The Onion Girl

by Charles de Lint

  “How much farther do you think it is?” Geordie asks.

  “To what?” I say. “Tyson?”

  He smiles. “Sure. Though I’m thinking more of a restaurant where we can grab something to eat. Or a motel for later. We’re not exactly geared for overnight camping.”

  I know he grew up in the country, but he’s beginning to sound like a city boy and I tell him as much.

  “I know we can rough it if we have to,” he starts to say, “but I’d rather sleep in a bed than a field, and eat in a restaurant instead of foraging for edible roots and …”

  His voice trails off. I look to see what’s distracted him and spy a plume of dust coming down the next hill. Squinting, I can see it’s being kicked up by the wheels of a red pickup truck. Geordie perks up beside me.

  “Hey, maybe we can catch a ride,” he says. “They’re going the wrong way, but if we can get back to the highway we can—”

  But I’m grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the ditch. He follows a couple of steps, then stops and that makes me stop, too.

  “Jilly,” he starts, but I interrupt him.

  “Come on,” I tell him, tugging on his arm. “We don’t want anybody to see us on this road before we’ve checked them out first.”

  I don’t know if the occupants of the pickup have spotted us yet. All I know is I want to be gone before they do. Geordie didn’t grow up in these hills, but I did. I know all the stories. Guys like my older brother liked nothing better than to go cruising along the edge of the rez, looking for Indians to harass. And if they couldn’t find any Indians, a couple of hippies’ d do just fine.

  Now maybe that pickup’s carrying no more than some old farmer or an Indian taking a back roads shortcut. But it’s just as likely to be full of the kind of white trash I grew up with who’ll want to have their idea of fun with us. A longhair like Geordie, they’ll just beat up. Me, well, they won’t beat me up. Or at least not right away. They’ll have other things in mind first.

  I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before. But I’m not as trusting as people think I am. Sure, I see the best in people, but that doesn’t mean it’s really there.

  “We have to go,” I say.

  And this time I give his arm a yank that pulls him off balance so that he has to take a few steps in my direction or fall down.

  I hear the pickup’s engine revving louder. Could be it’s just to make the steeper grade. More likely, they’ve spotted us.

  “Run!” I tell Geordie.

  I scramble down into the ditch, then back up the other side. Tossing my backpack over the fence, I squeeze through the strands of barbed wire. Geordie hesitates a moment longer, still not understanding, but when he sees I’m serious, he follows. I grab his fiddle and lift the wire when he reaches me, making it easier for him to get through the fence.

  “It’s not hunting season,” I say, “so they probably won’t have serious hunting rifles with them. But you can die just as easily from a .22.”

  Geordie gives me a shocked look. “Oh, come on.”

  “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

  “But—”

  I ignore him and take off at a run through the field, dodging around the scrub trees. Glancing over my shoulder, I see he’s following. I also see the pickup come to a skidding stop. Dust clouds around it, but I get a glimpse of a young hard face looking at us through the driver’s side window. I have to look away or I’ll run smack into some little tree, but I keep glancing back. Geordie’s almost caught up to me. I look again and I see someone standing on the hood of the pickup. There’s a glint of metal.

  “Start weaving,” I tell Geordie.

  “What?”

  But then he hears the crack of the rifle. Something goes whistling by us, far to the right. Now Geordie knows this is serious. He almost passes me.

  “Puh … pace. Your. Self,” I tell him, the words coming out in gasps.

  I drop the blanket but don’t go back to get it. There’s another shot, also wide. This time it’s on the left.

  I don’t think they’re really trying to hit us. This is just a laugh for them, scare the shit out of a couple of hippies. But it’s frightening all the same. Maybe they’re not aiming right for us, but that doesn’t mean they won’t hit us. Doesn’t mean they won’t come over that barbed wire fence themselves and do a little hunting. And if they do catch up with us …

  My friends complain that I’m fearless—the way I’ll walk around by myself at night or won’t back down from bullies—but that’s not true at all. I get just as scared as anybody else in a situation like this. The difference, I guess, is that I no longer let my fear paralyze me. I’ve already been to the bottom, thanks to my brother, to my boyfriend-turned-pimp Rob, to the johns that got mean or violent, to the creeps on the street getting a laugh at beating up some screwed-up little junkie, to all those people who like to power-trip on those more helpless than them.

  I’ll stand up and face them now, because what else can they do to me that hasn’t already been done? Kill me, I suppose, but I’m not afraid of dying. There were times in my life when death seemed a sweet promise, not something to fear.

  No, I stand up to them all now, each and every one of them, because to do otherwise is to start the long spiral back down to the bottom and I’m never going there again. My panic attacks only really come from having to deal with ordinary people and they’re centered around the shame of who and what I once was. It’s something I can’t quite shed, no matter how I try.

  I guess the scariest thing is knowing that it could have gone either way. If Lou hadn’t found me. If Angel hadn’t sweet-talked me into one of her programs. If the professor hadn’t been my sponsor. If Wendy hadn’t rescued me from the crowds on frosh week and walked me through registration. If Sophie hadn’t come to my rescue again on my first day of classes.

  I made a choice to be where I am today, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without people like them.

  When Lou first found me, I no longer even knew there was a choice anymore. But I got lucky. I got helped out of the darkness. And I did make the choice not to go back. And that led to the other choices by which I live my life: Not to back down. To help anybody I can. To find beauty in the unlikeliest places and show it to the rest of the world. That’s why I paint what I do. Why I do the volunteer work that I do. Why I look for the best in people.

  I’m not trying to build myself up here. I’m just trying to explain why I can seem fearless. Why I go out of my way to help others. I said that I made these choices, but the truth is I don’t have any choice in those matters. To do or be otherwise would make me no better than the freaks and monsters who tried their damnedest to cut me down and keep me there. Every day I live—offering a smile, a kindness, a helping hand, a painting—is a day I’ve stolen from them. It’s a day they can’t have.

  But there are times to stand up and there are times to cut and run. Out here, in the middle of nowhere like we are, there’s no percentage in standing up against a bunch of yahoos, probably drunk, certainly armed, definitely with a mean streak running through them.

  It’s different here, in the hills. There isn’t a cop on every corner. There’s nobody you can turn to. Everything depends on your reputation. Who you are, who you know. If you’re from a certain family, a certain part of town, a certain holler, no one will mess with you. If you don’t have the connection, then you become fair game. By the time the law gets called in—and it’ll have to be you that does the calling, if you’re even in enough shape to pick up a phone—it’s all over, one way or another.

  I’m not saying everyone’s like that. Far from it. But if you get caught alone somewhere by the ones that are …

  We’re almost to the forest now. Once we get there, we’ll be able to lose them if they decide to come chasing after us. But the forest presents its own set of problems. It’s easy to get lost there—easier than you’d think.

  They’re still shooting at us. I can hear more than one rifle, b
ut I can’t tell if there’s two or three. Some of the bullets are coming closer than I’d like. That’s a laugh. Any bullet coming in your direction is too close for comfort.

  Then we’re in under the trees. A bullet hits a pine tree to my left, right between Geordie and I. It skids off the trunk, spraying bark over us. A wood chip catches me in the back of the head and for a moment I think I’ve been hit. By the time I realize I haven’t, I’ve lost my balance and go tumbling to the ground, bumping into a tree trunk as I go down. Geordie turns when I fall and comes back to me, bends down. I’ve never seen his face so pale. He looks at me, back out to the field, down to me again.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. “Were you hit?”

  I’ve got a bruised shoulder from where I banged against the tree and I have to catch my breath, but basically I’m fine and give him a nod.

  “Can you … see them?” I ask when I get my breath back and sit up.

  He looks out between the trees again, starts to shake his head, then freezes. I follow his gaze and see them, in the field still and far enough away, but only for the moment. They seem to be arguing. We can hear the faint sound of their voices, but not what they’re saying. I grab a hold of some scrub sapling and start to get up. Geordie helps me the rest of the way.

  “If they decide to come after us,” I tell him, “we have to go deeper.”

  He nods. “How did you even know they’d start shooting at us?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you had us running before we could even see who they were.”

  “I knew there was a possibility,” I tell him. “That’s all. I figured better safe than sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “You hear about this kind of thing, rednecks and their guns and—”

  “Don’t call them that,” I say. “They’re just assholes. Most people you run into around here … well, maybe they won’t like the length of your hair, but they’ll keep their feelings to themselves.”

  “I was just—”

  “I know. But saying ‘redneck’ is like saying ‘blue-collar.’ Like there’s something wrong with people whose necks get red because they’re outside working all day, or who don’t wear a nice white shirt and tie because they’re a plumber, or a mechanic, or they work in a factory. It bugs me.”

  “But you’re always telling me how you grew up white trash.”

  I smile. “It’s different when I’m talking about myself. And besides. We were trash.”

  He starts to smile back, except we catch movement out in the field. Whoever was arguing to go back to the truck must’ve lost.

  “Come on,” I tell Geordie, grabbing his hand. “We’ve got to go deeper. But stick close. If we’re going to get lost, I’d rather get lost together.”

  He gives me an unhappy look, but I just shrug and start off at a trot, trying my best not to leave too much of a trail. You know, no broken branches, try not to kick the mushrooms or leave scuffs in the grass. I don’t know what I’m doing, really. I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was growing up, but I wasn’t Daniel Boone or some Indian scout, and I had no reason to hide my presence. I can only hope that those boys out there aren’t trackers.

  Happily, the land dips and rises so by the time they reach the forest, we’re well out of sight, up on the far side of a ridge I spotted when we first stepped under the canopy ourselves. We come across a game trail on the ridge and I get an idea.

  “Can you climb a tree?” I ask Geordie.

  He gives me a disgusted look. “What do you mean, can I climb? I grew up in the country. Not the country around here like you did, but we did have trees.”

  “Okay, okay. So start already.”

  I point to one of the pines up here on the ridge. Because they get better light than the ones on the slopes below, their lower branches are more filled out. If we can get high enough, you’d have to really be looking up to find us. I’m guessing these boys won’t do that much.

  “My fiddle,” Geordie says. “I can’t leave my fiddle.”

  “Loop the handle through your belt,” I suggest.

  He nods and does, starting up the tree when he’s done, the fiddlecase banging against the back of his thigh. I take my sketchbook out of my backpack and stick it down the back of my jeans so that my own hands will be free. My little tin of paints is flat and can fit into my pocket. I toss the pack onto the game trail where it runs down the other side of the ridge. The pack goes rolling down the incline and I check to make sure it’s visible before I pull myself up that broken off branch and start to climb as well.

  Maybe Geordie can climb, but I soon pass him, sticking out my tongue as I go by. I don’t know why, but the tightness is leaving my chest. I just don’t feel so scared anymore. I guess it’s because we’re actually doing something, instead of running like a pair of startled deer.

  We’re pretty high up and I can’t see the ground easily anymore through the thick cover of branches, when I hear them coming. Geordie and I freeze. I hug the trunk, then grimace as I realize I’ve put my face against a gooey stream of pine sap. When I pull my face away, my hair’s still stuck. Great. This is going to take forever to clean out. But that could be the least of our worries.

  My fear comes rushing back, a sharp adrenaline rush that makes it hard to breathe again. I look down at Geordie a branch below me. When he lifts his gaze to mine I see my own fear mirrored in his eyes.

  “Fer Christ’s sake, Roy,” says one of the boys.

  And they are just boys, I realize from what I can see of them. Nineteen, twenty tops. Greasy-haired, T-shirted trailer trash. I should know. I as much as grew up with their kind.

  “You plannin’ to tramp right up the mountain after ’em?” he goes on.

  “Hell, no,” the one called Roy responds. He horks up a wad of phlegm and spits it out. “I’m just havin’ me some fun.”

  “Hey, lookit,” a third voice says. “There’s somethin’ down on that game trail.”

  I hear them move off the ridge and almost lose my grip and fall out of the tree when they start shooting again. It takes me a heart-stopping moment to realize that they’re not shooting at us, but my knapsack. When the gunfire stops, the three of them start to laugh.

  “Well, that’s one backpack ain’t gonna cause us no more trouble,” one of them says.

  “Think there’s anythin’ in it?”

  “It’s all shot to hell if’n there was. ’Sides, who wants to touch that shit an’ get hippie cooties?”

  “Fuckin’ hippies. You cain’t tell the boys from the girls.”

  “Sure you can. The girls got their titties all floppin’ loose under their shirts.”

  “Well, I ain’t haulin’ my ass after them boys.”

  “Maybe they’re girls.”

  “Naw. Girls cain’t run like that pair done. They’d just fall down an’ start in a-cryin’.”

  “Man, they was like rabbits, the way they went tearin’ across that field.”

  “Bet they pissed their pants.”

  More laughter. So witty. Just like my brothers were. You wonder how they ever survive to grow up to be men when they start off with such little brains.

  Their voices have been getting louder as they come back up the ridge. They stop to light cigarettes and the smell of the tobacco comes drifting up to where we’re hidden.

  “What the hell do you think they was doin’ out here?”

  “Who knows? Who the fuck cares?”

  “Bet they was gettin’ back to the land.”

  “Or blowin’ each other.”

  “I’d like to see ’em blow the end of my rifle.”

  “Your rifle gets more ’n you.”

  “Fuck you, Thompson.”

  “Fuck yourself.”

  The voices begin to fade as they wander back to the field. Geordie looks up at me, but I shake my head. Not yet, I mouth. I want them to be good and far away before we start back down and maybe make some noise that would bring them back again. So we wait, butts getting s
ore from our awkward perches, arms and legs cramping. We don’t start back down until we hear the pickup starting up, a dull coughing engine sound that carries clearly in the still air.

  We’re all wobbly when we’re finally on the ground—as much from the adrenaline rush leaving us as from cramping muscles.

  “When they started shooting,” Geordie says, “I almost did pee my pants.”

  “Me, too.”

  Once my legs stop feeling so wobbly, I go over to my knapsack, but it’s pretty much beyond salvage. So much for a change of clothes and my toiletries. I manage to scavenge my toothbrush and some underwear that have bullet holes in them, but otherwise are wearable.

  “So now what?” Geordie asks.

  I look down the game trail, picking at the pine sap that’s gumming up my hair. All I manage to do is make my fingers sticky. I wipe them off on my jeans without a whole lot of success.

  “I don’t think we should go back to the road,” I tell him. “At least not for a while.”

  “You think they’ll wait around?”

  I shake my head. “But it’s a long stretch of road and they’ll probably cruise up and down it for a while. I think we should try going cross-country. How’s your sense of direction?”

  “Not as good as Christy’s. You can put him down anywhere and it’s like he has this compass in his head.”

  “Mine’s pretty good, too,” I tell him. “I know we’re southwest of Tyson right now, so it’s just a matter of keeping track of the sun and steering ourselves in the right direction.”

  Geordie gives me a dubious look.

  “Do you want to chance another encounter with Roy and Thompson and whatever that other idiot’s name was?”