The Way It Ends

by Marnie Vinge

  I hear the coyotes in the distance. Not far enough for comfort, I note. They quiet suddenly and I’m able to hear something else. Something human. I hear her—Vanessa—moving through the trees that line the creek.

  The trees move as though just parted by something moving through them. She’s close. I take off, running towards them. It’s my hope that I’ll find her before she’s aware that I’m chasing her, but I’ve learned not to hold out much hope out here.

  I pass into the wooded area. Cedar trees line either side of the creek and I’m struck again by the image of their branches grasping at my clothes like boys pawing at the hem of my skirt, eager to get their hands somewhere they don’t belong.

  The image is fleeting, just like all the thoughts I’m able to entertain. My focus keeps straying from the task at hand. I wonder if it has something to do with the head injury that I sustained in the study. Then I’m thinking of Tom. The fact that he’s dead. The fire encroaching on the studio. Now Birdie. My pace quickens as I’m reminded of why I’m here in the first place. I force my feet forward as the image of her crooked gap-toothed grin plays like B-roll footage in my mind.

  I emerge from the trees and I see Vanessa.

  She’s scaling the other side of the creek, climbing out onto the bank and disappearing into the woods once more. The baby protected in her arms, she moves quickly.

  I hop into the creek bed, the jump enough to jar my bones. I race across, dodging the dinosaur tracks that I had been so entranced by earlier in the week. On the opposite side, I hike up until I’m faced with the edge of the tree line once more.

  I can hear them. I hear Vanessa panting with the effort of carrying a newborn child through the dense cedar copse. I hear her stumble, the baby cry. It’s a good sign, I tell myself. I follow the noises they make, and I emerge on the other side.

  She runs, her pace slowing.

  I follow her in the night. We are on the road that led me here to begin with. I’m out. I’ve made it out. But this one last obstacle stands in my way. I have to get the baby from her.

  She turns, looks over her shoulder. Her mouth parts as if to scream for help. As though I’ve come to take something from her that is truly hers. It dawns on me that she believes this. She believes that the baby belongs with her and not Birdie. She’s as delusional as Tom.

  I catch up to her.

  “Vanessa!” I call.

  My voice echoes across the field. I can make out the lights of vehicles down the road about three-quarters of a mile from us. The edge of town is waiting. The FBI is waiting. I just have to get there.

  Her name is like blasphemy. A curse hollered inside the walls of a church. She turns to face me. The baby clutched in her arms. Her shirt wraps the child like swaddling. Her face and shoulders bear the bloody marks of her fight with the cedar trees. They have clawed and scratched at her body much the way they did mine, but without protection, she was vulnerable.

  Her eyes are what strike me the most, though.

  Those same eyes that I’d seen staring down at me—staring through me—when Tom was on top of my waist, bearing down with all his weight on my throat.

  There is something there.

  Madness.

  I recognize it. It’s the same wild fury that I saw in her eyes the night she slapped me at the party. Pure unadulterated rage. It’s the look of a woman that’s willing to do whatever the hell she has to do to keep what she has. And she’s already lost so much.

  I approach with hands raised, trying to appear non-threatening.

  “Vanessa,” I say her name again. I want Vanessa to know that she matters, that what she wants matters.

  “Get back,” she says. Her voice is ragged, worn like old leather. She’s out of breath, panting, her chest heaving. I make out sweat around her collarbone. The baby has stopped crying.

  “Vanessa,” I’m pleading now.

  “I said, get back,” she repeats. This time her voice is stern, finding itself again.

  “I know he hurt you,” I say.

  “You know nothing.”

  I pause and try to think of what to say next, how to phrase what needs to be vocalized in order to get her to see reason.

  She takes a step backwards.

  And then it dawns on me.

  I approach again. Taking a few steps forward.

  “This child isn’t Tom’s,” she says through tears.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “The reason he said it was sent to him by God is because Tom is—was—sterile.”

  The revelation stops me.

  “But what about—”

  “It was someone else’s. Someone that I was in love with,” she answers without having to hear the question.

  My mouth parts, ready to speak before my mind. I can’t put a voice to what I’m feeling. It had never occurred to me that the child might not be Tom’s. He knew, though. He knew all along.

  “It’s better this way,” Vanessa says, clutching the baby to her chest tightly.

  I take another step forward, driving her back along the side of the road.

  “Vanessa,” I say. “I need you to let me have that baby.”

  “No!” she shouts. The baby cries at the sharp sound. She turns to shush it, comfort it. I approach more closely.

  “You know this isn’t right,” I say.

  I take several steps forward.

  Vanessa looks again at me and backs up. I spot what I’m seeking then. In the moonlight, the metal glows. I step forward again, driving her back.

  “This child—FUCK!”

  She steps directly into the bear trap on the side of the road. As the trap clamps down on her ankle, she drops the baby. I watch in slow motion as the child falls toward the grass. I race forward, not watching my step as I approach.

  I dive for the child, scooping it from the ground.

  I stand up and look down into my arms. The baby scrunches up her face, letting out the purest cry I’ve ever heard. I turn and look at Vanessa, writhing on the ground, struggling with the bear trap.

  She looks up at me. Tears streak down her cheek and glisten in the moonlight. She parts her mouth as though to say something, and I pause, long enough to hear it. But instead of speaking, she closes her mouth.

  There’s nothing left to say.

  IONE

  “Ione!” Vanessa wails after me.

  I have to turn off the instinctive part of myself that wants to go back and help her. She’ll be fine, I tell myself. She’s stuck there. She’s not getting away. And she’s not dying.

  It’s enough to keep me going. That and the idea that I have to get the baby to safety. I look down as I jog. Her eyes are that cloudy blue that all babies’ eyes seem to be. I wonder what color they’ll end up. If they’ll match her mother’s. Or her father’s.

  Who is her father?

  I don’t have time to speculate. The energy that it takes to focus on finding my footing as I descend back into the creek bed, cross it, and climb up and out steals any mental prowess I might otherwise be able to devote to the question.

  For now, it doesn’t matter.

  Now all that matters is getting out of here. Getting back to Birdie. If she’s alive.

  I try not to go down that dark path. I’m familiar with catastrophizing. Ever since my father died, I’ve lived my life that way. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it doesn’t seem like a far stretch for the imagination to get there right now. I know that Birdie’s in dire straits. I just have to hope that someone got to her before the fire did.

  Out of breath, I reach the tree line. I hold the baby girl close to my chest, being sure to cover her face with Vanessa’s shredded blouse. I give her the most protection I can from the errant branches that we’ll encounter on our way back to the Jeep.

  Vanessa’s voice echoes in the night like the howl of a coyote.

  The thought occurs to me that the pack of them I saw earlier could descend on her. Coyotes don’t attack people, though. Do they? Gui
lt washes over me. I shouldn’t have left her. But what choice did I have?

  She didn’t leave me with one.

  I emerge from the trees and see the two Jeeps parked side by side, the driver’s side door of Vanessa’s still standing wide open. I go to mine and lay the baby in the passenger seat. The drive requires all my focus to keep from jarring the newborn too much with each bump and rut that I pass over.

  The fire becomes clear again.

  Orange reaches up to the inky blackness of the sky and they meet where the smoke plumes. A sinking feeling overtakes me. There’s no way that Birdie survived if she didn’t make it out of the studio.

  I stop the Jeep and look at my passenger.

  Just then, I see headlights speeding towards me. I jump from the driver’s seat to the ground, waving my arms trying to flag them down. They stop.

  It’s a Humvee. Black, probably armored. Two men hop out in full tactical gear, weapons raised.

  “Get on the ground!” the first one out shouts at me. His voice is gruff and brusque. The kind of voice that’s had to make such demands on people before only to have them test his patience.

  I don’t have any intention of doing that tonight.

  I kneel slowly, keeping my hands raised in the air.

  “Who are you?” the second man demands, their weapons trained on me.

  “Ione Larsen,” I say. “I’m a journalist.”

  They drop their guns.

  “Did you get Birdie?” I ask.

  They look at each other and then back at me.

  “We need you to come with us,” they say.

  One of them moves forward to help me off my knees.

  “Vanessa—Tom’s wife—she’s still out there,” I say, breathless. The adrenaline that dumped into my system at the sight of a loaded weapon pointed in my face starts to subside, leaving me shaky.

  “We’ll get her,” the other one says.

  “The baby!” I cry.

  One of the men runs around to the passenger side of the Jeep after I tell him what’s going on. Visible relief washes over his features when he brings the baby over to the Humvee.

  The three of us get back into the Humvee, me in the back. The SWAT team officer in the passenger seat holds the baby and I’m grateful. I don’t think I have the energy required to care for her right now. I don’t know if my arms have the strength to hold her.

  We pass by the burning ranch.

  I ask again about Birdie.

  “She’s on her way to the hospital,” the one driving says.

  I sigh audibly.

  “She’s not out of the woods, though,” he adds. I make eye contact with him in the rearview mirror. “She’s lost a lot of blood.” The way he says it, slow and soft, makes me think that there’s more he’s not saying. Like he’s holding back making the speculation that she won’t make it. I’m glad he does. Whether that’s denial or not, I’m not sure. But right now, I’m not prepared to deal with the reality of things.

  We pass by the ranch, driving through the field to get back to the road.

  Firetrucks wait at the gate, not having been given the go-ahead yet. It’s a crime scene, I realize. The place that I’ve spent the last few days is now a crime scene. As we pass through the gate, I spot the journalist that tipped me off on how to get the best shots of Revelation Ranch. I look out the window, staring into his eyes, but he doesn’t see me. He stares at the flaming compound, entranced by the tragedy unfolding.

  Others surround him, watching, too. News vans with satellite dishes adorning the tops wait for the signal to go live. Reporters brush lint from their clothes, getting ready for the perfect shot. A shot that will make a career.

  And for them, that’s all this is. A defining moment of their careers. Someone they loved isn’t lying dead inside the walls of the compound, hair being singed from his body, flesh melting on the bone, and scarce layers of fat combusting as flames engulf what’s become his tomb.

  I turn and look out the rear window as I’m jostled over the cattle guard. The place is rubble, reduced to a shadow of what it was. Everything that Tom built turned to ash.

  We stop a little way down the road. Other SWAT team members and FBI agents are waiting to receive us. I climb out of the back, my legs like gelatin. I feel like I’ve just run the Boston marathon.

  A man steps forward.

  “Wyatt Davis,” he says, holding out a hand. “You must be the journalist.”

  He’s strikingly handsome. Young, too. Maybe my age. His black hair is neatly trimmed and his facial hair matches. He’s clean cut and his handshake is strong. Something that my grandpa would have appreciated.

  “Ione Larsen,” I say.

  “Come with me,” he says.

  He turns and quickly we’re walking right into the middle of the FBI’s set up.

  “Miss Hauer told us that Mr. Wolsieffer has died,” Wyatt says. He says this so matter-of-factly that it takes a moment for me to absorb it. The names, both familiar, but the verb phrasing is impossible to digest. How can Tom be dead?

  It takes me a minute to answer. I open my mouth, ready to affirm the facts, but the urge to deny reality creeps up on me like a stalker in a dark alley.

  Finally, I nod.

  “And his wife stabbed him?” Wyatt asks.

  I notice that another FBI agent is taking this down.

  “I’m sorry if this is difficult, but it’s important that we get your statement right now,” he says. He forces a smile. It’s sad but comforting and I feel a connection to him immediately.

  I nod and I go through the motions with Wyatt and the other FBI agent. He talks to me for a while afterwards while I’m waiting for a car to take me back to the motel. I ask again about Birdie. Can I see her? He doesn’t think I’ll be able to just yet. His tone is more hopeful. I cling to that, making a note that the FBI man thought that Birdie would be okay. I tuck it neatly into a fold of my brain, ready to pull it out and show the universe if it decides otherwise.

  Finally, Wyatt leads me to the car that will take me back to the motel. I get inside and the drive is a blur. The nighttime landscape of the panhandle looks like a sea of inky darkness in the night. I roll down the window and gaze heavenward. The stars prick the black velvet background like pinpoint holes letting sunlight into an otherwise darkened space. I roll down the window and my hand finds its way to the breeze, riding it like a wave all the way back into Guymon.

  The agent that takes me back arranges for another key to my room. I go inside. My belongings are still on the ranch, I realize. My cell phone. My car is out there. Everything that I need to function in society. But I’m too exhausted to care.

  I get in the shower and turn it as scalding hot as I can stand. The steam swirls around my body, enveloping it for a moment in whatever protection it has to offer. Stepping out into the room, the air feels icy. Refreshing. I wrap my hair in a towel, and I turn on the television.

  The burning compound is on every news channel. Images of people fleeing, the firefight that went on, and the flame-swallowed buildings replay on a loop on each channel. Finally, I turn it off. Unwilling to watch anymore of what I’ve already lived through.

  I turn out the lights and climb into bed. The sheets are hardly thousand thread count at a luxury hotel, but they feel amazing. They are clean and they are cool. And that’s all I need.

  My eyes shut on their own accord, exhaustion taking its toll. I force them to stay shut, even when the image of the man burning alive, inhaling the ash of his own flaming skin, won’t let me rest.

  It dawns on me that this will probably be with me for a while. The whole thing. And then I think of Tom. The whole thing is surreal. The way his life went. The way it ended. The fact that it ended. It doesn’t seem possible.

  But I know, better than anyone, that death is possible.

  And it comes for all of us in the end.

  IONE

  3 MONTHS LATER

  It’s Friday night, and that means movie night. Just the th
ree of us. The two adults doing their best to keep Sasha pacified enough to finish a feature length film. Usually, it works. Tonight, she’s fussy.

  Birdie picks her up from the couch where she lays between us.

  “I think someone needs a diaper change,” she says with a smile. She holds the little girl up in the air, raising and lowering her to Sasha’s delight. The baby squeals, the first joyous noise she’s made since I got here tonight. I take a sip of my wine, glad that I don’t have to worry about the alcohol content of my breast milk.

  Despite how adorable Sasha is, I’m never having children.

  Birdie takes the baby and leaves the room. I seize the opportunity to refill my wine glass. It’s my second and will be my last for the evening. Birdie has paused the documentary we were watching—something on serial killers—in a moment where Jeffrey Dahmer’s face looks so ordinary. I look at him, frozen in time on the screen across the bar top from me. There’s nothing about him that seems like a serial killer.

  And then it dawns on me how little we really know people.

  How little I really knew Tom.

  Or perhaps I did know him, and I just didn’t want to acknowledge who he really was.

  Birdie returns to the room, Sasha in tow.

  She sighs as she sits down on the couch with the baby. The two of us sit silently for a moment.

  “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m a mom,” she says. “Bet you never pictured that.” She laughs. It’s high and nervous. I can tell she wants me to make her feel better.

  “Life is strange,” I smile.

  She nods. I reach for her hand.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I tell her. I look at her. Maybe it’s the second glass of wine, but I feel particularly happy that Birdie made it out alive.

  She spent a week in the ICU after the incident at the ranch. Finally, they let her move to a normal room and shortly after that she got to come home. Now she lives in Norman, only a few miles from me, with the baby and the baby’s father.

  Ollie.

  The two of them fell in love shortly after the ranch was built. Ollie came out right after Birdie made the land purchase. The two of them spent long hours working together, building Tom’s dream. And they soon discovered that they had dreams of their own. Before long, Birdie was pregnant. They were terrified, she told me. Tom never once expressed any notion that the baby might not be his, even though he had to have known it.