The New Wilderness

by Diane Cook

  The picture was of the ragged red cliffs snaking toward the horizon, and of the green-leafed poplars that ran the length of the river, the river that ran cold and clean and sometimes shallowed itself over expanses of limestone so that for miles they could walk in the river and it only went up to their shins. Yes, they’d lost Jane and Sam there, but in the canyon they’d been happy.

  She saw Glen with a stack of envelopes she recognized as being from the University, and she saw him getting agitated as he read. He still got the minutes from department meetings and the decisions they made in his absence drove him mad. “Don’t read them,” Bea had said once. “But it’s mail,” he’d responded, his nose in the pages.

  She saw a small pile of unclaimed envelopes on the counter. They were probably from her mother, a backlog of newspaper clippings about oddities of life in the City, gossip from her bridge club, a tearstained note card begging her to return. She wasn’t ready to read them yet.

  She got Juan’s attention and brought him to the vending machine. He made a snake of masking tape and the rolled card-stock packaging from the light bulbs and pulled chewy granola bars out as easily as if he were pulling them from a box with his hand.

  “You’re a magician,” said Bea, gathering the granola bars in the pouch of her tunic.

  Juan smiled. “Mamá would be proud,” he said.

  They distributed the granola bars to the Community. They had already ransacked a couple of care packages, and were slumped and clutching their stomachs from the rancid baked goods. Others who hadn’t gotten packages grabbed several bars and aggressively stuffed them into their mouths. They were scattered all around the room, spent as though they’d all just fought or fucked.

  “How are we going to hide that door?” Val asked through a mouth full of chewy bars.

  They all looked at Glen, their fearless leader, at least for the day, the man who’d made this all possible.

  Glen froze. “Uh,” he began, “that’s a great question. We should talk about it and come to a consensus.” He sat up, poised to facilitate a discussion.

  Carl rose. “We’re not going to hide it,” he said. “We’re just going to explain what happened. That when we got here, it was this way. And what can they do about that?” Carl grinned.

  “Yeah,” yelled Debra, “fuck them and fuck their door.”

  “Exactly, Debra,” Carl said. “Fuck them and fuck their door. And fuck their rules.”

  Everyone let out a lethargic yay from their slump.

  The discussion was over. Carl had taken the reins to corral them and they’d gone happily. Bea saw Glen’s chest cave.

  * * *

  They sorted the packaging and recycled according to number, filled their water bottles, used the bathroom, and then they left the Office. They headed back to their ring of beds. The horses from before were gone.

  “I’ve decided those horses are assholes,” Dr. Harold said, clutching his stomach. He had an ex-wife who faithfully sent him packages. But she made odd sweets—things like sunny macarons and palmiers. One time a flourless chocolate cake dusted with snowy sugar. They were beautiful sweets, intricate, professional-looking, like from old magazines Bea used to leaf through for inspiration. They must have taken whole days to make. But they did not keep well at all. He ate them anyway. Bea thought it odd that the woman would go to so much trouble for an ex. And she sometimes wondered if she really was an ex, or if Dr. Harold was playing a role—the lonely divorcé—to win some kind of attention from Debra. If he was, it certainly wasn’t working. Whoever this woman was, she clearly still loved Dr. Harold. So whether he left the marriage or merely left his wife behind, Bea had to wonder why. Here, he was not exactly appreciated. Perhaps he was the kind of man who thrived on heartache. Perhaps he hated her. Dr. Harold walked to the horses’ trough and tipped it over, spilling the little water that was in there, water they’d offered up to the horses and which the horses didn’t seem to need.

  Debra clicked her tongue. “Why would you go and waste perfectly good water?”

  Dr. Harold looked ashamed. “They were wasting it,” he muttered, regretting his action. He’d probably been trying to impress Debra. She shook her head at him.

  They milled around the sputtering fire, fueling it more, picking at their teeth, getting the sticky grains from the granola bars free from between them. Bea spread her blanket on the dirt ground near the horse corral. Agnes knelt beside her and smoothed her hands over the material.

  “Scratchy,” she said. But she kept smoothing it. Then she bent her head to it and smelled it, rubbed her cheek on it, then melted down, curling into a ball in a way she never did on a skin.

  “Scratchy,” Bea said, rubbing her daughter’s back, her full hand lifting to fingertips when she ran out of room, then beginning again.

  From the blanket, Agnes’s muffled voice said, “Read your letters.”

  “I will,” Bea said brightly, but she was dreading it. The top one was from her mother, and she could only imagine the guilt she would lay on Bea. And today, after rummaging through closets and eating City food, she was weakened in her resolve against her mother’s wishes.

  The last time she’d seen her mother, they had fought. Her mother had stopped over at her request. Bea told her they would leave for the Wilderness State that week. Agnes was at her side, serious, observant, her stuffed unicorn clutched in her hand. Her mother squinted, looked at the apartment, eyed the luggage. Eyed the beginnings of stacks of clothes. Her mother had been skeptical of the idea but had spoken respectfully about it. So it shocked Bea when she unleashed a tirade of anger and incredulity. She hadn’t thought Bea would really go through with it. She hadn’t thought Bea would really leave. How stupid of me, Bea thought, watching her mother’s face contort with wild emotion. Her mother called the plan asinine. She threatened to steal Agnes away and hide her from Bea so she couldn’t leave. She’d even tried to reach out for Agnes, weeping tears of anger and frustration, spitting her words out. “You’re going to kill her,” her mother screamed. Bea’s heart turned to stone. How could her mother think such a thing? Bea was trying to save Agnes. Bea forced her mother into the hallway. In the doorway, her mother inhaled sharply and said bitterly, “You can’t—” And Bea closed the door on her. Through the door’s peephole, Bea watched her mother touch her forehead to the door to sob. Her mother’s back was long through the fish-eye, projecting out into the hallway, shuddering and heaving. Bea left her there and scrambled to finish packing. She did not sleep. She left with Agnes the next day, to Glen’s apartment, which he kept to store his papers, books, things that didn’t fit in Bea’s place. There they finalized everything and left without another word to anyone. It had been such an anomalous confrontation. She and her mother rarely fought. Bea was an only child, her father a stranger, just as Agnes’s father had been. It wasn’t exactly that they’d been so close, but it had been them, together.

  The letter Bea received six months after that fight was tearstained and simple: I’m so worried. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I found a real doctor for Agnes. I can promise she will be okay. Please come home!

  It had been the first mail Bea had received in the Wilderness State. She felt desperately lonely. And the image of her mother crying over her had almost made her sprint for the border. How could she have just left her? What had she been thinking? A terrible mistake had been made. These thoughts floated again into her head as she touched her mother’s letter on the pile. They often did.

  Bea’s letter back to her mother had again explained her reasoning. And her mother’s reply was swift and engaged, still argumentative, but Bea saw an honest attempt at understanding. They corresponded, then, like it was their job to. Multiple letters at each Post received and sent out. Thoughts on this place, on the City, but mostly on caring for Agnes. That was what this was all about, wasn’t it? Her mother’s commentary on Agnes’s strangeness: Sounds just like you at that age. Her forgotten history opened back up to her.

  Bea picked up
this newest one. The return date was six months ago, and she imagined there must be another one on its way, if not already here, sitting at some other Post, unsorted, undelivered. The other envelope was from the law office that handled her finances and affairs while she was gone. She’d gotten many letters from them over the years and they were always updates on some kind of change in sublet fees for her apartment, or tax information, though she had no job for which to be taxed. It was the easier one to open. She eased her finger under the envelope lip and broke the seal.

  We request that you be in attendance at the reading of your mother’s will on March 17th of this year. Aspects of her estate concern you and need your attention.

  We hope you realize the importance of attending this reading.

  Bea’s cheeks burned. She heard the whoosh of a hard wind, but felt nothing on her skin but the hard sun.

  “No,” she whispered, tearing open the letter from her mother.

  My Dear, Didn’t you get my last letter? I also called and spoke with a nice Ranger man who said he would take a message. Didn’t you get it? Well, I found someone who would treat me and I felt so lucky to get it, of course. But sadly, the treatment failed. The cancer is terminal. It is only a matter of time they tell me. So again, I’m begging you, please come home so I can look at my beautiful daughter once more. And bring your Agnes too. How wonderful it would be to have us three together again. I’d like to see how she resembles you now. Maybe she even resembles me? Love, Mom.

  Her mother was dead.

  Her mother had felt sick, been diagnosed, treatment had failed her, and then she’d died, all without Bea knowing.

  All the while wondering why Bea wasn’t there.

  Bea felt a warm, small, searching hand on her leg and heard, “Mama.” She looked up from the letter to see everyone staring at her from around the fire, their arms slack. She realized then that she was blubbering, not able to catch her breath. She tasted salty tears and snot and knew she must have been crying for some time. It could have been days later for all she knew.

  Her arms dropped. The letter wavered uselessly in her grip. “My mother is dead.”

  Glen made a truly sad face. Carl made a fake sad face. Val looked at the men and tried to make any kind of sad face. Her hand reached for Bea’s shoulder, but Bea stepped back. None of these people knew her mother. None of these people, she realized, really knew her. Not like her mother had. She felt her expression morphing into disgust. The faces around her looked away nervously.

  Bea heard a whimper and looked down. Agnes had tears in her eyes, but her whimper had been purposeful, performed. She was imitating her mother. Trying to access the feelings she saw there.

  “Nana is dead,” she announced to Bea, quivering her lip dramatically. And this enraged Bea, as though Agnes were trying to take ownership of this pain, of this relationship. This important relationship that Bea had abandoned in order to care for her own daughter, her own daughter who was strange and simpering there, her own daughter who seemed not to know what love was, who had turned too wild to know it, looking now for attention she rarely had desired before and did not deserve now.

  Bea’s heart stopped for a moment. Her burning cheeks turned icy. Leaning toward Agnes’s face, with cold emphasis, she pointed to her own thumping chest and repeated, “My mother is dead. Mine.”

  There. She felt her grief crawl back into her own arms and was so warmed and comforted by it, she almost smiled. Her mother was back with her, safe, where she belonged.

  She tasted metal. She’d been biting her cheek and had drawn blood. She spit it onto the blanket. Agnes touched the glob with a finger as though testing if it was real, this bloody and tearful phlegm, and regarded Bea with curiosity and some fear.

  A loud bellowing horn sounded, and Bea and Agnes both startled out of their trance.

  Down the road a tanker truck was slowing, screeching. Bea saw that half the Community had already walked to the roadside to greet it. When had it appeared? It seemed like an apparition, but she saw the real dust it kicked in its wake. Seeing their shapes against the massiveness of the truck, Bea saw how truly hungry they looked. She felt how wildly their bodies moved. Perhaps they would ransack the truck’s bounty. Perhaps they would cut the throat of the driver, hijack the truck, and drive it far away from here.

  Bea straightened. Smoothed down her hair with what spit she mustered into her hand. “I have to go,” she announced, and she moved toward it mechanically, automatically. As though it were a magnet attracting all her minerals and metals.

  “Bea,” she heard Glen say, his voice edged with a warning. But no, she would not look back.

  The driver pulled up to the group and leaned toward the open window of the passenger side. “I’m supposed to tell you to stay and wait for instructions.”

  “Bea,” she heard Glen call again. But no, she would not look back.

  “What did you say?” Debra asked the driver.

  “Wait here for instructions.”

  “What instructions?”

  “I don’t know, man,” he said to Debra. “I’m just the messenger.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Gas to Middle Post.”

  Upon hearing Middle Post, Bea quickened her pace.

  “When will we get instructions?”

  The man shrugged wildly so that they could see him in the dark of his cab. “Stay here,” he repeated, and revved the truck engine.

  Bea began to run.

  “Bea!” Glen yelled, his voice high-pitched and alarmed. She heard running behind her.

  No, no, no, no, no, she would not stay.

  The truck pulled away from those gathered, slowly gaining speed, and Bea arced her path to meet it. She leapt onto the runner.

  “Hey,” the driver yelled and slammed the brake.

  Bea hung off the rig and opened the door.

  “Get me”—she panted—“out of here.”

  He looked afraid of her, and she herself felt dangerous because in this moment she would do anything to leave this place.

  He nodded, and in a daze she hauled herself up and over his body and into the passenger seat and slumped against the window. She heard him gag from her smell. She heard the yelling of her name, the calls for her to stop.

  “Are you in trouble?” the driver whispered.

  She shook her head. “Go, go, go,” she yelled, pummeling the dash. She was under a spell. She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake from the fugue. The truck rumbled and began to move.

  Only then did she regain her senses.

  She looked out the window at the Community, some looking angry, some dumbfounded. She found Glen, a look of panic on his face. He’ll be fine, she thought, a wave of relief washing over her. And then she saw that his hands clenched the shoulders of her daughter, who stood, mouth agape, confusion and fury dancing across her face as her mother drove away.

  Bea couldn’t breathe. She curled tightly into the hot vinyl seat and covered her face.

  “Go, go, go, go, go.”

  Part IV

  The Ballad of Agnes

  When Agnes woke, she saw the prairie dog that had sung lullabies in her ear all night on its haunches, watching her with a question on its face.

  She rubbed her eyes and the dog recoiled but kept asking the question.

  “I’m Agnes,” she answered. “And yes, I belong here.”

  The dog cocked its head. Wrinkled its snout.

  “I do TOO belong here.” Agnes flicked a stone with her bony fingers at the dog, whose face scrunched in protest before it disappeared into its hole.

  The lullabies had been meant to haunt her dreams and scare her away, any dumb thing could figure that. Chittering and cooing to make a dreamer think her ear was being invaded by something awful. To feel unsafe. But they had soothed her. They were sounds she understood. They were a blanket to keep away thoughts of her mean mother who had run away. The meanest of them all. Perhaps she’d never been anything but a mean mother and every ki
ss had been cruel, meant to eventually cause pain with its absence. Agnes bolted from her bed. The camp was singing already.

  Agnes hadn’t believed her mother had gone. Not at first. Hadn’t believed it as she watched her mother leap across that dumb driver, who screamed and acted as though a beast were clawing him. Had believed the truck, once it started rolling down the road, would stop, turn around, or maybe that the door would fling open and her mother would come running back on all fours, so frantic to return that she’d evolved into her true self. Sniffing and snorting into the air, trying to locate the scent of her family.

  Agnes didn’t believe her mother was gone until the dust from the truck settled and she saw that the road was empty. And it took a very long time for the dust to settle. She didn’t know how long. Maybe it took days. The dust had made her lose time. And maybe some nights in her middle sleep, she thought she’d felt the blanket pull back on her at the foot of their bed and felt her mother warm the bed like no other could, sliding her foot to Agnes so Agnes could clutch it for safekeeping. Only to wake grasping at air.

  Now, though, she knew her mother had left and was not coming back. And so what? Those were the words that came to her after she let in the word gone. There were other mothers to be had. They stepped in right away and gave her more mothering than her mean mother ever had. That’s the way she thought about it at the time, at least.

  That truck, though. That truck, silver-barreled, claw marks of black paint across it, headlights like the sun glinting off their best knife, the metal underbelly dull and hard like a bad storm coming. And its spew of dust. So much dust. That truck followed her in dreams. Just before she woke, that truck had run over the prairie dog singing in her ear. Guts across the broken asphalt. Carl scraping it up and feeding it to her and the other children as dinner. She’d liked the singing and so would not eat it. They tried to make her. But she woke up before they pushed a tiny drumstick past her clenched lips.