by David Haynes
“You don’t need to put any more wood on there now. Just leave it be for a few hours. Okay?”
“Hey, man, that my Glock?” Olin stood up. A grin, a genuine grin, was daubed across his patchwork face.
Jonesy handed it over. “Cop’s gun,” he said.
Olin took it, turning it over in his hands. He lifted it and pointed it at the wall. “Huh? Yeah it is.” He lowered it. “I’ll tell you a story about that someday.”
18
His belly ached. It was a gnawing, deep-down pain that wouldn’t go away. He wasn’t eating enough. What he wouldn’t do for a pizza right now, or maybe a cheese-steak dripping with grease. Man, that would slide down nicely with a couple of ice-cold beers. He swallowed the saliva pool building in his mouth. His stomach growled like a bad-tempered dog.
There was another ache too, only this one was far worse. It started somewhere a couple of inches above the end of his fingers, or what was left of them, and zipped up his arm like electricity. He could feel it sizzling through his veins, crawling through his bones, discharging like shotgun shells all over his body.
He couldn’t take off his glove now even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t, thank you very much. He didn’t want to put any antiseptic on it and he certainly didn’t want some hick farmer, or whatever Jonesy was, to look at it. That hand was staying right where it was until spring. He could get at Melladay’s cash then and get a doctor, a good one, to look at it.
His belly growled again making a rumble like the grizzly who’d wanted to eat him. A big fat juicy rib-eye next to the cheesesteak would go down well too. The one he’d taken off Melladay’s grill had been good, a bit well-done for his taste but he’d eaten the whole lot. That was before he took care of business with Melladay’s wife. She’d been too wasted to care. Women like that usually were. Willing to be used by the highest bidder.
Lisa was a different type of woman altogether. She had balls. He’d not come across many women like that and he wasn’t quite sure how to handle her. He smiled to himself. Handling her was something he might like to do. Jonesy didn’t seem the type of guy who knew how to handle a woman.
He looked down at Lauren. She looked like a child, curled up in the rug as she was. He nudged her with his foot. She moaned and turned her face toward the fire.
“Wake up,” he said, pushing her again. This time she opened her eyes. She looked even more like a child now, a terrified one coming out of a bad dream. He’d had a few of those himself just recently.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment so he kicked her again. “I said, I’m hungry.”
She blinked twice and sat up. “I’ll go fetch you a Big Mac. Maybe you want a Coke to go with it? How about some fries? I’m sure...”
He struck her across the cheek with the back of his hand. That was new. First time for everything.
“I said, I’m hungry. What I didn’t say was, I’m in need of some smart-ass comment from a little bitch.”
She touched her cheek but there was no shock in her expression. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to fetch me something from that little store they’ve got up there. Some meat and maybe some fish too. I’m going to have myself a little cook-out.”
“He knows exactly what’s in there. He knows down to the last steak what’s up there. I’ve heard them talking about it. There’s barely enough to last as it is.”
“So? That’s not my problem, is it? I’m starving to death here.”
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s not fair, they saved us. Both of us. We’ll end up...”
He lifted his hand to strike her again but she cowered and pulled away from him. “Don’t, please!”
“Just get the food.” He waved the Glock for emphasis.
She stood up. He could see the tears on her cheeks and her breath came in ragged bursts, singeing the frigid air.
“You’re not going to hurt them, are you? You’re not going to do what you did to him again, are you?”
He laughed. “You think I want to do that again? Jesus, what do you think I am? I’m just trying to stay alive. Now get up there and do what I say.”
She nodded and wandered out of the shed. There was something almost admirable about her pathetic display. She wanted to live through this like they all did, but rather than fight she chose to acquiesce. She was willing to do that for the sake of Lisa and Jonesy too. She would rather live through this hell than have them find out what she’d done.
She needn’t worry about that. They were his lifeline out of this place. Without them he would still be up at that cabin eating gray-meat, watching the days turn as black as his fingers. No, they were safe. As long as they kept him alive. That was their purpose now. They just didn’t realize it.
He watched Lauren shuffle out of the shed like a bag lady. Survival came in various guises. You could fight, you could run, you could curl up in a ball and hope the threat went away, or you could use your brain and make other people do all that for you. Back in New Mexico, there had been no choice. He’d fought and won but he couldn’t fight all of them, so he’d run. He wasn’t a coward but neither was he brave. He did just enough to keep himself breathing for another day. That was how life worked. It was only as complicated as you chose to make it.
Coming up here though, that had been a mistake. A clusterfuck of epic proportions. What pissed him off more than anything was that when he nearly succumbed, it hadn’t been at the hands of a man, or even the bear. He hadn’t been close then, he knew that. He had a gun, the bear had claws and teeth. The odds were on his side. No, back in that cabin, his own body had let him down. His own need for nourishment had nearly been his downfall. Nearly.
He pushed more wood into the fire. He was constantly cold and if he didn’t keep it stoked, the shivers would start again and rattle his teeth straight out of his head. He closed his eyes and listened to the wind outside. Something screeched in the distance, something else screeched back, and then there was the sound of something heavy landing with a thud on the forest floor. He opened his eyes. The hum of an interstate, the honk of a horn or a domestic in the next room, those were noises he was comfortable with. He never realized how much he missed the city and those familiar sounds.
He felt his eyelids drooping again when a shadow appeared in the shed’s opening.
“Ah, I wondered where you’d got to,” he said. Lauren was holding a small bag. “Bring it over then.”
She obeyed and handed him the sack. He peered inside. It was difficult to see exactly what was in there but he could smell the blood. The gathering saliva threatened to spill over his lips.
“Just the one?”
She nodded. “He might not notice just one.”
He took it out. The meat was still frozen. “Pass me that, would you?”
Lauren passed him the sharpened pole he used for poking at the fire. He pushed the meat onto the end.
“Now put some more wood on the fire.”
She did as instructed and a minute later the first juices dripped into the flames, giving off the sweet smoky scent of barbecued meat. His belly tried to cramp up in anticipation. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. An extra meal here and there wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not if they didn’t find out about it anyway.
Lauren curled up in a ball, pulling the fur around her neck and shoulders. Meat fat spat into the air above her head but she seemed not to notice. He shrugged. She could have brought something for herself but she hadn’t. If she wanted to go hungry for no reason, that was her funeral. He wasn’t going hungry for anyone.
He pinched the steak between his fingers. Blood pooled and ran down onto his wrist. He lapped at it like a dog. They wouldn’t have to worry about gray-meat for a long time. Not when there was a perfectly good dog around.
19
“Just calm down, Jonesy!”
“What do you mean, calm down? There’s two weeks’ worth of food gone missing in less than a week. Are you happy
about that? I’m going to kill him.”
“You don’t know it...”
“I don’t know it was him? I’m interested then, just who do you think it was? Lad?” He didn’t like the tone of his own voice but he was too angry to care.
“No need to be sarcastic. You got it wrong before, didn’t you?” Lisa was calm, too calm.
“You don’t need to remind me about that,” he snapped. “I already apologized.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds. The last person he wanted to argue with about this was Lisa. He closed his eyes. Thinking about that, about how he’d blamed her for the missing food, made him cringe. “Sorry,” he said.
“You don’t need to keep apologizing, just take a minute to think how we handle this. Okay?”
Her comment had stung, rightly so, but it had taken the edge off his fury. He didn’t even remember picking up the Winchester.
“Maybe he doesn’t understand the situation? I don’t know if we explained it to him, made it explicit enough?”
“Sure he does. He’s not an idiot.”
“Were we?” she replied.
“What?”
“Idiots? We sure as hell didn’t understand how serious it was last winter. Carried on stuffing our faces until there was nothing left and...and then...” She looked close to tears.
“I get it.” Jonesy cut her off. “Which is why we need to be careful.” He leaned the rifle up against the wall and took her hand. “We won’t go through that again, I promised you and I’m promising you again.”
“I know,” she smiled. “I trust you.”
“And I trust you.” He kissed her hand then released it. He picked up the rifle again. “Now I need to go out there and make things...explicit to Olin.”
“With that?” She nodded at the Winchester.
“No,” he replied. “But maybe he needs to appreciate the gravity a little more than he does.”
“I’m coming too then.”
He nodded. Lisa liked Olin even less than he did but she was more likely to keep a lid on things. Lad followed them out into the snow.
As he walked across the clearing he saw a trail of prints coming out of the treeline, heading up to the cache. They weren’t human. They belonged to a bear. A big one and most definitely a tough one if he wasn’t hibernating. There couldn’t be two lone, non-hibernating males in the area. It was the same one Olin had shot and wounded. Big, tough and wounded. It would be mad as hell. Almost as angry as Jonesy was.
He took a quick glance around and marched into the shed. The smell hit him immediately. Neither he nor Lisa came out here much now. Everyone ate together in the cabin and Lauren usually arrived carrying a bundle of wood she’d chopped.
It was the smell of fat, of cooked meat and burned fat. He looked at Lisa, raising his eyebrows.
“Olin! Lauren! Wake up!” he shouted.
“Huh?” Olin wiped a hand over his face. He was lying by the fire, closest to it. Lauren was behind him, a little distance away. They should be huddled together for warmth.
“Lauren?” Lisa took a few steps forward, raising her voice. “Wake up.”
Lauren sat up immediately. She looked even more exhausted that she usually did but her eyes were alert.
“Do you know how long it took us to catch and prepare all that food?” Jonesy asked. “We’ve been working all damn year to make sure we had enough. All year!” Jonesy could feel the simmering heat of his frustration. Another degree and it would boil over and become anger.
Olin looked at him with fake confusion. He was a bad actor.
“And you think we can just drive to the store and fetch more? Sorry to break it to you, guys, but it doesn’t work like that.” He felt bad about the way Lauren’s vacant gaze frustrated him even more. It was like she wasn’t there at all.
“We need to run a tight ship,” Lisa interrupted. No doubt she could hear the chagrin in his tone. “We can’t afford to eat more than we need, than we absolutely need.” She paused before delivering the next line. “We didn’t count on feeding two extra mouths.”
Olin raised his hands like he was surrendering. Jonesy could see the Glock under his makeshift pillow – a burlap sack filled with dirt from the woodshed floor. He felt bad about that too but he’d lost count of the number of times he’d asked them to come inside.
“Sorry but I’m not following,” Olin said. He glanced at Lauren.
The comment almost tipped Jonesy over the edge. He took a few steps forward. “You’ve been taking extra supplies. I can smell it, Olin. You think I’m stupid?” He didn’t need Lisa to tell him he was losing his cool, he could feel it rising up his throat like lava.
Olin got to his feet. “Listen, man, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was smiling, like someone was playing a joke on him.
Jonesy took another step. The two men were face to face. In the gloom, the dark hollows on Olin’s face looked like they went all the way down to his skull.
“Don’t fucking lie,” he snarled. “You’ve been stealing our food.” No room for ambiguity there. As explicit as could be.
Olin opened his mouth to speak, still with the same fake, confused incomprehension on his face, then promptly closed it. He turned away and looked at Lauren. She was sitting with her arms around her knees, rocking slowly.
“Honey?” Olin spoke softly.
She looked up.
“Those steaks you’ve been bringing me? You said Jonesy sent them. You said he gave them to you as a thank you for chopping the wood.”
Her dazed expression changed, just for a second; a slight shake of the head and a drop in the lower jaw. She didn’t just look confused, she looked stoned. Utterly wasted.
“Christ.” Olin turned back around, holding his hands up just as he had done a few moments before. Mock acquiescence. “Man, I didn’t know she was stealing them. She said you’d given them to her. Shit, I’m sorry. I should’ve known.”
Lisa came up to Jonesy’s side. “You’re telling us Lauren took them? She took them without you knowing.”
He winced. “God, I’m so sorry. If I’d known I wouldn’t have shared them with her.”
Jonesy stood there. He didn’t believe Olin for a second. The guy was lying.
“Lauren, honey, you want to come up here and say something to these people?” Olin half-turned to Lauren.
She didn’t move. This is it, thought Jonesy. This is where she tells us what a lying sack of shit her husband is.
“Lauren?” Olin turned all the way around. “You need to come apologize to Jonesy and Lisa. We don’t want things escalating, do we?”
She shrugged off the blanket and stood up. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Come closer, they can’t hear you,” Olin said. He was facing Jonesy again.
She took a step. Olin put his arm around her back. “I’m sorry I stole the steaks,” she said. “I was hungry.”
“Thought we’d put all that behind us.” Olin’s sincerity was stomach-churning. He turned his attention to Lisa. “She won’t mind me telling you this in the current situation, but not so long ago Lauren hit the dope in a big way. One of the reasons we came up here actually, I’m trying to dry her out. She got in a bad way, stealing groceries, anything she could sell on. Damn near bankrupted me and put her in county lock-up. We came up here to straighten her out.” He hugged her. “Ain’t that right, honey?”
Lauren nodded, turning her eyes to the floor.
Jonesy didn’t know what to say. It sounded like the biggest crock of shit he’d ever heard and yet, other than the fact he didn’t like or trust Olin, there was no proof it was a lie. Was his dislike of the man clouding his judgment?
Lauren did wear the lost expression he associated with drug users. She hadn’t disagreed with him either. On anything. In the absence of anything else to go on, he had to accept it. Lisa moved from one foot to the other. He would ask her later but he had a feeling she was thinking the same way.
“Sorry,”
Lauren said again.
“It’s alright,” Lisa replied.
“Alright?” Olin said. “No, it’s far from alright, Lisa. She needs to straighten out or she’s going to find herself taking a very long walk on her own. All the way back to Big Six.” He rapped on her head with his knuckles. “Got it?” It was hard enough that the sound echoed in the woodshed.
“Hey!” Jonesy said. “Don’t do that.”
Olin laughed. “Only way to get through to her.” He kissed Lauren on the cheek. “Sorry, honey.”
The four of them stood that way for a few seconds until Lad broke the silence with a long drawn-out whine. He was standing at the entrance, looking into the forest. He lifted his nose to the air and released a loud bark. The sound bounced off the trees, discharging it through the forest. The bear was around somewhere but he wanted the bear to know this was his territory.
Lad stepped outside and let loose a long volley of barks, growls and howls. He was letting the grizzly know who he was and that he was not to be messed with. If the bear chose to ignore it, which he probably would, he’d better be ready for a fight.
“Why’s he doing that?” Olin asked.
“Grizzly’s around here somewhere. I saw his tracks earlier.”
“In the camp?” Olin’s voice betrayed him. There was an edge. It wasn’t fear though, it was a challenge.
“Right through. Up toward the cache,” Jonesy replied.
“Can he get at the food?” This time there was concern in Olin’s tone.
Jonesy shook his head. “No but you two might want to come inside for a few nights.”
“Nah, we’ll be fine, now I’ve got my gun back anyway. Won’t we?”
Lauren nodded.
“You got lucky,” Lisa said. “If he wants to get at you, that little peashooter isn’t going to stop him.”
“Did fine last time out. Not used to someone fighting back, that’s my guess. More used to seeing people run away from him. Didn’t like it when the tables were turned.”
