by Zoje Stage
“It’s not that thrilling.” Tilda sounded annoyed.
While Imogen understood her impulse to lie, she wasn’t sure if this was the right person to deceive. She could imagine him taking great offense at any effort to insult his intelligence, or play him, should he figure it out. They needed to be cautious, a warning she tried to convey to Tilda under her breath.
“Careful.”
“All you from there? You two look alike in the face, though nowhere else. Sisters?” Beck nodded. To Tilda he added, “Not you though. You a Mexican?”
“We’re all from Ohio,” she said, turning her back to gather up the bowls. She gave Imogen a pleading, what-the-fuck-are-we-doing look.
“I grew up in Mississippi, but my ex—my first wife—was from Texas and I ended up there longer than planned. I wanted to see more a the West, was heading to Nevada when this…situation came up. Know this is some kinda world wonder, but this fucking hole seems like a weird place to come fer fun. Y’all have fun out here?”
“We were having fun,” Beck said, terse, concentrating on her stitch work.
“You can call me Gale, if ya want. It’s not my name, not really. Well, part of it, but people been calling me that forever. It beats Red Fred. Not commie red, but…” He pistol-pointed at his strawberry hair and rolled his eyes.
“Gale, I don’t mean to be a jerk,” said Beck, “but I have a needle in my hand, and your skin between my fingers. We need to settle our arrangement. I’m going to finish this. Give you the antibiotics, as promised—I’ll even throw in some ibuprofen. We’re gonna share a nice dinner. And then my friends and I are going to pack up and go. If you’re looking, as you said, to lay low, I’d recommend you head west—that way.” She pointed. “Few people come out here, but even fewer head out to Slate and beyond. We’ll give you some basics, but we need stuff too, so we can get out and go along our way.”
Beck sounded firm, reasonable. Imogen watched him, hoping Gale would finally accept the deal.
He gazed westward, where Beck had recommended he go, but instead of agreeing he asked, “Y’all have names? Might as well be acquainted, if we’re gonna break bread together ’n’ all.”
He sure was congenial for a guy whose friends would kill him over a car. Shouldn’t a guy this guileless be able to patch things up over a couple of beers? Imogen couldn’t think straight in his presence. Everything about him was begging for a good story, but whenever she started to get a picture of him, it went blurry again.
Before Tilda could invent new names for them, she said, “I’m Imogen. That’s Beck, and this is Tilda.”
Tilda shot her a look, but Imogen didn’t care. She didn’t trust that Tilda had a workable plan; she understood Tilda wanted to get away from him, but other than shoving a few things into her own pack, she’d been only marginally useful since they got back. Imogen’s strategy was to pay close attention to the man’s words, to Beck’s cues, and it wouldn’t hurt to find…There. She spotted a triangular rock a few feet away, twice the size of her fist. Perfect for crushing a man’s skull.
If Beck’s negotiations worked, they wouldn’t need to rely on her violent fantasies. But just in case…Imogen waited until Gale looked distracted, watching as Beck wrapped his forearm in a gauze bandage, and then casually kicked at the rock, as if she were clearing a spot on the ground to sit. The rock came to rest inches away from where Tilda was kneeling by the stove, setting out the bowls and forks.
The water came to a boil. Imogen opened her knife’s scissors tool with its tiny one-inch blades, but to her surprise, Tilda reached for it.
“I’ll do it.”
As Tilda cut open the bags, Imogen squatted down and lowered the stove’s flame. For a moment, instead of pouring the boiling water into the pouches, Tilda just gripped the pot’s handle. She flicked her eyes to Gale. And clenched the handle tighter. Imogen’s mouth hinged open in dawning realization: Tilda was ready to spring. She looked to Imogen for approval.
We’re not ready! They didn’t have any kind of plan, they couldn’t even grab their stuff and run, not with everything still scattered around. At the very least they needed to have canteens, and their walking sticks, and the blasted iodine tablets that had gotten them into this predicament in the first place.
Imogen wasn’t sure what her expression said, her features felt stuck on and mismatched, but Tilda deflated, frowning, and poured the water into their chicken dinners.
“We don’t have enough bowls,” she murmured, defeated.
“What’s that?” Gale asked, standing up, wiggling the fingers on his injured left hand. “Good as new. More or less.”
“We only have three bowls with us,” said Imogen.
“You sisters can share, right? Or maybe one a you is lezzies with the Mexican. You more likely,” he said to Beck. “I know I’m being judgmental, on account of yer short hair. But you and yer sister both dress like boys. The Mexican’s got a nice figure.”
Imogen didn’t need to look at Tilda to know she was seething. In one of Tilda’s viral videos she’d ranted about how her body was the first and sometimes only thing men noticed, and it increasingly pissed her off.
“I’m not a framed painting on display,” she’d barked to the camera, describing an encounter she’d had in the subway in New York City. She’d been too tentative to say anything back, to do anything but smile with gritted teeth and look away; you could never predict how men might take a perceived rejection. Imogen had watched the video more than a dozen times—that Tilda, the public Tilda, would never have doubted that she’d been raped.
Whatever Tilda was thinking now, she kept it to herself. This situation was worse than a man in the subway with loose eyeballs and casual assumptions. Much worse. Even if this asshole-survivalist-ex-con-crazy-person intended his comment as a compliment, it was harder to know what exactly Mexican meant to him. He could have used a more racist term, if those were his leanings. But his very need to classify them—and he wasn’t wrong about Beck’s orientation, or their resemblance as sisters, or Tilda’s ethnicity—was unnerving. He was smart and observant.
“Supper ready?” Beck asked, seemingly oblivious to any danger.
18
Gale ate heartily from one of their bowls. “Pretty good.”
As he’d suggested, Beck and Imogen shared, and Imogen used a spoon, which she preferred anyway, since they only had three forks. She’d been hungry since they left their peaceful spot at the river, but her intestines were more like coiling vipers now and she could barely make herself swallow.
“Eat as much as you can,” Beck said softly.
Imogen heard: I know you’re scared. She heard: You need to stay strong.
The canyon walls around them were changing colors as the sun sank on the horizon. As much as she didn’t want to spend a night anywhere near Gale, Imogen wasn’t looking forward to hiking in the dark, per Beck’s plan. The minutes stretched and the shadows deepened and her antsiness grew.
“You girls are probly real talky when I ain’t around, right?”
“No offense, but we don’t know you,” said Imogen, trying to be as nonchalant as her sister. “And this is kind of…a strange way to meet.”
He gazed at each of them in turn, masticating his food in a noisy, predatory way. “This is decent fer grub from a bag, not as good as home-cooked but better than…” He slurped up another mouthful and didn’t finish his sentence.
Prison.
“You all always this skittish?” He kept his eyes on Tilda now, who sat between Beck and Imogen and hadn’t uttered more than a few words since the rock shelter. “You think you know something about me?”
“We know exactly: you’re the guy who robbed us. Twice. In a place where people are usually chill and considerate.” Beck somehow managed to sound both no-bullshit and, to use her own word, chill.
“That’s why yer all so weird around me?”
“You don’t think that’s reason enough?” Tilda asked. The vibe he gave off would have
made them wary even if they’d met him elsewhere. Like in the subway, demanding a smile.
“Gale, seriously—I understand you’re in a bind, and we’re not without sympathy,” Beck said, “but this isn’t just some friendly get-together. You completely fucked up our trip. Between the food you’re eating and the snacks you stole we don’t have enough to stay. And giving you some of our canteens and iodine tablets means we have to be very careful rationing water just to get back out. I think you should be a little more thankful, and understand that none of us are super happy that you messed up our vacation. We’d been planning this for a long time.”
Tilda stopped chewing. Imogen felt it too, the risk of blaming this man for anything. But she understood Beck’s approach: treat him as honestly as they could.
Gale chewed, eyes on his bowl. “I’m sorry. I guess I owe you girls an apology. Obviously I’m here kinda spur a the moment. Figuring out what’s next. But you’ve been helpful. And volunteered more than I expected. Thank you—fer my arm.”
“You’re welcome.”
He sounded sincere—something probably none of them were expecting. Imogen’s intestinal snakes calmed a bit, and she scooped up more of her dinner.
“You don’t owe me anything. You don’t owe me shit, but…if we could do something, like whatcha said before. I’d be grateful. I just want to lay low here. Seems like a good place to figure things out, think about yer life. That why you come out here?”
Imogen saw Beck nodding, and found herself nodding too.
“This is a good place for that,” Imogen said. In a matter of seconds her view of him shifted back to what he’d first been—a troubled person. She knew that no child set a life goal of becoming a troublemaker, and whatever had happened—whatever he’d done—the criminal justice system had a way of swallowing the poor. “Everything seems quieter here, even the stuff in your head.”
“You got shit in yer head too?” Gale asked, his voice tipping toward surprised.
“Pretty sure everyone has shit in their head. Life is hard. Makes you doubt what you’re doing, what you should be doing, how you got here…how you might have ended up somewhere else if things had been a little different.”
“Yeah,” Gale said quietly. “I think about that too.”
Imogen met his gaze. In the waning light he looked sad. The empathy she felt for him came quickly and naturally. He didn’t seem like a mean person, a little (a lot) rough around the edges, but even as a thief he’d attempted to stay out of their way. It was possible they’d even scared him, showing up at his hiding place. She cursed the part of herself that assumed everyone was sinister in some way—especially when she forgot that she, too, didn’t always make a good first impression. Everyone who met her probably thought she was standoffish, maybe stuck-up, because while her mind assessed people at a million miles a minute, she wasn’t quick to be friendly, open, warm. Like Afiya.
She remembered something that informed her writing, a thought given to her by a teacher during her first semester at Pitt, in the only acting class she ever took: No one thinks of themselves as evil. (It worked just as well to replace evil with bad, or treacherously wrong.) The other students had looked puzzled; they protested, and then started tossing out the names of history’s villains and dictators. The teacher clarified that she wasn’t saying that no one was evil, but that no individual would label themselves that way. And Imogen, who’d been reading Richard III at the time, immediately understood: through the experience and lens of one’s own life, all actions were reactions building toward the goal of ending the endless want, to fill the empty place where the true self had been robbed by circumstance.
A boy didn’t set a life goal of being evil, bad, wrong. A criminal. He set a goal of being loved. And then things went awry.
When they were done eating, Imogen had Tilda do the washing up. Usually something of a clean freak, now Tilda only swirled a little water in each bowl, and halfheartedly wiped away the debris with a dishcloth. While Beck and Gale worked on their negotiations—what he wanted versus what Beck would give up—Imogen packed what was left of their things as they went along; they still had miles of night hiking to do and she wanted to be ready to go.
Gale wanted a backpack—Beck’s, but she refused; it was like asking for a part of her body. Tilda offered hers. “It’s not like I’m ever going to use it again.”
For some reason the pronouncement made Imogen sad, but this wasn’t the time to try to change Tilda’s mind—Imogen wasn’t sure herself if any corner of the world remained a safe haven.
Gale wanted the stove and pot, but Beck talked him out of it. “You’ll run out of fuel in a few days and then what? Useless dead weight. We’ll give you most of our crackers, nuts, and snacks. Matches are more useful. And the fishing ditty—that’s where we keep a few hooks and some fishing line. You can figure out the rest.”
He agreed. They didn’t have a fishing ditty, but Beck stuffed bags and snacks into “Gale’s” pack. The lie indicated to Imogen that Beck worried about what Gale would consider enough. She let him keep her sleeping bag—this was now going to be their last night in the Canyon and she’d bundle up on her eggshell pad and rough it for one night. They gave him a second canteen to replace the crappy Mountain Dew bottle he’d been using, and the majority of their iodine tablets. Beck rationed out enough to purify their water for the following day. If they were careful, after refilling at Santa Maria Springs, they’d be fine.
Gale wasn’t knowledgeable about the specifics of what they had or what he needed, so Beck figured it out for him. She gave him a tarp, a bowl, a fork and spoon, a tiny roll of toilet paper, the first aid stuff she’d promised, and a Ziploc bag full of miscellaneous items that included the “fishing stuff.” In addition to her pack, Tilda donated a sweatshirt to his cause. Maybe it was because of Imogen’s small size, but she lost none of her personal items. Gale asked for a walking stick and Beck told him to find his own. She gave him a pair of her padded socks instead.
It was almost dark when their supplies were redistributed and packed.
“One a y’all have a cigarette? Outta smokes, could really use one.” They shook their heads. “Didn’t think so. Where you girls heading? Don’t have to rush off. Ain’t it too hard to hike at night?”
Beck and Imogen quickly hoisted on their backpacks. Tightened their belts. They were a little heavier than they’d been before: they hadn’t given Gale a full third of their gear, and what was left had been hastily divided between their two packs.
“Back to Hermit. It’s mostly Tonto, we’ll be fine.” Beck had been playing her diplomatic game for so long—hours—but her patience was dwindling; it was time to go.
“Y’all just looking to get away from me?” His instincts were scary-good. It was too dark to see his face, but Imogen feared he was about to go back on his word.
“Thought you wanted to do your own thing,” Beck said.
“We have to be out by tomorrow or we’ll run out of stuff,” Imogen added, as benign a reminder as she could muster of all they’d given him.
“Yeah. Makes sense,” he said, not very convinced.
Stick in hand, Beck turned, ready to lead them away. Tilda switched on her flashlight.
“Hey, you got an extra one a those?” Gale asked, taking off his cowboy boots as he sat on Beck’s sleeping bag.
“Sorry,” Beck said, and kept walking. Tilda fell in right behind her, smartly angling her light on the path ahead of them. Imogen took up the rear, grateful that he hadn’t ransacked their stuff with more care.
“Really?” Gale called.
“We don’t usually hike at night,” Imogen said.
“It’s easier to see the stars in the dark. Good luck to you,” Beck said from the front.
“Thanks.” He sounded farther away with each step they took. “Bye now.”
“Take care.” Imogen couldn’t help herself. She wished him well enough, even as the instinct to get away from him grew with each step.
She tried to pray—for their close call, for their safety—but the slithery words wouldn’t coalesce and all she heard were their boots on the scrabbly dirt and their heavy breathing. The terrain heading out of camp wasn’t difficult, but for hours they’d been holding back everything they might really have wanted to say—about Gale, about Beck bringing them together under false pretenses. Inhaling and exhaling became its own language, universal and less dangerous than speaking aloud. Imogen concentrated on the sounds behind her, anxious—half convinced—that she’d hear footsteps chasing after them.
They started the steep ascent out of Boucher. Imogen desperately wanted to get out her own flashlight—Beck probably did too—but she knew better than to let Gale see another bright beam in the darkness. They’d have to wait until they were farther away.
“Where are we going?” Tilda’s voice sounded small and frightened.
“Travertine,” Beck answered. “That’s about three miles. It’ll put us halfway back to Hermit, and there’s a flat spot just as you head in. It’s the best place to camp that isn’t too far, and it won’t add that much to our hike out tomorrow. I’m really sorry, guys.”
“I’m sorry too,” said Imogen. “I should’ve…I really didn’t want any of it to mean anything, the wrapper, the cigarette—”
“What wrapper?” Tilda asked.
“I found a torn scrap, maybe from one of your protein bars.”
“It could’ve been from anything,” Beck maintained.
Away from Gale, Tilda regained some of her tenacity. “Doesn’t either one of you have any common fucking sense? He was following us—”
“That’s not true.” Imogen cut her off. Maybe it was her allegiance to her sister, or a need to defend herself, but Tilda’s distorted interpretation pissed her off. “Technically we were following him. He was at Santa Maria Springs before us, at Hermit, at Boucher—”
“What’s the difference?” Tilda spat.
“Big. He wasn’t stalking us. It doesn’t make it right, but it’s a bit…” To Imogen, that reality seemed better—that reality made Gale less of a predator and more a criminal of convenience—but she didn’t have the energy to argue the point. “It was bad luck, happenstance.”