by Craig Hansen
“No. Explore that. There are a million reasons why Fang could have disappeared. This promontory is home to snakes and bears and other wildlife. There are poisonous berries, if you don’t know what’s safe to eat and what’s not. Something made you say that, as your theory.”
I stretched, scratched my head, stared at the ground. “Maybe because of last night. Getting caught with weed. It’s why she’s here, right?”
Tim’s eyes kept scanning the shoreline, never looking directly at me, though his voice was deep, mild, comforting. “Let’s keep our focus on your reasons for being here. Hers are not your concern.”
“Hey, you asked.”
“I appreciate the insight. Are you guessing?”
I sighed. “Probably. Mostly. I don’t know any of you, not really.”
Tim nodded. “Excuse me. Call of nature. I’ll be back in a couple minutes. Don’t wander off.”
“Okay.”
The counselor walked purposefully into the woods and I sighed, then breathed in deep, enjoying the fresh, ocean-scented air, so unlike my childhood home of Northwest Wisconsin. I missed the deep woods of home, the beauty of the land, the presence of so many other Native people like me. I also longed for the freedom my grandmother, for all her faults, had provided. Lootah played it so strict with me, I felt as though I wasn’t trusted. My grandmother, who I’d lived with for a couple years after my parent’s divorce, never would have sent me on a hike like this. And grandma had never lied to me; not even once. I thought about the letter in my pocket, which I’d pulled from my backpack last night but never read. Part of my nightly ritual for the hike.
Lootah had given me one note for each day the hike was expected to last. Twenty-one in all. I’d read two so far. None of them were long, but for Lootah, who’d never finished college, it represented a significant effort. I pulled it out and looked at it. Day 3, it read on the back of the envelope in large, looping letters. I looked up and, seeing Tim still nowhere in sight, tore it open. It read:
Shabby,
Someone once say, a successful woman take the bricks the devil throw at her to lay a firm foundation.
Think on it.
Lootah
That was my mother, all right. Just a quote and not a clue about what it meant. I could relate to bricks being thrown at me. Heck, just being here on this hike was one of the most recent I’d had. Was my mother apologizing for that? That didn’t seem to fit. But the meaning of building a firm foundation puzzled me more. I’m only a teenager, just sixteen. What sort of foundation could I possibly have?
“What are you reading?”
I startled at the sound of Tim’s voice, so close to me. I must have been lost in deep thought. I held up the note, written on a compact, blue, three-by-five index card, waved it at him.
“A letter from my mom.”
“Mind if I read it?”
I shrugged and Tim took it, read it over. He nodded and handed it back.
“Your mother is a wise woman.”
“She’s the one who sent me here. So, I’m not sure about that.”
“And you think she had no reason for concern?”
I huffed. “She doesn’t like the friends I’m making, that’s all. So she sends me here, on a hike for troubled teens. Like that’s an improvement.”
The counselor nodded, rubbed his chin. “What kind of friends are you making?”
I rolled my eyes. Like I was going to talk about my friends with this stranger? “None of your business, Big Chief Oompah-Loompah.”
“I see. May I borrow that letter again?”
I handed it over. As soon as I did, Tim began tearing it up. “What are you doing? Stop! That’s from my mom!”
I launched myself at the older man, reaching, jumping for his hand to grab it away. He lifted it out of my reach, using his height to his advantage.
“It’s valuable to you?”
“What do you think, jerk-face?”
Tim kept tearing until it was torn almost to confetti, keeping both arms above him as he did so.
“Prick.” Without thinking, I balled one hand into a fist and hit the counselor in the abdomen, in the vicinity of his kidneys. He doubled over, the wind knocked out of him.
He held out both hands, cupped around the pile of pieces of paper that moments before had been my mother’s Day Three note to me. “Still want it?”
I advised him to perform an anatomically impossible sexual act.
“Do you?”
“It’s worthless to me now. God, I so hate you.”
I sighed and reached out, but as I did, Tim opened his hands and tossed all the pieces into the air. Some dropped to the ground, some got stuck to leaves and branches, and a few even caught onto the breeze and blew out over the north face, drifting beyond the promontory, down to the beach below.
“What the hell?”
Tim’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “You could regather the pieces. It would take time, sure. But it could be done.”
“Are you serious?” I wanted to scream at the man, but also to storm off. The urge to scream at him won out. “It’s impossible now!”
“Exactly.”
I launched myself at him again, hands shaped like claws, ready to go for his face, to scratch him. In a flash of movement, Tim spun me around and pinned my arms behind my back, immobilizing me.
I panicked.
Flailing, screaming, cursing, I ordered him to let go, to get off me, to stop touching me. I kicked behind myself and connected with his shin. Immediately, he released me and I leaped forward, falling to the forest floor, heaving.
“Whoa,” he said. “Sorry. I was just trying to restrain you.”
“Yeah? Well, that should be illegal.”
Tim remained silent, holding his shin. Which, I noticed, was now bleeding.
“What does exactly even mean?”
“Pardon?”
“You said exactly.”
“Shabby, you are cruel with words. This is the first I’ve seen you strike out physically, but your speech? It is one of your biggest problems, from what I’ve seen. You piled on with Sam in teasing Brena. You—”
“Point made! All right, Mister Man-Splainer? You didn’t have to tear up my letter from my mom, or try to put me in some weird wrestling hold, you ass. Taking something that’s mine and destroying it? Touching me? None of that is okay, Big Chief Oompah-Loompah.”
Tim grinned. “Clearly, something’s not getting through to you. Even after all this, you’re still trying to wound with words. Besides, aren’t you also Native American?”
I rolled over on the grassy forest floor, crying. Several moments of silence passed. Tim waited patiently, not moving to comfort me, but not leaving, either. After a while, I composed myself.
“I am Lakota, you piece of garbage. Why do you care so much about how I talk to people? Mom always says, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
“Let me put it this way. I’ll name a few famous people, you…. You tell me the first impression that comes to mind. Richard Nixon.”
“Liar.”
“Bill Clinton.”
“Pervert.”
“Taylor Swift.”
“Airhead.”
“Katy Perry.”
I hesitated. “Kind of a slut.”
Tim nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “So, you know all those people?”
“What? No. I never said that. Isn’t Nixon dead, anyway?”
“He is. My point is, everything you said was negative.”
“So? It’s all true, isn’t it?”
“But is it the whole truth? Nixon is famous for the Watergate scandal, resigning from office, and saying he wasn’t a crook. But he was also the president who ended the Vietnam conflict, for better or worse, and the first US president to visit communist China while in office. He was dead, probably, before you were born, but your first thought about him is liar.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Bill Clinton is forever linked t
o his affair with a young intern. But he was the last president to submit a balanced budget and one of the few to ever produce a budget surplus at the Federal level.”
“Okay, but he—”
“Taylor Swift is a new artist, and she writes a lot about relationships. So do most recording artists. But Taylor also landed a recording contract before ever reaching the age of eighteen.”
“Sure, but—”
“Katy Perry is also a new artist, and, yes, she sometimes writes controversial songs about sex. But her parents are both pastors and she even released a Christian music album under the name Katy Hudson before she changed her name and went for the Top Forty.”
“So what?”
“My point, Shabby, is you have strong negative opinions about all four of these people, none of whom you’ve ever met personally and one of whom died before you were born. Where did you come by these opinions?”
“It’s their reputation, all right? I didn’t create it for them.”
“And where do reputations come from?”
“It’s what people say about them.”
“Using?”
“Words. All right. I get it.”
“People are more complex than their reputations, Shabby. Often what we think of people is based only on what others have said. Might be true, might not. Either way, it’s not the whole picture. Do you think any of those folks will ever change those negative opinions, now that they’re out there?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess not.”
“That’s why I care about what you say to and about others, Shabby. I have a new saying for you, and I think it’s more accurate. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words do permanent damage. Heard that in a movie once.”
“Meaning?”
“A broken bone heals. A broken reputation? That’s as hard to put back together as that note I tore up. So watch what you say.” The counselor sighed. “Shabby, if we can’t find Fang soon, this whole hike will probably be canceled. I may not have a full three weeks with you to help you work through all your issues. So if you learn one thing from our time together, maybe learn that.”
We stood in the relative silence of the coast then, listening to the wind rustle leaves, to the low roar of the surf washing up on the sand below, the chirping of birds in the nearby trees. I thought over Tim’s words without speaking.
I stood and brushed the dirt and grass off my jeans. “Shouldn’t we be looking for Fang?”
Tim nodded and gestured with a sweep of his arm that I should lead the way. So I headed east, staying close to the north face, walking back until we merged back onto the trail leading to and from camp.
We found no sign of Fang.
“Shabby, what was it your mom said in that note?” Tim asked.
“That a successful woman takes the bricks the devil throws at her and turns them into a foundation. Or something like that….”
“See? You lost nothing today. Your mom’s note is in your heart now.”
“I’m still mad at you.”
Tim waved that off like a swarm of gnats. “Fair enough.”
Then he suggested we turn back to camp, check in with the others, and enjoy breakfast.
6
11 a.m.
“WHAT KIND OF OPERATION IS it that you’re running here?”
The barrel-chested police chief from Seaside looked bored more than exasperated, as far as I could tell. I imagined him to be closing in on retirement age due to his once-black, now silvering, hair. Yet, as I listened in with the rest of the hikers, I noticed he revealed his age to be only fifty. He sat on a log across from Tim and Mystelle, a look of misery dragging down the corners of his face, stretching it into a funhouse mirror that made it look wider and droopier than any human head ought to look.
Tim shifted on the log, then cleared his throat. “We’re a three-week intensive therapy program for troubled teens.”
“Therapy?” The cop waved a flyer, which Mystelle had given him when he’d arrived, at the counselors. “Says here you hike the Oregon Coast Trail.”
“We do.” Tim’s voice was cool and even.
Mystelle interjected, shooting Tim an impatient glance. “We mix an intense hiking regimen with our therapy encounters. We find it—”
“You tire them out, so they’re more likely to open up and talk their crap through at night?”
“That’s hardly—” Mystelle shrugged off the hand Tim placed on her shoulder.
Tim interjected, “Basically. Boiled down. Obviously, there’s more to it than that.”
The police chief scratched the back of his head with the clicker-end of his ballpoint pen. “Whatever. So how long you been hiking?”
“This is our third day,” Tim said.
“Why do you think this gal of yours—”
“Client.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“We’re licensed, bonded, insured, and registered with both the state of Oregon and the American Psychological Association. We also receive Federal funds, and—”
“Lady, you could be the First Lady’s personal shopper, for all I care. I’m here to take a missing person’s report. Usually we wait forty-eight hours, but in this case I’m making an exception for you, given the nature of what you do. But I have to understand it, to file the right paperwork, all right?”
Mystelle nodded, biting her lower lip hard. The cop noticed her swollen ankle and pointed to it with his pen.
“How’d you get that?”
“Dropping down from a tree I was chased up by a bear.”
“Boy, you people are just full of good reports for the parents of your clients here, aren’t you?”
Tim focused his attention on the Seaside officer. “Mystie’s a counselor, like me. No parent to report that to.”
“If you say so. Any theories on her disappearance?”
I spoke up. “She was caught with a small amount of pot on her last night. Maybe she didn’t want to face up to the consequences.”
My revelation, inserting myself into an adult conversation, drew some oohs from my fellow hikers.
“That’s enough, Shabby.” Mystelle shot me a stern look.
“Let us handle this, Shabby. Please.” Tim’s words were nearly drowned out by the police chief’s.
“Who’s she?”
“You just heard her first name. She’s one of our hikers. A client.”
“Where you from, Shabby?”
“Officer, please,” Mystelle said. “HIPPA guidelines—”
“I don’t care. Shabby?”
“I’m originally from Wisconsin, but I live in Nevada now, since shortly after my parents’ divorce.”
“Did you know this other girl well?”
“Fang? Not really. We didn’t talk much the first day, and then only for a few minutes yesterday. She was gone when we woke up this morning.”
“And you think she ran off in the middle of the night?”
“Based on what we know right now? It seems the simplest explanation. I was into Sherlock Holmes big-time a couple summers ago. Didn’t he say once that the simplest idea is usually the truth?”
The cop shrugged. “Search me. You do know that Sherlock Holmes is fake, right? Just a story someone made up? And I could be wrong, but that sounds like Occam’s Razor, not Shylock.”
“Sherlock.”
“Whatever.” The cop flipped his notebook shut and wiped his brow with the back of one sleeve. He focused his attention on the counselors again. “Look, you two, Shabby there is probably right. That’d be my first guess, actually. I’m gonna get back to my car, drive into town, get an all-points out on Fang Sung, finish up the paperwork, and wait to see what happens.”
“So, should we continue our hike, or do you need us to stick around?” Mystelle sounded concerned.
The cop shrugged. “Up to you. The rest of you will be on this trail for the next couple weeks or so, right?”
“Almost three,” Tim clarified. “Assuming it’s not canceled.”
“Not by me, it’s not. You keep hiking, you won’t be that hard to find. But don’t ask me what you should do. Above my pay grade. Call your company headquarters. Maybe they have an action plan for runaways or whatever sort of missing person situation this is. It’s not a question for me. Frankly—” he pointed at Mystelle. “I would think you should seek medical attention for that ankle of yours.”
“I plan to, officer, at the next town.”
The law man stood and addressed them all, stopping at each face to give them an individual stare. “Look, all of you. You seem to think your friend wandered off. That very well may be. This hike you’re on, a lot of it is on the beach or hiking through the occasional town. That’s fine, but don’t get too comfortable. A promontory like this may look harmless, but there’s a lot of wildlife around here. Snakes, for example. Some of them, poisonous. Out in the water, we don’t get many sharks most of the time, but it’s summer, so wade carefully. Look where you’re stepping before you step there. A few of you encountered a bear. Might not be the last time. Your friend, Fang, could be laying somewhere, snake-bit. Maybe she ran into that bear again. Maybe she went out in the woods before it was light out, got too close to a drop-off and she fell. Whatever problems you brought with you, set them aside. Enough to stay safe.”
“Are you trying to scare us?” I knew my face looked sour and my voice sounded sharp, but frankly, I didn’t care. It was pretty obvious the man in front of me was annoyed by the interruption of his morning doughnut shop run or whatever he’d been up to, and didn’t really care about Fang or any of us. We’re all just passers-through to him. Drifters.
The police chief shook his head. “Not really. Did it work?”
“No. Not on me, anyway.”
The gray-haired man sighed. “The rest of you?”
The rest of the hikers looked at each other, shaking their heads but making sure no one else was indicating otherwise.
“Hell no,” Tuco said. “I’m from Albuquerque, hommes. Oregon Coast is warm butter. Nothing scares me here.”
“Preach.” Jori high-fived Tuco.
The cop shook his head, turning to Tim and Mystelle. “Good luck. You’ll need it. Contact me if she makes her way back to you. Might be long odds, but—” You never know, his body language finished his thought for him.
