The Servants of Twilight

On both sides of the border, and both in the north and south, there was some of the most beautiful scenery on the face of the earth, what many Europeans have called "America's Switzerland": snow-capped peaks that were dazzling even on a cloudy day; vast, primeval forests of pine, fir, spruce, and other evergreens; a lake that, in its ice-free summer phase, was the cleanest, clearest, and most colorful in the world, iridescent blues and glowing greens, a lake so pure you could see the bottom as far as sixty and eighty feet down.

They stopped at a market on the north shore, a large but rustic building shadowed by tamarack and spruce. They still had most of the groceries they'd bought in Santa Barbara yesterday, the stuff they'd never had a chance to put in the refrigerator and cupboards at the Wile-Away Lodge.

They'd disposed of the perishables, of course, and that was what they stocked up on now: milk, eggs, cheese, ice cream, and frozen foods of all kinds.

At Charlie's request, the cashier packed the frozen food in a sturdy cardboard box with a lid, separate from the goods that were not frozen.

In the parking lot, Charlie carefully poked a few holes in the box. He had purchased nylon clothesline in the market, and with Christine's assistance, he threaded the rope through the holes and looped it around the box and secured it to the luggage rack on top of the Jeep. The temperature was below freezing; nothing carried on the roof would thaw on the way to the cabin.

As they worked (with Chewbacca watching interestedly from inside the Jeep), Christine noticed that a lot of the cars in the market lot were fitted with ski racks. She had always wanted to learn to ski. She often promised herself that she would take lessons with Joey one day, the two of them beginning and learning together, just as soon as he seemed old enough. It would have been fun. Now it was probably just one more thing they would never get to do together.

That was a damned grim thought. Uncharacteristically grim.

She knew she had to keep her spirits up, if only for Joey's sake.

He would sense her pessimism and would crawl away even deeper into the psychological hole he seemed to be digging for himself But she couldn't shake off the gloom that weighed her down.

Her spirits had sunk, and there seemed to be no way to get them afloat again.

She told herself to enjoy the crisp, clean mountain air. But it just seemed painfully, bitingly cold. If a wind sprang up, the weather would be insufferable.

She told herself that the snow was beautiful and that she should enjoy it. It looked wet, cold, and forbidding.

She looked at Joey. He was standing beside her, watching as Charlie tied the final knot in the clothesline. He was more like a little old man than a child. He didn't make a snowball. He didn't stick out his tongue and catch snowflakes. He didn't run and slide on the icy portions of the parking lot. He didn't do any of the things a small boy could be expected to do when setting foot on a snowy landscape for the first time in his life.

He's just tired, and so am I, Christine told herself. It's been a long day. Neither of us has had a restful night since last Saturday. Once we've had a good supper, once we've each gotten eight solid hours in the sack without nightmares and without waking up a dozen times to the imagined sound of footsteps.

then we'll feel better. Sure we will. Sure.

But she couldn't convince herself either that she would feel better tomorrow or that their circumstances would improve. In spite of all the distance they'd driven and the remoteness of the haven toward which they were making their way, she did not feel safe. It wasn't just that there were a couple of thousand religious fanatics who, more than anything else, wanted them dead. That was bad enough. But there was also something curiously suffocating about the huge trees rising on all sides and pressing close from every direction, something claustrophobic about the way the mountains walled them in, an indefinable menace in the stark shadows and the gray winter light of this high fastness. She would never feel safe here.

But it wasn't just the mountains. She wouldn't have felt safer anywhere else.

* * * *

They left the main road that circled the lake, turned onto a twolane blacktop that rose up a series of steep slopes, past expensive homes and getaway chalets that were tucked back in among the densely packed and massive trees. If there hadn't been light in those houses, glowing warmly in the purple-black shadows beneath the trees, you wouldn't have known most of them were there. Even on the day-side of eventide, lights were needed here.

Snow was piled high on both sides of the road, and in some places new drifts reduced traffic to a single lane. Not that there were many other vehicles around: They passed only two-another Jeep Wagon with a plow on the front, and a Toyota Land Rover.