Bonne Femme

Chapter 5

The Flu

May 15

        Morning sun fell on his eyelids, causing him to stir, but the noise brought him fully awake.  He opened his eyes to see a pistol inches from his left leg and a grim-faced Jill bracing to fire.

"No!  Don't!" he shouted.

        She raised the gun to his midsection.  "Do not move or I will shoot you in . . . a vital area," she said.  "If you remain still I will just shoot your leg.  You force me to do this."

"You don't understand.  If---"

        "You will have to let me take you back to treat the wound," she said.  "It should be simple for you to understand.  You brought me here so that I would be forced to listen to you.  Now I am shooting you so that you will take me back.  I am sorry, but I have no choice."

        He remained motionless, fearing that a sudden movement would frighten her into pulling the trigger.

81.

        "Jill, you've got to listen to me.  The .45 was made to cause maximum damage.  If you blow open my femoral artery I'll bleed out in minutes.  There'll be no way to stop it."

        His words seemed to make no impact.  "If I'm dead, you may never get off the island," he said.  Think of that."

She wavered, and then raised the pistol.  He allowed himself a sigh of relief.

        "I cannot kill you," she said weakly.  "Just tell me what I must do to make you take me back."

        Sooner or later he would have to take her back, even if she refused to believe him, but he couldn't tell her that.

        "I have some things to tell you," he said.  "I need for you to at least consider that they may be true."

She let the hand holding the pistol fall to her side.

"Jill, think.  What does your intuition tell you?"

"That you are a liar," she said simply.

He started to sit up.

"Do not move," she said, bringing up the pistol again.

He eased back down.  "I never lied to you."

        Her hands shook as she kept the pistol trained on him. "No?  You lured me to your picnic spot and then tricked me into getting in the boat.  Then you forced me here.  How many lies did you tell to do all that?"

"True enough," he admitted, "but---"

        "Stop!  I do not want you to tell me anything.  And I will not listen to you as long as you keep me here."

"Let me stand up," he said weakly.  My back is killing me."

82.

        He threw back the tarp to tried to stand. "Whoa!" he said as his head spun. He steadied himself on the boulder to keep from falling.

Jill backed away warily.

"Just vertigo," he mumbled.  "Probably a sinus infection or something."

        He's taken something, thought Jill as she watched him stand unsteadily.  Some drug.  That explains a lot.  Or maybe he is off his medication.

"Are you being treated for a mental condition?" she asked.

        "What?  No.  No, I don't have a mental condition," he said irritably as he waited for his head to stop spinning.

        It finally abated, but left him with a slightly unreal feeling.  "I'm prone to sinus infections.  That's got to be what this is.  Don't worry about me."

        "I am not worried about you," she said.  "But if you're sick, maybe we should go back now."

"Not yet."

        "I know.  You have something you have to tell me about Mic.  We can still do that.  If you take me back now, you can see a doctor and I promise I will tell no one what you have done.  Later we can meet somewhere---in public, of course---and I will listen to everything you want to tell me."

"Good try," he said weakly.

"I will not listen to you as long as you keep me here," she said, turning away.

 

After she trudged back up the hill, he threw up and felt better.

        "Twenty-four hour bug or something," he muttered as he bent gingerly to take a granola bar from the box.  The movement set his head spinning again, and he dropped it. 

 

        Between bouts of nausea, Richard spent the morning making the privy serviceable.  To say that he repaired it would be gross exaggeration.  The roof was gone, and it listed perilously, threatening to tumble down the hill if so much as an anemic sparrow lit upon it.  After prying and pushing for an hour, he righted it, chocking the downhill side with stones.  A diagonal brace shored it up.  Finally, he arched saplings over it for a makeshift roof frame and then secured canvas atop it approximating a hogan shape.  He reattached the door on its rusty hinges and washed down the seat area.

        Not much to look at, he said to himself as he surveyed his handiwork.  But it beats the bushes especially when it's raining.

83.

        Another bout of weakness struck him.  He laid it off to the cold night and lack of caloric intake.  He needed to eat, but the thought of food made him sick.  He plodded tiredly to the cabin, forgetting to let Jill know he was coming.  His sudden appearance in the doorway startled her.  With a small cry she backed away, dropping the cup of coffee she had just poured.

"I'm sorry.  I should have said something to let you know I was coming up."

        Her eyes flicked toward the pistol sitting atop a container near the fireplace.  Richard stepped back to the threshold, steadying himself on the doorframe.

        "I just came to tell you that the outhouse is done . . . at least as far as it's going to be.  If you put some toilet paper in a coffee can with the plastic lid on, it won't ruin with the humidity.  Then you can just leave it out there."

        She nodded, eying him cautiously, having returned to her "paranoid delusion theory" of his behavior.  His "consideration" infuriated her, but she had decided that she had to pretend appreciation if she were to establish the semblance of a "normal" relationship with him.  If she could make him believe that she still liked him she could control some of what would happen to her.  The downside was that she might reinforce his fantasy. 

"Jill, earlier I told you---"

"I will not listen to you until you take me back," she interrupted.

        She saw it as her only bargaining chip, but it was only the flip side of Richard's dilemma.  He couldn't take her back until she did listen.  Jill was mistaken in thinking that all he wanted of her was to hear him out.  Richard had to be reasonably certain that she believed what he had to say.

"You have to take me back, Richard.  We cannot live here."

        Her voice sounded oddly weak to him, as if she were a lot further away.  He leaned on the doorway, came in, and sat on a storage container.

"I . . . can't risk that," he said, his head spinning again.

        His move inside the cabin frightened her.  He was deliberately intruding, trying to intimidate her.  Again her eyes flicked toward the .45.

"Could you get me a granola bar . . . and some water?" he asked.

"You have some at the boat," she said.

84.

He nodded and got to his feet unsteadily.

"Do not return to the cabin today."

"Okay," he said weakly.

        "I need to know where you are.  You claim to care about . . . my privacy.  So do not walk in unexpectedly again like you just did."

        "Yes.  That's why I gave you the cabin.  I'll cut firewood.  You should be able to hear the chopping."

"Fine."

        Nausea caught him half way down the hill, and he leaned against a tree as he threw up, each heave causing his head to pound as if it were about to explode.  Afterwards he felt marginally better, although stomach acid burned his raw throat.  When he got to the lower camp, he sat shivering near the fire, and tore open a package of granola bars.  Eating was a chore, but he choked down half of one by eating slowly and sipping water.  The meager meal lay heavily on his stomach, but he kept it down.

        His eye fell upon the ax propped next to the fire.  "A promise is a promise," he said, pushing himself up.

 

Memories

        Jill poured lake water from an army surplus container into a large cast iron pot she had found among the things he had brought up from the boat.  She placed in on the grate in the fireplace, listening vainly for the sound of chopping.

"So much for your promises," she said.

        As if on cue, the hollow sound of the axe biting into wood carried up from the bottom of the hill.  Something was different about it, however.  Earlier, she had noticed a rhythm to his chopping, a predictable pattern of sounds:  two solid "thunks" followed by a hollow "thock."  Now the strokes sounded random. 

        "You have more important things to worry about than that," she said.  All that matters is that you know where he is."

85.

       The lake water was clear, but she decided to boil it and save some for drinking.  She filled the single pot Richard had brought to the island, and then emptied the coffee from two tins into large Ziploc bags and placed them in one of the storage containers.  After filling the three-pound cans with lake water, she placed them on the grate along with the cast iron cooking pot.  Jill determined that she would be as independent as possible.  If there was heavy work to do, like carrying water or cutting firewood, he could do it.  Everything else she would do for herself, and, as much as possible, she would keep him away from her.

        As she knelt to feed the fire, the flames became an unfocused image, like the mandala she had used in a brief teenage experiment with meditation.  Instead of the transcendental state that she had never found, Jill was transported back to the final stages of her deteriorating relationship with Mic.  He had become oppressively possessive, even resenting the time she spent with Marta.  When he couldn't bully her into staying away from her friend, he attacked Marta.  That was the only way to put it.

"Why does she always have to hang onto you, Jill?  It's weird.

"She's a friend, Mic."

"Yeah," he said contemptuously.  "A real ‘good' friend."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know.  Has she ever tried anything with you?"

        Clearly he had been jealous, but his jealousy had nothing to do with love, only possession.

"You cannot tell me anything about his temper, Richard," she said aloud.

        Jill filled the sink with hot water and unwrapped a new bar of soap.  She had been desperate to rid herself of Mic or else she would never have made the mistake of asking Richard to intervene. 

"Well, you certainly intervened."

        Shivering, she began to disrobe, intending to bathe in stages.  Listening until she could hear the chopping at the base of the hill, she stripped to the waist, and began sponging herself.  The warm water felt good, but cooled quickly.

How crazy is he?  That's the question, isn't it?

        The rinse water ran down, soaking her jeans.  She dried and pulled on a clean sweatshirt before stripping off her jeans and hanging them near the fire.  She put her underwear on the edge of the old metal sink.

"No laundry detergent, of course.  I will have to use soap."

86.

        She finished washing, and donned new jeans.  She had vowed earlier not to bathe, reasoning that the more disgusting she became, the less tempted he would be to attack her.  Being filthy, however, depressed her.  Depression, she realized, could lead to apathy and she couldn't afford that.

The chopping was fainter now, but hearing it reassured her.

He hasn't tried anything yet.

But he will.

        "If he . . . forces me I can survive it.  Women have had to survive it throughout history, have they not?"

        She tried to assess Richard's behavior objectively, as if she were viewing it all from the outside.  What she had intended as a dispassionate intellectual evaluation quickly turned on her.  Everything about his behavior unmistakably pointed to obsession.  With that realization, her panic rushed back.

He kidnapped me!  I am alone with him and he can do anything he wants!

Stop it!  You are not helpless and he has not hurt you.

        Yet!  What happens when he loses patience?  He is diseased.  Who knows what he is thinking?

She tried to calm herself.

       Wait.  He is obsessed with you.  That means he cares about you.  He has not hurt you, and he probably will not hurt you.

That she had to rely on his good intentions angered her.  It wasn't good enough.

I will not let him hurt me.  And I will get away from him.

"All I need is the key."

Fine.  I will let him talk to me.  I will gain his trust.

        It was obviously important to him that she believe what he what he had to say about Mic.  It was important to Jill that he thought her belief was genuine.

87.

        She leaned against the sink to pull on clean socks and slip back into her tennis shoes.  What she was planning was a type of seduction.  For a moment she felt an irrational twinge of guilt, but impatiently dismissed it.

"You did not cause this, Jill," she said aloud again.

        Of course he wouldn't take her back even when he did think she believed him.  But that wasn't the point.  She simply had to gain his trust, get the key, and then betray him as he had her. 

It felt better to be clean---and, to have a plan.

        She emptied the wash water, put on coffee, and then went to the door to call out for him to come up, intending to put her plan into action immediately.  She hesitated.

"I will do it tomorrow," she said as she closed the door.

 

        He felt weak and chilled.  The coughing was painful and almost constant now.  His nausea was at bay, but barely.  So far he had been able to keep the scant amount he had eaten from coming back up, but was increasingly less sure that he could continue to do so.  He knew he should eat, but the mere thought sickened him.

        It's just a stomach flu, he told himself as he brought an armload of wood to the campfire and dropped it without bending over.

        He knelt stiffly, trying not to incline his head lest the vertigo return.  After putting several large pieces on the fire, he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, wishing it were late enough to go to sleep so that if it were a twenty-four hour bug he could sleep through the worst of it.  Hazarding a reclining position turned out to be a mistake.  He rolled to his hands and knees to avoid throwing up on the blanket.  He expelled everything he had eaten, which wasn't much, but his stomach wasn't content with that, and he had to endure the dry heaves.  Instead of providing relief when it subsided, it left him shaking with a severe chill.  His eyes burned and his head ached, along with virtually every joint and muscle in his body.

         After rinsing his mouth with water, he sipped a little, pulled the blanket about him again, and scooted close to the fire.  With difficulty he got the tarp over his shoulders too.  He sat cross-legged, his back and knees aching from the position, but it was better than the vertigo.

 

88.

        Jill did a thorough inventory of her clothes to determine how often she would have to launder.  She had decided to be as clean and comfortable as circumstances allowed.  A daily routine would put her in control of the details of her life at least.  If that gave her the illusion that she was not completely at the mercy of his whim, then it was a useful illusion.  It would help her remain sane in this insane situation.  Beneath underwear and feminine napkins in the smaller of the two suitcases, she found the paperbacks and writing tablets from her apartment.

        A harsh cough came from just outside the cabin.  In panic, she scrambled for the pistol.  The coughing was louder, became a fit.

Finally, he knocked at the door.

"What do you want?" she asked, eying the boxes stacked against the door.

        They weren't meant as a barricade, only a warning system to keep him from entering stealthily.

"Aspirin.  I've got a bad fever."

It is a ruse, she thought with certainty.

"Go away.  I do not have aspirin."

        There was a long silence.  She raised the .45 and held it centered on the door, determined to shoot when the door to flew inward.

"I think there were some in your medicine cabinet.  In the small suitcase---"

He broke off in a fit of coughing that she believed was contrived.

"Stay out.  I will get it."

        She found the bottle where he said it was.  She tiptoed to the window and forced it through a gap in the canvas he had nailed up.  Going back to the center of the room, she braced the pistol again, pointing it toward the doorway.

"I put it out the window."

"Good grief!" he murmured.

89.

        Coughing near the window made her shift her aim.  She was sure he would rip the canvas aside and leap in.

"Jill, I don't have any water."

"Go away."

        She suspected that he would only feign leaving.  She aimed the heavy pistol half way between the door and window, not knowing which one he would burst through.  After long moments without a sound, her arms began to ache.  She eased backward, sat down with her back against the wall by the fire, and braced her elbows on her knees, ready for his inevitable charge.

 

Feeling Worse

        After chewing the aspirin he settled by the fire.  It was dark now, and the cold seemed to be closing in sharply.  He still couldn't recline without his head spinning, and he didn't want to expel the aspirins before they had done their job.  The fire was blazing now, burning his face, but oddly doing nothing to stifle his uncontrollable shaking.  He pulled the blanket and the canvas tarp around his shoulders and hunched over miserably.  His back and neck felt stiff, and his insipient headache blossomed into an insistent pounding.  When he opened his eyes, the firelight intensified the pain.

"I've got the flu," he said with certainty.  "Why didn't I get a shot?"

Adding to his misery, it began to drizzle.

 

        Jill didn't hear him until he knocked. She snatched up the .45 and pointed it at the door.

"I have to sleep in the cabin tonight," he said.

"No!  You cannot stay here!" she gasped.

"I'm sick, and it's beginning---" The coughing seized him.

She saw it as a sham.

89.

"Jill, it's raining and it's turning colder.  I need shelter."

"Sleep in the bathroom."

"I need warmth."

"No!"

        "Look.  I don't care anymore.  If you're going to shoot me, just do it.  I'm coming in."

"I will," she stammered.  "I swear I will!"

With eyes wide, she watched as the door slowly pushed the boxes aside.

"Stay out!" she shouted, trying to steady the shaking pistol.

"I have to come in."

        Slowly, so as to avoid frightening her further, he came through the half opened door.

"Get out!"

        He dropped the tarpaulin and the army blanket just inside the door.  "I'll sleep here," he said as he shut the door.

 

May 16

        Jill sat with her back to the fire so that she could watch him.  Instead of reclining, he had wrapped the blanket around himself and leaned again the wall.  His chin finally slumped to his chest, but she was sure that he was only pretending.  Soon, however, he began to snore.  Her resolve not to fall asleep was aided by his periodic coughing attacks.  Occasionally he groaned. 

It was mid-morning before he awoke.

        His white face and quivering lips made her believe for the first time that he really was sick.

Probably drug withdrawal, she decided.

90.

He started to push himself from the floor, but sat back heavily.

"Can you help me up?" he mumbled.

        "No," she said. There was no way she was going to get close enough for him to make a grab at the pistol.

"I have to go out to the bathroom," he said weakly.

"Then go."

He couldn't get to his feet.  With a sigh he started to crawl over to the door.

"You're overacting," she said.

        He used the doorknob to pull himself to his feet, the effort completely exhausting him.  His breath came raggedly.  Then Richard looked out into the steady slow rain and gathered himself for what she thought was a run for the privy.  Instead he walked unsteadily toward it without even bothering to shut the door.  She went to close the door, but stayed to watch as he went inside the outhouse.  A few minutes later, he emerged and stumbled back without looking up.  He came back inside with thoroughly soaked clothes and hair plastered to his forehead and collapsed without a glance at her.  His chest rattled as he tried to recover.

"You really are sick," she murmured.

"Evidently," he said, giving her a weak smile.  "Better stay away from me."

        A coughing fit racked him, leaving him rasping for breath.  "Take my . . . word for it.  You don't want this."

        Jill stared at him a long moment, trying to decide how she should handle the situation.  She sat and began unlacing her shoes with her left hand while keeping the pistol pointed in his general direction.

"Careful," he said.  "You know how that thing can go off."

"Yes.  You remember that too please."

        When she had the laces out of her shoes, she placed the automatic on her knee, and quickly tied then together.  She made a slipknot.

91.

"Roll over.  Put your hands behind your back," she said.

"You're tying me up?"

"I do not trust you."

"Okay," he said as he rolled over, fighting the returning nausea.

        Jill approached warily.  Using only her left hand, she tried to get the loop over his crossed hands.  He put his hands together to facilitate the job.  Finally, he felt her pull the knot tight.  Richard didn't know how she did it, but somehow she managed to tie the loose ends together securely---too securely.

"That's too tight," he told her.

"Too bad," she said without sympathy.  "Sit up."

        Richard struggled to a sitting position, biting back the nausea.  If he threw up again, she would probably just leave the mess where it fell.  The thought made him heave.  He rolled to his side, and his stomach went painfully through the motions, but almost nothing came up.  Richard fell back exhausted and closed his eyes.

        When he opened them she was bending over him with a severe look.  She touched his forehead.

"Where are the aspirins?" she asked.

"Down by the boat."

"Wonderful.  I'll go get them."

"I'm sorry," he murmured thickly.

She left without responding.

 

"Open your mouth," she said.

        He had no idea that she had been trying to rouse him for more than an hour.  He recognized the texture and bitter taste as aspirin.  She held water to his lips and supported his head with her hand while he sipped.  She was saying something, but he couldn't make it out.  He saw her face, but couldn't bring it into focus.  It was the last thing he remembered.

 

92.

       He walked down a dusty, litter-strewn street in Mogadishu, rifle at the ready, eyes scanning the doors, windows, and alleyways as he stepped stealthily over broken glass and cast-off from recent looting.  Across the street, Kevin motioned him ahead as they walked point.  The pockmarked walls reminded him that death came as often for the unlucky as for the unwary.

        Breathing shallowly, he picked his way over and around the garbage scattered in the street, ready to shoot at the first movement, and praying that he would encounter nothing.  As he approached the intersection of a narrow alley his attention was drawn to a sudden movement up the block.  Just dust kicked up by the breeze.  Without warning a figure stepped from the alley not ten yards from him.  A rifle swung his way---and he froze, unable to move until he heard the firing pin click on a defective round.

        Finally released from his paralyzing fear, he jerked up his rifle and held the trigger back, emptying the entire clip so quickly that the individual shots were indistinguishable.  The obscene burp was over in few seconds.  The figure fell, as if its bones had suddenly dissolved.  Exhilaration surged through Richard.  In his giddy relief he giggled---until he approached and came face-to-face with what he had done.

 

Cartier, May 17

        Rose had had better days.  The wind that whipped at her skirt cut through the thin sweater she clutched closed.  Her car would have to await diagnosis until payday.  Even then she might not be able to afford to have it fixed again.  Once she could have gotten it fixed with a smile she thought bitterly as she hurried down the broken sidewalk, trying not to catch a heel.  Raindrops coalesced in the frigid mist.  She had six more blocks to go, and no umbrella!  That's all she needed.  Her hair would be a wreck before she got to work.

        A car went by, slowed, and pulled to the curb ahead of her.  She needed a ride, but he was the last person she wanted to give her one.  The window slid down, and Mic leaned down to look at her, an amused smile on his darkly handsome face.

"Hey, lady.  Need a lift?"

"No.  I'm almost there."

She wanted to look away, but couldn't.  His eyes and smile held her. 

"Get in out of the cold, Rose."

        She unconsciously bit her lip as her vow to stay away from him crumbled to mere words.

93.

       "Come on.  A girl could catch her death out there," he said as he stretched to open the door.

As always, she gave in to him without a fight.

 

Bonne Femme, May 19

Confession

         Disoriented, Richard stared at the corner scant inches from his face.  After a moment he remembered where he was.  His mouth was dry and his abdomen sore, but the nausea was gone and he was hungry.  A tickle deep in his lungs told him that the cough was still there, and the effort it took to breath indicated that he still had a lot of congestion.  Getting up and walking around would help loosen it, but he didn't feel up to that just yet.

How did I get over here? he wondered, turning slowly so as to not bring back the vertigo.

        The floor was wet where he had been sleeping last night.  Jill sat reading by the fireplace.

"Did the roof leak?" he croaked.

Startled, Jill looked up.  "What?"

"The floor's wet?"

"I had to wash it.  You . . . soiled it."

        He rolled to a sitting position, noticing that he was naked beneath the rough wool blanket.  His hands were no longer tied.

"What happened last night?"

"Nothing.  You have been more or less unconscious for two days."

She dog-eared and closed her book. "You remember nothing?"

        "No . . . I . . . don't remember anything after . . . you gave me the aspirins.  Why did you untie me?"

"Your hands were freezing.  I tied them too tightly."

94.

He noticed that she no longer held the pistol, but then saw it beside her on the floor.

"Why didn't you retie me only more loosely?"

She shrugged.

"Does this mean you're no longer afraid of me?"

"No, it does not mean that."

He tried to make sense of the change in her.

"Something happened while I was unconscious?"

        "Nothing happened.  No, that's not quite true.  Tell me about the boy."

"The boy?"

"Yes.  In Somalia."

He was stunned.

"You talked about him while you were unconscious."

        Actually, he had cried out in his delirium, asking an unnamed someone why it had to happen. 

"Tell me about him," she insisted.

"It has nothing to do with you."

"I have a right to know what is going on."

        He closed his eyes, shaking his head.  "It has nothing to do with you," he repeated.

"I think it does."

"He was only ten . . . or maybe twelve.  He shouldn't have been there."

"And he killed him."

95.

"Who?"

"The little boy.  Why did Mic kill him?"

It was tempting to let her believe it.

"He didn't.  I did."

        Her mouth dropped and she looked away.  For several moments the only sound in the cabin was the hissing of the burning wood and the wind in the chimney as Jill tried to come to terms with the new information.  Richard wanted to explain, but he felt dead inside.  If he couldn't understand it, how could she?

"Throw me some clothes," he said.  "I need to go out to the privy."

        Jill took pants, a shirt, and underwear from the storage container that she had carried up from the boat and brought them over.  He got dressed under the blanket, and then went out to the john.  Sooner or later she had to know the truth---even the horrible part.  It surprised him to discover that he wanted to share it with her.  He hadn't even told Kevin.

She hit him with it as soon a he got back.  "Was it an accident?"

"No.  Circumstance.  He was the enemy."

"Children are not the enemy!"

They stared at each other.  She clutched the pistol, but it wasn't pointed his way.

"Do you really want to know what happened?"

She nodded.  Her eyes bored into his.  "I have to know."

        "He was a soldier . . . of sorts.  They're not regular troops over there . . . more like armed street gangs . . . all sorts of uniforms . . . or no uniform at all . . . men and boys of all ages.  He was just . . . maybe ten . . . twelve.  He would have shot me . . . tried to.  That should make it all right, shouldn't it?  His rifle misfired . . . and I emptied my clip into him.  I flipped him over with my boot, and he was a kid."

96.

He looked at her miserably.

        "I should have seen he was a kid.  Maybe I could have . . . hit him . . . or grabbed his rifle."

Jill stared at him until he looked away.

"Are you supposed to be on some sort of medication?" she asked gently.

She thinks I'm some head case gone off his meds, he realized.

"Probably," he said.  "Look.  I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"What were you taking?"

        "Nothing.  I'm not under a psychiatrist's care.  They don't make drug for what I've got, but my mental state is irrelevant.  It has nothing to do with what's going on here."

"Do you know what post-traumatic stress is?" she asked.

        He snorted. "Sure.  Battle fatigue.  I don't have that.  All I've got is guilt because I broke the oldest taboo of the species.  I killed a child!  Okay?"

        He shook his head in disgust. "I get it.  You think I weirded out---started seeing ghosts or something.  Unbalanced vet gets lost in his delusions, and kidnaps a girl that he imagines his buddy is trying to kill."

That was exactly what Jill thought.

        "If you think that then keep your distance," he said as he folded the blanket and canvas tarp.  "Thanks for taking care of me."

"Where are you going?"

"Back down."

"You cannot.  You are not well."

97.

       "I'm well enough," he said as he took the blanket and tarp over and placed them atop the container with the rest of his clothes.  "I'll see that you have plenty of firewood and water."

"You should stay here until you are stronger," she said.  "If you have a relapse---"

"I'm not going to have a relapse.  Besides, what do you care?"

"If you die, then I cannot get off the island."

"You'll get back.  I promise you."

"When?"

        "When I'm certain you understand what's going on---not when you tell me you understand, but when I'm satisfied that you actually do."

"Oh.  You can bully me into believing you?"

        "No, Jill.  We have to hammer this thing out.  That starts with being honest with each other, and with listening to each other."

He was getting nowhere.

        "Call me if you need anything.  After I bring up some firewood and water this afternoon I'll just stay away for a while."

 

        Later in the afternoon, he brought firewood.  She let him in, and he stacked it neatly near the fireplace.

"I heated those rations," she said.  "Do you want some?"

"Yeah.  I'll take some down with me."

        "Eat here," she said over her shoulder as she squatted to fish a steaming packet from the cook pot.  "We need to discuss an arrangement."

"Arrangement?"

"Yes."

98.

        Jill paused to think through what she wanted to say, as she slit open one of the packages, poured it into a bowl, and set it aside.

"Things need to proceed," she said, casually.  "Not just drift."

"I'm not intentionally trying to prolong this, Jill."

        "Let us be clear," she said.  "As I said, things need to proceed, but we cannot have a relationship.  You understand this?"

"Of course."

He had ended that possibility by bringing her to Bonne Femme.

"I don't want that to be true," he said.  "But it is I guess."

She stopped what she was doing and stiffened at his words for just a moment.

        "An understatement," she said calmly.  "That is no longer important.  What is, if I understand you correctly, is that you think that I must understand why you have . . . done this thing, and appreciate your reasons for doing it."

        "You know I brought you here because I'm afraid of what Mic will do, but you don't believe me."

"We are at an impasse, but we cannot allow things to just drift," she repeated.

"If you knew him the way I do---."

"I know him better than I know you."

"I don't think so.  He was acting with you."

        "I do not know what you are really like either.  That is more to the point since you are here and he is not."

"I'm exactly what you see."

        "Really?  Are you the shy man who took me to the concert, or the . . . person who abducted me?  Are you Mic's long time friend as you pretended, or do you really loathe him?  You see the problem?  You deceived me.  And now, I must trust you if I am to leave this place?"

        Trusting him was not the point.  She wanted him to trust her so that he would take her back to the mainland.  Jill planned to pretend to be convinced by his arguments and to deceive him into believing that she accepted everything he had told her.

99.

"I see your point," he said.

        "I want you to stay at the cabin for at least a few more nights," she said as she handed him a bowl of the LIRP rations.

"You'd feel safe with me here?"

"No.  But you must stay until you are well or I may die here."

Richard nodded.

        They sat cross-legged, facing each other in front of the fireplace, bowls in hand eating in silence.  She averted her eyes, uncomfortable with the proximity.  A log suddenly flared as its heated reservoir of volatile gasses released themselves to the fire, and casting a rosy tint to her cheek and produced tiny amber highlights in her hair.  Richard ached at the thought of what he'd had to throw away in order to make sure nothing happened to her.  She looked up unexpectedly and caught his expression.  He saw her blanch before she looked away.  A minute shake of her head told Richard how she had interpreted his incautious stare.

"I'm sorry for staring," he said.  "It's . . . I just wish things were different."

        In the awkward silence that followed, he was sure she would ask him to leave and rescind the suggestion that he stay with her in the cabin.

"Richard, if I must do something for you to take me back just tell me."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

        She shrugged.  "If it is sex, then we can . . . just . . . save each other a lot of time and trouble."

        One was as stunned by her statement as the other.  So much so that each missed the other's reaction.  Had they noticed, things might have been different.

"That's not what this is about," he said sadly.  "I wish I could at least convince you of that."

        Jill looked directly at him, her blue eyes black in the dim light.  "Maybe you have just not admitted this to yourself."

"You have to know me better than that."

"But I do not know you at all, Richard.  Anything I thought I knew . . . is gone."

 100.

May 20

        He lay flat on his back and wide-awake when the low rolling peals of thunder began sounding off to the southwest.  As a child he had loved the potatoes-in-the-attic sound of gentle night thunder.  Now it seemed ominous.  Fat drops of rain splatted upon the metal roof in a brief wind driven crescendo that ebbed quickly to desultory pattering as if the fickle clouds could not decide whether to give up their moisture.  Suddenly it pounded down in earnest, and a moment later he heard the runoff cascading to the ground from the roof.  As suddenly as it had begun, the shower ended and the thunder grumbled its retreat leaving behind the rhythmic tap-tap-tapping of a leak near the door.  In the morning he'd get a fix on it and try a new patch.

        As people do when faced with problems beyond their control, Richard took refuge in detail.  Convincing Jill was, at the best, a long-term proposition.  What to do about the danger from Mic was another.  Seeing to her comfort on Bonne Femme, however, was amenable to immediate action.  It wasn't what she wanted or needed, but it was something he could do.  He daydreamed, planning the details of a rainwater collection system for her bathing and hair washing needs.

        He coughed, but only a few bursts, not the extended fits that had racked him the last few days.  As he turned to ease his back pain and rearrange his blanket, he heard Jill shift in her sleeping bag.  Her rhythmic breathing indicated that she was asleep which was good, as was the fact that she hadn't shown symptoms of the flu.  He slid his folded right arm under his rolled up jacket to make it a more comfortable pillow, but within minutes it went numb from the pressure.  He tossed and turned as the cabin cooled.  Rather than risking waking her by feeding the fire, he pulled the blanket up to his chin.  He fell asleep just when he had given up the possibility.

 

        He replaced the empty clip while continuing to scan the street.  The rest had taken immediate cover.  Approaching the fallen body while Kevin covered him from across the street, he nudged it with his rifle barrel.  Getting no reaction, he used his boot to roll it onto its back.  The face that lolled into view was that of a smooth-faced boy.  The unfocused eyes stared through him and a fly landed on drool from the slack mouth.

Richard sat up with a start, heart pounding in his chest.

        He took a shuddering breath and pulled on his jacket.  In stocking feet he went to the fireplace and quietly fed kindling to awaken the nearly dead fire.  Cross-legged on the floor, he stared into the flames, trying not to think about the boy, but unable to think of anything else.

 

101.

Dawn painted cracks around the door.

"How long have you been up?"  The question startled him.

"I'm not sure."

        "After the rain stopped, I woke up and went out to the bathroom.  When I came back you were murmuring in your sleep."

"Probably a dream.  I don't remember it," he said as he pulled on his shoes and stood.

"I'm going down to get something from the boat.  I'll be right back."

        While she made coffee Jill tried to fathom why he would admit killing the boy instead of letting her believe that Mic had done it.  His explanation could be true, but it could as easily be a rationalization, or an outright fabrication.

"Whatever the truth, he was damaged terribly," she said aloud.

        Hearing her own voice, Jill held her breath and listened, fearing that Richard had come back already and had overheard her.  It was a bad habit, and she needed to stop it.  She heard only the sound of wind in the flue.  To ease her mind, she went to look through the crack in the door.  He was nowhere in sight.

  

        Richard watched his breath as he packed the food, matches, and his clothes into one of the remaining containers.  The wearying walk down had told him that his illness had sapped his strength severely.  He hefted the container, and decided that he could manage it.  First, however, he would rest a moment to catch his breath.  He sat by the cold campfire pit and looked out over the lake at a featureless gray sky, feeling a light mist on his face.  The air smelled of snow.  Although not unusual for the time of the year, it shouldn't amount to much or last long.

        Things need to proceed, she had told him.  But how?  He had to come clean, be totally honest.  But he couldn't tell her everything.  There were things about him that she didn't need to know, yet she was too sharp to deceive.  He decided that he had only one option.  He would tell her as much as he thought she needed to know, but would answer truthfully any question she might have.  Maybe she wouldn't ask the one he was afraid of, the one he didn't even want to think about.

        He needed a little more rest before going back up, so he went to see what was left in the boat.  Rolled up and stuffed beneath the seats was a small, badly worn, piece of canvas.  Thinking he might find a use for it, he pulled it out and discovered that it was a case containing a cylindrical bundle of nylon fabric and plastic ribs.

102.

"Wish I'd known that was there," he muttered.

        As he made his way back up to the cabin, a steady, cold rain coalesced from the mist.  Chilled and winded after making it half way, he dropped the container and sat down on it to rest and catch his breath.  He thought about what she must be thinking of him as his breathing gradually slowed.  He always knew she was intelligence, but her toughness surprised him.  In fact, most of what she had done had surprised him.  Now she had apparently decided that it was in her interest for him to sleep at the cabin.  It would be encouraging to think that meant that she no longer considered him a threat, but he knew that wasn't true. 

She thinks I'm shell shocked, or whatever it is they call that nonsense now.

        "I'm not crazy, Miss Belbenoit," he grunted as he hefted his load to resume.  "I just can't let anything happen to you."

 

The Tent

        Hearing him cough, Jill went to open the door.  He came in and dropped the container heavily on the floor.  After a moment to catch his breath, he went to the fire to warm up.

        "Looks a little nasty," he said, as he knelt to rub his hands over the flames.  "Could get pretty cold tonight."

"Yes, I can feel it," she said distractedly as she bent to examine the nylon bundle.

"Is this what I think it is?"

        "It was back under the seats.  Sorry I didn't find it sooner.  I'll use it when I go back down in a day or two.  In the meantime I thought we could put it up in here to give you a little privacy at night."

        She considered that he might be lying about the tent, but realized that he would not have done without it and slept in the weather with only a single blanket and the canvas covering.

"It's free standing," he said.  "Adjust the ribs and it pops into shape.  No pegs needed."

         Jill thought about offering him the sleeping bag if she used the tent, but decided against it on principle.  She was already uncomfortable enough.

"The tent will be nice," she said, "but I do not feel like thanking you."

103.

        "Well that's honest enough," he replied with a grin.  "I don't blame you.  I know it doesn't mean much coming from me after . . . all this, but I am sorry."

        "Yes.  Well, the thing is . . . honesty."  She looked idly through the container of clothes he had brought up.  "Who are you really?" she asked suddenly.

"I'm the guy who took you to the concert, Jill.  That's the truth."

It was a presumptuous thing to say, and he braced for her reaction.

        "I know you want me to believe that, but if you are not really the man who abducted me then why do you continue to keep me here against my will."

"To keep you safe."

"Protective custody then," she said bitterly.

She threw her hands up to ward off further argument.

        "No.  Wait," she said impulsively.  "This is no good.  We both have said all we can about that.  Let's talk about what really matters."

"Which is?" he asked.

"What led you to . . . this conclusion."

"I've told you that."

        "Not in detail.  No one in his right mind would do what you have done unless there was no other way."

"I'm not insane, Jill."

        If he were, of course, arguing with him would do no good.  Separate worlds could coexist, but not interact in any meaningful way.

        "I suppose a sane person---theoretically---could do such an insane thing given the right circumstances," she said carefully.

She was heading in the right direction, and he didn't want to say anything to ruin it.

104.

"Go on."

"You think Mic intends to kill me.  Do I have that right?"

"I believe it."

        She stared, trying to comprehend how the decent person Richard claimed to be could become intimately involved with the kind of person he now claimed Mic was.

"And the only way you can convince me of this is to take me captive?"

"You wouldn't let me talk about it."

He had told her, of course; what she hadn't done was let him elaborate on it. 

        "I suspected your motives, perhaps because my motives were not so pure.  I encouraged your feelings for me so that I could get you to intervene and help me get away from him.  See how honest I'm being?"

        She looked earnest, but he knew part of what she was saying was ingenuous.  She may have used him as she said, but she had not just pretended to like him.

"I used you," she continued.

        That was the true part.  Suddenly he thought he saw what she was trying to do.  She thought that she had inadvertently encouraged his obsession, and now she was trying to dampen it.

        "You still think I'm making up stuff about Mic to scare you and make you dependent on me."

Her steady gaze confirmed his suspicion.

"I may not be much of a man, but I'm more of one than that."

        "How dare you!" she erupted.  "This is not about your manhood.  This is about what is happening to me!  I am not a  . . . prize for the two of you to fight for."

"No.  No, Jill.  I know how you must feel, but---"

"You do not!"

105.

        Richard understood her helplessness, but he didn't know that he had already violated her.  He had not laid a hand on her, but he had defiled her.

                "Jill, I honestly wish you had never met either of us," he said weakly.

"So do I!"

Jill closed her eyes and took a deep breath to regain her composure.

        "Emotion does not help," she said.  "Explain to me how you can be so certain that he intends to . . . do this thing.  It cannot just be because of his drunken threat.  People say foolish things when they are angry and drunk.  Yet you took him seriously.  Why?"

"Because of stuff I've seen," he said vaguely.

"So you say.  Explain.  You met him while you were Marines?"

"In Somalia."   

        "Right, in the Mog---Mogadishu.  Grunts make up names for stuff, you know, like Nam for Vietnam.  We were hunting down a hijacked food convoy."

        They say odors are the most vivid memory cues, but now the process was reversed.  As he recalled it, he could smell the stench of the starving city, a smell would linger in his soul forever.

        "We rolled into the village looking for it and got mobbed by all these stick people . . . black and brown faces, yellow teeth and eyes, breastless women and pot-bellied kids . . . all murmuring stuff you couldn't understand . . . begging with their hands.  We made the mistake of giving them the few rations that we had.  They fought like dogs . . .  human beings reduced to animals.  This guy thought it was hilarious.  It was Mic.  That was the first time I really paid any attention to him."

"So he is heartless, or perhaps just racist," she said.

        "We trucked on back to an area of the Mog where this warlord, Adid was supposed to be around dark . . . and all hell broke loose . . . took so much fire all we could do was hunker down.  Couldn't get back to the compound, so we spent the night in this shopkeeper's brick building.  He and his daughter were the only people other than the militia who looked like they had enough to eat.  Anyway, during the night I hear something and when I go to investigate, I find Mic and one of our interpreters interrogating the daughter.  Mic was using a cigarette on her."

        "I should have stopped him . . . but I froze.  It was like my mind couldn't come to grips with what was going down."

106.

"So you calmly watched this girl being tortured."

"Mic took the cigarette," he said as if in a trance.

"Stop.  I do not need to know the details."

"He enjoyed it.  I can still see that look on his face."

        It was the same expression as when Mic spoke of strangling Jill, but he couldn't tell her that.

        "Poor kid couldn't have been more than fourteen.  He didn't care if she had any information.  He just got off on hurting her.  And I just stood there.  I'd like to say I was in shock or something.  But I don't know why . . . to this day, I don't know.  The Captain came in and put an end to it."

"That is all.  It was a war crime," she said.  "He should have been he punished."

"Might have been, but the Captain took it from a sniper the next day."

"And the rest of you did what?  Just went on as if it had not occurred?"

        "Well, it was war.  Terrible things happen . . . atrocities.  Don't let anyone tell you that war brings out the best in people.  It's not unusual for men to . . . just become calloused."

"Enough to let that happen and not say anything?"

        "Most of us were appalled, but cruelty is common among adolescent boys---and that's what a lot of us were.  Some enjoyed terrorizing people . . . in minor ways---nothing like what Mic did.  And there's this reluctance to interfere.  We were trained to be ruthless.  Moral considerations are secondary to the mission."

        He didn't tell her that when young men are taken far from home, placed in an all-male society where fighting, drinking, and whoring are considered manly, and then add in daily reminders of mortality, many quickly become less civilized than mothers and girlfriends would like to believe.

        "We didn't approve, but we ignored it afterward.  It's like when a family member does something terrible.  Everyone just wants to forget it and go on."

        "You know, Jill, when I got back to the states I saw a girl, of all people, with this T-shirt on:  camouflage overlaid with a skull with a knife through the eye sockets.  The slogan read, Kill ‘em all.  Let God sort ‘em out."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

107.

"It helps explain why Mic wasn't ostracized."

        Jill was skeptical.  She had discovered for herself how frightening Mic could be when angry, but she was not ready to share that with Richard.  She had been wrong about Richard as well as about Mic.  Now she needed to know which of them she had been the most wrong about.

        "Is that all?" she asked, wondering if her prompting would cause Richard to fabricate further proof.

"I didn't see him mistreat any other Somali, at least not a live one."

"What do you mean, not a live one?"  

         "Well, the next day we were on our way back to the UN compound when snipers opened up on us.  That's when Holt bought it . . . a shoot-and-run ambush in the middle of a street full of Somalis.  We cleared the street, looking for the shooters and then went to check the civilians who had gone down.  About twenty of them lay in the dirt.  There was a this girl of about eighteen, either from a well off family or connected with a militia because she was well fed."

Richard got up and went to the fireplace.

       "I saw him trying to . . . expose her breasts . . . using his rifle to . . . poking at her his M-16 . . . pushed up her skirt and tried to flip open or . . . pop the buttons of her blouse.  I pushed him away from her," he muttered with a derisive snort.  "Odd, huh?  I tried to save the dead girl from him, but not the live one."

Jill pursed her lips, and he knew she thought he had fabricated the story.

"So you find him repulsive and yet you became his friend.  How can that be?"

He looked away, afraid to tell her the truth, certain that she would misunderstand.

"I wanted to be near you."

"You were with him before we met."

        "It's hard to explain.  He showed up and I . . . tolerated him . . . figured if I just sort of . . . was lukewarm he'd stop hanging around and I'd be rid of him without offending him.  You two met and things just drifted."

"You stayed with him because of me.  You didn't even know me."

"I wanted to."

"Because of my appearance," she stated irritably.

108.

"At first.  Later there was more to it."

"I might have believed that once.  I no longer know what to believe."

"I'm being perfectly honest with you."

        Jill looked at him intently, biting her bottom lip unconsciously.  "Richard," she began carefully, "I believe that you are sincere, but perhaps---"

"It's all in my head?  It's not.  I know what I saw.  I know what he said."

        "But that does not justify what you are doing.  You are no longer in Somalia.  Death is not hiding in every doorway.  You have obviously experienced some terrible things.  You need counseling.  There is no shame in that."

        "I see.  The post-traumatic crap again," he said in frustration.  "I'm not the crazy one.  He is."

        Richard checked his anger.  He had to take what she was saying calmly or he would confirm her diagnosis.

        "Somalia didn't mess up my head---just the opposite.  It got me rid of the notion that I could be a soldier."

"You have nightmares.  You talk in your sleep.  You cry out."

        "Only about the boy," he said.  "My mind won't let go of it.  It shouldn't.  No one has the right to do what I did and then just forget it.  That would be insane."

"I would seek professional help," she said.

        It wasn't true.  Jill was too private to share her innermost thoughts with a stranger, no matter how professional.

        "I know that you think only an evil person or a crazy one would do what I have done to you.  But believe this:  I will never hurt you, and, as long as I'm alive, no one else will either.  I'm sorry that I wasn't smart enough to think of a better solution."

        She wanted desperately to believe him.  At the same time she was angry with herself for wanting to believe him.

        "Nothing has been done that cannot be undone," she said.  "I understand now why you brought me here.  And I believe you are right that I should not trust Mic.  I wanted to be rid of him too, and like you, I made a mistake.  I asked you to help me.  So we can clear up all this . . . confusion if we just go back now and tell everyone that we just went away together for an assignation."

109.

"You mean a tryst?"

"Why not?  That is what they will believe.  I will tell no one what really happened."    

Richard studied her face for a long moment.

"I promise," she added.

        "An extorted promise," he said.  "If you leave here not believing me, you'd be a fool not to go to the police."

"I will not."

"I can't risk it yet.  And I really hate this but . . ."

"But Mic forces you to do it," she said sarcastically.  "Or is it I who forces you?"

        "Does it matter?" he asked wearily.  "Look, I'm not crazy.  I've just done something that seems crazy.  Jill, think about all the time you were with him.  Didn't you ever get the feeling that he was only acting, like maybe what you were seeing wasn't the real him?"

She feared that the truth would only reinforce his delusion.

"I saw nothing to make me believe that he is dangerous," she said.

        As she set up her pallet inside the tent that night, she reconsidered telling Richard how badly Mic had frightened her.  Under the right conditions it might be useful, but not now because she wasn't altogether certain that being delusional was the only thing wrong with him.  It was, in fact, only the most benign explanation for her abduction.  Delusional or not, right now his goal seemed to be protecting her.  As long as it stayed that way, then surely he wouldn't hurt her.  She decided to be very careful not to do anything that might cause that to change.

        Jill was thinking clearly, and Richard was not delusional, but neither of them could read minds.  And so it continued.