by Lisa Stowe
The rain thickened, fell heavier, felt like it might hang around. She badly needed shelter, especially since it was already late afternoon. She stood, rubbed the small of her back, and then reached up to re-braid her wet hair. She shouldered on the backpack, picked up the rifle, and scrambled over the downed tree. Bird immediately followed, glued to her side and for once not roaming the woods in wide circles.
Her goal was the rough-built cabin she hoped still stood. She needed the security of something familiar when more trees came down.
Because there would be aftershocks.
Anya bent to duck-walk under an alder propped against a fir and too high to climb over. The backpack caught on a branch and she tugged on it. The suddenness of its release caused her to lose her balance and she tumbled forward onto her hands and knees. The jolt sent hot pain up through her joints, but after kneeling there for a moment, the pain subsided and nothing seemed broken.
She reached out to the rough bark of the tree for balance to stand and heard an odd cough and a low growl from Bird. With stomach sinking, she turned very slowly.
A bear. Please, a black bear. They did not want to be around her any more than she wanted to spend time with them.
Grizzlies, though, were a different matter. Rare and elusive, no one really believed they had started migrating back into the high alpine areas.
And yet, there he was.
Her breath flinched away. Her mind raced and her heart screamed for flight.
The grizzly had seen her, and the massive brown head lowered, exposing the huge distinctive hump on the back. Its head slowly moved from side to side, as if there was nothing more important than looking for grubs. That swinging, swaying head meant the bear was nosing scents, determining what she was, deciding how hungry it was. She grabbed Bird’s thick ruff of fur, hanging on tight. Her heart froze in terror for herself and her dog. He would try to defend her and end up dying.
With her back to the alder and the distorted, earthquake landscape around her, there was no way Anya could run. She slowly, slowly, slid her hand toward the rifle. She wouldn’t be able to kill or even seriously wound the bear with it. But maybe the loud noise would make it reconsider eating her.
There was nothing else to do.
She brought the rifle up and sighted down the barrel, her hands shaking too hard to aim.
The grizzly reared up to stomp down on the ground, slamming its colossal weight in a display of strength. Paws larger than dinner plates caved in the soft loamy earth.
It had decided.
Tears filled her eyes.
Not like this.
Her breath came short and shallow.
She couldn’t die here, away from the young yew tree. Life that was.
Movement flashed to her left. Bird whimpered. Anya risked glancing away from the bear. Walking through the dense forest underbrush was a boy, maybe eight or nine years old. Long brown hair, brown clothes that made him blend with the trees. He caught her eye and smiled, and the smile was so joyous that Anya’s heart broke.
The boy walked toward the bear, trailing dirt-engrained fingers gently through fronds of fern.
“No. God, no.” Anya’s voice broke on a sob. She jerkily raised the rifle. “Wait! Stop!”
The boy glanced over his shoulder and smiled again. And then walked past the bear and kept going.
The bear rose up and slammed his massive front paws into the ground again. Then it turned and followed the boy. After a few yards the boy looked back and beckoned to her, as if he expected her to follow. Then he continued moving through the forest until both he and the bear were lost to sight in the shadows.
Relief caught her breath but then without warning grief burned through her. Hot tears coursed over her cold cheeks. She sank to her knees, overcome with loss that broadsided her. This boy, too young, alone, with so much love in his smile, brought everything back in an overwhelming wave.
She pressed her hands to her mouth to hold in juddering breath that broke on choking sobs, her whole body shaking. Bird nudged her elbow, whining.
For several long moments she crouched there in the rain and the devastated mountains breathing deep and struggling to regain control. When the soul-deep pain eased somewhat, she pushed herself to her feet, memories flooding her. There was no sign of the giant grizzly or the small boy.
Two months had passed and she thought she was healing. That tiny baby, born too soon in a cabin too isolated, with a father too inexperienced to help.
Anya had held her son so close, cupped the cooling face with her palms trying to warm him, to will life back. She’d failed.
Hours later, alone, she’d wrapped the tiny, tiny body in the soft blankets she’d made for his life and, still alone, buried him under the yew tree. The grandfathers of the forest, the trees that lived for hundreds of years. Her son would be sheltered forever.
Devon had done nothing but sit by the fire and weep.
But she hadn’t cried. Not then, and not until now.
Anya brushed tears away with her palms and saw blood across her lifelines. She stared, then touched fingertips to her face. It was only then that she felt pain and found the cut above her right eye. She probed the swelling and the warm stickiness of congealing blood. She had no memory of being struck during the quake.
Bird whimpered again and nudged his nose under her hand.
She slowly shouldered her backpack and then her rifle. She touched the wound on her forehead again, then ran her hand repeatedly over Bird’s head and back feeling his soaked fur.
“Shock and a head injury,” she whispered to her dog. “I’m hallucinating.”
Bird barked once, sharply.
“Shock,” she repeated. “Okay. Okay Bird. I hear you. You’re right.”
The backpack slid off again. With shaking hands and blue fingers, she fumbled open zippers. She stripped, tugging and fighting to get out of the rain soaked clothes. Her teeth chattered as she pulled on wool pants, a heavy flannel shirt, a wool hat, and topped that with rain gear. Her battered and bruised and aching body responded with deep shudders as it tried to warm itself. She opened another small pocket on the pack.
Two high protein survival bars. She used her teeth to open them, giving one to Bird and forcing herself to take a bite of the other. It tasted like cardboard but would do its job.
After a few moments her hands steadied enough to shove wet clothes into the pack and haul it back on.
The bear and the boy, her hallucinations borne of grief and trauma, were long gone. But they’d disappeared in the direction of home and so she followed them with Bird close beside her.
She’d felt tremblers before. After all, this area was full of faults, of mountains that were constantly shifting. But this quake had to have broken records. The outside world was probably devastated.
She wondered briefly if Devon was safe, and struggled to care, still drowning in the raw loss that had blindsided her. She’d held so tightly to her emotions over the past weeks, so afraid that if she let go she’d never come back from the deep heartbreak. Devon leaving her was the first crack in that anguish. The terror of the earthquake took care of the rest.
And there’d been something in that little boy’s eyes. Something like love.
“I’m okay now,” she told Bird, swiping at fresh tears. He merely twitched an ear toward her. “We’re okay, buddy. I hallucinated and saw what I wanted to see. That’s all.”
It took longer than normal to navigate the changed landscape, the shifted earth, the boulders, the trees. But as darkness seeped down to fill ravines, she drew close to home. One small stream to cross, one more stair step of ridge to climb and then she’d find her home, butted up against a granite that she hoped had protected the place. She pictured the heavy quilts she had made, focused on how wonderful it would be to crawl underneath and find the illusion of safety.
A salmonberry branch swiped across her cheek, tiny stickers stinging. She stumbled over mounds of damp ferns, broke through the dens
e understory brush and exhaled as if she’d held her breath for hours. She’d made it back.
It was pretentious to call the structure she lived in a cabin. Far from rustic or quaint, it was simply weather tight. It was nothing more than a small, rather ugly box of rough-cut logs with a slab of wood for a door and one small window in each wall. The roof was steeply pitched to shed snow, and inside, that pitch created a loft for storage. There were two small, rough-built structures on either side of the cabin. One was the outhouse, half hidden in the trees. The other was her chicken coop.
With Devon it had been a home. Now it was hers alone. Maybe no longer a home, but a place she couldn’t, wouldn’t, leave. Just her and Bird, managing survival one day at a time.
Anya crossed the rough, tiny, clearing, and even though she still shivered, even though she was desperate to be inside, enclosed, secure, she paused by the young yew tree.
“It was only an earthquake,” she whispered to the life that should have been, reassuring the son she’d held so briefly.
She touched the tree and then, as she pulled her fingers away, saw the blood.
Anya looked at her hands. But there were no cuts, nothing she’d missed. The rain had washed her fingers clean. Except for the fingertips. She stared at the tree, seeing where branches had been broken off during the quake. Thick, deeply red liquid slowly seeped down the fissures in the bark. She touched it again then rubbed her fingers together.
A yew tree’s inner bark was red. Maybe its sap was, too. Maybe the sap looked like blood.
Or maybe she was hallucinating again.
Bird barked and Anya jumped at the sound. She turned to see he hadn’t waited while she stared at the tree, having visions. The dog, smarter than her, was at the cabin door.
Anya rubbed her fingers down the front of her raincoat and struggled to focus on the cabin, the immediate need for shelter.
There were tree branches on the roof and one large fir had splintered a corner of the roof over the rough deck. The fir itself rested on the ground next to the cabin. The death throes as it came down had scattered debris liberally. But the tree missed the building itself and for that Anya was grateful. The door of the chicken coop hung askew and her motley flock clustered in the opening, obviously too rattled to come out. Luckily Bird was too rattled to chase them. The outhouse tilted slightly, but nothing she couldn’t fix.
Bird barked again, and pawed the door. She took his hint and left the rain and yew tree.
Inside, she went straight to the wood stove, pulling it open with one hand while she grabbed kindling with the other. Bird made a beeline for his bed next to the stove. He curled up, nose tucked under his tail, eyes tracking her every movement. Anya saw the fine trembling in her dog and knew he needed the heat of a strong fire as much as she did.
The scratch of a match on the stove sounded overly loud, even with the rain pelting down on the roof. She touched match to dry moss and watched the infant flame catch and spread.
When the wood started to snap she jerked off her hiking boots and rain gear, then grabbed a quilt from the dilapidated couch. She gave in to the simmering fear, the deep exhaustion. She dropped down beside Bird, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled the quilt over both of them.
If there were aftershocks she wasn’t any safer inside than out. But for the moment, the warmth of the wood stove and the close presence of her only companion gave her the illusion of safety and security. It might not last, but for now it was enough.
15
Ethan sat on the ground, wrapped in a rain poncho and propped against a log as he tended the fire. Under the lean-to, kids slept. He heard them shifting occasionally. The small sounds of a bad dream or someone hurting. He dozed off periodically, waking when the warmth of the fire on his face lessened. Or when some forest sound came to him. Some time during the night the rain had slackened and that allowed him to hear more.
Though the woods were quieter than they should be. No owls hunted, no coyotes sang. He had the impression that the wilderness was hunkered down in fear, just like his group was. He thought at one point a bear passed close by. He’d heard the distinctive cough they made when they wanted to warn you they were near. He’d kept his gun close and it had taken several minutes for his heart rate to slow.
It had to be well past midnight. The blackness was a solid wall around him, with only the tiny hole of light from the fire in front of him. But more than the darkness, the night had that heavy feeling, that sense of muted time that came in the small hours when even the earth seemed dormant.
And that’s when the sound came.
Ethan held his breath, listening.
A wet panting.
He’d heard that before, in the bus, right after he came around. He’d thought then that one of the kids was having problems breathing. But he realized now that none of them had.
A wild animal then. Maybe a bear again. But the sounds were different. He had the gun on his lap and now he slid his finger over the safety, grateful for the familiarity.
He heard no snapping of branches or other sounds that would indicate something creeping closer. But the panting did seem nearer. He scanned the perimeter of firelight, trying to see into the darkness beyond. He pulled his legs up, shifting weight so he could rise fast.
No headlamp yet, he thought. He wasn’t sure it would penetrate much farther than the firelight anyway.
And then he saw the same reflection of light on eyes that he’d seen from the bus. This time the firelight flickered in them.
Ethan stood slowly. There was no way he was going to be caught sitting on his butt. He realized the eyes were on a higher level than his. A bear, reared up on its back legs? That wet slurping of air just didn’t sound like it. What kind of wild animal was over six feet tall?
Bigfoot? He snorted. As if that old hairy legend actually existed. Besides, according to stories they were supposed to stink.
He sniffed.
No stink.
The eyes moved, dipping as if the animal lowered its head momentarily, and then shifted to the left. Ethan went right, keeping the fire between him and the animal. It shifted again and he did the same. There was a sense suddenly of being tested. Or pushed. Adrenaline flooded his system. His heart raced. His muscles twanged with the need for fight or flight.
The animal shifted. He shifted.
With adrenaline came training. Focus, evaluate, act.
And that brought clarity as he suddenly realized what was going on. With each slight movement, he was being manipulated. Moved just a little farther past the tarp where the kids were sleeping.
“I don’t fucking think so,” he whispered and stepped back the way he’d come, putting the lean-to, his kids, squarely behind him.
He heard rustling back there, as if someone might be waking up. But he didn’t have time to spare for that. He was watching the eyes. As he moved back into position, they dipped again and Ethan had the distinct sense that evaluation was going on over there, too.
“What the hell is that?” came a whispered voice behind him.
“Some wild animal,” Ethan responded, keeping his voice low and calm. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw Zack. “Stay back there.”
“Got it.”
The animal tried moving to the side again, but Ethan wasn’t falling for that game a second time. He stood his ground, holding a hand up to keep Zack from getting suckered in to the weird wilderness dance.
“Put some wood on the fire,” Ethan said, keeping his voice low. “Let’s get a better look at what the hell that is. I’ll cover you but I don’t think it’s going to come closer to the fire.”
Zack’s eyes widened when he saw the gun, but he didn’t say anything. He simply grabbed up branches the kids had gathered earlier and poked them into the fire. Sparks shot up into the night as cedar caught and sizzled.
As the fire grew and the circle of light expanded, the animal seemed to step back, keeping to that twilight perimeter.
Ethan
had had enough. “If something happens to me, use the fire to defend yourself.”
“What?”
Ethan didn’t answer. Instead he strode around the edge of light, reaching up to flick on his headlamp.
The animal was gone. That fast. No sound of crashing through the trees. Just gone. Ethan scanned the area, but was reluctant to go too far from the kids in case it came back, or circled around behind them. He looked at the ground but with the soft mat of forest floor no clear tracks were discernable. He saw indentations though, as if what had stood there was heavy. And for some reason the shape of the indentations made him think of human feet. But those sounds hadn’t seemed human.
And there was something else there, at the edge of one of the divots. Ethan bent and scooped it up, letting the scrap lie in the palm of his hand. Pumpkin orange fabric that could only be from the bus driver’s coat. Had it been Val standing there? If so, why hadn’t she shown herself or called out? If that had been her breathing she was injured. But if it wasn’t her, what was it? Ethan closed his fingers over the orange scrap and shoved it into his pocket. He returned to the fire.
“See anything?” Zack’s voice was shaky.
“Dog tracks. Too big for a coyote.” He kept his voice calm and matter of fact.
“Then what?”
“Remember that report from the Department of Fish and Wildlife? That they thought wolves might be migrating back into the area?”
“Oh, yeah. We had that big debate on whether that was a good thing or not. How farmers were going to be pissed.”
“Right,” Ethan said. “That’s probably what it was.” Thankfully Zack wasn’t thinking too clearly or he would have realized wolves were big, but not that big.
Zack relaxed. “That’s kind of cool in a way. I mean, being that close to a real wolf. Wild. In its habitat.”
Ethan just looked at him.
“I know,” Zack said, and managed a shaky grin. “I’m just trying to, you know, make you think I’m not terrified.”
“I don’t know why. I am.”
