by J. D. Palmer
For the first time.
“We’re almost there.”
I’m broken from my revery. A smile still on my face. A smile that fades as I think about what she might think of me if she could see what I am doing. Would she understand? I think she would. She would see that I had to become what I am to protect those around me. So that I can protect her. And the child. My son.
She would be showing. I never saw her with the belly, and I hadn’t thought about that yet. How big she must be right now. How scared. Winter coming, and the child, waiting for the first heavy snow to arrive. She must—
“Har.”
Theo pats my arm. The car is stopped, parked off the road behind a gas station. I look behind me. The truck that followed is swinging off the road and ambling up a track that disappears into the hills. The man in the passenger seat turns to look back, eyes flitting from Theo to me. “Don’t forget the tattoo. Cyrene’s orders.”
“Orders?” I say the word, and he cringes, but he doesn’t backtrack.
“Their compound is three miles straight up the road. We’ll wait here for you. Once it’s done, I wouldn’t waste any time.”
“Motherfucker shut up,” Theo snaps, his calm finally breaking. “Just try not to shit yourselves while we go do your dirty work.”
We get out and they pop the trunk so we can retrieve our guns, as if we might have been tempted to use them had they given them to us back at the camp. Either Cyrene is being overcautious or she truly does have a good read on me.
“We got a plan?” Theo asks as we start walking.
“Other than beating those fuckers up when we get back? No. I’m guessing we shouldn’t take the road, though.”
Theo heaves a sigh as he stares out at broad, empty pastures that are far more brown than green. “At least there isn’t any water.”
BERYL | 14
MEN ARE SUCH lonely creatures. They make an island of themselves in order to hide from whatever pain they imagine waits for them on shore. To pretend at strength. To pretend at control.
An island in the middle of a vast sea that is suddenly drained away in a torrent of emotion. Lust. Violence. A savage exultation.
Then peace returns.
Only their eyes give them away. The restless spirit bent upon wandering from one soul to the next, never staying with one for too long.
And we women are no different. If men make an island of themselves then yes, we are the sea. Encompassing. Surrounding. Ever present. We seek to capture these wandering souls and make them our own. To plunge their island beneath our vast ocean and make them one.
To tame them.
Lest they tame us.
The warp and weft of the world. A dance done by fools and the joyous.
Unless there is love.
The two women bring me things. Food. Wine that I don’t drink. They sit across from me and ask me about the downfall. If I had any idea of what happened. Where I was, what I was doing the moment it started to happen. What job I had before. They ask me about Harlan. They ask about Josey and Theo, too. One of them tells me she hopes we stay with them, that she and Theo would “have a good time.” She pushes her boobs out, mink shawl and bra the only things covering them, hands making a lewd gesture that draws a laugh from her friend.
They ask me questions. Some banal, some intrusive. They probe, and push, and pry at me as if we were just gossiping hens spending the day in a salon. Eventually my silence tells them to leave. Or maybe they feel my anger. Maybe they finally take a moment to look into my eyes.
They do not stray far. The two women sit outside my tent on a blanket, pretending to sunbathe. It’s not hard to understand. These are my guards. I hear them tell Sheila and Josey that I want to be left alone. A blatant lie. Or at least a form of putting words in my mouth. It doesn’t deter Sheila though.
“You need bigger tits than that if you wanna just wear a bra,” she says as she walks past them. Then the flap is pulled aside and she sticks her head in. “You okay, bitch?”
She says it with a grimace, as if the only way she can inquire about someone’s wellbeing is to insult them at the same time.
“I’m fine.”
She nods, then puts one foot into the tent, lowering herself to a kneeling position, a bottle of vodka in her good hand. “They watching?”
I take a second before glancing over her shoulder. The big black girl averts her gaze after we make eye contact, pretending to laugh at something the smaller girl said.
“Yeah. Kind of.”
Sheila rolls her eyes. “Great help. This is for you, take a pull.” She hands the bottle to me before slowly unbuttoning the front of her pants with one hand, bandaged fingers waving in the air as if we were having some sort of heated discussion. Reaching into her panties she pulls out a folded knife. She tosses it down onto the sleeping bag between us. “Our guns are gone. Even the rope. They said they sent them with Har.” She snorts. “One of ‘em is walking around with Josey’s shotgun, acting like he just got gifted a new cock. Fuckin’ idiots.”
I pick up the knife, go to put it in my boot.
“Sorry about the smell.” She grins her wicked grin. The smile that doesn’t really let you know if she’s joking or not. The smile that keeps everyone at arms length.
She gestures to her pants. “I can’t button this up one-handed. You mind giving me a little help?”
I button up her pants, and even smile back at her. She’s a bully. But we have an understanding now. And as much as proximity, and touch, are a foreign thing… Knowing that she has my back erases any discomfiture.
She snatches the bottle back and takes a pull, and then hands it to me so I can do the same. Alone I wouldn’t want to drink it. Together, now, the burn is a welcome acknowledgement that we are in this together. And that means a lot to a person like me.
She backs out of the tent. “If ya don’t want to talk that’s fine, don’t need to be a twat!” she exclaims loudly. Hard not to roll my eyes as she walks away. Josey gives me a wave and a confused look. I hope he’s not buying Sheila’s act, but maybe it’s a good sign if he is.
I close the flap quickly, as if angry. Before they can see me smile.
I do want to be alone. Or I don’t. I think I’d just feel alone no matter what. Trying to hide my worry for Harlan, my rage at Cyrene… My incomprehension about this “mission.” What will happen to Harlan? What will happen when he comes back?
I want to be alone in case I disappear.
But I stay put. In mind and body. Thinking about what has to happen. We, or at least I, am a prisoner here. Until the deed is done.
Whatever that means.
But she is duplicitous. I love that word. As if there is two of someone. Two versions, one good and one evil. And one is in charge. Not too different from myself. Except instead of good and evil I’m split into a silent drone and the wolf who howls.
I sink into my home. Sand beneath my feet. River rocks that I feel like I should pause to admire. To feel the smoothness beneath my fingers. Yet I find myself at the entrance to the giant tree. Standing outside the massive doors that are sealed to everyone but me, my fingers tracing the edges of the handprint that is the lock, and my palms the only key.
I go inside.
My private place. Mine. But I feel like a thief in the night. Skulking, slipping away when I have a chance moment. A trespasser.
Someone who shouldn’t be here.
But I want to. I need to. I trot through the lower levels and straight to the breaking room. I don’t don the boots, or the glasses, or the gloves. I shatter the plates with bare hands as I vent my frustration with my helplessness. With my inability to act as someone I love risks his life. An anger I am familiar with, but all the worse for how far I’ve come. Anger that I did not know I had held onto so desperately, reemerging from the shadows like an old friend.
“May I come in?”
My first impulse is to stay. Go farther up into my tree. Deeper into safety. Especially because it isn’t
Harlan’s voice. Or Theo’s. Or Sheila’s. Or…
I open my eyes. Cyrene is bent over at the flap, staring at me speculatively, one eyebrow raised. “Do you meditate?”
I shake my head. “I’d like… to be alone.”
She gives me a wry smile. “That’s what I hear. But I’m here to help.”
She maneuvers into the tent and I lower my hand to my boot. To the new knife I’ve acquired. I might not get a better chance to cut the head from the snake.
She produces a straight razor. “Thought we’d clean up your new haircut. I… Haven’t ever cut hair. But I had mine done a lot. Before.” She gives me a smile that is supposed to mean something.
“No.” I say it and I mean it. No to all of it. No to the haircut. No to the false implications of shared girlish behavior.
“I thought you would want to look good for him. Since he made this deal for you.” She raises an eyebrow at me before heaving a sad sigh at my lack of response. “That is, if he comes back. But maybe… Maybe he wanted you back more than you did…?” Even now she can’t help herself, prying and pushing, anything she can to find holes in my defenses in which to insert her manipulative tentacles. A new tactic with every breath.
“What… do you want?”
She laughs. “Well obviously not a good conversation. No, I thought perhaps you had a message for me from a mutual friend?”
Right.
“Ghost… He says you need… to leave. He says, no more debt.”
She takes this sentence impassively, staring at my mouth as if waiting for more words.
“Interesting. It’s funny how men speak words and think that somehow makes them true.” She eyes me, gauging my response, or lack of response. “Like saying they love you.”
I don’t say a word. But my face must speak for me, for she laughs and comes farther into the tent.
“Sometimes you learn more by the walls a person puts up than by what they say or do.”
The knife is in my hand now. Pike’s head is up, it swings from Cyrene and then back to me. His brown eyes questing, a low rumble in his throat as he picks up on the tension.
“Why are you… here?”
“Because you would not have come to my pavilion, even if I had asked nicely,” she says, a smirk on her face. “When you are queen you must pick your battles. Besides, special visits make my ladies jealous. And my men. Makes them work harder to be seen and heard. Pathetic, really.” She looks at me, takes in my posture, my hand on Pike that she can see and the other that she cannot. “I have loved. Been loved. So I know you won’t kill me. You would die and your friends would die and then your man would die. So you can stop pretending that option is on the table.”
My silence feels petulant. Small. For she is right, in a way. And wrong. Her overconfidence, and arrogance, might end up making it worthwhile.
“Why are you here?”
She reaches out and pets Pike even as he growls. His eyes are wide and he looks to me to gauge how he should respond. I wish I had a way to tell him to take it, to accept this grotesqueness until later, when all will be made right. But I don’t think that would make sense to an animal’s mind. Fuck, it doesn’t to mine.
“You’re beautiful when you’re angry.” Her voice drops. “Are you sure I can’t fix your hair?” Her hand reaches out towards me, cupped… and pauses. “I’m lonely. Can you at least not hate me for that?”
I do not respond. I do not see her end game with me, but I understand that there is one, and I’d rather remain quiet than see it come to fruition.
“I have a lot of power here. Not enough, but a lot. But I don’t know if any one of my people would do what your man did. You see it right?” She settles herself onto my sleeping bag, hands clasped in front of her knees, linen wrapped body hunched forward, as if we were just two girls on a sleepover. “And then come back. That’s the exceptional part. Especially when he has someone else.”
“How did you—”
I fall into her trap too quickly, the pleased smile appearing and disappearing in a millisecond. I realize how much I’ve been played. Every word, every movement, designed to draw a reaction from me. And every time I don’t react, well… That’s another weapon for her to use. She isn’t clairvoyant, she’s simply a huntress let loose in her own private forest.
“Oh honey, it’s as plain as day.” She pretends that she wasn’t working on a hunch. But she has me knocked off guard. I wonder what snare I’ll step in next. My eyes close. I am so weary. My wordplay skills are woefully unpracticed and inadequate to fence with someone this polished in the manipulative arts. Against my will my feet find their way into the sand.
No.
But I’m already there. I’m already relishing the land that’s all my own. The smells, the silence, the pieces of home manufactured by years of turmoil.
No.
I turn. I walk away from the rampike. From my home. My tree. My sanctuary. And it’s all rather sad, now that I see it with fresh eyes. The landscape is sparse, and unpopulated by anything green, and suddenly small. I’ve never looked at it from this point of view. I’ve never… I’ve never wanted to turn around. Because my sanctuary protected me. But now…
I have family to protect and I can’t do that from hiding. I see that clearly now. Though this place was my sanity and haven for years, I am no longer that helpless child. I have my pack and I will fight for them and myself. I will run no more.
When I open my eyes Cyrene is stroking my hair, my head against her chest. The purr of her voice an odd counterpoint to Pike’s uncertain growling.
“I can protect you. I can make this easy.”
And I know that I have fallen within her web, and my only desire is to stab her, stab her, kill the spider and try to escape. But my terror is the black, vertical line that has defined my life. And overlaid that now is the red nimbus of anger, passion, love… Of something more. Of staying for something more. After all the abuse, the chains, the pain, I choose to be here. And this decision lets me tolerate her touch until she thinks me hers. I can’t bandy words, nor can I spill her blood. But I can let her think me tamed. I can stomach her familiarity because I am here for something more. I hear Ghost’s voice. “A wolf can put his foot in a trap, a pack can’t.”
Maybe my tree isn’t big enough any more. Or maybe I’m just tired of the shadows. But there are some injustices worth suffering for the sake of the people around me. My family. The greater good… I’ve always learned quickly. This is the first time, maybe, I’ve actually applied the knowledge.
So she strokes my head and snips my hair and coos her grotesque little words into my ears. And I take it. And I don’t shake… until later… And I don’t kill her… That will also be for a later time… But when she leaves I drink from the bottle of vodka with an abandon that has no place in my predicament.
HARLAN | 15
“POPULUS TREMULOIDES.” AND my dad would point to his favorite tree. Or clump of trees, their leaves shivering and whispering to a breeze I cannot feel. “Quaking aspen. Know what’s cool about them?”
I already knew what he was going to say but I let him say it anyways. I liked the way my dad talked about nature. As if he were proud of it. As if it were something so maligned and bullied you had to marvel that it not only persisted, but made a celebration.
“They’re a single root system. They aren’t separate trees. This is one organism, one heart beneath all of this. Spread out… They can fill a hundred acres!”
And my dad would smile and I would smile and we’d both stare at these thin, flighty little trees that were so much more than they appeared. Dainty, frail little things that, to me, always seemed nervous. I think they’re my favorite tree, too.
Not today.
Theo and I pause at every rustle. Every whisper. It’s almost like the aspens are mocking us. Word spreading along the root, passing word that two idiots are doing their best to sneak through these hills. And their little leaves laugh, and we freeze, wondering if this is the
end.
Neither of us wants to be here. But we both want to be done with it. Ten quick steps forward followed by ten minutes of motionless. Waiting to see if the stick that cracked, or the bird flushed from the bushes, was heard by someone else out there. Looking for us.
You could tell Erik’s group isn’t taking any chances. There is a roadblock set up right next to the sign signifying entry into Mackay, Idaho. A Winstead for Sheriff banner on the left side of the road. A sign for the farmer’s market next to a wooden cutout painted to look like the American flag, large black letters on it that read “we support our troops.”
And a new sign. One larger than the rest, positioned against a new wall, one that resembles a barn door, stretching across the entire entrance to the city. YOU ARE SEEN.
I lower the binoculars.
Jesus. I hope not.
“You are seen?” Theo asks.
“Yeah.”
We stand silent. Thinking of what that means. Resisting the urge to whirl around. To scan the trees. To lay flat on the grass.
A heavy hand grabs my arm and pulls me to the side. “There’s a man on the roof!”
Theo’s whisper is loud. Loud enough that I instinctively crouch down, my turn to pull at him.
“What?”
“You’re fuckin’ loud.”
Truth is it would be hard to be heard. The wind is fairly constant. A breeze that runs the length of the valley that houses this small town. Constant swishing of grass and leaves. A steady rustle that surrounds this city less than a mile long and not even a mile wide. Shrouded beneath twin mountain ranges. One road in and the same road out.
Highway 93. My road home.
I guess I would have dealt with these people eventually. And they don’t seem nice.
The man who paces the roof uses the scope of his rifle to scan the road. To scan the mountains. So far he hasn’t looked in our direction, and seems to ignore our part of the woods entirely. A fact that makes me wonder if someone else is paying attention that we cannot see.
We skirt a low hill and trek along a line of thick trees towards the west side of the town. A small dirt road crosses our path. You are seen echoes in my head. Do we try to cross?
