Cover Your Tracks

by Daco Auffenorde

  With all the strength she could muster, she lifted up on her elbows and used her hands to push up to a sitting position. She looked down at the mattress. It was a bloody mess, but there was no sign of the placenta.

  The room was cold. Too cold. Goose bumps rose on her legs and arms.

  Gripped with panic, she glanced around. Nick and the baby were gone. She didn’t cry or scream or panic. She now had a weapon—angry determination.

  Just as she started to stand, a slick mass slid out from inside her vagina—the placenta. It had indeed detached, which of course was why she was alive. She placed the afterbirth on the mattress, got dressed, and walked to the wood stove. A quick touch revealed that it was only lukewarm.

  How long had the fire been out? And where was all the wood? No longer in the corner where it had been stacked. Not a single piece was left. It was gone—all of it. The pan used to boil the animal skin was overturned and lying beside the stove. Inside the kitchen, the pot holding the potable drinking water was upside down inside the sink. That madman had left no drinking water. He’d left her to die.

  She needed water. She needed warmth. She needed sustenance.

  She knew what she had to do. Women had done the same for as long as they’d given birth. But she didn’t have the strength to rub sticks together to make a fire.

  She stood, feeling noticeably lighter since the baby’s birth, and walked over to the kitchen. Down on all fours, she ran a hand under the counter until her fingers brushed by the matches that she’d dropped the previous day. Now, she was just slim enough to reach them. She set them on the counter, took the pan, and headed for the stairs. Outside, she went into the snow, filled up the pan, and headed back toward the stairs, but then on impulse made a detour inside the storage room.

  The animal bones were still lying on the bench. She went to the shelves and, with all her might, tried to pull out a board. Impossible. She glanced around the room. The old line of rope was there. The shovel was in the corner. Nick had made a mistake in leaving it. He wasn’t infallible, the perfect killing machine after all. The implement was too thick to break the wood apart, but her adrenaline kicked into high gear, and she was able to use the shovel to hack away at the shelves, beating them mercilessly. First, splinters chipped off, and then larger pieces broke away. Before long, she had enough of what she needed to build a small fire in the wood stove.

  She returned upstairs with her snow and wood. With only a few matchsticks, she had to succeed right away. As soon as the first match brushed against the ignitor, fire rose at the tip. And when its heat touched the tinder, the small pieces of kindling lit. The fire spread quickly, and before long heat radiated out of the stove.

  She heated water to a boil and removed some for drinking. Returning to the bed, she picked up the placenta and carried it to the kitchen countertop. Using the table knife, she cut the placenta into sections. Once the organ pieces were prepared, all that was left was to boil them. She scooped the flesh out of the pan and placed some on a plate and the rest outside the window to freeze.

  She sat down at the table, stared at the plate for a long moment, picked up the flesh, and raised it to her mouth. It would be like eating calves’ liver. Many modern women, many of those who had birthed their babies at home, had eaten the placenta. Many women swore that after consuming the afterbirth, they regained energy and avoided postpartum depression. Nothing to be squeamish about.

  After taking a deep breath, she sunk her teeth into cooked flesh. The taste was not offensive at all, palatable. Was that hunger talking or sheer determination? No matter. She was content, so content that she had to stop herself from eating too much too quickly. But the truth was, she’d never been more ravenous or so satisfied by a meal, a meal in which she was devouring her own flesh.

  Once she’d consumed the placenta, she found her strength returning. Maybe the myths weren’t myths. Never again would she dismiss homeopathic remedies.

  It was time to get moving.

  She cut sections from the mattress, used the material to wrap up the rest of her placenta, and placed the bundles inside her coat pockets. Not only that, she was also able to use the material from the mattress for bandages to help absorb her vaginal bleeding. It wasn’t that she was simply hormonal after having given birth, she was still continuing to ooze blood. She got the shovel, applied soap made from elk fat to the wooden end, and lit the tip to serve as a torch. She closed the door to the stove, walked downstairs, and made a stop inside the storage room, where she grabbed the rope and a few of the dead animal bones to use as makeshift weapons. Then she walked out the front door of the watchtower.

  Anger coursed red-hot through Margo’s veins, but she kept the rage in check. She needed to focus on the long, hard chase.

  CHAPTER 43

  The Monday after Nick received the call from Captain Stone, the military lawyer, he drove to Fort McNair. He couldn’t imagine what this meeting was about.

  He signed in at the reception desk and was taken to a conference room. Moments later, Stone entered the room.

  Nick rose and started to salute, but when Stone extended a hand, he recalled he wasn’t a soldier anymore. The men shook hands. The gesture felt odd.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” Stone said. “The army made a serious mistake at your expense. We’ll do what we can to compensate you.”

  “What mistake?” Had something happened in combat? If so, that something could only have related to his last mission.

  “I know that before your last mission, Operation Dragon Claw DC-10, you made a sperm deposit, as many combat soldiers do before deploying. So did Arnold Raker, the ranger who died on your mission to destroy toxic chemicals.” The lawyer took a deep breath, as if choosing his words carefully. Nick resisted the urge to tell him to get on with it.

  “Like you, Raker wasn’t married. Several weeks ago, the facility where his—and your—sperm were banked got a call from Raker’s mother, a Laura Raker. She asked whether her son’s sperm had ever been donated. I’m no expert here, but I understand that a sperm bank can disclose a donor’s identity if the donor gives permission. The administrative assistant at the facility responded that they would need Arnold Raker’s permission to discuss the matter. When Raker’s mother told the assistant that her son had been a casualty of war, the assistant asked if she could call Mrs. Raker back. Anyway, bottom line, it seems that the initial army combat report mistakenly indicated that you were the soldier who died and that Raker was the one who became ill. The mistake was recommunicated to the sperm bank as part of the soldier’s last requests. The mistake wasn’t discovered until the mother called.”

  Nick felt as if he’d been hit by shrapnel from an IED.

  “Where is this going, Captain?” Nick asked.

  “You’ll recall that on the consent forms, you checked the box allowing your sperm to be donated in the event of your death?”

  Nick didn’t recall. He’d hurriedly filled the form out, didn’t care one way or another what they did in the event of his death.

  “Your sperm was purchased and transferred to an out-of-state hospital. Donated.”

  “What do you mean donated?”

  “Gone. Used. All of it.”

  Nick’s face flushed with anger and confusion. “How does something like this happen?”

  “Mistakes like this are more common than you think. There have been a number of custody lawsuits arising out of mistakes and misappropriation.” Stone went on to talk about lawsuits in Utah and in Orange County, California—a law school lecture that Nick had absolutely no interest in.

  When the lawyer finished, Nick said, “Captain, are you aware of my situation?”

  “I am.”

  At one point in his life, Nick wouldn’t have cared that he was sterile. He’d even considered a vasectomy. Then Andie came along, and everything changed. She’d told him to have a family if she died in combat, to go on with his life. So, before he went on that last mission, he’d banked the sperm in case
he was injured, in case he decided to honor her wishes. When he came into contact with those chemicals, he’d been injured in that way.

  “There’s something else that you should know,” Stone said. “Our investigation revealed that your sperm donation resulted in a pregnancy.”

  Nick sat back in his chair. “Who’s the woman, Captain?”

  “I’m sorry I can’t share that, Sergeant Eliot. I wish I could. The damned HIPAA laws. I shouldn’t say this, but I’d suggest that you retain an attorney and bring a lawsuit against the military and the private facility. I could recommend a law school classmate who is a good family lawyer.”

  “You mentioned other custody battles,” Nick said. “What would my chances be?”

  Stone closed his eyes. “I’m no expert, but the way it usually goes, the biological mother almost always prevails. Sometimes even without visitation rights from the sperm donor.”

  Nick stood. He had to get out of there before he beat the name of the woman out of Stone. “Thank you for your time, sir.”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Stone said. “Do you want that recommendation?”

  “No, sir.”

  As soon as Nick left the facility, he called Colonel Dwyer, the officer who’d sent him on the mission to destroy the chemicals. Dwyer took the call immediately, a good sign.

  “I assume you know why I’m calling, sir,” Nick said. “I’ve just been talking to the Judge Advocate General’s people.”

  “I do,” Dwyer said solemnly. “I was aware that you had an appointment with the JAG representative today. I’m sorry, Nick. We’ll make it right. Especially in light of what you’ve given to your country.”

  “There’s only one thing you can do to make it right, sir. I need a name. The name that Captain Stone said he can’t give me.”

  There was a long silence. “I’ll get back to you, Sergeant,” Dwyer said.

  Nick didn’t hear anything more for several days, thought he might not hear anything at all. Then Dwyer called. The woman who was carrying his baby was named Margo Pratt Fletcher, a physician in Chicago. Nick then went to get back what was his.

  CHAPTER 44

  Before leaving the watchtower, Margo quickly studied the table map one last time. She had a fairly good idea where the path down would be. But looking at a map didn’t mean she could find her way down mountainous rugged terrain in blizzard conditions. She’d combine her knowledge and a mother’s instinct to find her way.

  She stood just outside the front door and scanned the perimeter, keeping the important landmarks imprinted in her mind. She felt weak and energized at the same time, but she didn’t think about the cold or about the sun when it disappeared behind the clouds or the fact that she’d just given birth a short time ago. Nor did she think about the snow when it began to fall again for the umpteenth time. She simply pulled the hood of her coat up around her head and face and drew the toggles tight. Carefully, she traversed the narrow, hazardous ridge, and once below it on safer ground, continued along on more compacted snow until she got to the forest. As the snow continued to fall, the ground became soft again, her legs sinking a foot or two down, which made walking slow but not impossible.

  She’d worried about tiring quickly, but the farther down the mountain she walked, the more empowered she became. The shovel gave her confidence that she could avoid sinkholes and stay on solid ground. She actually felt thankful her father had insisted that she learn how to ski—both downhill and cross-country. Not that Margo enjoyed skiing, much less excelled at it. She took after her Southern mother, who would rather sit in the snow lodge drinking hot rum and listening to piped-in music than venturing out into the cold and damp winter air. Now, as Margo walked deeper inside the forest, her father’s words on those ski trips took on a new meaning. He’d speak of the musical sounds of nature, of the brand-new symphonies created on each new trek through the wilderness. Her father was a hard man, unduly strict, and a hypocrite. She hadn’t seen that he was also a romantic, a man seeking the poetry of life and finding it only outdoors, away from the pressures of his job and supporting a wife and three girls. Yes, he’d interfered when she was about to have the abortion, but that interference resulted in a good thing—Olivia’s birth. As for his fling with Greta? People make mistakes. Margo had carried his burden long enough. His mistakes were not her own. These peaceful thoughts, so anomalous given the events of the past days, helped drive her forward in pursuit of the madman.

  The trail switched back and forth in what seemed like a random direction, but according to the circular map, it led down to the railroad line. Her makeshift torch wasn’t as effective as Nick’s had been, but the tip still smoldered, remaining hot enough to fend off potential predators. The soap she’d brought along with her acted as additional fuel and kept the torch going.

  As the snow continued to fall, the ground became softer, and sometimes she sank down to mid-thigh. Still, she pressed forward, downward in the direction of the railroad tracks, all the while searching for only one thing—any sign of Nick and baby Michael. Soon, she could barely trudge along. Too slow. She had to move faster somehow—had to.

  She surveyed the landscape while she caught her breath, then muscled her way to an evergreen tree and pulled and tugged on a thick, low-lying branch until a large section broke loose. She tore off another piece, then another and another, grunting and squealing each time from the exertion. Next, she took advantage of another one of Nick’s mistakes, pulling and twisting individual strands of twine from the fraying rope she’d taken from the storage room. Eventually, she had enough longer pieces to serve her purpose. With sections of the rope, she tied the evergreen branches on the soles of her boots and secured a knot to hold the greenery in place, fashioning a pair of crude but surprisingly effective snowshoes. She faltered a bit at first until she got the rhythm and the feel, but within minutes, she was able to move along the upper surface of the snow at a decent pace.

  In her haste, she ignored her homemade torch, and the ember at the end of the shovel had died out, leaving her without fire Fortunately, she still had a couple matches in reserve.

  When the hunger got too great, she ate a piece of the frozen placenta, all the while continuing on her crusade.

  After an hour—or was it two or three?—she stopped in her tracks. A red line dotted the snow. Don’t jump to conclusions. She bent over and examined the material. Unmistakable to an emergency room doctor—blood. Good, because if this were human blood, she might be close to Nick and her baby. Bad, because whose blood was it? She refused to believe the worst. It had to be Nick’s from the wound in his leg.

  The snow was falling, hadn’t stopped, so that meant if the blood was still visible, she was getting close. So she hoped.

  Using the shovel as a ski pole, confident on her evergreen snowshoes, she followed the bloody trail until it disappeared, and then she stopped and listened. The wind howled, causing the branches to creak and rustle. Then she heard something else, or so she thought—barking? Growling?

  Coyotes? Wolves? A bear?

  She waited a moment more, listening. The barking stopped. Maybe there hadn’t been barking or any sound at all. Maybe the forest had played tricks with her mind, just as Nick had played tricks with her mind these last few days.

  Just ahead, off the main trail, a narrow path led into the forest but continued downward. The trail was visible only because the snow was more compact. Maybe manmade, but more likely a deer trail. If there had been barking, it had come from that direction. It was risky—she might never find her way back, or worse, might encounter a predator—but she had to follow that path. Energized, she hurried down the deer trail and into the forest. At times, the trees and plants threatened to cover the path entirely, but always the narrow trail reemerged.

  Maybe halfway down the mountain, the trail switched back. The wind had blown at her back before, helping her along, but now the breeze hit her head on. She cursed her luck, because the already tough going would get tougher. But the wind
wasn’t her enemy after all, because it carried the whining and growls and yips of a pack of coyotes—but also a high-pitched whine that did not come from the coyotes.

  It was her baby’s cry!

  CHAPTER 45

  Margo had walked with eyes forward before, always looking ahead, but now she looked down to the snow. A new trail of blood. Humans and animals were close by.

  Although she couldn’t believe she was capable of it, she started running as best as she could in the makeshift snowshoes. When she rounded another bend in the trail, she saw the pack—five coyotes surrounding their prey—a hunched-over Nick Eliot. Nick cradled baby Michael inside his jacket, protecting the infant from the coyotes’ snapping jaws. He flailed his massive arms—the arms of a killer—at the animals, but ineffectually this time. Had he ever before been so useless in a battle?

  The coyotes jumped at Nick, pulling on his coat, tearing at his flesh.

  “Hey!” Margo screamed as she charged forward, waving the shovel.

  Some of the coyotes backed away, but the one gripping Nick’s arms continued to bite and pull. Unable to fight back, Nick absorbed the attack, while cradling the baby inside his coat as best he could with his other arm.

  “Get out of here!” she shouted as she rushed at the coyotes and brandished the shovel. When she reached them, she swung the shovel with every ounce of force she could muster and struck Nick’s attacker on its hip with the sharp end of the blade.

  Bone cracked, and blood spewed. The animal whined, let go of Nick’s arm, and scurried back toward the pack.

  Another coyote lunged forward and locked its teeth on Nick’s arm.

  The baby wailed louder.

  Margo circled around to the other side of Nick, trying to find a location where she could strike at the animal without the risk of hitting her child. She swung wildly at the animal’s head.

  A miss.

  The blade sunk into the snow, kicking up a shower of ice. She yanked the shovel out, lifted it, and swung again, this time striking the animal’s head with the blade and coming dangerously close to Nick—not that she cared if she split that son of a bitch’s skull in two. The coyote yelped and fell to the snow, whimpering. Then it stopped moving.