“Hi, Mom,” Amelia said, wandering over.
Her mom made the introductions, and though Amelia concentrated, she immediately forgot the names. The one with light gray hair and a boy’s haircut looked familiar, at least.
“Aren’t you a cute little thing,” said the one with a pink sweater slung fashionably over a sporty tank top.
The one with a massive turquoise necklace said, “Your mother was just telling us about your college news! Congratulations! I’m sure Pomona will be just wonderful.”
“Even though it’s not in Texas,” said Pink Sweater with a wink.
“Are you showing your horse this summer?” Boy Haircut said, her tone suggesting that there was only one appropriate response. Amelia finally placed her. Boy Haircut’s daughter Carolyn rode at the same barn as Amelia.
Horse shows were boring, and Amelia was a terrible rider, but it’s what the right families did. The other girls with hundred-thousand-dollar horses. The jodhpurs, scratchy and sweaty against the inside of her legs. The heat. That Houston heat.
Her mom rescued her. “Amelia is going to be leading—”
“Assistant-leading,” Amelia said.
“Assistant-leading a group with the Bear Canyon Wilderness Therapy Program this summer in Colorado. They take kids from the juvenile justice system and teach responsibility and self-worth.”
Boy Haircut bared her teeth in a shape close to a smile. “Well, bless your heart.”
Pink Sweater arched a manicured eyebrow. “You’re not worried about being in the middle of nowhere with those people? They are juvenile delinquents, aren’t they?”
“They’re not bad kids,” Amelia said, quoting the recruiter. “They’ve just made bad choices.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” said Boy Haircut. “I mean, they’re in the system for a reason, aren’t they?”
43
The sun pummels them from directly overhead as they stagger downhill. They stay in the shade as much as possible, but the trees can’t cover them all the time. It’s hotter at lower altitude, and the air is still too thin to offer much UV protection: the worst of both worlds. Amelia never thought she’d wish so much for the rain to come back, but if the alternative is being roasted alive, maybe the rain wasn’t so bad.
Amelia’s skin, paler than Santi’s, has taken the worst of it, but both of them are burned on the cheeks, their lips chapped and split. Her hair, now out of the ponytail, lies across the back of her neck. She’s wearing Jerry’s hat, while Santi has wrapped what’s left of Jerry’s sweatpant leg over his head and tied it under his chin so that he looks like a sickly grandmother.
Dinner the night before was the last of the food—two saltines and a couple pinches of powdered milk—and though they’ve tried to hunt, they haven’t come close to success. Marmots are quicker than Amelia gave them credit for, and the rabbits just seem to taunt them.
What’s worse, the spear might not even last long enough for Santi’s aim to improve. The knife handle is a little wiggly in its slot, and after one particularly bad throw, the blade chipped on a rock. Amelia joked that it looked more dangerous as a serrated blade anyway, but neither of them laughed.
They rest because they have to rest. She finds shade and Santi heads off into the woods to do his business again, the giardia having wreaked havoc on his intestines.
She pulls the map from the side of the backpack and spreads it on her lap, even though she knows there’s nothing but bad news. No food and a sick Santi means they haven’t covered nearly as much ground as they’d hoped. Yesterday morning they’d woken up eighteen miles from the service road. Twenty-eight hours later, they’re still over thirteen miles away.
What’s left of the liquid in their bottle looks disturbingly like tea. After running out of water just before dinner last night, they had to scrounge three-day-old rainwater from a melon-sized depression in a huge granite boulder. They strained the water through the fabric of Amelia’s T-shirt to get the big stuff out, but it still tastes like piss and moldy bread.
Amelia drinks it anyway, letting the fluid coat the inside of her mouth until there’s almost nothing left to swallow.
“How close are we?” Santi says when he returns.
She forces a laugh. “Just over the next ridge.”
“You dead yet?”
“Not yet.” She offers him the water bottle. “Finish it. Looks like we’re going to hit a little stream in about a quarter mile.”
“That could take us all day.” Santi shakes his head but empties the bottle.
“How’s your . . . you know.”
“My ass?” he says. “Not good. Leaves and pine needles aren’t exactly Charmin on my—”
“Your stomach. I was asking about your stomach.”
“Oh.” He leans on the spear for support. “Not good either.”
Even with a chipped blade, the spear should work. It’s heavy enough to offer at least some killing power, and the shaft is almost completely straight, so it should fly true. But Santi’s awful with it, and Amelia doesn’t trust herself with a throw because of her broken arm, so what should be their salvation has turned into the world’s most intimidating walking stick.
“My boyfriend used to take me hunting on his ranch. The ranch hands would spread corn all around, and we’d climb up into the deer blind and wait for the deer to come running.”
“Sounds boring.”
“Well, it was secluded at least,” she says with a wink. Santi smiles for the first time all day. “Then the deer would wander over,” Amelia continues, “take a little nibble of corn, and . . . boom.”
“Did you ever shoot one?”
“No. It always seemed so unfair. Luring the poor little guys like that.” She holds the spear while Santi puts on the backpack, which he still insists on carrying, even in his condition.
“I wish we had some corn right about now.”
The sound of the river comes to them in less than an hour, the rushing water like a distant freeway. They reach a dense band of underbrush and power through the thick branches as the river becomes louder and louder. The bushes are up to Amelia’s chest in places, with green leaves that stretch up- and downriver as far as she can see.
She had thought that reaching the water would be a good thing, but she realizes—once they’re through the underbrush and to the rocky bank—that the river is much wider and the current much stronger than she’d imagined. It’s about twenty feet across, at least two feet deep, and churning fast enough to create whitecaps.
“Little stream, huh?” Santi says.
“Want to find another way?”
He shoots her a look. It’s here or nowhere.
He rolls up his pant legs, and they take off their boots and stuff their socks deep in the toes. Then they tie the laces together, slinging them around their necks. Amelia steps into the current first and plants the spear downstream, careful to angle the knife forward, away from her head. The water is no warmer here than in the snow-fed lake, and in only a few seconds, her leg is numb halfway up her calf.
On Amelia’s other side, Santi leans on her shoulder for support and steps in the water. They try to coordinate their steps, but the strength of the current tugs at their feet, and they have to fight not to get their legs tangled. Half the time, when she steps down, her foot slips off one rock and into the side of another, pinching her foot between the two.
And while she’s using the spear for balance, Santi uses her, which means that each step he takes pulls her down, pressing her feet harder into the rocks. Every inch is a struggle.
When Santi is two feet away from the other side, he dives to the riverbank, sliding his arms out of his pack and rolling onto his back in one stilted, awkward motion. Amelia takes the next two steps carefully, her feet still tender on the rocks, and when she’s safely on the other side, she collapses into the bushes beside him.
Crumpled branches poke into her back. She closes her eyes to the sun as it bakes her face. All she hears is t
he water. She tries to lick the chap from her lips.
“You dead yet?” she whispers.
“Not yet.”
She rolls over and crawls to the rushing water, and she dunks her face into the cold for as long as she can hold her breath. Then she does it again, letting her unbound hair fall forward into the river. Afterward, she sits cross-legged in the bushes while her hair drips water down her face, down the back of her neck.
Next to her, Santi dips his makeshift scarf in the water and reties it on his head. Then he fills the bottle and chugs the whole thing and fills it again.
“We should go soon,” he says. But when he reaches for Amelia’s boots, she waves him off.
“Just a little bit longer.” She knows they have to leave, but it’s so peaceful here.
Santi works his feet into his boots and pushes himself up, and Amelia watches him stand there: his eyes closed, his hands at his sides, his palms turned out to the sun, the trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He must sense her watching him because he looks down at her, and the smile turns sheepish. Before he can say anything, his eyes go wide at something downriver, and he darts to the ground.
Amelia says, “Wha—”
Shh! he mouths, with a finger to his lips. His eyes are alive, but not with fear.
He stands again, hunched over this time so that his head is barely above the riverbank underbrush. He motions for her to do the same, then points downriver.
Her gaze follows his finger. It takes a couple of seconds to notice what he’s pointing to, but when she does, she flinches in surprise, and they huddle together beneath the underbrush.
I know, Santi mouths, back down next to her. A fucking deer!
A spike, is what pops into her head. That’s what Tyler called it when the antlers were that small, when they just stuck straight up and didn’t have any forks in them.
Even though the afternoon breeze is gentle, it’s blowing uphill, meaning that they’re downwind of the deer, so he can’t smell them. Plus, he’s focused on drinking, dipping his head down to the water, and the current is so loud that he can’t hear them either.
Amelia eases the spear off the ground and hands it to Santi. “You’re only going to get one chance at this.”
He reaches out as if to grab the spear, hesitates, and then pulls back. “I can’t do it.”
“It’s him or us, Santi. We’re going to die if you don’t.”
“I don’t mean I won’t. I mean I can’t.” He shakes his head.
Amelia feels the panic start to set in. The longer they spend arguing about this, the greater the chance that the deer will be gone before they figure it out. She points to her bad arm, but he can only shake his head again.
Okay, she thinks. She looks at her boots and decides that she doesn’t have time, that wool socks will have to do. Maybe it will even be better this way. Maybe she’ll be quieter.
The deer hasn’t moved. It’s only about a hundred feet away, but that distance feels like a hundred miles.
It hurts to bend over, keeping the spear low. Her quads scream, her back aches, to say nothing of the fact that she’s pinching her bad arm between her thigh and torso.
If I don’t kill him, I will die.
She knows this to be the truth. But instead of scaring her, the simplicity of the idea calms her.
Slowly. One step, then stop. Another step. Somehow, the closer she gets to her prey, the less she hears the river. The less her body hurts. When she’s thirty feet away, she brings the spear from her side to her shoulder.
Thanks to the slope, she’s slightly above her target, which can only help with the throw. She can see him clearly now, this young buck, his unforked antlers about five inches tall, pointing straight up like twin unicorn horns.
Tyler’s voice pops into her head: He’s a beauty, Miels. You can do this.
How much closer can she get? Each step increases her chances of hitting him. Each step increases the risk of spooking him. Maybe two more? Three? She brings her left foot up, but it gets caught on a bush, and she feels her body leaning forward, too far forward, and she’s holding the spear in her right hand and her left arm is tied to her side and she’s about to collapse, after all this.
Rather than trying to catch herself, she commits to the fall—an instinct says it will be quieter this way—leading with her right shoulder and letting the spear roll off her open palm. She plops into the bushes on her right side. More pain from her broken arm, and a wave of nausea hits her, but she’s able to bite down on her bottom lip until it fades.
Tyler’s voice again: What are you waiting for, Miels? Go get that sonofabitch.
She curls into a ball and rolls onto her knees and pushes up with her right arm. Once the spear is back in her hand, she crouches up again to see the spike—still there, but wary now, looking out over the river as if trying to figure out what that sound was and where it came from.
She waits. Forever. And when he dips his head for another drink of water, she moves again. One step. Two steps. Twenty feet away, fifteen.
Right there, says Tyler. Aim just behind the front shoulder. Steady yourself. Breathe.
She steadies herself. She breathes. Her left leg slides forward. Her body rotates to the right, the throwing arm back and low.
A gust of wind rattles the trees above.
Now!
She hurls the spear with everything she has, leaning into the throw, following through with such force that she falls forward again. The spear is already halfway to the deer when he looks up, turns toward her, and for a split second, she swears that he’s looking into her eyes.
Then she’s on the ground again, in pain again, just trying to listen. And there it is. The one sound she was hoping not to hear: the clatter of the spear against the rocks.
“Did you get it?” Santi yells. Of course he was watching her this whole time. Watching her fail.
No, she thinks, rolling onto her side. No, she didn’t, and it’s time to give up now. Time to give in to the pain and the horror of the last three days, of what happened to Jerry and Rico and Celeste, and there’s no shame in it. There’s no shame in letting it all go.
***
A hand presses into her back. Gently, right between her shoulder blades. Then a pat. And now Santi’s voice, an urgent whisper. “Hey, get up and put these on. We have to hurry.”
There’s more life in his eyes than she’s seen in two days as he helps her feet into the boots and ties the laces.
He disappears downriver, and by the time she stands, he has already retrieved the spear. He’s leaning against it with the muddy blade aimed at the cloudless sky. He waves her over and points the blade at the riverside bushes.
“You got him,” he says.
“I what?”
“Look!” He points to the bushes again, and once she notices, it becomes impossible to miss.
Blood.
A thin trickle, a crimson line across the bright green leaves. And there, a drop. And another one, bigger. And another.
She got him.
Enough to make him bleed, at least, and a vortex of emotions engulfs her: pride, dread, hope, shame. All at once.
She and Santi follow the trail silently. Downriver, occasionally veering off to the right, toward the water, and then to the left, toward the trees. At first, the spots are spread out, sometimes ten or fifteen feet apart, but the blood gradually becomes more frequent.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Santi says ten minutes into their pursuit.
And it isn’t. The bloody trail bends away from the river, toward the trees, pools of red the size of dinner plates in some places. They cross a small rock mound, and into the trees, toward a rocky cliff about twenty feet high, there he is. Lying on his side in the shade, halfway to the end of a deep fissure in the cliff wall, his large ears limp, the upper one draped over the small antler. No more than a year or two old.
His throat looks like someone has ripped it out at the neck. Blood, dark red and
glossy, spreads down from the wound like an oil slick.
“Nice shootin’, Tex.”
“I always go for the jugular,” she says, not admitting where she was really aiming. She kneels down and puts her hand on his chest. The buck doesn’t move, but he’s still so warm.
“Now what?” Santi says.
“Can you really build a fire without matches?”
“What about Victor seeing the smoke?”
“I’m more worried about starving to death,” she says. “Your stomach already turned nuclear from drinking water. You really want to eat raw deer meat?”
He nods. “Okay. I guess it’s been two days since the gunshot.”
“I’ll see what I can do with this. I’ll yell if I need you.”
While Santi goes back to get their gear, she sits next to the animal. With the spear on her lap, she unwraps the strips of sweatpant from the business end, then sets about removing the knife from the aspen shaft. It’s strange how she can feel both regret and relief so strongly. Knowing that she had to do it doesn’t make having done it any easier.
The deer couldn’t have picked a more beautiful, more peaceful place to die. She takes some comfort in that. From her vantage point inside the open cave, she can see the river through the trees, the bright green leaves of the riverside bushes, a hint of the ridgeline in the background.
The promise of a venison dinner must have put some pep in Santi’s step. She hasn’t even dislodged the knife from the shaft by the time he returns. While she contemplates how to cut up the deer, Santi frees the knife himself and makes a bow with a small branch and one strip of Jerry’s sweatpants. Then he finds a dry stick about a foot long and two pieces of dry wood and fashions a crack halfway down one of the pieces.
When he’s finished with the knife, Amelia wraps the other sweatpant ribbon around what used to be the handle, wishing she’d paid closer attention the last time she and Tyler went hunting. He’d said a woman who could gut a deer was the sexiest thing in the world, and even offered to teach her how, but she told him it was too gross. It seemed like the appropriate response at the time, what she was expected to say.
On the Free Page 20
