Getaway

by Zoje Stage

  She went through the untying, retying process again with Beck, and then Gale summoned Imogen over so he could redo her hands. Keeping hostages tied up required a methodology and patience that she wouldn’t have had, though she supposed that if she were the kidnapper she’d just have to bark orders and look malignant. Being a hostage was tedious in a way she’d never considered.

  “Grab some TP,” he said. “You girls definitely have a disadvantage in the peeing department.”

  Imogen went first, slipping behind a boulder—a little close to camp for a latrine, in her opinion—as Gale kept his spear pointed at the two who weren’t doing their business. It was easier to relieve herself with the rock standing guard instead of Gale. But she had to give him some credit: he wasn’t lewd.

  When she returned, Beck was doing a little dance, kicking one boot and then the other, like she could barely hold it, and Gale let her go next. Once they were in a row again, he had them turn their backs to him. A zipper unzipped. Followed by the hiss of piss, the splashing of it on the ground.

  Tedious.

  He directed them onward to the creek, where they scrubbed their hands, washed their faces. Imogen was tempted to cup the water, so cool and refreshing, directly into her mouth, but didn’t in case it wasn’t as pristine as it looked. Slate’s creek, similar to Boucher’s, was several feet across and only inches deep, but in places the arrangement of rocks created little pools. As they squatted there, Beck kept glancing at Imogen, a steely, determined look in her eye. Imogen wasn’t positive what she was trying to say. Get ready? On her other side, Tilda had withdrawn again, her focus a dreamy stare at the gurgling water.

  Imogen, Beck, and Tilda sat cross-legged on the ground, a foot apart, as Gale bustled around. He could’ve made Imogen do this part too, but beyond the distrust issue, she suspected he liked fiddling with the gear. He set up both stoves; the dead man’s was different from Beck’s and he took a few minutes to figure out its workings. When he had both ablaze, he lowered two pots of water on to boil. Mesmerized by the little blue flames, he leaned against a rock and stretched out his legs.

  “Reminds me a cookouts. Used to do that in the summer, Fourth a July ’n’ such, when I was home. Always liked that. Everyone sitting around, shooting the breeze. Kicking back with a cold beer, burgers or ribs. Back in Mississippi when I was a kid we put whatever we’d caught in the river on the grill. It was real special when the kids were little. Didn’t see Crystal as much, but my boys…loved to run around outside. A hot day and a hose and they were happy. Or on the Fourth, some sparklers, cherry bombs. Kids love that.”

  Earlier Tilda had implied that Imogen didn’t have as much to live for, but perhaps she’d been trying to say that she didn’t have as many people. Beck had Afiya (and fingers crossed a baby). Tilda had Jalal. Imogen had struggled throughout her adulthood to even make new friends. Unless Gale counts. Strike that—another of those out-of-nowhere intrusions. But Imogen was less insulted thinking about it now, because she knew the value of her life didn’t depend on how many people attended her funeral. And they needed to take advantage of these opportunities to discuss loved ones. Gale had a strong sentimental streak.

  “It sounds like…you had some really good times,” she said. “With your family.”

  “Yup. In between fucking it up. I was in and outta prison before I did this seven-year stretch, and even when I was out I came and went. Regret that now. Shoulda stuck around more, tried harder. When I was younger, kept thinking I was gonna find that right thing, ya know? The right job or the right opportunity. And most a my…” He sighed. Went silent for a moment as he cut open bags of freeze-dried dinners and set out cups and bowls. It was still morning, but apparently he wanted something heartier than skimpy oatmeal packets.

  “I went looking in the wrong places, let’s put it that way. Kinda dumb like that, I shoulda learned. You wanna trust yer buddies, yer kin, when someone says they heard about some great way to make some easy cash. Know now, ain’t no easy cash—not without consequences. And whatever yer thinking, my priority—in between being a drunk asshole—was wanting my kids to have better. Dreamed of them growing up and getting good jobs, respectable. Crystal did all right. Ain’t met her husband but he sounds okay, works hard. Everyone want coffee?”

  “Not me, thanks,” said Imogen while Beck and Tilda nodded. “How old are your boys?”

  Gale spooned the dead man’s instant coffee into three mugs. Imogen guessed he probably had no clue what to do with Beck’s Melitta cone; normal people brought instant. “In body, seventeen and fourteen. In the head, young dumb brats. A little slow, maybe got it from me.”

  “You’re anything but dumb, Gale.” And Imogen meant it.

  “Book dumb.”

  “Books aren’t everything, and I say that as a writer of books. You’re smart.”

  “Well, Crystal’s mom was smart to get away from me when she did. Saw I wasn’t gonna change and got the hell out. Made sure she gave Crystal the life she deserved—but never shut me outta my daughter’s life. Always love her a little fer that. My boys…” He shook his head and scowled. “They’re a disappointment. I can’t blame ’em ’cause it’s my fault, taught them the wrong things even when I didn’t mean to. And their momma ain’t any better. Those boys are angry. Oldest one’s locked up. In and out of juvie since he was thirteen. He’s mean and hard and thinks with his fists. Probly gonna get himself killed. I worry on that. Worry on it a lot. Still have a tiny bit a hope for Henry. He’s got a soft side. Maybe he’ll straighten out in time.”

  The water came to a boil. Gale filled the three mugs. As Imogen watched the steam swirl toward his face, an image came to her of Tilda and Beck, splashing their coffee into his eyes. He turned his back to rummage around for a spoon and she snapped her head toward Beck, then Tilda, and made a little gesture with her bound hands, pantomiming flicking a mug. Beck’s eyes widened, and Tilda nodded—though she looked less keen to scald him than she had…when was it? Two days ago? It felt like they’d been with him for a month.

  As if it were the most compelling thing they’d ever seen, they watched him stir the three coffees. Imogen was ready to do her part: spring up and grab the spear as he screamed, clutching his scorched face. But when Gale was done stirring, he held out a single cup—for Imogen to take. “You serve.”

  She faltered, caught off guard. He wasn’t going to hand Tilda and Beck their steaming mugs. And once Imogen handed off the cups, Tilda and Beck weren’t close enough to do any real damage. They would jump up to help her, but if anyone was going to douse him with boiling coffee it would have to be Imogen—one mug, that would be her only chance to blind him and seize the spear. Seconds were passing like hours, she was taking too long; she should’ve already done it—

  Accepted the mug without hesitation, tossed it in his face—

  “Hot coffee’s a weapon in some places,” he said, reading her like a book. “Yer sister’s gonna be real sad if ya don’t deliver her coffee.”

  The half-amused smirk on his face said everything: he knew what she’d been debating, and knew she’d failed to act. Ashamed, Imogen got up and handed out the mugs. Tilda, again, wouldn’t look at her. Imogen could almost see her teenage self through Tilda’s eyes, lying there inert beneath her boyfriend. Deciding later that she needed a good story so Tilda wouldn’t kill her. That’s not what happened. But it was believable. Imogen mouthed “sorry” to Beck, who mumbled her thanks and started blowing on the steaming liquid.

  As Imogen was about to sit back down she tottered off-balance, spilling over onto her elbow when her tied hands couldn’t break her fall. The world was spinning again. She hitched her shoulder up to her ear so she could rub it, as if that would help.

  “Good thing you ain’t a coffee drinker,” Gale said with a laugh. He kept his distance, manning the stoves, coffee in one hand, spear in the other. “Boiling water hurts like a bitch, know so a bit too well. Also know none a you ever stop thinking a ways to take me out.” His ga
ze traveled from one of them to the next. “Weird how my whole life brought me here. Brought you, too.”

  At least he wasn’t angry. If anything, he seemed contemplative, calmer than he’d been since their reckless first meeting; perhaps Slate was finally remote enough to ease his paranoia.

  Imogen couldn’t rewrite history, but in hindsight most of their attempted efforts at self-preservation were asinine, starting with that march to the rock shelter to reclaim the iodine tablets. Would it have been so bad if they’d just hightailed it back home? No one ever died from disappointment. And what was the worst that could’ve happened from drinking untreated water? Diarrhea? A regimen of antibiotics? A brain-eating parasite might’ve been better than this.

  Beck would never have organized this trip if she’d had another way to force Imogen and Tilda to autopsy their relationship. They’re here because of me. It wasn’t the most linear thought, but Imogen felt the burden of how her floundering reactions—decades’ worth—had led them to converge here, now, just as Gale had said. They’d fumbled their opportunities to leave, and she wondered if that meant something too—if there was something she was supposed to do here, unfinished business that only she could rectify.

  38

  Imogen could have gone for some hot chocolate, or just a cup of water, but she didn’t want to ask and draw the wrong kind of attention to herself. Instead, there was something she wanted to focus on while Gale was in a reflective mood. Maybe this could become the “campfire” chat they’d discussed that morning.

  “Can I just say, while you all sip your coffee…” Beck, Tilda, and Gale gave her their attention, but she spoke to Gale. “We’re more similar than we are dissimilar.”

  Tilda squinted, dubious. Beck slurped, looking at Gale over the rim of her mug, studying his reaction. Gale gave Imogen a pointed but jocular glare. It was hard to maintain eye contact with him, but she forced herself to stay connected.

  “That so?” He oozed doubt.

  “Yes.”

  “You see yerself in me? ’Cause I don’t see myself in you.”

  That threw her off for a second, but she didn’t let it undermine her mission. He was right that their superficial similarities were minimal. “It’s something deeper, inside—not about where we were born, or the specifics of how we grew up and what we became. It’s more like…we’ve reached a place where we know we want something different than what we have. But at some point you have to make peace with what you can do versus what you wish you could do. That’s how you stop feeling cheated by what you thought your life would be, versus the life you actually end up living. And it’s hard, life is hard, even for the people who make it look easy.” She tried not to look at her sister, but her eyes drifted to her anyway.

  “Everybody feels…maybe they’re disappointed, for a time. But the thing that’s harder to accept, to get over…is feeling like no one really gets you. Like there’s some fundamental part of you that isn’t understood.” This time she looked at Tilda. “And that’s what makes people feel lonely, makes them doubt everything else, even if your life looks great from the outside.”

  She hoped he grasped even a tiny bit of what she was trying to say; it was a difficult thing to express, and she didn’t think she’d said it well.

  Gale was still in a joking mood. “And everybody laughs in the same language blah blah blah and enjoys a good shit and a good fuck. That yer point?”

  It kind of was, but she felt him deflecting. Maybe she’d approached it all wrong, too vaguely, or maybe no one had ever tried to have an intimate conversation with him. “It’s not bullshit.”

  “So you know me—that yer point?”

  “Not very well. But maybe we have more in common than you think, in spite of how different our lives are. And from what I’ve seen…you’re an interesting person.”

  Gale snorted. He spooned out hearty portions into their three bowls and the dead man’s plate, which he seemed to prefer. He’d made too much again, even more than last time, and it was obvious he didn’t care about rationing. Did that portend they’d all leave the Canyon at some point, or that none of them would? Imogen remembered the two of them refilling the canteens at Boucher Creek. He’d talked about poison. A nice big meal. A last meal. A peaceful drop into a never-ending sleep.

  Had the dead man possessed something that Gale could have slipped into their food?

  “She’s a book writer?” he asked Beck, who nodded in confirmation. He turned back to Imogen. “That’s nice a you wanting to think well a me, but doll, you ain’t living in the real world.”

  The jab hurt. She’d always considered her imagination an asset as an author, while fearing that her lack of life experience would eventually show. She didn’t think it was wrong to analyze things deeply, or find commonalities between diverse or disparate individuals. And it wasn’t as if she’d never visited the real world; it intruded on her fantasy life more than she preferred.

  “I know everything about the real world.” She spoke with such solemnity that they all looked at her, as if not quite sure who she was.

  “Serve ’em up!” Gale held out the bowls and Imogen distributed them.

  She sat back down carefully, afraid of another dizzy spell; hungry, she didn’t want to spill her food. Before she started to eat, she studied Gale, still concerned that he might have added something to the dinner pouches. Should she warn Beck and Tilda? But even if the dead man had been carrying medications—prescription or otherwise—they hadn’t seen Gale grind up any pills. The only other toxic things Imogen could think of were the fuel and fire-starter, and surely they would add a noxious flavor to everything. Gale ate with casual gusto, and Tilda and Beck, though watchful for other reasons, ate without wavering. And without grimacing at a bad taste.

  “It’s real beautiful out here.” Gale chewed and looked around. “It’s funny, all that hard work to get down that damn trail, but here it’s easier and nobody comes.”

  “Too inaccessible for most people,” said Beck. “And for a lot of people…the Canyon trails are really exposed, a lot of cliff edges. Like you said, it’s too hard for casual hikers or tourists.”

  He nodded, his focus lingering on the astonishing horizon. The painted stripes of endless rock. Perhaps the formations had been sharp and jagged in their infancy, but age had blurred them, creating stone phantoms that rippled with the light. “Glad I got to see this.”

  “Beauty. Should add that to your list,” Imogen said. He scrunched half his face into a question. “With shitting and fucking—your words. Everybody appreciates beauty. Sometimes we find it in different places. Sometimes not.”

  He aimed his fork at her. “Know what yer doing. Getting all psychological. But I already see what I see and know what I know.”

  “I know you aren’t heartless, Gale.” She didn’t want to give up—couldn’t give up.

  “Selfish, though.” He shrugged, looked away again. “Selfish as fuck. You’d understand everything better if you remembered that.”

  It sounded part warning, part apology.

  Beck stopped chewing. Damn, her sister cogitated loudly, even when words weren’t spoken; she’d heard only the warning, and reached an instantaneous conclusion. Imogen scrutinized Gale, which was easier to do with his attention focused on the landscape. Tilda, absorbed in her meal, wasn’t really paying attention, or parsing words like the Blum sisters. It took Imogen a moment to dig down to the bottom layer of what he really meant.

  Selfish as fuck. You’d understand everything better if you remembered that.

  Her sister cut to his truth like a surgeon. Imogen had to stop looking for the soft parts, the distracting things that made her see him as a fellow human. She tried harder to put herself in his shoes. What would she do if she was selfish as fuck? She certainly wouldn’t waste an ounce of compassion—or anything else—on someone like Gale. He would be as meaningless, his life as worthless, as…She looked at her spoon. Her bowl. And wondered for the first time if he even differentiated
living things from the inanimate. Did any of it matter, to someone who was selfish as fuck? A living backpacker or a dead one, they were just stuff. Stuff he needed, stuff he wanted. His personal doctor and little assistant. The curvy girl he liked to ogle.

  And then she knew. She saw the sparklers and heard the cherry bombs. She felt the juices dripping down her fingers as she gnawed the rib bones, hot off the grill. She saw, through his eyes, his family, his people, his children. And she knew: no one else mattered.

  Beck didn’t matter. Tilda didn’t matter. She didn’t matter.

  Had never mattered.

  Were never going to matter.

  Selfish.

  Everything he did was to serve his own needs.

  Selfish.

  They would never sway him from his course. He didn’t care about promises. He didn’t care if Beck’s child was short one mother—he might say it was a shame, but it wouldn’t impact his decisions.

  Selfish.

  Now she heard it everywhere. In the whistling sound the wind made. In the beating of a raven’s wing. In the rustling grasses that lined the creek. The creek itself all but screamed it, a cascade of warnings to listen, listen, listen. How had she not heard it before?

  She’d been a fool, a dreamer, to believe reason and compassion would turn him around. She’d been duped by his apparent complexity. Or had it only been her desire to see him that way? Her wishful delusions had so preoccupied her that she hadn’t seen Gale for what he was: a man so enamored of his own privilege that no one else, ultimately, mattered.

  Every moment of his life was more important than anyone else’s.