On the Free

by Coert Voorhees

  “It’s the least I can do. Like, literally, this is the very least I can do.” Santi steps back and hands Amelia one of his own white T-shirts. “You can have this if you want. Not the best fit but probably better than Jerry’s stuff.”

  Among the items laid out is the map, held in place by Jerry’s water bottle. Victor walks calmly around the rain fly, but Amelia grabs it before he’s even halfway there. She holds the map against her side but says nothing.

  “We split the food. Evenly.” Victor holds out his hand, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. “Let me take a look at the map, and then whatever happens, happens.”

  “We’re not splitting up,” Amelia says. “We need to stay together. I’m responsible now—”

  “No offense, Amelia, but I don’t think the Bear Canyon Wilderness Therapy Program guidelines are at the top of our priority list.”

  “I’m the assistant leader,” Amelia says quietly. She folds the map one last time before putting it in her pocket. Then, as if convincing herself, she says it again, louder. “I’m the assistant leader.”

  “We’re staying together,” Santi says.

  Victor can’t believe he has to deal with this. Why can’t the two of them just let him leave? What the hell do they care where he goes? He certainly doesn’t care where they go. If his ribs and shoulder didn’t hurt so bad, he’d kick Santi’s ass, grab some food, and be done with it.

  “We go forward, then,” he says. If he’s going to have to drag them along with him, he’ll make sure he drags them in the direction of the cabin. “We don’t go back.”

  Santi shakes his head. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

  “That’s exactly what this is.”

  “You guys,” Amelia says, sounding as exhausted as she looks. “Your macho bullshit is impressive and everything, but can we not do this right now?”

  Santi smiles. “You hear that? She thinks our macho bullshit is impressive.”

  “Fine, we go forward,” Amelia says. “Just as long as we get away from this.”

  “Then I guess we’re staying together,” Victor says. It doesn’t matter. He’ll have plenty of time to slip away later.

  23

  This is how people die, Victor thought. He imagined the newscast that night, recounting the sad tale: the helicopter pilot, the Denver-area family of three, the first responders commenting on the isolation of the crash site and the magnitude of the wreckage.

  They all wore noise-cancelling headphones, massive ear protectors like the guys out on an airport tarmac. Victor was terrified. He did not want to seem terrified. He pressed his hands on top of his thighs to keep them from shaking, looking out the window at the saw-toothed peaks below until he could stand it no longer.

  His mom, sitting across from him, gave him two thumbs up. “This is fun!” she yelled over the din of the rotor blades.

  This was not fun. At all. He hated his mom for making him come along, and he hated his stepdad even more for suggesting it in the first place. Winslow had wanted to share his pride and joy with them for over a year, and now, after the wedding, what could be a better time?

  “The Weminuche Wilderness,” his stepdad said, gesturing toward a ridgeline that looked like the back of a stegosaurus. “The most remote stretch in Colorado!”

  Thirty minutes after takeoff in Durango, the helicopter began to slow and then to descend. They approached a clearing about half the size of a football field, just below the tree line. Uphill, a scree field led to another serrated ridge.

  Rotor wash flattened the wildflowers as the helicopter hovered above the sloping ground. Winslow got out after putting his headphones on the empty copilot seat. His hair whipped about, moving for the first time since Victor had met him. Winslow reached for Victor’s mom, then for Victor. Last were the bags: two small pieces of luggage and a small waterproof duffel of food, and then the helicopter lifted up gently and floated away.

  “The Weminuche’s around us on all sides,” Winslow said as the helicopter disappeared over the ridge. “Copter’s the only way to get here.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Victor’s mom said. “Truly.”

  “Can’t put a price tag on it,” Winslow said, looking around. “You wouldn’t believe the deals I had to cut with the Forest Service to make sure there was nobody else nearby.”

  There was a hint of color—purple, yellow, blue—dotting the vast green field of waist-high plants. “Damn. The wildflowers must have bloomed early this year,” he said with a frown. “Come on, let me show you inside.”

  Victor had figured that anything you had to take a helicopter to would be luxurious, even up at almost 12,000 feet, but this place was neither as fancy nor as big as he’d thought.

  Winslow’s cabin was basically one big room, maybe thirty feet across and definitely smaller than Victor’s bedroom at their new home. A huge support post stood in the middle, extending up to the center of the A-frame ceiling. On one side was a kitchen and small table. A full-sized bed took up most of the space on the other side, with dozens of pillows along the back wall so it also worked as a couch. A sliding door covered half of the downhill wall and opened out toward a view that belonged on the cover of a magazine.

  “It was just this room when I bought it,” Winslow said. “I added a loft and dug out the basement about five years ago. All supplies brought in by helicopter, of course. Go ahead, take a look around.”

  Victor climbed halfway up a ladder to poke his head into the loft, then wandered down into the basement, which included another twin bed-slash-couch, a small sink, and four doors—a ridiculous number for such a small room—none of which even led outside. Door one opened to a cedar closet with stacks of Indian blankets; door two revealed a small storage area stocked mostly with paper towels and toilet paper. A room with lots of pipes and two large water tanks was behind door number three. The last one was locked, which seemed unnecessary given how far they were from civilization.

  Winslow and his mom had taken off their shoes by the time he came upstairs. Winslow filled a glass with water from the tap.

  “You have running water here?” Victor said.

  “Sure, running water, electricity, the whole nine yards. In fact, this cabin had power even before a lot of the towns in the area. With all the mining, you had to have electricity.”

  “Mining for what?” Victor said.

  “Lots of things, really,” Winslow said. “Zinc, lead, silver, copper.” He picked a small vial from the mantel and handed it to Victor. Sitting at the bottom of the vial was a dark yellow cluster about the size of a pea.

  Winslow smiled. “But mostly gold.”

  24

  Misery is supposed to love company, but Victor’s company only makes him more miserable. He should be alone, with his own food and his own pack and his own schedule and his own plan, instead of being the third wheel in some lame spoof of a disaster movie.

  With all their injuries, the progress is slow. Santi’s feet. Victor’s ribs and shoulder. Amelia’s arm seems better, at least. The Advil from Jerry’s first-aid kit probably helps, but she’s recovered so fast that Victor begins to wonder whether she was milking the injury for sympathy, the way he used to in order to get out of running wind sprints at the end of soccer practice.

  They make camp in a small, relatively flat clearing in the middle of an aspen grove. A rocky crag juts out from the ridgeline about a quarter mile to the west. It’s the most distinctive feature around them, even recognizable on the map. They may be stranded, but at least they’re not lost.

  As the sun moves past the horizon, the temperature starts to plummet. And beneath the white ribbon of the Milky Way overhead, the cloudless night sky has trapped none of the day’s heat.

  A fire pit would have taken effort they can’t make. Instead, they pile some logs in the center of the clearing. Doused with camping fuel, a match tossed on top. Smoky at first, but soon the wood dries and the roaring fire provides all the warmth they need.

  Without a stove or p
ots to boil water, they eat the squares of ramen like sandwiches.

  “Mmmm,” Santi says through the crunch of the dry noodles. He offers Victor what’s left of his spice packet. “The chicken flavor is tremendous. First class.”

  All day, they’ve rationed what’s left of their water—a sip here, a sip there, but never enough to quench the thirst—so Victor accepts the packet no matter how disgusting the taste. At least the sodium triggers his saliva.

  Crunching his teeth against the noodles, he can’t keep himself from thinking of the scat they’d found after breaking for lunch: another tube of oversized cat crap with clumps of hair and bits of shattered bones sticking out. Either they’re following the mountain lion or it’s following them. He isn’t sure which would be worse.

  “You guys want to take turns stoking the fire in the middle of the night?” Amelia says, warming her palms by the flames.

  “You can have my sleeping bag, if you want,” Santi says. “What’s left of it.”

  Amelia snorts in mock offense. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You should take it.”

  “You don’t think I can handle the cold?”

  “Handle it if you want, but I still have my sweater, and you’re just rocking Jerry’s hemp hoodie.”

  It looks like the two of them share a little moment—does she wink at Santi? does he raise his eyebrows at her?—before Amelia shrugs in acceptance.

  “Now I feel like the asshole for not offering first,” Victor says with a grunt.

  Santi laughs. “I’m not the one who said it.”

  “Did you guys hear that?” Victor whirls his head around.

  “Wha—”

  “Shh.” He holds his hand out and stands, head cocked. Another sound comes with the wind. Is it the mountain lion? Do mountain lions even roar? Like lions at the zoo?

  But it’s just the wind. It has to be. The wind in the trees.

  “Victor,” Amelia says. “You okay?”

  He turns back to them and forces a laugh. “I’m not the one with the broken arm.”

  “What if I told you,” Amelia says after a moment, “that Jerry left us a little present?”

  “I would ask what it is,” Santi says.

  She leans forward as if to stand up but then sits back down and shakes her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Santi smiles at her again, like they’ve known each other forever. “You can’t do that.”

  And now she hits him across the shoulder with the back of her good hand. “I can do whatever I want—”

  “That’s right,” Victor says, “you’re the leader now.”

  “Don’t be a dick, Victor.”

  The fire’s orange glow dances in the faces across from him. Maybe he’ll leave tonight. Just as he should have done the day before—grabbed some food, made them try to stop him.

  “Screw it,” Amelia says. She slaps her hand on her knee and goes over to Jerry’s pack, coming back with a silver flask.

  Santi and Victor share a glance.

  “Jerry brought a flask?” Santi says.

  Amelia unscrews the top and peers inside, puts her nose to the opening, and takes a tentative sip. Not two seconds later, she starts coughing.

  “Wrong pipe?” Santi says, reaching to pat her on the back.

  “Just wish we had some salt and lime,” Amelia says after she recovers. She offers the flask to Santi, who takes a whiff. “Tequila.”

  “I didn’t know about it until this morning, when I found it in his pack. It’s against regulations, right? But it’s not like anything matters anymore.”

  “Jerry smuggled tequila.” Santi shakes his head. He grunts with laughter and takes a pull before passing it along.

  Victor holds the flask up to the fire: the silver scratched from regular use, with an owl engraved into a large wooden panel on the front. It’s almost full, and larger than Victor expected. “This bad boy is serious. It must hold at least ten ounces.”

  “Twelve,” Amelia says. “Probably twelve, I guess.”

  They sit in silence for a long time, passing the tequila around the fire, coughing a little, wincing through the burn. It’s not the smoothest Victor’s ever had, but right now, under the stars, after the day they’ve had, it gets the job done.

  “Look at you,” Victor says finally as he gives it to Amelia. “Breaking the rules. I have to say that I’m more than a little impressed.”

  “I’m not doing it to impress you.”

  “That’s not what I—” Victor stops, exhales. “I just meant that . . . we don’t know anything about each other is all. You know, surprises and whatnot.”

  “Okay . . .” Santi angles the flask in front of Victor as if watching the flames against the silver back. “Since we’re probably not going to get to sharing circle for you guys, let’s have it. One thing. One little nugget about yourself.”

  Victor laughs. “You first.”

  “Nah, I already had my turn. Officially, too, and for over an hour.”

  “I’ll go,” Amelia says, her eyes still locked on the fire. “I’ve lived in seven different states and three different countries, never one place for more than three years.”

  “I thought you were born in Houston?” Victor says.

  “I only say I’m from Houston because I’ve lived there the longest.”

  “See?” Santi leans back and nods. “That’s some high-quality sharing. Was it your dad’s job?”

  Amelia shakes her head. “Mom’s. Oil and gas.”

  “More surprises!”

  Victor takes a long pull, holding the tequila in his mouth for a bit longer this time, enjoying the burn. “This is the type of group activity I could get behind.”

  “Órale,” Santi says. “Enough of the trust talks and the staying on your side of the net and all that—no offense, Amelia.”

  “None taken.”

  “Just pass around a beverage and let everyone chill together.” Santi smiles. “What do you think, Victor? Different time, different place?”

  “Us?” Victor says. “Nah. You think I’m some rich asshole.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I guess. And don’t you have a stick up your ass?”

  Santi laughs and reaches for the bottle. “I guess.”

  “What do you think it was like for them?” Amelia says, as if she’s just remembered an errand she was supposed to handle.

  “What do you mean?” Santi says.

  “On the rock last night, I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there and waited. Waited for something to happen. And then I heard your voice and I thought you were going to help me. But then the slide came again, and I was gone. I was sure I was dead.” She shakes her head and stares at the fire, and for a second, she looks just as dazed as she did when she found them this morning. “I should be dead.”

  “It’s not our fault that we’re alive,” Victor says.

  “You don’t even think about it?” she says.

  “What good does it do? Am I going to switch places with them?”

  She’s crying again. Santi sits next to her and lets her lean into his shoulder. “They didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Some people do,” Victor says to himself.

  Santi glares at him. “Jesus, Victor.”

  “I’m just saying. Hitler, right? For example.”

  “That’s the problem with people like you,” Santi says. “It’s all theoretical. Death, pain, whatever. Nothing really bad ever happens, so you get to play make-believe—”

  “Theoretical is a big word for people like you,” Victor says with a smile.

  The tequila goes down easier every time. First the pain in Victor’s ribs goes away, then the feeling in his shoulder. Then basically everything. He leans back against the soft tufts of grass and looks up at the clear night sky, the Milky Way sprinkled directly overhead. Smoke blocks his view whenever the wind shifts, but he doesn’t mind. In fact, it’s better that way. Billions of stars drilling light through the haze.


  Why couldn’t it have been this beautiful last night? Why couldn’t the storm have come a day earlier? Or a day later?

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” Victor says to himself.

  Santi laughs at him. “Says everyone in juvie.”

  “My stepdad has a cabin.” Somewhere in the back of his mind is a voice telling him to shut up, but that voice is too distant. Victor can’t hear it clearly, and besides, the time for keeping it to himself is long gone. “We’re close.”

  “Bullshit. Ese, you must be hammered.”

  Victor sits—a little too quickly—and has to brace himself against the dirt for a moment to keep himself from collapsing. “Show me the map.”

  Santi and Amelia look at each other. Not leaving them at the mudslide was the dumbest thing Victor’s ever done, and now he knows it.

  “Show me the fucking map. I’m not going to steal it from you.” He turns on his headlamp and wobbles around the fire. It takes him longer than it should. The ground doesn’t seem to be where his feet want it to be.

  “Easy there,” Amelia says. “We don’t have enough water to put you out.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” he says. “Shut up, I’m fine.”

  With Santi’s help, Amelia spreads the map on the ground. Victor kneels in front of it, pointing to various spots along the highlighted trail. “Here—this X—that’s where we were supposed to camp last night. And here was the mudslide, right? We’re at least twenty miles from the end of the trail, but here—”

  His finger lands about an inch away from the X, on a small clearing just below the thick elevation line marking 12,000 feet.

  “See that right there? That bowl. The cabin is just below tree line. There’s a satellite phone up there,” Victor hears himself say. “Seriously. None of this walking down to the trail bullshit. We could get a helicopter to come pick us up—”

  “A helicopter?” Amelia says.

  Santi laughs. “Now I know you’re hammered.”

  “Why do you think I chose this stupid trip in the first place? Because it was close. Because I knew I could get in there and fuck up his shit. His pride and joy.”

  Amelia slides the map from beneath his finger and folds it slowly, finding the creases first. There is doubt on her face. Or is it concern? Or fear?