WHEN THE DEER came out into the meadow Diane’s reaction certainly left nothing to be desired. Where Griffin had only sat staring and chewing on her fingers, Diane raved. Clutching James’ arm she babbled excitedly in disjointed sentences. The deer was wonderful, marvelous, unbelievable, one-in-a-million; and James was wonderful to have been able to tame him. Questions tumbled over each other. How had James managed to keep such a wonderful secret—what were those red ribbons on its horns—did it really let James tie them there—and why did he tie ribbons on its horns? Fortunately she never waited for an answer. Would it let her touch it—and, no, she didn’t suppose it would—and she wouldn’t really want to try—and how amazing it was that it would actually come when it heard people talking, and just stand there waiting like that only a few yards away.
“Waiting?” James said uneasily.
“To be fed,” she said. “Here James, take him my cake, and my sandwich, too. Let’s give him my sandwich. I don’t want it.”
So he fed the deer and then suggested that they ought to leave. He was afraid she’d want to stay and see the whole valley and watch the deer some more, but to his surprise she agreed without argument. On their way back across the cliff trail he checked his watch. They had been in the valley no more than twenty minutes.
Diane went on being particularly warm and friendly and agreeable most of the way home. When she wanted to stop to rest near the river crossing, he was able to convince her that he knew of a better place a little farther along. And when they got to the place he had in mind, safely away from the route Griffin and the kids would be taking, she continued to be affectionate, except that she never stopped talking. She went on and on about how wonderful the deer was and how grateful she was that she’d gotten to see him. Then she insisted that they eat the lunch she’d brought, even though it was only a little after ten. But when they’d finally run out of food and conversation, and James was trying to get some other things started, she suddenly got restless.
“I really ought to be starting home,” she said. “My mother is packing today, and I promised I’d be back in time to help her. Come on, Jamesy. You can walk home with me. At least as far as the gate. Okay?”
So they said good-by at the west gate, and she kissed him five or six times and told him to call her in Sacramento and come to see her as soon as he could. And when he asked her to, she promised again that she would never tell anyone about the deer.
“At least, not until you’re an old lady,” he said. “When you’re an old lady, you can tell your grandchildren about him. But no one before then. Okay?”
She put her arms around his waist and leaned back so the winglike fringes of blond hair fell back from the sides of her face. Raising her eyebrows in the way she always did when she was going to say something suggestive, she said, “Okay. When I’m an old lady, I’ll tell our grandchildren all about it.”
He laughed and tried to kiss her, but she ducked away and pushed the buzzer, and a moment later the guard was asking who went there, and Diane said she did, and then she was through the gate and disappearing among the trees.
When he got back to the cabin, William and Charlotte were just sitting down to lunch. “So that was Diane,” Charlotte said, making a kind of stunned expression.
William was grinning too, in a very appreciative manner. “Very impressive,” he said.
James tried not to look too pleased with himself. “Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “That was Diane Jarrett, in the flesh.”
His father chuckled. “Not a highly original turn of phrase,” he said, “but in this case a singularly descriptive one.”
James was starting to ask exactly what he meant by that when Charlotte interrupted. “Is she really only fifteen? She seems so—well, fully matured.”
“I know. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“Yes, I know. But somehow I didn’t get the full picture. Well, Max is certainly going to be impressed.” Charlotte had always been amused by Max’s world-famous-ladykiller routine.
“I know,” James said grinning.
In fact that was one of the things he fantasized about that night—about Max’s reaction when he met Diane. Lying there in bed on that next to the last night at New Moon Lake, he pictured Diane’s first visit to Berkeley, and the conversation he would have with Max afterwards—a conversation in which Max would say he certainly wouldn’t have wasted time feeling sorry for James for being carted off to the wilderness if he’d had any idea that the wilderness had terrain like that to explore.
The next morning he spent several hours helping his parents pack for the trip home. As usual when the Fieldings went anywhere, most of the luggage consisted of books and records and several dozen file boxes full of notes for William’s latest book. By the time they’d finished, the poor old Volvo was sagging on its springs.
James pushed hard all morning, determined to get his part of the packing done early in order to have most of the day for his own personal good-bys. Diane had said her family had all sorts of last-minute things scheduled and she probably wouldn’t be able to see him, but that he should at least call if he got to The Camp. He was planning to do that first. Then there was Fiona and, if possible, Griffin and company. And, of course, there was the stag. It would have to be a quick visit late in the day, but he really wanted to see him one more time to say good-by.
As seemed right and proper, Sergeant Smithers himself was manning the main gate to answer James’ buzz and demand to hear his pass number: the whole ridiculous number, after an entire summer of opening the west gate on the average of twice a day for a James Fielding whose rather distinctive voice—youthful and yet masculine—had surely become familiar to him by now. James recited the number with gusto. It was an appropriate farewell gesture from The Camp—a memento to take back with him to the drab rationalism of the academic world.
He was still smiling—musing over Campish fads and fancies—when, in the middle of the Nymph’s Grove, he came upon two of the people he was on his way to see—Griffin and Woody. He’d been walking quietly on soft soil, and for a moment they weren’t aware of his presence. They were sitting on the ground facing away from him, down the path that led to Anzio and The Camp center. Woody was bent forward, his head resting on his knees, but Griffin sat erect with the thick pigtail looping her shoulder like a pet python.
Wondering what far-out fantasy they were involved in at the moment, James suddenly found himself ambushed by an unexpected combination of emotions. With some surprise he realized that Griffin and her two little disciples were among the things he was going to miss the most. He was really going to be sorry to say good-by; but he was glad that, at least, he was going to have a chance to say it. He was starting toward them when Griffin turned, saw him, and winced as if an invisible hand had struck her face; and although he didn’t know, didn’t even begin to guess what it was, he felt immediately that something very serious had gone wrong.
Her lips parted then, and she must have made some kind of sound because Woody raised his head. His freckled cheeks glistened wetly, and his long Griffith eyes were swollen and red. When he saw James, he jumped to his feet; and as James started towards him saying, “What is it? What’s the matter?” Woody charged.
Head down and fists flailing, he crashed into James with the reckless ferocity of a banty rooster. Most of the blows went wild, but a few connected with surprising force before Griffith caught him from behind and pulled him away.
“What is it!” James gasped. “What got into him?”
With Griffin holding him tightly from behind, Woody was still swinging wildly in James’ direction, gasping and choking and strangling on his own sobs. “You dirty traitor,” he kept gasping. “You dirty traitor. You dirty son of a bitch traitor.”
And suddenly, without knowing anything for certain and without any proof, James somehow knew what had happened. His own voice was out of control as he said, “What is it, Griffin? Tell me. What happened.”
Her eyes shut him out, not with anger, but with a dazed hurt withdrawal that was a lot worse. Shaking her head she turned and, pushing Woody ahead of her, started down the path, but he ran after them, and grabbing her arms, forced her to stop. “You have to tell me,” he said. “I have to know.”
What followed was a crazy impasse that seemed to go on forever—with James holding Griffin, and Griffin holding Woody, and Woody sobbing and choking and trying to get at James with his fists and feet. At last Griffin looked at James and nodded stiffly. “All right. I’ll tell you,” she said. “Let me go.”
He released her arm and stepped back, and she pulled Woody several yards down the trail before she stopped and bent over him, whispering. His sobs slowed to shuddering gasps; he turned to glower at James, and then nodded sullenly. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t. I won’t anymore.” Jerking away from Griffin, he threw himself face down on the ground and buried his face in his arms. Griffin knelt beside him and whispered for several minutes before she came back to where James was waiting.
She was there and yet not there. Standing robot-stiff, with her eyes still on Woody, she spoke in a dull monotone. “Laurel found out, last night when her uncle and aunt were having dinner at her house. She said her Uncle Hank talked about it all through dinner. About how Diane had found out about a fantastic buck. About how she’d sweet-talked a kid she knew into telling her where this smart old buck had been holing up. And how, unless Diane was exaggerating, he was going to make a trophy that would be nothing short of miraculous. He laughed about how smart Diane was. About how she held out on him, made him promise that she’d be the one who got to bag the buck, before she’d tell him where it was. And how they were going to be back at The Camp on the very first day of hunting season, and in the meantime he was going to see to it that Diane got in some good target practice, and how he was going to advise her to…” Griffin’s voice faltered and then trembled as she went on, “…he was going to advise her to go for the lung shot because it was the surest in the long run and less apt to damage the trophy even though it did take a little longer to kill. And when Laurel started to cry, he told her not to feel bad because it was only a deer, and after the first shot it would be too stunned to feel much, even though it took him a while to die.”
She stopped and breathed deeply several times until her voice was under control again. “Laurel came to our house late last night. She’d been crying for a long time. I let her stay overnight, but this morning I made her go back before anyone found out. I told her we’d wait for her here in the grove today, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to come. Her folks are leaving for Sacramento this afternoon.”
He heard every word Griffin said clearly and distinctly, but it was as if they somehow failed to register, or at least to have any immediate effect. At least not any that was appropriate and understandable. Instead there was only a cold, stiff paralysis that made him stand there without saying or doing anything while Griffin started away, turned back as if she were going to ask something, then changed her mind and went on. She went to where Woody was still lying, gathered him up and led him away down the trail. When they were out of sight, James went back to the Willowby cabin. By the time he was halfway there, the pain and anger had begun, and for a long time it got steadily and progressively worse. He sneaked back into his room, lay down on the bed and stayed there for the rest of the day. The stripped and empty room suited his mood. He didn’t even consider going to the hidden valley. He tried very hard not to think about the deer at all.