by Zoje Stage
“It looks like it weighs as much as I do.”
Gale considered her for a second, then chuckled. “Yeah, my bad. Okay—you take yer little pack up and I’ll figure this out.”
Still shaky, Imogen managed to get her pack on and fastened, but then she realized she couldn’t bend over and retrieve the walking stick, not without teetering. Her queasiness now extended beyond the lingering damage to her ear.
“Can you hand me the stick?” she asked Gale.
He complied, and continued to study her. “Look a little green around the gills. You ain’t still dizzy?” She nodded. “You need to toughen up. You know life ain’t no picnic.”
She nodded again, and made eye contact with her sister before heading off to the shelter. Beck’s face was ashen, stunned, an injured mask that barely resembled the woman she’d been only a few hours earlier. Imogen couldn’t assess how Tilda was faring: her knees were up, her face pressed into them.
As she crossed the creek again, Imogen feared time was looping on itself and she’d get up to the overhang only to see another hiker approaching. Another hiker getting stabbed for trespassing into the dragon’s territory. There was a thrumming in her head. She struggled to get her feet in focus, her boots blurred into four, then two, then six. Perhaps the punch to the head had only exacerbated what she already felt: this couldn’t be real.
29
When she reached the back of the shelter something startled her. She dropped her pack and spun around; Gale’s silhouette drifted across the opening. He looked like an ogre with the bulge of the dead man’s gear thickening the shape of his torso. Had he been behind her the whole time? Had the timpani of her own pulse been so loud she hadn’t heard him? Or was he that quiet, that stealthy. A hunter.
“We got what we need. Everything’s gonna go smoothly now.”
We. Were they a we? Who did that include? Beck and Tilda, too, or just Imogen? She gave her head a shake, as she would a Magic 8 Ball when she needed a different answer. With alarming frequency she was having thoughts she didn’t understand.
Gale set the pack near the entrance and summoned her with an impatient wave. “Come on, the girls are waiting. Had to hog-tie ’em a bit, just real quick so they won’t take off.”
Imogen’s feet moved, following the ogre back to…she couldn’t think of it as camp anymore. Reality had turned fuzzy, dangerously fuzzy, like she’d taken a weird marijuana tincture and her thoughts flitted about like hummingbirds that wouldn’t land. She couldn’t afford for her wits to abandon her, not when the situation had so escalated.
The high-pitched whine coming from her left ear drew her attention; she used the sound to settle her concentration, to ground herself in this space and time.
“Yer sister very helpfully suggested that old tunnel as a place to put the body.”
“Okay.” She was on autopilot.
Tilda and Beck were on their sides, both with their ankles hastily wrapped and knotted at the back, but Beck had squirmed to orient herself so she was looking toward the trail that came in from Hermit. In case the man had friends. So Beck was thinking it too. She wormed back to face Imogen and Gale as they returned. Imogen didn’t see any movement or unnatural colors that might indicate someone else was on the way, but experienced hikers could be twenty or thirty minutes apart, or more. There was still a chance.
“Okay, so here’s what we’re gonna do…” Gale unsheathed his knife. Beck, Tilda, and Imogen froze, eyes glued to him, uncertain of his intentions but well aware of his proficiency with his favored weapon. Looking at Imogen, he issued his next orders. “You untie ’em both, and then we’re all gonna work together and carry this guy to his final resting place. And we all agree? Keep everything nice and chill and nothing stupid?”
They nodded. Gale handed out more instructions as Imogen worked on untying the knots. When Beck was free, she was to position herself at the left leg—hands on—ready to lift and carry. Imogen would take the other leg. Tilda’s wrist knots were harder to undo and Imogen wondered if she had been straining against them, inadvertently making them tighter.
“Tilda can take one arm, up front with me,” said Gale.
She shook her head. “You can drag him, you don’t need me—”
“Don’t be squeamish now, he ain’t gonna bite. And if we drag him it’s you and me, baby, you look strong.” His eyes wandered over her body, over her hiking tights. “I like that. Girls who don’t waste what they got.”
Imogen gave Tilda’s forearm a reassuring squeeze. “Just do what he says,” she said softly.
“You just obey every fucking person who gives you a fucking order,” Tilda spat.
Imogen didn’t have time to process the insult before Gale stepped in.
“Hey, I been real tolerant so far, but I don’t actually like when girls swear. I think we can agree now everyone’s a little touchy and we need best behavior. Right?”
“Sure. Best behavior.” Tilda glowered at him, rubbing her wrists as Imogen finally managed to free them. The cord wrapped above her boots was much easier to undo; even knotted at the back Tilda might have eventually gotten her legs free. Imogen made a mental note: his bindings could be undone, if given enough time or the opportunity to work together. Did Gale still want that nap? And fuck Tilda for insinuating that she wasn’t invested in trying to get them safely freed; that was all she wanted.
“I’ll take that.” Gale reached out to take the pieces of nylon rope. Being helpful was part of her strategy, so Imogen coiled the cords as neatly as she could and handed them over.
Beck was already squatting, ready to use her lower-body strength to help lift the dead man. Imogen took her assigned place beside her, faltering for a moment before gripping the man’s leg. She hadn’t touched a man in a long time and had zero interest in ending her dry spell. His legs were pale in comparison to his forearms (where did he live?), and his calves were well muscled. Grimacing, she gripped him below his knee. It should have been the blood congealing within his flesh that revived her nausea, but instead it was the short, coarse hairs brushing against her own skin.
“I think I’m gonna puke again…” She turned her head to the side.
“You okay?” Beck asked. Imogen nodded. “I’ll take a look at your ear later, but there’s probably not much I can do. Ruptures usually heal okay on their own.”
Imogen appreciated her sister’s concern, but if her ear was going to heal, they needed to get out of this alive. She did her best to shake it off. Gale was right—she needed to toughen up. She told herself to imagine it was something else: an old log softened by rot.
“I’m good, I’m okay.” Imogen fortified her resolve, and dug her fingers into the dead man’s flesh.
Tilda stood where Gale had directed her, but kept her arms crossed. “I’m not carrying him. I can’t.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Beck said.
That Tilda still had some fight in her was good, but the evidence of Gale’s capabilities was literally at their feet. Imogen couldn’t understand the when-what-whys of Tilda’s behavior, and it was pissing her off.
“Tilda, please just be helpful,” she said through clenched teeth.
“So much blood, there’s so much blood…”
Tilda was near tears. The anguish on her face made Imogen rethink her friend’s reluctance. Imogen understood that distress.
“Come on, girls, I got other things to do today.”
“He deserves a proper burial, it’s the least we can do.” Imogen hoped to appeal to Tilda’s sense of right and wrong. “I know it’s hard; pretend it’s something else.”
“I can’t! You don’t understand. I want to help, I do—but I can’t!”
“What’s going on?” Gale threw up his arms. “This’ll be over in five minutes, this ain’t dangerous, I ain’t making you cross a cliff.”
“I’ll just walk with you, to the tunnel, you don’t need me to…touch him.”
Gale rolled his eyes. “Fer fuck sake. I
ain’t asking again. We need to get this done. Now.”
All Imogen could think about was how quickly he’d drawn the knife on the backpacker. And there was still the gun in the back of his waistband. Imogen wasn’t insensitive to Tilda’s suffering, but this was a bad time for a meltdown.
Beck got up from her crouch and took a step toward Tilda. Gale immediately pivoted, the knife in his hand like a sword.
“Get back where yer supposed to be.”
Beck returned to her spot beside the body, her voice an urgent warning: “Tilda.”
“It’s my mom!” she said, frenzied.
Confusion washed over Gale’s face. “This ain’t yer mom?” He looked to Imogen.
She thought back to what she knew of Tilda’s mother’s death. It had happened a year and a half before they met her, the summer after Tilda finished eighth grade. It was the thing that threw her adolescent life off course. Tilda never talked about it much, but had once used it as part of a theater exercise. The other kids congratulated her, impressed by her intense emotions, not realizing the story was true.
An animal in the road. A utility pole. Tilda in the passenger seat, not yet fourteen, startled but unhurt by the airbag. Her mother at the wheel, mortally injured; the antiques she’d just purchased, undamaged in the trunk.
“Her mom died in a car accident,” Beck said.
“What does that have to do with—”
Tilda contracted inward, her feet seemingly glued to the ground, as she covered her face and wept. “There’s so much blood, I can’t I can’t I can’t…”
“Please,” Beck said to Gale. “She’s traumatized, she’s not trying to be difficult.”
Imogen stood, ready to comfort Tilda. To her surprise, Gale nodded. “Fix her. Fix this, so we can get it done. Don’t have all day.”
Beck and Imogen rushed to Tilda, took her in their arms.
“He’s right,” Beck said. “It’s not your mom.”
“But all the blood!”
“Shhh, it’s okay. We’re gonna get through this,” said Imogen. A person could live through trauma, even when it was retriggered. She knew that better than anyone.
“I never think about it,” Tilda said, her face in her hands. “Never. But I touched her. I got out of the car. And we were all alone and no one came forever—I waited forever. And I wanted to help her. She was still breathing, really ragged. And I called, ‘Mama! Mama!’ and I got her door open and touched her shoulder and there was blood all over her face. She coughed and all her teeth fell out, there was so much blood, and then she slumped forward…” The memory overwhelmed her, stealing her words, and she could do nothing but cry.
Her mom’s airbag had failed. Tilda believed that if everyone had had cell phones back then, her mother wouldn’t have died. As a teenager she’d blamed her mom’s death on having to wait on that rural road for someone to come by and help. When she told the story at school, she’d blamed herself, too, for not knowing what to do.
There wasn’t time to ponder it, but it struck Imogen how quick young Tilda had been to blame herself for misfortune—and how that might have shaped Tilda’s denial about The Thing. How much of her life was a wall, an illusion, meant to separate Tilda from her sense of guilt?
Imogen and Beck held her—held each other.
“You’re okay, we’re okay,” Beck said, to both of them.
“You can do this, Til.”
“I couldn’t help her,” Tilda wailed. “I was all alone.”
“You did the best you could,” said Beck.
“It wasn’t your fault. Look at me.” Tilda met Imogen’s eyes. “It emphatically wasn’t your fault. And you’re not alone now.”
Tilda gave the tiniest of nods.
“We’re here.” Beck squeezed them all tighter, so they were almost cheek to cheek. “We’re gonna do this together, okay? Everything, from now on, together.”
As quietly as she could say it and still be heard, Imogen said, “When he falls asleep don’t strain against the ropes, they’re easier to undo. We’ll untie each other.”
Beck quickly added, in an audible voice, “I’ll take the front, okay?”
Tilda started to nod, snuffling back her tears. She got a dirty tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. They took another minute as she collected herself, made some sort of peace with what they had to do. When they returned to the body, Beck took the front position beside Gale, ready to do the heavy lifting. He studied all of them as if he were watching a television drama unfold, the story line and characters captivating in some new and unfamiliar way. When Tilda reached down to hoist up a leg, sniffling one last time, Gale turned to her.
“Sorry about yer mom.”
Huffing and straining, they carried the stranger across the defiled grounds of the Boucher camping area.
30
Hunched over, they hauled the body into the darkness. The abandoned mining tunnel was only about forty feet long, dug out of the billion-and-a-half-year-old, silvery-gray Vishnu schist. It wasn’t such a bad mausoleum, all things considered, though this was probably a temporary arrangement for the backpacker. Boucher canyon might not be the world’s most frequented place, but more people would come here, and some of them would investigate the tunnel, and one might even swallow their fear of snakes and cobwebs and venture all the way in to see where it ended.
The stranger would be found someday, Imogen was sure, and his remains would tell his story. He would not be forgotten. She was less sure how her own story would play out.
Imogen and Tilda held the man’s knees cradled in their elbows and Imogen, especially, struggled; her muscles trembled. Her sorrow and fear were quickly receding and resentment slithered in to take their place. He was a heavy fuck and she didn’t want to lug him around anymore. Just as she was about to suggest they’d gone far enough, Beck stumbled and fell forward. She and Gale had almost dropped the man’s torso a couple of times on the way, their hands slippery with blood, but this time it was the loose rocks that tripped her up.
“Aaah!” She landed hard on her hands and knees. The body lurched, and by silent agreement the rest of them let the backpacker slide to the ground. Beck sat in the dirt, clutching her knee, her face twisted in pain.
Tilda got there first and knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”
Beck didn’t speak for a minute. With her eyes clenched tight, she breathed with intention, in-out, in-out, trying to recover. A selfish thought came to Imogen: they’d be worse off if Beck was seriously injured. Her busted lip and black eye were one thing, but their ability to get through this might depend on Beck’s prowess as a navigator. Imogen didn’t have the skills to replace her—to lead them in the dark—or the strength.
“Landed on a rock,” Beck said, wincing. “Small, but sharp.”
“Can you walk?” Imogen squeezed in at her other side, taking her arm, ready to help her up.
“Probably.”
“Come on, it’s creepy in here,” said Gale, crouching as he turned and headed toward the daylight.
Tilda and Imogen, each with an arm around Beck’s waist, helped her hobble out of the tunnel.
“Don’t think anything’s broken,” Beck said, but she limped heavily, reluctant to put any real pressure on her right leg.
“That’s good.” Imogen and Tilda exchanged worried glances. What would Gale do if one of them became dead weight? I could put a fast bullet to the brain.
“Can we stop at the creek?” Beck asked. “Some cool water could really help.”
“Yeah, okay.” Gale looked at the cloudy sky. Except for some random sprinkles, the weather had held, but it was as overcast as Imogen had ever seen it in the Canyon, and it smelled richly of ozone. Without a doubt, more rain was coming.
At the creek’s edge, Beck let go of Tilda and Imogen and lowered herself to the ground on her good leg, keeping the right one as straight as possible. She tugged off her boots and socks, rolled up her pants.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” Imog
en said, hardly an expert. There was a small gash in the center of her sister’s swelling, purpling kneecap.
Beck laid her leg in the creek and swept water over her knee. It seemed to soothe her; tension drained from her shoulders. She scooped up more water, gently splashing it against her face.
As if they’d verbalized an agreement, they all—even Gale—took off their boots and socks and found a place to sit at the creek’s edge. Silently, they scrubbed the day’s bloody work from their hands and arms.
“Better?” Imogen asked Beck after several minutes.
“Think so.” She tested her knee, bending it a few times. If it was an impairment, she didn’t let it show beyond a tightness in her features. Knowing her sister, nothing would stop Beck from walking on that leg, but Imogen wondered how much pain she was in. What a fucked-up day.
“We should get on up to the shelter.” Gale already had his socks and boots back on.
Imogen, Beck, and Tilda scooted away from the creek, but before they could reach their boots, Gale zoomed in and grabbed them. While they waited for some sort of explanation, he scanned the sky, the land, concentrating, the bootlaces bunched in his fist.
“Tell you girls what, I’ll give ya a choice. I could letcha walk up to the shelter barefoot—don’t think you’d try to run or do anything crazy in yer bare feet. Or you keep the boots and I tie you together again.”
Before they could weigh the options, Tilda chimed in. “Bare feet.”
Imogen and Beck weren’t won over. Sure, the illusion of freedom might make for a nice psychological break, and there were places—especially in a forest with moss or pillows of decomposing pine needles—where nothing felt better than being at one with nature. But not here, not now. They’d need to step carefully to avoid cutting their feet on rocks or thorny bits of brush, and Imogen would feel better knowing she could run.