Reunion at Walnut Cherryville (The Eternal Feud Book 1)

by Lauren Salem

  Teaching her about plants was more difficult, since I was not that good at identifying plants. I knew the basic ones she should avoid, like poison ivy and poison oak, but I couldn’t recognize every poisonous plant in the forest. All I knew was that we should avoid eating all mushrooms and mostly collect plants that looked like they were eaten by other animals. So far, Veronica hadn’t collected anything poisonous, so my advice must have been working for her. As the man of the lean-to, I hunted, cooked, made tools, and repaired the lean-to when needed. Sometimes, I had enough time to make advances to the lean-to, like adding a spit to the kitchen and a bookshelf to the bedroom. Yesterday, I made a fishing net out of vines and branches, which worked well for catching sizable fish.

  Obstacle #4: getting used to new foods.

  The wilderness was full of delectable food sources that were fresh and unprocessed. On the third day, we ran out of instant soup and trail mix, so Veronica had to start eating wild food. Bug burritos were her least favorite food. In fact, she wouldn’t even touch them. I eventually got her to try one, and she spit it out after the first bite. She said she didn’t like them, but I think it was all in her head. She already had a bad opinion about them from the beginning, so she wasn’t going to change her mind even after she tasted them. Bugs were not a delicacy where she came from, so she didn’t want to eat them here, either. Her favorite foods were roasted bird, smoked fish, and boiled eggs because they had a good flavor and resembled foods she was used to eating. She watched me cook the food and let me know when she thought it was done. Sometimes we argued about when the meat should be taken off the heat. I didn’t want to ruin the flavor by overcooking it, and she was worried about eating contaminated or undercooked meat. I told her to stop being such a worrywart because everything was going to be fine! When it came to fresh meat, I was up for butchering anything. I cooked squirrels, rabbits, snakes, frogs, birds, fish, and eggs and enjoyed every bite of them. My knife was my best friend, and it never left my side.

  Obstacle #5: giving up personal hygiene.

  This wasn’t really an obstacle for me, but it was for Veronica. We recently discovered a pond about a mile from camp, which I used for bathing and swimming for fun. Veronica was afraid of going into the pond because she didn’t know how to swim, so she would sit on the side and read her book while I took a bath. Out of all the challenges Veronica had to face, giving up personal hygiene was the most difficult one to cope with. Out here, there was no such thing as clear water, soap, toothbrushes, or toothpaste…not even toilet paper. Sometimes I caught Veronica trying to use the sanitation wipes to clean her hands, and I had to remind her that those were only for medical emergencies. She considered not being able to wash her hands a medical emergency. I usually just cleaned everything in the pond and only used the sanitation wipes for cuts and scrapes.

  Obstacle #6: living in the elements.

  By living outside, we were constantly exposed to sun, rain, and wind. Veronica said she planned on getting a shower the next time it rained, but who knew when that would be. I was fairer-skinned than Veronica, so I got burned instead of tanned. I kept covered during the day unless I was swimming, but I still managed to look like roast mutton because we didn’t have any sunblock. Veronica had a nice tan. She wanted me to build her a banana hammock so she could sun herself while she read books. So far, the wind in this neck of the woods wasn’t that rough. I just didn’t like the cold windy mornings that made my nose run. If I could, I’d bury my head in my sleeping bag, but then I wouldn’t know when I needed to get up for work in the morning.

  I hoped Veronica didn’t want to leave quite yet. I’d put so much work into building our home, and I was not ready to leave. This pond was so refreshing. I floated in the water, looking up at the trees.

  “It’s hot today,” Veronica said as she fanned herself with her book.

  “It’s much cooler in the water,” I said.

  Veronica sighed. “I don’t know how to swim…What if I drown?”

  “I’ll teach you how to swim,” I said before I swam over to her. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

  Veronica folded down the corner of the page, closed the book, and thought about it for a minute. “OK,” she said, smiling. She stood up, peeled off her uniform, and slowly began to walk into the water.

  “Careful,” I said, holding out my hand to her. “It could be slippery.”

  She held my hand firmly for support until her feet couldn’t touch the bottom anymore. With her arms wrapped around me, I carried her deeper into the pond.

  “When I take my hand out from under your legs, I want you to straighten them out for me, OK?” I said.

  She nodded, squinting her eyes.

  “Don’t be afraid; I’m still supporting your back, and I’m not going to let go,” I said as I removed my hand from beneath her legs. “We’re going to start by floating.”

  When she stretched out her body and she seemed buoyant on the surface, I released my hand from her back gently, so she wouldn’t notice.

  “You’re right, it does feel much cooler in the water…so refreshing,” she said.

  I floated next to her and held her hand, which caused her to turn her head and lose her balance.

  “Hey, you’re supposed to be holding me up!” she shouted, splashing around in the water. “I’m drowning!”

  As soon as I held her in my arms again, she calmed down. “I’m sorry. You were doing so well on your own, it didn’t seem like you needed my help.”

  “I want to try again.”

  I supported her back as she got into floating position. “Now, lightly kick your feet.” I walked, holding her back as she floated and kicked in shallow waters. She was doing a good job, so I stopped and taught her how to rotate her arms to complete the backstroke. At first, she was afraid to swim on her own, but after attempting the backstroke a few times, she swam it perfectly, and I was proud of her. We were having so much fun that we both lost track of time.

  “Were you still planning on looking for herbs to add to dinner tonight?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I totally forgot. I should start looking for those,” she said as she sat up and faced me. “Thanks for the swimming lessons.” She gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek.

  I blushed and felt butterflies flutter in my stomach. “You’re welcome,” I said, acting coy. “Maybe we could come back and learn freestyle tomorrow?”

  “I’d like that,” she said as she headed out of the pond. “Are you coming out now?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to stay a few more minutes.”

  “OK. I will look around here for herbs,” she said as she wrung out her long hair and slipped back into her uniform.

  “Don’t wander too far. I’m going to call out for you shortly to make sure I can locate where you are.” After what felt like five minutes of swimming, I called out to Veronica. “Veronica, can you hear my voice?”

  “Yes,” she shouted.

  I continued swimming. A little while later, I called out again. “Veronica, can you hear my voice?” She didn’t answer. I got out of the pond and gazed into the nearby trees. “Veronica, can you hear my voice?” She still didn’t answer. I quickly got dressed and began to examine the ground for footprints. I tracked her steps and found her passed out on the ground, holding a half-eaten red berry in her hand. She must have sampled something poisonous, but I couldn’t detect what it was just by looking at it. I kneeled down beside her and checked inside her mouth to see if she swallowed it already. The berry stained her tongue, but neither her tongue nor her throat looked swollen, so I didn’t think she had an allergic reaction. She was still breathing…faintly. Since I couldn’t find the berry in her mouth, I assumed she swallowed it, so I tried to induce vomiting by tickling her throat, but that didn’t work. I couldn’t even get her to wake up.

  “Veronica, if you can hear me, I’m going to get you to a hospital,” I said as I picked her up. “Don’t worry; you’re going to be OK.” She better be OK, otherwise I
’d never forgive myself for letting her live out here with me. I should have known it would be too risky. After all that she had done to help me escape from Walnut Cherryville, I couldn’t let her die. My eyes watered just thinking about the possibility of death, but I held back my tears. Men didn’t cry when things got serious, they remained tough and stood strong. I carried her in my arms as I walked a mile, retracing our steps back to camp. Even though she felt like she couldn’t have weighed more than 115 pounds, she felt heavy in my arms. I was used to lifting 150 pounds because I lifted weights in gym class, but I wasn’t used to hiking with weight on rough terrain.

  Once I reached camp, I knew how to get back to the highway. The only problem was that it was a long walk, and I didn’t know if she could hold out that long, but what else was I supposed to do? Despite how badly my body ached, I continued to push myself to go faster. Come on, Johnny, you can do it…Veronica is depending on you to save her! I rushed to the highway as quickly and carefully as I could. When I reached the road, my aching back was finally relieved. I stood her up on her feet, leaned her against me, and supported her with one arm while I waved down a passing car with the other.

  A bright blue car passed us and pulled over on the side of the road a few feet away. A middle-aged man got out of the car and ran over to me.

  “Please, help me,” I said, flustered and out of breath. “My friend needs a hospital.”

  “I know where there’s a hospital around here. Get in the car,” the man said as he took Veronica and put her in the back seat. I sat next to the driver, and we took off. “What’s wrong with your friend?”

  “I think she ate a poisonous berry. She passed out.”

  “You kids look like you’ve been outside in the sun for a long time. She might be dehydrated. I saw you come out of the woods. What were you doing there?”

  “Camping.”

  “Do your parents know where you are?”

  Parents…My biological father was dead, my biological mother was in prison, and my stepparents thought I was at school, unless Principal Brock told them I was missing. Veronica didn’t have any family here because she was an illegal immigrant. Besides her brother, who was a loyal slave to Walnut Cherryville, all her family died trying to cross the border. We were just two lone wolves living in the woods, which would be difficult to explain to an outsider.

  “Yes, they know we were camping,” I lied.

  “Here, take my cellphone,” he said as he grabbed his cellphone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Call them. Tell them to meet you at Rock Springs Hospital. Do you know her parents’ number?”

  “No, I don’t. I’ll just call mine, and they’ll tell hers.” I pretended to dial a number. “Mom, this is Johnny.” I paused for dramatic effect. “I’m all right, but Veronica passed out. I think she ate something poisonous.” I assumed that if I were really taking to my adopted mom, she would freak out, so I paused again for dramatic effect. “Can you get Veronica’s parents and meet us at Rock Springs Hospital? OK, thanks, see you soon. Love you, goodbye.” I hung up and gave the phone back to the man. I hoped that was believable. Do normal boys tell their moms they love them? I don’t know. I remember telling my biological mother that I loved her, but I never told my adopted mother that I loved her.

  When we arrived at the hospital, the man drove up to the emergency entrance and got out of the car. A group of EMTs were exiting the building. “Quick, I need your help,” he said as he opened the passenger’s door. “This girl passed out from eating a poisonous berry!” The EMTs got her out of the car and strapped her to a stretcher.

  “Thanks for helping me,” I said as I got out of the car.

  “Are you sure you will be OK? Do you want me to stay with you until your parents get here?”

  “No, I’m OK. You don’t have to stay because I’m just going to sit in the waiting room and wait. Thanks for your help.” I ran into the hospital, chasing after the EMTs who rolled Veronica down the hall. They rolled her into a room and closed the door on me.

  “Sorry, sir, you’re not allowed in the room until she’s stable,” a nurse with red hair said. “You may wait in the waiting room, which is down the hall and to the left.”

  No, I don’t want to wait in the waiting room! I want to see what’s going on! I sat anxiously in the waiting room, annoyed that I couldn’t be with Veronica during this crucial time. Even the littlest update in either direction could make me feel like there was hope for Veronica or prepare me for something worse. Anything was better than me sitting in a waiting room oblivious to what was happening with Veronica’s health.

  * * *

  The same thing happened when Grandpa Cockit was admitted to the hospital after he was shot. The hospital made us wait hours in the waiting room without giving my family any updates about how he was doing in surgery. He was pronounced dead at 8:53 p.m. on May 28, 2001. Since I was only seven years old at the time, my parents didn’t disclose the details about who shot him or why. They wouldn’t even let me hear about the details of the surgery. I don’t remember how old Grandpa was exactly, but I think he was fifty-something when he died. He was a fun guy that lived in a camper, traveled around the country, and slept in parking lots. He was a man with no address, and when people asked where he was from, he’d say, “I’m from nowhere” to a fellow man, or “I’m from wherever you want me to be from, hunnie,” to a lady. I only got to see him once a year. I’m not sure why he didn’t visit us more often. Dad said he didn’t visit more often because he was too busy chasing after “tail,” but I didn’t know what dad meant until years after Grandpa passed. I would have liked to spend more time with Grandpa before he died.

  Every Memorial Day, Grandpa Cockit and his newest lady friend came to visit the family, and we’d all go to the park. I almost felt like Memorial Day was the only day of the year that my biological mother and father actually got along and didn’t bicker. When Grandpa Cockit visited, he brought more than cheer and joy to our trailer; he also brought a dead deer for the holiday feast and brought me a gift wrapped in race car wrapping paper. The day before Memorial Day, Dad and Grandpa butchered the meat into ground deer, deer steaks, and deer chunks. Mom marinated the steaks and chunks and formed patties out of the ground meat.

  The next morning, we packed up the prepared meat in an ice chest with some cold beers, soda, coleslaw, and potato salad before we drove over to the park. Grandpa, Dad, and I played Frisbee and shot each other with water guns while Mom and the lady friend tanned under the sun. Later in the day, my parents grilled venison backstrap, burgers, and steaks. Venison backstrap was one of my favorites because the chunks were twice-marinated in apple cider and hickory barbeque sauce, wrapped in bacon, and then grilled. It was a Cockit family recipe.

  We ate dinner at a picnic table while we listened to Grandpa tell us stories about his adventures with his Road Runner camper. He said he even drove the Road Runner through the Rocky Mountains, which I thought was so cool. After dinner, we all played drinking games with cards and beer, but I had to drink soda because Dad said that I was not allowed to drink beer until I was thirteen. Grandpa Cockit got shot during a game of asshole. I couldn’t see where the bullet came from or who shot it, because I was distracted by the game. After Memorial Day, 2001, we never revisited that park again.

  * * *

  “Johnny,” a doctor called out.

  “Yes,” I said as I stood up.

  “Follow me.” The doctor escorted me through the hall until we got to Veronica’s room. “Veronica is stable now, and her vitals are normal. She woke up after the gastric suction.”

  “The what?”

  “Her stomach was pumped to get the poison out. You may go in and visit her.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I opened the door and walked into her room. The bed was empty. Veronica was nowhere to be found in that room. “Where is she?”

  “She should be in her room resting,” the doctor said.

  “Actually, I saw her wandering around the hall,”
the nurse with red hair interjected. “I think she was looking for someone or something. I don’t know because I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Nurse, make sure the patient finds her way back to her room immediately.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” the nurse said before she turned to me. “Do you want to help me look for her?”

  “Sure.” I followed the nurse through the hallways, looking for Veronica until we reached an exit door that led outside. Anxious to find Veronica, I stepped in front of the nurse and went outside first, where I saw a Walnut Cherryville produce truck waiting for me. Before I could turn around or even think about running away, the nurse shot a tranquilizer dart into my neck. My eyelids became heavy, and my muscles quickly weakened. The nurse caught me right before I collapsed on the pavement, and the last image I saw was her red hair

  Chapter 21: Vincent

  I’m not a runner. I don’t jog, I don’t exercise, and I don’t like hamster wheels. If Laura knew me better, she’d know that I was not going to run after trucks for work, especially trucks loaded with illegal immigrants who were constantly pushing other people off the trucks to prevent those people from stealing their job opportunity. Behind those silky, smooth, sexy legs were a pair of thunder thighs that could burst from zero to sixty in less than fifty seconds. She ran after trucks like a cheetah chasing a gazelle. Three trucks drove by the Home Depot parking lot looking for cheap workers for random jobs, and she ran like hell to catch up to them because the trucks didn’t sit in the parking lot for more than a second.

  So here was how it worked: the trucks would slowly drive by the flock of illegals, and the driver would signal to the flock how many Mexicans he needed for the job. Because the truck drivers were impatient or afraid of being caught by the police, they started to speed up, and the flock would chase after the truck until the right number of workers hopped in the back. Now, I could have been wrong, but the act of the driver speeding up could have also served the purpose of weeding out the weak and lazy. The strongest people ran at the top of the pack, hopped in the back effortlessly, and effectively defended their territory until the chase was over. The amount of effort an illegal put into the chase showed the driver how hard they were willing to work, or at least that was what old man Paco said.