THE HONOR SYSTEM
By
Ray Nayler

They had to stop at a gas station in town to ask where the place was. Sam stayed in the car while the attendant gave Ellie directions.

It was out on the edge of town, past a couple of used car lots. A faded sign half-overgrown by a tree said "Jackson Well Springs. Camping. Pool. Hot Tubs. Massage."

They pulled into the gravel drive, past tent-sites on either side. There were fires lighted, although the sun was nowhere near setting. They drove past the main campsites and a row of broken-down cottages that ended in a public bathroom. Beyond the bathroom were several vacant low-end tent sites, just circles mown in the tall weeds. Sam smiled at Ellie. He'd fallen asleep for a while, and the side of his face was pressure-marked by a sweater he'd balled up against the window as a pillow.

"Let's pitch the tent here. It's private. Nobody'll be walking by. And nobody can hear us . . ." he trailed off suggestively.

Ellie felt the color rise in her cheeks. She stopped the car at the furthest site. Sam lugged the gear from the trunk and began setting up the tent in the mown circle. The long muscles in his forearms stood out as he shoved the tent-stakes into the ground. Insects buzzed in the hot grass. His sweat-damp v-neck T-shirt clung to the lean plates of his chest.

Ellie had never wanted anyone the way she wanted Sam. She could feel need stab into her when he held her in the dark -- and when she watched him.

He lifted his head and stared back at her.

"What?"

"I can't believe it's been only three months. Does it feel like more to you? I feel so comfortable. So right."

He came over to her, took her wrists in his hands. "I feel it too."

His touch gave off jolts of electricity that traced along her skin. She pushed him away, gently.

"I'll go sign us in."

"The office is closed."

"They said to leave the money in the drop-box, if we showed up late."

On the way to the office, Ellie passed another campsite off from the others. There was a fire going, and a thirtyish man strumming on a guitar beside it. Behind the tent's screen window she glimpsed a little girl looking out at her.

The girl looked trapped. A chill crawled over Ellie. Who was the man? Her Father? A stranger? How would anyone know the difference? This was a good place to hide-out in the open, yet secluded. Not suspicious. The little girl waved. Ellie waved back. Stupid. She always jumped to the worst possible thing. It was a trait that had led to her mother's nervous breakdown.

At the office she deposited $15 and a registration form in the mail-slot. The hallway to the pool was open. A sign notified her that it was $2 for guests to swim. She went down the hallway to the back of the main building. There was an overweight, Midwestern-looking couple in the shallow end. A bearded man drifted in the deep side.

She and Sam could swim tonight. The pool looked pleasant, although a little cloudy, and sulfur-smelling from the mineral springs that heated it. The $2 would have to be paid on the honor system, like everything else.

On her way back, she noticed that the tent's window was zipped shut. The man's guitar lay on the grass by the extinguished fire. A horrible thought clawed into her.

Sam had finished with the tent. He was sitting at a picnic table, sketching her in charcoal. She made a wide circle and came up behind him, surprising him with arms around his chest.

"Who's that ugly thing you're drawing?"

"Some girl I used to go around with."

"I love you, Sam."

He gave her a flash of teeth. "I know."

"Bastard. Let's go swimming. The pool's open."

He grabbed his trunks and they walked back to the pool. As they passed the other lonely campsite, she whispered in his ear.

"You know, there's a man and a little girl camping there alone. For all we know, he kidnapped her. How could you tell? This is a perfect spot to hide in."

"Out in the open?"

"Of course. What could be less suspicious?"

"You're crazy."

But he seemed to consider the idea, and was silent, his eyes on the ground, until they separated at the locker rooms.

"I guess you're right -- in theory."

"That's all I meant -- in theory. I know it isn't true. He's just a man camping with his daughter. But it could happen. I mean, it has to happen somewhere. Why not here?"

Sam snapped his towel at her.

"Try not to call the cops until I get back."

The pool, like everything else at the springs, reeked of sulfur. Ellie thought sarcastically that the only mineral in the springs was sulfur, and that they should call the place Jackson Rot Springs. But she was exaggerating. The smell wasn't so bad. She lowered herself into the warm water and breast-stroked out toward the center. She was aware of the two women in the deep end of the pool, watching her with the natural curiosity of people seeing someone new and different. They were new-age types, with long hippie-straight blond hair. One of them was old enough to have midwifed the other into the world. They were talking about meditation and chakras, watching her from the sides of their eyes.

Sam came through the gate, in deep burgundy swim trunks. His eyes did not find her immediately, and she put an arm up. He smiled at her and dove cleanly into the water. His coffee-colored skin rippled beneath the water. He swam beneath her, lifting her weightless into his arms. They floated together. Next to his deep brown flesh, hers was startlingly white, glowing, the curves of her breasts like bright snow on the dark trunk of a tree. There was something magic about the way they looked together. But she was aware of the two women in the deep end, staring as Sam kissed her. Of course Sam was quiet -- of course he didn't like crowds. He was on display when he was with her. It hurt her. Eventually, she thought, the staring and the whispering would make him resent her. Everything would be ruined.

His mouth was warm on hers. She tried to concentrate on just that. Just that. Just him.

The locker room showers were heated by the springs, smelling of sulfur as much as the pool. Maybe she would get used to it, after a while.

She doubted it. She never got used to things being the way they were.
They drove into town and got dinner at the deli of an all-night supermarket. They ate their sandwiches sitting on the curb in the parking lot. The mercury vapor lights in the lot brought out the cracks in the pavement and the lines in Sam's face. They sat with their shoulders touching, watching the blank white faces of customers rattling shopping carts to their cars. The town was upscale and tourist. California license plates sandwiched Oregon plates in the slots.

Sam leaned against Ellie.

"I guess I'm not exactly a woodsman. But if we buy some matches I think I could scratch us up a fire, later."

Ellie wiped a spot of mustard from his face with the flat of her thumb.

"You keep me warm enough. We have bagels and cream cheese for the morning, and juice." She touched the shopping bag with her toe. "Who needs a fire?"

Back in the tent they lay in their double-zipped bag for hours. Sam talked in the dark about W.E.B. DuBois, whom he had been reading. Ellie listened to his voice-not the words, but the way his voice sounded deep in his chest. He paused for a moment, and she listened to his breathing.

"DuBois died in Africa."

"Of what?"

"Disgust. You must get tired of listening to me go on about nothing."

Ellie was climbing out of the sleeping bag.

"Never."

"Where you going?"

"To brush my teeth."

It was only a short way from the tent to the bathroom. She walked quickly, feeling the sharp stab of fear -- fear at the quietness of the night campground, at what or who might be inside a dark stand of trees. A rustle in the tall weeds startled her, but she found nothing when she pointed her weak flash at the sound. The bathroom was grimed with dirt, and dimly lit by a naked fluorescent bar above the mirror. She brushed her teeth quickly over the filthy sink, making a face in the mirror at the egg-taste of the water. Her skin was washed-out white under the flickering light-bar, and her teeth looked yellow.

A toilet flushed in one of the stalls. The door opened, and the little girl from the other campsite came out. Her feet were bare and dirty. Her long dishwater hair was tangled.

"Hello," Ellie said.

The girl looked up at her blankly.

"Hello."

"You're up late. Does your Daddy know you're up?"

The girl pulled herself up onto the counter and turned the taps of one of the sinks.

"He isn't my Daddy."

Ellie went cold. In the mirror, she saw the ugly fear in her face.

"He isn't?"

The girl was rubbing her hands in the water. They didn't seem to be getting any cleaner.

"No. He's a bad man, and I hate him."

"You shouldn't . . ." Ellie heard the quiver in her voice and steadied it. "You shouldn't hate people. It isn't nice."

"Well, I do." She twisted the taps off and wiped her hands on her dirty T-shirt. "He's a bad man, and he makes me do nasty things, and . . ."

"Jenny?"

The voice came from outside. It was a male voice, raised in anger. "Who are you talking to? Come out here . . ."

Ellie could not move. She felt, in that moment, all the loneliness and the darkness of that place close in on her. She was Jenny, curled in the tent, and the man's breath was on her, in her mouth, in her nose . . .

"You see? He doesn't want me to talk to you." She was speaking in an exaggerated stage whisper. "Or that nigger-man you're with."

Oh god . . . Jenny couldn't know what that word meant. Despite Ellie's concern, her fear for her, she almost slapped Jenny's face.

Jenny hopped down from the counter and ran out of the bathroom. Ellie heard the man's voice outside, low and scolding. She couldn't make out the words.

That poisonous word -- it had come out of her mouth as easily as any other. As though it were nothing at all.

Sickened, Ellie went back to the tent. Sam was reading by pen-light. She took it away and pulled him on top of her.

Afterwards, she lay beside him, naked and damp, her leg between his, her arms around him, listening to his breathing in her ear. He would die someday. She would be without him.

"What are you thinking?"

"Hmmm?"

He repeated himself.

"I was thinking of that girl. I didn't tell you -- I saw her in the bathroom." She told him the story of what had happened. "If we don't do anything . . ."

"About what?"

"About what's going on over . . ."

"Just what is going on over there?" He tensed against her. She could feel his anger in the dark, coiling in his arms. "What do you know? Kids say lots of things. They say terrible things. They lie to people. They say awful, hurtful things."

Ellie had never heard him talk this way before. He'd never been angry with her.

"Sam, I just meant . . ."

"What? That you want to meddle in someone else's business, because of what you think is going on. Because you don't like what you see?"

He was talking about them -- about her and Sam, and the way that people stared at them, wherever they went. She thought of the women at the pool. About a hundred other times. Sam never talked about it. Now, she realized, he was talking about it, without saying it right out.

"I'm sorry, Sam. You're right."

She felt him relax. His fingertips brushed her back.

"Ellie, I shouldn't have snapped at you. I should never . . ."

She silenced him, the best way she knew how.
* * *
Ellie woke up sweating. The sun was on the tent, superheating the inside. She gasped, fighting for breath.

Sam was gone.

Ellie fumbled her clothes on and wrenched the tent's zipper open. Outside, the air was early-morning cool. Where was Sam?

She walked out onto the gravel path, toward the office.

Jenny's tent was closed. The man was nowhere to be seen. At the other campsites people were morning zombies, shuffling around. Fires had been lit, Coleman stoves set up on the picnic tables. In the bright sun, it seemed to her that Sam was right. What was she doing, assuming such awful things? Couldn't a father or an uncle camp with his little girl?

It was hysteria, that was all. A bad feeling, taken too seriously, blown up into something it was not. Was she unconsciously trying to ruin her vacation with Sam? Her own thoughts were a dark mass to her, water beneath brittle surface. What am I afraid of? Afraid I'm not good enough for him? Afraid I'm using him, somehow -- without knowing it?

She had felt guilty, being so attracted to him at first. Seeing him at the caf, his profile over a book, his hands around a cup of coffee; long dark hands that she had imagined on her face, fingertips on her skin. She had gone over and talked to him, about work, about nothing, about art. He began coming into the caf, sitting at the same table while she worked. She would watch him from behind the counter.

He always wanted to be alone with her. He hated people. He never talked about people, except to say that this or that artist was a genius. But his artists were all dead. He belonged only to her.

There was a pay-phone near the office. The man was on it, one hand clamped around Jenny's arm, screaming into the receiver.

"Well, you get a car. After all the times I had to bail you out, you get a car. I can't wait around here -- even in this dump, people are liable to . . ." he saw Ellie coming and the decibels dropped out of his voice. The look in his eyes was hateful, slicing down her body. Jenny did not look at her. The man's eye followed Ellie as she passed them. Jenny's face had a long bruise on it.

Ellie stopped. "Jenny, are you . . ." She reached out to the girl.

The man pulled Jenny out of reach.

"Mind your own god-damned business. And tell that bastard you're with to mind his. This is a free country -- as the two of you obviously know." With a final grind of his eyes across Ellie's face, he slammed the receiver on its cradle and stalked off, pulling Jenny along behind him like a little blond dog. Jenny watched Ellie with blue eyes like blank drops of sky. The bruise on her face was more expressive.

The office was open, manned by a youngish hippie with a burnt-tan face half-hidden by sandy beard. Dreadlocks fell to his shoulders.

"Hey there." His voice had easy familiarity in it. "Sam already paid for you. He's in the pool."

"Sam already . . ." She was dazed. Everything was made of cut glass, sharp, glittering. Her heart was in her throat. Jenny was in danger. She had to do something. "Yeah. He described you to me. Go on in . . ."

Wordless, she went down the hall. She changed in the locker room, her hands shaking. She nearly fell, getting into her swimsuit.

Sam was sunning himself by the deep end. His skin was wet and glossy in the sun, his eyes closed. He opened them at the sound of her padding feet.

"Morning, baby."

"Sam -- did you talk to that man? To Jenny's . . . to that man with Jenny?"

Sam sat up and stretched. "Yeah. The guy's a creep. I visited him early this morning. He's not friendly, but the girl is his daughter. She called him Daddy, anyway. They seem all right . . . besides the fact that the guy didn't like me too much."

"Sam, you didn't have to . . ."

"I know, but I felt bad, snapping at you last night. And besides -- after I got to thinking about it, I decided you might be right. Thank god you weren't"

Ellie wanted to ask him a hundred other things. What about the bruise on Jenny's face, or the way the man wouldn't let her talk to anyone, or . . . but she didn't. They slid into the pool together and floated in the deep end, entwined. The pool still reeked of sulfur, but at least they were alone. The contrast between the warm water and cool, bright air was pleasant. Sam seemed especially happy, splashing and acting like a little kid, the way he did when he was comfortable and content.

The day passed like that, with long hours in the pool and breakfast on napkins at the picnic table. They rented an hour in a reeking hot tub and spent it making out, the way they had when they had fist met. Ellie tried to lose herself in him. But Jenny's empty eyes nagged her. If she could just know. If she could just be sure that the little girl was all right, then everything else would be perfect. But how could she know?

"You're distracted."

They lay on the grass in front of their tent, watching the sky go from pink to indigo.

"I'm not."

Sam stood up, brushing off broken bits of grass. "I'm taking a walk. It'll give you a chance to work out what's bothering you. And when I come back . . . well . . ."

"Sam, I'm all right . . ."

He stopped her with a look and stalked off.

She got up to go after him, stopped herself. He was right. Until she could get the idea out of her head, she would remain distracted. And if she never knew? She would take the thought with her when she left this place -- find herself haunted by the little girl at the hot springs and what might have been happening to her. She would just take a walk past their campsite, and if everything seemed all right, she decided, then everything was all right. That would decide it in Sam's favor. She would feel silly, and that would be the end of it.

She marched up the gravel path.

The tent was closed, the fire out but still smoking.

There was a whimper from inside the tent.

"No. I don't want to . . ."

Ellie ran up the path. She tripped and sprawled, scraping her hands on the gravel, pain-stars streaking across her vision. She picked herself up and ran the rest of the way to the phone booth, grabbed the receiver and jabbed the buttons in.

"Yes, hello . . . there's an emergency. A little girl is in trouble, and . . ."

She panted it all out to the soothing voice at the other end. They would send a Sheriff's car right out. No, they would come to her first. Yes, they knew where she was. Could she show them where the site was? Of course she wasn't crazy. Just keep calm.

Her hands throbbed. They were cut. She wiped them painfully across her shirt.

The sheriff's car pulled up. The deputy was a tall, blond-bland man with the closed face of every cop she'd known. His nametag said M. Richards. Michael? Matt? She would never know. It didn't matter. She wrapped her arms around herself and told her story, and he nodded and wrote in his notebook.

"My boyfriend talked to them too."

Richards nodded. "I'd like to see him, if I can. It's important to get all the information that we can . . ."

"But she may be in trouble! Right now!"

Richards nodded again. It was the same nod. He followed behind her as she led him to the little girl's camp-site. The cop shined his flashlight at the side of the tent.

A voice came from inside. The man's voice.

"Who the hell is it?"

"Sheriffs"

There was a curse, and in a moment the tent unzipped and the man flung himself, disheveled, out of the tent. He was in a torn T-shirt and a cut-off pair of jeans.

"What's the idea?"

Richards's expression did not change. "Do you have a young girl camping with you, sir?"

The man's eyes whipped across Ellie's face, then back to the cop's.

"Wh-what is this?"

"Do you have a young girl camping . . ."

"Yes, of course. My daughter. We're just . . ."

"Could she come out? Could I speak with her?"

The man glared at Ellie. "What the hell is this? You called the fucking cops? For what?"

Richards stepped forward. "I'll ask you to lower your voice, sir. People are sleeping. And bring the girl out. I just want a word with her."

The man seemed to shrink an inch.

"Of course. I don't want any trouble."

"There will be no trouble."

The cop's voice was robotic, bored. Ellie put her hand over her mouth. She felt a laugh coming up, a laugh without reason. She felt hysterical, unhinged. What if she was right?

Richards turned to Ellie.

"Ma'am, could you please return to your own campsite? I'll come and speak to you later."

"Oh . . . of course . . ."

She walked off, slowly. She zipped the tent shut hard behind her. She felt hollow. Had she done the right thing? Where was Sam? What would he think of her, if she was wrong?

In a few moments a light flickered along the tent, and Richards's voice called to her. She opened the tent. He was standing by the table, spotting things with his flashlight. Idly snooping, out of habit, she thought. Just getting into my business.

He smiled at her dimly. "I'm happy to say that the little girl is safe. He's her father. There isn't anything unusual going on. I spoke with her myself."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you come all the way out here for nothing . . ."

He shook his head. A sudden humanness lit in his eyes. "Believe me, I'm glad it was for nothing. And it did look suspicious, like you say. I had a bad feeling about it myself, when I first talked to him, but . . ." He stopped abruptly at the crack of a twig, snapping the beam of his maglite at the sound.

It was just Sam, coming up the path. The beam caught him, lit him up like a spotlight. He covered his eyes.

"Ellie? Who's that?"

Ellie smiled up at the cop. "That's just my boyfriend . . ."

Her words died off. The cop had stiffened, become alert. With a movement that seemed spring-loaded, his gun was in his hand.

"Put your hands up."

Sam did it.

"What is this?" Ellie screamed. "What are you doing? That's just my boyfriend."

She looked at Sam. But he didn't see her. He was staring through the beam at the cop.

"Hey!"

Richards ignored her. She might as well have not been there.

He stepped toward Sam.

"Get down on the ground, slow. And put your hands behind your head."

Sam smirked. "I know the drill." He sagged to his knees. His eyes met Ellie's. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I never thought they would catch me."

"Catch you?"

Without looking at her, the cop said: "For bank robbery. In California."

"Oh God."

The campground was coming to life, the far-off tents lighting up like paper lanterns, dark shapes of people moving closer, whispering as they gathered.

Sam lay face-down on the gravel. His eyes remained on hers.

"Ellie, I'm sorry."

Richards pounced on him, snapped steel on his wrists. The people were closer, now, all around them as the cop led Sam off. Sam's head was down. He would not look at her. One of the people touched her shoulder and she swung violently, without looking, hitting someone. Then they were holding her, pinning her arms, forcing her to the ground. She fought to see Sam one last time, but the crowd closed in and she lost him.

###

Ray Nayler was born in Quebec, Canada, and raised in California. He has had short stories published in Deathrealm, Onionhead Literary Quarterly, The Edge, Heist, HandHeldCrime and the Berkeley Fiction Review and has short stories upcoming in Hardboiled, Outer Darkness, Crimewave, Blue Murder, Plots With Guns and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He can be contacted at like_the_rabbit@hotmail.com.