Silent Retreats by Philip F. Deaver Read Free Book Online

bed. Sometimes he would stand in the dark at his bedroom window and watch the gravel dust sweep up into the yard light and then run downwind like a ghost.
    Or sometimes a windless cold would stand on Fort Robinson, and Skidmore would become jumpy from the sounds outside, the yakking of dogs and the howling of kids, the loud shouting of cowboys and Indians getting things straight with their wives. In the rare times when Fiona would let him stay at her place the whole night, he would hurry back to the trailer right at dawn, cold to the core. Most of the time Fiona preferred to have him gone so she could read and exercise before bed. She slept soundly, the bedroom snug from the steamy radiator. The windows would fog up with the steam and her breathing.
    One morning she found something odd in her mail. There was a note in scrawly handwriting:
I'm watching .
    Fiona said nothing to Skidmore about this message. She assumed the drunk she'd threatened in the summer was back for more. Or that Yank had returned. When she went to the laundry or the grocery, she found herself looking for Yank along the street or standing in the shadows between the buildings. She hoped he was back—she'd missed him and wondered how he was. She assumed he'd seen Skidmore's comings and goings, and was reacting possessively. There was an edge of menace in the method, which Fiona kept trying to ignore. Yet she knew Yank was capable of menace and more.
    One morning the veil of condensation dripped down her windows as she was typing and she looked out over the alley behind the bar, out half a block to the next street, and there, in front of the old wood-frame building that was once the trading post, she saw an old blue pickup truck idling in the cold, a weathered camper on the back. Inside, looking her way, Fiona could see a woman, bundled up. In the mailbox that day, a second note arrived:
I remain to be watching .
    Many times in the following days, Fiona and the woman would watch each other from their separate places. One afternoon when Skidmore drifted over to Fiona's, she didn't answer the coded knock. He didn't have a key, but the rickety door was easily finessed with his old plastic law school ID card. It was the middle of the afternoon and he assumed Fiona was late getting back from the laundromat. Inside, he looked around the place. He had never been in the rooms when Fiona wasn't there too. This apartment was a great comfort to him—clean, smelling of Fiona and her toil and her blind, senseless, somehow pitiful but lovely optimism. The warmth of the rooms went deep inside Skidmore, giving him a sense of well-being. He decided he would go in and read something she was working on. He was always hesitant to ask if he could do that. He set his beer down on the kitchen table and pulled off his coat. As he did so, Fiona suddenly appeared in the door of the bedroom.
    "How did you get in?" She seemed upset. She was wearing a long terry-cloth bathrobe.
    "Didn't you hear me knock?" Skidmore asked, defensive.
    "You knocked your way in?"
    "There wasn't an answer, so I picked the lock."
    "Is that what you always do when there's no answer at a person's house?"
    "Sorry. There wasn't an answer, so I let myself in—to drop off the beer. What's the matter anyway?"
    "There wasn't an answer so you picked the lock?"
    "Look, what's the matter?"
    She stared at him until he began to wonder if she'd even heard the question.
    "The truth comes in blows," she said.
    "Huh?" Skidmore was getting ready to fix a sandwich. There was something disturbing in the air. He tried ignoring it.
    "The truth comes in blows. Henderson the Rain King, 1959."
    "That did it. I've got to confiscate your library card." He was smiling, keeping it light. "What's going on?" he asked.
    "I've been looking out the window. Someone's out there."
    "There's a whole little town out there," he said. Yet already he was starting to know.
    "Come and see."
    He followed her into the bedroom. Her robe was