Deep in the Alaskan Woods

by Karen Harper

  The sisters’ voices were so similar she couldn’t tell them apart. Would Allie’s voice have sounded like her own? Alex managed to summon her self-control and found her courage to tell them the truth and ask for their advice. They listened with very few questions for at least ten minutes while she stumbled through an explanation.

  Finally, when she paused, Meg—she thought it was Meg—said, “You just come here to us where that idiot won’t find you. You want to hide out, that’s fine, but in God’s country here, you can build a new life. We have. Hey, listen. Here’s a good sign. The woman who oversaw our combo gift and antique shop just left, and if you want to run that for us, that will cover your room and board. You could sell those beauty products there, too. Thanks to a well-connected neighbor who got this area two cell towers, you could still sell online. Can’t promise this climate will let you grow every herb you’d need, but—”

  As if they were a phone tag team, Suze cut in, “But they do greenhouse growing here year round so that may work for more tender plants.”

  The two of them even finished each other’s thoughts! It made Alex realize how much she’d missed having close girlfriends. She’d spent too much time at her job, on creating and selling her products—and on Lyle.

  “You should see the cabbages, big as bushel baskets!” Suze went on. “You just get here soon as you can. We’ll save a room and can’t wait to see you. Call or text us to keep us posted. You driving a truck? Best to have one if you stay for a while, and we hope you will.”

  “No truck yet, but I need more than my little car to bring some things. So you won’t mind if I bring my Scottie dog?”

  “We have two dogs, so the more, the merrier. You’ll save us on vet bills.”

  “I’m not a vet, but I know a lot about the basics.”

  “You and your Scottie will have to learn the woods can be dangerous,” Meg warned. “But I think you’ll find it a lot safer here than there with that wolf you’re smart to get rid of—for good.”

  As her tears flowed, Alex thanked them again. Surely she was making good choices, even if hasty ones. As soon as she could manage—tomorrow—she was secretly, suddenly, Alaska bound.

  * * *

  Alex forced herself to make even more hard, quick decisions. Grateful Lyle had a big surgery schedule today, she withdrew her meager savings and closed her checking account the moment her bank opened on Saturday morning. She drove to another suburb and traded in her sports car for a used truck with a covered-back truck bed. She had never driven even a small truck before, but it seemed easy enough. At her local DMV, she had her license plate legally switched to her new vehicle.

  At the last minute, she remembered to change her address and stopped in at the post office just before it closed at noon.

  She parked the truck nearly a block away from her town house, hoping Lyle did not take a break from his surgery schedule to check on her in person. Evidently, since he hadn’t called, Lyle was blessedly giving her the isolated, silent treatment, either hoping she’d crawl back to him or because he was planning something. Maybe her earlier threats to call the police and of a restraining order had made him back off, but she sensed that would not last long.

  She gave Charlene all the food and supplies that would not store and four hundred dollars. Two hundred of that was to clear out her apartment and put her furniture and the rest of her boxed possessions in a nearby self-storage facility—No Worry Storage, ha! She paid the facility for six months and did not give them a forwarding address.

  The other two hundred dollars were for Charlene’s help, though the kindly woman argued about that. Alex explained that she could not tell her where she was going but would let her know when she was safely out of town and when she finally arrived at her destination, which would take about a week.

  Alex hated not saying goodbye to other friends, but it would just lead to questions that might actually endanger them and her later. She had no idea if she could come back to live here again, or if she would want to. How had she ever let a man ruin her life? Here she was, ready to go to a place so foreign, so vast, so unknown.

  But what she did know was that she had to get away from Lyle. It had been like some horror movie to see him morph into a monster, one she should have seen beneath the charm and gifts and protective veneer.

  Last, she called her parents and told them what she had done and where she was going.

  “I’m glad you’ll be with family, even if it’s not us,” her mother admitted. “But it’s so far, honey! You keep in touch and drive carefully. And we still want you to come over here, maybe in the autumn.”

  “I’m going to have to put down roots there, Mom, at least temporary ones. I’m going to make the best of it.”

  Her father’s voice came in. “Of course you will, because you’re the best.”

  “And,” her mother put in, so they must have been sharing the phone, “I don’t want this sad, scary situation with Lyle to turn you off men. You know what I mean. Do not let that earlier loss and then this one keep you from being you, lovely inside and out.”

  “I appreciate that, and I know you two aren’t a bit biased,” she tried to kid them. She had to keep this a little light or she was going to self-destruct with fear and sorrow. And her mother hadn’t mentioned the loss of Allie, even indirectly, for years until now.

  She promised again she’d be careful and told them she’d call briefly each night she was on the road and leave them a message. And yes, she would drive only in the daylight and use her AAA membership for car repair service if she broke down.

  She did break down when she said goodbye to them. Suddenly, despite the hovering, nervous Spenser, she felt so very, very alone. Wasn’t one nickname for Alaska “the Great Alone”? Or was it “the Last Frontier,” because that would fit the mess she’d made of her life here, too—and the promise of going there to start over.

  She checked her Natural Beauty website to see if any new orders had come in, because she would have to mail them from the stock she was taking to Alaska, so mailing rates would go up except for the west coast. But she gasped at what she saw.

  Her contact page and order form had been repeatedly spammed by an email address she recognized, at least thirty, maybe forty times. Shaking, she opened one. I want to order my fiancée back NOW! Be here Sunday morning!

  She opened one more: the same, awful, threatening message. She printed this one out so she’d have evidence of harassment if something happened to her laptop. At least, if he was threatening her that she had to come to him, maybe he wasn’t coming here anymore. But what if he got a hacker to harm her website further or spammed her products with bad reviews, ruining her business that she cared so much for?

  Then she saw he’d been on the products page, too. Just like this stuff, one review read, you’re bought and paid for. And he had given a one-star rating to her lilac and sunflower body cream, which she loved and he knew it. At least she saw he hadn’t done that with any other products yet. He’d never really appreciated how serious she was about her creations. He might even have ordered her to stop making them once they were married. Why hadn’t she seen that danger, too?

  She deleted what she could, wishing she could delete the past two years of her life—delete him and how she’d fallen for him, how she’d thought she loved him.

  She hoped Lyle had finished taking his fury out on her website. She would have to find a way to keep him off it, but she wasn’t sure how. At least he could not track her actual location, only her virtual one.

  But her stomach was so upset to be attacked that way, too, that she went to the bathroom again, sitting on the toilet, holding her sides, rocking a bit, then still staying there after she flushed. Spenser pushed open the door and sat with his head cocked as if waiting for an explanation. She got up and washed her hands and petted him.

  “My dear little dog, we are off on a great adventure
tomorrow,” she said. As she had twice before today, she braced her hands on the sink to steady herself and looked into the mirror.

  Her shoulder-length hair needed washing. How long would it be before she had the money or the place to get these blond highlights streaked again? Before she found the perfect shade of blue mascara to highlight her eyes or went to an exercise class or out to a fancy restaurant? Falls Lake was not even in Anchorage, which was a big city but out in the wilderness. She supposed just like Naperville was distant from Chicago, but what a difference in terrain!

  Was she crazy? A coward to flee?

  No, this had to be done, and it took courage. Power and bravery, which she supposed Lyle would not have expected or respected from her. She had hardly seen it in herself.

  Alex nodded decisively at the mirror, and her dearest, lifelong ally, her twin sister, Allie, nodded back.

  4

  As Alex drove northwest, the miles, the highways, cities and towns, even entire states blurred by: the southeastern curve of Wisconsin, the edge of Iowa and huge stretches of the Dakotas. Boy, she appreciated that this truck had cruise control. Now if she could just keep control of this trip, of the remaking of her life.

  As alone as she felt, she sensed she was safer than if she’d stayed home. Lyle was probably on the warpath now, realizing not only that she had disobeyed his orders to come to his house on Sunday, but that she was gone. With stunning clarity she realized that she now feared him. At least she’d warned her parents that he might call them or even show up there. Or maybe he’d assume she’d just changed neighborhoods. And that was exactly what she was doing—big-time.

  Spenser slept during the day between her stops to walk, feed and relieve him and herself. He had curled up in his open-topped carton, which was hemmed in by boxes of lip balms, skin cleansers and fragrant body creams on the passenger side floor. The truck smelled like a summer garden. And Spenser was safer that way, she hoped, than if he’d been in his doggy bed, which was stashed in the back. The little guy managed to snooze despite the fact she kept the radio on and sang along with it to stay awake. Sometimes she talked to him and sometimes talked to her long-lost sister. Allie was there, watchful, each time Alex glanced in the rearview mirror.

  At night, she slept well despite strange beds. It was at least better than sharing a bed with Lyle! During the day, she got by on fast food, granola bars, fruit and bad coffee from gas stations. She made sure Spenser had his favorite dog food before they set out each day. One night, because of exhaustion and a rainstorm that affected visibility, she pulled off, slumped down on the seat and settled sleeping in her truck in a Walmart parking lot. Her parents would have had a fit.

  And when she was taking a shower at an indie called the Low Rate Motel, even over the pounding of the water and the barrier of the curtain, she heard a man’s voice in the bedroom. Her mind jumped to that old movie Psycho, which she’d been stupid enough to watch over the summer on Netflix. Janet Leigh being slashed in the shower at the Bates Motel!

  Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, she poked her head out and emerged dripping wet. Oh, music, too. Had someone turned on the TV? Would she have to scream or fight, stark naked? She had nothing to use for a weapon here in the bathroom. If she could get to her phone, she’d call 9-1-1. Had someone silenced Spenser? Why hadn’t he barked? No way Lyle could have traced her, found her!

  Holding her breath, with a towel wrapped around her wet body, she poked her head out into the bedroom. Spenser was lying on the bed where she’d left him, calm, sleepy. He looked up at her like, What’s your problem?

  The outside door was closed, the chain lock still on. Then she saw the TV remote was lying on the floor. He must have stepped on it or punched it somehow, and a news program had come on. A commercial ran now, one for a getaway to the very Caribbean resort Lyle had decided would be their honeymoon spot.

  She began to sob so hard she could barely walk back into the bathroom to turn off the shower.

  She dried herself, clicked the TV off and got into bed, sobbing silently and praying she’d get enough sleep and find the strength to go on the next day.

  * * *

  Alex called her parents and her cousins briefly each night, and Charlene once to thank her for all the help and wish her well. Lyle had been to see her, but she had met him at the door with a friend who was a cop and pleaded ignorance of where his former fiancée had gone. Alex could hear Charlene’s four-year-old daughter’s voice in the background crying that Spenser-doggy wasn’t coming to visit anymore.

  And then came the drag of a drive through wide Montana, which went on eternally and, wouldn’t you know, that northwestern state was having an early August heat wave.

  Then ahead loomed one of Montana’s six border crossings into British Columbia. Thank heavens she had a current passport from visiting her parents in London. She was still going to have to drive a good slice of western Canada, then back into the US, past Juneau, to Anchorage and then even farther north. She’d be crossing another border, all right, one between her past and present—and the future.

  Her cousins had told her she could stay in Canada for up to six months with just proof of US citizenship and a valid ID. She knew from working at the clinic, however, that Spenser would need proof of a current rabies vaccination. She also had that since, she’d figured, if she ever took him to England, it could be necessary. It had to be signed by a US veterinarian, so that was the last remnant she had of Lyle, for he had written his name big and bold on the paper.

  She crossed into Canada late on the fifth day of her journey. She started to sing an old Johnny Horton folk song, “North to Alaska.” Spenser howled along with her. It was just the two of them for several more hundred miles—then what lay beyond?

  * * *

  The mountains of Alaska seemed to hem her in, but she felt protected by them, too. So different from Illinois scenery and skylines.

  “Hey, Spenser, this isn’t Kansas or the US Midwest anymore!” she said, before she remembered that Lyle, too, had borrowed from The Wizard of Oz when he’d threatened her and her little dog. But surely that part of her life was over. She was safe and free. And she had the strangest feeling that—if she’d stayed home—Lyle could have been crazy enough to make sure her life was over one way or the other.

  She tried to shake that off as she turned onto Route 1, the Glenn Highway, which would skirt big, busy Anchorage to the south. Just think: she could have flown into Anchorage in one day instead of driving for almost a week, but it had to be done this way.

  As she turned north again, the spruce and birch forests thickened along the road. Lakes glittered through the trees, some big, some small, and she passed numerous white-water streams, a few with people salmon fishing. Everywhere she looked seemed like a stunning postcard come to life.

  She saw a sign pointing toward Wasilla and remembered that was the hometown of past vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. As she turned off the highway onto a two-lane road to drive the last forty or so miles to Falls Lake, she had to laugh. Two houses she passed had cutouts of Palin in their doorways, and she saw one of those posters stuck on a truck window that made it look as if Palin were in the back seat of the vehicle, smiling and waving.

  Strange, but after driving mostly on highways, this narrower two-lane road seemed endless. Surely everything would work out.

  She saw a moose on the side of the road just about the time she saw a bumper sticker that read Eat More Moose! She supposed she’d arrive about suppertime at the lodge. Suze had said on the phone last night that they were having a salmon bake for guests, and they hoped she got there in time for that—a real Alaskan welcome. She’d also said it stayed light this time of year until almost ten thirty, so there would be no trouble with her following the signs to the lodge, beyond the little town of Falls Lake. If she went past the survival and tracking camp sign, Suze had said, she’d gone too far. Well, it did feel like
she’d gone too far in more ways than one.

  “Survival and tracking?” Alex had asked on the phone. “That sounds ominous. Not like—like stalking?”

  “Well, kind of. More like tracking someone who’s lost,” Suze had said. “Wait till you meet the guy that runs it. I don’t suppose you watch the Wilds cable TV channel?”

  “No. But, oh, you mean that Q-Man guy that you thanked on your website.”

  “Let’s just say Alaskans are unique, and him most of all. He’s kind of a local hero, so we watch his show here. You can learn a lot. Anyway, you’ve got two good teachers here, too. We’ll be looking for you with open arms. Drive careful, now, this last leg. Can’t wait to see you! If you arrive during the salmon bake, walk out in back, and we’ll be there.”

  * * *

  What Alex saw when she pulled into the parking lot of the Falls Lake Lodge both comforted and worried her. At least a dozen pickup trucks were there, so she’d soon be meeting lots of people. Her stomach knotted, but Meg and Suze had said to just come on out behind the lodge to find them.

  She took time to comb her hair and dab on some lipstick. Yep, there was Allie in the rearview mirror, giving her a nod and whispering, “Go for it—our new life.”

  Alex put Spenser on his leash. Brushing off her jeans, she got out and lifted him down, then locked the truck, giving it a good pat for getting them safety here these many miles. As soon as she found the twins she’d duck back inside the lodge, use the restroom and call her parents to leave a message since they’d be asleep now.

  Spenser raised one leg for the first of many salutes to the trees outside the lodge, and they went in the front door. No one was at the check-in desk. A few people were inside, but they were looking outside through the back windows, maybe to see when the salmon was done. Spenser looked all around but didn’t make a sound and stayed tight to her.