Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

And I was on leave, after all. I should be enjoying myself. Going with the flow. Having a good time. So what is your problem, Virginiak? Go for it. Take the plunge. Get back on the horse. Make hay while the sun shines...

But then...

And on and on, around and around, I got nowhere. About eleven o’clock, sick of myself, I got dressed.

Black cashmere sweater, gray whipcord trousers, white fleece-lined windbreaker, and a pair of soft black leather boots — all new to accoutre the new me.

Whoever or whatever I thought I was.

Then I took a stroll down the hill, past other cabins with their Volvos and BMW’s and Lexuses (Lexi?) parked out front, down to the highway where a large, rambling structure served as a combination office, sundry shop, restaurant, bar, and ski school.

I made it to the restaurant, where other men — mostly younger than I but dressed in rather the same way — and women, dressed a lot like Sandy would have been, sat and chatted over their meals in the same muted, churchlike tones — and there were no children.

I sat by myself, of course, and had the vegetarian special — a cup of celery soup and a tofu and beansprout sandwich; then I put myself and a cup of herbal tea on the second floor observation deck where I watched the broad, smooth expanse of snow-carpeted mountainside that was the southwest face of Mount Fear being slowly scarred by the long, crisscrossing trails of the dozens of skiers who were out that day — and wondered, for the umpteenth time that week, what I was doing there.

Fear Mountain Lodges.

In my usual frame of mind, I would have forfeited my deposit and stayed home as soon as I found out I was going to be stood up. It hadn’t been my idea to come here in the first place. It had been Sandy’s — she’d been here before — and I’d even balked a little because I knew I’d feel out of place, but I went along, finally, and then...

Well, in my usual frame of mind I would have just written it all off, but again, I wasn’t and I hadn’t, so there I was in a sort of yuppie winter haven that was costing me an arm and a leg and was way too rich for my blood, not my kind of place at all even if I did ski.

At least it wasn’t usually my kind of place, but then — maybe — now it was.

I didn’t know.

I’d quit smoking, started running, and sworn off caffeine and red meat, and I didn’t know the why behind those changes either.

I was becoming a mystery to myself.

I went on fretting about this and that and a thousand other things until I decided it was time to go to town, but to put myself in my place or something, I hiked back up to my cabin first where I put on my uniform, then walked back down to the highway.

I didn’t think I’d need to call for a cab because there was usually one parked outside the motel’s restaurant. It was there now, the driver lounging against the door reading a newspaper and smoking.

“You working?” I asked him.

“Better believe it,” he told me, popping open the back seat door for me, then scurrying around to his side and getting in himself. “Where to?” he asked.

“Big Pine.”

“Big Pine,” he echoed as he put the car in gear and started down the mountain. “Big Pine,” he said again as if enjoying the feel of the words in his mouth.

When we’d gone a short way he squinted into the rear view mirror and asked, “You a warrant officer?”

“That’s right,” I said.

He hmmphed. “Never could get army ranks straight,” he said. “Did my twenty in the Corps.”

“Really.”

“God’s truth,” he told me, then put a hand back over the seat for me to shake. “Name’s McConnel. Call me Mac.”

I shook his hand.

Mac was a short, compact little man, mid-fortyish, with his brown hair cut in a military crew. His face was a mask of outdoorsy wrinkles, and his eyes were sharp, darting things that looked like they didn’t miss much.

“You on leave?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Ski?”

“I’d planned on trying to.”

He shook his head. “Don’t ski myself,” he told me. “But it’s a great place for it, God’s truth — lookit that view.”

I looked where he pointed. “You from around here, Mac?”

“Bonneville,” he replied. “That’s up north here about thirty miles or so. When I got out, I decided I seen enougha the world, y’know? So I came back.”

He followed the pine-walled highway through some turns. “Beautiful country up here.”

“It is,” I agreed.

He sighed. “Been driving this hack since ’85.”

“Really.”

“God’s truth. Retirement money’s good, but I been putting some away to open a bar.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. Just about there, too.”

He made another turn that set us on the long series of switchbacks that would take us down to the foothills of the mountain. He was quiet while negotiating them. Once we were out of the switchbacks, he said. “Yep. Can’t drive a hack forever. Always wanted my own bar.” He flicked a glance at me in the rear view. “People figure a guy drivin’ a hack don’t make hardly nuthin’, but I’ll tell you somethin’ soldier to soldier.”

I put an interested look on my face.

“I bring down close to four, five thousand a month in winter.”

“Really.”