Madelyn's Nephew

by Ike Hamill

  “It doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

  “We could make the trip in one day instead of seven.”

  That shut him up. He swallowed his remaining objections and followed Madelyn’s lead as she packed and found her way back to the truck. Together, they pulled the branches from the truck. One of the tires was low. Jacob found a compressor in the tool chest. The truck started and they were on their way. Madelyn attempted to explain how to operate the truck. Jacob wasn’t paying attention.

  “This your first time in a vehicle?”

  He turned to her. With pale lips and an ashen face, he nodded.

  “If you’re going to vomit, please try to aim out the window.”

  He nodded again and turned to the side.

  As the kilometers passed beneath the truck’s bald tires, anxiety transferred from Jacob to Madelyn. He seemed to forget the noise and heat that the truck was expelling. Once he mastered his nausea, Jacob smiled and his color returned. The cold air called to him and he closed his eyes as the wind buffeted his skin.

  Madelyn grew more and more nervous. It wasn’t just that she was returning to where she had nearly been taken by the Roamers, or where people probably waited to imprison her and put her on trial. Madelyn was also troubled by the mere existence of the truck. She couldn’t come up with a logical reason why Gabriel and Harper would have left it behind. They had started it and moved it to the lame hiding place. They had made a halfhearted attempt to cover it up. Why hadn’t they simply driven it down the mountain? What did they know that Madelyn didn’t?

  She slowed for a turn.

  “Why do you do that?” Jacob asked. He shouted as the engine swelled back to speed.

  “Do what?”

  “Why do you look carefully up the road before you turn?”

  “I don’t know. Old habit, I guess. I don’t want to be blindsided.”

  “By what?” he asked, laughing. After a second, he added another question. “Why doesn’t everyone travel this way?”

  “It’s a good way to die,” she said, but she hadn’t spoken loud enough to be heard over the rushing wind. She thought about asking him to close the window, but he was enjoying himself too much. Besides, without the cool air, he would probably get sick again.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  She laughed at his impatience. Apparently, even though he had just discovered the marvel of speed, it still wasn’t fast enough. Madelyn was encouraged when the truck rounded a corner and they saw the column of black smoke rising towards the clouds. The residents had restarted their bonfire.

  “I’m going to get you as close as I can and then I have to turn back. They probably still have a beef with me, and you don’t want to get that association pinned on you.”

  Jacob nodded. Despite his stated reservations, she could feel his excitement.

  They drove on.

  # # # # #

  They were still a good distance from the city when Madelyn stomped on the brakes and cut the wheel. She pointed the nose of the truck back up the hill and waited.

  Jacob reached for the door handle and she put a hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Wait,” she said. “Let’s make sure they’re not lying in wait.”

  She rolled her window down a few centimeters and listened closely to the wind. She gave the clicking plenty of time to start and then waited yet another couple of minutes. Jacob was getting antsy by the time she shut off the engine.

  He was halfway out of the truck before he turned around.

  “Wait—you’re not driving back?”

  “I’ll leave the truck here. It has enough fuel to get you a decent distance if something goes terribly wrong. I’m hiking back.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. I don’t even know how to drive and you could save a day or two of walking.”

  “In an emergency, you’ll figure out the truck. If you listened to half of what I said, it will come back to you.”

  She saw his eyes go to the ignition and then down to the pedals. He had been listening.

  They stood on opposite sides of the truck, outfitting themselves with the packs they had stowed in the bed.

  “Come with me,” he said. “Find out what their punishment is. Maybe they’ll just lock you up for a week and then you can join the community. Whatever else you did, you saved Harper’s life. And if they’re anything like Oslo, they need bodies to contribute. They won’t punish you for long.”

  “That’s your path. This is mine,” she said, pointing north. “If you see Harper or Gabriel, don’t let on that you know them. If you’re associated with me, you might gather ill will before you get a chance to make your own impression.”

  “I’ve never met Harper and I barely got a clear look at Gabriel. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Madelyn nodded. She thought about her fantasy that Jacob was just a metaphorical representation of herself. In that construction, what was she doing right now? Was she shedding her social form once and for all to become a true recluse? Was she committing herself to being alone forever? It didn’t matter—Jacob was real. He wasn’t simply a symbol that she had invented to survive.

  “Aunt Mac?” Jacob asked.

  She snapped back to reality. “Pardon?”

  “I’ll be back to the cabin,” he repeated. “Once I establish myself with these folks, I’m going to come back and check in on you. Maybe I can get a sense for how they feel about you without revealing that we’re related.”

  She could see that he was already scheming.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Come back in a few years and you’ll find me the same curmudgeon that you remember. Meanwhile, help these people survive.”

  Jacob smiled. He came around the back of the truck and pulled her into a quick hug.

  “Keep checking the ether. I’ll post something if I can. If you see my face, you’ll know I’m talking to you.”

  Madelyn nodded. She didn’t want to speak the lie aloud.

  He grasped her hands with his and then turned towards the column of smoke. Jacob set off at a trot.

  “Don’t get too close to the fire,” she called.

  Madelyn stood and watched him disappear around the bend.

  Chapter 18

  {Illumination}

  After a hundred meters of cracked pavement, Madelyn couldn’t stand it. She veered off and climbed through the brush until she couldn’t see the road anymore. It felt safer to be surrounded by trees, but she couldn’t fool herself—she was exposed.

  She marveled at the idea that her brother, Noah Two by Two, had spent years outside hiking around the globe. How had he found the courage? Without her cabin nearby, Madelyn was terrified.

  Using her compass, she put the sun in the right part of the sky and began moving. As long as her feet churned beneath her, everything was going to be okay. The sky opened up ahead of her. Madelyn turned her face up towards the unfiltered light and then immediately tripped on a tangle of branches. She went down hard in a thicket of blackberry thorns.

  Madelyn pushed herself slowly back upright. The thorns tugged at her skin and clothes. They seemed reluctant to see her go. A scratch on the back of her hand sprouted three drops of blood. They grew as she watched. As Madelyn understood it, the thorns were meant to be a defense against grazers. The plant wanted its blackberries taken away, so it could spread its seeds, but it didn’t want to do so at the expense of its branches. The thorns were to force a little politeness from animals who came for the berries.

  But, in Madelyn’s case, the thorns had drawn her attention when she might have just walked right by the plant. It had no fruit to offer, and Madelyn wanted revenge for the spilled blood. She took care to stomp on the dry branches of the blackberry bush. It drew her blood, but Madelyn broke the plant’s back. She smiled at her own childish need for revenge and continued on.

  She stepped over a charred log that had nearly finished its return to the soil. A fire must have swept through in the recent past. That was
why there were no tall trees and the undergrowth was so thick. With her new deduction, Madelyn saw the field with new eyes.

  The flames had taken a narrow path. Looking left and right, she realized that the path of the fire had been fairly straight as well. She wondered if maybe the fire had been a controlled burn. Perhaps someone had been practicing a little maintenance.

  She crossed the open area and tucked back into the canopy of limbs again. At least she had the illusion of safety under there. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and tasted her own blood while she hiked. The pain flared whenever she exposed the scratches to the air. She wiped off her spit on her side and hiked.

  The pain came from attachment—she understood that. It was a lesson that she had learned many years before. People got their hooks into her. Whether they intended to or not, they would brush up against her and their thorns would pull at her flesh until they drew blood.

  Madelyn wasn’t shocked by the pain, but a little surprised that she was still able to feel it after all that time. When David had left her, he took away her ability to feel. She tried to remember if she had cried when her brother died. She had quickly become too busy with her nephew to really grieve her brother’s death. And, of course, she had mourned him years before.

  Madelyn stopped.

  She actually turned and looked over her shoulder, like she would think more clearly about the city if she was looking in that direction. Perhaps Jacob was right. She could take her punishment from the city folks and then find her place in their society. If Harper had returned and told of Madelyn saving her life, they might even be inclined to forgive her. The thought wasn’t completely preposterous.

  But the thought didn’t end there.

  If she was going to believe that Harper had returned to Fairbanks, she would have to puzzle out why the truck had been half-hidden back in Circle Poke. The problem turned over in her head. Madelyn considered it from every angle. She considered the truck, the roads, Gabriel, Harper, and the weather. There simply wasn’t enough information available. She pushed the problem away, hoping that when it popped back into her head, it would be magically solved.

  Gabriel was so annoying. He had professed concern for her well-being. He had implied that her mental health was questionable and that she might require intervention. It was impossible to consider him altruistic. She had never seen him commit either crime, but to her mind he was likely a murderer and a rapist. David had told her the rumors. Of course David loved to spread gossip when he had some homemade wine warming up his tongue. It wasn’t always important for him to distinguish between the truth and a good story.

  She refused to believe that being reclusive was a disorder.

  She only had one female role model in her life. Through her grandmother’s strength, Madelyn saw a solitary existence as a noble endeavor. She was proud to emulate that woman. Madelyn’s mother had remained in her committed relationship. What had that gotten her? She had died before she even had a chance to meet her first daughter. Noah’s wife had died the same way. Madelyn wondered if it was possible for a family of men to be attracted only to women who were unsuited to give birth to girls.

  The terrain began to rise under her feet. Madelyn quickened her pace, wanting to summit the ridge fast. It was time to check the map, and it would be easier for her to guess her location if she could see the mountains on the horizon.

  The noise made her freeze. She waited for the next click.

  Her eyes found the black bird before it had a chance to call again. Madelyn scowled. She had never noticed the birds until a few years after the cull. As far as she knew, they had come with the madness. They made a click that sounded almost exactly like a Roamer. David used to say that the birds had learned to mimic the sound because it drove off birds of prey. Madelyn didn’t know what to believe. She was merely angry that the thing had set her nerves on edge.

  When the bird clicked again, Madelyn bent for a stick and then hurled it towards the stupid beast. It flapped off to the south.

  Madelyn climbed.

  She got lucky at the top of the hill. She was able to spy a couple of mountain peaks through the trees and backtrack her location based on their headings. She had moved a tick on the map. The trip was going to take roughly forever. Getting back to the cabin would require every ounce of her stamina and a huge helping of luck.

  Madelyn dropped her head and sighed.

  # # # # #

  She lost track of the days.

  Looking at the map, she could only account for the first three or four days of hiking. After that, she had dropped down into the valley and lost track of everything. She had no excuse. The route through the valley was a result of pure laziness. If she had stayed up on the ridge, she would have been able to track her progress by the changing horizon. But that route required a lot of bending, stretching, and climbing. She had taken the softer valley route because her middle aged bones demanded it. Now she was lost.

  She walked for hours with the compass in her hand. She followed the wall of the canyon as it curved around to the east and then spat her back south. She never saw any good way to climb the rocks. She never found a stream or a creek. There should have at least been a dry riverbed to follow. Her world was featureless and there was no way to escape.

  She was lost.

  If she ignored everything she knew about the journey to get there, Madelyn could look at the valley and guess where she was on the map. Never mind the fact that it was impossible, she seemed to be just south of a feature marked, “Garret Bend.”

  It was funny that she had never seen that name before. “Garret” was what her grandmother had always called the little loft of the cabin, where Madelyn still slept.

  “Get your butt in the garret before I beat it dry,” her grandmother would call each evening.

  Madelyn had never thought to look up the word.

  Her water was running out. In a desperate move, Madelyn turned south. With each step she moved farther away from her cabin and her dread grew. Darkness was beginning to fall as she climbed the rocks to leave the valley. There was no good place to make camp. Every flat surface was covered in jagged rocks. There was nothing to do but climb. As her legs got weaker, the light grew dim. The next step might result in a twisted ankle, or a fall.

  She was old enough to stay away from big risks. Her downfall was going to come from a stack of poor decisions. On their own, none was catastrophic. They would pile up until she died alone.

  A rock shifted under her foot and Madelyn nearly went down.

  She paused, hunched over, and looked at the ground.

  “I’m not going to die like this,” she said aloud. “Meditating about failure will only bring failure. This is not the person I want to be.”

  She straightened herself slowly until she was standing tall. She took a deep breath and stared at the horizon. Maybe it was just the last of the setting sun, but she thought she could see the glow from the bonfire down there. Was that really keeping her safe? She hadn’t heard a trace of Roamers the whole trip. Sleeping outside, she had been on guard, wondering when her time would come. The only clicking sound came from those damned black birds, and those always happened during the day. Maybe Harper had been right. Maybe the city people had been on the right track.

  Madelyn lifted her foot and set it down carefully. She had a wrap in her pack. A twisted ankle or a broken wrist wouldn’t be the end of the world. She could take care of herself if need be. If she was careful, she wouldn’t need it. Before too long, she found a rock that was flat enough to curl up on. With her thermal blanket, it was almost comfortable.

  # # # # #

  Madelyn woke with the sun. She found that her mind had changed during the night. She walked south with fresh purpose. Finding her way back to the road turned out to be fairly easy. She already knew the landmarks and the hills seemed to funnel her down to the correct path.

  She had spent days wandering through the woods. It only took a day and a half
to find her way back to the truck.

  They had been there. It wasn’t anything precise that she could put her finger on, but she knew that the people of the city had found the truck and investigated it. She didn’t slow her pace or give any indication that she thought she was being watched. With her eyes focused on the truck, she let her attention wander through her peripheral vision.

  She expected movement. It still surprised her when it came.

  People emerged from the woods on both sides.

  She put up her hands and stopped.

  When they ordered it, she dropped to her knees.

  “You remember me?” a man’s voice asked.

  Madelyn didn’t look up at him. She thought that eye contact would only make the situation worse.

  He grabbed her hand and twisted it around, shoving it up to the middle of her back. Madelyn didn’t have any choice but to stand up and move forward as he pushed. Hot spikes of pain rain up to her elbow.

  As the man drove her forward, he raised a dirty, smelly cast in front of her eyes. His filthy fingertips poked from the plaster.

  “She had to re-break it twice to get it to set right,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. It was a mistake. Her sarcastic apology made him wrench her arm even more.

  # # # # #

  “Do you understand the charges that have been alleged.”

  Madelyn moved her upper lip from side to side, trying to scratch her itchy nose. The blindfold was about to make her sneeze.

  “Why can’t I face my accuser?” she asked.

  “You are facing them,” the woman said. Madelyn recognized her voice. It was the older woman who had sat on the other side of the bars when Madelyn was locked up. She was probably the leader of this clan.

  “Then I should be allowed to see them.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Do you understand the charges or not?”

  “I suppose,” Madelyn said. They weren’t complicated charges—spying, breaking free, breaking a man’s hand, and blowing up the bonfires. They left out the part where she took Harper hostage. That probably meant that Harper hadn’t returned and the man who witnessed the abduction had probably denied seeing anything. He would have looked stupid if he had admitted that Madelyn had gotten the jump on both Harper and him.