We Went to the Woods

by Caite Dolan-Leach

  The back roads were a bit dicier, but still not bad, and my truck fishtailed only once or twice, when I braked on a decline. Yet again I cursed myself for failing to put sandbags in the back. I pulled over at two gas stations to call my friends, who still weren’t answering. It was chilly inside the truck, and without gloves, my fingers felt wooden on the steering wheel. I needed to warm them up. I called my mother as an afterthought.

  “Sweetie? Oh, I’ve been worried about you. Are you all ready for the storm?”

  “Yeah, you bet, Mom. We’ve got plenty of food, and we’re going to make a little party out of it.”

  “Oh, good, that’s such a relief. I’ve just been picturing you cold and hungry out there in the woods, and it’s been driving me to distraction. You don’t have to drive anywhere, do you?”

  “Nope, all settled in,” I lied. “It sounds like we’ll be doing some shoveling, but otherwise we’re planning a few days of cozy reading next to the fire.”

  “Well, that sounds nice. What a relief. You’ve got enough fire? I mean wood, or whatever?”

  “Yes, Mom, we’re totally fine. Don’t worry about us.”

  “Maybe tomorrow I’ll have your father come and plow you out? He’ll probably be picking up some shifts with the city, so he could probably make it out there to Hector….”

  “Let’s talk the day after tomorrow. If we’re not dug out by then, maybe I’ll take you up on that,” I said.

  “Okay, sweetie. Just wanted to check in. Thanks for calling. And stay off the roads!”

  “You too, Mom. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  I hung up the phone feeling guilty, but I could hardly tell her that I was still a good twenty minutes from home and all my friends were apparently missing. No sense in worrying her. A part of me wanted to turn right before Ithaca, go north up the lake, and pull into the driveway at my parents’ house, instead of continuing around the curve of Cayuga and heading west, towards the next lake.

  Finally unable to listen to another second of Neil Young or the radio stations, which had all become impossibly loud, booming advertisements and aggressive jingles (had they always been that way, or was it living in the woods that had so sensitized me?), I drove the rest of the way in silence. And it was silent, except for the sound of my truck. The roads were mostly deserted, and the snow muted any noise or light, so that I felt like I was totally alone. As I turned onto our road, the snow seemed to fall more heavily, and the pines that lined the dirt track curved in on me, adding to my sense of insulation. I had a memory of being young, driving with my father through heavy snow, high up in the seat of his truck, which sported a snowplow. He used to drive me around in snowstorms, shoveling heaps of snow and gray slush off the roads, and we had driven quietly, with just the sound of his noisy heater and the scrape of the blade that carved up the country roads. I had felt safe then, very unlike the disquieting hum of anxiety that now vibrated to my fingertips.

  The Homestead looked empty, and I didn’t pull my truck all the way up the drive, wary of getting stuck in the soft snowfall. I again wished I had gloves as I slammed my door; the cold metal bit my fingers. I checked the cabins, which were all empty, unsurprisingly. Swearing, I got back in the pickup and tried Chloe and Louisa again. Chloe answered.

  “Jesus, Mack. Where have you been?”

  “It’s a long story. What the hell is going on?” I struggled to keep from yelling at Chloe; if I got aggressive, she would shut down on me.

  “I don’t know,” she said, sounding almost teary. “It’s—they left, this morning. I didn’t realize, but Louisa left a note and I found it and now I’m not sure where they are but it’s not good and now the snow—”

  “Where are you right now?” I interrupted.

  “At the Collective. I called Natasha once I realized, and she’s here.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way there. Just stay put, we’ll figure this out in a minute.”

  I churned out of the driveway; for one panicky moment my wheels spun ineffectually, searching for purchase on the slick ground. I realized I had gunned the engine and let up on the gas. The truck jolted out of the rut, back onto the road.

  The lights of the farmhouse were on at the Collective, and I made for the front door in relief, pulling up the hood of my parka to shield my cheeks from the burn of cold. I entered without knocking and barely paused to kick off my boots on the way to the kitchen. Natasha and Chloe sat at the table, cups of tea in front of them. Natasha was on the phone but not speaking. She shook her head and hung up.

  “Matthew’s off-grid too. Fuck,” she said. Chloe gripped her mug, gazing out the window with that worrying blank stare of hers.

  “What is going on?” I implored.

  “They’re doing it. Today,” Natasha answered.

  “Doing what?” I asked.

  She looked at me in surprise. “Oh. You didn’t know?” When I stared at her with raised eyebrows that indicated I most certainly didn’t fucking know anything, she continued: “I thought you might be looped in, but I guess not. It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that Beau and Fennel have been…branching out from their, uh, traditional activist roles.”

  “I had gathered that there might be some not-strictly-legal interventions, yeah,” I said. “But I was under the impression that they were going to knock it off for a bit. After their arrests, et cetera.”

  “Well, that was the idea. But then Matthew showed up.” Natasha said his name with surprising bitterness, and I speculated that she might not be overjoyed to share Fennel with the man her friend so clearly idolized. “He’s got a habit of stirring things up. He’s always felt that the West Hill Collective lacked…ambition.”

  “What did they have planned?”

  “Well, I don’t exactly know. At a certain point, I asked Fennel to not give me too many details. It became rather clear that things were headed in a direction I wasn’t totally comfortable with. I’m all for a little civil disobedience, but…my mom is sort of a public intellectual, and I don’t know that I really want to get arrested. I apparently don’t have that Black Panther streak in me.” She shrugged.

  “But you think they’re doing something today?”

  “Here’s what I know: They want to do something to the natural gas company, something that can’t be ignored. Fennel has been wanting to make, I don’t know, some sort of big statement, and then Louisa showed up a few weeks ago, saying that all this ‘guerilla shit’ is pointless. For the first time, she and Fennel seemed to have found some common ground, because they both liked the idea of something ‘big.’ But they don’t want anyone to get hurt. When they heard about the snowstorm, they got excited. The whole facility will likely be deserted. No employees, and probably almost no security guards.”

  “So they’re going to, what, set the place on fire?”

  “Look, like I said, I don’t know exactly what they’re planning. They might just be going in to break some windows or something.” I stared at Natasha. “I agree,” she said, “not likely. But I stopped asking questions.”

  “What car did they take?”

  “Fennel’s, I think. Matthew left yesterday, naturally. Set his plan in motion and then he’s off.”

  “Well, given his record, I’m not surprised he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty here,” I said. “But Fennel’s van isn’t exactly the most reliable getaway vehicle. Christ, they’ll be lucky if it even starts.”

  “I know. She doesn’t even have snow tires,” Natasha fretted, looking out the window at the darkening sky. Chloe, who had said nothing since I got back, just sat there blank and silent, fingers wrapped tightly around her mug. “They’ve been gone hours.”

  “What do we do?” I finally said.

  “I guess we wait,” Natasha said, looking out the window, as though she might see our friends come straggling home through t
he snowy woods. I texted Louisa:

  I know (more or less) what you guys are up to and I don’t care. Please just let me know you’re OK.

  Then I sat down to wait.

  Chapter 27

  We couldn’t have waited more than thirty minutes before my phone buzzed, but it felt like we’d been holding our grim vigil around that table for hours. I knocked over Chloe’s mug in my fervor to get to my phone. On my screen, a text from Louisa:

  Shit went south. F’s van is stuck and we had to book it on foot. Headed to the picnic spot in Hector Forest. Chloe knows where it is. Come get us. It’s fucking cold.

  I read the message aloud to Chloe and Natasha, and Chloe jerked her head up at the mention of her name.

  “It’s not really a good day for a picnic,” she said. I couldn’t tell whether this was a joke or just a product of her increasingly dissociative state.

  “Do you know what they mean? Chloe?”

  “Blueberry Patch, I think. Beau brought me over there in the summer. We ate strawberries, though, not blueberries,” she answered.

  “Can you get me there? We need to go fast.”

  “I guess, probably.” She shrugged. “They picked a bad day for this.”

  “Couldn’t agree more. But we should go, before the snow gets worse.” Even as I said this, the wind gusted outside, and I realized we were starting too late. “Natasha? What are you going to do?”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I want to come, too, but how will everyone fit into your truck? We can’t exactly sit in the back in this weather.”

  “Fuck. Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.” I looked over at Chloe. “Maybe I should leave her here too.”

  “How will you find the right spot?” Natasha asked.

  “We’ve got Google Maps. Here, show me where to go, Chlo.” I nudged Chloe, and she gave me some directions to a spot in the national forest about seven miles from the Collective. She pointed to a small country road in the middle of the green, then a dot labeled “Blueberry Patch Campground.”

  “Just drive there, park, and call Louisa,” Natasha suggested. “Or text her, I guess; reception isn’t great out there. They won’t be far into the woods, and you can pick them up at the trailhead.”

  I nodded, trying to memorize the curl of roads that would take me closer to Seneca Lake, into the woods. I would have my phone, though. I dropped a pin.

  OK, I’m headed towards Blueberry Patch in my truck. I’ll text when I get there.

  Louisa responded immediately:

  Phew. Thx. See you in a bit!

  “She seems pretty damn cheerful,” I muttered. “Glad to see she’s taking it seriously.”

  “Do you have a hat?” Natasha asked. “You should layer up, in case you have to walk in to find them.”

  The thought filled me with dread. I had the primal instinct to bolt the door and inch closer to the fire. Not go careening around in the storm. Still, there were a few hours before the worst of it hit. I was an experienced snow driver. As long as I went slowly and braked carefully, I would probably be okay. The fact that I would be on remote country roads might even work in my favor; I’d be less likely to encounter the stupidity of panicky drivers, and the salt from the county plows wouldn’t have turned the snow into slippery slush yet.

  I let Natasha bundle me in an extra sweater and a silly-looking deerstalker hat.

  “I feel like a penguin,” I complained, waddling comically back and forth. Chloe laughed, and the sound of it calmed me. I smiled at her gratefully.

  “Well, practicality over vanity,” Natasha said in a perfect imitation of Fennel.

  I snorted. “If ever there was a time. Okay, I’m off. I’ll try to check in when I have them. Stay inside,” I admonished, though it hardly needed saying.

  On the stoop, I said, “I feel like an Arctic explorer, heading out for a dangerous mission,” aware that I was stalling for time. Chloe smiled sympathetically, obviously understanding, and suddenly she gave me a fierce hug.

  “Bring them back, okay? I need you all to come back.”

  “I will. I promise,” I said. Fool.

  * * *

  The roads were clearly worsening as I headed out yet again. Any residual memory of the safety I had felt driving with my father evaporated as the wheels of my truck slid out from under me, then kept doing this every few hundred feet. I clung to the steering wheel, my head nearly poking over it, as though being closer to the windshield would help me see better. After passing through Mecklenburg, I turned off the highway and was soon driving through uneven drifts of snow. I had to anticipate the depths of each drift and accelerate my truck through it or risk the truck bed getting caught in a dune. This nearly happened twice, and I fought panic as the wheels spun for one second, two seconds, three before releasing me.

  The seven-mile drive, which should normally take about fifteen minutes, dragged on for almost an hour at my creeping cautious pace. As I made the final turn onto Picnic Area Road, my driving anxiety began to shift towards worry for my friends. What on earth had they done? What if they weren’t at the meeting spot? Would we all be able to fit in the truck? I crept up the final hill scanning every tree, rock, and snowdrift for a flash of movement, a surge of color—anything to indicate a human presence.

  At the top of the hill, I coasted to a stop, dark woods on either side of me. I realized that I had been here before, over the summer; we had indeed come for a picnic near a pond, and had napped lazily in the sun after a sweaty hike. There was a pull-off area that was used for trail parking in the summer, but I couldn’t risk leaving the road. I put on my blinkers—a pointless gesture, since I’d yet to see another vehicle—and texted Louisa. My fingers were freezing, and I wondered why I hadn’t gotten a pair of gloves from Natasha.

  Parked on Picnic Area. Don’t see you guys. In the woods?

  I stared impatiently at my phone, waiting for a response. After three or four minutes, I called her. It went straight to voicemail. This was not encouraging. I called Jack’s phone, with the same response. I didn’t know Fennel’s number, so I texted Natasha, asking for it. She responded quickly, and I dialed the contact she’d forwarded me. Again, straight to voicemail. I remembered Natasha’s comment about the cold; if they’d used their phones in this weather for more than a minute or two, they had likely run out of battery. On a cold day in Ithaca while I was looking up directions, my own phone had dropped from a sixty percent charge to being completely unresponsive, only to go back to being nearly fully charged as soon as I plugged it in inside. Steeling myself, I prepared to leave my truck. I debated pulling it off the road, but it would almost certainly become mired in the snow. I also considered leaving the keys in and the hazards on…but what if I was in the woods long enough to drain the battery? I leaned on the horn for a good ten seconds, the noise muffled by the falling snow, hoping someone might materialize.

  Stepping out of the truck cab was alarming, not just because of the wind and the drop in temperature; I realized that I would have to walk around in this, possibly even lose sight of my vehicle. This whole thing was obviously a terrible idea. I was taking a stupid risk, and I had no idea if my friends were even anywhere near here. But what if they were just beyond the tree line, with dead cellphones, unsure of where to go? I couldn’t drive away, nor could I just get back in my truck and wait.

  I began calling into the woods, hoping for a hint of a voice. Reluctantly, I trudged through the snow away from the road, towards the break in trees that I thought might be the trail. I called each of their names, one after the other. I walked as far as I dared, then turned back towards the road, afraid to let it disappear entirely, zigzagging to cross the trail and cover as much ground as I could. The sun, already obscured by the storm, was setting fast, and visibility was going to be a problem really soon. My hands and feet were numb. When I reached the truck, I hopped inside for a minute to try Louisa
again, without much optimism. In the digital silence that followed my texted plea, I girded my loins to head out to the trail on the other side of the road.

  Six inches of snow had fallen now, though in the dusky gloom of the woods it seemed lighter, and the wind wasn’t as sudden or as harsh. If not for my fear, and the knowledge that what I was doing was colossally stupid, this solitary wander in the forest might have been beautiful, almost spiritual. I was the only animal afoot, no doubt watched by the other creatures from their snug perches and warrens. An unseen owl followed me with a skeptical eye; a creeping fox popped a head up from her den to track my clumsy progress. With my miserable human senses, all I could see or hear was myself: the damp edges of my hood rustling in my periphery, the uneven crush of my own feet through the soft powder, the heavy panting of my lungs as they alone burned and warmed. In my dazzled glaze, I almost forgot to keep shouting for my friends. Deciding to risk another phone call, I freed my hands from my sleeves, where they were bunched into balls. Strangely, I felt unconcerned by their stiffness, or by the repetition of Louisa’s voicemail. I wondered how long I had been out here in the forest, searching—it seemed that it could be just a minute or two, or maybe hours. And when I tripped into a half-frozen ditch and sprawled over a log that collided with my head, it was almost as though I didn’t mind, such was my abstracted joy in the woods.

  * * *

  “Mack get the fuck up I need you to show me where the truck is and I won’t let you just fucking sleep so just get the fuck up.”