Wild Flower

by Abbie Williams

“West,” I whispered, and we braved the rain. Mathias locked the truck and tucked the key in his pocket, and we started forward. The going wasn’t terribly difficult, much like walking through the woods back in Minnesota, a similar rise and fall to the land beneath our feet. Here though, there were no trees, the foothills full of rock formations, eerie in the darkness, turrets and ledges and indentations everywhere, giant, oddly-shaped stone fortresses. The rain stayed steady as we left the truck behind. I was pulsing with awareness. Mathias kept the flashlight beacon trained on the sodden ground five feet ahead.

  Cora, I begged. Show me where you are. Please, show me.

  The rain was nightmarish, steady and drenching, obscuring our long-range vision. Our shoes slogged through the increasing mud. I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind, my hand on Mathias’s back as he walked just ahead of me. We didn’t speak until the first bolt of lightning sizzled and then he stopped and ordered, “No. We’re going back to the truck. I won’t put you in danger out here!”

  “But she’s so close,” I sobbed, tears and rain streaking my cheeks. “She’s here. We can’t leave her here anymore!”

  “Camille, no! I won’t put you in danger! Not for her, not for anyone!”

  There was a tremendous, cracking roar and I leaped as though stabbed. Lightning flared in the wake of the thunderclap and Mathias was adamant. He yelled, “Back to the truck, now!”

  The darkness was momentarily eradicated by the next brilliant flash and a skittering of loose rock tumbled down one of the silent rock fortresses to our immediate right. I saw something then; the falling rock directed my attention that way and I shouted, “Look there!”

  I ran, stumbling in my haste, to the small opening there revealed, not quite a cave but close, a low crevice burrowing perhaps ten feet deep into the base of the rock. I fell to my knees and peered inside. My ribs burned wickedly, my heart cinched as though by a length of bristly rope as Mathias circled the flashlight around this ancient space, once, twice… finding nothing. It was an empty hollow, hardly big enough for two adult bodies, occupied by nothing more than small rocks and dirt. Rain sheeted. Thunder seemed to split the sky into chunks. Lightning pierced the night directly on the heels of another burst of thunder, appearing to strike the tip of the neighboring rock. I cried, “Where is she? She should be here…” I pressed my palms to the wet earth.

  “Honey, come on,” he said, dragging me into the small space and out of the storm. We were forced to crouch and the air was musky with the scent of dirt, but it was dry in this space. I felt a twinge of horror at the confinement but Mathias collected me close, setting the flashlight on the ground.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I thought she was here…she’s supposed to be here!” I sobbed, hysterical with frustration, unable to get a handle on myself.

  Holding me secure, rocking us side to side, he put his lips to my ear. “It’s all right. It’s all right, love. We’ll be fine in here until the storm passes. I’m here.”

  The violent storm blew over within fifteen minutes, moving east; we could hear the grumble of thunder receding, leaving behind the quieter sounds of slackening rainfall.

  At last Mathias said, “Let’s go home.”

  I nodded agreement. I would put this insanity behind me, forever. I would hide away the picture of Malcolm and Aces, and the telegram and the letters, and I would pray that I never dreamed of them again…

  “We’ll go get in dry clothes and get some food, what do you say, sweet darlin’?” he asked, trying to restore normalcy to the situation, I could tell, running one hand through his damp hair.

  I nodded, exhausted beyond measure. I bent to collect the flashlight, inadvertently nudging its beam a different direction, and it was then that I saw it, a rock that looked more like…

  I grabbed the flashlight, aiming it at the very back edge of the cave. Without hesitation I crawled to the spot and used my fingernails to scrape the ground. When this wasn’t enough, I scrabbled about for a small rock.

  “Is that…”

  “It is,” I gasped. “It’s a skull…”

  Mathias helped me and the earth fell away as we dug, exposing something I’d only ever seen as a model in the science rooms at school, or as a Halloween decoration. And then suddenly it was in my hands, its top curve smooth and polished as a river rock. The entire lower jaw was gone; the empty eye sockets gaped as though peering at us.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I breathed, cold and trembling. Had my soul once inhabited this skull’s body? Was I holding Cora—and therefore my past self? I almost dropped her, fingertips resonating.

  Mathias put his hands over mine, atop the skull. “Is it…oh God, is it her?”

  Before I could respond I heard a noise at the mouth of the cave, a dry skittering rattle. I turned just in time to see a small, pointed head glide over my bent legs, its long, smooth body following directly after. There was no time to process the sight before Mathias made a rough, strangled sound and it was only then I realized what was happening, that a rattlesnake had just slithered across me to sink its fangs into Mathias’s left thigh.

  Panic swallowed me whole.

  Time seemed suspended, each second a buzzing eternity. I dropped the skull and thrashed at the creature, but it was already whipping itself away, fast and sinuous; the damage was done. Mathias bent forward and groaned, “Oh shit, oh shit.”

  Charcoal seemed alight in my throat. A thousand choices swarmed for attention in my head and yet I’d never been so helpless.

  Mathias was attempting to remain calm. “That was a timber rattler. You’ve got to get help.”

  “I can’t leave you here!” I fumbled with the flashlight, shining it over the bleeding wound on his thigh. He inhaled a harsh breath and I felt as though I was burning alive, tethered inescapably to a fiery pyre, my recurring nightmare unfolding literally before my eyes.

  “Camille, you have to go get help.” He clutched my arm in his free hand, understanding that I was about to fall off the cliff and into abject panic. His grip was noticeably weaker than usual.

  I would not let this happen. Fuck if I would let this happen. My brain centered and focused, spitting out words. Help. Hospital. Truck. I couldn’t carry him as far as we’d walked. I said, “I’ll get the truck, I’ll drive it back here!”

  He whispered, “That’s a good idea, I didn’t think of that…” And then he tried to extract the key from his pocket and fell backward. I gasped, pulsing with agony, helping him to lie flat on the ground. I would rather die than leave him here alone in this narrow cave, but he could die if I didn’t.

  “Thias, oh God, I’ll be right back, I promise.” I held his face, kissing his mouth, before crawling out into the rainy night.

  This was hell.

  Hell was a rainy, rocky, no-man’s land in which I was now forced to run, leaving behind the love of my life—this lifetime and many others.

  Let him be all right.

  It’s what you feared most.

  He’ll die and you won’t find him again…

  And then there was no room for thoughts. I ran full-bore, falling once, sliding inches over the ground, scraping knees and palms, terrified that I had dropped the key. But it was still clutched in my fist. I came upon the truck and gunned the engine of the good old 4x4, thankful as hell that it was four-wheel drive. I cranked the wheel and drove back the way I’d come, avoiding boulders. The truck bounced like a pinball and lost a hubcap, but I had no time for anything but getting to him. For a horrific span of time I wasn’t sure if I could find my way to the right spot. I braked where I was certain I’d left him waiting and was assaulted by visions of driving across eastern Montana and never finding him, of being kept apart from him, our souls never reuniting.

  I’ll wait for you right there, he’d said, pointing to the cluster in the Milky Way’s expanse.

  I leaped out of the truck and screamed his name, my throat raw. I could see the opening in the rock face now and raced
to it; I had no idea how many minutes had elapsed while I ran for the truck and returned here. It could have been five minutes or thirty. I had no sense of time. My breath emerged as a whimpering growl as I saw him lying flat on his back, eyes closed. I scurried to his side and felt for a pulse.

  “Thias, I’m here, I’m here…be all right, I’m here…”

  His heart was beating but he was cold, damp from the rain, and his eyelids didn’t flutter at the sound of my voice. Everything I’d ever heard about snakebites revolved through my head. Mom had long ago delivered the talk about venomous snakes, as we’d visited northern Minnesota every summer. I knew you weren’t supposed to open the wound. What I needed to do right now was lift him into the truck and get him to a hospital as fast as humanly possible.

  “I have to lift you up, Thias, I have to get you to the truck. Can you hear me? Oh God, hear me,” I pleaded, sliding my arms under his upper body. He remained inert and I was frantic. He was so much bigger than me. “I have to lift you up, love, I have to get you up.” But I could already tell that I wasn’t strong enough, even with adrenaline pulsing through me. I would have to drag him and I would hurt him in the process.

  There is no other choice. I understood this clearly. And then, reeling with helplessness, I heard myself sob out a name; I heard myself beg for Malcolm, over and over again.

  Later, I would never be sure exactly what happened, though in the moment it was sterling clear, clear as glass, clear as water in the shallows of a lake. A sound like wind in a narrow tunnel rose from behind me and a crawling chill seized my spine; I turned to see a shadowy form hovering at the back of the cave, small and slight, long dark hair rippling over her shoulders. Her clothing appeared in tatters, arms and legs frail as twigs. The only substantial part of the entire being were her eyes—one green and one black, burning in a ghostly face. Her essence glowed in the cave, reflected in my wide and terrified pupils.

  “Cora,” I breathed. Shock electrified every hair on my body and made ice shards of my blood. She. Was. Me. I felt the very fabric of my soul— her soul—pulled by a tremendous force. Primal terror clamped hold – I pressed both hands to my chest to keep myself in once piece.

  Before I could blink she flew to Mathias, the vibrating energy of her swelling to fill the cave.

  You came for me, she sobbed, her glowing hands gliding over his face. You came for me. I am so sorry, Malcolm, do you hear me, I am so sorry…

  Necessity overpowered my fear and restored my ability to move. “Help me! You have to help me, he’s hurt!”

  I should have trusted you. Forgive me…

  “Cora!” I screamed. “Help me!”

  Malcolm…

  She seemed not to hear my words and I lost all control. Feral with desperation, as cruel as I’d ever been, I raged, “Goddamn you, Cora! I risked him searching for you! I love him as much as you loved Malcolm, don’t you see?! We came here to find you and you will help me or I will smash your fucking skull into a thousand pieces and leave you here, forgotten forever, do you understand?!”

  Time stalled, shrieking through my soul before voiding the cave of all sound—and then her soft, low voice filled my head.

  It is me who should beg forgiveness. It’s my fault, not his—I should have listened, I should have trusted. You are me but you are of Lorie, too, I know this. Her daughters and their kin were cursed to lose their men, the first men they ever loved. I couldn’t stop it—I should have tried harder…

  The whys of it mattered no longer in that moment; I didn’t care anymore if I never understood what she meant.

  “Then you owe us both,” I whispered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE HOSPITAL ROOM WAS DIM, LIT ONLY BY A SINGLE LIGHT NEAR THE bed; the nurses had left us alone since midnight. They said to call if my contractions got any closer together. Just now I felt as though I may be in labor for the next week. I’d been on bedrest since Millie Jo’s third birthday in February. Mathias smoothed tangled hair from my overwarm face and asked, “You want me to braid it, hon? It’s coming all loose.”

  I nodded and he helped me ease forward; he’d had a lot of practice with this sort of thing, as he often fixed Millie Jo’s hair. He finished his gentle ministrations and drew the long braid over my shoulder. I whispered, “Thank you, love,” and he grinned, dimple flashing, giddy with excitement over the fact that sometime soon—maybe even by morning’s light—we would finally get to meet our boys.

  “Two,” Aunt Jilly had told us back in September. She’d rubbed my belly and pronounced, “Boys, if I’m not mistaken.”

  It took a fair amount of time for Mathias to float back down from his elation at this news.

  “Twins, on the first try,” he kept saying.

  We had returned home from Montana quite differently than we’d expected, back in July. My memory of the events in the foothills remained hazy, as something viewed through a smoked-glass window; I wasn’t entirely sure if that was because I had been in such shock or because my mind was somehow protecting me this way. I believed, and would always believe, that I’d spoken to Cora’s spirit and that she’d helped lift Mathias into the truck. Much more clearly, I remembered driving hell-for-leather to the tiny town of Terry, Montana, wild-eyed as I searched for the hospital; the emergency room staff treated Mathias with antibiotics to counteract the rattler’s venom. He’d been rendered unconscious the rest of that night while I waited in a stupor of terror, unwilling to take my eyes from him, despite the hospital staff’s kind reassurances that he would indeed be right as rain. By dawn, Mathias’s eyelids were fluttering and I restrained the urge to climb right onto the hospital bed and wrap around him. I touched his face; he reached and caught my wrist in one hand, his fingers curling around the bones beneath my skin.

  “Did you see her?” he’d whispered. “Did you, Camille?”

  I nodded slowly, cupping his face. His dear, precious face that I could not live without.

  He whispered, “Cora was there. She spoke to me.”

  “She saved you,” I whispered.

  His fingers caressed my forearm with gentle motions, not yet up to his usual strength. He whispered, “You saved me. You saved me from so many things.”

  “Do you know how much I love you?” I asked. He had asked the same thing of me before we’d made love the first time.

  “I do. My love, my sweet love. I’ve always known.”

  Mom and Blythe had wanted to drive to Terry and retrieve us; Mathias’s sisters called about every ten minutes until we reached Beltrami County, so worried for their little brother, despite his reassurances. I promised all of them that I would get us safely home. The day before we left Montana, while Mathias rested in the hospital bed, I drove the truck back along Highway 253, slowly this time, and retraced my steps through the late afternoon, one last time. When I came upon the little cave it was lit by the orange fire of the lowering sun and I noticed what I hadn’t in the darkness and rain—wildflowers, bitterroot blossoms growing profusely along the ground near the opening. I understood not even half the story, I realized this, but I understood enough. And there was only quietude here now.

  I dropped to my knees and crawled across the dirt to retrieve the top of Cora’s skull; all that remained of a young woman with tremendous strength and power, fierce devotion. I prayed she was at peace now, that all of her pain and anger had evaporated like dew with the morning sun. I cradled the skull—my skull—against my belly as I drove back to Terry, smoothing my palm over the dull curve that would have been the top of her head long ago, tracing my fingers lightly over the eye sockets, and my ring caught the glint of the dying sun; perhaps Cora once wore this exact ring. I would never know, but there was one definitive thing I could do for her.

  “It’s time you came home,” I told her.

  We buried her in the woods near the cabin. We decided that we didn’t want to mark the place with a wooden cross and so Mathias and I worked together to find a medium-sized native stone with a smooth, flat
surface appropriate for chiseling.

  “We don’t even know her last name,” I said, tracing my fingertips over the rock. “Or when she was born. Or even exactly when she died.”

  Mathias considered for some time before he began chiseling, and the result was this: Cora Carter, beloved of Malcolm A. Carter, 1876.

  “Do you think she’d approve?” he asked as we stood there later, her skull properly buried and the stone in place. I’d brought along a bundle of roses, which I felt she would prefer, tied with a silk ribbon. These I set carefully near the stone and rested my hand on its surface. I had spent plenty of time thinking of something Cora had said, back in the cave, about the curse.

  Her daughters and their kin were cursed to lose their men, the first men they ever loved.

  And this was true. I thought of my grandma, my mother, Aunt Jilly, even myself. Each of us had lost the first man we ever loved. Stretching back through time, this had been the case for the women in the Davis family. As a lightbulb flickering to life, I thought of Aunt Ellen and Dodge. Maybe she had never openly admitted her love for him for that very reason, even subconsciously. She didn’t want to lose him.

  But if we hadn’t lost them, we would not have found our true loves, I realized. The curse was really a blessing. In complete disguise, it was actually a blessing.

  “I think she would like it very much,” I said, tracing her name on the inscription. As I stood, Mathias tucked me against his side and if he’d been wearing his cowboy hat, he would have held it against his chest in that moment. “This is where she always wanted to be, I think.”

  “I think so, too,” he said. “She has finally come home.”

  Months later, in the labor and delivery wing at the Rose Lake hospital, Mathias was too excited to get any rest, even when the nurses warned him it could be a good while before the boys decided to emerge. He’d been anticipating this day since the moment we’d discovered we were to be parents, and I would always believe that the boys had been conceived that night at Makoshika, beneath the gorgeous starry sky.