sum of all good in this world, and he’d slowly driven her away with his need of her.

And then came Ricardo and her, in this same cave-Katrina saying it was forced, Ricardo saying otherwise. A child. Marriage.

As Philippe arrived this time he found her with her back pressed up against a fir tree, sheltered from a light drizzle, their situation not so very different than all those years before, a fact not lost on either of them.

She made no move to her mare, apparently had no intention of taking that ride she’d proposed. He dismounted and tied off the gelding and ducked under the heavy branches to join her in the muted light, the clouded light playing on her face. He never felt entirely comfortable around her, always on the edge of an apology.

“So,” he said softly.

Her eyes hardened and she said, “I saw the boy.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“It happened. They thought he was sick. They asked me to have a look.”

“They shouldn’t have done that.” He’d heard nothing about this.

“How could you do such a thing? Kidnap a little boy, little Donny’s age?”

“It’s not something to discuss.” He had no doubt how she would feel about the young girl now in Paolo’s care.

“Of course it is. You, of all people. I’m leaving,” she announced. “Tonight. During your meeting.”

He had trouble catching his breath.

“It’s the one time I’m guaranteed of Ricardo, of all of you, being that distracted. I’m taking Callie and Remy.”

“Not tonight,” he begged.

“Yes, tonight. It’s perfect. His full attention is on this meeting you’ve called.”

“But why?” he asked. “I can’t let you do this. Not now.”

“This place is like a prison. His men drive my children to school. Pick them up. My only chance is tonight.”

“That’s ridiculous. You can come and go as you please.” He turned to go, not needing this.

“Not with the children. They never leave the children.”

“And tonight?” He had no time for this. He’d come here hoping to be seduced, only to find himself betrayed. Ricardo-already unpredictable and dangerous-would be impossible if she left.

“I overheard them. They’re assigned to this meeting of yours. This is my opportunity, Philippe, my one decent chance, and I intend to take it.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“As if you know what he’s like.”

“I have a fair idea, believe me.”

And there it was again: that same unbuttoning of her blouse. For a moment they were sixteen and seventeen again. For a moment he couldn’t think. But then the shock of her believing she could buy his participation in willfully letting her go so revolted him that he took a step back to signal his refusal. Yet by the fifth button, the first of the bluish patches appeared. By the time she allowed her blouse to hang open the discoloring began beneath the stark, bleached whiteness of her bra and spread down, covering both sides of her, unmistakable handprints across her ribs.

“Against my will,” she said. “It’s his way of punishing me, I suppose. Some shrink will work it all out into neat little boxes, but it’s not so neat and little when you’re on the receiving end. And I’m done. I’m out of here.”

He failed to speak.

“The trouble with him-with both of you-is that it’s all about the money. How much is enough? I ask Ricky that and he can’t answer me. What good is the money if all it buys you is higher walls and more bodyguards?”

“It’s not the money.”