by Lisa Stowe
“Deputy Douglass.” He listened a moment then disconnected the call and looked over at Casey. “Want to go to Index? Maggie McMann is threatening to shoot some giant dog from hell.”
Casey laughed. “Did you hear she wants to pass a law banning all dogs?”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
Max got into the truck and started it up. He toggled his shoulder unit to radio dispatch and then pulled onto the highway. Casey followed.
Max liked getting calls in Index. In such a tiny community, he knew most everyone and even liked some of them. Plus, the old mining community was in a beautiful setting, stuck between a big rushing whitewater river and a high, towering granite wall, with forests surrounding it like a giant blanket.
He drove over the bridge into town and took a deep drink of his Priority. He’d need it to deal with Maggie. While the older woman would be the first to jump in and help if needed, when she went off on a ranting tangent, she was like a hurricane. Casey had once said the best way to handle Maggie was to just wait until the winds died down and hope you were still standing afterwards.
But hey, it was a quiet day in the world of crime, and Index was a pretty good place to spend a rainy afternoon.
Even if it did involve a hurricane bottled in an old woman.
2
Curtis waited while Betty made him a turkey, cranberry, and cream cheese sandwich. He’d sneaked out of the Hole for his lunch break, thinking he’d go to the general store and ask about Henry. The rain was steady, too light to be a downpour but too heavy to be a drizzle.
He looked out the window of the store and watched the rain wash across his old Volkswagen, thinking that no one would ever know part of Henry had been on the hood the night before. He was relieved the rain had cleaned the car. And guilty for that sense of relief because maybe that had been the last remnant of the old man, now gone into the rain.
“Has anyone seen Henry?” he asked.
Betty wrapped the sandwich and handed it across the counter. “I haven’t. Why?”
“Well…he was going to lecture me yesterday afternoon but never showed up.”
“He does that all the time,” Betty said, grabbing a stack of napkins and pushing them across to Curtis. “Says things and then gets distracted by something else. I remember one day he promised to come to church with me but chose instead to go hiking and got distracted by some type of beetle. So maybe he’s out on a bug walk.”
“Well, then, has Deputy Douglass been around?” Curtis asked. “He wanted to talk to Henry, too.”
“Haven’t seen him, but I know old Maggie was going to call him about some dog problem.”
“Okay, thanks anyway.” Curtis paid for his food. “Hey, if you do see Henry, ask him to come pound on the Hole door.”
“Why would you want to encourage him?” Betty asked. “I’ve learned over the years if you give him a chance he’ll talk for hours. And about things you don’t even understand. I enjoy the times he’s gone, God forgive me for saying so.”
“I know. But I’m worried.”
“Don’t be,” Betty said. “You’re sweet to be concerned, but Henry does this all the time. And if he was here, he would be driving you to distraction. Enjoy the break while you can. Besides, the Lord protects, so he will be just fine. You wait and see.”
Curtis wasn’t too sure about that. Henry was annoying. Pompous most times. Unwilling to admit others might know more than he did. And yet, Curtis had to admit he enjoyed their debates. He liked having someone who understood that books and science were a world more real and tangible than the one he moved through. Someone who understood when the science became dizzying and thrilling with limitless possibilities. Someone who knew how study and research pulled a person into imagination, like being thrown out into the beauty and mystery of the universe.
There were even moments when Curtis imagined Henry as his father. He didn’t remember his dad, who’d died when he was young. And Henry would have made a good dad because he listened and understood.
At least until he headed off into his conspiracy theories.
Curtis went out to the car and drove the three miles back to the Hole, then sat eating his sandwich and looking through the rain-washed windshield at the sheer granite and surrounding forest. He knew there was a steep and narrow trail nearby that Henry used to access the top of the Wall. Henry told him once that the trail was an ancient pathway probably originally used by animals. Curtis had been intrigued by his use of ‘ancient’ and immediately imagined a mystical path used by the indigenous Skykomish tribe for sacred quests.
But he’d never been on the trail himself. He wasn’t a hiker. And who knew how many bears were out there. Or cougars. Or even raccoons. He’d heard raccoons got rabies.
He licked the last of the cranberry sauce off his fingers and then suddenly realized it looked kind of like that little scrap from the hood of his car. Minus the hair. He gagged and got quickly out of the car just in case he lost his lunch.
As he went through the rain to the Hole, he looked up at the low clouds hanging in tendrils through the cedar and fir trees. Henry could be up there in the woods. Maybe injured. Maybe more bits were missing than just from his scalp. And no one cared. No one would look for him because he took off all the time.
He thought about his job and his solitary life. If he died in the Hole would anyone notice? His mother would eventually, but other people were used to not seeing him. Just like they were used to not seeing Henry.
How could someone just walk away and not be seen, and no one worried? It wasn’t right that it was so easy to disappear. He knew people cared, but they weren’t so worried that they were out searching. Because he knew, without a doubt, that those tufts of gray hairs had come from Henry’s head. Yes, the old man irritated him sometimes, but no one deserved to be forgotten. And if it was him, lost out there, he’d want someone to at least be concerned enough to look.
So it was up to Curtis to march into the rain-soaked forest, find the injured man, and carry him out to safety. He pictured himself staggering out of the trees with Henry, over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He’d be a local hero.
He went into the Hole, but only long enough to slip on his raincoat and grab his backpack. It wouldn’t hurt to go up the trail, at least a little way. Just in case.
Henry’s ‘ancient pathway’ was steep. Rocks and tree roots were placed just right to trip Curtis. Tree branches hit him in the face and rain-soaked salal, ferns, and salmonberries brushed against him. His jeans were soaked to the knees in minutes. Oddly, the discomfort made him feel proud. He was taking on nature, persevering against all obstacles. His chin came up, and his shoulders, he was sure, squared with determination.
But it took him much longer than he’d expected to make it even a short way into the woods. Partly because he kept stopping to catch his breath and debate about giving up, and partly because he kept stopping to peer into the trees. The low clouds made the afternoon feel more like twilight and the woods also blocked light and created deep shadows that moved. A few times Curtis was convinced a shadow followed him, and that slowed him down, too.
The snap of a branch breaking made him spin around so fast he stumbled. Breathing fast and shallow, he struggled to hear over the thunder of his pounding heart.
Before he could think it through, he ran back down the trail, feet racing as fast as his heart. But after a couple yards he tripped over a large cedar root and came down hard on his hands and knees. His backpack rode up his back and banged the back of his head. He crouched there for a long moment, convinced he’d hear something chasing him. But all he heard were the birds singing cheerfully in the drizzle.
He pushed to his feet, tugged his pack into place, and wiped mud from his hands onto his jeans. His knees stung, but not bad. He glanced side to side, but there were no witnesses to his panic.
Now would be the time to give up and go back. He’d made the attempt. He could leave and have no guilt. He gritted his teeth. Wo
uld he want someone to give up on him so easily? And so he went up, wanting nothing more than to go down.
The woods opened up when he reached the area of Henry’s fault and he relaxed a little out of the shadows. He listened to the peaceful sound of rain pattering on leaves and the forest floor and the hood of his raincoat. The Skykomish River was a gray ribbon far below, like a piece of old tarnished tinsel draped around the tiny town. The view alone was worth the hike.
A few feet away, clump of ferns shuddered and he jumped back, gasping. Before he could catch his breath, the ferns disappeared. Curtis stared, his mouth open in disbelief. Maybe the ferns were sucked off into one of Henry’s parallel universes. Suddenly, that crazy theory didn’t seem so crazy.
“Henry? That you?” His voice trembled.
He took a couple steps forward. “Henry? I found your scalp. Thought you might need some help.”
No sound. But a salmonberry shrub tilted slowly and then fell.
Disappeared.
Curtis took a few more steps forward, knees shaking. Still nothing. He pushed through some bracken and stumbled as the earth gave way under his boots.
He threw himself backward and hit the ground, rolling away from the deep crack in the ground. As he stood, heart racing, more dirt crumbled away and another clump of ferns fell out of sight. What was happening?
Clearly something had happened to the fault line. Henry had talked about it being a crack, not a deep trench. Had Henry fallen in?
He reached up to a nearby fir tree and grabbed a branch, then inched tentatively forward.
“Henry?” His voice was tremulous and nothing more than a whisper.
He wasn’t sure he wanted an answer. He didn’t want to go any closer and an answer meant he’d have to.
But he listened intently anyway, tilting his head to one side and squinting as if that would help. He heard the soft sounds of earth crumbling away. The sharper clacking of rocks tumbling downhill.
He called again, louder this time.
Nothing.
Curtis carefully backed up, not letting go of his branch until the ground felt firm and solid and no ferns shivered. He didn’t know what to do next, which answered the question for him in a way. He had to go back. Tell someone what he’d just seen. Pressure someone, anyone, into taking it seriously that Henry was gone, that he might be lying, broken, at the bottom of the fault.
He was done pretending he was a hero.
It was time to get help.
3
Anya Lindgren sat on a granite boulder at the narrow footpath that led away from her cabin. Her German Shepherd, Bird, sat on his haunches next to her. Mist cobwebbed her coffee-colored hair, collected in her eyelashes, and dripped into her brown eyes. She swiped a hand across her face and shivered in the chilly spring day. Fine tremors moved upward from numb toes and fingers.
The woods were quiet around her, the forest sounds muffled under water dripping from leaves and fir needles. Clouds hung low, caught in treetops like a high fog. A breeze whispered through her damp clothes, raising goose bumps. She’d been here too long, waiting.
She knew better than this. She’d lived off grid in the national forest near Index for a year now. It was stupid to get wet and cold when it was going to take a couple hours to walk home. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave yet. And so she sat in the muted late afternoon light, watching the empty trail.
Earlier, as the sun came up, Devon had brought her out a mug of coffee where she’d been planting rosemary, thyme, and rue around a young yew tree. Herbs for remembrance. She’d got up stiffly, the knees of her jeans damp from the rich humus of forest floor, and reached for the mug.
And then she’d seen his backpack.
“Going in to town?” she’d asked, wondering briefly what supplies they were short on.
Devon nodded and ran a hand through his shaggy blonde hair, not meeting her eyes.
“Can you pick up some evaporated milk?”
“The thing is, Anya, I’m not coming back.”
She shook her head. His words made no sense. “What? Leaving? Leaving us?”
“Us?” Devon asked. “You want to talk about us? About this?” He threw out his hand, gesturing at the newly planted herbs.
“I understand you need a break,” she said, her voice higher than normal, as if desperation lifted her words into the cold air. “I can handle things here for a few weeks.”
Devon stepped away from her. “I’m not coming back. I never signed on for this…this Daniel Boone shit. I thought a summer would be, like, fun, living in the cabin, running the placer claim, maybe finding enough garnets or silver to pay for another college semester. I didn’t plan on being here all, like, winter, chopping firewood, hunting-”
“Hunting?” Anger flushed heat through her veins and Anya let it fire her words. “You didn’t do any hunting. You sat on your ass all winter while I kept us from starving. Me, in the condition-”
Devon held up a hand. “I didn’t sign on for that either. And now…now you won’t let it go. It’s messing up my head.”
“Go then.” The welling emotion chilled. Died.
“You could, like, come with me,” Devon said. “We had some good times together before. And the sex, man, that was mind blowing. If we got away from all this we might, like, get that back. We’d have to find another home for Bird though. The apartment my parents got me doesn’t allow dogs.”
“Apartment?” Anya felt the punch of his words deep in her heart. “How long have you been planning this?”
“Not long.” He looked away from her, shifted his weight from boot to boot.
She saw the lie in his eyes, turned her back on him and knelt, sinking to the earth, to her plants. Last year’s dead leaves rustled under his boots as he shuffled his feet and she heard him draw in breath as if to speak. She held hers, waiting for him to repeat his offer. Would she go? Could she go?
But he didn’t speak, didn’t give her another chance. He blew out breath and she listened to him leave.
Then waited for him to turn around. To wrap his arms around her and tell her he’d made a mistake. When a couple hours passed and he still hadn’t returned, she took her pack with its emergency gear, her grandfather’s Henry 45-70 rifle, gestured for Bird to come, and set off cross-country. She walked to the closest trailhead and waited there; waited to greet Devon when he showed up, convinced that by now he’d have changed his mind. Be on his way back.
But now the day was ending.
Movement to Anya’s right caught her eye. She turned to see her shepherd patiently waiting, alert, ears forward, watching the trail. She saw how the mist collected in droplets on his fur. He shivered. She’d been away from home too long.
She stood and rubbed the ache in the small of her back. Bird looked up at her, head cocked to one side.
“You’re right,” she told the dog. “We’ve waited long enough.” She looked back down the trail and swiped tears away. “He’s not coming back.”
Saying the words out loud, setting them free, made the whole thing too real. She was alone now.
Off-grid. On her grandfather’s old placer claim in the national forest. Miles from the nearest road.
Anya ran a hand over her dog’s wet fur. She had no idea what she was going to do. The only certainty was that she couldn’t leave her home now.
She started across country, heading northeast through woods that rarely felt the presence of people. The trail she’d waited by was the result of her grandfather’s repeated trips over many years toward civilization, when he took garnets in to sell, when he stocked supplies for winter, when he sent her rare letters talking simply of a simple life. Letters that had planted in his granddaughter the same yearning to test herself against an indifferent nature.
His trail led to a more popular one that took day-trippers to the old Silver Creek mining district where mining had gone on in the 1800s. Few of those hikers saw the small break in fern and salal, and even fewer recognized it as a path. To
follow it, to find her cabin, someone also had to know landmarks and sense which way was north.
Anya touched Bird’s head. Having a dog with a strong desire to be in his bed by his fire also helped point the way home.
Devon might never come back. She’d have to decide if she wanted this life, alone. If the reasons to stay outweighed the reasons to go. She recognized a tiny seed of relief, buried deep in the grief, that had been filling her for months. She and Devon had slipped effortlessly into a relationship born of great sex in a college dorm. When her grandfather died and left her the cabin and mining claim, she’d decided to walk away from forestry management courses and live it instead. And Devon, hearing about the mining claim, had been only too willing to drop out and follow her into the woods, dreaming his dreams of easy riches.
He’d had no clue how hard running a placer claim was, let alone how hard survival was. They’d fought a lot about everything. Anya, hiking steadily, let her subconscious point out what she should have seen.
That he’d been leaving a long time before he left.
Bird stopped suddenly and barked. The sound startled Anya out of her memories and she turned back to see the dog standing still, hackles up, teeth bared. She brought the rifle up and smoothly chambered a round, then turned, expecting to see a black bear. It was the time of year they came out of hibernation, hungry. And the time of year that berries weren’t fully on yet to satisfy that hunger.
But she saw nothing. No movement in the trees, no shadows of something that shouldn’t be there.
Bird, nose up, continued barking. Anya’s heart rate shot up with the frantic noise. She spun in place, searching for the threat.
Several yards away she saw movement. Drawing in a deep breath to steady her hands, she raised the rifle and looked through the hunting scope. Surprised, she lowered the rifle to stare, then went back to the scope to bring the odd sight closer.
Douglas squirrels raced across the forest floor. Not just a few, but dozens. More than she’d ever seen together. They ran fast, in a mass, all of them headed east.
