The car dipped down off the highway, and he followed the winding sand road, remembering the day that the men had come and put up the sign, remembering the joyous look of Valerie as she squeezed his hand tightly when they had stood and admired the new sign. The sign represented brutal labor. For month upon month, he had been bricklayer, carpenter, electrician, plumber, architect. And Valerie had become a talented amateur in all those departments, her hands callused almost as heavily as his. He remembered how she had looked that day. Deep coppery brown, standing there in the white play suit. A good piece of land. A crescent of white beach with the cabañas ringing it. They had lived in one the first year, and then bought the additional small piece of land and put the house on it. It had taken the first three years to get out of debt, to own the whole thing free and clear.
The road was getting badly overgrown, he saw. He turned left at the fork and went down to the house. The yard was a mass of sandspurs, cactus, weeds. The house had a sour, neglected look. He parked the car and sat in the silence, staring at the house. He got out. Looking along the beach line, he could see three of the cabañas. They looked as overgrown and neglected as the house. Maybe that man Winkler had gone north during the offseason. He’d have to come back soon to put the place in shape for the season. He didn’t want to go into the house right away. He walked down onto the beach in front of the house. From there he could see more of the cabañas. And he could see that a boat channel had been cut through the beach and was protected by groins. On an unprotected piece of beach, such a layout wouldn’t last past the first storm. But the reef, three hundred yards out, served as a breakwater. The white beach was littered. Sandpipers scurried along the slap of the small waves. A tern wheeled in the wind and jeered at him.
When he had first looked at this land, he had known it was the place. It afforded complete privacy. Bulldozing it out had been a major expense. Now it seemed to be reverting to its original wildness.
He took out the key he had carried for over two years and unlocked the front door of the small house. The lock grated. The door was wedged, and he had to kick it open. Moisture had got to the furniture. The house smelled of mold. High weeds obscured half the picture window that faced the sea. Insects scuttled across the terrazzo floors. This was the house that should have been brisk and shining for reunion.
He stood for a long time in the small bedroom. Somebody had changed the furniture around. Then, quickly, he went through the house, opening windows. The place had to be aired out. He went into the garage, threw the switches on the fuseboard. The water pump wheezed and choked and began to run smoothly. He walked over to the water tank and watched the pressure gauge begin to climb. There was a rusty saw hanging from a nail. He rolled his sleeves up, and began a slow circuit of the house, sawing through the pithy trunks of the overgrown weeds, pruning the desirable shrubs away from the windows. The pump had stopped. When he had finished, he took his bag into the bedroom. The house was considerably brighter inside, but it still had a stale smell, an air of neglect. There were sheets in the linen closet. They smelled damp. He took them out and spread them in the afternoon sun.
He was beginning to sweat. He decided he would mop down the floors later. He went down the beach toward the place he had built. The cabañas were empty. He turned up the main path to the swimming pool. The concrete apron was cracked. The pool was empty, and there were cracks in the floor. Tufts of grass grew up through the cracks. He looked beyond the pool and saw where the channel that had been cut through the beach led. It was a boat basin, scooped out. There was a dock, and a gas pump, and an above-ground storage tank. A battered, unkempt cabin cruiser with good lines was moored to the dock. That meant somebody was here after all. He stared up toward the cabaña where he and Valerie had stayed before they had built the house. It was the obvious one, being at the head of the road. Yes, no brush had grown up around that one. Washing hung on a line. A heavy gray sedan was parked nearby. As he looked toward the cabin, a big redheaded man shoved the screen door open and came out and stared down toward him. He was stripped to the waist, and his body looked soft even though it was burned dark red by the sun.
“Don’t you read signs, mister?” he yelled in a thin, high-pitched voice.
Paul walked up toward the cabaña. The man advanced, barefoot, to meet him. Paul saw that he was older than he had looked at a distance. He had a pouched, bad-tempered face.
“The place is closed,” he said. “Says that right on the sign.”
“My name is Rayder.”
“I don’t care what your—” The man stopped and looked more closely at him. “Rayder, you said? You the fella built this, then. I’m the fella bought it from your woman. Winkler’s my name. Moss Winkler. I want to talk to you. That Miamah man — Dobson — he said he didn’t know if you want to rent that house there or sell it. Either way, Rayder, I got first word on it. Right?” He smiled in what was intended to be an ingratiating way. “Give you a thousand right now to seal it. What do you say?”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“When a man gets an opportunity, he ought to grab it.”
Paul felt his annoyance grow. His voice sharpened. “Right now I’m going to live in that house for a while.”
“Dobson said you were in the Army. You on leave?”
“No. I’m out of the Army.”
“You just want a rest. Is that it?”
“Why all the questions?”
“Like I said, I’m right interested in that little house. If somebody came to rent it, I was going to have something to say about that little house.”
“Like what?”
“I was going to say that property line over there runs all the way out to the highway. But to get into it, the way it is now, you come over my land. You come down my drive and turn off. I didn’t give no official right of way.”
“What harm does that do?”
“I’m not saying about harm. I’m saying you own property, you got rights. And the way the land drops off, it’ll take an awful lot of fill to build up to where you can run a new drive onto the highway. Now, if it rents to me, there’s no problem, see? Because I’m crossing my own place. But I’d rather buy. Then that gives me the whole piece. Then I got the highway on one side and water on the other sides, and no problems.”
Paul knew Winkler was correct. You couldn’t get a car to the house without going down the Playa de Mañana drive.
“I told Dobson I don’t want to make any decisions yet.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this. I’m not a hard fella to get along with. You go ahead and stay there a while and rest yourself, and you got my permission to use the drive. Only I got a lot on my mind, and I got to know soon. Let’s say a week.”
“And at the end of the week I can’t use your drive?”
“You make it sound like I was hard to get along with.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Today’s Thursday, and I’ll come see you a week from today, mister.”
Paul looked around. “For a man who paid a nice price, you’ve certainly let the thing go.”
Moss Winkler cleared his throat and spat. “Crew of men can chop out this brush in a couple of days. That’s my worry, anyhow, isn’t it? Seeing as how I bought the place. Gave your woman a good price.”