The Cave Ch. 04

Jack sat back down on the edge of the coffee table and set a first aid kit down on the floor and then handed me two bottles: water and ibuprofen. He draped a matching sea green hand towel over one knee. His gray undershirt flattened against his chest and now I could read the logo on the front: Anderson Construction.

"I don't have a dog," I said. "I'm a cat person." I cracked open the water and took two large gulps.

"Ah," he nodded. "That must be what he smells."

Doubtful, I thought. I put two capsules on my tongue and washed them down with another three drinks of perfect water, flowing down my parched throat like ribbons of silk.

"So are you going to tell me how you ended up face down by my mailbox?"

"Um," I started. I had a pretty good idea who put me there and part of me wanted to tell Jack all about it. The cave and the strange creature who held me there, who kept other women and how we had to call the police to get a search going to find Riley...

Oh Christ, Riley. Poor Riley. If Pratt was mourning my eviction the way he'd mourned Amy, then Riley was probably thirsty and hungry right about now. And scared. She said she could only handle the cave if I was there.

"Let me guess. Wild night?"

"Sort of. I was in the woods. And I got...lost."

"How long?"

I wasn't sure what to tell him. I had no idea if anyone was looking for me, if I had been declared a missing person or if I would have to eventually explain the last 40 days of my whereabouts. Lying straight out of the gate would probably not bode well, but I decided I could claim confusion later on if I had to.

"Since yesterday."

"Oh." He frowned. "You must be exhausted. Do you live around here?"

"My uncle has a cabin on Pike Bay. It's no-where near as nice as this, though." Dirty socks and shedding dog aside.

"You're visiting him?"

"No he's not there. I'm just borrowing it. For work."

"Work? What do you do?"

"I'm a writer," I said.

He looked vaguely impressed. "Anything I might know?"

"Not unless you've had coffee with my mother. She's my biggest promoter."

Jack chuckled.

"I've written a series of books on small town life in Minnesota."

Narrowing his eyes to appraise me, he said, "L.B. Ringer."

My jaw went slack. L.B. Ringer was my professional name. "How did you—"

Smirking, he got to his feet and bent towards me, propping a hand on the back of the couch. My heart squeezed. I thought he was leaning forward to kiss me, but he was reaching for something on the console behind me. I had to duck sideways to keep his hispid chin from brushing the top of my head and I stared unblinking at the dwindle of dark whiskers covering his Adam's apple. He smelled good. Some spicy shower gel.

Retreating, he handed me a recent edition of my first book. "I thought you looked familiar. The leaves in your hair must have thrown me off."

I flipped the book over to the back jacket where my photo was printed. I remember the day it had been taken. The photographer was an hour late, which meant we had an hour less of outdoor light. Half the pictures were too dark and useless. "You've read it?"

"It's my wife's. She gave it to me to read."

My stomach plunged, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Of course he had a wife. Men like him were not often single. It was a game of musical chairs and once again I'm left standing alone.

Truthfully, I didn't know why I cared so much. I just met him.

"And did you?" I asked, a little too acidly.

"Not yet," he said and looked down at his empty hands. He switched the subject. "So you're not from around here?"

"I have an apartment in Duluth."

"City girl," he said and I didn't appreciate his teasing half-smile. "Heavy forestry must puzzle you."

"Uh, sure." Before the creep of urban sprawl, my childhood home had been quite remote.

The humor drained from his face as he changed his tune. "Hey, I get lost in these woods all the time."

I crossed my arms and looked away, suddenly feeling so isolated. Secrets'll do that to a person.

Jack cleared his throat. "I think it's soaked long enough."

He had me prop my foot on his toweled knee and then opened his first aid kit. Every home had some semblance of first aid even if it was just a bottle of peroxide and a tin of Band-aids. If Pratt had one, I might still be in the cave right now.

Jack's hands worked quickly but gently to disinfect and bandage my toe and I only winced once when he secured the tape firmly.

"Good as new," he muttered. "If I were you, I'd soak it two or three times a day until it heals. I'll give you some detergent to take home."

Since my toe screamed every time I tried to put on my shoe, Jack also gave me one of his heavy thermal socks to put over my thin ankle sock. Then he offered me an insulated coat to put on over my windbreaker—thirty-eight days ago, it had been warm enough for just a windbreaker—and Jack commented how he couldn't believe I didn't freeze to death last night. But I passed on the extra layer. The cool air would feel good on my heated skin.

As I hopped to the entryway steps, Jack slipped an arm around my waist and braced me against his side to help me down to the landing. I felt a warm swell in my chest and my armpits began to broil as we exchanged tentative looks.

"Come on, Bucky," he said and opened the door. Bucky barked once and shot out. Jack cursed. "Not again."

Lying on Jack's welcome mat was a heap of gray fur. As Bucky was cautiously sniffing the bloodiest parts, I realized it was dead rabbit.

Elated, I hobbled onto the porch, steadying myself against the wooden rail, and my eyes trawled the tree-line around Jack's rural property. I didn't think Pratt came out in the day, unless it was early morning to pick berries. Was he still out there? Was he watching us now?

"Bucky, no," Jack said, approaching the rabbit and picking it up by the ears. "This is the fourth one in two days."

"What?" I asked, dazed. I felt numb inside as I witnessed the collision of my two worlds.

"Can you wait a sec? I gotta put it in the trash can in the garage. If I throw it in the woods, Bucky'll just get to it." He started to step off the porch.

"Let me have it," I said.

He looked at me with those sharp green eyes. "What for?"

"It's a perfectly good rabbit. Fresh kill. I'll make stew out of it."

"Stew?" He sounded like he'd never heard the word before. "It could be poisoned."

"I'm sure it's fine."

Jack wasn't convinced and arched an eyebrow. "You know how to skin and gut a rabbit?"

"I've seen it done lots of times. How hard can it be?"

Reluctantly, Jack put the rabbit in the back of his pickup. Then he drove me home. Bucky sat in the middle, enthralled with some scent on my sleeve. The hair was raised on his shoulders. On Highway 169, I kept my eyes peeled for my abandoned car, but it had been long towed away and I reminded myself I was going to have to hunt down the impound lot that was keeping it.

I wondered why Pratt would leave rabbits on Jack's doorstep. It made me think his dropping me off at Jack's mailbox was not coincidence and those rabbits represented a kind of dowry. Poor Jack. He had no idea what was going on.

I directed Jack to my cabin and he pulled up to the porch and turned off the engine. He carried the limp rabbit to a picnic table in the front yard and asked if I had any newspaper to put down.

"To soak the blood."

"Why can't I put it in the sink inside?"

"Trust me, you won't like the smell."

I found a local flier for Zup's grocery on the doorstep and laid it down for Jack.

"You're sure you don't want help gutting it?"

"No," I said, propping my hands on my hips as I stared down at it. "This is something I should do by myself." Plus I had about 40 days of showers to catch up on and I'm sure the answering machine inside was completely full. I lifted my foot off the ground and reached down to take off the thermal sock he'd lent to me.

"Oh, thanks," he said and took it back. "A sock without a mate is pretty useless, I guess."

"Not always," I mumbled and our gazes linked together, heavy with some unspoken connection. I thanked him for his help, which he modestly dismissed, and I watched him give me a friendly wave as he backed down the driveway. I gave the rabbit a heavy glance before going inside.

Alone, it felt bizarre.

I leaned against the door and gazed inside with a hard, pragmatic look. Despite the overcast outside, the room was blindingly bright. And hot as hell. It had been recently renovated and everything was blonde oak. The walls, ceiling, floors, even the kitchen table and chairs. The cupboards had been stripped and painted antique white and the counters were dark granite. It was open to the living room and the furniture was all beige leather with a discreetly sized TV. To my left was the door to the master bedroom. It was a stranger's home and even though my dirty coffee cups were in the sink and my laptop and all my research notes were strewn across the oval dining table, I found it difficult to unwind.

Immediately, I headed for the windows, lowering blinds and shutting curtains. I found the thermostat under the stairs, set to a blazing 74 degrees. I tapped the button until it was at 65 instead.

After that, I opened the refrigerator. All condiments, including the cream I used in the morning (which was now expired) and white origami boxes of Chinese leftovers. I hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday, but I wasn't desperate enough for old spicy hunan. I realized if I was going to make rabbit stew, I was going to need ingredients. Fortunately, the grocer in town delivered. For now, I found some slightly stale saltine crackers in the cupboard and reluctantly headed for the side table in the living room, leaning over the answering machine, bracing for a double digit number flashing red at me.

One. One message.

Stunned, I pushed play. It was the towing company who had my car. I'm not sure how they got this number, but they gave me the address and phone number of where I could reach them. I called them immediately and made arrangements tomorrow to pay the impound fee and pick it up.

Next, I powered up my laptop to check my email, but first I noted the date in the lower right hand corner of the screen. October 21, Sunday. My makeshift calendar in the cave had been right on.

I found one email from my mother dated about a week ago. Just a casual note. She hoped I was getting a lot of work done. Nothing from my editor. Of course, my cell phone was in my car, but if my editor was having trouble getting a hold of me on that, she would email me. If it was a true emergency, she had the number to the cabin.

I just wanted to shower, eat something and take a nap, but I pushed all that back as I looked up how to skin a rabbit. I found instructions that included with or without a knife. Pratt could do it without, but it involved a lot of joint bending I wasn't keen on. After a cursory inspection of the kitchen, I discovered a hunting knife in one of the utility drawers. It was in its own leather case and looked brand new.

I printed out the directions and watched a couple internet videos to refresh myself. Then I put on an old sweatshirt, made myself a little workstation on the old picnic table outside and finally got to work. I needed this time to myself, to decompress, as a way to ease back into my old life. The directions kept blowing away and I had to hold them down with rocks. I made several small cuts around its paws, the neck and under the tail, but it was peeling back the skin that took a delicate touch, at least to my novice hands, and I went slowly.

Thinking of Riley as I worked, I speculated how she would make it through those first few days of Pratt's lament. There had been a time I would have sent help to the cave, but my scruples had gotten fuzzy over the last two months. And I feared what might happen to Pratt if anyone found his home. Getting through those first few days would be difficult for Riley. After that...well...I hoped they would get along as well as Pratt and I had.

Forty days missing. Two relatively noncritical messages. I was still reeling from this reality, although I guess I could believe it. I was by no means a shut-in, but I was borrowing the cabin for four solitary months with the intension of finishing my next book. Everyone knew I wanted to be left alone. And now it was crunch time. If I was going to make my deadline, I was going to have to work nonstop.

It took me about an hour from start to finish, compared to Pratt's quick 5 minute skin, and when I was finished, I felt quite accomplished. I skinned a rabbit. Forty days ago, I hadn't even touched a dead rabbit before. Now I was about to make stew from one. Pratt intended this rabbit to be a gift and doing anything less with it would be an insult.

I set the knife down, wiped my bloodied hands on my shirt...and hysterically bawled.

*

As it turned out, someone did miss me during my absence. Daisy, my cat. I had let her outside the evening I disappeared and now she was gone. I supposed it was a good thing. Forty days locked in a house, Daisy probably would have starved to death. I left some food and water on the porch to tempt her home and went in to shower and take a nap.

It was stifling in the bedroom and I had to keep a window cracked before I could get any sleep. At first the bed seemed too soft, the quilts too heavy, but I ended up sleeping a solid five hours of dreamless slumber. I slept naked like I had grown accustomed, but when I rolled out of bed, the light tee-shirt and yoga pants I fumbled in the dark to find seemed heavy and binding. My hair felt atrocious against my face, my punishment for falling asleep with wet hair, and I pulled it up in an elastic band.

Punching random buttons on the fireplace remote, I managed to get a fire going in the living room. That, paired with a tiny decorative lamp in the corner of the kitchen counter was more than enough light for me to function in. While the oven preheated, I decided to cook the rabbit like I would a chicken and seasoned it with salt and pepper. I had already thoroughly washed it in the sink, and had been storing in a roasting pan in the refrigerator.

Todd, the delivery guy from Zup's, arrived around five. I had just made the cut off for an online order this morning. His van was backed up to the porch. He had white blonde hair under a stocking cap, fair eyebrows with matching eyelashes and ruddy cheeks. "Ooh geez," he said when I opened the door. "Did year power jus' go oot?"

"No," I said and pointed him to the kitchen. I had to grin at his accent. They were always noticeable in small towns, even to other Minnesotans. "I just like it dark."

Chopping potatoes and vegetables, I used the remote to turn on the TV, but shut it off again after a few minutes and tried the radio instead. I shut that off, too. They were good for staving off loneliness, but I was content with the quiet bubble of boiling stock water.

Later, I ate three large bowls of hot stew until I was stuffed and put the rest in the refrigerator. I had just sat down to organize my research notes when headlights panned over the front window blinds. Hobbling to the bedroom, I strapped into a bra. From the way poor Todd had been staring, I knew it was obvious to him I wasn't wearing one and I didn't want to embarrass anymore visitors.

Someone was knocking by the time I ran back into the main room. I opened the door.

"Jack," I greeted, pleasantly alarmed.

"Hi." He smiled and briskly nodded, already brushing by me to enter. "Can I come in?"

I had to stumble backwards. "Uh, sure."

Taking off his khaki coat, he glanced at the flickering fireplace. His hair looked wet from a shower and he had changed his shirt. "Is this a bad time?"

"Not exactly. Why are you here?"

"Did you make that stew?" he asked.

"Why? You want some?"

He hung his coat on the back of one of the bar chairs and smirked at me. "I made sure to eat before I came."

I gave him a sly, wary look. "Then why are you here?"

"Someone should really be here to call poison control."

"So that's what this is about," I said and smothered a grin. "Well, Smart-ass, I just had three bowls and I feel fine so far."

Looking around: the kitchen, the living room, the workstation on the dining table, he said, "Sometimes symptoms don't show up for hours. But I will take something to drink."

I cocked my head at his pluck. "All I have is water."

"Water's fine," he said, sliding back the bar chair to sit at the counter.

I went to the refrigerator for two bottled-waters. I slammed one down in front of him and cracked open the other.

"It's dark as a cave in here," he noted, casually rubbing his short beard with the back of his fingers. "Sure you weren't expecting someone else?"

"Wearing this?" I wryly asked.

His eyes flickered to my chest. "Were you getting ready for bed?"

"You'd know if I was," I said, sipping my water.

"Why's that?

"I sleep in the nude."

His mouth opened slightly, speechless. I was surprising myself with my own boldness, but then his expression turned hesitant, that all too familiar I-have-a-wife look. Slowly, he started to open his water.

Immediately, I reigned myself in. "Where is your wife, tonight?"

Lifting the water to his lips, he stopped, his moss green eyes going cold. I noticed there was no ring on his finger and tried to remember if there had been one there earlier so I could accurately appraise his level of scuzzballness. For some reason, I pictured his wife as a blonde. A blonde spin-class instructor with tight thighs.

He lowered the water bottle without taking a drink. "She's about twenty-six miles from here," he said and his tone had dropped 15 degrees, "at the Calvary Cemetery in Virginia."

I squeezed shut my eyes and sighed, wishing this moment would quickly pass. I glared at him. "You couldn't have told me that before?"

At least he had the grace to look contrite. "Sorry. I'm used to people just knowing. Small town and all."

"What do I know, I'm from the city," I said blandly.

His shoulders dropped. "Give me a break, will you? After I let you take that rabbit, my whole day was shot, wondering if I was going to find your picture in the obits this week. Frankly my conscience couldn't take it."

Feeling a stab of disappointment, I took his admittance as a rejection. So this wasn't about me at all, it was about him, his conscience and his nice-guy reputation. But I was still curious. "So what now?"

"Just keep doing what you were doing," he said and faintly smiled. "I'll keep a vigilant watch on your vital signs."

"Well I was about to soak my foot."

"Perfect."

I remembered seeing a foot spa in one of the upstairs bathrooms and went up to get it. When I came back, Jack was standing at my workstation, holding my well-worn printed directions for skinning a rabbit. It was wrinkled from the wind and smudged with dirt from the rocks I'd used as paper-weights.

He showed it to me. "You really didn't know to skin a rabbit?"

"Nope."

He looked at me, bemused, and then helped me fill the foot spa with hot water and a splash of baby detergent. He asked me if I had a deck of cards anywhere and while my foot soaked we played cribbage on the sofa cushion between us. While proceeding to skunk me, he told me about his contracting business, stories about Bucky when he was a puppy and how his parents just recently moved to Texas to get away from the cold. I wanted to ask about his wife, but in light of our misunderstanding, I decided to wait on that. He asked me what it was like to be a writer. Remembering my one message on the answering machine, I stopped myself before the word "lonely" dropped from my lips, instantly elevating my foot from the foot bath.