by Bea Bledsoe
“Last chance?” Henry raised an eyebrow, his dubious face attracting the giggles from a group of young girls on the train behind them. Leigh frowned at them.
“To go back to Boston. Catch a flight from here and you could be back before morning. Back to rowing meets and nightcaps with girls from Wigglesworth Hall.”
“Actually, the only girl I’ve taken home after a nightcap was Evelyn Porch and it turns out she was a bit of a criminal… even if she was the most interesting women I’ve ever met.”
“Don’t say that.” She reprimanded lightly. He said nothing.
The flight from Denver departed on time and within an hour and a half, they were landing in Cody. Upon landing, Leigh got a text from Imogen confirming that she had rented a car for Leigh – something that had made her tear up a little. The enormous black Toyota Sequoia that was nicer than any car Leigh had ever owned, and when she climbed in, she ran her hand over the soft leather. Henry leapt into the passenger seat, his backpack stuffed with expensive airport snacks and his hands carrying a coffee for each of them.
“My parents have a car like this.”
“Of course they do.” Leigh replied, buckling her seatbelt.
“So, is Blackriver kind of a suburb of Cody?” Henry asked.
Leigh laughed out loud at his question as she turned onto the highway. “No, Henry, it’s not a suburb.” The drive began; the low buildings and neon lights of Cody faded away as the landscape turned into a labyrinth of silvery sagebrush. Reddish mountain plateaus crested around them, dotted with green bushes. As they drove, Leigh made sure to point out her favorite landmarks through Henry’s window. “That’s Heart Mountain. See how it looks like a buffalo heart?” Henry smiled.
“I’ve never seen a buffalo’s heart, but I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Well, I have.” Answered Leigh. “And it’s a great name for that mountain.”
The isolated lights of the ranches on the outskirts of Cody faded away into pitch blackness. They drove in silence, the obscure radio station playing a loop of Chris Ledoux songs eventually fading into static. Leigh finally clicked it off.
“No more radio?” Henry whispered.
“You’re in the wild now.” Said Leigh, her body settling into a comfortable place as she drove the empty roads in the dark. “Go back to sleep.” Henry did, and Leigh watched silently as dawn broke over the horizon slowly, like a woman slowly revealing herself in shades of lavenders and pinks. In the rising light, Wyoming was just how she remembered it: raw beauty with a cruel heart, almost like it knew its beauty was too much. Henry woke up slowly, his sleepy eyes finding her face.
“Is it just me, or is the air is thinner up here?”
Leigh smiled. “For an East Coast boy, maybe. It’s about 8,000 feet where we are. When I first got to Boston the air was so heavy, so thick, like smog on my tongue. I felt like I could barely breathe.”
The car continued to climb through hill country. Red sandstone rose out of the ground to the right once they passed Two Dot Ranch, its bright rust color a stark contrast to the light green vegetation at its base.
“That’s beautiful.” Henry murmured. Leigh laughed as she opened the window, letting in the crisp Wyoming wind. It whipped her hair around her face. God, she had missed this place.
“You’re going to run out of words for beautiful.”
His eyes lingered on her face. “You know, I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Her heart tilted in her chest.
“You’re ridiculous. Look…you’re missing it. Try to take in. Feel it here.” She pointed back to the sandstone and then to his chest. They drove on in silence for awhile. Dead Indian Pass rose up over the horizon before them.
“Are those the end of the Rockies?” Henry asked. “Sometimes we ski in Aspen.”
Leigh groaned. “Those kinds of statements are what make people like me hate people like you.”
“But you want to be people like me.” He fired back, and his words were a harpoon to the chest. He was right; she did want to be like them and she hated it. She skipped over the conversation entirely, returning to his question.
“That is the Absaraoka Range, but also the tip of the Wind River and the Teton range. Three mountain chains meeting at one point. It’s pretty amazing.” It began raining lightly, and they watched as the mountains became covered in rolling clouds of white, like a snake slowly making its way through the hills. Dense forests of fir and pine were closing in around them now as Leigh wove the car up a narrow road. They could only see in a few feet into thick forests of green pine needles and brown trunks.
“It’s a bit like being swallowed, isn’t it?” Henry muttered, unnerved. “We’re so alone out here.” Leigh slowed the car down as steep drops on either side of them plunged down to a rocky ground far below. Then, just when they couldn’t climb anymore, they began making their way down a set of switchbacks.
“We’re almost there.” She said softly. Leigh turned on her blinker and Henry laughed.
“Who are you signaling too? We’re the only car I’ve seen for hours.”
She shrugged. “Old habit.” They left the main road, turning onto a gravel road that was mostly obscured with aspen trees.
“No welcome sign?” He asked. Leigh laughed.
“It’s not like Blackriver is a tourist destination. We don’t even have a gas station.”
The forest thinned, the valleys opening to the north. The landscape became closer; what was once grand was now intimate; mountains that she knew, landscape that had claimed her as its own.
She was home.
Leigh slowed for the turn, her nerves on edge. Now that she was closer, she was ready to figure out what the hell was going on with her parents. She turned the car off the narrow gravel road and jumped as the front bumper plowed over a small tree, and then another. Leigh yanked the wheel sideways as the car came to a halt in rising dust.
“What the hell?” She cursed, leaning forward in her seat as Henry looked at her with confusion. “That’s weird. The road…it should be here.” She muttered, before hopping out of the car. Where there was once a road, there was now a thick swatch of saplings.
“What’s wrong?” Henry asked, but she ignored him.
Was she in the wrong place? Had she forgotten where to turn? God, she’d only been gone eight months. She walked away from the car, leaves crunching under her boots as she stepped toward the trees. Across the street there was that same sideways tree, the one with crooked branches that she always noted when she turned, her own personal landmark. Or at least it had been.
Her heart pounding, Leigh turned back to the place the road had been, sinking to her knees. With swift, small movements, her hands brushed away layers of leaves and dirt. Finally, she found a few small rocks, marking that there had once been loose gravel here. With a frown, she picked up the tiny pebbles and rolled them in her palm. She heard Henry step out of the car behind her. Her voice was soft in the wind.
“This was the main road before. Why would they shut down the only way into town?”
“Leigh – there are trees here? Maybe you missed the turn. It would be easy to do.” He suggested, his voice an octave above its normal pitch. She could tell that he was suddenly nervous.
Leigh shook her head. “That’s not it.” The road to Blackriver was completely gone. In its place, spindly tree limbs were creeping in from either side of the forest, reaching out, inch by curious inch, accompanied by young trees. It was like the road had never been there. The dread in Leigh’s heart that had been whispering this whole time was now roaring, and she turned back to the car.
“They must have made a new one. That’s the only explanation.” She slid into the driver’s seat. She needed to get home. Now.
“How are we going to get in without the road?” Henry asked. Leigh slammed the car into reverse and wheeled around quickly.
“There’s one more road into town.” With a grimace, she rethought her use of the word road. “Okay, it’s a path.
It was once used for mining carts. It’s going to be steep, but I think this car can take it.” Her voice was sharp and when she looked over, Henry was looking at her with concern. She let out a hollow laugh. “I bet you wished you hadn’t gotten on that plane.”
He looked straight out the window, but she could see his hands clenching. “You okay?” He asked finally.
Leigh let out a long breath. “I will be when I see my parents. I just need to know what’s going on.”
“Understandable.”
Leigh continued down the road, carefully scanning for the beginnings of a small creek, its base marked by a small waterfall. “Ah. There it is.” She turned the car onto tiny hidden trail beyond it, one that led right into the forest. Leigh spun the wheel and the SUV jumped the bank, narrowly fitting between the closed-in trees.
“Maybe slow down a little.” Suggested Henry, his body bouncing all over the place. Leigh ignored him. “At least put on your seatbelt!”
“Fine!” With one hand she buckled it, her eyes on the narrow road. Branches whipped the sides of the car as it barreled down the trail, the car overtaking downed branches as they made their way down the slope and into Blackriver. Leigh gripped the wheel hard as Henry leaned back.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” He whispered.
“I’m pretty sure I’m better at this than you.” She snapped back. The car skidded to the left, and Leigh spun the wheel, righting its balance. At the bottom of the hill, the trail evened out in a cluster of aspen trees that marked Blackriver Valley. The road deposited them next to the river, which Leigh noted was unusually high this year. They drove in silence for minute or so, the trees gradually clearing into a low plain filled with wildflowers. The morning sun peeked over the eastern trees as the valley opened up before them.
“Oh my God.” Leigh slammed hard on the brakes and threw the car into park, not bothering to turn it off before she leapt out of the driver’s side.
“Leigh!” Henry yelled, but she was running away from him, her mind swirling. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening.
“No.” She whispered. “NO.”
Leigh Montgomery fell to her knees as a cry escaped her lips, everything inside her collapsing into chaos. She didn’t understand. There should be buildings. There should be people. Instead, there was nothing.
The town of Blackriver was gone.
5
Leigh couldn’t breathe. Everything was spinning around her, the mountains above, the grass at her feet, the car behind her. Henry ran up to where she was kneeling, and she felt a hand clutch her shoulder as her stomach dropped.
“Leigh?” He whispered.
She was going to count to five, Leigh decided desperately. And when she opened her eyes, Blackriver would still be there, and whatever this was would pass. She took a ragged breath in, the cold wind licking her lungs as she counted. One, this couldn’t be happening. Two, maybe she had the wrong spot. Three, where were her parents? Four, why was the road hidden? Five, remember the phones? With a deep breath, Leigh opened her eyes. In front of her, stretched wide under an ominous grey sky, was Blackriver Valley, the same valley that she had seen every day of her life. She knew every inch of this place like the back of her hand. It was her home, and it was gone. The valley was there, but the people and the buildings were gone, and in its place was just…emptiness. Her home had vanished.
Leigh unsteadily climbed to her feet.
“Hey, it’s okay, Leigh….” She heard Henry’s voice somewhere behind her, but it was like she was underwater. Not, it was definitely not okay. Leigh felt like everything around her was moving in slow motion. Where was everybody? It didn’t make sense. None of it did. She felt the familiar ground beneath her feet, and then without warning she darted forward, away from Henry. She needed to see.
“Hey! Wait!” But she didn’t. Leigh couldn’t listen to him, couldn’t deal with him right now when she barely understood what was happening around her. Her feet flew underneath her, tracing the path across the valley to where the Main Street of Blackriver should have been.
When she was a child, Blackriver had seemed large, in the way that the entire world seems like a palace to the young. The small cluster of houses on Main Street had seemed like a thriving metropolis when she was growing up. Now, Leigh stood in the place where that street should be, and there was nothing. Nothing. The trees that had lined the street were still there, planted in a straight line that now looked so odd. The wind whistled through the valley, almost tossing Leigh to her knees. There were no buildings. No road. At her feet, short grasses poked out of fresh soil. She felt disoriented, lost in a place she knew. Leigh’s head spun as she walked into where the center of town should be, Henry standing about twenty yards away from her. He probably thought she was crazy. Was she?
Leigh turned where Juniper Lane should be, the well-worn path that ran away from the center of town and up into the hills. When she turned, Leigh noticed a particularly thick cluster of sagebrush on the ground. She knew that giant plant; it used to sit in front of Kurt Warren’s house, a quiet man who loved his maintain his yard. She took a few steps forward. Here, next door, Miss Adelaide Jones had dried her clothes on a washing line while she sat out on her porch with a rifle to guard her unmentionables. She was a bit loony, but she had always waved to Leigh as she had pedaled by on her bike. Leigh, always late to get home to dinner with her parents.
Her parents. A shockwave passed through her.
At her feet, Leigh could make out a faint line in the grass where new growth had just begun, where there had been a gouge in the earth: the markings of a fence. A fence her father had built by hand: but now had vanished, just like everything else.
Henry ran up behind her, breathing hard. “Leigh. Please! Talk to me. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“I don’t…I don’t know.” She was on the verge of tears as her movements became frantic, panicked. “Here is where the path should be that leads up to my door should be.” She walked forward. “And this is where my front steps should be.” She darted to the left. “And here is our kitchen, where my mother should be so happy to see my face again.” Tears flooded her eyes, hot with shame. She pointed as Henry watched her, his face barely concealing his own panic. Leigh made her way down an invisible hallway, now only damp mud and trampled grasses. “Here is my room. My closet here, my bed here.” She turned back to Henry, who stepped backwards slightly. Leigh bit her lip; he was afraid of her right now. It felt as if the world was pulling away from her.
“I’m not mad.” Leigh whispered. “I’m not crazy, Henry. It was here.” Her hands shook. “I know how this looks, but you have to believe me. Everything is gone now, but …my town, my home…it was here. Blackriver was here.”
“We’re probably just in the wrong valley, Leigh.” Henry said softly, and she understood that this was the most logical answer, yes that would make sense; they were just in the wrong place. It was so simple. Except that it wasn’t. She didn’t bother to hide the tears making their way down her cheeks.
“If you drove home today, to Back Bay, would you forget the way, even though you’ve been gone for a year. Would miss your street?”
Henry shifted on his feet. “No.”
Leigh faced him. “Right. Because your body automatically takes you to the place you have driven to a thousand times. Our compasses always point towards home, even if it’s not the place we want to be.”
“Leigh, you’ve been gone for a while.” He said it softly, apologetically.
“It’s been ten months” She snapped at him. “And I know this land.” She clutched at her chest as everything threatened to come undone. “These hills, this view; this is my home.” She pointed at the large cottonwood tree that loomed over where her house had once stood. “Red-tailed hawks nest in that tree every year around this time.” She spun back around and pointed to the hills on the west end of the valley. “Around two o’clock almost every day, a herd of mountain goats scales th
e cliffs just past those trees, looking for water.” Leigh rocked back on her feet, trying to understand what was happening. “When the sun sets tonight, it will go to sleep just beyond that peak. I know, because I watched it set every night with my mother.”
Leigh felt something gutting her, as broken words rose up in her throat.
“Where are you?” She screamed into the silent valley, before the shock of it all hit her, a tunnel of black appeared in her vision. Everything inside of her exploded, and she lurched to the side before falling to her knees and vomiting violently onto the muddy ground. Once it was finished, she waited a minute before sitting back on her knees.
“I’m sorry about that.” She whispered before wiping her mouth and spitting.
Henry shook his head. “Don’t apologize to me.” Leigh steadied herself while Henry cautiously crouched beside her. “I want you to breathe, Leigh. Just breathe. I think you’re having a panic attack. I know because I’ve had a few recently.”
Leigh followed his directions, breathing in and out slowly. Her hands curled in the soft dirt sitting where her house used to be. Nothing made sense and it felt like something outside her was hammering away at her brain, filling it with dark thoughts. Her uncertainty felt like creeping fingers prying their way into her mind. She tasted the bile again in the back of her throat. “My parents.” She rasped.
Henry knelt beside her. “We’ll find them, Leigh. I’m sure there is a logical explanation for this.” Laughter bubbled out of her mouth, making her sound even crazier than before.
“My whole town is gone, Henry. How is there a logical explanation?” When she looked up at him, the expression on his face told her all she needed to know: he thought this was about something else. Leigh pushed off her feet and looked down at him,. “I’m not crazy, Henry.” She said it firmly. He backed away from her, his hands raised defensively. She laughed. “Oh my God, do you think I’m going to hurt you?”
“Nooo…” He said unconvincingly.