Back of Beyond

by C. J. Box

  Earlier, when Dakota had twirled an iron bar around on the inside of a battered metal triangle to signal dinner, they’d all stopped whatever it was they were doing and lined up at the portable aluminum kitchen station holding empty tin plates. One by one, they presented their plates so Jed McCarthy and Dakota could serve the slabs of meat and plop down the sides. The line was interrupted once when Tony D’Amato whooped—and jumped back—when he saw a snake slither through the grass between his feet.

  “Damn,” he shouted, his voice high-pitched. “It went over my boot.”

  Dakota reacted quickly and tossed her spoon aside and chased down the snake. She grabbed it behind its head and held it up, asking if anyone wanted it for dinner. D’Amato and his friends laughed at that, and he seemed embarrassed by his outcry. Danielle, who was standing in line in front of Gracie, had turned and said, “Great. Snakes, too. This place sucks.”

  “It’s harmless,” Gracie said. “It’s just a snake. Maybe we should try it.”

  “Just a snake,” Danielle said. “Jesus, you’re weird.”

  * * *

  Gracie sat quietly while Justin and Danielle talked. She eavesdropped halfheartedly, absorbed with re-creating the incident up at the latrine that Danielle seemed to have already forgotten. Something had happened up there that bothered her, because it suggested someone on the trip had an agenda besides the adventure itself. It reminded her that people could be evil, something she believed more and more the older she got.

  Danielle, however, was at her charming best. Subjects ranged from their schools to Facebook pages to sports, television shows, and bands. Gracie found herself rolling her eyes each time Danielle and Justin discovered more and more common bonds. When Danielle mentioned their parents were divorced, Justin said, “Shit, mine too.”

  Justin was handsome and well built but shallow, Gracie thought. Exactly Danielle’s type. Gracie wanted to warn him now, before it was too late. But she didn’t think he wanted to know what her sister could be like, how she collected and discarded boys like him. And, Gracie thought, maybe he wouldn’t even care. It wasn’t like he was on the trip to establish a meaningful relationship, was it?

  The more Gracie stared at the fire, the more interesting it was. Unlike her sister and Justin.

  “So your dad has you for the summer?” Justin asked Danielle.

  “Sort of,” her sister said, keeping her voice low so only Justin—and Gracie, unfortunately—could hear her. “My dad’s had a bug up his butt about this trip for a year. It’s like a father-daughter bonding thing, I guess.”

  Justin said, “Same here, only Walt is my stepdad. He thinks we’ll become lifelong buds after this or something. He thinks fly-fishing is, you know, religious or something. And it’s all right, I like it and all, but Walt is kind of old and everything. So I don’t know.”

  “What’s your real dad like?” Danielle asked, leaning closer to him. “Is he around, I mean?”

  Justin hesitated, then shook his head. “He’s okay. He’s a cop. He’s tough to figure out. Sometimes he’s a great guy, and sometimes he’s just an asshole.”

  Danielle acted like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and covered her mouth while she leaned back and laughed, making sure to grasp Justin’s thigh to keep her balance.

  “He’s in Montana,” Justin said, “but he calls me and stuff. He never knows what to say and neither do I. He sends me stuff—fishing rods, computer games, CDs, things he thinks I’ll like. But,” he said, leaning even closer to her and lowering his voice, “sometimes he forgets to take the evidence tags off. I mean, I’ll get a set of walkie-talkies with a piece of tape on ’em that says ‘Exhibit A’ or some damned thing.”

  Which made Danielle squeal with laughter. Gracie tried to tune her out.

  After a few minutes, Danielle shoved her and nearly knocked her off the log. Justin chuckled.

  “What?” Gracie said.

  “I was talking to you,” her sister said softly, not wanting the others to overhear.

  “I thought you were talking to Jason.”

  “Justin,” she corrected. “And I was. I was telling him about what happened earlier up on the mountain and I said you were there as my witness.”

  Gracie looked over. Their faces were lit with firelight. Justin was good-looking, but the way his eyes reflected the fire made him look kind of creepy. And, she wondered, was it him? Then she dismissed it because he’d been fishing with Walt at the time.

  Justin leaned toward her, resting his hand on Danielle’s knee. Her sister didn’t seem to mind.

  “So you think it was that Wilson guy?” Justin whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Gracie said. “But I noticed he’s wearing moccasins tonight so we can’t see his boots.”

  Justin started to turn his head to confirm it but Danielle clasped her hands on both sides of his face and said, “Don’t look, silly. He’ll know we’re onto him.”

  Then she stood up. “Now just keep an eye on him. I’ve got to go pee.”

  “Again?” Gracie said.

  Danielle narrowed her eyes at her sister and said, “This time I’m not going up to that stupid toilet. I’ll be back in a second. Don’t try to steal Justin away, as if you could.”

  After she was gone, Gracie and Justin sat together uncomfortably. Or at least Gracie did.

  Justin said, “Your sister seems nice.”

  “She isn’t.”

  Justin chuckled. “I guess what I mean is she could be nice, if she tried.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Gracie said, warming to him. “I know her.”

  “There’s good in everybody, Gracie.”

  She looked over to see if he was serious. He was. He said, “I always expect the best out of people. I think when you do that, you get the best most of the time. I just kind of bump along, expecting the best, and good things just happen. That’s my secret.”

  She said, “Why are you telling me your secret?” She was flattered. She thought a strapping, good-looking guy like Justin would be unapproachable in every instance. He was too handsome, too confident, and too cool.

  “I’ll tell anyone who will listen,” he said softly. “What I can’t figure out is why everybody doesn’t do it. Look for the best, I mean. It’s easy, and it makes life go easier.”

  Gracie just stared. He was too good to be true, she thought. Her instincts were not to trust him.

  “That’s a nice thing, I guess,” she said to her shoes.

  “Sure it is. Just accept yourself and look for the good in others. It’s not complicated.”

  “Do you see good in me?” Gracie asked.

  He smiled. He even had a nice smile. “Of course. You watch out for your sister and your dad, I think.”

  “So who watches out for me?”

  “I will, if you want,” he said sincerely.

  Gracie shook her head. She’d never met someone so comfortable in their own skin. It weirded her out. There must be more to him, she thought. A dark side. But when she looked into his open face and that impossible smile, she couldn’t see it. No one was that good. Maybe he was a sociopath. And she felt immediately guilty for thinking it.

  “See how it works?” he said, as if reading her mind.

  Gracie was grateful when Danielle suddenly reappeared and grasped Justin’s face between her hands before sitting back down.

  Justin didn’t pull his face away, and smiled at Danielle sloppily. He liked it. Gracie rolled her eyes again and looked back to the fire. “Hey, look,” Justin said to Danielle, “out on the lake. Can you see what’s going on?”

  “What?” her sister asked.

  “The fish are rising.”

  Gracie followed his outstretched arm. The moon lit the still surface of the lake in light blue and sure enough, ringlets were appearing everywhere, as if it were raining upside down.

  Justin said, “Want to go down to the shore with me and see if we can catch one?”

  Danielle was up like a shot. She
stood in front of Gracie and blocked the light and heat, and Gracie felt as if she’d been plunged into cold. She started to stand but Danielle reached back and put a hand on her shoulder, preventing her from rising. Danielle turned and bent over close to her ear, and said, “Not you.”

  Justin winked and asked Gracie, “Do you want to come along?”

  “No,” Danielle said. “She doesn’t.”

  And Gracie thought, She doesn’t deserve him.

  After they’d left, Gracie considered asking Dakota to help her find that snake so she could put it into the bottom of her sister’s sleeping bag.

  * * *

  She hugged herself against the chill, now that her sister had abandoned her. It seemed very late but it wasn’t even ten yet. The sky was a bright smear of stars she’d never known existed before, and the busy sky above and the absolute darkness of everything beyond the fire made her feel smaller than she’d ever felt.

  The campfire was the hub that held everyone in place. When it started to die Dakota or Jeb would leave their place behind the cooking station where they were washing dishes and toss another piece of wood on it.

  She observed the others without staring at them.

  The Glodes kept to themselves. They were the farthest away from Gracie, on the opposite side of the fire. Tristan Glode smoked a big black cigar, and the glow danced in the darkness. Donna stared into the fire as if she were comatose. Gracie thought that although they were by themselves they weren’t really with each other. It was as if there were a wall between them even though they were a couple of feet apart. How sad, she thought.

  Two of the three Wall Streeters, Tony D’Amato and Drey Russell, were whittling on sticks and joking about it. Everything, it seemed, was a joke to them. Little light-colored piles of shavings gathered on their boots, and the blades from their pocketknives flashed in the firelight.

  “A year ago,” D’Amato said in a singsong, bluesy cadence, “I was looking out over the Sea of Cortez from my air-conditioned bungalow in Baja. Now here I am in the freezing mountains, sittin’ on a log. Whittlin’.”

  “You a whittlin’ man,” Russell sang along.

  “I’m a whittlin’ man,” D’Amato sang back. “Whittlin’ ’til I ain’t got no stick left.”

  “You a whittlin’ man…”

  “Think I’ll whittle me a boat and float on out of here back to Baja.…”

  “He a whittlin’ man who ain’t a-scared of no snakes!” Russell laughed, and the two of them collapsed in on each other. Luckily, they held their knives out to the side.

  “You guys are embarrassing me,” James Knox said from the cooking station.

  Gracie found herself staring at them with more than a little awe. Knox caught her, smiled, and said, “Do you find us strange?”

  Embarrassed, she said, “I’ve never met any New Yorkers before. I’ve heard about you and read about you and you’re on all the television shows, but…”

  D’Amato laughed. “But you’ve never met any of us in real life. You make me feel like a zoo animal or something.”

  “Sorry,” she said, and looked down. It was just that they were exactly how they were portrayed, and she’d always thought they couldn’t possibly really be like that: fast-talking, ethnic, animated. Like they were playing the roles of New Yorkers according to the script. Just like TV. But she didn’t say it.

  * * *

  To the right, Gracie’s dad was perched on a large rock next to Rachel Mina, who sat in the grass with her plate in her lap, finishing her dinner. Gracie had noted how Rachel had waited patiently for everyone else to be served steaks before getting her dinner—panfried fish and the last of the beans and corn. She admired the fact that Rachel hadn’t made a fuss but simply waited for her nonmeat meal. Too many of Gracie’s vegetarian friends went on and on about their preferences in the lunchroom, she thought. On and on about what they could eat and what they wouldn’t. They could learn something from Rachel Mina. The clicking of her utensils on the tin plate was rhythmic and delicate and Gracie hoped that someday she could be as graceful and feminine when she ate.

  Then, obviously thinking no one was paying attention, her dad reached down and snatched a small piece of fish off Rachel’s plate and popped it in his mouth. She looked back but rather than object, she smiled at him. Her dad raised his eyebrows in an It’s actually good gesture. Rachel turned back around and finished her plate.

  It had happened quickly, and without a sound. But Gracie sat transfixed as if a thunderbolt had hit her in the chest.

  They knew each other, she thought. The scene had a kind of sweet intimacy about it, like it had happened often before and had become a shared joke.

  They knew each other. Really well.

  She felt bushwhacked. Her eyes misted and she looked away.

  When she opened them she saw Wilson, who’d suddenly appeared from the direction of the tents. Standing there, staring at her, his face lit orange with firelight.

  “What do you want?” she asked, too loudly.

  The others around the campfire stopped talking or doing what they were doing. Jed and Dakota peered over the top of the cooking station, washcloths poised and still.

  “Goodness, little girl,” Wilson said. “What is your problem?” He looked at the others with his palms open and held up. “All I did was walk up here to get warm. I didn’t do anything.”

  No one said a word. A beat passed, and she was glad no one could see her face flush red. She wiped angrily at the tears in her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  From the right, her dad said, “Gracie, are you okay?”

  She stood up and refused to look at him. “I’m going to bed,” she said, and started for the tents.

  She was gone before her eyes could adjust from the fire to the total darkness, and she tripped over a root or rock and she sprawled forward. She landed spread-eagle, grass in her mouth.

  Somebody—D’Amato or Russell or Jed—barked a laugh. Someone else said, “Cool it, that’s rude.”

  “Sorry.”

  She scrambled to her feet spitting grass and dried weed buds and stomped toward the tents. D’Amato called out to her, “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. Come on back and join us.”

  And her dad followed her, saying, “Gracie, what’s going on? Are you all right, Gracie?”

  She kept going until she approached the collection of tents. She wasn’t sure at first which was hers—they all looked alike. Nine lightweight dome tents, looking in the soft moonlight like plump pillows.

  “Gracie,” her dad said, finally grasping her hand.

  She pulled away. The third one, she thought. Her stuff was in the third one from the top.

  He grabbed her again, said, “Honey…”

  She wheeled on him. “When were you going to tell us?” she asked, her voice catching like ratchets on sobs. “Is this why you brought us with you? So you could be with your secret girlfriend?”

  Her dad just stood there. She could see his stupid face in the moonlight. His mouth was moving but nothing was coming out. He finally said, “Gracie … really…”

  But what she heard was his lack of denial.

  “Stay away from me!” she said, and she dove into the opening of her tent. It was small inside but the sleeping bags cushioned her dive. She spun and zipped the opening closed. As she did, her last glimpse of her dad was of him standing there like an idiot with a swarm of stars around his head, trying to come up with the right words—as if there were any. She said, “Go away. This is the worst fucking trip of my life.”

  Inside, she could hear him. For five minutes, he stood there, breathing shallow breaths. Then he moaned and said, “I was waiting for the right time to talk with you girls. Really, honey.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Finally, he turned and trudged away back toward the fire.

  * * *

  An hour later, Gracie heard footfalls approaching the tent and she opened her eyes. She hoped it wasn’t her dad com
ing back, and if so she planned to feign sleep.

  The door zipper hummed and she sat up, alert.

  Danielle said, “Oh my God, I love him.”

  Gracie flopped back down.

  “He’s so damned cute I want to eat him up,” Danielle said. “He tried to help me cast to the fish but I couldn’t get past how he put his arms around me. Damn, he’s hot and I love him.”

  Gracie said, “Did you think for a second I might be asleep?”

  Danielle hesitated, said, “No.” Then went on, “Before I came back here he gave me just a little kiss—nothing major—and said, ‘To be continued.’ Is that classy and cool, or what? Is that awesome, or what?”

  Gracie rolled away from her.

  “What’s your problem?” Danielle asked.

  Gracie told her sister about their dad and Rachel Mina.

  “You’re kidding,” Danielle said, finally.

  “I’m not.”

  Danielle shook her head back and forth. “That just doesn’t seem right,” she said.

  Before Gracie could agree, Danielle said, “She’s much too awesome for him. What does she see in the guy?”

  In the dark, Gracie covered her face with her hands and moaned.

  “They’re all still out there,” Danielle said, regaining her stride, pushing the news aside. “Except for Justin, I mean. He went to his tent, too. Gee, I wonder what he’s doing in there all alone?” she giggled.

  Gracie said nothing.

  “I saw one of the Wall Streeters open a bottle,” she said. “I think they’re all going to pass it around and tell stories or something. I hope they don’t stay up too late or get too loud, ’cause we need to get some sleep.”

  “You think?” Gracie said.

  “Yeah, there’s a big day tomorrow,” Danielle said, slipping out of her clothing to her sports bra and wriggling into a pair of light sweatpants. “At least it’ll be a big day for me.”