Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [101]
Every association in this place is safe, enduring, and right. The only intrusion is the one I let in myself when I enlisted Shelly, and with Shelly all her grubby entanglements. He is gone, thank the Lord, having appeared to me only once like Peter Quint passing along the edge of the garden–outside, and looking in, but without any particular threat to me. Why should he be interested in me? If he was hanging around figuring out how to leave some cannibal tracks to scare Shelly, as I suppose he was, I would be nothing to him, just the old crip who owned the place. I looked up from my hobbling and there he was across the fence, with his thin ascetic beard and his beaded headband and his purple pants and knee-high moccasins, not sneaking, just strolling with his hands behind his back, following the fence. I went on pegging and swinging, forcing myself through the fifth or sixth or seventh lap, I don’t remember, and we passed like casual walkers in a street. He looked at me pleasantly, he wagged his head in appreciation of what we shared. “Great day,” he said. “Great country,” and passed on, through the pines. Whose woods those were, I think I know, and they were not his.
Shelly by that time had moved back to her family’s house. I assumed she thought he had gone, and so I warned her that he was still around. “I know,” she said. “I’ve seen him.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Yes, twice.”
“Talked to him, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“No problems?”
“Not really. I’m not going back, but he’s all right.”
“Have you told your family?”
“What for? They’d just get uptight and try to have him arrested or something.”
“Why’s he hanging around? Still trying to persuade you?”
“He likes it here,” she said, and shook her hair back, laughing her ho ho ho. “Isn’t it a gas? He loves the country. Why didn’t you tell me about Grass Valley?’ he asks me. This is a place, this isn’t just Anywheresville. This is a place where a man could live.’ He might just settle down here. Wouldn’t that be great?”
“Would it?”
“No,” she said. “He’s just talking that way to bug me. You know, if he can’t make the mountain come to Mohammed, he plays like Mohammed will come up on the mountain. It’ll wear out. He’ll go back to where it’s at. This isn’t his scene.”
She read him right, he did go back. But he wasn’t through laying down cannibal tracks, as witness that business yesterday afternoon.
I was on the piazza, just getting back into my chair after my nap, when this Parcel Delivery truck pulled into the drive. The driver hopped out with a clipboard in his hand and started up the steps. He saw me before he punched the doorbell.
“Rasmussen?” he said. “Care of Hawkes?”
“You should have turned off this lane at the next driveway down,” I told him. “What is it? Mrs. Rasmussen works here, she’ll be up in a few minutes.”
“Canaries,” the driver said.
“Canaries?”
“Twenty-four canaries.”
Just at that moment Shelly came up behind him, around the corner. “Hi,” she said. “What is it?”
“Man says he has twenty-four canaries for you.”
“What?”
“Don’t look at me,” the driver said. “I’m just the delivery boy. Twenty-four canaries from the Emporium in the City. Where do you want ’em?”
“I don’t want ’em at all,” Shelly said. “This is some God-damned joke.” She went to the idling truck and looked in. The driver opened the back doors and reached out a lightweight, paper-wrapped parcel five feet high and three feet through. He pulled off the paper and there they were. From where I watched from the top of the ramp there looked to be more than two dozen, in a wicker cage.
“Who sent them?” Shelly said.
“The Emporium.”
“Let me see the bill.”
He handed her the clipboard. The canaries were beginning to trill and chirp, now that light came into their cage.