Cover Your Tracks

by Daco Auffenorde

  “I’m fine with campfires and don’t smoke. My father was a chain-smoker, my mother an occasional, and they weren’t outdoors types, at least after I came around.”

  So much for her theory about smoking.

  “Fire is survival,” he added. He stood up. His considerable height always felt surprising. “I’m going out, see if I can round up some breakfast.”

  She stared at the flames. She again feared being alone. Last time the coyote had stalked her.

  “The fire will keep you safe,” he said. Beyond his survival skills, the man was quite perceptive. “The predators don’t want any part of fire. Like I said, fire is survival. I won’t be long. We’ll wrap up here and head up the mountain.”

  She nodded, although her pulse quickened. The idea of heading up the mountain still made no sense.

  Alone, she paced the interior of the shed, trying to decide what to do. Sure, a cabin would be safer than this shed. Better than using a hole in the ground as a toilet and dirt to bury the waste. But real safety was down the mountain. Nick understood the outdoors. Why couldn’t he get them down?

  As a child, Margo once asked her father why he’d become a professor of statistics rather than a businessman.

  “Business relies on too much guesswork and luck to be successful,” he replied. “I prefer hard-and-fast rules in life, like what the military offered. Academia has its own hard-and-fast rules.” His answer was one of the most personal responses he’d ever shared. If only there were hard-and-fast rules now.

  Tired of pacing, she returned to the fire to warm her hands. The wind howled through the rafters of the shed, causing the metallic walls to creak. Solitude amplified her growing sense of unease. Before the avalanche, she couldn’t have imagined that, in this day of technology and air travel, a person could get lost in a remote wilderness. Oh, she’d read of lone hikers getting lost in the forest, even dying, but she’d been riding a large passenger train. Why weren’t the authorities there yet?

  A howl in the distance made her flinch. She listened, but the sound didn’t repeat. She thought of climbing up and looking out the opening of the shed but stayed near the fire. Out of caution, she collected some rocks, filled her pockets with them, and returned to the safety of the flame.

  Not until early afternoon did Nick return. He’d slung the carcass of some creature—a large bird—over his shoulder, the bird’s skinny legs serving as handles. He didn’t speak, only walked closer, and dropped his kill near the fire. He brushed the snow from his shoulders and warmed his hands over the heat.

  She wanted to ask why he’d been gone so long when he said he’d be back soon. But he seemed to be in a bad mood. Maybe he was tired. Best not to ask questions and to stay upbeat. “I hope that’s what I think it is,” she said with a smile. “Thanksgiving was a few weeks ago, but I’d call that a lot to be thankful for.”

  “Not a turkey. Pheasant,” he said in a monotone voice.

  “I’m impressed. I can’t imagine how you found such a thing out here.”

  “Not every animal hibernates. You’d be surprised at what lives in these hills during winter—elk, pikas, sheep, among other things. I found this bird roosting in a tree. Sheer luck. I’m going to grab some more wood.”

  It was more than luck; everything this man had accomplished resulted from skill.

  When he returned, he stoked the flames and separated some of the hot embers to keep the fire smoldering. Once again, he went through the process of dressing his catch. He grasped the bird and then met Margo’s eyes as if daring her to try and look away. He broke the ligaments that connected the wings to the body, placed the bird on its back, spread open its wings, and placed a foot on each extremity. Again, he glanced at her, said nothing, and returned to work. His silence seemed a command that she stay quiet too. He grasped the bird’s feet, bent his own knees, and bounced gently a few times. Then he forcefully pulled up on the bird’s legs. In this one fluid motion, he removed the feet, head, legs, guts, feathers and skin, exposing the pink flesh of the meat. He twisted the wings off the carcass and pulled off the breast meat, which he tossed inside the pan. Then he set the pan on the fire.

  When they sat down to eat, he broke the silence. “You were restless last night,” he said. “You talked in your sleep.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I hope I didn’t say anything unpleasant or embarrassing.”

  “You talked about a Martin, or maybe a Matthew.”

  Her cheeks heated and must’ve turned beet red. Her inner thoughts, her most personal memories, were not anything she wanted to divulge to this man. “What did I say?”

  “Couldn’t make out much, but you seemed to be arguing. I told you it was all right, that it was just a dream, and you fell into a deeper sleep.” He paused. “Were you having a fight with an ex-boyfriend?” Nick liked to pry yet clearly didn’t want to reveal much about himself.

  “I don’t remember. But I’m sure I wasn’t arguing with anyone.”

  He held up his hands as if to say none of my business but continued, “I did understand one thing. You complained about being pregnant, said you hated it.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You misunderstood.”

  He shrugged. “You said the words as clear as day. Several times. You also said you wished the pregnancy had never happened.”

  Unnerved, she drew in shallow breaths. “As I said, I don’t remember my dreams, but I’m sure I never said anything like that. What you think you heard has nothing to do with my baby. But here, wide awake and in the light of day, I’ll tell you that I’m thrilled I’m going to be a mother. I went to great effort to become a mother, even with no one in my life.” She wasn’t just talking about what she’d gone through this past year. No, it went farther back than that.

  CHAPTER 23

  Summer nights, rain or shine, Margo and her Grandmother Emma would sit on the front porch sipping Chamomile tea. Her grandmother said the tea would calm Margo’s nerves, would help cool her from the inside out. The theory never quite made sense, but Margo never questioned it. Her grandmother didn’t like to be questioned about anything. An outside observer watching the two women sitting on that porch would’ve admired the quaint tradition, but it was hell for Margo.

  There was nothing calming at all about those evenings. Rather, her grandmother would repeatedly criticize and lecture Margo about making poor decisions. How many times, how many different ways had her Grandmother Emma made it clear that she disapproved of what Margo had done—got herself knocked up, though of course Emma would never use such words. And how many times did she have to hear that if her grandfather—William Pratt the third, fourth, fifth, or whatever it was—were still alive, he would never have allowed her to step foot in their home. That he would’ve disowned her for being an immoral unwed mother. That their ancestors were instrumental in the Birmingham steel industry and didn’t own slaves (what her grandmother failed to mention was that the workers in the steel mills were treated as miserably as slaves), that they’d elevated their status above the commoners, that they had their pride.

  It wasn’t all bad. The family home was impressive enough, located in the Mountainbrook subdivision where all the blue bloods lived. And it was big enough to sometimes escape the presence of her grandmother. The house had been passed down through the generations.

  Her grandmother also disapproved of Margo’s mother’s choices. “Your grandfather William and I never quite understood why your mother didn’t marry a Southern gent,” her grandmother would say. “There were so many nice young men she was introduced to. She abandoned her heritage for a man in a uniform who became a professor. A college professor doesn’t make much money.” Her grandmother sniffed, the way Southern women do when they get their noses out of joint.

  Yet, improbably, Emma was a good teacher. During Margo’s homeschooled junior year of high school, she learned quite a lot. Her grandmother focused heavily on American history and language arts, and even had quite the knack of making mathematics understandab
le in a way that teachers in Spokane didn’t.

  Just before the baby was due, Margo’s mother and Heather came to Birmingham. Margo was excited to see them. It had been months. The next day, Margo went into labor.

  She was so scared. Scared of the pain, scared of the emotional feelings she might have for the baby, scared of the aftermath. In later years, she remembered the bright lights and the needle the doctor placed in her spine for the epidural. Some oral medication she was administered made her brain fuzzy. She most vividly recalled hearing her baby’s first cry. As soon as the umbilical cord was cut, the baby was whisked away. Only Grandmother Emma remained inside the delivery room, while Margo’s mother and Heather followed the baby to the nursery.

  “What did I have, Grandmother Em? A boy or a girl?” She felt as if her words had come from the lips of someone else, that Margo was just an observer.

  “A girl. Healthy. But let’s not worry about that. Let’s get your strength up, and then you can get back to being Margo.” Her grandmother patted Margo’s arm in a rare expression of tenderness. “You forget this ever happened. You, Margo Pratt Fletcher, you’re going to be just fine.”

  Margo was numb and stayed that way for many years.

  Now, she wanted to tell Nick, I went through a lot to be a mother. She’d gone through the birth of her first child. She’d undergone IVF three times before this pregnancy took. She didn’t hate being pregnant. She’d loved every minute of it, even those awful moments of morning sickness, and heartburn, and high blood pressure, and the constant peeing.

  “I’ve made a decision,” she said. “I’m not going up the mountain, cabin or no cabin. It’s illogical to move farther away from civilization in my condition.” Why had she decided this? Because going down the mountain made sense. But she had also made the decision because Nick had overstepped so far that she questioned his judgment.

  He didn’t look up from the pan of meat. His silence spoke louder than the sizzle of pheasant and the wind sweeping into the shed and the crackling of the snow on the roof.

  She brushed some small rocks out from underneath her bottom and legs. Damn it all. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  “What is there to say?”

  “When the weather clears up, we should follow the train tracks down the mountain. If the snow is deep, we can take a detour. You know how to avoid avalanche areas. We’ll find our way to safety.”

  He scoffed and shook his head. “So much for trusting my survival instincts.”

  “I do trust them. But I’m also a survivor.”

  He stood and meticulously wiped his hands as if settling an internal struggle. “Right now, your instincts are wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “If you go down the mountain and take one wrong step, you’re sure to fall in your condition. And when you fall, you’ll die.”

  “That’s dramatic.”

  “You’ll break a limb or fall inside a sinkhole or simply get wet and die of hypothermia. With the snow build up, a sink hole could be twenty, thirty feet deep or more. That’s not drama, that’s reality. If you were experienced in the wilderness, chances are you’d never make it down alive. The fact is, you don’t know what you’re doing. You think you know, your ego tells you that you know, but you don’t.”

  Was this truth or some kind of manipulation?

  “I’m experienced, Margo. You’ve seen enough to know that. I’m not willing to take the kind of risks you’re talking about. If you do what you’re suggesting, you’ll be committing suicide and murdering your baby.”

  He wasn’t making sense. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the railway crew is hard at work as we speak. We can stay on the tracks until we meet up with them. If we don’t find them after a while, we’ll turn around and come back here.”

  He shut his eyes for a moment and drew in a deep breath. “I’m not going to argue with you anymore.” She understood—he knew what he was doing, had foraged for food, had rescued her and the baby several times over. But his plan was illogical. She wasn’t helpless, no matter how much he tried to make her feel that way. He must’ve forgotten that she’d unburied herself from the avalanche and had dug him out from under the snow. She was a survivor and a rescuer, too, and the thought of going up the mountain was what seemed suicidal. They could face the same risks going up as down. Why not hedge their bets and head toward civilization?

  They ate their meal in silence. She kept trying to understand his side of the argument, but she couldn’t make sense of it. Was he also using the silence to evaluate her plan? Doubtful. He was naturally silent, and clearly stubborn.

  When they finished eating, he packed the pan and utensils in the plastic bag along with the uncooked meat he’d gleaned from the bird.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s go outside for a moment. Look up and look down.”

  He helped her to her feet, and they left the shed. The cold assaulted her, but at least the snowfall was light.

  Nick pointed upward. “That’s where I’ve found shelter. No place else. Read the signs.”

  She shook her head. He wanted to leave the railroad tracks and head straight up into the mountains, a direction that led farther into the wilderness. She looked east, in the direction she believed was down the tracks and back to civilization. After only ten yards, the tracks vanished under the snow. Still, if she used her common sense, she could continue down and out of the mountains toward a town or maybe even a ranger station. She looked west, where the snow piles from the avalanches were particularly high and imposing. Her home in Spokane lay west. How daunting.

  “Follow me,” he said. “I’ll take you to shelter now. I’ll go first to smooth the path. Stay close and watch your step.”

  She stood a moment considering whether more talk would change his mind. He didn’t wait but began walking up the mountain. The hair on her arms rose, but not from the cold and not from the intensifying snowfall. Assess and react, Matt McCann had taught her.

  “Thank you for everything,” she called out. “Be safe, Nick.”

  He turned around and fixed his steely glare on her. For a moment she feared he’d come back and drag her alongside him. But he stayed put.

  “I have a question,” he said. “Would Matt or Marty or whoever you were talking about in your dream agree with what you’re doing?”

  “He would want me to assess the situation quickly and react. I’ve done that, and I’m going down the mountain to find the rescuers. Please come with me.”

  As soon as he turned his back to her, she took her first step and headed down the tracks. A rush of excitement swept over her, and she soon found a large stick to use as a staff.

  I’m doing just fine.

  CHAPTER 24

  After Margo gave birth to her first baby, she spent the next two years learning to make her own decisions. Reliance on others had usually meant disappointment. She’d lied to Nick when she said she didn’t remember her dream. She was yelling in the nightmare. At Dr. Matthew McCann. Reliance on Matt had too often resulted in disappointment, and as she made her way down the mountain, she wondered whether Nick’s mention of Matt had influenced her decision to go it alone.

  By the end of her second year of residency in the Marshall General Hospital ER, she and Matt didn’t spend many nights apart. The first cup of coffee turned out to be the first of many such meetings. They talked and laughed, and he gave her tips on how to deal with hospital politics and unusual trauma cases, like the infant who had died on her watch. From that day forward, life came into sharper focus. The relationship was a risk, sure. After having dated several med students and a paramedic, she came to believe that relationships with other medical professionals wouldn’t work. The guys were either competitive, egotistical, envious, as overworked as she was, or all of the above. Matt was different, or so she thought.

  They kept their personal relationship low-key. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of people gossiping about how she was
getting special treatment or how Matt was acting inappropriately as a boss, when neither was the case. There were only a handful of friends who knew they were together, and they were not hospital employees. At work, they were entirely professional. Dr. McCann was the boss and a mentor and nothing more.

  On the day everything started to change, they were scheduled to have dinner at The Walnut Room. She was excited, girlish, because it was Christmastime, and she suspected he would propose marriage. She was more old-fashioned than she let on. Maybe her grandmother’s traditional Southern sensibilities had instilled a sense of decorum when it came to saying I do. Or maybe, sad to say, it was the anticipation that her father would condemn her if she lived with a man she would never marry.

  She dressed, making an extra effort to look sexy, slapped on bright red lipstick (Matt’s favorite), and found the pair of stilettos she’d purchased on a whim a week earlier.

  She arrived at The Walnut Room fashionably late. The water fountain in the center of the room was now covered, and on top sat an enormous Christmas tree. Its boughs were trimmed in white and silver and sparkled with white lights. The tables situated around it were covered in fine linen and decorated with ornaments and white poinsettias. Overhead lights were dim, romantic. Cheery music played. Waiters rushed in and out, delivering the delectable holiday dinners. Everything was perfect. She couldn’t have asked for more.