Bentley Little: The Walking

Several hours later, they found a torn piece of blue shirt cloth on the spiny arm of a saguaro. The sandstorm had wiped out all traces of footprints, but judging by the direction in which the cactus stood in relation to the house, they assumed that the dead man was walking toward the lake. Cabe went back for the truck while Garden and his father waited in place, in the dubious shade of the cactus, and soon the three of them were speeding across the unpaved road that led to the lake.

They arrived just as John Hawks stepped into the water.

Cabe opened his door and jumped out of the driver's seat, while Robert scrambled out of the passenger side. Garden

followed his father, leaving the door open behind them. They ran to the edge of the lake.

"Daddy!" Robert called.

But the dead man did not turn around. Neck stiff, head unmoving, proceeding forward at the same indefatigable pace in which he had circled the house for so long, he walked into the lake until just his head and then just his hair were above water. And then he was gone.

They stood there for a while, waiting to see if he came out again, waiting to see if perhaps the lake was just another barrier he had to pass through and if he would emerge on the other shore, but he did not reappear. The sun dipped low in the west, and it was almost dark when they finally decided to head for home. Garden was not sure how his father and uncle felt--both of them seemed more sad than scared now, and more relieved than sad--but he himself was still worried.

He did not think it was over yet

After graduating from high school, Garden went on to the junior college in Globe. It was a two-hour-drive from home, but he had purposely scheduled all of his classes for Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. For an elective his second semester, he decided to take a scuba diving course, and he received an A for his pool work, a B for his solo dive in Apache Lake, and got an A-minus out of the course.

That summer he told his father that he wanted to dive in Wolf Canyon.

"The lake?" Robert said, frowning.

"I want to see what happened to Grampa."

They had not talked of John Hawks since the day he had disappeared.

They had not reminisced about either the good times or the bad times, had avoided completely the subject of the walking. Robert d Cabe had not even finished going

through all of his old things. They had thrown away boxes unopened, tossed all loose items without looking at them.

None of them had ever gone back to the lake.

Robert stared at his son. "No," he said flatly.

"I'm going with you or without you." "You can't!" "I will."

Cabe walked into the kitchen from outside. what down tiredly in the chair opposite his brother. "What's all this about?"

"Garden wants to scuba dive in the lake. He wants to look-for Daddy."

Cabe sighed. "We all want to know," he said. "You do, too. Admit it." He looked at Garden. "I'm coming with you."

"Cabe--" "It's time."

'The water's muddy," Robert said. "You won't be able to see nuthin'."

Garden licked his lips. "I'll be able to see."

They went out on a Saturday, borrowing a boat from Jim Holman, Garden bringing equipment from school. They were all nervous, and though the night before they had spent hours going over plans for the dive, discussing each possibility, mapping out a strict timetable, they were now almost silent, talking only to ask for equipment or instructions.

Garden went over the side at ten o'clock sharp.

The orders were strict. Since neither his father nor his uncle knew anything about scuba diving, he was on a line, the line connected to a winch. If he did not check in every five. minutes with the prearranged signals, if he did not surface five minutes before the hour limit of his air supply, they were to haul him up.

The two men waited, silently pacing the deck of the boat. The first signal arrived on time. As did the second and the third.

Then he was up. :

Garden pulled himself onto the boat, flipping over the low side wall of the craft, tearing off his face mask and spit ring water out of his mouth. He was breathing heavily, his face was white, and he appeared to be panicked.

"What is it?" Robert demanded, crouching next to his son. "What did you see?"

Garden caught his breath. He looked from his uncle to his father and back again.

"What's happening?" Cabe asked.

Garden closed his eyes. "He's still down there," he said. "And he's walking."

"I knew it." Sanderson kept repeating the words like a litany. "I knew it."

Miles Huerdeen did not look at his client's face. Instead, he focused his attention on the contents of the folder spread out over the top of the desk: photos of Sanderson's wife walking arm in arm with the purchasing agent of his company, credit card carbons from the hotel, a copy of a dinner bill, a list of phone charges for the past two months.

"I knew it."

This was the part of the job Miles hated the most. The investigation itself was always fun, and as long as he didn't think about the consequences, he enjoyed his work. But he did not like to see the pain that was caused his clients by the information he gathered. He hated even being the messenger of that hurt. It was one of the paradoxes of this job that the work which was most rewarding was that which was most devastating to the people who hired him.

He glanced up at Sanderson. He always felt as though he should say something to comfort his clients, to somehow apologize for the facts he presented to them. But instead, he stood the poker-faced, feigning an objectivity he did not feel. " .

Sanders6n looked at him with eyes that were a memory away from tears.

"I knew it."

Miles said nothing, looked down embarrassedly at the desk.

He was relieved when Sanderson finally left.

The detective business was nothing like the way it was portrayed in movies. Miles hadn't really expected it to be, but he hadn't known what to expect when he made the decision to become a private investigator, when he'd forsaken his business classes and enrolled in his first criminology course. He'd known it wasn't going to be Phillip Marlowe time--glamorously seedy office, shady clientele, fast and loose women--but he'd half expected Jim Rockford. Instead, he'd ended up working in an environment not very far removed from the one in which he would have found himself had he continued to major in business.

Only he now made a bell of a lot less money.

At least he was working for a real detective agency, and not an insurance company, as so many of his fellow graduates were doing. He might be entrenched amid the trappings of a corporate world--desk cubicle in a high-rise office, quotas and timetables he had to meet--but sometimes he was allowed to go out in the field, follow people around, take clandestine photos. Sometimes he could pretend he was Phillip Marlowe.

Phillip Marlowe-with medical insurance and a good dental plan.

He filled out the form for billable hours, and sent it in an interoffice envelope along with a labor distribution time sheet to the bookkeeper. There was nothing more he could do here this afternoon, so he decided to leave a little early. He had to stop by the library tonight anyway, which would make up for any work-hour discrepancy.

He waved to Naomi the receptionist as he waited for the elevator. "I'm out of here," he said.

She smiled at him. "You're dust in the wind?"

"I'm a puff of smoke. I'm history. I'm gone."

The elevator arrived, and he gave her a James Dean low sign as the metal doors closed

Outside, the air was cold, or as cold as it got in Southern California. Miles put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. As he walked next door to the parking lot, his breath blew out in puffs of white steam before dissipating in the breeze. It had rained sometime since lunch. He hadn't noticed it while in the office, but now he saw that the streets were slick and cinematically reflective. The water and rain puddles made it seem more Christmassy to him, made the tinsel trees on the lampposts and the small blinking multicolored lights outlining the doors and windows of the buildings seem not quite so inappropriate, lending the entire street a festive holiday air.