“Fine,” said Woolly. “I’ll just drop you off.”
He continued driving without saying more. I expected him to be angry or disappointed, but he was nonplussed. He grabbed an old battered CD player from under the seat which he plugged into the radio and began playing folk music. And he kept driving, calmly, contentedly, easing the old pickup over the rough road with a gentle ease.
This made me even angrier. I wanted a reaction. I wanted to have the fight I didn’t have with Ruby. I wanted to yell at someone.
“I’d volunteer to drive anywhere just so I could listen to music,” said Woolly as though he were speaking to himself.
He drummed his finger on the steering wheel and whistled to the tune.
I sighed. Then I sighed again, more loudly. I shifted around in my seat testily.
Woolly didn’t seem to notice.
“Just let me out here,” I said.
“We’re not there yet, Al,” said Woolly. “The spot I have in mind is much better, safer.”
“I don’t care,” I said.
The sun was setting and the sky was turning purple and pink.
“Alison, do you ever consider that you’re so anxious pursuing the future that you’re missing out on the present?”
“It wasn’t the future I was after,” I told Woolly. “From what I’ve been told, I was chasing the past.”
Woolly shrugged. “Same diff,” he said. “I’m just saying instead of worrying about the future or the past, can you just be in the moment?”
“How very zen of you,” I scoffed.
“I mean it. Here, close your eyes and listen to the music for a minute.”
“I’m not going to—”
“I’m not asking,” Woolly said in the sternest voice I’d ever heard from him. He turned up the volume. “Stop your fussing for just a moment and listen to this music.”
To placate him, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
There was the sound of a harmonica, the lilting words of the singer talking about being without a home and nowhere to go. I had to laugh. I opened my eyes and saw Woolly nodding along with the beat. His eyes were half shut and he wore a smile on his face. The song played. It was sad, but it seemed to carry away some of my sadness.
When the song ended, Woolly asked me, “Do you feel better?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. You can’t beat Bob Dylan.”
After a while, he pulled off the road and drove overland and up onto a hilltop that was mostly barren of trees. He turned off the engine and shifted in his seat to face me.
“You’re a rolling stone, Al.” He opened his door. “The campsite is just inside that line of trees,” he said, pointing.
“Woolly?”
“Yeah?”
“Could we keep listening?”
“You bet,” he said. “But I’ve only got the one CD.”
“That’s okay.”
We listened all the way through disc one of The Essential Bob Dylan before we were done unpacking the truck, and after that, we listened again as the sun set and the headlights shone into the forest. We listened to the songs so many times that I learned the words. Woolly played the air guitar and I fashioned a microphone out of a water bottle. We listened and we sang and laughed as if we didn’t have a care in the world. It was the best moment of my life.
And then when wound down, late into the night, with sleep weighing heavy on both of us, Woolly said we should just sleep in the truck that night. I had already propped my backpack against the window and was blinking sleepily.
“Woolly,” I said through a yawn.
“Hm?”
“You think I’ll be okay out here by myself?”
He waited a beat before answering. “I think you will, Alison.”
“And will you—” I stopped, my head nodding, unable to complete the question.
“Will I what?” he asked.
“Will you come visit me? Check on me?”
“Alison, old pal, you couldn’t keep me away.”
CHAPTER 47
In the morning, Woolly helped me with the provisions and equipment Ruby had supplied me with. It looked like there was plenty to get me through winter. Woolly helped me site my new camp and erect my heavy canvas tent. It came complete with a tiny wood-burning stove made from a rusted-out propane tank.
“Why don’t I help you set up a nice big firepit,” he said when the tent was standing taut. He wiped the sweat from his face. “Let’s go find some rocks.”
I followed him into the trees and we stooped and bent among the brush, looking for rocks that would stack and fit together. We piled them up a few at a time.
“You’ll do great here, don’tcha think?” he said as we wandered, searching the ground.
“Yeah. Sure. This little camp is starting to take shape,” I said. “I think a little me-time will do me good. I got some books, a couple blank notebooks. Yeah. I’ll be okay.”
I was trying to be brave. Woolly had been so patient; the least I could do was let him believe I wasn’t afraid or depressed. And I suppose I’d made my peace with my exile, but it would be a long winter. Very long.
“Well, if you change your mind, just follow the river downstream,” said Woolly, picking up a big flat rock that would become the warming fender of my firepit. “Follow it for two or three days and you’ll find the Martinez camp.”
“Thanks,” I replied. We walked back to the campsite. “I feel like I’ll stay away from the communities for a while. You know, stay out of trouble.”
Woolly dropped his armload of stones and hitched up his sagging shorts. “That’ll be the day,” he said.
We built the firepit. It took a couple hours. It was large and sturdy. We banked soil and stones along the far side to reflect heat toward my tent, and we set flag stones around it in a kind of patio. Then Woolly built up the sides and installed a stout cross-member of green aspen to hang a kettle or cook pot.
Then we ate some lunch—canned chili from the supplies Ruby sent, warmed up in the can over a fire we made in the new pit. I thought Woolly would leave then, but he insisted on helping me drag a big gray fallen tree over to make a bench by the fire.
“Can’t have a firepit without a place to sit now, can ya?”
“I’ve got a chair,” I said.
“Well, this’ll be for when I come to visit.”
He busied himself with the bench, fitting it with rocks and smaller logs to make it sturdy.
“It’s gettin’ late, Woolly.”
He stood and squinted at the sun. “Mm. Guess you’re right.”
“Thank you, though,” I said. I didn’t want him to go, but the longer he stayed, the worse it would be when he finally went. “It’s a beautiful camp.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking around admiring the place, nodding, wiping the sweat from his face. “It ain’t bad, is it? So, you’ll be okay here?”
“I think I’ll be very comfortable.”
“Okay then. Guess I’ll get going,” he said with a sad smile. But then he held up a finger. “But there’s one more thing. Hang on.”
He went back to the truck and from under the driver’s seat he removed some kind of bundle tied together with coarse string. He grinned widely as he returned. It was the notebooks.
“These are yours,” he said as he handed the bundled-up journals and notebooks to me. “Well, technically, they’re yours and Arie’s, but you’re the one who saved them.”
I’d already read everything in the journals, but there wasn’t a better gift that Woolly could have given me.
“Thank you, Woolly. I mean it. That’s really nice.”
“There’s one in here you haven’t read,” said Woolly, tapping the notebook at the top of the bundle. It was the red notebook with the skull. “I’ve been working on this a long time. There were errors and inconsistencies that made it rather difficult. But it’s finally finished.”
“Doesn’t this belong to Arie?” I asked.
“He to
ld me he wanted you to have them.”
My heart twinged a little at this.
“What’s in it? What’s it say?”
He raised one eyebrow and lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I would never encourage you to read something that might lead you to do anything rash or risky, Al. You know that. So, I’m not saying, ‘Hurry and read it,’ but I will say this: the whole reason we even know each other is because you were trying to figure out what this notebook said.”
I ran my finger over the symbol, the outline of a skull with a clockface. Staring up from the battered notebook, the symbol was sinister, haunting.
“It’s all there,” said Woolly. “An interesting read for sure. It might give you some answers I know you want. And, well, if you don’t find that interesting, there’s also a copy of The Great Gatsby there that you can add to your winter reading list. Pardon all the weird marks and notes.”
“Thanks, Woolly,” I said, “for this and for everything.”
He gave me a goodbye hug, lifting me off my feet as though I were just a doll. He promised to come and visit once the snow fell.
“If you move out of the area,” said Woolly, “or if something goes wrong, leave a note. Stick it under a rock in the fireplace.”
“Okay.”
“Take care, Al. Be careful.” His eyes were brimming, but he turned away and got into the truck.
I waved goodbye as he drove away in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. I watched until he was out of sight and stayed until I could no longer hear the motor of the truck.
Then, all at once, a solemn loneliness settled around me like heavy banks of snow piling up in a November storm.
CHAPTER 48
I had food. I didn’t have a lot, but I was sure I had enough. They had supplied me with several cases of canned goods that, if they weren’t exactly delicious, they were at least palatable. I also had some cornmeal, beans, oil, salt, and a few other staples that would feed me comfortably throughout the winter.
And tea. I had resupplied my reserve of tea, begging and trading for any little extra I could get.
I had sturdy, warm clothing and shelter, a fine hunting knife, an ax, a rusty but serviceable bow-saw, and fire-making tools. Someone had gifted me a crude fishing rod and Chase had taught me a little about catching fish from the creeks and rivers so common in those mountains. A nice, older lady had given me a “winging stick,” a kind of smooth wooden weapon meant to throw at grouse, like a boomerang that wasn’t designed to come back. Woolly and the others had shown me how to set snares for rabbits and squirrels.
If I rationed my food and supplemented it with wild forage, I could probably hold out all the way to summer.
Happily, I had a few books to read, and notebooks of blank paper to write on. And there were the notebooks, the ones that Woolly had given me. I could read and re-read them all winter, read and re-read about my former self.
And I had work. There were many chores to do each day. Collecting water, gathering firewood, cooking food, improving my camp, and preparing for the hard winter to come.
I felt the weight of my solitude, and although I’d been showing a brave face to Woolly when I told him I needed some me-time, I hadn’t been completely disingenuous. In the prison I’d learned to be alone with myself, an ability that I found valuable. And I considered searching out the other camp, maybe just for a visit, but I decided it really would be best to give myself some time. I felt like a screw-up, a failure, someone who just made things worse for others.
For their sake, I would stay away.
And so I set out to keep busy, take care of business, and be content. I chopped wood, stacking up a supply against the cold. I set snares for rabbits, thinking I might make myself a rabbit-fur comforter. I didn’t catch any rabbits, but my luck was better with the fish. At first I could catch one or two per day, but later I caught more, and it didn’t take as long. In any way possible, I tried to live off the land.
At night, I fell into bed with not an ounce of remaining energy, and I slept soundly.
Each day seemed to get colder. I sealed up and secured my tent until it was as warm as I thought it could be. I piled up firewood and even experimented with dried fish.
On some nights, however, sleep wouldn’t come despite my exhaustion. The few crickets that were still chirping reminded me of the klaxon that wailed out the night Ruby’s team had rescued me and Chase and Arie. That reminded me that someone had been shot and killed that night. And that reminded me of what they told me about before—how I’d put Ruby’s entire camp in danger, and how people had died in the raid that followed.
Chase had told me that I was a cog in an evil machine that I couldn’t control. He said that I couldn’t take so much responsibility. It had weighed on my conscience, but I had listened to and very much appreciated what Chase had said. It had helped me to push it out of my mind.
But now, all alone in a quiet, secluded place, I could not stop my mind from opening up the box and sorting the pieces of these events as though they were shipments I’d received. I examined every item in every package.
I wasn’t told who had died. I purposely did not ask. I wouldn’t have remembered them anyway, but at the time, I thought it would be easier to not know.
Now, I wanted to know. Not just their names, I wanted to know everything about them. What they looked like. Who they loved. What their dreams were. I felt it was part of the burden I needed to carry.
As the days wore on and light snowstorms blew through my little valley, an ache began to form inside me. I wanted to make things right, or at least better, but I knew I never could. How can you bring back something that’s gone? You can’t. I knew. I sniffed. My nose was already runny from the colder air. And sometimes, as I reflected on the people whose deaths I was responsible for, hot tears ran down my cold cheeks.
Almost a foot of snow fell, and it stayed. My camp was ready—I had firewood, a little dried fish, and I was even able to trap a few rabbits and wing some grouse. I’d barely put a dent in the supplies Ruby had given me.
But my mind was constantly whirling. How could I fix what I’d done? And always the answer was that, without the benefit of a time machine, I couldn’t. I lay in bed, not sleeping. With snow on the ground it was utterly quiet outside while my thoughts clamored inside my head. In some ways I welcomed the hurt and the anguish. I deserved the pain and accepted it. But there was nothing I could do with it. That was the problem. I could not trade places with those who had suffered, and I couldn’t otherwise reverse their suffering.
One morning, I went to the spring and hauled a three-day supply of water through the cold. Then I hiked a mile to the nearest creek and caught fish, chopped firewood even though I didn’t really need any, and set new rabbit snares in a wide circuit around the forest. I returned to camp in the dark, lit the coals in my little stove until the tent was hot, ate a big dinner of canned food, and lay down on my cot. Sleep came, finally, but before dawn the next morning I was visited by terrible dreams, ghostly images of dead people, those who I knew I was responsible for. They gathered around my tent, their fingers stretched out and pointing at me. Men and women, young and old. They came into my tent and pointed their fingers at me.
“You,” they said, one by one.
“You.”
“You.”
I woke abruptly, covered with sweat. The stove had gone cold. I lay back down and pulled my blankets up around my ears, but sleep did not come back. I lay on the cot with my eyes closed, but I was awake with my thoughts. When the sun rose, I knew I should get up. I needed to light the stove so that my water didn’t freeze. I needed to eat. I needed to check my tent lines and stakes to make sure they were secure against future snowfall.
But I was numb—the guilt had finally caught up to me. And so I didn’t get up. I just stared at the side of my tent, watching the sunlight move across it. I got up at some point to pee, but then I went right back to bed. I didn’t have the energy for anything. Eventua
lly, I even quit thinking about anything. I’d shut down.
It was in the afternoon that I heard the vehicle. I don’t know if it was that same day or if another day or more had passed. I was in a mental fog.
The vehicle was obviously a truck with low gearing, something that could climb the logging road. At first it was far away, at the bottom of the hill, grumbling up the steep grade and through the slippery snow. It was at least something for my mind to focus on. I listened but didn’t move from my cot.
Was it an Agency detachment, rounding up stragglers from the summer’s raids? Was it Woolly, coming to check on me? I’d left him with the impression that I’d be fine, and he’d be disappointed to find me this way.
The truck neared. I could picture it at the clearing where the road stopped. Through the clear, cold air, I heard the engine stop. Then there was the thunking of doors. I may have heard a voice. Then the vehicle started again and slowly receded.
Silence again. I didn’t respond. I didn’t care.
But soon I heard a new sound. Boots crunching on snow, approaching. They came closer. First, they were at the edge of the woods, then they came down the trail to my camp, and to the front of my tent. I stayed quiet, not because of fear but because I simply didn’t care what happened next. Friend or assassin—what difference would it make? Someone fiddled and fumbled with the front flap of my tent. The outer fly was opened and there came the heavy metallic buzz of the heavy brass zipper being drawn open.
It was Chase.
CHAPTER 49
“Hey, Al,” said Chase.
It surprised me so much that for a moment I didn’t respond. I blinked my eyes and tried to puzzle out if he were really there and, if so, why.
“Al? You okay?
“Yeah,” I finally said.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said again.
I felt that I’d reached some new low, some rock-bottom. At least in the prison I was looking for ways to survive. Now I was lying in bed wondering how long it’d be before the winter took me. And I’m sure I looked low. My heart broke at the sight of Chase.
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 22