The Lake

As she gazed at the tree-shadowed road ahead, her mind traveled back to Jody’s. The guy there had wanted her to see what he was doing. That’s why he spoke to her as she was leaving, so she would look at him, see his overalls sticking out like a tepee. His hand in there. Moving around. Rubbing himself. While he stared at her.

Mike’s story took hold. She finished in the bathroom and opened the door, and stumbled over Mike’s body. Jenny was sprawled atop the lunch counter, screaming as the man plunged a hunting knife into her belly again and again. He stopped. He turned to Leigh. His face was splattered and dripping blood.

“Now you’re all mine, sweet thing.”

Licking blood off his lips, he stepped toward her. The knife in his left hand carved slow circles in the air. His right hand tugged his zipper down, reached inside, and freed his huge, engorged penis. He slid his hand up and down, slicking his shaft with blood.

I’d bite it off for him, Leigh thought.

No, I’d make a break for it.

She pictured herself whirling around and locking herself inside the bathroom. He kicked at the door. Her only escape was through the window. A tight squeeze, but maybe…She boosted herself up. Started squirming out. And saw the girl, Mary Jo, standing in the weeds below with an ax in her hands. “Oh no you don’t,” the girl said, and grinned. “We got her cornered, Pa!” she yelled.

Leigh’s heart was thudding. Her mouth was dry. How in hell would she get out of this?

Don’t worry, she told herself. It didn’t happen, and it won’t. He’s a goddamn pervert, but we’re out of there. We’re all in one piece.

If he had tried something, Mike would have fixed him.

Unless he took Mike by surprise.

Don’t get started again.

Why did Mike have to tell him where we’re going?

He isn’t going to come.

He could leave Mary Jo behind to pump gas, run the grill, and look after the shop. Take a gun and knife out to his pickup truck.

“You goin’ after that gal?” Mary Jo asked.

“Prime stuff, weren’t she?”

“Well, bring some back for me, Pa. You know how I like gizzards.”

Good Christ, Leigh thought. I must be going nuts, thinking up this kind of garbage. “Hey,” she said, “maybe we ought to sing something.”

“Great idea,” Jenny said.

“Do you know ‘Waltzing Matilda’?” Mike asked.

“Just the refrain.”

“Well, you’re with a couple of teachers.”

“Yep,” Jenny said. “We’ll teach you the words.”

“Singing’s dry business,” Mike told her. “Better break out some brews.”

TWELVE

Her experience at Jody’s stayed in Leigh’s mind like a spider huddled in a ceiling corner—a black speck, always there and vaguely disturbing, but not much of a threat. So long as it didn’t start to travel.

During the first few days at Lake Wahconda, Leigh watched for the man. She went nowhere by herself. She knew he would not show up. But he might.

Even if he didn’t, Leigh had no guarantee that someone with a similar warp might not be lurking in the woods.

The western side of Lake Wahconda was fairly well populated: a vacation camp with a lodge and a dozen small cabins near the south shore, and a chain of eight or ten cabins and A-frames, with a good deal of woods between them, extending up to the north shore. The nearest island had a large stone house on it. The rest of the islands were uninhabited.

It was as if civilization had captured the western shore and the single island, then ventured no farther. Except by boat. Out fishing with Mike and Jenny, Leigh sometimes saw rickety docks, ancient rowboats, cabins and shacks hidden among the trees. She occasionally heard wood being chopped, a distant crack of gunfire. People lived along these shores. A few, anyway. But Leigh didn’t spot any of them; she didn’t want to.

As the specter of the man from Jody’s diminished, Leigh began to take the canoe out by herself. She enjoyed the peaceful solitude, the feel of her working muscles, the challenge of making the canoe glide over the water. But there was something more—a sense of anticipation. Alone on the lake, paddling the length of its western shore, she felt as if something mysterious and wonderful might happen at any moment.

The feeling was vague and without definition at first. On the fifth day of her visit, however, that changed.

They had gone out fishing in the Cris Craft early that morning until almost noon, so Leigh missed her morning canoe trip. After lunch, Jenny had driven into town for supplies. Mike stayed at the cabin to watch a baseball doubleheader on television. Leigh, invited to go into town with Jenny, had declined. She felt restless and eager. She wanted to be on the lake.

“I think I’ll take the canoe out for a while,” she told Mike.

“Fine,” he said, looking up from the television. “Have fun.”