Josie shrank, unnerved by his lack of reaction. Her sobbing ended in a wet hiccup.
“Well, I’ll be,” he finally said. “What’re you doing down there?” His Appalachian accent was strong. It was the voice of the rural counties that surrounded Asheville, and the tone held a measure of accusation. Josie felt like she’d done something wrong as she tried to explain to him about the fall and subsequent injury.
His manner remained odd. Preoccupied. He was still standing, not crouching, as though he might take off at any second.
“I need help.” She shouldn’t have to state the obvious, except . . . it seemed that she did. Something wasn’t connecting. “Can you get me out of here?”
The man glanced at the woods. “Where’s your friend?”
Apprehension trickled through her veins. How did he know about Neena? How long had he been watching them? Was he the one Neena thought she heard in the fog last night?
He kicked at Neena’s abandoned pack.
Oh. Though reluctant to admit she was alone, Josie couldn’t see a way around it. “My friend left to get help,” she said. My friend knows where I am.
“There ain’t help for miles. How long has he—she?—been gone?”
It was only a one-word question, smuggled inside another question, but it turned Josie’s stomach. Alarm bells clanged louder. She wanted to tell him that her friend was male and then later slip into the conversation that he was also a linebacker the size of a baby orca. But she was at this stranger’s mercy. Facts were required.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “A few hours. You didn’t see her on the trail?”
“Which way’d she go?”
Josie hesitated—and then gave him Neena’s location.
“She’s your age? A teenager?”
Hesitated again. Confirmed.
“Naw,” he said. “I ain’t seen nobody. I came thataway.”
Josie couldn’t tell which direction he was pointing, and she didn’t understand why he wasn’t more concerned. If she had run into somebody in trouble, she’d be freaking out, trying to help. She would have at least asked the person if they were okay—even if it was clear that they weren’t. But the man seemed calm and detached.
“Can you help me?” she asked again.
His demeanor changed so abruptly that she startled. With an interested step forward, he squatted to examine her. His eyes were dark and wide-set. His work boots poked over the rim. “You’re in a mess, girl.”
A whiff of sour breath struck her—an infected reek that hinted of diseased gums—but his countenance had lightened into a tease that expressed worry. Perhaps he’d only been in shock. Relieved at the change of character, she managed to choke out a laugh. For some reason, she was trying to make him comfortable.
“Can you move that?” he asked, referring to her foot.
“Not really.”
“You shouldn’t try.”
“No,” she agreed.
He shook his head. The gesture meant bad news.
Fear caught in her voice. “What is it?”
“Well, I sure hate to tell you this. I could probably get you out, but we might bungle that more on the way up. And if that gets worse—or if you lose more blood—there’s a good chance you’d also lose that foot.”
Faintness swallowed her. Distortion buzzed her frequencies.
“No,” he said. “Best you don’t move. Let them medics come to you.”
“Do you have a phone?”
“Not one that works out here. Same as yours, I reckon.”
“Ours died. Not that they had a signal.”
The man thought for several seconds. He adjusted his ball cap. “How often do you girls come out here?”
“First time.” She mumbled it because she was embarrassed. “Beginner’s luck, right?”
“And your friend knows where she’s going? She got a map?”
“Yeah, of course . . .” Josie cut herself off. “No. Shit. They’re still in our bags. She knows where she’s going, though. She’s headed back the way we came in.”
The man made an indeterminable noise. Turning away from her, he proceeded to rummage through Neena’s pack.
“What are you doing?” Her heart battered against her rib cage. She felt protective over Neena’s belongings. She didn’t want this strange man touching them.
He held something up, and his concern grew more audible. “She okay without these?”
Josie squinted to make it out. It was the Ziploc with Neena’s inhalers. The man’s head cocked slightly—enough for her to understand he was processing the information that her bent frames had impaired her vision. Josie didn’t want him to know that, either. The pain became vibrant and nauseating. She bit her lip, clenching to hold everything in.
“All right, now. Take a deep breath. You’re turning purple.”
“I think she’s okay.” The sinkhole whorled in dizzying spirals. “I’m not sure.”
The man straightened. His stocky frame overshadowed her. “Right, then.”
Her attention shot upward in distress. “You’re leaving?”
“You ain’t going nowhere, but your friend could get lost.” His “get” sounded like “git.” In one hand, he held the printout maps. In the other, he rattled the inhalers in their bag. “And she might need these.”
“No!” Josie didn’t like his company, but the thought of being alone again was harrowing. He needed to stay and protect her. In all likelihood, Neena was fine.
His dark eyes warned. “Don’t try to move.”
But if Neena wasn’t fine, her situation could get dire. Which increased the direness of Josie’s situation, as well.
“You’d only make it worse,” he said, disappearing from view.
Josie’s face pinched to avoid erupting in tears. She didn’t want him to hear how upset she was to be left behind for a second time. She heard him pick up the item that he had set down upon his arrival. From the bottom of the hole, she caught a glimpse—a flash—of the top of it. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the barrel of a shotgun.
NEENA
NEENA WAS BEING hunted. For the last mile, she could swear that something had been tracking her from the forest below the ridgeline. A creeping awareness of movement had coupled with a visceral sensation of watchfulness. She tried to reason herself out of it. Being alone in the backcountry was unnerving, period, so her imagination was in overdrive. She was being irrational.
But then . . . a twig would snap. Or a branch would rustle.
And paranoia triumphed again over logic.
She reintroduced bursts of jogging back into her speed-walking. Her sporadic coughs were dry and hacking. Though she was well out of the balds, it was unclear how close she was to Deep Fork. She recognized enough landmarks to verify that she was on the correct trail, but not enough to gauge any real sense of time. The sooner she passed Deep Fork, the better. Her sweat chilled at the thought of navigating the dense tunnel of laurel in the dark with only the beam of her headlamp.
Shadows lengthened. Bees hushed. She raced the sun as it sank lower in the sky.
I’m sorry, Josie. I’m trying. I’m going as fast as I can.
A crack lacerated the silence. Neena shot out from her skin. Ahead in a nearby stand of trees, something had stepped on a stick. The foliage swished and splintered without wind. She hastened backward, pulse hammering, eyes scanning for beasts.
A man emerged from the cover.
He was an adult, maybe in his late twenties. He was white, lean and rawboned, with wispy patches of blond facial hair. His ball cap, rugged pants, and work boots didn’t seem to belong to a hiking enthusiast, instead calling to mind the deer hunters who stocked up on Mossy Oak camouflage and discount Mountain Dew at Kmart. Though perhaps the gun enhanced this impression—visually jarring and slung so casually over hi
s slim shoulders.
This was a different man. A second man. But Neena did not even know there was a first.
A certain pressure arose in her bladder. She glanced behind herself, suddenly terrified that she might be surrounded. She wasn’t. She was alone with this man and his gun, and now that prospect seemed even more frightening.
“Shit, girl.” The man drew a hand to his chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
She was glad to hear that he’d been startled, too. And yet.
Yesterday, she had relaxed the instant the manly tenor was revealed to be the boy hiking with his girlfriend. The vibe here was different. Her muscles remained taut, her senses heightened. She didn’t move to approach him.
“You must be the one I heard coughing,” he said. “I was on the trail down there, but I couldn’t see nothing. Thought I was going crazy.”
His voice matched his appearance. It was the mountain accent that her future classmates in Los Angeles might think of unfavorably as hillbilly, or even basic Southern, but she recognized specifically as Appalachian. The South had a wide variety of dialects. Neena had met plenty of friendly and intelligent people with this particular drawl—those who dropped their gs and doubled their negatives—but she was ashamed to admit that she still felt nervous around the white people who had it. Or maybe it wasn’t shame. Maybe it was something more practical.
Neena spoke cautiously. “Yeah. I kept hearing things, too.”
Her gaze flickered back to the gun. Shotgun? Rifle? She only vaguely understood the difference, but its barrel was long, and it looked snug with its owner.
The man grew abashed and defensive. “It ain’t for hunting. This rifle’s strictly emergency use only. A few years ago, me and a buddy were chased by a mama bear protecting her cubs. We didn’t get hurt or nothing, but I always come prepared.” He adjusted the dingy shoulder strap and gave her a squirrelly grin. “Hey. Don’t you go reporting me to the rangers.”
She didn’t believe him—he’d brought up the subject himself and then denied it too readily—but it reassured her that he was probably stalking something illegal or out of season as opposed to lone female hikers. Still. It seemed best to agree with whatever he said.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said.
The man turned expectant. Like he was waiting for her to join him. Like he assumed they would hike together for a while and shoot the breeze.
Neena wanted him to either start hiking in the opposite direction or to hike so far ahead of her that she couldn’t see him anymore—that he would no longer exist in her visible universe. Except, of course, if he went ahead of her, he could hide and wait and then lurch out at her from behind another copse of trees. And if he went behind her, she would never be able to stop looking over her shoulder.
She was trapped.
Reluctantly, she approached the stranger. A putrid stench reached her first. Her own body didn’t smell like lilacs, but the odor emanating from the man was an assault. Angling her head aside to prevent gagging—hoping the gesture didn’t look rude—her gaze snagged on the brush where he had exited onto the Wade Harte. The vegetation was thick and barely trampled. There didn’t appear to be a path there at all.
“Listen, uh.” She coughed again. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”
His hands lifted in surrender. “Hand to Jesus, I won’t slow you down.”
Shit. Shit.
She began to walk at a brisk pace. “You said you were on a trail down there?”
“There’s a bunch of them.” He moved in step beside her, and she noticed a large hunting knife strapped to his belt. “I know my way around these parts better than anybody. Hell, I blaze my own trails.”
His eyes glinted. They were small and close together, a washed-out shade of blue. His whole body was vibrating with a peculiar, jittery energy like he was tamping down some sort of excitement. Everything inside Neena shouted at her to run, but he hadn’t actually threatened her or done anything wrong.
Also, there was the rifle. And the knife. She tried to stay a few feet ahead of him, but he kept closing the gap.
“By any chance,” he said, “that wasn’t you who blew that whistle a while back, was it? I called out and searched around, but I couldn’t find anyone.”
His casual tone rang false. Unless she was projecting it? Sweat beaded her armpits. She didn’t want to tell him about Josie, but . . . what if he could help? What if she was being racist against white guys with hick accents and ugly clothes? She hedged her response with a question. “You don’t happen to have one of those satellite phones that works in the middle of nowhere, do you?” But then a deluge of coughing defied her attempt at nonchalance. She choked down some water but kept moving.
“Asthma?” he asked.
It almost stopped her in her tracks. Wheezing, she snuck a sideways look at him as she wiped the dripping water from her chin.
His expression lit up. “I knew it. My wife—my ex-wife, we got married in high school—she had asthma, too. You should slow down, not speed up.”
Neena didn’t know what else to do but confess. “I didn’t blow the whistle. It was my friend, who’s hurt.”
The man’s footsteps faltered. “Your friend? What happened to her?” His eyes darted to the tree line. “Where is she?”
The feminine pronouns unsettled Neena. Was he assuming? Hoping? Yet the full, gruesome story tipped out of her in a torrent.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Your friend’s foot’s gonna fall off, and you’re taking the long way back?”
Neena’s lungs cinched another notch. “What do you mean?”
“You’re headed for the parking lot on the other side of Frazier Mountain?”
She nodded.
“The Wade Harte ain’t the fastest route. It’s the scenic route.”
“There’s a faster route?”
“About a quarter mile ahead. Cuts straight down through the valley. I reckon you’d save an hour, at least.”
Hope took a vast and fateful breath. “Could you show me where it is?”
“Hell,” he said, “that’s the way I was headed.”
The man’s pale eyes blinked too much when he spoke. His fetid stink curdled her stomach, and his gun was probably loaded. But perhaps he was a godsend, after all.
JOSIE
SHE COULDN’T STOP thinking about the gun. The man must be an illegal hunter, which explained why his initial approach had been so cautious—he didn’t know who he was about to find. It also seemed possible that he’d hidden the shotgun because he thought it might scare her. Which made the gesture kind. Shivering in the dusk, Josie tried to convince herself that the man had only been trying to make her feel safe.
The trees above the sinkhole began to smudge like charcoal. The forest noises reshaped. Entire species of insects fell asleep as others awakened. The air didn’t just feel colder. It smelled colder, too.
Josie put on her hat and draped her hoodie over her torso like a blanket. The puddle was still damp on her ass, and she couldn’t contort her body into any angle that might allow her to reach her sleeping bag. She should have asked the man to toss down Neena’s sleeping bag to her. He should have offered.
Her foot was still elevated on top of the roots. Her back and hips trembled with rippling aches that no amount of shifting could alleviate and that only disappeared whenever she accidentally jostled the horrific bundle at the end of her leg.
How long was it until nightfall?
She hadn’t thought to give the man her name, nor ask for his. Why hadn’t she armed him with more information? Her mother’s phone number, at the very least. He’d reminded her, in a way, of her uncle Kevin, her father’s older brother who still lived in Madison County, where they’d grown up.
Madison was only one county over, but the lines made a difference. Politics and attitudes changed. Income and educatio
n dropped. While her father had lost his childhood accent, her uncle had retained it. He was quiet and reserved and gave plenty of side-eye to the liberals in Asheville. But he was also big-hearted and dependable and the only relative who regularly visited her and Win.
He was a hunter, too. A few years ago, he’d taken her out onto his property and taught her gun safety and how to shoot. But, despite the lesson, Josie would never feel safe around guns. Because there was no arguing with a gun. When going up against one, the person without one always lost.
However, if Uncle Kevin—who owned a successful contracting business, as well as a small arsenal—were to ever discover somebody in distress, he would do everything in his power to help them. And he wouldn’t be flashy about it. He would get the job done, and he wouldn’t need thanks or praise. Maybe this man was the same.
She imagined her uncle’s burly figure creaking in the rocking chair beside hers on his porch, teasing her about this “little mishap in the woods.” Or her “little foot injury.” Except it wouldn’t be actual belittling. He’d be trying to make her laugh. And then her father would appear in the wrinkles around his sly, twinkling eyes, and he would live again for those few seconds.
The pain was unbearable. Time meandered and dwelled into oblivion. Hopefully Neena would reach the car soon.
Josie’s appetite was weak, but keeping up her strength became motivation to eat. Tonight’s scheduled dinner was chili macaroni with beef. A gift from Win, and she and Neena had been laughingly eager to try it. Not because the prepackaged backpacking food would taste good, but because it would be an experience.
Making the meal required boiling water. Josie poured tepid water into the pouch and waited as long as she could stand. In diminutive bites, she gagged and choked on the crunchy moistened shells and soggy compressed meat. She gave up quickly. Forcing down the last protein bar instead, she dreamed of hot mozzarella stretching away from a slice of pepperoni pizza. Sipping some water, she despaired for cold condensation slipping down a bottle of Mexican Coke.
The Woods Are Always Watching Page 12
