Deep Woods

by Newbury, Helena

  That was when Rufus decided that now was the right time for a good shake. Both of us yelped and twisted away as we were sprayed. It broke the tension and when I looked at Cal again, he’d finally managed to avert his eyes. I dried my feet on the grass, put the socks and plastic bags back on and we set off.

  The sun rose even higher and our clothes gradually dried. After another mile or so, I thought the trees were starting to thin out. And a mile after that….

  I drew in my breath as we emerged onto a road. It was a dirt road and only two lanes but it was a road...and there was even a telephone line running alongside it. On the far side was a tiny, tumbledown garage with a faded hand-painted sign that read Tucker’s Garage. There was even a car filling up at the pump.

  I was shocked at how much my heart leaped, just at the tiny hint of civilization. A day ago, I would have thought of this place as backwoods: now it felt like we’d arrived in Times Square. We made it!

  I started across the road, then realized that Cal wasn’t with me. I looked back and saw him standing at the edge of the woods. He was looking at the road and the gas station with distaste, like an animal unwilling to venture out of its natural territory. How long has it been, since he came to the edge of the woods? Weeks? Months?

  I hurried back, grabbed his hand, and squeezed it. “It’s okay,” I told him. “I’ll be okay, now. You don’t have to come any further.”

  He looked away as if embarrassed that I’d noticed. When he looked at me again, that protective gleam was back, stronger than ever. He squeezed my hand and that silver string went tight and strummed, sending a hot swell of emotion through me. Then he was marching me towards the gas station.

  At the door, Cal pointed to the ground and Rufus sat down next to the no animals sign, looking disgruntled, then started noisily drinking from the water bowl the owner had put there.

  The place was old enough that an actual bell tinkled when I pushed open the door. It was a small store: a rack of car parts, some shelves of candy, drinks and chips, and an aging TV up on the wall showing a news channel. Behind the counter, a man in his seventies with gold-rimmed glasses, a thick white beard, and an impressive potbelly looked up from his crossword. Tucker, I guessed.

  For a second, he just blinked at me. I’d stopped thinking about what I looked like, but now I glanced down and took it in: loose hair full of bits of leaf and pine needles, a torn, muddy, old-fashioned dress stained with river water, Cal’s huge plaid shirt and plastic bags on my feet. Tucker looked as if he had about a million questions. Then he looked behind me and they all vanished.

  I frowned, confused. Then I turned and saw Cal. He’d had to duck to get through the door and now that he straightened up, he loomed. He was scowling and, combined with his size, it was intimidating as hell. I hadn’t seen him like this since….

  Since Seattle. Since he was last around people. He didn’t like people, glaring and scowling to keep them at bay.

  I looked at Tucker again. He gave Cal a shaky nod of recognition and swallowed nervously. So Cal had been here before...that made sense. And if every time, Cal had been like this, of course Tucker would be scared. He’d never gotten to know the gentle giant I knew. My chest ached. That’s so sad! Why was he like this? Because he lived way out here in the wilderness and wasn’t used to human contact? Or—

  I froze. Or was it the other way around? Was it that he hated people so much that he’d isolated himself out here? But that made no sense: I’d seen pain in his eyes, not hate. And he’d gone out of his way to help me.

  “Lady needs to use your phone,” Cal muttered. He’d loosened up so much with me, during our journey, that it was jarring, hearing him be so gruff.

  Tucker nodded and turned the phone on the counter to face me. I smiled my thanks. As I picked up the handset, it hit me that this is goodbye. Cal would go back into the woods, I’d go back to Seattle and we’d never see each other again. I looked at Cal in panic. He’d helped me but I hadn’t had the chance to help him. I’d be leaving him in pain.

  Cal nodded at me.

  I dialed 911.

  “911, please hold,” said a recorded message. I couldn’t look at Cal again: if I did, I was going to lose it completely. So I looked at the TV on the wall. A news anchor was talking about some hearing the attorney general had been involved in last week.

  “911, what is your emergency?” asked the operator.

  I opened my mouth...and nothing came out.

  “911, what is the nature of your emergency?”

  I was staring at the TV. The phone, Tucker’s...everything except the screen had ceased to exist.

  “911,” said the operator more urgently, “do you require assistance?”

  On the TV, a recording played of the attorney general addressing a senate hearing the week before. He was calling for stricter laws to fight international crime and—

  I recognized him. I recognized the thinning black hair and the wide, moon-like face—

  I recognized him because I’d seen him at the mansion.

  16

  Bethany

  I CLOSED MY EYES and I could see him in the mansion: every line of his crow’s feet, every fold of his flabby neck. I recognized that patronizing voice: No, sweetie. You’re in the right place.

  The attorney general was a member of the club.

  And then it got worse. I opened my eyes just as the camera cut to a shot of the senate panel and—

  He was there, too. I was sure of it. An overweight guy with old-fashioned, aviator-style glasses: the caption on-screen told me he was a senator from Texas who sat on the foreign intelligence committee. And him, a senator from Oregon who was chair of the federal intelligence oversight panel. The man who oversaw the freakin’ FBI!

  The room felt like it was tipping and shifting under my feet. Now I understood why they’d all been so confident and self-assured. The club wasn’t a collection of criminals: Ralavich was the exception, that’s why they were so scared of him. The members were the elite of society: the rich and the very, very powerful. I looked again at the TV, at the men in their suits, and my stomach churned. This thing had been growing right at the heart of our society. These were men everyone trusted, men whose reputations were pristine. But maybe once a year, they’d jet off to their secret little clubhouse in Idaho, far from the TV cameras, where scared young women would be waiting for them….

  There’d been others at the mansion, too. Young men, too young to be senators. CEOs? Tech billionaires? There was no telling who else was involved.

  I became aware of a voice in my ear. The 911 operator was still asking if I needed help. “Sorry,” I whispered, and hung up the phone.

  “Bethany?” said Cal, concerned. But I couldn’t answer him, couldn’t focus on anything. My mind was spinning too fast.

  I couldn’t go to the police.

  No one would believe me. A secret club, for the political elite? In a luxury mansion I wouldn’t be able to find again? They’d think I was crazy. And if by some miracle I managed to convince someone and they looked into it, there was no way charges would ever be filed. The attorney general was involved, and the man who oversaw the FBI. Between the two of them, they knew everything that was going on in law enforcement. They’d crush any investigation before it even got started. I remembered the guns I’d seen at the mansion. These people weren’t afraid to kill to protect their secret. They’d make sure I was silenced.

  Cal’s hands closed on my shoulders. “Bethany?”

  This time, I looked up at him but I still couldn’t speak. I can’t go home. They had my employment records. They knew where I lived. They’d kill me, or take me back to Ralavich. Silent tears scalded my eyes and started to spill down my cheeks. In less than twenty-four hours, my life had come apart. I had no money, no job, no place to live. I was being hunted by the most powerful men in the nation and the police couldn’t help me. What the hell am I going to do?

  Cal’s hands guided me out of the gas station. Rufus sprang to his
feet as we passed him and looked up at me, concerned. But I left them both behind and stumbled across the road. I couldn’t talk, could barely process.

  I sank to the ground at the edge of the woods and sat with my arms on my knees and my face pressed against them. The despair rose up inside me in huge, shuddering waves, hot tears streaming down my cheeks and plopping into the dirt. I’ve never felt so utterly alone.

  The scrape of boots and then denim in the dirt as Cal sat down next to me. A big, muscled arm encircled my shoulders, warming my shaking body. Then Rufus’s furry head forced its way under my arm and a tongue started licking my tears away.

  I wasn’t alone.

  “What happened?” asked Cal, his voice gentle. He held me, his big body pressed against my side, until my tears slowed. And then he listened as I told him.

  17

  Cal

  WITH EACH WORD she spoke, I felt the rage rise inside me. Not the anger I was used to, that fiery black cloud of pain and guilt that seared me from the inside out. This was fiery and pure. Protective.

  I was visualizing the smug bastards in suits and the sick club they’d built. A massive, shadowy machine, cloaked by money and power. No wonder they’d been able to hide it for so long: the people who were meant to protect us were the ones running it.

  To them, we were just serfs, peasants to be exploited. We voted for them, we bought their products, followed their laws. And if one of the club members saw a woman they liked, they’d pluck her from her life and carry her off, like a king raiding a village, and there was nothing she or we could do about it—

  I sucked in a long, shuddering breath, the blood pounding in my ears. No. Not her. I didn’t care how goddamn powerful they were. They weren’t having Bethany.

  We’d protect her. Me and Rufus.

  I looked into her eyes and my chest tightened. I couldn’t kid myself anymore: I was crazy about this woman. But I couldn’t let myself get close to her. She was good...innocent. And that meant she needed to be kept well away from someone like me.

  I had to keep her at arm’s length. That was already damn near impossible and it would get harder the longer I was with her. But the only other option was to abandon her, and that wasn’t an option at all.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, her voice ragged from crying. She looked at the ground. “I can’t go to the police. I can’t go home. There’s nowhere I can go where they won’t find me.”

  “No,” I said. I stood and offered her my hand. “There’s one place.”

  18

  Ralavich

  “It’s been almost twelve hours!” I yelled. “How can you not have them, yet?”

  To his credit, Cairns, the head of the club, didn’t flinch. “Mr. Ralavich, you’ve been up all night. Please, let my people bring you some breakfast.”

  That nearly pushed me over the edge. “I don’t want fucking breakfast! I’m wanted by the FBI in this fucking country! What if she’s talking to the authorities right now?” I swept my arm around at the mansion. “Everyone here, all of your members, are at risk!”

  Carl Jammer, the attorney general, shook his head. He was lounging in an armchair with a girl on his knee. “I have people I trust in the state police and the FBI. If she’d popped up on their radar, I’d know about it.” He turned and fondled the girl’s breasts. She closed her eyes, as if trying to wish herself somewhere else.

  Cairns saw me watching. “Why don’t you let me get you another girl? Or you could try the golf course or the pool...we can even arrange a hunting trip for you, we have rifles and a helicopter that can take you right to the best spots for deer.”

  That did it. I grabbed him by the throat, lifting him so that I could snarl in his face. “Because I want her!”

  Didn’t any of them get it? Bethany was special. So good, so pure. In the few minutes of sleep I’d managed, I’d dreamed of defiling her in every possible way. The fact she’d escaped me made her even more irresistible. There’d been time for her fear of me to build. She’d be twice as scared, when I finally took her. Pale and sobbing and pleading, exactly as it should be.

  The need has been with me since my first sexual experience: my father offered me the captured wife of one of our rivals, telling me it would make me a man. And it did. I suddenly realized there was a way I could get even with all the girls who’d rejected me in school as too fat, too unsophisticated. And later, when I was beaten so badly that my face was left ruined, and women shrank away from me, I knew exactly how to make them pay.

  Cairns had finally lost his irritating cool and was struggling to breathe. “Find them,” I ordered.

  He nodded frantically and I let him fall to the floor, choking and gasping.

  “Quickly,” I added. “Otherwise…”—I looked at Alik—“I’ll take matters into my own hands.”

  19

  Bethany

  I TOOK A LAST look back at Tucker’s before the branches closed behind us and cut off my view. The wilderness seemed even scarier, having had that little taste of civilization. And from what Cal had told me, we were going even deeper, this time: his smallholding was right in the heart of the woods. A place where I’d be safe...but also a place we’d be alone together, for who knew how long?

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  He was walking ahead of me, forging a path through the undergrowth. He didn’t turn around but I saw his shoulders rise in response. “‘Cause it’s the right thing to do,” he said at last.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  This time, he stopped and turned around. I’d already taken a step, not expecting him to stop, and suddenly we were very close. He looked down at me and I saw that need, undeniable and soul-deep. My chest went tight.

  But then he turned away and marched on. I stood there for a second, staring at his back. He feels it, too. And he wanted to protect me. But he wouldn’t let me get close enough to help him, or even know him.

  After an hour or so, we moved into an older part of the forest where the trees were so big, I wouldn’t be able to encircle them with both arms and a canopy that was high overhead, tinting the sunlight green. There wasn’t much undergrowth here and the going was easier, so Cal drifted back to walk alongside me and Rufus. I gazed around at the trees. “How do you know where we’re going?”

  He looked at me blankly.

  I threw my arms out wide in confusion. “There are no landmarks. There’s nothing, just trees. You can barely even see the sun through the leaves. How are you finding your way?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, then looked ahead of us. “See the tree with the weird branch?”

  I looked sideways at him. “They all have weird branches!”

  He considered. “It has two thick knots, like...like a snake that’s eaten a couple of melons.”

  I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips. It was an oddly funny description, for Cal. And now I did see it. “Okay, yeah.”

  “And over there, do you see the stump that’s worn down in the middle, so it’s like a big dish?”

  “...yeah,” I said, finding it.

  “If we aim for a point midway between them, we’re on the right course.”

  He started to point out each marker as we passed it and slowly, it began to make sense. My brain was tuned for the city. It needed hard edges and bright colors: the green and white of a Starbucks sign, the red awning of a cafe. But there were landmarks here, too: you just had to see the forest as he saw it.

  By now, it was past noon. My stomach rumbled to remind me that it was time to run across the street to the deli for a salad with smoked chicken, sundried tomatoes, and some parmesan shavings. With maybe a sugar-dusted donut, fresh from the fryer, and a big cup of coffee. In my defense, I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. “Don’t suppose you have anything to eat, do you?” I asked.

  Cal dug in his backpack and passed me a water bottle and a plastic bag full of...something. They looked like bark chips but they w
ere soft and squishy. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Jerky.”

  I drank some water and then tried a piece. Salty and meaty and very, very chewy. So chewy I had a feeling I might still be chewing it in an hour’s time. But I didn’t care: it was food. “Thank you,” I mumbled around the mouthful.

  As we walked, I tried to move more like he moved, stealthy and silent. I’d had a lifetime of clumping obliviously along sidewalks. Here, it mattered where you put each foot. I learned to keep one eye on the ground, skirting around dry twigs and loose rocks. As the hours passed, the noise I was making gradually dropped away.

  And as I got quieter, the forest came alive.

  All of the animals I’d been unknowingly scaring away started to creep back. Bird song moved from off in the distance to right overhead. I saw a squirrel, then two, then a chipmunk.

  Cal suddenly stopped and put his hand up: Stop.

  I stopped. Rufus stopped too: I’d never seen a dog so well trained.

  Very slowly, Cal motioned me forward. I crept to him in silence, until we were shoulder to shoulder. But I still couldn’t see why he’d stopped.

  He reached across and took my chin in his hand. I felt my whole body come to trembling attention, the touch of those big, warm fingers on my skin indescribable.

  He turned my head gently to the left...and I saw. A deer, no more than ten feet from us, nibbling at something on the ground. Its coat was the color of buttery caramel, glossy and smooth, with creamy white spots. Its eyes were huge and dark and it was so peaceful, so completely at ease, that the tranquility of it just soaked into me, washing away everything else. I could have watched it for hours. We stood there until it finally trotted away into the trees.

  I caught Cal’s eye and for a second, before he turned away and moved on, I glimpsed the same peace there that I felt. He might be big and intimidating, but he’d loved that just as much as I had.