They Almost Always Come Home

by Cynthia Ruchti

  Maybe it was the hunger talking, but Greg decided to make

  a plan, to orchestrate his own rescue operation. How much more trouble could he collect if he set out on foot—albeit slowly and blindly—until he came close enough to another camp or a canoeist who could help him?

  “A wilderness full of trouble.” He said the answer out loud.

  Someone had to say it.

  Could he fish? What in his meager possessions could morph

  into a hook and line? A shoelace? Quite a lot of overkill and

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  quite a lot of underlength, but possible. Did he have a pin? A paper clip?

  His spiral notebook. His handwritten Bible. The blindly penned journal of his demise.

  He could fashion a hook from the metal spiral. A few rings of it.

  And what would he use for bait to catch this mentally chal- lenged fish who wouldn’t mind chomping down on part of a notebook tethered to eighteen inches of shoelace tethered to a desperate man?

  Does a fish that bright need bait?

  Time for another math lesson. How much food was left? A few crumbs from the last breakfast bar. A piece of fruit leather the size of a Boy Scout badge. Two sunflower seeds, coated with lint from his shirt pocket.

  He couldn’t be more than a quarter mile from the canoe and his food pack. He could eat if he could get to it. Not a lot in the pack. A few meals at best. He’d assumed he was heading out of the Quetico after his sightseeing detour. Not much left sounded a lot better than his current pantry, though.

  The pack was on the ground under the canoe. Enough pro- tection for what Greg figured would be a couple of hours at the most. After multiple nights within easy reach of woodland nightlife, what could possibly be left?

  Greg brooked no sympathy for hungry wolves—wolves whose mournful cries seemed to draw a tighter circle around his camp the longer he remained their accidental guest. Was his hearing more acute? Or were they truly moving closer? Did they watch for him to give up as they might watch a fawn struggling against quicksand?

  “Morbid, Greg Holden. You are morosely, pathologically morbid.”

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  CYNTHIA RUCHTI

  He shook the dust from the throw rug he was using for his

  mind. “Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.” The phrase nearly gagged him.

  “Bacon cheeseburger meatloaf with onion frills on top.”

  His plan for happy thoughts lacked a healthy focus.

  He rose and paced the perimeter of his compound, his steps

  slower and shakier than a few days ago. Ten paces across the front, waterview side. Five paces along a right angle toward the woods. Nine across the back to the largest of the trees in his limited domain. Definitely a pine, not an aspen or birch or pop- lar or cedar. When he touched its trunk, his hand came away sticky and smelling like industrial-strength cleaner. Turn. Six or seven more steps, depending on his level of frustration, and he’d completed the odd geometric shape that probably had a legitimate name recognizable only to math geeks.

  His foot kicked against something, sending it scooting

  behind him a short distance. He heard it roll and bang along the edge of the guard rails. Probably a fallen branch, although it had greater heft to it than a small branch.

  He hadn’t fallen when he stumbled over the object. Not

  even close. Then where did the dizziness come from?

  His pulse pounded in his ears. Since when was blood loud?

  His heart rate shot up and stayed up. Greg lowered himself to the ground, not waiting to find a log or rock. On his hands and knees he crouched, waiting for the sensation to pass. It didn’t.

  He rolled onto his side. The contents of his skull followed

  a split-second later, as if it hadn’t gotten the memo in time to move in sync. “Lord, what is this? Is this what starvation does?”

  Was it foolish to think his vision was the lone casualty of

  the lightning strike? Maybe dehydration made him weak. No matter how uncomfortable the sloshing of water and gastric

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  juices in an otherwise empty stomach, he’d have to make it a point to drink more frequently.

  Pine cones. Are they edible?

  “Any time You want a test subject for modern-day manna, Lord, I’m your man.”

  Greg stayed on his side until the spinning stopped. Then he pushed himself up, worked the kinks out of his neck, and decided he had no choice but to limit his physical activity even more than normal.

  Normal. What an odd word for his current existence. He took a step forward, then stopped. The water was to his back, right? Or had he gotten turned around? The confidence he’d gained in memorizing the footprint of that plot of land fled into the darkness.

  “God, help me!” he cried.

  All he heard in response was a whispering, mocking pine.

  ********

  Sheets snapped and flapped, straining against the wooden pins that secured them to the clothesline. He’d bury his face in them later that night, drinking in the preserved sunshine. Like a kid making snow angels, he’d slide his arms and legs over the crisp fabric. One of life’s simple pleasures. Sun-baked sheets.

  He’d have to be careful mowing. Grass clippings discharged in that direction would not be good. Maybe Libby would take down the laundry before he reached that part of the yard.

  She stood in the doorway, propping open the screen door with her hip. In her hands she balanced a wooden tray with a pitcher of homemade lemonade and five glasses. One for each of them. She smiled his way. Smiled. He shut down the mower and leaned on the handle for a moment, drunk with the wonder of it. Snap. Snap.

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  Greg opened his eyes. His rank sleeping bag smelled of

  sweat and smoke and dampness, not the sun. He pushed him- self to a sitting position. Snap. Snap. Snap.

  He crawled over to the tent door and felt around its open-

  ing. The tent flap caught the wind again and skirted away from his grasp as soon as he snagged it. Like a tightrope walker inching his way along the high wire, Greg moved his hands along the nylon until he caught the loose edge again.

  No lawn mowing today. No lemonade. No sheets on the

  line. No smiles on Libby’s face.

  He growled at the frustration of not knowing if he’d slept an

  hour or a day. Not that it mattered.

  The tent walls buckled and puffed, as if trying to breathe.

  “I know how you feel.”

  He left the flap open and lay back down on his anything-

  but-crisp-and-sweet-smelling nest.

  “Wind that stiff—” he said, “I pity anyone out on open

  water.”

  He tried to make a snow angel on top of his sleeping bag,

  but the effort wore him out.

  What was wrong with him? The profound weakness. He

  shouldn’t actually starve to death for weeks yet. Wasn’t it true that a person could live without food for a month or more, as long as he had water?

  Without food. Strange thought for a guy in the grocery

  business.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the spiral

  notebook and pen. On the last page with a bent corner, he wrote:

  “Man does not live by bread alone.”—words of Jesus.

  Then he slid his hand down the page the equivalent of

  several lines and wrote:

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  “Man does not live by bread at all.”—words of Greg Holden.

  Words. Of Greg Holden. Someone should find his words after . . . an explanation of why he died here. Why he came. He reached across the darkness and flipped to a fresh page. His pen hovered over the paper. He wished he could remem- ber if it was blue ink or black. Blue seemed more “him,” more legitimatel
y his own thoughts.

  As he pressed the pen into service, it occurred to him that what he was about to write would last far longer than he would, barring divine intervention.

  To the ones I love—Libby, Zack, Alex, Dad and

  to the One who showed me how little I knew about

  love . . .

  He stopped writing when the only unused paper was the inside of the back cover. Then he composed an addendum and filled the cover too.

  I couldn’t have loved you more, although I could

  have loved you better. I hope you’ll forgive me for

  that. I pray God has.

  Greg closed the notebook, tucked it into his breast pocket, laid his hand over it and his heart, and prayed himself to sleep.

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  As we walk toward an unknown future that will make me an official widow when we cross the finish line, I tweak the funeral plans I started the day Greg failed to come home.

  We’re moving forward as if there’s hope. And I do see

  glimpses of it. Not hope we’ll find Greg alive. That boat—ca- noe—sailed long ago. But hope that I’ll survive.

  My robotic steps break through the underbrush not tramped

  down or pushed aside by Jen or Frank. There are four of us on this faux trail. The One who walks beside me says, A shekel for your thoughts. God’s using Frank’s sense of humor?

  Lord, I thought I needed my daughter spared in order to fully

  trust You, I tell Him. It didn’t happen.

  I hold back a sapling and duck to miss another as I press

  through. I thought I could believe You were good and righteous if you spared Jen further pain.

  Stumbling over an exposed root, I flail then regain my bal-

  ance. I thought finding Greg alive and well and wanting me would be the key to fixing my faltering faith.

  Jen turns back as if reading my prayers. That’s not pos-

  sible, is it? Her eyebrows lift like those of a sympathetic cocker

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  LIBBY

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  spaniel. I return the look, then nod an “I’m okay. Let’s keep going.”

  Lord, I don’t need my daughter, or my friend, or even my hus- band as much as I need Your mercy.

  The words pull the lining out of my stomach. All the bro- ken pieces of my life congeal at the base of my throat. I double over. And over.

  When I straighten, I’m surprised to see that Frank and Jen haven’t pulled away from me. They stand—stooped—no more than a dozen yards ahead.

  Jen calls back, “Libby? We need you, hon.”

  I jog to where Frank crouches and Jen hovers with her arm around his shoulders. “What’s wrong? Frank?” “I can’t go any farther.”

  Jen and I lock eyes. Heart attack? Stroke? Have we pushed him too hard after his head injuries?

  I bend to Frank’s eye level and grasp his large hands in mine. “Tell us where the pain is.”

  He wrenches one hand free and presses it against his chest. “Here.”

  Oh, Lord God! Now what do we do?

  “It’s . . . in here,” he says, tapping his breastbone. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t handle stumbling over my boy’s body.” Jen rubs her hand across his back. “We don’t know for sure that Greg’s dead.”

  He raises his head, not to her, but to the skies. “Yes, we do. We all know it. He’s a bright boy. He had to have been badly hurt not to try to get word to us, not to try . . .”

  He doesn’t have to mention that we aren’t even following a trail. We’re crashing through untouched forest. He doesn’t have to point out that we’re flailing wildly in our search with even less hope than when we thought it was utterly hopeless.

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  Greg said it was always Pauline who buried the family pets

  when they expired. Frank couldn’t do it. He refused to stand in the family receiving line at Lacey’s funeral. Said he had to “walk off a charley horse.” Can a heart muscle get a charley horse?

  Greg and I didn’t risk having pets. But I know what death

  looks like. If I don’t find it, it will find me. So I have to go on.

  “Will you stay here with him, Jen, while I go on a little

  longer?”

  “That’s crazy. It’s going to be dark soon.” Jen looks from

  Frank to me as if struggling to keep both tightrope walkers from falling off the edge of the earth.

  “Can I see the map?” I stretch my hand toward Frank, palm

  up. The other hand I raise—palm up—over my head, asking God to drop fresh wisdom into it.

  Frank sighs. “I’ll come.”

  “No.” My voice holds power and gentleness in what I hope

  is Jesuslike balance. “No, I think I’m supposed to go on alone from here.”

  Jen grabs the hand waiting for a map. “You can’t do this.”

  “Why? Because it’s hard? Because we don’t know the out-

  come? Because how this turns out might be the opposite of what we think we need?”

  “Those are some good reasons right there,” Jen says, with-

  drawing her hand.

  I reach to grab it back. “I don’t want you to go through what’s

  waiting for you back home, Jen. Because it’s hard. Because we don’t know the outcome. Because when God answers our prayers, we may not like His choices. But you’re going to walk through it anyway, aren’t you?”

  Jen’s eyes glisten. The earth’s rotation seems to hiccup, then

  catch again and turn as it has since God’s Hand started the first spin. “How long will you be gone?”

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  “How long will it take us to find our way back out of here?” Frank asks with an instructor’s tone. “Too long. We should have started back an hour ago.”

  I press my hand an inch closer toward him. “The map, Frank?”

  He’s a resistant dad, handing the keys to the good car to his freshly licensed teenager. I take the map reverently, under- standing what it cost him to let me see it. The faint pencil markings swim before my eyes. “Where are we now, as near as you can guess?”

  Frank stands and leans toward me. “Wish I knew.”

  Jen levels her gaze at him. “What exactly does that mean? We’re not lost.”

  “No. Not lost,” Frank says, dropping his chin. “I just don’t know where we are. Exactly. But if we leave now, we can retrace our steps. They’re the only footprints out here, you might have noticed.”

  We’ve all noticed.

  I press trembling fingers to my lips and look beyond Frank and Jen, deeper into the friendless woods. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this—a decision to stop searching. The sands of time drained long ago. Frank needs rest. Jen needs radiation. Brent needs more time with his wife. Zack and Alex need reassur- ance that life will go on.

  And I need mercy.

  Through the shadows, a flash of light.

  “Did you see that?” I breathe.

  “See what?” Jen asks a fraction of a second before Frank does.

  “I saw a light. There.”

  The others turn their line of sight to the trajectory I indicate.

  “I don’t see anything,” Frank says.

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  “Sorry, Libby. Me either. What kind of light?”

  “Just a little flash of something.”

  Frank turns his eyes and emotions back onto our makeshift

  trail to leave this place of pain. “Probably the sunset send- ing out a caution warning through the trees. It’s time to go, Libby.”

  “I have to agree this time,” Jen says. “I’m so sorry. We need

  to go home.”

  I stare into the approaching darkness. “God, please. Either

  take away this urgency to keep pursuing this or show me the light again.”


  Nothing.

  I breathe out all hope and drink in two lungsful of fresh

  air that I pray will bring meaning to a life devoid of Greg’s bedrock love.

  Still nothing.

  I begin to take the first step to reverse course and follow

  Frank and Jen. But there. A mere pinpoint of light. Logic says it is a stray ray of a dying sun, as I’ve been told. My heart tells me different.

  “Fifteen minutes. Or a half hour. Give me half an hour,

  okay?”

  Without waiting for an argument, I quickly increase the

  distance between myself and the others.

  Frank growls something foul, but doesn’t try to stop me.

  Not that he could.

  As I tear through the untamed woods, I keep my eyes on

  the direction from which I last saw the flash. Like headlights on a sunny day, the light seems faint at best. Weak. But real. And annoyingly intermittent.

  As I pursue the phantom, I steel my heart for the revela-

  tion that what I saw originated from a piece of tinfoil long ago abandoned by a camper. Or a shard of mirror dropped by a

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  novice canoeist who didn’t realize a mirror is the last thing she would want after a few days in the wilderness.

  I press ahead another few steps, ready for the disappoint- ment but compelled nonetheless.

  The light—when it appeared—was low to the ground. Not knowing its source, it startles me to break through a tangle of waist-high brush and see it there before me on the forest floor.

  A pocket-sized flashlight, stuck in the “on” position. Surviving on what are probably its last few seconds of battery power. I bend to pick it up. The light dies in my hand.

  As weak as its light was, how could I have seen it from the point where I left Jen and Frank?

  A dying flashlight.

  In the “on” position.

  Someone was here. I don’t know the life expectancy of the newer kinds of batteries, but I find it remarkable that I saw the light at all.

  “Greg? Greg Holden! Is anyone there?”

  I scan the section of woods where I now stand. Left to right and back again, like a metal detector might sweep a portion of park lawn. Where? Who? Why is an abandoned flashlight lying in a remote, uninhabited spot? And working?

  A sudden breeze lifts the branches of the trees as if pull- ing back a curtain, revealing an opening in the thick under- growth. Curiosity draws me forward to get a better view of a jarring pattern. Downed logs lined up end to end. This smacks of human intervention. I lift my eyes and catch sight of a tent twenty yards in front of me.