Mountain Girl

On the step stood a slight woman in a sweat shirt and parachute pants, her hair simultaneously frizzy and stringy.

“Yes?” I asked through the screened window, once my heart stopped jitterbugging in my chest. We hadn’t had any unexpected visitors since I’d scared off the Holy Rollers. This gal hardly looked like she was on the same mission.

Instead, she had a tale of woe. She and her boyfriend were staying at the broken-down trailer on the next property. Either they didn’t have a car . . . or their car broke down . . . or they were counting on a ride back down the mountain and that car broke down. The details were a little murky. But while they waited for some way off the mountain, they’d run out of food and water. She waved a plastic jug. Could she fill it up?

I only knew the people across the way as the lowlifes who allowed their pit bulls to run wild in our yard, terrorizing me to the point that I was afraid to walk our property, except to go from the house to my car. We’d long suspected, after a small explosion one night, that they ran a crystal meth lab out of the trailer. But I’d heard the property had recently been sold -- I assumed to pay legal fees -- and I hadn’t seen anyone (person or pit bull) around the dilapidated trailer in ages. Now here was this woman.

“Do you have a gun?” I ask through the screen. Dumb question. Like she’d tell me if she did. How many would-be intruders are that well-mannered? For that matter, how many would-be intruders knock on the door first?

She swears that all she’s got on her is a cell phone and the empty plastic bottle.

I’m torn. On the one hand, Don’t open the door to strangers has been a cardinal rule in my house since I was tall enough to reach the door handle. Isn’t that what Law & Order episodes are made of? I can just see the plotline unfolding as crime scene investigators step over my lifeless body, noting that there aren’t any signs of forced entry. She must have known her attacker, Vincent D’Onofrio would say sagely. No, I was just stupid enough to open the door to a stranger.

On the other hand, I want to do the right thing, the human thing. This is rough country, and being stranded without food or, more importantly, water, in the desert is dangerous business. With my brain still playing tug o’war, the human part won out. I couldn’t turn down a woman in need. What if it were me?

Cautiously, and not without extreme reservations, I open the door. Later I think, Why didn’t I just have her wait outside? But I didn’t want to seem unduly paranoid. And then I think, You idiot. You’re worried what a would-be intruder thinks…

“Wow! This place is huge,” she says as we head for the kitchen. “How many bedrooms are there? This must be worth a fortune. Oh, look, you’ve got cats, how many?” She’s rambling, a steady stream of conversation. Maybe she’s just being polite. Maybe she’s naturally chatty. But in my extremely paranoid state, it sounds like she’s casing the house. I’m secretly glad that I thought to tuck my laptop under the bed and stashed my jewelry under some sweaters.

I load up a bag in our huge walk-in pantry with things that don’t require elaborate cooking: pasta, bread, some sauce, tuna, cans of soup, cereal. She mentions that she doesn’t have anything to cook the soup or pasta in, so I give her a sauce pan.

“Keep it,” I say, heading off a return visit. But even as I’m filling the bag, I’m acutely aware that I’m deep in the pantry . . . and she’s blocking the door. This is how people get bludgeoned to death in their homes, I think. She could klonk me on the head, bind me, gag me, come back with her boyfriend to ransack the place, maybe toss me in the back of a pickup truck and drive me far out into the desert where they could shoot me and leave me in a shallow grave . . . .

Then I think maybe I watch entirely too much Law & Order.

She leaves with a Bloomingdale’s Big Bag stuffed with food and a gallon of water. I grab Stewart’s binoculars and watch her trudge back to the abandoned trailer. I see the boyfriend milling around in the yard, then they both disappear inside the trailer. Periodically, I peer out the window with the binoculars to see if they’re coming back. I dig the rifle out from between the mattresses where Stewart hides it, find a clip in his sock drawer and load it. I’ve got no earthly idea how to use it. But I prop it up within reach. Just in case.

Later I call the cops. I rationalize it this way -- if they’re truly in trouble, the police can give them a lift back to civilization. If they were casing the joint, well, then maybe they won’t be back.