Checkmate by Patrick Sean Lee (little bear else holmelund minarik .txt) 📖

Checkmate


“Believe this. Believe this, my heart…” continues to leap into my thoughts,unbidden.

***

It is 7:15 in the evening. The sky outside is deep azure with large, disintegrating islands of clouds left behind as the late autumn storm marches on toward the plains. Farther eastward above the towering peaks of the Rockies I notice the strong blue sky melting into broiling cobalt as I glance back through the windows in my room at this lodge before closing the door. Here in the hallway leading to the staircase I can see the ghosts of hot white streaks of lightning flashing down at the earth. The curtained glass of the door behind me allows a quick rush of light in, and the mezzanine windows along the second floor line ahead of me show a sudden flood of agitated colors—searing red, blue, and green. Then back to normal until a deep rumble of thunder penetrates the interior of the lodge.
I bounce down the stairs, invigorated by the bath I’ve just had, waiting for the next clap of thunder. I’m so ready for a nutritious salad, now—maybe a cup of hot tea, too. No meat. The cozy dining hall where my hostess, the indomitable Mrs. Davenport, will pinch my slender arms and strongly suggest I need to load up my plate with her trove of…dead animal flesh…sits in a tuck of the first floor in the rear.
The sitting room, separated from the library retreat by the long registration desk jutting out from the wall like a peninsula, is to my left at the front of the lodge, ten feet from the stairs. In this room an out of place Oriental rug covers the glistening pine floor between two facing loveseats, and behind the one closest to the entry, a sturdy table with a chess set sitting on its blonde, polished surface waits for someone, all alone like an abandoned soul, without chairs. At the far end stands the fireplace, perfect for brisk late-autumn evenings like tonight. To the left of it, under a horrible, severed elk’s head with tree-sized antlers, is another round table with the two chairs tucked under it that should have been placed at the chess board. Atop this little table a bouquet of wildflowers dominates, and I wonder as I walk into the dining room how two people could sit at it and even see one another, let alone carry on a conversation. I want to go back and move the chairs to the chess table where they really belong, maybe after dinner. But I probably won’t.
When I enter the dining room I see that I’m not the first to arrive. Frank is already seated next to his lover, Michael. They’re here from Dayton, taking a break from their, yes—decorating business. They spot me and dispense with whatever they were talking about when I walked in.
Frank is quiet, immaculately handsome in his expensive haircut, Hugo Boss sport coat and black striped shirt. Frank is not Frances, I am quite sure. Michael, on the other hand, is loud, funny, and is decked out like a Christmas tree in a frilly top of garish colors and pegged, purple trousers that had to have been painted onto his reedy body. His blonde hair is spiked. Michael claps his hands when he sees me, and screams, “Well, hellooo Dolly! Sweetie-pie, you look simply delicious tonight.” He licks his full lips with a tongue that I think has been everywhere but where it should be. “Speaking of delicious, I think we’re having rump roast. Oooh, how I simply love rumps roasted. Doesn’t it simply make you want to jump right onto the platter and roll in it?”
I turn my nose up as I pull out my chair at the end of the table, two places away from him.
“It makes me want to vomit,” I reply as nicely as the thought of incinerated animal will allow me. Or overly-tanned behinds. Simply.
Frank looks across at me as his questionable better-half continues on, and rolls his blue eyes. How many times, I wonder, has Michael gone off in public like he is doing now? He’s Michelle, and he loves showing it. I’ve grown to like his nutball personality quite a lot this past week, though. He’s obnoxiously loud and effeminate, but he possesses a crazy charisma, the ability and nonstop mouth to charm the diamonds off a rattlesnake.
Unlike his partner, Frank is reserved to the point of being unseen. He is thoughtful, intelligent, Brad Pitt handsome, everything a woman could desire, save that he has no interest in the female body or romantic psyche. Pity. But I spoke to him on three separate occasions this week, while Michael was off throwing rocks at chipmunks like a six year-old girl; studying what he must have thought was Adonis—or Venus—staring back at him from the pool of water in the fountain outside in the middle of the front lawn, or making Charlie, the hired help, cringe because—well, what can a mountain man possibly say to another man who dresses in rufflies and pitches rocks without moving his upper arm?
“Michael, zip it,” Frank finally says with an annoying glance at him. He looks back at me quickly, about to say something, I think, when a faint shadow falls onto the table and interrupts. Stepping through the doorway is—God have mercy! Mr. Klutz himself! He’s staying here!
I saw the guy earlier today as I sat on the shore of Roosevelt Lake, high up on the mountain. He had no idea that I’d seen him, obsessed as he was; spying on me. Leering, I’m certain. That was seconds before he lost his footing and came crashing down the rugged, treacherous slope, right into the lake like a rock. I wanted to help him. I knew he was hurt, and frozen by the glacier water, but he waved me off with that pompous line, “I’m okay. Just go. Leave me be…”
Seriously?
He dragged himself up the hill a ways and held his knee, grimacing. I think he would have cried had I not been there. But instead he came off like this tough guy and thumbed his nose at me.
So, I left him there.
Now, here he is. Well, well, well.
He’s limping, but like Frank, he is dressed impeccably, casually. How did he ever get back down that trail on only one good leg? The three of us sitting at the table look over at him in unison. Yes, Michael greets him first. He clasps his hands over his mouth as though he is horrified—I’m sure he isn’t—and then pulls them to his cheeks to allow his lips full reign.
“Oh-My-God! Whatever happened to our new roomy? Are you alright, Sweetie?” He says kind of I was just thinking, without the endearment, of course, as he rises and dashes across the space dividing them, hands and sympathy extended. Such a sweetheart, Michael, and it looks like everyone, old acquaintance or new, is his sweetie

. I know why the guy is limping, say nothing, but I am still a little amazed by his appearance.
Michael probably wants to kiss him, I laugh inwardly, or pat his rump, but instead he tries to take hold of Mr. Klutz’s arm, the one on the side of the gimpy leg. Frank is quicker in responding to the unasked for gesture than Mr. Klutz is in shooing Michael away, or socking him.
“For God’s sake, Michael, leave the man alone. Get back over here and sit down.” Frank apologizes to Mr. Klutz as Michael reacts, stunned and hurt-looking.
“He really means well, Mr….Mr…?”
Mr. Klutz directs his answer to all of us. “Ash. Matt Ash.” He lets his eyes come to rest on me as he speaks to Michael without bothering to look at him. “I’m fine, thank you. I just…” He’s staring at me, and now I’m becoming uneasy. Mr. Ash’s eyes are penetrating. “…just had a fall. Nothing serious. Bruised my knee. I’m fine, really.”
I can’t help but glance over at him and smile, red-faced. I want to ask him, again, how he managed to fall into the lake, but I’ll wait. Or not ask at all. The story would be interesting, though, I’m sure.
Where, I wonder, will he sit? Certainly not between Michael and me, I hope.
Despite Frank’s admonitions, Michael helps Mr. Ash hobble to the table, sticking him beside Frank, directly across from me. Well, that makes sense.
I like the name Mr. Klutz much better than Ash. I think about addressing him that way from now on and smile. He notices. I guess he figures the smile was intended as a kind of apology on my part for leaving him out there after he refused my help? He smiles back and begins to speak tentatively, disregarding Frank and Michael for the moment.
“I was hiking. I slipped when I looked up and saw you across the lake…” he says in a low voice.
I can’t help, now, but grin broadly. I look straight at him and say, “Why would you be hiking down a very steep hill where there isn’t even a trail?” I want to hear his lame answer. I wait, notice his eyes dart upward. He’s grasping for straws as slippery as the slope he fell down. Finally he manages to come up with something he must think is believable. I