PenWomanShip

As I stared out over the steam rising from my coffee into the space between the trees, I saw the train coming before I heard it. The tiny moving line on the far side of the valley wound its way through the farmland. As usual, it slowed through the practically non-existent town of Blanton, then continued toward me. I always tried to count the cars, but freight trains could be deceiving. Lots of flatbed freight cars with no clear divisions.

Squirrels chased each other through the tall oaks, leafless in their late fall state, standing tall and strong, waiting for the first snowfall. I would never tire of this view. My cat Sam was staring out the window with me. He sat on the arm of the chair and looked with interest at the antics of the brigade of gray squirrels, wishing he could join them I was quite sure. This was our morning ritual. The peacefulness of my days was precisely what the doctors had ordered. Sometimes it was hard to remember anything but this peace I now felt. Only in my dreams did the past come to haunt me.

As my thoughts wandered and my coffee cooled, the sun rose higher over the mountain range in the distance. That was Sam's cue to hop down and go curl up on my bed, and my cue to get up and head for my computer. It was part of our ritual and one I felt safely and comfortably tuned into.

My computer was my link to the outside world. Beyond the computer and Sam, the only contact I had with anyone or anything was when Vicky Parkinson, my publisher, came up to see me once a month, bringing me groceries or whatever else I required. I would hand over that month's writing projects, she'd walk around my cabin and make sure I hadn't done anything "strange," then leave me in peace again. I say "strange" because I'd been known to do strange things in the past.

That's why I'd spent the last two years of my life in a place called "Waverly". While it sounds like a beautiful bed and breakfast somewhere glamorous, in actuality it was - and is - a sanitarium in Northern Virginia. A very private and secluded place where anyone who is anyone goes to get their brain unscrambled - or, as in the case with several of the residents - to escape from life for a while. I was one of the ones who needed to get unscrambled. I was escaping from life for a while, but doing that on my own, in my own home, in my own way.

Vicky was due today. I was ready for her with a stationery box full of double-spaced paragraphs comprising the next six chapters of my novel. She would be pleased. There had been times when she had not been so pleased. Times when the words just hadn't come and I'd been too depressed to tell her not to bother making the trip.

I showered, tidied up the cabin, and made a fresh pot of coffee. Vicky was as addicted to caffeine as I. While I waited for her, I worked a bit on one of my other projects, a diary of my return. I'd started it at Waverly as part of my therapy. Doctor Barrington was right about the cathartic effect although I'd been furious with him for forcing me to keep the journal at first. I'd played a game with myself. I wasn't allowed to go back and read any of the previous material until all the pages were completely filled. I had five pages left to fill in the current edition. There were others. Complete volumes kept in a cardboard box under the stairs. Ready for me - some day.

I filled the last five pages of the volume with notes about my dream of the previous night. The doctors seemed to think the details important and I tried to recall every one.

At noon, precisely, Vicky arrived. I stood at the door and waited for her to get out of the car. Typically, she had her cell phone to her ear and was engaged in some spirited give and take - mostly give from what I could tell - with some hapless coworker or contact. Vicky without a phone as her constant companion was a woman unclothed.

Finally, she popped open the trunk of her BMW sedan. I opened the door and went outside to help bring in my supplies. She gave me a perfunctory hug that I tolerated. I don't particularly like to be touched. She said little other than asking if I was feeling well and whether or not I'd been "productive" as she called it. I told her there was a full box of pages for her, which seemed to please her. Her cell phone chirped before we finished unloading the car. I had all the foodstuffs put away and was sitting in my chair by the window sipping coffee by the time she finished the call. She said, "Gotta run", grabbed the stationery box and said she'd call me soon. "No problem," I answered.

Vicky, her whirlwind energy scattering disarray within my tidy peaceful life, made me uneasy. I looked forward to her visits as punctuation in my seamless world, but welcomed the returning uninterrupted flow when she left. Also there was something judgmental in her eyes that disturbed me. As if she measured my mettle each time, wondering if I'd survive until her next visit or if she'd find my corpse dangling from one of the rafters. I wonder what she'd do if I told her I was more a hemlock and arsenic sort of girl.

With no sense of urgency, I watched until her car was a twinkle in the distance, before sorting through the box holding the nonperishable goods. I put everything away that she'd brought for me. At the bottom of the carton there was a manila folder. I opened it and found a single sheet of paper with one word typed and centered on the page. It said "Waverly" - the sanitarium I knew so well. It seemed odd but, then again, Vicky probably had done a little research on Waverly before recommending the place to me way back when. Maybe this had been her file and she'd lost track of the folder. I doubted that. For all her scatterbrained appearance, she was sharp. Maybe she was suggesting that I needed to go back. I was better. "I'm fine," I said, whispering to the envelope as if the owner could hear me.

I propped the folder up on my kitchen counter, behind the canister filled with coffee for the next time Vicky visited. I tried to pretend I wasn't upset by the inferred message. But Sam knew better. He followed me around the rest of the morning, sat on my lap while I was at the computer, and only got down to use the litter box. I wrote all day, and when the light started to go in the cabin I finally stopped. Sam was waiting for me in "our place" in front of the big window so we could watch the sun go down, which was another important part of our day together. He purred loudly as I stroked his thick fur. The sun lowered itself brilliantly and slowly behind the mountains, slipping conveniently in the vee made by two sections of the Blue Ridge like a letter into an envelope. Its beauty hypnotized me every time.

Coming out of my trance, I realized how cold it had gotten in the cabin. I got up, turned on some lamps, put on a heavy sweater, and turned the thermostat up several notches. The heat didn't kick in though. I knew I had plenty of oil - the truck had made a delivery the previous week. The tank was only accessible from outside the cabin and, although I was sure it was full, I decided to check it before I investigated other possibilities - like a bad thermostat.

I pulled on my parka, gloves, boots, and scarf. Sam looked up at me expectantly so I snapped on his harness. With the cat's leash in one hand and my big old flashlight in the other, I went out. Though the sun had set, the pleasant evening half-light lingered and I didn't need the flashlight until ducking under the cabin into the little closed off area where the oil tank was hidden. My investigation revealed no problem - the gauge showed full and a thunk on the side of the tank with the flashlight indicated that it was indeed full.

Sam investigated a mound of dry leaves, pouncing like a kitten as my feet rustled beneath them. I locked the little door, and came around the other side of the cabin with a reluctant Sam in tow.

In the deepening shadows and except for the beam of the flashlight, which I'd forgotten to turn off, I would have missed the tracks. Someone, wearing large lug-soled boots, had walked up to my kitchen window and away again off into the woods. Maybe a curious hiker but I was a considerable ways off the nearest hiking trail. I had no neighbors on the five-acre plots on either side. Vicky, with her fashionable attire, didn't wear hiking boots and certainly didn't have feet of that size. I was left without a clue.

Sam and I came back inside and I bolted the door. I also turned on the outside security lights - one at each edge of the cabin roof pointing out into the woods. I never used them but somehow it seemed right after seeing the tracks. I was not by nature a paranoid person. In fact, I was terribly trusting. Throughout my lifetime I'd been wounded many times by people taking advantage of this character trait. Even my spell in Waverly had not changed that about me. But I was alone up here, and the nearest living, breathing human was at least an hour away.

Or so I thought at the time.

I tapped on the thermostat and jumped as the furnace kicked on.

The next couple of days were thankfully uneventful in the "mysterious visitor" department. I made a point of going out first thing in the morning with Sam in tow to check around the cabin and had not seen a repeat performance of the lug-soled boots anywhere around the cabin. I did, however, make one disturbing discovery when I, finally, backtracked the boot prints across the soft soil to the shale ridge that marked the upper boundary of my property.

When I raised my eyes from the end of the trail I could see a fresh structure through the woods. Although the trees had long ago lost most of their leaves, there was enough scrub brush to prevent me from seeing exactly what was being built over there. I stood for a while, watching my breath vaporize in the cold, thinking about trespassing, under the innocent guise of wanting to meet my new neighbors, to go over and get a closer look. I practiced saying hello to a stranger while wondering if I dared follow through.

Just then I heard a crunch and when I turned around, there stood a man.

"Hello Neighbor," he said.

Those were the words I'd been mumbling, and I blushed as if he had heard me rehearsing such a simple phrase. He looked to be about six feet tall. His beard was graying, but his young facial features made it hard to judge his age. His hair was covered with a ski cap, and he wore jeans, heavy boots, and a red and white plaid shirt over a white turtleneck sweater.

The only thing that kept me from screaming and running away as he came closer was his broad grin and the friendliness in his eyes. I didn't see anything threatening in either.

"Hello," I meekly said and took a step forward to take his proffered handshake.

"Brian Fyre," he said by way of introduction.

"Pamela Johnson," I answered automatically, although briefly I'd thought about making up some other name.

"Nice to meet you," we said simultaneously and the ensuing laughter relaxed us both, making an awkward moment a bit more "normal". I glanced back the way he'd come - from my property - and he looked in the same direction. Grimacing comically, Brian said, "Yeah. You caught me. I was going to knock but saw you over here." He shrugged and hung his head, but grinned when I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. "I guess I was trespassing other night, too. Technically speaking..."

"Technically?" I said, getting comfortable with his presence. "Well," he drawled, "You don't have a car and I wasn't sure anyone actually lived there, so I peeked in the window... Nice place, by the way... I assumed your cabin was somebody's weekend getaway. Like mine." His voluntary and completely rational confession took care of my mysterious visitor problem.

"I do have a car, but it's down in Blanton being repaired, again. It's an old Jeep, not real reliable, but I love it. Besides, living up here you need some kind of rough terrain vehicle, so it's just the thing."

"So you are alone here?" he asked.

I guess I hesitated a bit too long with my answer, because after a suitably awkward length of time with no response, he said, "Sorry, I guess that's none of my business really."

"No, no problem," I squeezed out. "I write and need the peace and solitude to do my work."

"Are you THE Pamela Johnson? The one who writes the mystery series?"

That threw me - as it always has. I had a rather successful series of mystery novels in publication, but it still surprised me to run into someone who has actually heard of me.

"THE Pamela Johnson? Yes, I guess I am!" I said, feeling my face flush.

"That's great. I'm a big fan - obviously."

I wasn't sure where to take the conversation from there, and was beginning to feel weird standing out in the woods alone with this man I had just met, so I said, "I guess we'll run into each other from time to time. Are you living up here full time?"

"Just weekends. I have a hunting cabin a friend helped me put up on my property a few days ago. Nothing fancy, just a place to keep warm when I'm not outside. Don't worry, I don't hunt on this property - my friend has a hundred acres about a mile up the road from here, so we won't be bothering you with gunfire."

"Ah. Well, thanks for telling me. Again, it was nice to meet you," I said, turning to go back home. I didn't invite him over and hoped he wouldn't invite me to see his cabin. I didn't really want to share my hideaway with anyone and would have preferred never seeing another living soul, but that was not to be apparently.

"Take care," was all he said as I passed him and headed to my cabin.

"You too." Half way back I turned and saw that he had also stopped - we waved to each other and I continued on. Strange.

That night for some reason I just felt uncomfortable. I think it was knowing I wasn't alone on the mountain. I could smell wood smoke from his fireplace when I briefly went out on my deck to sweep away the accumulated leaves. It was a nice, homey smell, but it reminded me he was there. Of course he would only be there on weekends, and this was Saturday night, so he'd be gone some time tomorrow. I'd have my space back for another week. Still, just knowing my mountain was no longer really all mine disturbed me.

I didn't sleep that night. I lay in bed for a long, long time, listening to the wind blow. When I finally accepted that sleep would not come, I got up and pulled on my warm robe, tucked the covers around Sam and padded into the kitchen to make coffee. If I couldn't sleep - then I'd write.

As I sat at the computer with my coffee it dawned on me what had upset me so much about meeting Mr. Fyre. It wasn't just that there was another person there - it was that he was a strange man and I was a woman alone. With my Jeep in "perpetual repair" down in Blanton, my blessed solitude now felt like entrapment. I had no escape, even if I wanted it. How dare he ruin my idyllic hideaway! But there was nothing I could do about it. I would have to adjust, trade in my beloved Jeep for something more dependable, or move.

Somehow, none of those choices seemed easier than the others. Settling all of that allowed my mind the freedom to get into my writing and before I knew it the sun was coming up and Sam was hopping up on my lap to remind me it was time for breakfast. Besides his hunger, I'd written and edited of another five chapters; that was enough for one night's work - even for Vicky.

I heard a truck coming up the road and peeped out the curtain. I saw a shiny red Chevy pick-up coming from the direction of the hunting cabin heading down the road. He was leaving.

My week flew by uneventfully.

By Friday, I was already feeling dread at the return of the hunter, my neighbor, Mr. Fyre. I was curled up on the sofa with my journal when I heard the truck arrive. I'd hoped for a final night of feeling secure before Saturday and my neighbor arrived, but that was not to be. I even recorded my frustration in the journal before closing it, turning out the lights, and going to bed. Thankfully I slept.

I awoke the next morning to the first snowfall. Soft, lazy flakes drifted by my bedroom loft window and I could see a dusting of them collecting on the ground below. I stood there and watched them fall for a long time - such a peaceful and hypnotizing thing falling snow can be.

I showered, dressed and, just as I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was a knock on my door. Of course it had to be my neighbor because Vicky was not due for weeks and absolutely wouldn't have come without calling. After considering not answering it, I decided to do the neighborly thing and open the door.

"Hi," Brian said the minute I opened the door as far as the chain would allow. "Sorry to bother you, Miss Johnson," he said. He looked off toward his place, leaving me with his profile. Jerking his chin toward the higher hills, he said, "I saw bear signs and thought I should warn you. Bear normally stay away from people but sometimes, if they're hungry, they do break into cabins or sheds." With a serious expression, he looked back at me. "Thought you should know one is wandering around here."

"You seem to know a lot about them, Mr. Fyre," I said, watching as the snowflakes settled into his beard and feeling like a fool for not inviting him in out of the weather.

"Please call me Brian." He smiled. "Only my students call me Mr. Fyre and, even then, I look around for my father."

"Hang on a second," I said, closing the door so I could undo the chain. I'd made a split second decision to allow Brian to enter my domain.

"Won't you come in?" I said with as much graciousness as I could muster. I had little practice in being a hostess, and had misgivings about starting under these circumstances.

"Well, if you're sure..." he said, and he stomped the snow off his boots on my doormat and came inside.

As he walked by me I realized he was much taller than the six feet I'd guessed previously - maybe six three or four even. He smelled of wood smoke and, as he took off his knit cap, I saw his black hair had an interesting streak of gray from his left temple back into the curls.

We stood there awkwardly facing each other until I finally pulled myself out of my staring exercise and offered him a cup of coffee. He accepted, and we sat at the kitchen table, still not having spoken more than ten words to each other.

"So, you are a teacher?" I finally managed to ask.

"Yes. I teach at Broadmore Junior College in Hinton. I live in Hinton, and bought this property a month ago at the suggestion of my friend with the hundred-acre piece of property. It's nice to have a place to come to after a week of students and professors, and - well - life."

"I can imagine it is." Another awkward silence ensued and he suddenly stood.

"I'm so sorry I barged in like I did. I didn't mean to disturb you. Maybe I should be on my way - I really just wanted to tell you to be careful of the bear."

"No - please," I said, realizing I had actually been enjoying his company. "Don't go." He was so broad-shouldered and handsome. I had difficulty deciding his age - not that it mattered. I don't know how to describe how I was feeling except to say he was making me realize that I was a woman, and he was a man. All the bad relationships with men I'd had in the past had sort of "de-sensitized" me to the feelings you get when hormones start dictating thoughts and deeds. Brian Fyre was reminding me of all of those things that I'd set aside when I chose my life of isolation.

He looked me directly in the eye, smiled, and sat back down in his chair.

"As long as you're sure you don't mind company. I don't want to interfere with your solitude. I know you value it."

What a sensitive thing to say, I thought, as I refilled our coffee cups. Sam had apparently found us while I was busy getting the coffeepot, because he was sitting in my chair - staring at Brian.

"Nice cat," Brian said as I returned to the table with our coffee. "You better keep him inside for a while. Bears look at house cats and think snack!" he said with a grin.

I had to laugh. Sam hopped down to let me sit and, as Brian and I continued our chatting and exchanged more information with each other, I relaxed. Sam leaped up on Brian's lap and that's pretty much how things stayed until my stomach growled loudly.

I glanced at the clock, amazed at the time. 1:00PM? The morning had disappeared. Brian saw me looking at the clock and again stood.

"Now I really have to go. I have papers to grade and a cabin to straighten up and a dinner to prepare," he said, carrying both long-empty coffee mugs to the sink.

"Friends coming for dinner tonight, although I'm beginning to wish I hadn't asked Alan to join me. He's my hunting buddy. He and his wife Anita are coming by so I can give them a thank-you meal in exchange for them having found this piece of property for me. Least I can do. Besides, I sort of fancy myself as a kitchen whiz - I love to cook."

"How refreshing. All the men I've ever known have expected me to wait on them hand and foot and never lifted a finger in the kitchen," I said, with an appropriate grin plastered on my face.

"Ah ha! You've been hanging out with the wrong men then," he said as he tugged back on his hat, buttoned his coat, pulled on his gloves, and prepared to leave.

"Could be."

"Maybe, if I don't get arrested for trespassing, I'll cook for you one of these weekends," he said with twinkling eyes and that dangerous smile.

I opened the kitchen door for him and said, "It's a deal," as he stepped out onto the stoop into the two or three inches of snow that had accumulated while we chatted away.

"Have a good time with your guests!"

"I will. Thanks for the coffee. Be careful about the bear, OK?"

I smiled and closed the door. That had gone better than anyone would have imagined. Me, the hermit, had never enjoyed someone's company so much that I lost track of time. I even felt lonely when he was gone.

I spent the rest of that day cleaning the cabin. Every nook and cranny. Expending every ounce of energy I had. My way of dealing with the strange feelings I was having about Mr. Brian Fyre, I supposed.

The weeks passed, and I rarely saw Brian. He'd arrive on a Friday night generally, and leave on Sundays. I smelled smoke from his fireplace on most weekends, and when we saw each other outside, we'd wave. I invited him for coffee once or twice, but most times he'd decline, saying he was expecting company or meeting his friend.

At first I had been disappointed that the relationship we'd established that first time didn't develop further; a feeling that startled me when I realized I felt it initially. It seemed I had finally adjusted to sharing my mountain.

One Friday evening, about the time Brian would normally be arriving for his weekend, I heard a different type of vehicle arriving on my mountain. I was sitting in the living room having a cup of coffee, staring out at the winter landscape, when I heard a car quite close to my front door. Two doors slammed shut, and there was a knock at my kitchen door. I peered out the curtain at the window and saw a police car behind the two officers standing there. Unbolting the chain, I opened the door to the two uniformed officers.

"Evening, ma'am," the younger of the two uniformed men said. "I'm Officer Mosby, and this is Officer Cooper. We're from Blanton. May we step inside?"

"Certainly, Officer," and I stepped aside to allow them into the kitchen. They removed their hats and tucked them under their arms in military fashion. Though I'd had the police visit before, sometimes just checking on me - the crazy writer - or asking whether I'd seen a strange car on the road or seeking other information on a cabin break-in, I was feeling an overwhelming sense of alarm. Something was different this time.

Easing into an explanation of why they had come, the officers asked about my new neighbor. Had I known him? Had I seen anything unusual on the weekends? Had he brought dates to his cabin? Outside, numerous vehicles had passed my property. Through the trees, I could see flashing bubble-lights and the shadow of activity. "What did he do?"

This wasn't about trespassing or building without a permit. This wasn't about poaching too many deer or bagging a stray bear.

Mr. Brian Fyre had been arrested and charged with murder. Murders, plural. They were searching for proof of just how many murders. They would be digging around Brian's hunting cabin for the remains of his victims - young women - in the days to come to see how many would be found.

"What has this got to do with me?" I asked, knowing there was something else they hadn't told me.

They had found a journal. I wasn't the only person who kept one. Brian, in eerie imitation of my habits, was obsessive in his entries, detailing his feelings for the author of a mystery book he'd read years before. He'd read her every book, sought out every aspect of her life, maneuvered to get closer to her physically - even attempting to get hired at the rest home where she'd gone while recuperating from a nervous breakdown. Pamela Johnson. THE Pamela Johnson.

Brian had chronicled his journey from relative sanity to complete madness as I had chronicled mine in the opposite direction. Had he followed Vicky to get to me? There was no hunting buddy "Alan" and no teaching job in Hinton, though he did target his victims from the coeds in that campus town. After finding me, he bought the adjacent property and built his hunting cabin. Had his victims been dead before he brought them to my mountain, or had he set them to wandering in that vast wilderness before cutting them down on my doorstep? Had they died with the not-so-distant lights of my home as the final thing they saw. "Hunting" had taken on a whole new meaning.

The final paragraph in the journal indicated he'd saved me for last. He'd had big plans for the safari of my death. As his central obsession, I was to be the crowning glory in his macabre collection.

Though I hardly listened, the officers told me forensics teams would be combing the property in the coming days, and possibly weeks. I should expect them to stop by, to ask more questions and in case I thought of anything helpful. Then they left.

It was hard to abandon my beautiful cabin but I could no longer stay there. The feeling of peace I had felt was gone. Shattered partly by Brian Fyre and his obsession with me, but mostly by my vivid imagination. Each of those guiltless young women had taken my place once and, now, I take theirs, every night. I dream of being hunted, over and over.

Vicky helped me relocate to another place - just as isolated - only surrounded by ten acres of sweet smelling pine trees. Out the window of the cabin in the early morning, Sam and I can see a train in the distance. We can see it before we can hear it... We like to count the cars...