Animals We Are

by Valerie Brandy

  The music of the falls drowns out my thoughts, and I wish we would’ve made camp just twenty feet closer to the water. It would’ve been nice to fall asleep to the sound of something other than my own inner monologue.

  I’m about to head for the tents when a blinding pain courses through my entire body. I try to trace its origin— the back of my head, maybe— but before I can make sense of it, I’m on my hands and knees, doubled-over.

  Pine needles… Sneakers— blue…

  Someone touching me, rifling through my jacket pockets…

  The sound of those relentless falls...

  It all fades to black.

  ***

  When I come to, the world is on fire.

  Thick air slides down my throat like poison, but my lungs inhale anyway. Ash covers my skin, claiming me, marking me as a lost cause. It can’t be wiped off— it coats my eyes, slips under my tongue, adheres to my hair.

  The wind is accomplice to the crime, spreading crackling flames from branch to branch, portending of a bigger monster to come. Fire is here, and there’s nothing subtle about him. He kicks his way through the forest, toppling her beauty, mocking her art. Cawing fills the air as birds fly away from the fire’s origin point. Two marmots streak past my feet, surging toward safety, making me pray that Harold has escaped the flames.

  I steady myself on a trunk, seeking a sense of location, an idea of my bearings. This tree— warped— that tree, straight— the boulder marred by lichens— and the two rod-like pine trees I shined my flashlight toward earlier. The trees that served as a reference point for camp.

  My heart stops. The trees are ablaze.

  Camp is on fire.

  It’s the origin point from which the animals are fleeing. Against all instinct, I walk toward the source of the flames, a fish swimming upstream.

  Mike. Please be alive.

  I’m slow, too slow— disoriented. Still thinking about that waterfall and the sound it made, and how I can’t hear it anymore. Pain radiates from the back of my head, spreading down my neck in waves. My ears flood with the sound of screaming— a woman, somewhere— and the roar of Fire, pillaging, defiling.

  My fingers touch the back of my head and come away coated in flecks of red; blood, but it’s dry. I wonder how much I lost.

  When I reach what’s left of our tents, my legs stop working. Our campsite has been transformed into something other-worldly. The air sits heavy on my skin, hot and thick, rippling like water. Everything is aflame, but in an orderly way. It’s too perfect to be spontaneous. Not a single tent was spared. This was the work of a person, not nature. The faint scent of kerosene seems to prove it.

  A scan of the tents shows no sign of Mike, but reveals Ken and Sue Hardinger, clutching each other, their faces frozen in horror. I stumble toward them, and my brain connects the screaming I heard earlier to Sue.

  “Mike—” I cough. “Where?”

  Sue shakes her head. She can’t speak. Ken answers for the both of them, shouting over the crackles of the flames. He grabs my arm, his voice filled with urgency, “He went to find you! He was out of the tent the second the fire started— he’s okay, Zoe, he’s alright—”

  I don’t even realize I’m crying until Sue uses her sweater to wipe tears off my face. Ken waves a hand at someone on the other side of the tents. It’s Brock and Logan, pouring buckets of water on the trees that border the campground. They’re fighting a losing battle. Brock empties another bucket and frantically tries his radio again.

  Something isn’t working. Brock grabs Logan by the sleeve and they run toward us.

  “The batteries—” Brock tries to finish his sentence, but coughs uncontrollably instead. He doesn’t have to tell me what I already know; someone took the batteries out of his radio.

  Cassandra.

  “There’s a reserve cash of supplies— rangers bury them all over the park— closest one is at the edge of Tenaya Lake, about a four hour hike that way…” Brock points in the direction the flames are spreading. Logan’s eyes widen. He’s wondering what we all are: can Brock out-hike the flames?

  “There’s gotta be more batteries inside, medical supplies…”

  Brock motions toward the area I just came from, where the animals are fleeing. “Go toward the falls, stay by the water. I’ll get to the ranger cache and radio for help, tell them to pick you up there.”

  “What about Mike?!” I shout. “He’s still out there!”

  Brock shakes his head. “We deal with the primary danger. He’s out there, and he’s alive. We won’t be if we stay.”

  Brock takes off his backpack and hands it to me, and suddenly I feel bad for labeling him useless. “Mike can’t have gone far. Call for him on your way to the falls— you’ll find him.”

  Brock runs toward a wide tree, where our horses are tied up. He loosens multiple sets of reigns and lets the whole gang free— their hooves slap the ground as they gallop away.

  “You can’t leave them!” Sue cries, but Brock shakes his head.

  “They know the way back,” he answers. “They do this trail fifty times a year— they’ll be home in three days. Now, go!” He points in the direction of the falls and we all get moving, except for Logan, who turns around and follows Brock toward the flames.

  “I’m coming with you! Buddy system…” Logan says. He must see Brock as his best chance of survival, even if staying with him means heading the way the winds are moving. Brock doesn’t have time to argue with him. The flames are growing taller, the air hotter. If we stay much longer we’ll all die from smoke inhalation.

  Our group separates. The Hardingers and I stumble toward the falls. As Brock and Logan disappear from view, I’m struck by the horrible thought that our survival depends on them. If they don’t make it to the cache, no one will know we’re out here. We’re two days into a week-long trip. Can we live for five days on our own?

  We call for Mike as we feel our way through the forest, using the compass in Brock’s bag to guide us. The flames are milder, here, but they still attach themselves to the trees and forest floor, hinting at the danger further up the mountain.

  “Mike—” I shout, my voice too scratchy and sore to carry across the forest.

  “Mike!” Ken takes over for me, putting his booming tenor to good use. “We found her! Head toward the waterfall!”

  Sue joins him, and the three of us shout ourselves hoarse.

  We call for an eternity, our voices forming a choir in an otherwise noiseless forest. Mike’s name becomes a kind of chant, a prayer— desperate and unyielding— begging for some answer from the Wild.

  She doesn’t answer, and it’s the loudest silence I’ve ever heard.

  8

  Sunday

  It doesn’t take long to reach the waterfall. The sun rises during our trek, casting a golden glow over the wild. I curl up on a rock that’s just far enough from the falls to avoid getting drenched and pull my knees into my chest, watching ripples form on the surface of a clear, blue basin. It’s a perfect oasis in the middle of the forest. In wilderness terms, it’s like checking into a five star hotel. I’m here, and Mike is out there, looking for me.

  I have to go find him.

  I’m about to tell the Hardinger’s that I can’t stay here, but Sue takes one look at my face and holds up a hand in the universal gesture for “Stop.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, sweetie, and I won’t stop you if you insist on leaving, but at least hear me out first,” she says, her voice so coated in practicality that now I’m sure they do have kids.

  “Brock said it’s a four-hour hike to the ranger cache. As soon as he gets there, he can radio for help.”

  Ken chimes in, adding to Sue’s point. “That means helicopters, rangers, search dogs…”

  “If you go look for Mike and get lost yourself, they’ll be searching for two people, not one,” Sue says, her voice apologetic. “Do you really want to divide their resources that way?”

  I don’t answer. My hands
are still shaking, and the wound in the back of my head throbs.

  “I know your instinct is to go find him, and I’d feel the same way if it were Ken,” Sue continues. “But the best way for you to help Mike is to stay right here. He really is fine. We both saw him jump out of the tent the second it was on fire, not a mark on him. He asked if anyone had seen you, and when no one had, he went to find you. I’m sure he’s still out there, and he’s okay.”

  Ken nods, his eyes filled with sympathy.

  “This will all be over soon,” Sue adds. “Only four hours, maybe five, and then the rescue team will arrive. They’ll find Mike. You just have to wait four hours.”

  She scans my face, trying to see if her words have changed my mind.

  “You can do anything for four hours, right?”

  No, I think. I can’t.

  But I stay anyway, because the thought of somehow sabotaging Mike’s rescue is too much to bear. Sue’s logic makes me ignore the animal piece of me that yearns to leave. I quiet the wolf within, who howls in dismay because she knows a member of her pack is missing, coaxing her into submission.

  Just a few more hours, I tell my inner wolf, smoothing down her ruffled fur, trying to keep my hands away from her mouth.

  ***

  We bide time.

  The water is cold, but we dip our feet in and out, remembering the caress of the flames and how close they came to skin and bone.

  We dig through Brock’s bag and find some antibiotic ointments and Band-Aids, which Sue uses to patch up the back of my head. She tells me the wound isn’t bad, but her voice rises a little, and I’m not so sure I believe her.

  The Hardingers ask me about Cassandra, and I tell them what I know, which isn’t much. The shallow extent of my knowledge makes my cheeks flush with self-consciousness, and I skip rocks over the pond of the story, avoiding the parts that don’t add up to make myself sound more informed.

  Why didn’t he get a restraining order?

  My tone doesn’t invite more questions, and thankfully the Hardingers are too polite to push. I wonder if they blame Mike and I for bringing Cassandra’s wrath up the mountain. If they do, they don’t say so.

  The Hardingers invite me into their world, making small talk as if we’re in a coffee-shop and not stranded in the wilderness. Ken is a CPA who owns his own company, and Sue is a highly accomplished botanist. She doesn’t gloat about it, but based on Ken’s description she’s one of the best in the world. They tell me about their daughter, Tracy, who’s around my age, and— by the sound of it— far more accomplished than I’ll ever be.

  “Finishing up her postdoc in Sociology!” Ken beams, paternal pride oozing out of his pores. I wonder if Tracy has a boyfriend, and if she picks good men, and whether she’s made as many mistakes as I have.

  The sun rises higher in the sky, and my instincts clock its position. The fire began under the rosy glow of the early morning— the sun’s angle is still low, but climbing. I estimate a couple hours have passed. Brock and Logan should be halfway to the ranger cache by now.

  We take out our cell phones and play a sick game of hot potato, passing them to one another and trying to place calls, hoping the hand of another person might magically conjure a signal. I try to send a text from Sue’s cell, attempting to outsmart the universe by utilizing a task that requires a lower data rate. The blue bar fills halfway but never reaches its destination.

  No one is surprised. We haven’t had service since the end of our first day in the forest, when we reached the backcountry.

  We empty out the contents of our backpacks, combining our resources into a pile and taking inventory. Socks and t-shirts, eight kinds of granola bars, various packages of powdered meals from Brock’s pack, and three empty canteens, which we fill with water from the falls. I turn my bag upside down, searching in zippered pockets, trying to abate the vague sense of loss that comes in waves. I know I’m looking for Mike, and even though I won’t find him in my pack, I keep searching, just to be sure.

  My hands touch something sticky deep in a pocket: a crinkled package of gummy bears. Mike and I had stopped at a Chevron on our way to the valley, even though we had a full tank. He ran inside the convenience store and came out with two scratch-off lotto tickets, and a package of gummy bears.

  “Friendlier than the ones we’ll meet in the forest,” he said.

  I scratched the numbers off my ticket. It wasn’t a winner. Neither was his. He shrugged, crumpling the losing tickets into balls before tossing them into the backseat. He kissed me, his touch soft and hard all at the same time. “Still winners,” he said, breaking open the package of candy. We ate them all the way up to Yosemite, and he was right. I did feel like a winner.

  The sun fights its way toward the center of the sky, and the wound in the back of my head throbs, making me think the two things are connected. The stronger the daylight, the worse the pain.

  We wait as long as we can, but hunger beckons, and we all agree to split a package of dried scrambled egg mix. “Don’t think we have to be worried,” Ken says, reassuring. “No reason to ration. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

  My eyes resist the urge to roll— declaring that we’ll be out of here in no time is the Murphy’s law equivalent of walking up to fate and slapping her in the face. No need to tempt the woman when you’ve gone out of your way to piss her off.

  The day slides by and panic bubbles up in my throat. It’s been well over four hours now. If I had to guess, I’d say seven. Sue touches my hand, sensing my distress. “Four hours one way, and four hours back,” she says, struggling to keep her voice level. “We have to be patient. Brock knows we’re here. They’ll come for us.”

  Sue changes the bandage on the back of my head, and I wonder if it really needed to be changed, or if Sue is just looking for something to occupy her hands.

  “Is it getting better?” I ask, daring— for the first time— to let myself think about it.

  “Much!” she says, patting my shoulder, but I notice her fingers shake a little, and now I’m sure Sue is lying to me.

  And as the day wears on, I convince myself she’s not the only one.

  The sun sinks, growing heavy, and so, too, does my mood. A spider in my brain knits a cobweb of conspiracy, connecting vague images and words with feverish intent. I withdraw into myself, and even as we’re collecting sticks or playing “I spy,” I’m somewhere else, waiting, supposing, indulging the many “what-ifs.”

  What if Mike was the one who…

  No. If Mike is not who I think he is, then I’ve done it again. I’ve chosen a person I can’t trust and, as a consequence, proven that I can’t trust myself, or my judgment, or the little voice within that says “there’s safety, here.” Mike didn’t set the fire. He couldn’t have.

  The spider in my brain churns, changing directions, coming at the same idea from a different angle.

  Isn’t it strange? He disappeared as soon as the fire started…

  “He was looking for me,” I answer, determined to believe in something good.

  Why didn’t he answer when you called his name? If he wanted to find you, he would’ve done it by now.

  I can’t answer that one, so the spider keeps weaving, his legs at the loom, building new castles from the bones of the ones he’s torn down.

  He’s lying to you about Cassandra… what else is he capable of?

  “I don’t know,” I answer, and I must have accidentally said the words out loud, because both the Hardingers are looking at me, eyes wide with concern. Their hands are still holding the playing cards we’ve been using for a game of poker, broken sticks as the chips.

  Sue puts a hand to my forehead. She pulls it away as if she’s been burned. “Definitely warm,” she says, shaking her head at Ken.

  She insists on changing the bandage on the back of my head again, applying more antibiotic ointment, fretting about whether it’s most effective to use it all in one sitting, or dispense it over time. She disappears for awhile, the
n returns with some leaves. She mutters something complicated about their antiseptic properties, placing them under the bandage with more ointment, but I’m not listening anymore. Still, I tell her not to worry, that she’s doing a great job, and that I appreciate her and Ken very much. I don’t mention that I’m being careful to say all the right things, just in case I go into septic shock in the night and can’t be saved. I want Sue to know I’m thankful for her; women are always being taken for granted— continuing the pattern won’t be one of my last acts.

  Ken suggests we go to sleep, and I curl up into a ball, using my jacket as a pillow. Ken and Sue are still in their Patagonia puffers, so it must be cold outside. I wouldn’t know, because I’m a raging fire.

  Sleep calls, and I let the spider weave his web, watching as it becomes a disjointed narrative, dreamlike in the night, but convincing all the same. It’s hard to catalogue my thoughts— feverish, racing— and I’m not sure who’s at the wheel. But I know the story is about Mike… and about me… and about the wolf inside me who hasn’t stopped howling since we left camp.

  I wonder over the nature of the fabric between “me” and “him” that makes an “us;” whether there’s always been holes in it, or if we make them, or if I see them even when they aren’t there.

  I turn the word “trust” inside out, and try to define it without using the word itself, but the seams keep showing and I don’t know how to scrub them out. I wear the word anyway, buttoning it up over my bra. Suddenly I’m in high school again, walking locker-lined hallways and worrying other people will notice I’m not sure what my shirt says.

  Next I’m a wolf in a pack, running, running— we fly through the woods, free and bound all at once, as if we’ve found that perfect balance between companionship and independence. But then I’m at the front of the pack, and Mike is beside me, and he says to me, “You’re a wolf and so am I. How could we possibly trust each other with such big teeth?”