by Beth Lewis
And I chose wrong.
I nodded to Penelope and walked half a step behind her across that bridge. Stood half a step behind her when we came up on the lumberyard. Mark and his sister were standing outside a pair a big barn doors, painted red once but faded to blood-brown. His face lit up the dusk when he saw us coming.
The boy was by the barn. He chucked sawdust in the air and ran about ’neath the flurry. Motes a’ pale yellow, flakes a’ wood what had been spruce and alder and cherry and oak, covered his hair, turning it from black to white, like he had the sun rising behind him, lighting him up. He was smiling wide and laughing. Nothing like the boy I met in the woods. That made it all the worse. My stomach swirled and churned like an eddy in a high river. Stuck in one place, trying to force itself out the corner and sail down the stream free as wind. I watched that boy spinning like a sycamore seed ’neath that sawdust as Penelope talked her way into the Thompsons’ house. I felt like my insides was turning to stone. Felt like I was cracking up and splitting down the middle.
The Thompson sister was saying my name. Tore my eyes off the boy and looked at her. Smooth brown skin and black hair cut down to her scalp. Arms what had felt true work, hauling lumber no doubt, and a scar along her chin too perfect to be from a milling accident.
Her name was Josie and she said I was welcome at her table anytime. I shook her hand. Rough as mine and strong. She was taller’n me but only by a hair. I liked her and I didn’t make no bones about it.
“Thank you,” I said, and smiled true, a bit a’ relief in me that the boy had a woman with arms like that to look out for him. “Penelope been wantin’ a proper roof over her head for weeks.”
“We have plenty of space,” Josie said, voice like sunburn and smoke. “You got Mark here to work on time and that’s worthy of a master suite.”
She nudged her brother but his face twinged like the joke weren’t funny. Penelope was smiling at Mark like they was back in the woods, all twinkles in her eyes and I felt a mite squirmy being so close to ’em. Stomach sank at the thought a’ making talk with ’em all evening.
Josie led us all ’round the barn and mill yard to a small house sitting out on its own in the middle of a field. I knew it was a field, ’stead a’ just land on account a’ the fence. I don’t like fences. They’re like teeth sprouting out from the earth, sharp and open, a trap waiting to spring. You ring your patch with teeth and you make a mouth what’s going to swallow you up. A fence is a way a’ showing the world what exactly you got claim to. In my head that just makes it all the more easy to take away.
The house was one with stairs up the middle, a second floor and bedrooms off all sides. It was the biggest house I ever been in and was made mostly out a’ stone. Felt old inside, maybe even made afore the Damn Stupid. Carpet on the floor worn down to threads. Cracks running through plaster walls. Paintings in frames hung skewed. Place smelled a’ woodsmoke and barbecue sauce and the long hallway carried the sound a’ clattering pots from the kitchen. More people. More people Kreagar could choose.
Josie’s husband, pale as chalk and hair color a’ that sawdust, came jogging down the hall, smiling and wiping his hands on a cloth. Jethro. Josie and Jethro. They had music in their names and music in the way they moved, grabbing each other, kissing cheeks, hands shaking mine and Penelope’s and Mark’s, all without pause. Jethro was a coiled-up spring where Josie was water. He jittered, she flowed.
Much as I tried to keep myself cold to them, they had something in them what warmed me up, melted my ice. I cursed ’em for it later, when the snow came and the world went to shit. But right then, I was happy for the fire and the food and the company. Six a’ us sat ’round a scratched-up wooden table in the middle a’ the kitchen, Jethro stirred pots, served up plates a’ ribs and piles a’ potatoes and greens. I ate like it was my last meal and it sure felt like it was. Sat next to the boy, seeing his eyes light up, shoving fists a’ mash in his mouth. Didn’t know it then, what was going to happen. Not like I know it now. But my body, my wits, was telling me something.
Demon settled in my gut, took up a home there, put himself up a fence. What I owed to Penelope stopped me from running out that door. I stayed quiet most the night, kept my eyes down. Soon Josie stopped trying to talk to me, soon the boy fell asleep ’gainst my arm. They laughed. I didn’t.
Mark and Penelope asked each other question after question—why you got that bandage on your leg, where you travelling from, White Top? Beautiful town. I watched them, turned toward each other in their chairs, paying no mind to no one else at the table. Josie and Jethro had eyes on Penelope too; you couldn’t help it. She was a beauty no doubt and she made everyone laugh and smile and forget. Even the boy seemed to like her. It was like I was looking in from outside. It was normal and human and they was having fun and I realized how happy I was for Penelope that she got to speak to someone other’n me.
Night drew in and Penelope and me shared a room. It had two narrow beds either side of a small table and no matter how soft that mattress, how heavy that blanket, I couldn’t find no comfort. Couldn’t close my eyes for seeing Kreagar. Saw him walk through the door. Saw him climb through the window. Saw him standing on my bed, scrap a’ hair and blood in his fist. Brown hair. Boy hair.
No sir, I couldn’t find no comfort.
Penelope slept like she ain’t got no secrets. A thunderhead wouldn’t a’ woken her ’less it threw her up in the sky. She opened her eyes to watery dawn and smiled at me, asked me how I slept.
“Nervous?” she said, still wrapped up in the blanket.
“What I got to be nervous ’bout?” But I knew. I knew exactly.
“When did you last see them?” she asked.
She sat up and rubbed her head, her hair stuck out all over like a squirrel tail.
I shrugged. Didn’t know when I last seen ’em. In truth, I didn’t remember ever seeing ’em. Felt like this was a goose chase when the goose already went south for winter.
“You don’t have to come,” I said. “You can stay here and make house with these folks.”
Penelope raised her eyebrows at me, set her jaw hard, and told me to shut up and get dressed.
“We’re leaving after breakfast,” she said.
And we did. Breakfast a’ fried eggs and thick bacon. We left with promises to come back and see them all soon. Penelope left Mark with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. Left the boy with the same. I ain’t the kissing type.
Walking helped my nerves. When you’re walking, you ain’t really anywhere. I could walk forever, keeping moving, keeping going. You ain’t got to make conversation. You ain’t got to explain yourself. Penelope read the map, kept us going straight. I walked out a’ Tucket with a rock in my chest. Sharp and cold and pressing right down on the core a’ me. I saw Kreagar in every man we passed by, saw him ’tween the trees when we got up into the woods, saw him staring out at me from still water. Figured it was only a matter of time afore one a’ them phantoms was real. He was getting closer to me or maybe I was getting closer to figuring out his words, figuring out why he didn’t kill me on the reverend’s table.
I was. Them doors in my head was rattling ’gainst their chains.
My parents would help, they’d protect me, they’d forgive me. That’s what parents do, ain’t it?
“We’re close,” Penelope said. “That ridge up there, it’s this one on the map. The claim should be just the other side. If we follow the river, we’ll be there in an hour.”
This close, my gut started twisting. I’d always imagined my folks would run at me, arms open, cheering they joy at seeing the daughter they left behind, throwing up gold like confetti. Didn’t cross my mind the truth of it. This far north the cold don’t just freeze you. It don’t just crack your skin and stop your heart. It turns you to ice on the inside. People up here were hard as the ground, they say howdy with a rifle, and there ain’t no reason my parents wouldn’t be the same, if they was there at all.
The Tin River claim, wh
at my parents owned, sat on the inside bend a’ the river. The water made the land into a pocket, the ridge behind it acting like a natural barrier to the weather. Penelope said the river was a shoot a’ the Yukon, come wending its way ’cross the land, leaving gold like a trail. A log cabin sat square in the middle a’ the flat land, just out a’ flood reach. Spruce and fir grew up tall and strong behind the cabin, rising up onto the ridge some ways. There weren’t no other shack or road or person in sight and after the few months I’d had, it was a goddamn paradise.
Penelope nudged me, smiling, and opened her mouth to call out but I grabbed her arm.
“Not yet,” I said.
Something weren’t right.
A wooden sluice box sat quiet and dry on the grass, moss growing up its side. A handful a’ green plastic pans, some broke, some covered in black mold, was strewn about all over the place. A water pump was rusting near the bank. The hole they’d dug in the land, running along the length a’ the river bend, was more a meadow now. Summer wildflowers grew up in clumps, covered up forgotten pipes and shovels.
No one stirred inside the cabin.
Only sounds on the claim was birds tweeting in the trees, the rushing a’ the river, rustling a’ rabbits and small critters preparing for winter. Sound a’ my heart. Sound a’ Penelope breathing.
I started walking to the cabin. You can’t never be sure in these parts. My momma or daddy could a’ seen us coming, could be waiting behind the door with twin barrels a’ buckshot. I stepped up onto the porch, heart beating right in my mouth.
“Momma?” I said, loud enough to get through the door. “Daddy?”
Expected one a’ them to throw open the door, wrap me up in they arms and say, My girl, we could a’ shot you!
But they didn’t.
Door weren’t even closed. It was getting on for noon but there was only darkness in that cabin. I looked behind me. Eyes found Penelope standing a ways back, arms crossed over her chest, deep creases a’ worry in her forehead.
“Ain’t no one here,” I shouted. “Looks like there ain’t been no one here for least a year.”
Penelope dropped her arms and started walking to me. Halfway she stopped. Strange look passed over her face.
I didn’t pay it no mind at first, ’stead I pushed open the door. Smell a’ dust and damp hit me. Saw holes in the roof right off, a branch in there clogging out the light. Single room, bed on one side covered with a sheet hanging from the ceiling like a canopy. Black iron wood burner sat in the middle a’ the room, chimney twisted and useless. Pile a’ logs. Pots and pans. Window looked out onto the river, not that you’d know it for all the grime. Place looked like a hungry bear been through it and found not much a’ anything, ’cept maybe whatever was under that sheet.
Penelope called me from somewhere outside.
I found her behind the cabin, staring down at a scrap a’ earth.
“What’s that?” I said.
She turned around and stepped to the side. She weren’t staring at a scrap a’ earth. She was staring at the wooden cross stuck in it.
“It says Philip,” she said. “Your father.”
Twinges ran through me. Short, sharp pains in my hands and feet and head.
“You said they was alive,” I said, all quiet.
“I said there was no death record.”
Next to the grave was a half-dug pit. A grave what didn’t get filled.
“Only one a’ them,” I said. “Maybe Momma’s still living, off with a new man in Halveston or some such place.”
I weren’t convincing no one, least of all me. Thought a’ that sheet over the bed and my toes went cold.
I went back in the cabin and stood beside that bed, Penelope with me.
“Want me to do it?” she said and I said yes.
Slow, she lifted up the sheet. Saw the feet first. Gray and withered. Then the rest a’ her. Dried out like tinder. Dead lips pulled back over her teeth made it look like she was screaming at the world. ’Tween her hands, them hands what wrote my letter, lying on her chest, was a shovel, still caked with dirt. She must a’ buried her man then came in here to sleep and just not woken up. Surprised the bears didn’t find her.
“Hi, Momma,” I whispered.
I didn’t realize I was shaking all over till Penelope put her hand on my arm. Then around my shoulders. Then pulled me into a hug. I ain’t much for hugging on a normal day but this weren’t no normal day. I held on to Penelope like I was holding on to life. I must a’ cried but I don’t remember now. Everything came crashing down on top a’ me. All them hopes I had of a loving family, arms ’round me, telling me them three I love you words what no one ever had.
“I’m sorry,” I said into her collar.
“What for?”
“There ain’t no gold to pay that Frenchwoman.”
“It’s OK,” she whispered. “I’ll be OK.”
I buried my momma next to my daddy. Penelope made a cross and carved her name on it.
Muriel.
Made me wonder brief what my name was. That weren’t something I’d thought about, not in my whole life, till I saw that wood marked. I wondered what would be written on my cross. Elka weren’t the name these folk gave me or what my nana called me, but everyone who knew my real name was dead. Weren’t no one left to know me as what these folk intended, weren’t no one left to ask. I was dead now, what meant no one was going to help me.
“Should we make death records for them?” I asked Penelope when we drove that cross into the dirt.
She stood quiet for a while, looked all ’round the claim, at the river and the sluices.
“Not yet,” she said, then went inside the cabin.
I stayed outside. Weren’t no way I was going back in there yet.
My parents was dead. People what I didn’t know from a shit in the woods. They was all I had this last year. They was all I was shooting for.
Now what? What was left for me now ’cept a killer on my tail and the law closing in ’round my neck? What was left? I turned away from them graves and the people what slept in them and went down to the riverbank.
Tin River was pure wild. I watched a pair a’ deer, a doe and her young, snipping shoots on the other side a’ the water. A big cow moose walked slow and steady far to the east. The smell of it was more a drug than all the whisky in Halveston, fresh and crisp and full a’ truth. Ain’t no lies out in the wild, ’cept what people take with ’em. Ain’t no disappointments. Things are what they are. Pine trees smell a’ pine. Bright-red berries are warning you not to eat ’em. Bear won’t try to kill you ’less they think you’re trying first.
I kicked the rusted-up pump, sent a rain a’ brown flakes into the grass. It didn’t look in too bad shape, though I didn’t know shit about machines. I can build a smokehouse in an afternoon with a knife and a handful a’ nails but ask me to clean an oil filter and you might as well throw that engine off a cliff all the good I’d do.
Heard Penelope in the cabin, clattering about, throwing junk out the door. Huffing and wiping her forehead.
“Find a broom,” she shouted in a tone what weren’t friendly.
If she hadn’t found one, there weren’t one in that tiny cabin.
I went into the trees, found a nice straight sapling and some bracken. Ten minutes later I went into the hut and asked her what needed sweeping.
“We should make this place habitable,” she said, took the broom off me. “Can you climb onto the roof, try to dislodge that branch?”
I felt like my arms and legs was made a’ metal. Everything was slow and difficult. Every time I caught a glimpse a’ them graves the weight got heavier. Felt like it was pushing on the inside a’ me. Trying to get out a’ the breaks in my skin. My nose was full a’ the smell of it. My mouth wanted to shout it. My eyes wanted to cry it. My ears wanted to block it all out.
But I couldn’t break. There weren’t no sense to it. Night would come soon and bitter cold would come with it. Ain’t no time for grievi
ng in the wild. I weren’t going to be the next person to die in that cabin and nor was Penelope. I got up on the roof and started chopping limbs off the branch to free it.
There was some good to it, I suppose. With my momma and daddy dead, they didn’t have to know what I’d turned into. They’d remember me as that pretty baby they left in Ridgeway. Maybe they died thinking I’d turned into a schoolteacher or married a kind fella. They’d never know about Kreagar and all them things we did. They wouldn’t get Lyon knocking on their door.
That was a mercy right there.
I hoped they died thinking good a’ me, if they thought ’bout me at all.
I sawed off that last limb with the teeth on the back a’ my blade and hauled the branch out the roof, threw it on the ground. The hole weren’t that bad.
I could fix it. I could fix it all.
Penelope tidied up the inside a’ the cabin, swept out all the dry leaves and dust. I used the sides a’ the sluice boxes, ’least the planks what weren’t rotten, to fix the roof and by sundown we had ourselves a mostly closed-up cabin. Together we straightened the chimney pipe and she set a roaring blaze going in the stove.
We burned them sheets.
Sat on stools, not a crumb to eat, we kept that fire hot as the cold crept in.
“What do we do?” I asked.
My head was full a’ buzzing flies and my eyes kept seeing my momma’s dried-out feet.
“Nothing tonight,” Penelope said.
Her face was pale, even in firelight, and blank. For the first time, I didn’t have a clue what she was thinking and it didn’t look like she was close to telling me.
“Are you all right?” she asked me, after a few minutes a’ quiet.
“Will be, soon,” I said. “You?”
She looked at me. Her eyes were red and I weren’t sure if it was from the fire or dust or something worse.
“We’re safe here for now,” she said, felt like she was choosing her words careful. “Officially, your parents are still alive, which means they still own the claim.”
“What if people find out they dead?”
