Sweat slid down my sides.
As he bit again into the apple, Orson began to walk up a short hallway. “Come on,” he said.
I climbed down off the bed and followed him out of my room, heading toward the front of the cabin. My legs felt unstable, like they might sink right down into a puddle on the floor.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a black leather sofa pushed against the left-hand wall. As I walked into the living room, I glanced behind me. At the terminus of a narrow hallway, two rooms, side by side, constructed the backbone of the cabin, mine on the left, a door without a dead bolt or a centered metal panel on the right. A small Monet of a skiff gliding under a stone bridge hung from a log between the two doors.
The walls of the living room were covered, floor to ceiling, with books. They stood on rustic shelves that protruded from the logs, and I was amazed at the diversity of the titles. I recognized, on the end of one shelf, the colorful jackets of the five books I’d written.
My brother walked to the other side of the room, which became a tiny kitchen. A record player sat on a stool by the front door, a three-foot stack of records beside it. Orson looked at me and, smiling, set the needle on a record. “Freddie Freeloader” sprang out from two large speakers, and I eased down on the sofa.
As the song progressed, Orson took a seat on the other end of the couch. The way he stared unnerved me. I wanted my glasses.
“Do you think I could have my things now?”
“Oh, you mean this?” Nonchalantly, he pulled my .357 out of his jeans pocket. “I did tell you to bring the Smith and Wesson, didn’t I?” His voice filled with angry sarcasm as his cold eyes dilated and burned through me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on the couch, mouth running dry. “Wouldn’t you have done the same? I mean, I didn’t know—”
“Trying to put me in your shoes won’t work.” He walked to the record player and lifted the needle. The cabin now in absolute silence, he moved to the center of the living room.
“You f**ked up, Andy. I told you just bring clothes and toiletries, and you brought a gun and a box of bullets.” He spoke casually, as though we lounged on a back porch, smoking cigars.
“When you don’t follow my instructions, that hurts both of us, and the only thing I can think of to do is show you that not following them isn’t in your best interest.” He opened the cylinder of the .357 and showed me five empty chambers. “You f**ked up once, so we’ll load one bullet.” He took a round from his pocket and slipped it into a chamber.
I grew sick with fear. “Orson, you can’t.”
“Andy-Andy-Andy. You never tell a man with a loaded weapon what to do.” He spun the cylinder, flipped it back into the gun, and cocked the hammer. “Let me explain how this punishes me also, because I don’t want you to think I’m doing this just for kicks.
“I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to bring you out here, and if your luck suddenly runs out and the twenty percent chance of this bullet being in the hot chamber bites your ass, I’ve done a lot of work for nothing. But I’m willing to take that chance to teach you a lesson about following my instructions.”
When he pointed the gun at my chest, I uselessly held out my hands. He squeezed the trigger—click—and took a bite of his apple. I could hardly breathe, and as I buried my face in my hands, Orson put the record back on. The music started again, and he snapped his fingers to the offbeat, smiling warmly at me as he returned to the couch. When he’d removed the round from the chamber, he set the gun on the floor and plopped back down beside me. A wave of nausea watered my mouth, and I thought I might be sick.
Holy f**king shit, he’s out of his goddamned mind. I’m going to die. I’m alone in a desert with a psychopath who is my brother. My f**king brother.
“Andy, you’re free to roam the house now, and the desert. The shed outside is off-limits, and I’m gonna lock your door every night when you go to bed. You can quit pissing in the bowl. Shower at the well by the outhouse. It’s cold, but you’ll get used to it. The electricity comes from a new generator out back, but I’ve been too busy to put in plumbing.”
“May I use the outhouse now?” I asked, scarcely able to muster my voice.
“Sure. Always let me know when you leave. I don’t ever want to have to come find you.”
Still shaking, I crossed the room and opened the door to sunlight ripening upon the russet wilderness. I shivered, girding the white bathrobe I’d worn for the last two days more snugly around my waist. When I reached back to shut the door, Orson stood in the threshold.
“I have missed you,” he said.
I looked at him, and for a second he was vulnerable, like the brother I’d loved when we were young. His eyes pleaded for something, but I was in no condition to consider what they wanted.
“Who was she?” I asked.
He knew damn well who I meant, but he said nothing. We just stared at each other, a connection kindling that had lain dormant almost to its death. There remained combustible matter between us. I wasn’t going to wait for him to close the door, so I turned away to walk down into the chilled dirt.
“Andy,” he said, and I stopped on the steps, but I didn’t look back. “Just a waitress.”
6
I stood on the rickety front porch, in the shadow of a tin roof supported by rotten four-by-fours. A strong, steady breeze blew in from the desert, carrying the sweet, piquant smell of sagebrush, scorched earth, and flowers unknown to me.
Four wobbly rocking chairs, two on either side of the door, swayed imperceptibly, but I sat down on the steps and shoved my bare feet into shaded dirt, still cool where it escaped the sun. My eyes wandered along the northern horizon, a mass of foothills and mountains. At least thirty miles away, there was no texture to their slopes. Only hunter green at the lower elevations, denoting evergreen forests, then shattered gray rock, then cloudlike glacier fields that would never melt.
Sixty yards off the left side of the porch stood a large shed. It looked hastily built and new, its tin roof and smooth boards of yellow pine glowing in the sinking sun. A chain was wrapped snakelike around the latch that connected the double doors. Tire tracks led straight to the shed.
A mile or so beyond, the desert rose several hundred feet to a ridge of rusty bluffs that extended south, sloping gently back to the desert floor. Scraggy junipers lined the top, their jagged silhouettes blackening against the sky.