Beneath the Trees

by Laurel Saville

  There was the time Belinda had crawled into bed with him in the middle of the night and held on to him until dawn, their breaths silently syncing as they lay, wakeful, together. He had thought at the time that she was there to comfort him, that she knew what their father was doing and thought by being there herself, she could keep him away. There was the time he saw the tracery of fine scars across her forearms, and he didn’t ask her what was wrong, just rubbed his forefinger over the crosshatches and watched as tears dripped from her eyes. The time he found her shoving her belongings into a suitcase, and the way she watched him with such deep resignation as he took everything back out and returned it to her closet and drawers. And then the time that he was walking down the long, silent hallway, thick with pale carpeting, and saw his father—his adoptive father, he always reminded himself; he shared no blood with this monster—come from the bathroom, pull the door closed behind him with a hard finality, and then rub his hands together as if he was drying them. Brayden was seventeen years old. His father had given him a hard look and said, “Don’t go in there. Your sister’s using it.”

  That time, outside the bathroom, in the hallway, Brayden had quickly turned, frightened of his father, and gone back to his own room. Where he’d recently installed a lock. Which he slid shut before crumpling all of his six-foot-four frame into a puddle on the floor and sobbing with the sudden, guilt-racked realization that she was getting it, too. She hadn’t been trying to help him; she’d been trying to get help from him. He’d been so stupid, so caught up in his own pain. He’d never told her what their father was doing to him because he didn’t want to burden her. He’d also assumed that if the same things had been happening to her, she wouldn’t be like him. That she would tell someone. Because he always thought that she had more courage than he did.

  Then, the morning after that horrible night when his father closed the bathroom door on her, his sister was gone.

  He asked his father where she was. He shrugged and said he didn’t know. He asked his mother, and she looked at him with a pained expression, then shook her head in a way that closed off further inquiry. He quietly waited another day. Then he kept asking. His father told him to mind his own business. Another day passed. He started asking why they weren’t looking for her. His mother’s face got tight. His father, sitting on the sofa, reading the news, told him to forget about her. That she was a little whore, and wherever she was, it was good riddance to bad rubbish. His mother, across the room in a straight-backed, upholstered chair, gulped a bit, pressed her knuckles against her teeth, and said nothing, did nothing. His father shook out his newspaper and went back to reading.

  That’s when the rage lit up within Brayden, roaring through his body like a brushfire on a hot, dry, desiccated day.

  Mind his own business. That’s what he had done. And look what that had done to his sister.

  A whore. Not his sweet sister.

  Brayden grabbed what was nearby. A chair. A birch-twig chair that sat next to the front door. Where he had often paused to remove his shoes. His father hated people bringing mud into the house on their shoes. It was a classic, Adirondack style. They’d made it together, a father–son project. Even collected the birch branches from the woods nearby. He was behind the sofa, unseen by his father. The man had no idea what was happening. Brayden, his anger rendering him silent, lifted the chair high overhead and brought it down onto his father’s head. The chair seemed to explode with a sudden release of all of Brayden’s unexpressed fury. Twigs flew off in every direction. Brayden remembered that his father had misdirected him in its construction, had cut corners. What a flimsy thing it turned out to be. It broke apart so easily. He watched his father crumple sideways on the couch, his body littered with birch branches. Brayden’s mother didn’t move from her seat. Her hand dropped to her side, leaving her mouth open in a perfect O.

  Shock, Brayden thought. That’s what shock looks like.

  Brayden turned and left the room. He ran to the basement, where he had a pack stuffed with emergency supplies. It was something his father had made him do, so they’d be prepared in case of an emergency. He’d never said exactly what kind, but his paranoia came in so many forms, it hardly mattered.

  This was certainly not the sort of emergency his father had had in mind.

  Brayden grabbed the pack and fled the house.

  Go quickly, he told himself. Before your mother comes out of her spell. Before she calls the ambulance. Before your father shakes off the debris and comes after you.

  Brayden was bigger, but his father was meaner. Brayden knew that made the older man more dangerous.

  Now, months later—how many months exactly, he wasn’t sure, but judging by the seasons, it had to be six or more—here he was, idle in the woods. It was wonderful, in its way, to be so free. He had his chores. These kept him grounded in reality. These many small tasks of staying alive and keeping his camp clean. He had the paperbacks and magazines he’d swiped from the camps. In the beginning, he’d read them over and over to fill the time. But now he was content to sit. He stared into space. He watched leaves move in a small breeze. He noted the retreat of a small patch of snow in the spring warmth.

  He needed this quiet.

  And yet, the memories of his sister kept up their noisy onslaught in his mind. He was her big brother. He was supposed to protect her. That was what he’d done all the years they were in foster care, standing over her when other kids picked on her, giving her his portion of food when there wasn’t enough to go around, warming her with his own body when they didn’t bother heating the room where they slept.

  Then when they got to the fancy Victorian house on the hill, he’d let down his guard. It was supposed to be their forever home. These parents were supposed to be solid citizens. His sister turned into a straight-A student. A star soccer player who tutored other kids. How could she do all that, be all that, and also be suffering under the same burden that he was? He had found that the weight of it made it almost impossible to concentrate in class, to make close friendships, to smile, to be happy.

  His own agonies were nothing compared to the anguish of realizing that he had not been there for her. That she had not felt she could share her torture with him, that she could not ask for help. And that he had been too blinded by his own shame to see hers.

  Guilt.

  Guilt was so much harder to bear than shame.

  15.

  Colden went back to the mountains. She set aside her experiences in Albany—the note from Liam, the books, her dinner with Drew. She wasn’t sure what to do about any of it and decided to be cautious. It was surprisingly easy to put everything, literally and metaphorically, into the unused drawer of a small desk in her mind and in her cottage. She was accustomed to taking action. She thought it would be hard to leave these things to stew. Instead, it was a relief.

  Summer came on early and suddenly, a jolt of light, heat, and biting bugs after the gentle lull of a mild winter melding into a brief spring. Her father had been extremely busy as the new season took hold. So much so that she’d been joining him on his rounds, helping him with getting homes opened and aired out, beds cleaned up and prepped for planting, tasks and repairs checked off various to-do lists.

  Then, a couple of weeks after she returned, Dix said, “I have something for you.”

  They were in the shop. Dix was cleaning one of his mowers and removing the blades for sharpening.

  “News of our phantom vandal?” Colden asked.

  Dix shook his head in a way that was not exactly a “No” but more of a comment on the sorry state of the world.

  Colden was sitting on a stool at his workbench. The seat wobbled. She stood, turned the stool upside down, got a screwdriver from the pegboard on the wall in front of her, made a few turns, and righted the stool.

  “I kinda liked that stool the way it was,” Dix said. “Now you’ve gone and wrecked it for me.”

  Father and daughter grinned at each other. Dix flicked the switch on h
is grinder and pressed the edge of a mower blade to the wheel. Colden watched the steel spark against the stone, smelled the tang of old grease and fresh grass.

  “You said you had something for me?” she said.

  Dix used his chin to direct her to a stack of papers on the far, and clean, edge of his workbench. Printouts from a website and an online article. Of course, he wouldn’t just send her a link. He was perfectly computer savvy, but she realized that he wanted to watch her reading whatever it was, in his presence, so he could gauge and manage her response.

  The articles were about something called “Conservation Dogs.” A program took crazy, obsessive-compulsive dogs from shelters and redirected their drive to sniffing out invasive species, finding orca poop in the ocean, and tracking wildlife scat in the woods. Colden read and tried not to let anything show on her face. Her father kept grinding his mower blades—turning, wiping, testing—shooting an occasional low glance her way. Once he was done, he turned off the spinning stone, and quiet settled back into the shop.

  Colden set down the papers. Her father waited for her. His preternatural patience was somewhat exasperating. She felt peevish. She didn’t want help with her project. From him or from a dog.

  “I don’t know anything about dog training,” she said.

  “I do,” Dix replied.

  Colden liked dogs just fine, but she wasn’t interested in them as a species or a pet. She looked somewhat askance at companion animals, thinking less of them than their wild cousins, as if they were somehow complicit in their own domestication and subjugation. They’d had animals around the house. Somewhat aloof cats who occasionally wrapped themselves around her legs or nestled with her in bed but were kept mostly to keep away rodents. A handful of hens for the fresh eggs, but when a coyote or fox or mink or hawk got one or several, she’d always found herself rooting, silently, for the predators. They’d had a sweet, gimpy dog when she was a kid. Lucky. A dog Dix had found in a trap in the woods. But Lucky was always old and infirm in Colden’s memories, limping around, looking for a patch of sunshine to warm her aching joints.

  She remembered how her father had cried when the vet finally came to the house to put Lucky down. The fat tears had rolled silently down his face, an endless stream that continued as he placed the dog in the grave he’d dug, covered her body with dirt, and planted a lilac to mark the spot. It was the only time in Colden’s life that she’d seen him cry. She’d been embarrassed for him then. A lanky, laconic, competent, practical man crying over a bag of old bones in a shabby fur sack. It shook Colden to see her father so exposed with raw emotion. He’d looked old to her then. The first time she’d ever seen him that way. She didn’t want a dog. She didn’t want to make herself vulnerable to that sort of feeling.

  “So, you think a dog would be better at finding a coywolf than my game cameras are?” she asked, her voice larded with skepticism. “A nose better than the latest technology?”

  Dix looked at her and raised his eyebrows. He knew that Colden hadn’t gotten much from her game cameras.

  “I assume you read the part about the exquisite sensitivity of a dog’s smelling abilities,” he said mildly. “Far exceeds your technology. Many others as well.”

  She had. She knew. She changed her approach and her complaint.

  “I don’t know, Dad. I really don’t want to deal with a dog.”

  “Always the solo operator.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Colden felt her stubborn resistance harden. Then a fresh idea occurred to her. She’d give it a try just so she could prove him wrong.

  “Bet you have a candidate in mind,” she said.

  “That I do.”

  “Bet he’s nuts.”

  “That she is. But she won’t be once she has a job to do.”

  Colden sighed. This was going to happen. Her dad didn’t pick battles often, and when he did, he always won, even though he never actually fought. He simply let circumstances play themselves out, waiting patiently until his solution became the most obvious.

  “Plus,” Dix added, “she’ll be good company for you when you’re out there in the woods by yourself.”

  “I have no need of company.”

  “Maybe company has no need of you.”

  “What you mean is that she’ll be good protection.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt you to have a companion with sharp teeth and keen senses.”

  “Thought that’s why you taught me how to use a gun.”

  “Which you won’t bring with you.”

  “I could bring my archery set.”

  “Little heavy and cumbersome for your backpack.”

  She was out of arguments and sarcasm. Dix began wiping his hands on one of those red rags always hanging out the back pocket of his Carhartts. His fingers were grease stained, large knuckled, and multi-scarred.

  His life, Colden thought, is etched in his hands.

  For the first time, she wondered if those enlarged joints ever ached or caused him pain. If so, he never showed it. Dix crossed his arms over his chest and faced her.

  “I read something once, Colden,” he said. “It was some research. Something Sally had. They’d asked guys who were incarcerated for burglary if they’d rather face a dog or a guy with a gun when they went in to rob a house. They all said they’d rather face a guy with a gun. When asked why, they said, ‘Because dogs don’t hesitate.’”

  “You’ve never worried about me in the woods before.”

  “That’s true. But this feels different.”

  “I still think it’s probably just bored high school kids trying to get booze from summer homes and stuff like that,” Colden said.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “It could be someone needy who figures the rich people won’t really mind ‘sharing.’” She made air quotes with her fingers. “Figure they have so much already, what’s it to them to replace a bunch of gear they probably never use, anyway.”

  “Could be,” allowed Dix.

  Colden looked at her father. Deep furrows made his brow look like a plowed field. There was more salt than pepper on his unshaven cheeks. He was slightly stooped at the shoulders, as if from a lifetime of ducking his head so that it didn’t strike anything. His arm, injured decades ago, seemed stiffer than usual, more often than usual.

  “Can she pack in her own food?” Colden asked.

  “Of course.”

  “You bought her a pack already, didn’t you?”

  Dix dipped his chin in affirmation.

  16.

  Colden drove up the quarter-mile-long, steep, and winding driveway to the property Dix had converted to an animal shelter. It was slow going. He, who usually maintained things impeccably, had allowed the drive to acquire and keep its seasonal array of frost heaves and holes because the rough road discouraged lost or curious people from approaching his sanctuary. If someone persisted, they’d find themselves dead-ended at a locked gate with a call box in the middle of a six-foot wall of fencing adorned with several “No Trespassing” signs. Dix had thoughtfully put in a small turnaround to make it easier for those misguided few to return from wherever they came.

  In general, Dix was against fencing and posting property, preferring to leave things open to both wild animals and people who wanted to wander, roam, hike, hunt, ski, snowmobile, or fish, legally. However, the animals at his shelter needed to be kept safe from coyotes, raccoons, bears, tourists, and people angered that their animals had been removed from their care for reasons of abuse or neglect.

  Colden knew Dix was trusting of people, to a point, a friendly yet guarded man. She’d never heard her father say a mean word to a person. He neither gossiped nor boasted. Yet, he also rarely engaged people. She saw that people had a tendency to give way around him. When he came into a store or ran into a person at the post office, the response to his presence was usually a soft, “’Lo, Dix,” and then a careful stepping aside, as if he
were a fragile thing they wanted to avoid damaging. Or maybe a dangerous thing they wanted to avoid irritating. He was respected for his equanimity, evenhandedness, and modesty but also known as someone you didn’t want to cross—not because he would come after you if you messed with him, but because he wouldn’t. He would quietly and completely cut you off and out. Which meant others, who respected him and his judgment, would do the same.

  These thoughts about her father blew in fitful gusts through her mind as Colden punched in the security code, made her way through the gate, and approached what had once been her mother’s family’s summer and vacation home. It was the sort of place that people from downstate or away called a “cabin” but that was two to three times the size of a typical year-rounder’s home, outfitted with more luxuries and amenities than many locals would ever see, much less use.

  While among themselves, the locals scoffed at the absurd extravagances, they kept their mouths shut around visitors because maintaining and caring for these seasonal homes provided one of the few forms of steady employment in the area. The locals liked tourist dollars, even if they didn’t think much of the tourists themselves. Money made in urban places like Wall Street allowed many of their neighbors just enough income to live in the wild, rural environment they preferred.

  She slowed her truck as the imposing log building with a wide front porch came into view. Colden had collected bits and pieces of the story about her grandfather flouting a bunch of laws and regulations as he built this place. Logs acquired illegally in Canada. Septic not fully permitted. Add-ons not part of the original permit built anyway with a possible kickback to the inspector. This was the place Miranda had to abandon because she didn’t have means or the heart to bring it up to code. This was the place Dix had bought, anonymously, before he and Miranda were a couple, just because he could. Because he liked to fix things. Because it would help Miranda. He didn’t want any attention for the deed because gratitude would somehow wreck the experience for him.