The Wild Lands

by Paul Greci

  I’m glad for the wet earth because it slows me down a little. I dig my hands and elbows into it and get a face full of mud but just keep dancing forward. Downward.

  Up ahead I see that the cliff is eroded and almost vertical so I turn again, trying to avoid the steep part.

  After I turn, I thrust my legs down and out and lean backward in an attempt to regain some control. But the cliff has other plans for me, and I start to slide straight down. I’m thankful that it’s mud and not rock. I dig my palms and heels in and try to control my slide. The rain is pounding and I’m a giant mud ball sliding down the soft cliff, but I can see the green blur growing bigger.

  My heels connect with something solid and I’m propelled forward. I let out a scream as my entire body catches only air, but I’m almost there. I lean forward, but not far enough, and when I hit the ground, I land on my backpack and hear the crunch of glass. I hope it’s only a jar or two.

  My head feels like it’s still rushing forward, and I get dizzy, like I jumped out of a moving car or off a bicycle and then hit the ground. But I’m lying here, stopped. And totally covered in mud.

  I hear one long scream and turn toward the cliff but can’t see anything. I try to wipe the mud from eyes but my hands are muddy, which just makes things worse.

  I force myself to stand up and I stumble. I slip my pack off. I have to get the mud out of my eyes, have to be able to see.

  Jess, I think. Was that her scream? I pry my eyes open with my thumbs and index fingers. They sting like they’ve been sprayed with soapy water. I keep them open for a moment, staring up at the cliffs, but see no one.

  “Jess,” I yell through the rain that is still pounding down. I cup my hands, catch some raindrops, and rub my hands together until they feel mostly clean. Then I catch more water and splash it into my eyes until I can keep them open without too much burning.

  I keep expecting to see someone tumbling down, but no one comes. I think about the lone scream I heard.

  Just one scream, the word no all stretched out.

  There could’ve been others. I mean, I was pretty caught up in my own descent, concentrating on trying to stay alive.

  I get this sick burning feeling in my stomach.

  Where is everyone?

  CHAPTER

  30

  I CALL OUT AGAIN AND again and keep glancing up at the cliffs, but encounter only emptiness. I’m a mud sculpture melting in the rain. I turn toward the trees, wanting to take shelter, but I have to keep searching.

  The light is dimmer down here, the fissure walls acting as dark barriers.

  I try to replay the journey in my mind, but it grows all fuzzy after the first switchback. I was heading east and then I turned.

  It was a sharp turn, I remember. A turn I almost missed. And if I’d missed it, I would have … I would’ve kept going east either in the air or on the cliff. Turning seemed like the only option, but maybe it wasn’t.

  And one scream was all I heard, but that was later. After I landed on my back and broke a jar, or more than one. I glance at my pack. Then I take a breath. One thing at a time, I tell myself.

  East. East. East.

  I shoulder my pack—it feels twice as heavy with the coating of mud—and head east, yelling for Jess. Yelling for anyone. For everyone. Even Dylan.

  The rain is backing off, becoming gentler, kissing my face instead of punching it. I’m not sure how far to the west I slid but I’m pretty sure it was way beyond the equivalent of our starting point above. I glance back. I can see the trail my feet and arms cut across the slope as I came down after the switchback. Then where I turned again and then where I plowed almost straight to the bottom until I turned into an airborne mud ball and landed on my pack.

  I scan the cliff for other trails but don’t see any.

  The switchback. Did they all miss it? But the scream. That one scream. I feel an ache in my gut. Jess.

  I keep walking—my feet sinking into the mud and making sucking sounds with every step—scanning the cliff face in the hope that I’ve missed something, because I don’t want to believe that I’m alone down here. But that’s how it feels. Did someone come? Were they ambushed after I started down?

  I swallow the panic and keep walking. Then I spot something blue bumping up from the ground in front of me. Just a mound of blue maybe fifty yards ahead. I try picking up the pace but the mud keeps grabbing me around the ankles, making me earn every step.

  A blue backpack. A blue backpack. I see legs, too. A blue backpack attached to a body, facedown, mostly buried in mud.

  Blue. Blue. Blue.

  Dylan. Mike. Dylan. Mike.

  Blue backpack. They each had one.

  Impact. I look up. I look down. Soft mud.

  A long fall.

  A scream.

  Dylan. Or Mike.

  I reach down and shake the backpack. Then a shoulder. But I know it’s no use.

  I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies. More dead people than live ones the past few years. I look up again. There are no marks on the cliff face. No marks of someone scrambling for a hold, for purchase. No slide marks at all. Like he jumped from the top.

  I let my eyes fall to the backpack. Then to the body. The unmistakable legs as long as my own. I reach out and shake Mike’s shoulder again but there’s no response. The mud must’ve sucked in around him on impact.

  Where is everyone else? I look up at the cliff again. The body is almost even with the switchback point, but not quite.

  I wish it was Dylan. And then I feel bad for wishing that. But it’s true.

  I grab the backpack and pull. “Mike,” I say, “Mike.”

  The resistance from the mud pulls back. I bend at the knees and yank again. I feel the body move, then settle into the mud. I pull again. The mud makes this sucking sound, and one side of the body pops free.

  I keep pulling until I have him lying on his side, his back to me. I yank his free arm toward me, brush the mud from his wrist, and feel for a pulse.

  “Come on,” I say. “Be there.”

  I don’t know what else to do. I mean, what can I do? I reach my hand over his head and put it next to his lips and nose, hoping to feel some air moving in and out of his lungs, but there’s nothing.

  I grab his wrist again, and press my fingers into the spot just below his thumb. Nothing. I feel his neck for a pulse. Nothing. I check his wrist again.

  “God dammit, Mike! Wake up! Wake up!”

  I wonder if anyone else is even alive. And if they are, why I haven’t heard them. Why haven’t they come looking for me? Max and Jess and Tam were supposed to come down before Mike. I don’t understand.

  I set Mike’s hand down. Then gently roll him back over. I don’t want to see his face. The twisted pain I imagine would be on it. The bruising. Nose probably smashed from the impact.

  My legs are wobbly, but I need to keep moving to see what has become of Jess.

  CHAPTER

  31

  I KEEP HEADING UPSTREAM—EAST. The stream bends closer to the cliff, and the hiss of flowing water fills my ears. I can see the switchback spot, and now I can see that if I’d missed the turn, I’d have had to contend with a narrow ravine that cuts the slope in two. You would definitely catch some air if you didn’t turn. And if you didn’t catch enough air, you’d end up in the ravine. I shudder. Are they all piled up and unconscious or dead in the ravine? But wouldn’t they have tumbled to the bottom even if they did fall in there?

  I check out the angle I traveled and, with my eyes, extend it to the far side of the ravine. A faint trail dances in and out of my vision in the dim light. Is it really a trail? Or is my mind just making it into one? The trail is much less distinct than mine, but maybe it’s just a different kind of soil. It’s lighter in color, tan instead of dark brown. Maybe the ravine is some kind of geologic dividing line.

  The rain has completely stopped, but the wind has started blowing from the east, whooshing down the fissure.

  I shiver.

/>   If I was on top, I’d be in the sun, but the sun probably only hits the bottom of the fissure for a few hours a day. It’s a different world down here. A narrow, green world, damp and cold right now.

  Someone has to be at the end of that trail.

  I keep walking along the base of the cliff. On the other side of the ravine, the trail continues down at a slightly steeper pitch. I picture my sister navigating that cliff, jumping a ravine. I know she’d give it her best shot, but maybe it was too much to ask of her. Mike’s lifeless body flashes into my mind.

  I spot another ravine. The trail continues on the other side of it at an even steeper pitch.

  I catch a whiff of salmon and remember the crunch of glass. My backpack has to be a mess inside. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pick the shards of glass out of the fish so we can eat it. We, I think. I hope there’ll be a we.

  “Jess,” I yell. “Jess.” My voice bounces back and forth between the fissure walls, with the stream gurgling in the background. My heart pounds in a panic, like it’ll explode if I don’t find my sister.

  “Trav! Trav!”

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I can hear her, just barely, like a kitten trapped way up high in a tree, but I can’t see her.

  I call back and stand still, waiting.

  Nothing.

  I run forward a dozen steps, the mud sucking at my ankles, then stop and call out again.

  “Trav,” I hear.

  Jess. My Jess. Where are you? Images of Mom and Dad flash into my brain. And Jess.

  The cliff buttresses out, blocking my view up the fissure. I scan the buttress but don’t see her. I don’t see anyone. Not even a trail.

  I round the buttress and keep looking up, trying to imagine her stuck on the slope, teetering on a tiny ledge. How would I get to her?

  “Trav.” Her voice explodes in my ears, and I jerk my head toward the sound. And there, right at the edge of the skinny birches and willows, I see her small frame standing over two muddy lumps.

  CHAPTER

  32

  “MIKE MUST’VE FALLEN FROM THE top, or close to it,” I say.

  Smoke from the fire snakes upward. I never thought I’d be this happy to see a fire in the summer again. I’ve collected a bunch of dead willow branches, stripped some birch bark from a couple of birch trees and, with my fire starter, rained sparks onto the crumpled bark until it ignited.

  “I heard a scream behind me,” Tam says. “I’d just started down the trail but couldn’t look back. I was too scared I’d fall.”

  “I think I heard it, too,” Max says. “When I was jumping one of the ravines. I think it was the second one, but I’m not sure.”

  Nobody has seen Dylan. We called and called for him with no response. Dylan must’ve seen what happened. And if he did see his brother fall, why isn’t he down here looking for him? Unless he’s fallen too and we just haven’t found him.

  We’ve taken everything out of our packs. Broken glass, salmon, and clothes with splotches of salmon oil. We still have sixteen intact jars of salmon between us. And at least seven broken jars.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Jess says. “I was too busy following Max. She was flying.”

  My right shoulder aches. Tam has bloody scratches running up and down one of her cheeks and a sore ankle. Max says her knee throbs when she puts weight on it. And Jess is having trouble making a fist with her left hand because she’s sprained her fingers.

  Max takes the small metal pot she’s been carrying in her pack and limps over to the creek to fill it. Back at the fire she puts some strips of oily salmon into the pot, then sets it on some hot coals off to the side of the fire.

  The birches are uniformly tall and narrow, reaching for the limited sunlight that slips between the fissure walls. The willows bush out a little more than the birches, but are narrower than the willows I remember from home. Leafy green fireweed with purple flowers grows skinny, too, as does the wild rose. All this life in one little spot, stretching for sun.

  I build up the fire, and we take our clothes off and drape them on branches so they’ll dry. We’re all sitting close to the fire and it’s dim under the trees in the fissure. Max stretches her arms above her head, and I catch a silhouette of her side profile and her full breasts. I quickly look away.

  Tam sits directly across from me. She’s thinner than Max, more like a wild animal made to run and hunt. But there’s a softness to her in the firelight.

  I press my legs together. Tam and I. We each killed a man the day we met and then a few days later worked together to kill a bear when we barely knew each other. And we still don’t know much about each other, but there’s a certain comfort that comes when you share intense experiences. When you work together in a survival situation. So even though I don’t know her, she feels familiar. She’s tossed a few smiles my way, too. But that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to stare at her, so I try to give her space with my eyes and keep them on the fire.

  “I love the feel of the heat on my bare skin,” Max says. “A luxury.”

  No one says anything in response.

  Then I say, “I think it’s actually going to get dark down here for a few hours,” trying to pretend I’m thinking about something other than the person sitting across from me. “Not dark enough for stars but way darker than up there.” I point to the rim of the fissure.

  The fire burns down. I put a few more sticks on and we climb into our coveralls.

  “We need some rest,” I say. “But we also need to keep watch. In pairs. I’ll take the first watch.”

  “Me too,” Max says.

  * * *

  “Your sister,” Max whispers, “she’s amazing. Never gives up.”

  Max and I are sitting in front of the coals. We talked about leaving the trees to keep watch where it’s more open but decided we all need to stick together. Tam and Jess are lying down, shoulder to shoulder, on the other side of the fire ring.

  “You’ve been a big help,” I whisper. “Sometimes I just don’t know what to say to her, or how to comfort her. Especially when she calls out for my mom in her sleep. There’s no way I can’t disappoint her.” I hesitate. “It helps to have someone besides just me. She likes you.”

  “Jess is easy to like,” she says. “She reminds me of my little sister”—Max pauses—“may she be experiencing peace, wherever she is.” Max tells me about her family. About her father succeeding in killing the whole family, except herself.

  “I had to move into that group home,” Max whispers, “because I had no more family. Some of the girls were tough in there, especially on new arrivals. I am not a mean person, but I had to get mean to survive that place—at least at first.”

  “How long did you live there?” I put another willow branch on the coals.

  “About four years,” Max says. “I got good at reading stressed-out people and then acting in a way that made them relax. People fighting that don’t need to fight each other—that makes me sad.”

  A breeze shakes the tops of the trees, and water rains down from the wet leaves. I pull my knees toward my chest and catch a whiff of salmon from an oil splotch on my coveralls.

  Max shakes her head. “At one point there were twenty girls living in that group home. You couldn’t count on the staff to protect you, because there were so few workers. Then they fenced the whole place in and made it into a locked facility and had us do our school there, too. Not because we were all that dangerous but because that was the only way they could manage it with so few workers. About half of us would have been in foster care if that system hadn’t collapsed, too. At least we had three meals a day at the home.”

  “So they just locked you up?” I ask. “They could do that?”

  “When the state and the country are falling apart, they can do almost anything.”

  We sit quietly for a while and my mind switches to Dylan.

  I know Max is infatuated with Dylan. And that Dylan likes her, too. And thinking of Dylan—I just
don’t understand where he is. He was in total agreement about coming down here. He even found the trail and talked about the good energy he felt.

  “What do you think happened to Dylan?” I ask.

  She turns her head toward me. Our faces are inches apart. “I think…” Max pauses. “I think Dylan pushed Mike off the cliff and now he’s—”

  “Wait,” I say. I feel my forehead tighten. I go back and forth with this idea. I could see him wanting to push me, but not his own brother. “Why do you think he pushed him?”

  “I can’t explain it logically,” Max says. “You heard him talking about the fires and the cleansing. He’s crazy.”

  “But the way he can sense things, I thought you liked him. I mean, really liked him.”

  “At first I did,” Max says. “But after seeing how flipped out he was, I didn’t want to cross him. But I could tell he liked me, and I didn’t want to put us all in danger by pissing him off, so I played along. I figured it was the best thing to do. Not just for me, but for everyone.”

  “But I thought—”

  “I know what you thought,” Max says. “And I did think it was super cool that he’d seen that bear, and could pick out the lakeshore in the middle of the swamp. But believing in burning the land?” She shakes her head. “I wanted to cry when I heard that.”

  I say, “You had me fooled.”

  “Look at my clothes and hair,” Max says. “The only way I’ve survived this long is by fooling people. Until Jason and Patrick gave us these clothes and packs.” She sighs. “The other four girls that didn’t make it, that easily could have been me.”

  I nod, remembering what happened on the banks of the Yukon.

  “I just want to live in a world where I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not just to protect myself,” she says.

  I turn my face toward her, but then a big splash sends a jolt through my spine. I look toward the creek. I see nothing, but I know something has to be there.