Off Course by Michelle Huneven Read Free Book Online Page B

Rodinger house. His misshapen leather hat gave him the look of a nineteenth-century prospector, so appropriate to the slumping cabin. To avoid him, she veered off the trail and climbed cross-country up a ridge all the way to the saddle. There, the whole Spearmint watershed spread out below her, a vast bowl of pines standing as they had for centuries, a soft wind ruffling their nap, like a hand over velvet. Ah, but the trees’ days were numbered. The president had increased harvest levels, and local men, grateful and defiantly happy for work, had begun clear-cutting. A pale swath of raw stumps and debris piles already encroached from the west.
    *   *   *
    As she walked, she made a frame with her hands, imposed her own geometry on the landscape, composing scenes of trees and rocks, moving water, bushes and grasses, the interplay of shadows and the soft late-summer light.
    She stuck her nose in bark; Jeffrey pines smelled like vanilla, lodgepoles like retsina.
    Woodpeckers hammered at the trees, their red heads a blur; the whole forest rattled from them; were they the same birds she saw day after day?
    On the fishermen’s path along Spearmint Creek one afternoon, she saw a bush thrashing up ahead, and a deer’s spindly, split-hoofed leg striking the water. Closer, Cress saw the animal full on: a doe, who continued to paw the shallows until, backing up, she drew a curling and flopping trout onto a sandbank. The deer struck until the fish, dredged in sand, grew listless. Pinning it with her cloven toe, then stretching her long neck, the doe closed her mouth over the fat V of the tail and, tugging as if at grass, she bit it off. She chewed fixedly, head low, protecting her prize. More pawing ensued—and still the fish twitched and tried to flop—until the doe pinned it again for a second bite. Blood, and a bright ocher organ flashed.
    The deer’s nonchalance disturbed and thrilled, as did her indifference to suffering. Cress rehearsed descriptions for Jakey, that student of animal behavior. Like a cat with a mouse! She would tell Julie Garsh, too, of the violence and cruelty in her outdoor cathedral. The utter lack of mercy.
    Jakey, behind the grill, saluted her with his spatula. Cress stood at the bar; she assumed he’d finish cooking and come talk to her. Only one table waited for food, a mother and daughter. The grumpy blond waitress delivered their burgers, but Jakey didn’t emerge. Cress feigned interest in the sports section but soon, afraid of being a pest, she left the lodge and walked home.
    *   *   *
    â€œSomething is chilling Jakey’s ardor,” she told Tillie.
    â€œAnd yours?”
    â€œThat’s what worries me. I used to be the less interested party.”
    â€œJust hurry up and finish your thingy,” said Tillie. “Number 12 should be open by Thanksgiving. Old Fiona’s moving to the Scripps Retirement Home.”
    *   *   *
    On supply runs, Cress explored the small, uncharming city of Sparkville. Once a railroad hub for farming, ranching, and logging, the downtown now had the depleted anachronistic ambience of a backwater with its scantly stocked dime store and dowdy private department store, its windowless bars. The handsome brick hotel by the old station had long been lodging for seasonal farmworkers. Off the main drag, Cress found an Italian market that sold backyard vegetables—basil, dandelion greens, cardoons—and a cloudy green local olive oil. In a Mexican grocery, she found purple hominy and chipotle chiles, crusty lumps of piloncillo sugar.
    She shopped at Younts, not only for Julie but also now for Brian Crittenden and Florence Orliss, who each paid her ten dollars per haul. That compensated for wear and tear on the Saab.
    She delivered Sawzall blades and a new sledgehammer to Freddy and River Bob demo-ing the Streeters’ kitchen. Nails and an expensive six-foot level went to the