by Nevada Barr
Hirsute insect legs tickled her lower back. Terror overrode the messages her sore tendons and bruised skull tried to send. Screaming, she thrashed, kicking and clawing to put as much distance between her and the spider as she could.
The thing came with her, running across her back where she could not see it. Still screaming, she twisted and bucked. It skittered up her spine to her neck, then over her shoulder onto her chest.
“God fucking damn it. God fucking damn it!” she wailed, wanting to cry but having neither the moisture nor the strength to do so.
It was the tail of her long braid that had tickled and clung and pursued her halfway across her sandpit. The waste of strength and the aftermath of fear burned down the channels of her brain to flicker out in the ashes of her mind.
Panting, tongue too dry to coax saliva from her cheeks or gums, Anna realized two things: One, she was naked again, and two, she was no longer afraid. The nakedness confused her. Had she imagined finding the body of a woman named Kay, stripping it, and reburying it? Had the monster come again while she lay drugged? The anti-Santa, the Satan, climbing down the chimney to steal from children and molest them as the sugarplums danced?
Day’s light grew stronger. Sunrise, then, not sunset. Anna saw the hasty burial near the wall across from where she sat and remembered how she had tried to hide her purloined finery under the sand so Mr. Monster wouldn’t take it. The belt was entirely exposed and one sandal only partially buried.
She remembered the cries and desperate scrabbling near the mouth of her lair. That memory should have engendered fear. She waited for it, but it didn’t come creeping through her bowels and up her spine.
Freedom from fear. It had been a long time since Anna had been free.
Those long terrible weeks in the New York apartment alone, she’d been afraid to go to sleep, afraid to wake up, afraid to answer the phone, afraid not to. Sitting in a red plastic chair holding Zach’s hand, she’d been scared to stay and terrified to leave. When Zach was truly gone, she was afraid of staying in the apartment they’d shared, afraid of leaving it and losing the last scents and relics of him. She’d been afraid of staying in New York, where every piece of concrete and steel reminded her of him, and afraid to leave the city they’d shared; afraid of forgetting and afraid of remembering.
Then here and this. WHORE on her thigh, thirst, drugs, pain.
Then now; fear gone as if it had been but smoke and a strong wind had blown it clear. It was as if she had been allotted enough fear to last a lifetime and she had squandered it all during three months in New York and three days in a sandstone jar. What remained in the cranial vault where decades of horror had been stored to be meted out as the slings and arrows of life demanded was a strange determination, grim and gray as slate. Determination to do what, Anna wasn’t sure. Survive? Die as annoyingly as possible? Bite the hand that had forgotten to feed her?
Moving sluggishly, she reclaimed her treasures, the belt over her head to serve as a sling, the watch on her wrist, the bra as a token bib around her neck. As she shook the sand from these items and painstakingly put them on, she watched for the tarantula. Not afraid, but not particularly wishing to be surprised by the enormous arachnid.
It had either scuttled into the deadly nightshade patch or burrowed into the sand. She had a vague recollection of watching a PBS special with Zach where tarantulas dragged other bugs into holes in the ground, stung them, and then laid eggs in their comatose bodies so the kiddies could have a fresh snack when they hatched.
Dressed, she sat with her back to the wall and rested. The canteen was beside her. She picked it up and shook it. Not a lot of water was left, a quart or less. Enough to knock her out ten times over and never truly slake her thirst. Unable to stand the feel of her throat closing, the sides of her esophagus adhering to one another, she uncapped it and took a mouthful.
Since Mr. Monster apparently hadn’t bothered to come down to torment her the previous night, maybe he was done with her, playing with her naked inert body and carving a rude word into her flesh the extent of his commitment to the relationship.
As she pondered the possibility that she had been left to die of unnatural causes, she saw the stem of one of the datura plants shift slightly. The tarantula. A black bead appeared a couple of inches above the ground. An eye. Or the tip of a feeler. Anna couldn’t remember if tarantulas had feelers. She worked her way up onto her knees. Her left arm free of the sling, she held the canteen in front of her with both hands like a shield. Spiders could jump. Anna had seen the smallest of them jump several inches. For a being less than a quarter of an inch wide, including legs, that was a prodigious feat. A tarantula the size of the one she’d seen hit the sand the night before could probably jump five feet or more.
“I will squash you like a bug,” she said to the black bead in the weeds and shook the canteen to show she meant it.
The plants quivered again, and a second black bead revealed itself.
Anna raised the canteen over her head.
The grasses moved, and a pointed black snout emerged between the beads. Both black eyes were fixed on her. Anna didn’t move. She’d stopped breathing.
Cautiously, a tiny skunk kit poked its nose from the sere foliage, then dared a paw, then another. It was no bigger than Anna’s hand, coal black with two white stripes originating above its eyes and streaming over the fur of its back to a plume of tail.
The cry in the night that Anna had thought sounded like a small animal must have been just that; the erratic scratching sounds, the paws of coyotes as they attacked and killed the mother skunk. The kit was too small to have been on his own. When the coyotes attacked, this little guy must have fled into the mouth of her jar for safety, then tumbled down. The kit couldn’t weigh more than a pound, and he’d landed on soft sand. The impact must have been minimal. He didn’t appear to be hurt, just frightened of the enormous bipedal beast whose den he found himself in.
No, Anna corrected herself, not frightened, more interested. Had he been frightened, she thought, he was supposed to turn away and point his bottom at her so he could spray. Chances were he’d never seen a person and was more curious than fearful.
“Hey, buddy,” she said softly as she lowered the canteen and laid it gently on the sand. The little animal flinched but didn’t run back behind the datura leaves. Stilling herself, she let her eyes wander, pretending she had little interest in him but sneaking glances. Watching the ball of fluff sniff around, exploring this new place with increasing confidence, she experienced a sensation she hadn’t felt for so long it took her a moment to identify it.
Delight.
She was delighted. That an animal she could fit in a pocket, a wild creature, and a skunk to boot, could bring so much life into the jar that the air seemed brighter, the walls more cozy than forbidding, and her heart no longer too heavy to beat, amazed her.
Soon, she knew, she would worry about how to keep her new friend alive. How much drugged water would be too much and shut down his heart? Should she try to capture him and throw him up the neck of the jar into the real world before he perished from thirst? Or was he too young to survive in the world above without his mama? Like the writers of Old Yeller or The Yearling, had the fates given her this warm little soul only so the monster could take it away in some gruesome fashion?
Soon. Soon she would worry. For now she was content to sit, head resting against the stone, and revel in the tiny perfect creature toddling around on the sand.
Anna was no longer alone.
SIXTEEN
Anna’s false sun moved through her sandstone universe, crawling down one side of the jar, creeping across the bottom, and lapping at the other side. On the surface of the earth the temperature was probably in the nineties; in the perpetual shade of the jar, Anna was not uncomfortable. No longer plagued by fear, and drifting on the low-level effects of sipping drugged water, it occurred to her that Nature wasn’t as harsh as she’d thought when she’d come to Glen Canyon. It wa
s Man’s fighting against it that made it hard.
A woman—even a drugged and broken stage manager—who embraced it could find comforts. Solitude—something she’d dreaded since Zachary had gone—was, in truth, beautiful. Not loneliness, but freedom from people. How could she be lonely while Buddy delicately explored her toes with his snout and one wee paw?
The skunk kit wandered off to find something better than toes with which to play. A strange piece of music filtered through Anna’s memory. Glenn Branca, she thought.
Running Through the World Like an Open Razor.
Human emotion was the razor: slights, sneers, mockery, love, hope, desire. All cut in their own way. Those wounds spawned their own cuts in actions taken, understandings and misunderstandings, then in the remembering.
Not so in solitude.
The prison of the jar she’d feared and loathed was simply stone. She was there uninvited. It neither hated nor loved nor cared. Today she found in it shelter from the sun; tonight, from the cold. Monsters and thirst and starvation were not part of the sandstone; they were of humanity, of the razors. The stone itself was pure, enduring. It had no ambition. It did not plot or pine, trap or torment. Rain deepened it, sand blew in, cold sheared flakes from its walls, torrents carved canyons, and forests poked roots into its crevices. Form changed without resentment, loss, or lust.
Bizarrely, given that she was probably going to die soon one way or another—and none of them pleasant—Anna was more at peace than she had been since she’d last lain in Zach’s arms, oblivious to the fact that the end of her world was nigh.
The canteen was resting upright in a trench of sand she’d made. So far as she’d noticed, the cap didn’t leak, but water—even poisoned water—was too precious a commodity to take chances with. Tipping the canteen, she filled the cap and poured it over her tongue. Using the cap as a measure, she found she could control her consumption to a certain extent. At least her parched innards had less of a chance to override her will and gulp it down.
Buddy turned at the sound—or maybe the smell. His tiny black nose had grayed. Part of it was dust from his explorations, but, Anna guessed, some was because his nose must be drying out. He took several steps in her direction, then stopped, gazing up at her, his nose twitching.
“I’m afraid to, Buddy. I don’t know what’s in it, what it would do to someone as small as you,” she said miserably. “I would if I could. When I get us out, you shall have a mastiff-sized bowl in your room at all times. I promise.”
When we get out.
Anna heard the words come into her ears. In this hole in the ground she had managed to undress and rebury a body, dress herself, stay moderately sane, make a sling for her arm, and acquire a pet skunk. Though drugged to the gills, she had made the attempt to hide her clothes when noises came from above. What she had not even considered was that she could get out. First, she’d hoped the rangers would come get her out, then she’d resigned herself to—to what? To living and dying in a buff-and-peach-colored bottle like a short-lived genie with a bra that didn’t fit and no harem pants?
Could she get herself and Buddy out? Gathering the foggy tendrils of thought back from the drug marshes muddying her brain, she tried to focus. Moqui steps; that was what the park historian called the shallow toe- and fingerholds carved into the sides of some of the rock around the lake. The ancient peoples made them so they could travel to and from the river more easily.
The cap of the canteen was metal and had a small-linked metal chain that attached it to the mouth. Tin probably, a soft metal. Still, it might do to scrape away the soft sandstone.
Granules of sand hit her cheek and dragged her from her thoughts. Buddy was digging furiously. Since it was not right where the corpse was interred, Anna didn’t stop him. For all she knew, skunks could be like cats and dig holes to use as latrines.
Lying back, the canteen pressed into service as a headrest, she studied the body of the jar—a space she had done nothing but study for days. It was shaped rather like a turnip, round and full at the bottom, then curving into a narrow point that veered off at an angle, before opening to the sky.
Moqui steps wouldn’t work. A strong person, with two good arms, might be able to climb them on a ninety-degree vertical. No one but Count Dracula could climb them at ninety-five degrees. Gravity would not be defied. The inward curve of her jar was more pronounced than a mere ninety-five, closer to a hundred and fifteen.
The only way out was however the monster came and went. It would be easy enough to climb down a rope, but climbing up over the curve would require strength and agility.
Also, it would probably be better not to be drugged off one’s ass.
Two good arms would help. Gingerly she shrugged her left shoulder. Maybe it was her imagination, but she was sure she could feel the round bone end trying to push out of the socket. Whatever held her together—tendons, ligaments, muscles—was torn or stretched.
Sand scattered over her belly. “Buddy,” she said as she struggled to a sitting position. “What are you doing?”
The skunk kit had dug up a moldy green snaky-looking thing. He had it in his teeth and, front paws braced, haunches bunched, was trying to pull the rest of it out of the dirt. It was a strap, Anna realized, army green and tightly woven like the belts with the flat buckles. Memory flashed and she saw the belt around Kay’s hips as the boys abused her, saw the water bottle clipped to it with a carabiner.
“Let me help you, Buddy,” she whispered and gently took hold of the strap between his jaws and the dirt. Buddy didn’t run or let go. “We’re a team,” Anna assured him. With little effort she uncovered the rest of the belt. There was a small fanny pack she hadn’t noticed before and the water bottle: one liter, clear plastic and three-quarters full. Pizarro looking on El Dorado, Ponce de Leon at the Fountain of Youth, Arthur and Excalibur: Anna was stunned by the glitter of the treasure Buddy had unearthed. Her hands shook so badly, she had to stop for a moment and rest them on her lap. The water bottle lay on its side. Sudden fear that it was leaking goaded her into movement. Carefully, as if it were delicate china, she set the bottle upright and banked sand around it.
The first capful should go to Buddy, she knew that.
Buddy was already onto the fanny pack, scratching and gnawing on the black dusty nylon. Anna pulled the zipper open for him.
“Granola bars with chocolate chips. That’s what you were after all along, isn’t it?” Using her teeth, she tore one of the two foil-wrapped packets open and bit off a corner of the bar. This she spat into her palm and offered to Buddy. Gingerly, one eye on the prize and one on the biped, he took it, then scurried away a few feet to eat it. The next bite Anna kept for herself. Hunger was with her these last hours or days, but thirst was a good appetite depressant and she hadn’t suffered the pangs much. Chocolate awoke them.
Doling out the water as if it were the most precious commodity on earth—which, in fact, it was—Anna filled the cap from the plastic bottle with the good water and set it a foot or so from Buddy. The first swallow was his. The next was hers.
The urge to drink all of the water was almost too powerful to resist. Almost. Anna sipped and chewed. Once, she refilled Buddy’s cap and gave him another chunk of the granola bar. It was his nose, after all, that had found the treasure. This time she picked out the chocolate chips first, then offered it to him. “Chocolate might not be good for little skunks,” she said apologetically. Buddy, had he had any fear of her to begin with, had none now. He took the morsel from her fingers and ate it.
Anna returned the second granola bar to the fanny pack. Fortified with sips and bites, she was settled enough to see what else the pack contained. Sunscreen, SPF 40—so shady was her jar, Anna hadn’t much use for that, but she rubbed it on her face for the moisture. As the heavy cream soaked in, she felt her skin relax and expand to cover her bones. There was a ChapStick that she pounced on greedily, rubbing the oily wax into her cracked lips. The small sack was emptied. Having administe
red to herself, she replaced the lotion and lip balm inside and zipped it closed.
“I have a plan, Buddy,” she announced to the baby skunk. “It’s only partially baked. So it qualifies as a bona fide adventure.” So saying, she wondered if the miracle of the bars and the water had made her giddy.
The first play she’d ever stage-managed was Hello, Dolly! The boys from Yonkers were off to New York City for an adventure. Barnaby, younger and having had no adventures, was afraid he wouldn’t know when the adventure was happening and thus miss it. Cornelius, his older, wiser companion, promised he’d yell “pudding” when the adventure commenced so Barnaby would know it had begun.
“Pudding, Buddy,” Anna whispered.
SEVENTEEN
Anna drank as much of the drugged water as she dared and slept the rest of the day. Buddy nosed her back into consciousness when the light was nearly gone from the sky and her circle of sand in deep shadow. She shared the last granola bar with him and opened the clean water from Kay’s belt. Anna drank a good portion of what was left and gave Buddy his fill. If her half-baked plan fell flat, she doubted she’d need to ration the clean water. The drugged would be just fine; there would be little point in prolonging sanity.
The influx of fluid into her dehydrated body was nothing short of miraculous. As water seeped into her cells, she felt an opening inside, much as she imagined a flower feels when unfurling its petals. Strength, energy, hope: Those things that made life worthwhile flowed in with the moisture. Grabbing onto these sensations, Anna closed her mind to the possibility of failure.
Buddy watched while she put herself through deep breathing exercises, sit-ups, and rapid walks around the circle of their tiny arena, trying to shake off the effects of the drug.
Having achieved a modest level of alertness, she set about erasing all traces of herself from the bottom of the jar. The belt went into the loops to hold up her shorts. She would need both arms free. The fanny pack she wrapped around her waist, snapping the plastic buckle in place. The scraps of paper from her and the skunk’s repast she shoved into the pockets of her shorts, then clipped the plastic water bottle to the strap of the fanny pack with the carabiner.
