Arie was lunging at Ruby, shouting, pointing his finger. Chase was between Ruby and Arie, and Woolly was holding Arie back.
I ran faster, “No, Ruby! Wait!” I cried.
Everyone was screaming. I’m not sure they even knew I’d joined them. Woolly’s booming voice called for everyone to “quit acting like a pack of fools.”
Ruby was screaming, “Admit it! Just admit it!” Chase was saying something without raising his voice, but I couldn’t hear him.
“Ruby! Ruby!” I shouted. “Listen! It was me! I did it!”
Chase was repeating something over and over, and I think I heard it from the first but couldn’t believe it, couldn’t process it. He said it again and again.
“Ruby, I did it. Ruby, I did it. I did it. Rube, it was me, not him. I did it,” said Chase.
One by one, we all went silent.
“Everyone just shut up and listen, okay?” said Chase. His voice was low and even, as though he might announce that he had a blister on his heel, or the kitchen was out of vegetable oil. “It was me. I let him go.”
Ruby stood still, her mouth open. She and Chase looked each other in the face. Ruby blinked a few times, closed her mouth, opened it again as if to speak, but then just stood there.
Chase nodded, his face calm, serious.
“Chase,” she breathed at last, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Not you.”
“Yeah. Me.”
She squinted at him, leaned forward, as if there were something she herself had to decode before proceeding. Then she shook her head. “No,” she huffed. She trembled with anger. “Don’t cover for whoever did this. I know you didn’t do it. I won’t believe it.”
Arie scoffed. “Oh, oh, oh,” he stammered, “so, he comes right out and tells you it was him and you don’t believe it, but I tell you I didn’t, until my head practically explodes, and you don’t believe me! Well that’s just great!”
He was leaning again, stabbing an accusing finger at Ruby, but Woolly grabbed him and reeled him in.
“Well, yer a kid!” Ruby exclaimed, “an’ not only are kids always doin’ stupid things, but I’ve seen you do things that was even stupider’nis!”
“Quiet!” boomed Woolly. “All of you. Seriously. The whole camp can see and hear you. They’re panicking. Get a hold of yourselves. You’re embarrassing me.”
Woolly was right. An entire gallery of onlookers had gathered, an expression of collective mortification in their faces. Ruby sheepishly looked from face to face.
“Yah,” she said. “Yah, you’re right, Wool. All right, you all go on. Go about your business. We’re just havin’ a polite disagreement.”
“You heard her,” said Woolly, not angrily, but loud enough to be heard and obeyed, and the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
“Call off the evacuation,” said Chase. “It won’t be necessary.”
“Waddya mean call it off?” hollered Ruby.
“Ruby!” barked Woolly. “Everyone, let’s finish this discussion in the command tent.”
Within a few minutes, Ruby had given a tentative order to pause the evacuation, and we were in the command tent. Woolly put on some coffee, and the rest of us took seats. Ruby thudded her walking stick into the tent floor. Arie glared at her. Chase sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down.
“All right,” said Ruby through gritted teeth. “We’re here. We’re calm. We have coffee. So. Now. Chase, start talkin’.”
Chase sat up straight in his chair, but as he started to speak, I interrupted.
“He didn’t do anything,” I said. “It was me.”
“Aawww, dammit all!” Ruby growled smacking her forehead with her big, meaty hand. “What inna name of sweet baby Moses is goin’ on around here! Who in the mother-slappin’ hell is in charge!” She looked from person to person. They flinched as if she might attack if they spoke. “Cuz it sure as shit ain’t me!”
“I made a deal with Bellington,” I went on. “And he won’t betray us. And I know how to get the antidote.”
“You? You, Al?” she moaned, her voice hopeless, desperate. “But how did you even know about—and how did you get in here to—” But then she looked at Chase, whose facial expression looked more guilty than it had outside.
“Aw, hell,” said Ruby. “I get it.” She shook her head, rubbed her face as though trying to wipe away some distasteful, filmy substance. And if her face had been red before, it now took on a purple hue. Her anger was conspicuous, radiating from her like fumes off gasoline, like heat from a radiator.
“Al,” she said, with a calm that was actually fairly terrifying. The kind of calm that can only result when someone is seething. “Al, do ya even realize how much danger you put us in?”
“Rube, come on,” said Chase, getting to his feet. “Calm down.”
She swiveled in her chair, turning savagely on Chase. “And you!” She held the walking stick out as though she might skewer his head on it. “You of all people shoulda known better. You’re s’posed ta be my right hand. You’re s’posed ta be on my side. I just don’t know what ta say anymore. I’ve never been more betrayed in my entire life.” She glared fiercely at Chase, but her eyes were watery. A single tear started from each one, but she wiped them away with the palm of her big hand before they fell.
“Ruby, it wasn’t Chase,” I said. “I tricked him. I trapped him. I set him up.” I described how I sent Chase to take a break and then did what I did without him suspecting anything. “But, I really think we’ll be okay. I don’t think he has any interest in turning us in.”
“Ah, just hush up,” Ruby said. “I am so damn turnt around and flustergated I don’t even know if I got any more t’say t’any of ya’s.”
“No, really. He and I, Bellington, Davey, I think we connected. We knew some of the same people and—”
Ruby interrupted me. “Al, I never thought I’d hear myself sayin’ this, but sometimes you are really stupid.”
I could never explain what it felt like for Ruby to say that to me.
“No, Ruby, let me just tell you what I—”
“Al, not now,” said Chase.
Woolly nodded in assent. Even the look on Arie’s face told me he agreed with them. I’d gone too far, they seemed to say, and there was no explaining it, no justifying it. And then I knew, too. I hadn’t ever been sure what I was up to, I suppose. I’d been looking for a fast way forward. It hadn’t been a scheme I cooked up and sat on and nursed and then hatched when the time was right. It was all just kind of thrown together and set aflame when I saw the opening. I couldn’t explain or justify it to Ruby because I couldn’t explain or justify it for my own sake.
When I looked at Ruby again, her head was bowed and she was digging her fingers into her eye sockets, slowly sobbing. The tears filled the lines in her face around her eyes and they seeped down into the wrinkles and creases on her hand and they drained down her wrist and into her sleeve. She sniffed wetly and sobbed more. No one seemed to know what to do. All I knew was if someone was going to do something, it should definitely not be me.
“Rube,” said Woolly at last.
“What!” she bleated. “Whaddya want?”
“I’ll walk you back to your tent.”
“Thanks, Wool,” she said, sniffing again. Her face was wet, and she’d dropped her glasses onto the tent floor. Chase picked them up and handed them to her. Woolly helped her up by the arm and she leaned hard on her walking stick.
As she walked past me, I caught her gaze, and there was no anger in it any longer. Only deep, hopeless hurt.
CHAPTER 15
Things quieted down, eventually, or maybe that is just how it appeared. Ruby ordered extra guards and deeper patrols, but Chase convinced her to cancel the evacuation—based on the way I convinced Chase. The tents that had been taken down were put back up. Everything was put back where it belonged. Everyone tried to go on as before, making breakfast, making lunch, carrying water from the river.
But I saw people looking
at me in the chow line and at the nightly campfire. It could have been just anxiety or paranoia but I thought I saw them lean toward one another and whisper. In my sleeping bag at night I could almost hear what they must be saying to each other in their tents, and I didn’t like it.
I actually didn’t know what was known and what was only guessed at among the camp’s population. The shouting match outside the tent the morning after I let the prisoner go was heard by a few and likely misheard by lots more. And like any group of people with limited opportunities for entertainment and distraction, games of Telephone were probably well underway and into multiple rounds of mangled whispers by now, so who knew what they all might think?
There wasn’t anything I could do about that, though, and with a few very select exceptions, I didn’t care what anyone in the camp thought of me, and so I kept to myself and kept my mouth shut.
Late summer thunderstorms had been rolling through periodically, so I at least had an excuse to stay in. They didn’t seem to miss me at kitchen duty, and so on the day after the incident, I sat in my tent all day reading the same page of some stupid book over and over again.
Around sundown, Chase brought dinner to my tent so I didn’t have to leave the tent and stand in line. It was like he knew I didn’t want to anymore. He brought two bowls of rice and beans, but it was on the watery side, and the flavor was quite bland. We both poked at it with our spoons but didn’t eat much.
“I thought I heard we were out of red beans,” I said.
“I kinda wish we were,” quipped Chase, scooping up a spoonful of the grub and letting splat back into the bowl.
“How is it out there?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Morale is low. Everyone’s confused. The kids don’t like to see the grown-ups fighting.”
I knew what he meant. The evacuation was off and everyone was going about their regular business, but there was a tension in the air that you could feel.
“Did anyone say anything to you?”
“Nah. They just stare. Just like little kids. Just staring, wondering if everything is gonna be okay. Something needs to be done.”
Yes, something needs to be done, I thought, we need to move ahead. We need to move into the next phase. The memory cure.
“Do you think Ruby will ever talk to me again?”
Chase shrugged again.
“Really?” I said, putting down my bowl and spoon. “You don’t think she will?”
“Well, of course she will, Al. But, you know. It’s a little—I don’t know. Weird.”
“Weird how? What do you mean?”
“Al, come on. It’s complicated. She’s hurt. Hell, I’m hurt. We’re all hurt and confused and no one knows what to do. You’re gonna have to give it time.”
“Chase, I know I messed everything up, but we have a chance here. We have an opportunity to move into a new phase.”
“I understand, Al. I do,” he replied. “But do not approach Ruby right now. I am one-hundred percent sure she does not want to hear anything about any new plans right now.”
“What does ‘right now’ mean? How long should I wait?”
“Wait until she comes to you, Alison. Seriously. Don’t make a move.”
Chase poked at his dinner, pushed it around in the bowl. The evening was cool, and I was completely out of firewood for the small stove in my tent, but I didn’t want to go out and find more. I pulled my hands into the sleeves of my sweater and hugged myself against the chill.
“Don’t worry,” said Chase. “I’ll grab you some firewood when I take the dishes back. Might be cold tonight.”
I smiled inwardly. Chase was very good to me—not just in the way he accepted my mistakes and shortcomings, but the way he often read what I was thinking, was always a step ahead, anticipating my needs.
“Thanks, hon.”
He stood and picked up my bowl and spoon. He went to the tent fly, but before he went out, he said, “Are we on the same page? Do not talk to Ruby. Not until she comes to you. There’s no exception here. She’s not talking to me, either, and if you two have another big blow-up, you and me might be looking for a new place to live. Wait for her.”
“Okay.”
He went out.
CHAPTER 16
I didn’t have to wait very long.
Four days after I’d released Bellington, Woolly came to my tent. It was a gray, rainy day. The sun had just risen, but clouds obscured it, and the dreary patter of rain sounded on the tents.
“Hey, Al,” said Woolly. “You awake in there?”
“Yeah, come on in.”
He wore a bucket hat made from waxed canvas, and he was draped in an olive-drab army poncho, which fit him more like a barber’s cape, barely covering his wide shoulders, massive chest, and expansive middle.
“Hi, Al,” he said in a way that made me think he might apologize for something. A chain of little water droplets were suspended from the brim of his hat. When he moved his head, they fell onto the poncho and drained down to drip from the corners and onto the tent floor.
“Hey,” I said.
“How you been doing?”
“Okay, I guess. Ruby wants to see me?”
He held out his hands in a conciliatory way. “Not exactly,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows.
He smiled apologetically and continued. “She wants to hear what you think should happen next—not because that’s what she wants to do, but I guess, you know, like to understand your thinking, to understand what you thought would happen. If that makes sense.”
“Sure,” I said.
“So, mind if I sit down? And you can tell me?”
I sighed. “I really think it would be best if we all sat down and discussed it. The whole leadership group. And Ruby.”
“Ruby’s been talking to the others,” he said. “She’s got some ideas about what to do next, but she’s having some trouble—” he paused and grimaced faintly “—I wanna say she’s having trouble getting past this?”
“That doesn’t sound like Ruby.”
“I know,” he answered hastily, dropping his diplomatic facade. “I’ve rarely seen her this worked up over something.”
I didn’t like hearing that. “Do you think there’s any chance I could have just a quick word with her? We wouldn’t have to discuss anything about plans or intentions. I just want to make sure she and I can get past this. Even if it’s not right away. I’ve been thinking of leaving, moving out.”
“Al, that might not be the worst idea,” said Woolly, his eyes narrowed and a pained expression on his face. “Ruby’s talking about a lot of changes, and that’s one of them.”
My talk of moving out hadn’t been a bluff, exactly. I had considered it. But to know that Woolly was ready to call that bet—it felt final and sad. I loved Ruby and even though I couldn’t remember all of our adventures, I didn’t relish the idea of parting ways with her.
Woolly stood there without saying more. The rain made multitudinous popping sounds on the roof of the tent that blended to sound like very loud radio static. There was thunder in a distant valley and it rolled and echoed against the mountains like a barrage of far-off cannon fire.
“I really burned a bridge, this time, huh?”
“I don’t know if that’s the best way of putting it,” said Woolly, his eyes downcast. “It’s just—well, like I said, she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around this.”
I nodded.
“And it’s not just this,” Woolly was quick to add. “There are so many problems, so many people relying on her. It’s not just you, not just this Bellingson thing.”
“—ton,” I said quietly.
“Right. Bellington. It’s not just him. Ruby’s getting, well, tired. You’ve noticed, I’m sure. She’s getting up there in years.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I’ve wondered how long she would keep at this. I guess I just figured she’d last until we won.”
“Me, too,” said Woolly. “And whether she d
oes or not remains to be seen. But, will you talk to me? Tell me what happened? What you were thinking?”
I thought about this for a while, maybe for as long as a minute. And then I said, “No.”
Woolly flinched, blinked, as though the word struck him like a blow.
“I may have royally screwed up here,” I said before Woolly could reply, “but I’m owed more than this, Woolly.”
He nodded, once, almost too subtly for me to notice.
“She has to talk to me herself,” I continued. “She can’t just send you. No offense.”
Woolly held up his hands again in his diplomatic way and said, “None taken. You have a point.”
“Will you tell her?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding so that more droplets fell from his hat brim. “I have a feeling she’ll agree, even if it’s reluctantly.”
The rain seemed to increase as he walked out. I sat on my cot and lit a small fire to warm some water for tea. When I heard Woolly’s heavy tread outside my tent just a half-hour later, I knew it could only mean that Ruby had refused my request. And it made sense. Why would she agree to speak with me? What good would it do? Just stir up a bunch of hard feelings. No one wanted that. Maybe not even me.
“Al,” said Woolly as he came to the tent flap. “Still in there?”
I went to the front flap of the tent and pushed it aside. Woolly stood there, the bucket hat pulled down low over his eyes.
“She said no?”
He said, “No. She said she wants to talk to you.”
It was a long walk across the camp to Ruby’s tent. When I got there, I said, “Ruby? It’s me.”
“Come on in,” she said, her voice flat, almost void of expression.
I pushed back the tent fly and ducked inside. The window covers were drawn down and it felt dark inside. Ruby lay on her bed at the far end of the tent. The light was such that I almost could not make out her features.
“Have a seat,” she said with the same flatness of expression.
I sat in her desk chair.
“Are you sick?” I asked.
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