Richard Laymon: The Stake

“I don’t think so.”

Larry took a swig of cold beer.

“Why don’t we get out of the sun?” Jean suggested.

They wandered back past the van, climbed the rickety stairs to Holman’s shaded porch and sat down. They rested the two extra beers on the wood between them. Jean crossed her legs. She rubbed her bare thighs with the base of her bottle. The wetness left slicks on her skin. She lifted the bottle to her face and slid it over her cheeks and forehead.

Larry imagined Jean opening her blouse, rolling the chilled, dripping bottle against her bare breasts. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would ever do that, though. Hell, she wouldn’t even step out of the house unless she had a bra on.

Too bad life can’t be more like fiction, he told himself, and drank some more beer. A gal in one of his books would have that wet bottle sliding over her chest in about two shakes. Then, of course, the guy would get in on the action.

That’d be a scene worth writing.

You’ll never get a chance to live it, not in this lifetime, but...

“Larry, I’m starting to get worried.”

“They’ll be along.”

“Something must be wrong.”

“Maybe she has a problem.”

“Like the trots?”

“Who knows?”

“They’d be back by now if something hadn’t happened,” Jean said.

“Maybe Pete got lucky.”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“Obviously they did it back at that old ruin we passed.”

“Sounded like it. But they were alone. They wouldn’t do that here with us waiting.”

“If you’re so sure, why don’t we go around back and look for them?”

“Go right on ahead.” She gave him an annoyed glance.

“Nah.” He put a hand on her back. Her blouse was damp. He untucked it and slipped his hand beneath it. She sat up straight, and sighed as he caressed her.

When he fingered the catches of her bra, she said, “Don’t get carried away. They could show up any second.”

“On the other hand, maybe they won’t show up at all.”

“Don’t kid around like that, okay?”

“I’m not entirely kidding.”

“Maybe they are screwing around.”

“You said they wouldn’t.”

“Well, I don’t know, damn it.”

“Maybe we’d better go see.”

Jean wrinkled her nose.

“If they did run into trouble,” Larry said, “we aren’t making matters any better by procrastinating. They might need help.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Besides, their beers are getting warm.”

He picked up the bottle for Pete, stood, and waited for Jean. Then they walked to the end of the porch. Larry peered around the corner. The area alongside the building was clear, so he leaped down. Jean covered the mouth of Barbara’s bottle with her thumb and jumped.

“I don’t know about this,” she said.

“They can’t expect us to wait forever.”

Larry led the way, wanting to be a few strides ahead of Jean in case there really was trouble.

At times like this he wished his imagination would take a holiday. But it never left him alone. It was always busy churning up possibilities — most of them grim.

He pictured Pete and Barbara dead, of course. Slaughtered by the same pack of desert scavengers he’d dreamed up when he saw the overturned car.

Maybe Pete had been killed, Barbara abducted.

We’d have to go looking for her. Run back to the van first and get Pete’s gun.

Maybe they both got killed by a criminal using the old town as a hideout.

Or by an old lunatic on the lookout for claim jumpers.

Maybe they’ll just be gone. Vanished without a trace.

Pete has the keys to the van. We’d have to walk out of here.

He supposed the nearest town was Silver Junction.

God, it’d take hours to get there. And maybe someone would be after them, hunting them down.

“Better warn ‘em we’re coming,” Jean said.

He stopped near the corner of the building, looked back at her and shook his head. “If they ran into someone...”

“Don’t even think it, okay?”

From the look on Jean’s face, he could see that she’d already considered the possibility.

“Just go ahead and call out,” she said. “We don’t want to barge in on something.”

Speak for yourself, he thought. If Pete was having at her, he wouldn’t mind a glimpse of it. Not at all. But he kept the thoughts to himself.

Without looking around the corner, he yelled, “Pete! Barbara! You all right?”

No answer came.

A second ago he’d pictured them rutting. Now he saw them sprawled dead, murderous savages hunched over their bodies, heads turning at the sound of his voice.

He gestured for Jean to wait, and stepped past the end of the building.

“Where are they?” Jean whispered, pressing herself against his side.

Larry shook his head. He couldn’t believe the couple was actually gone. “They probably just wandered off somewhere,” he said. The idea that he would catch them fooling around had been the product of wishful thinking, and he knew that his worries about murder had been farfetched. But so had his worries that they’d disappeared.

“We’d better find them,” Jean said.

“Good plan.”

But all he saw were the rear facades of the other buildings, and the desert stretching away toward a ridge of mountains to the south.

“Maybe they’re playing some kind of trick on us,” Jean suggested.

“I don’t know. Pete was awfully eager for his beer.”

“People don’t go for a leak and vanish off the face of the earth.”

“Only on occasion.”

“It’s not funny.” Her voice was trembling.

“Look, they’ve got to be around.”

“Maybe we’d better go and get the gun.”

“It’s locked in the van. I don’t imagine Pete would be very happy about a broken window.”

“ Pete !” she suddenly shrieked. “ Barb !”

A distant voice called, “Yo!”

Jean’s eyebrows flew up. Her head snapped sideways and she squinted out at the desert.

Some fifty yards off, Pete’s head and shoulders rose out of the wasteland. “Hey, y’gotta see this!” he shouted, and waved for them to approach.

Jean glanced at Larry, rolled her eyes and sagged as if her air had been let out.

He grinned.

“I think I may kill them myself,” Jean said.

“I’ll go get the gun.”

“Break all the windows, while you’re at it.” Her voice sounded shaky.

“Come on, let’s see what they found.”

“It better be good.”

They walked over the hard, baked earth, moving carefully as they stepped on broken rocks, avoided clumps of cactus and greasewood. Near the place where Pete waited was an old smoke tree. Larry guessed that Barbara had wandered farther and farther away from Holman’s, looking for a suitably large bush or rock cluster, and had finally decided upon the tree. Its trunk was thick enough to afford privacy, and there was shade beneath its drooping branches.

Pete was standing some distance from the tree. At his back the ground dropped away.

“What’d you find?” Larry asked. “The Grand Canyon?”

“Hey, glad you brought the suds.” He lifted the front of his knit shirt and wiped his face. “It’s nasty out here.”

Larry handed the full bottle to him.

The depression behind Pete was a dry creek bed some fifteen or twenty feet lower than the surrounding flatlands. Barbara, sitting on a rock at the bottom, looked up and waved.

“Did you forget about us?” Jean asked Pete.

He finished taking a swig of beer, then shook his head. “I was just on my way to get you. Figured you might want to see this.” He started down the steep embankment, and they followed.