Snow Creek by Gregg Olsen
For Claire Bord, who both charmed and cajoled to get the best out me.
Prologue
No deviations interrupted Regina Torrance’s daily routine.
She simply couldn’t allow it.
To permit any was to risk everything.
Regina had a strict mode of operation that was so rigid, so unyielding, that any, even the slightest change, could send her back to bed for a week. She lived with her wife, Amy, in a leaky cabin with an outdoor shower and an outhouse in the hills above Snow Creek. Completely self-reliant. They raised vegetables. Trapped squirrels for meat. Despite the fact that she had only one eye, Regina was an expert with a rifle.
Doves were lean, but tasty. Squirrels were oily and frequently on the chewy side. For protein, the couple relied mostly on nuts, eggs, and goat cheese from their trio of Nubians. Each had a name, though she never said them aloud.
Amy was on the sofa. She had been ill for quite some time. Her hair was long and braided, a pretty chestnut swag that ran over the pillow like a northern Pacific rattlesnake. She wore a blue nightgown trimmed with white piping. Both were convinced it was her best color, and it rotated frequently in and out of her wardrobe. She lay still while a conversation passed between them on a familiar loop.
“Brought coffee for you.”
“Boy goat is rangy.”
“Broke a jar of tomatoes.”
“Darn it all! I’m feeling a change in the weather.”
“You look like you’re feeling it too.”
Regina touched Amy’s cheek and then bent down to kiss her. Like Regina, Amy was lean, sinewy. Her shoulders were cabinet knobs and her legs were a web of veins and scars. Amy’s eyes caught the light streaming in between a narrow gap in the curtains at the window.
“Beautiful morning!”
“Indeed! Going for a walk now. Wish you were feeling up to it.”
“Next time! Promise.”
Regina pulled the curtains tight and went outside.
The ground around the barn was spongey from a nighttime rain, and the clouds dragged over the top of the trees, holding them up like circus tent poles. Regina fed the animals and started her walk, first along a narrow path that had once been a driveway. It had been at least a decade since cars had access to the ramshackle home the women shared. That was fine. No one lives in the hills above Snow Creek if they don’t want to be alone. It’s all about being isolated. It’s solitary, not solidarity. People there mind their own business.
When Regina and Amy first fell in love, they just wanted to live and love. It was about being with each other. No constant avoidance of stares if they should hold hands. They didn’t join in the Pride movement, because their love was about them, not about being part of a group.
Snow Creek wasn’t far from Seattle, but it took a ferry ride to get there. And don’t even think of finding their place without detailed directions. That’s the way they liked it. Sure, in the beginning, the pair made frequent trips back to the city. In time, however, they just stopped returning to their old home.
Their abdication of city life was complete.
They said their wedding vows under a mammoth cedar that they eventually cut down for the house they built. Friends still came over at that time, though not many. Some came with skills to help with the farm, others to remind them that they were giving up the city and all that Snow Creek had to offer for a drippy forest and a meandering creek.
“We like the drippy forest,” Amy told one of the doubters.
“Creek’s not too bad, either,” chimed Regina.
Their friends stopped coming after a couple of years, but the women didn’t mind. Especially Regina. She’d been the one to first broach the subject about living off in the wilds, and Amy considered it merely an adventure. Something they’d do only for awhile.
Awhile became forever.
As Regina continued her walk along the creek and then down through the woods, she paused for a beat. She thought she’d heard something. It was a familiar noise, but not one she’d heard in quite some time. It was the sound of traffic.
Two cars.
By Snow Creek standards it was beyond a traffic jam. Gridlock, really. Completely annoying too.
Regina looked up toward the noise, remembering that there had been a logging road in that vicinity at one time. She wondered if the loggers were scouting the area for another big green bite out of the hillside.
Please no.
She stood still. Like a deer. Her eyes scanning through a veil of evergreens. The wind picked up and the fringe of forest cover parted a little, though not enough to afford a better view. She moved a few steps closer.
Arguing.
What are they saying?
She couldn’t quite hear, yet fear gripped her anyway. Something bad. Something terrible was happening.
What are they fighting about?
Next, there was the sound of a car door slamming, then another, and branches snapping and, finally, a loud whoosh as something rolled from the road down into the ravine.
A beat later, flames shot upward into the soggy sky.
Adrenalin surged through Regina’s thin frame, jolting her, playing on her bones like some kind of macabre xylophone. She put her hand to her lips as though she needed to stifle a scream.
Don’t want them to know I’m here!
Regina wasn’t a screamer. Amy was.