The New Wild

by Holly Brasher

  “Yeah, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry. It’s not gonna be around much longer.”

  We crane our necks out of the tent to see what’s happening. There is a grizzly down by the edge of the lake, maybe a few city blocks from us. When he stands up, he’s almost as big as Kitten. He doesn’t see us and is lumbering down to the lake for a drink. He pushes his paw against the ice until it snaps, then laps up the water that gushes forth. Kitten is not going to let him imbibe for long. Her horn is neon-bright, cherry red and spinning faster and faster in its socket. From the ground, looking up at her, we can see that her eyes are red, too, glowing as bright as her horn. She waits for the bear to get a good long chug, then charges, once again piercing her horn through the bear’s skull in a matter of seconds. His blood is shooting out in all directions, splattering over the snow and ice.

  “Holy hell,” Xander says.

  “Seriously,” I whisper, not wanting Kitten to hear.

  She digs in ravenously, like before. When she’s hollowed out the carcass, she takes one long look toward our tent and shakes the blood off her coat, then stands there, pawing the ground and quaking. Kitten lifts her nostrils to the air, smells it for a few minutes in each direction, and bolts, quick as lightning, over a nearby hill, her blond hair flapping with each gallop. We listen to her hooves pound the ground for a little while, but soon enough, we can’t hear anything but our own heavy breathing.

  “No!” I shout after Kitten, starting to cry at the thought of walking the rest of the way home through the snow. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care—she always comes back—but we’re freezing. People die in weather like this.

  Xander takes me into his arms, shushing me. “It’s okay,” he soothes, wiping my tears. Then, with a glint in his eye, he adds, “How do you feel about roast bear for dinner?”

  We race out of the tent and scrape what we can from the carcass. It seems to take forever to get a fire going, but we do, using the bears hollowed out rib cage to block the wind. I devour the meat so quickly I think I might throw it up. My stomach was so empty for so long that the onslaught of fat makes me nauseous. My will to live keeps it down.

  Chapter 21

  In 1943, the U.S. Government launched a nuclear production complex in eastern Washington, where three rivers—the Columbia, the Yakima, and the Snake—wind through the grasslands and tumble into one. They created enough plutonium for more than 60,000 nuclear weapons in the country’s arsenal, not to mention the bomb that all but obliterated Nagasaki, Japan. But by the late eighties, the site was entirely decommissioned, leaving millions of gallons of radioactive waste in its wake. This would be all well and good if it were on another planet, hidden behind lock and key. But there are three cities there, and before the Burning, there were almost five hundred thousand people, breathing and drinking and living along the riverbanks.

  I know the place the minute we get to it because, as an environmental lawyer, my Mom was always working on cases related to it. There’s the crooked arm of the river, the sky-high blackened smokestack, the hulking barbed-wire fences now crawling with brambles. In every other place I’ve come across, Mother Earth only burnt up the buildings, things we built. Here, the ground is charred, too, endless meadows of soot black. Maybe it was too ruined to fix.

  In this place, the jee-bows stand over twenty feet tall, their stems glowing from within. When we pass, they turn fuchsia pink, then red. Xander reaches over and decapitates one with the axe. Black steam rises out of the cut stem and evaporates.

  I won’t let us drink the water around us, which despite Mother Nature’s fresh start, is topped in shimmery green slime. At least the Columbia will take us all the way to Portland from here.

  I can smell it in the air, what Xander smelled—home. But I’m getting a shiver up my back that tells me to be careful. Something’s going to go wrong, really wrong, in the next few days. I can feel it. And I can’t stand it.

  Gingerly, with one foot in front of the other, we cross over the melted-down remains of the steel bridge that leads from the Tri-Cities to Oregon, my Oregon. It’s still frigid outside—not Montana cold, but Oregon cold. The dampness in the air will chill you to the bone. Water gushes though the fractured beams of the first of the Columbia River’s eleven dams we come across. I guess that would explain why the river, which had gotten pretty narrow by the time I left for Camp Astor, is now nearly as wide as the Mississippi. When I left Oregon, trash swirled on the surface. Now, it flows clear as crystal. The rainbow salmon that were on the brink of extinction are back and leaping out of the water, wriggling their way upstream to spawn. Some elder members of a Native American tribe have set up lodges along the water and are smoking the fish over roaring fires. It’s great to interact with other human beings, to laugh again. They offer some smoked salmon to us—enough to feed us for three or four days. I can feel my body growing stronger with each bite.

  We walk as fast as we can along cliffs of the Columbia River Gorge. My head hurts, my palms are sweaty. I keep thinking I’ll return to find my mom and Bernard turned to ashes. I guess I’ll know soon enough.

  Chapter 22

  We inch across the rolling fields alongside a cliff, high above the Columbia River. All of the sudden, Droops starts freaking out, barking and whining and jumping in circles. The sky above us, which had been a brilliant blue in line with the sapphire of the river, turns deeper shades of pink. My heart pounds, and my hands curl all by themselves into tiny, tight fists. Xander’s pretending nothing is wrong, which is a very bad sign. The ground starts to quake and shake. I grab onto Xander tightly, but it isn’t long before I realize that, just as before, this is no earthquake.

  Xander holds on to me super tight. He has tears in his eyes. I glance over my shoulder and freeze. Far in the distance, I see a string of lights moving rapidly along the horizon line. A gang of horned, bloodthirsty unicorns is stampeding our way.

  The sky is now beet-red, swirling with smoke. The thundering sound gets louder and louder. Xander clutches Droops closer to his chest and points south, where an endless line of flaming red lights—their horns—are burning across the horizon line, headed toward us. I can’t die today of all days, a violent and bloody death, a couple days from home. Neither of us can talk. For a few seconds, we stand there, watching the line of red lights race closer, too scared to move. They’re definitely after one thing, and one thing only—blood.

  There’s nothing around us. No place to hide. We’re surrounded by empty fields on the edge of a great cliff, hundreds of feet above a jagged rock bed that’s edging the river. Still, we run.

  The closer they get, the more I think I’m going to pass out. My chest is thudding so loud I can almost hear it above the pounding of their hooves. Almost.

  They’re close enough now that when I look back I can see their eyes glowing under the lights of their horns, hundreds of red dots coming toward us. I can feel waves of heat rolling over my body, and the nearer they get, the warmer it is. Damn. We have to do something. I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen if we don’t. But what can we do? We have one lousy axe to defend ourselves with. That’s not gonna do jack.

  Mid-run, I clumsily trip on a tiny rock. I go flying, feet in the air. When I hit the ground, all the air’s knocked out of my lungs. Xander pulls me up, and we start to run again, but it’s no use. They’re quicker than lightning, and we’re just people. No fangs, no breath of fire, no real running ability. All we have is our heads.

  I see bubbles floating all around us. If we poke them, maybe the trees inside will provide some cover from the killer unicorns.

  “Pop the bubbles!” I scream, as they’re getting so close to us my flesh is starting to sweat from the heat. I start popping, and Xander follows suit until there’s a ring of tightly planted redwoods, yellow cedar, and lodgepole pine trees locked into the earth around us, encircling us, protecting us. The circle is maybe eight feet wide, and the trees are planted so close together the branches above are blocking most of
the sky. It’s dark, except for the tiny slats of red light glowing between the trunks.

  We huddle together, shuddering as the earth continues to vibrate beneath us and the unicorns encroach. About one hundred yards away, they start to slow until they reach our little copse. My breath is shallow. We try not to make a sound as they sniff all around us, poking their muzzles between the branches and scratching at the tree trunks. So much adrenaline is pumping through my veins that I think I’d have the energy to run fifty miles without a break. But I can’t do anything with it. I have to sit here as silently as possible and wait for them to break through, wait for their hundreds of spinning, saw-like horns to bust through this wall of trees and cut us all to bits, leaving our flesh to smolder in the sun. I’m crying so hard I can’t see and holding onto Xander with every last ounce of energy, even though I know there’s nothing he can do. It feels good to touch him.

  A horn bursts through one of the trunks, penetrating our little circle. I scream. We scurry away from its gleaming tip, stumbling into another compromised trunk. I can feel the drilling and the heat radiating from the horn at my back. We are totally screwed, both of us. We don’t have much time. I turn to Xander and hug him as tight as I can, sobbing. I want to tell him I love him, tell him it was all worth it to be with him. I look into his eyes, and they’re quaking with fear. Both of us are covered in the surreal red glow of the unicorn horns.

  And then I see her. In the distance, through a tiny crack between trees, Kitten is standing, the white diamond of hair on her chest clear as day. She’s pawing at the ground and looks pissed as hell. She’s facing the cliff.

  I aim my eyes through a tiny slat in the wood and look over toward where she’s staring. I spot a tiny, round beam of light shining toward her, right on the edge of the precipice. Whatever it is, it’s flickering in the one ray of sunlight that’s bursting through the clouds. The beam of light it’s creating keeps waving from side to side, as if on the wind. As if to tease her.

  The unicorns stop sawing at the trees to turn toward it. “Oh my God,” Xander whispers, pointing at it. “What is that light?”

  The glimmering light is distracting the unicorns. They’re all squealing. Out of nowhere, Kitten races toward the light, like she’s going to kill it. The same way she charged the buffalos and the grizzly. They all follow suit, charging straight for it. They are determined to kill that twinkling thing before they kill us, and run after it the way a cat chases a fly. At least it will buy us some time.

  The unicorns are running so fast they look like a blur. They race straight for the source of that flashing light, straight for that cliff, and all we can see from our cell of trees is a wall of them moving rapidly in that direction. And then, we don’t. They’re so focused in their pursuit, they run right off the cliff. We hear them hit the jagged riverbed in a faint succession of thuds.

  I collapse into Xander’s arms. “Did that really happen?” I ask him. “Are they really that dumb?”

  “I think the real question is, are we really that lucky? There’s only one way to find out,” he says, his jaw clattering. Sweat pours off him in buckets.

  Xander takes the axe and hacks through the trees so we can crawl out. Our knees are like jelly as we stagger toward the cliff. Xander tries to hold me upright as I sob in his arms.

  When we get close to the beam of light, I see it’s just Bernard’s compass caught on a rock above the ground, reflecting the tiny ray of sunlight bursting through the clouds.

  “My God,” I say. “It must have slipped off me when I fell!”

  “Amazing,” Xander says. “That thing saved our lives.”

  Gingerly, we approach the cliff’s edge.

  “I can’t look,” I admit.

  “Me either,” he says softly. “Let’s do it together.”

  Slowly, we inch up to the ledge and peer over. Thousands of feet below us, the unicorns are smashed in a huge pile, un-moving. Some seem stuck in the boulders along the river, their bodies splayed out and twitching. But they all look dead, every one of them—even Kitten, which puts a small lump in my throat. And from the looks of it, their horns have completely disintegrated. They’re gone. I fall back into Xander’s chest. It’s hard seeing Kitten dead—she helped us on this journey as much as her fellow unicorns terrified us. But if that shining necklace hadn’t caught their eyes, we would be torn to pieces right now. Part of me wonders if she led them off the edge on purpose, to save us.

  He looks over at me, smiling. “Are you going to say it or should I?”

  “What?” I say, exhausted and relieved.

  “Phew,” he exclaims.

  I erupt into a fit of nervous laughter. “Phew,” I say back, then kiss him until my lips hurt. We’re alive—and I’m almost home.

  Chapter 23

  Not that long ago, I was the type of person that spent many hours a day “hooked up” to computers and television with music pumping into my ears. So many moments of my life were consumed by things, by the constant beat of the modern world. I could tell you the random town some celebrity was born in, and how to upload your own HD videos to the web, but I couldn’t begin to describe how to boil water adequately, on a stove or otherwise. I didn’t know how.

  Today the only beat I hear is the thudding of my own heart, a tiny chamber of muscle whose sole purpose in life is to keep me alive. I know which berries to eat and which will make me gag. I can kill, pluck, and cook a bird with my bare hands—no blade required. I can tell you which way is west by looking at the sky. If it’s clear enough, I can even tell you what time it is. It sounds gross, but I know when Aunt Flo is coming each month solely by looking at the moon. I know now that all you need in life—all you really need—is your next breath.

  We’re still walking along the Columbia, but we’ve passed through all the rolling fields of Eastern Oregon and into the thick evergreen woods that line the river close to Portland. The moment we enter the forest, I know we’re nearly there. The air, dense with fog, also carries a smell of pine and sap so permeating it has the sweet perfume of Christmas. There’s so much moisture in the atmosphere that our clothes are damp to the touch. Woodland creatures skitter around us as they rush over the mossy rocks and ferns—chipmunks, flying squirrels, brown pocket gophers. We reach an overlook where we can see Mt. Hood, with its snow-capped peak, standing regally to our left. When we get to Multnomah Falls, now coursing wider then I’ve ever seen it, my heart is so filled with worry it feels like it might break in two. Xander holds my hand as we walk, and his giant paw feels like an embrace.

  But when we’re within a few hours of home, I settle into a strange calm. Right now, at least I have hope. At least I can still pretend they’re fine.

  Part of me thought Portland would be untouched, the same as it was when I left it. In my head, I tried picturing it burnt up like every other town I’ve seen, but I couldn’t do it. I thought maybe, just maybe, it would have survived her wrath. The city had been pretty green, after all.

  But the closer we get to Stumptown, the more I know that’s not the case. Lots of houses on either side of the Columbia are charred and covered in foliage. Cars on I-84 are stalled permanently in their melted states. There aren’t that many people around, but every time we meet someone, it’s like running into an old friend, even though we’ve never met. We talk about what we miss—foods and stores we loved, and the people we’re looking for.

  In the city, all the trees that used to grow here unnaturally—the Redbuds and the Soapberries—have been replaced by the indigenous evergreens. Enormous Pacific Silver Firs and Coastal Redwoods are everywhere, shooting so high into the sky, they almost block out the daylight. They’re growing out of the streets, out of the houses, even out of the former cars. The air smells fresh, like rainwater and pine needles, and the earth is thick and brown and covered in moss and lichen. There are a few people scattered about, doing whatever it is they need to survive. One is tending a vegetable garden, a couple are fanning what may be the biggest bonfire e
ver made. A herd of elk graze over the spot where the freeway used to zip south, California-bound.

  Everything we pass in Portland seems to bring back a memory I can’t shake. The streets remain, and though they’re now overgrown with brambles and crowded by thick, needle-dripping trees, I can remember the good and bad times I had on each one. Skinning my knee here, kissing a sweet boy there. I can picture Bernard and me on almost every corner, whooping it up. I’m so scared I’ll lose him today that I can hardly breathe.

  By the time we get to my old neighborhood, I think my heart might go ahead and stop, terrified of what it will find. I’m running now, Xander trailing behind me, swaddling the puppy.

  The first thing I see is the house. The whole place is torched. The roof is crawling with thick grass, and a blue heron is standing on the porch. I thought those birds were good luck signs, but from the looks of it, I have no more luck left. I poke my head in all the windows, and the interiors are all soot black and crumbling. There’s no floor. Huge plants have sprouted between the mossy walls.

  “Hello? Mom?” I call, my voice cracking. There’s no answer but a shift in the wind. The hope I had, that tiny flame inside me that said they were alive and it was all going to be okay, dwindles. And if Mom is dead, surely Bernard is dead.

  All is lost, all is gone. I hit the ground and sob. I sob for Mom, for Bernard, for all the things I’d never get to do with them. Xander looks at me with pity in his eyes. I can’t take it. I get up and start to run. I have to feel something besides this, even if it’s my own body aching.

  “Jackie! Where are you going?” he shouts after me.

  I don’t reply. I can’t. All I can do is run.

  Almost all the houses are burnt up like mine. As I run, the trees morph into a blur and for a minute, look like they’re all one mass, all one garbled chain- link fence of pine. Now that the pavement is gone, the earth feels soft under my feet. Soft and uneven, covered in mossy topsoil.