“See that alder over there? With the knot? That’s your target. Line it up and take a couple of deep breaths. You’re waiting for the space between one breath and the next. And you’re not going to pull, you’re going to squeeze. Got it? Safety off. When you’re ready.”
The report was deafening, like a bomb going off. Crows exploded from the treetops.
Bergstrom reached over and thumbed on the safety.
“Did I hit it?” I said.
“Close. You want to try again?”
“That’s okay.”
He took back the gun. “Feels good, right?”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Can’t do that in the great Bay Area.”
“You’d be surprised.”
He laughed. “All right, soldier. Move out.”
By hour two the fog had burned off. A pair of corroded iron rails surfaced through the soiclass="underline" the abandoned logging tracks. We followed them as they snaked alongside a gully. Beneath my shirt, the holster was chafing, the vest clammy. Beau apologized for talking my ear off, switching from boosterism to male chitchat. Work, family, sports, hobbies, cars, travel.
I drew on Clay Gardner’s backstory.
Married, no kids, Berkeley graduate, MBA.
Tennis. Skiing. Hawaii and Cabo and Tahoe.
“What do you drive, when you’re not driving a rental?”
“Tesla.”
“Model?”
“S.”
“Happy with it?”
“Point A to point B,” I said. “Lease is up in a year, got my eye on a Porsche Taycan.”
My answers appeared to satisfy him: He expected no less from a man like me. On the off chance he double-checked, he’d find corroboration on Clay Gardner’s fictitious LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.
Gradually we began to diverge from the tracks. Keep with them, Beau said, and you’d come to the abandoned mill — a site worth visiting in its own right, but best kept for another day. He had something else in mind.
“Not long now,” he said.
Whatever landmark he was using was invisible to me. He veered through the trees, and we arrived at a clearing, where I beheld one of the most astonishing sights I’d ever seen: a grove of redwoods shaped like giant candelabras. Each tree started as a single thick trunk before forking into two, four, ten separate arms, growing sideways, backward, up, down; whirling like dancers, writhing like flames. Shafts of light pierced the gloom.
Beau beamed, a collector showing off his prize piece. “The Cathedral.”
I drifted forward, mesmerized, listening with half an ear as he explained the conditions that had caused the trunks to split, a combination of harsh salt air and fierce wind. Thankfully, the loggers had left the trees standing — not out of reverence, but because their warped forms rendered them useless as lumber.
“ ’Course there’s rumors, too,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Indian burial ground. Haunted.”
He winked and reached around for the backpack. “I got ham and Swiss, or turkey and cheddar.”
“Turkey, thanks.”
We sat cross-legged and ate. Sound carried in the syrupy heat: birds and small animals, needles snowing to the forest floor.
“I can’t get over how peaceful it is,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m glad they didn’t turn it into Disneyland.”
“Amen.”
I finished my sandwich, crumpled the foil into a ball. “You know, when I was out yesterday I saw tons of lot markers. But you’re saying they’re not for sale.”
“Oh, you can sell. You just can’t build within twenty-five hundred yards of the shore.”
“What about the houses on Beachcomber?”
“Grandfathered in. Truth is, us full-timers like it just fine this way. It takes a special kind of person to fit in here. You gotta be willing to do things the hard way. Gets lonesome, too.”
“What you call lonesome, I call private.”
“Yes, sir. God knows, privacy, they aren’t making any more of it.”
“Cheers to that.”
We clicked canteens. Mine was dry.
Beau swigged and wiped his mouth on his wrist. “ ’Scuse me while I drain the main vein.”
Once he was gone, I undid the top two magnets on my shirt. The vest was soaked through.
I reclosed the shirtfront.
“Psst.”
Across the clearing, Beau put a finger to his lips. He mimed taking a photo.
I tiptoed over, camera in hand, and followed his gaze.
A bear was nosing through the underbrush.
It was small. A cub. The mother couldn’t be far behind.
Beau’s hand rested on the revolver. He nodded urgently. Now or never, chief.
I lifted the camera, focused, snapped.
The bear sat up on its hind legs, staring in our direction.
“Shit,” Beau muttered.
He drew me back into the clearing. We gathered our supplies and started downhill.
Chapter 11
Nearing the trailhead, he said, “There’s a few lots left.”
He held back a blackberry vine. “Also grandfathered.”
I knew what he was doing.
Private tour of his wilderness Eden. Tales of the Old West.
Instant bromance, just add ammo.
Fire away, city boy.
Friendly questions about my lifestyle, calibrated to gauge disposable income. He already knew I could blow six hundred bucks on a crappy hotel room. That had to be promising.
The halo of scarcity. The allure of exclusivity.
Takes a special kind of person.
Tell me, soldier: Are you that guy?
If I didn’t know any better I’d guess he’d hired the bear, too.
Altogether it made for a damn fine sales pitch. On some level I admired it.
I said, “Are they on the market?”
“Not officially.”
I nodded but didn’t say more, and he didn’t raise the topic again, not for the rest of the hike or on the drive into town.
At the hotel I dug out my wallet, peeling off three hundreds.
He grimaced. “Clay.”
“Token of gratitude. I insist.”
“Really. It’s my pleasure.”
“And this is mine.”
A beat. He tucked the money in his breast pocket. “Good man.”
“I’m gonna get cleaned up,” I said. “Maybe afterward you can take me around, show me what’s available.”
For a moment he seemed not to understand. Then he mugged pleasant surprise. “Yeah, we could do that. Sure thing.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“I’ll need to make a couple calls first, run it by the owners.”
“Will that be a problem?”
“No, no. Just a formality,” he said. “Pick you up in — an hour?”
“Better make it an hour and a half.”
“You got it, brother.”
I paid Jenelle Counts for another night and left Amy a voicemail that I was alive and well.
The holster had left a rashy red band around my waist. I draped the vest over a chairback to air out. It was still sopping when I returned from the shower. The thought of putting it on again made me shudder.
I sat on the bed in my towel, typing up notes.
A high-pitched squeal cut through the thrum of the tide.
Brakes.
Beau wasn’t due for another twenty minutes.
Setting the laptop aside, I went to the bay window and peeked out.
Not the Range Rover. Not Pelman Auto Service, either.
A compact Chevy truck, mottled orange and primer, idled in the plaza. The driver had gotten out and was standing by my car, inspecting the taped-up mirror.
He gave it a wiggle.