Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,10

excuse that he wanted to read without distraction.

Downstairs he had replenished the old bar. The portrait hung against the wall, watching him. In cleaning it, he had noticed the name “Renee” scrawled at the top. Maybe the artist’s name—no, that was E. Pittman. Probably the title, then. Name suited her well. “Mind if I have a drink, Renee?” he murmured. “Wife says I have a few too many a bit too often. Cliche for the day: Bitter hero drowns his grief in booze.” The eyes stared back at him. In pity? Loneliness? Hunger? How lost she looked!

Gerry flipped on a lopsided floor lamp and settled down to read some of the pulps he had resurrected. God, how ingenuous the stuff was! Were people ever so naive? He wondered how James Bond would appear to readers back then.

Bugs slipped through the rusty screen and swarmed to the light. Buzzed through his ears, plopped on the pages, fell in his drink. In vexation he finally clicked the lamp off.

His gaze was drawn back to the portrait, visible through the darkness by the glow of the bar light. He considered it with the careful patience four double shots of Scotch can bestow. Who was she, this Renee? She seemed too real to be only an artist’s imagination, but it was curious that an artist of the ’50s should paint a girl of the ’20s. Had she once sat here on this porch and listened to this same wind? This cold, lonesome wind in the pines?

God. Getting sentimental from Scotch. Mellow over a painting that a few months back he’d have laughed at. He closed his eyes wearily and concentrated on the night, letting its ancient spell wash over him.

The cool, velvet-soft night. Pines whispering in the darkness. The sound of loneliness. And Gerry realized he had become a very lonely man. A lost soul—adrift in the darkness of the pines.

Again came the faint scent of jasmine, haunting perfume. Jasmine, antique like this cabin. Worn by enchantresses of another age. Fragrance lingering from dead years. Delicate floral scent worn when beauty was caressed by silken gowns, garlanded with pearls, glinted with lacquered nails. Gone now, vanquished by synthetics. Today a woman clothed, adorned, perfumed herself with coal tar and cellulose. No wonder femininity had declined.

He breathed the rare fragrance, the cool night, somewhere between waking and dreaming. Faintly he heard the rustle of silk behind him, a sound separate from the whisper of the pines. A cold breath on his neck, apart from the mountain breeze. Like the elusive scent of jasmine, sensations alien to the night, yet part of it. The wind brushed his dark hair, stroked his damp forehead, almost as if a cool, delicate hand soothed the lines of pain.

He sighed, almost a shudder. Tension softened, days of anguish lost their sting. A feeling of inexpressible contentment stole over him; anticipation of ecstasy came to him. He parted his lips in a smile of dreamy delight.

“Renee.” The sigh escaped him unbidden. It seemed that another’s lips hovered close to his own. Sleep came to him then.

•III•

The sign announced “Pennybacker’s Grocery—Drink Coca-Cola.” Maryville had modern supermarkets, and ordinarily Gerry would have driven the extra distance. But today the country grocery with its old-fashioned general store atmosphere appealed to him—and it was close by.

The building was old. In front stood two battered gas pumps of some local brand. A long peaked roof overhung to form a sheltered enclosure between gas pumps and store front. Two wooden benches guarded the doorway. Their engraved invitation to “Drink Royal Crown Cola” was almost obliterated by countless carved initials and years of friction from overalls. The paint was starting to peel, and the windows were none too clean. Rusty advertising signs and a year’s growth of posters made a faded patchwork of the exterior.

Inside was packed more merchandise than there seemed floorspace for. Strange brands abounded on the crowded shelves. Fresh produce from local farms stood in open baskets. Cuts of meat were displayed within a glass counter. Odd items of hardware, clothing, medicines, and tackle augmented the fantastic clutter.

Here was a true general store without the artificial quaintness of the counterfeit “country stores” of Gatlinburg’s tourist traps.

Grocery buying was something of an adventure, and Gerry was glad Janet had not come along to quarrel over selections. A display of knives caught his eye as he waited for the proprietor to total his purchases on a clattering adding machine. Among the other pocket knives, he recognized the