That sent Peter into a story about how he worked as a prep chef in a restaurant in Oregon when he was in college, and his specialty was a Texas chili with mango.
“It was like this really crazy flavor combination,” he said. “The bite of the chili peppers and the smooth sweetness of the mango. Ahh, I’d eat half of it just tasting it in the kitchen.”
“Oh, that sounds heavenly,” I said, and then I launched into a story of a trip I took to Peru. “On every street there were vendors selling these things called antichucos,” I told them. “It was strips of grilled beef on a stick with a potato stuck on the end of the stick. And they gave you this aji sauce—it was so hot my eyes would cross, but I couldn’t stop eating them.”
They laughed, and I laughed, and the stories continued until all that remained was the wine in the bota. When we finished that off, we were quiet again, and we watched the fire reduce itself to a bed of embers that pulsed red and violet.
Peter smiled at us from his place across the fire. “You guys are two of my favorites,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed our time together. I’ve learned a lot.” He was still slightly cryptic—surely the only thing he could have learned was that we were annoyingly impatient and persistent—but I felt that we were finally in the company of the real Peter, the one he kept secret, the one he saved for special occasions.
“We should probably leave in the morning,” said Chase.
Peter nodded serenely. “I know.”
I said, “A few days ago I couldn’t wait to leave. Now I want to stay.”
“No, you need to keep moving,” said Peter. “We all have different, like, purposes, you know? I don’t mean like one person’s a doctor and another person drives a taxi. I painted houses for years and years. That’s not what I mean. I mean your actual gosh dang purpose. I didn’t know what mine was at first, but now I know. It’s to be here in the mountains. That’s mine. Yours? Yours is to go. Find your son and friends do whatever comes after that. That’s yours.”
I had told Peter about Arie and Ruby and the others, but I never thought he was listening.
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”
“Hey. Guess what?” said Peter suddenly. He clapped his hands once, making a bright, cheerful sound, almost like a chime. “I’ve got something for you. A going-away present.”
Chase and I watched him rise and wobble, a bit tipsy, to the wall of the tee-pee where from a peg there hung a satchel the size of a hefty paperback novel.
“I know you don’t like the taste,” said Peter, “but I thought maybe some of the people you’ll be meeting might like to try it.”
I put my nose to the satchel. “The tea?”
He nodded. “Doesn’t take much. Maybe like a teaspoon. But don’t be stingy. I know it tastes like soup made from dead bugs and dirt clods, but, well, I guess you know.”
“But there must be almost a pound of it here,” I protested. “How long did it take to grow this much? We can’t take this much.” I tried to hand it back to him.
Peter scoffed. “I’m not liable to run out,” said Peter. “Not anytime soon. Trust me. I can afford it.”
“And this will—?” I trailed off, unsure of what I was asking, precisely. “This will do for others what it did for Chase and me?”
“Like I told you,” said Peter. “I’m not sure what you were struggling with. Memories, I guess. There was another group with the same issue who came through a while ago. Will it help? I don’t know. But it can’t hurt.”
“How can we thank you, Peter?” said Chase.
Peter scoffed again and shook his head.
“No, really, Peter,” I said. “You don’t understand. You saved our lives. We’re different people now.”
“You’re always a different person,” said Peter sternly. “I’m not the person you first met here in this very tee-pee, and you’re not the person who walked in all cold and scared. One moment at a time, Alison. We discussed this. You can never step into the same river twice. Chase? Help me out. This is basic stuff.”
“Yeah,” said Chase with a smile. “He’s right, Al.”
“No, Peter,” I said, raising my voice. “We owe you our lives.”
“Why? You visited me. We talked. We shared. You learned some things. I learned some things. Now it’s time for you to go. You thank me and I thank you. There’s nothing owed.”
“You gave us a present,” I said. “We want to give you one.”
Peter stuck out his lower lip. “Hmm. Well, when you put it that way.” He put a finger to his chin and thought.
Chase and I waited.
“Two things, I guess, would make me very happy.”
“Anything.”
“Help your people find their answers. To be honest, I don’t think the tea is, like, necessary. I think it’s all about knowing yourself, questioning yourself, believing yourself. But the tea is like helpful. I’ll be here if you need more, and if I’m not here, well, this stuff just grows right up out of the ground around here. You’ll figure it out. But take what I packaged up for you and help your people. Show them the Guide.”
I wanted to do something for Peter, or give something to Peter, but it was obvious he wasn’t having it. “Okay,” I said. “Done. What’s the other thing?”
“Well,” he said. “You were looking for memories, right? Something like that?”
“Yes. So, what’s the second thing?”
“Remember me.”
CHAPTER 59
It seemed we reached Ruby’s camp just in time. As we came from the mountain of the bear, we hit the main trail and began to make the climb to Ruby’s camp, where we met a line of hikers carrying supplies, presumably down to the road, where they’d be loaded onto vehicles.
They smiled and greeted us as we passed them by, but it wasn’t long before we were intercepted by guards.
“What are you guys doing here?” asked a guard named Richard. He was armed, but he didn’t take his pistol from its holster, and the guard he was with left his rifle slung on his shoulder.
“I guess we’re back,” said Chase.
Richard sighed and put his hands on his hips. “Well, I’m sorry to have to do this, but we have strict orders to take you into custody on sight.”
The lookout guards recognized us, and we recognized them.
“That’s fine,” Chase said holding his hands out so they could be cuffed.
“I’m not gonna cuff you,” said Richard. “Long as you promise not to do anything stupid.”
“Oh, man,” said Chase. “If I had a buck for every time I made that promise.”
“I think you should cuff us,” I said. “I don’t want you to be in trouble with Ruby.”
“I appreciate that,” said Richard. He and the other guard each produced a pair of handcuffs. They offered to carry our packs, but we told them we could manage as long as they cuffed our wrists in front of us.
“So, Ruby’s still here?” I asked. “You’ll take us straight to her?”
“Those are my orders,” said Richard.
“Good,” I said. “We need to talk to her.” I was telling the truth, but I could hardly contain my excitement to see Woolly again, and especially Arie.
Richard and the other guard marched us into the camp. Very few tents were left standing, and there was gear and provisions stacked up here and there awaiting transport. We went to Ruby’s tent. The tchotchkes and fetishes and wood carvings had been packed up, and most of the maps had been unpinned from the back wall, but the warm scent of Ruby’s mountain tea remained. A torrent of memories came to my mind—not just of being in this camp, but going back to my first meeting with Ruby, when Arie and I were attacked by the dogs. I thought about her hideout under the haunted house ride at Thrill Harbor, and Ruby visiting me, basically uninvited, at the house where Arie and I lived in Zone 1891. We take for granted the places that are home for us—not necessarily just the places we live, but the places where our souls are comfortable.
And there
, sitting in a camp at her pine-plank desk, was Ruby herself. She sat with her bad leg stretched out in front of her, tilting her head and angling her spectacles and reading that day’s notes and messages with a testy grimace on her face. Surely she’d heard of our coming from someone who’d run out in advance, but she would not raise her eyes to us. She let us stand there.
Standing behind her were Arie and Woolly. Arie was apparently a lieutenant now, and this was the new leadership team. They looked at us nervously as we entered. Arie shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. Woolly greeted us with his eyes only, then pretended to study something interesting on the canvas ceiling of the tent.
I couldn’t help myself; I broke into a broad grin. I remembered all the times I’d been reunited with these people, my friends, my family. There’d been times I thought I’d never see any of them again, and times I’d seen them again but didn’t remember them. There was the time we all helped Woolly after he took the serum. And I thought especially of re-uniting with Arie, meeting him so many times for the first time. This time it was different. This time I was not meeting Arie as a stranger who merely hoped for some connection. This time I remembered him. I remembered everything about him from the first moment I’d felt him stir inside me. I knew him. I knew him as a mother knew and loved her child.
“Ruby, it’s us,” Chase said, leveling his full power to charm directly at her.
But still Ruby kept her eyes on the page of notes she was reading. She read it to the end and didn’t look up then either. She made a few notes herself with the stub of a pencil, set the pencil and notes aside, drew in a breath and let it out, and only then did she raise her head to see us.
Chase and I smiled weakly.
Ruby’s face was impassive, almost sad. Definitely weary, but then again, she usually was these days. The last time I’d seen her was when she had banished me, and I imagined the last time she’d seen Chase was when he’d told her he was leaving to be with me. I thought she was probably trying to project a certain imperious dissatisfaction, but I detected a guarded uneasiness.
“Take them cuffs off ’em,” she said, exasperated. “Then you two go back on watch.”
Richard unlocked and retrieved the cuffs, and then they left. Ruby struggled out of her chair and stood, but then waited for the sound of their footsteps to recede. When she was sure they’d gone away, she shouted, “What in tarnation d’ya think yer doin’ here? I haven’t changed my mind about nothin’.”
That wiped the smiles from our faces, anyway. Ruby hurried on.
“You’re still ban—er—restricted from this here camp,” she said sharply, pointing at me, “an’ you walked out on us,” she added, pointing at Chase.
“We know,” I said. “We’re not here to stay.”
Ruby frowned at us, her mouth open, searching for words but not finding them. She sat in the chair again.
“Well, then git, both a ya’,” she said.
“Ruby,” said Woolly quietly.
“What?” she said, turning in her seat to address Woolly. “Whaddya want me to do? Throw ’em a damn party?”
“Just listen to what they have to say,” he said, with his quiet boldness. “Judging from the looks on their faces, this is gonna be pretty interesting.”
“Ah, hell,” said Ruby. “Fine. What is it? Why ya messin’ around these parts?”
Chase took a step forward. “Ruby, remember back when it was just me and you?”
Ruby knitted her brows, tilted her head.
“Back then,” Chase continued, “there was no sneaking into Agency buildings or planning raids. We were just two people who hated the Agency goons and were sick of the rations. Remember? And you came up with this system to trade and barter and make life a little easier. And you brought me in on it because I’d gotten that old Honda to run.”
Ruby’s eyes grew wide.
“Remember what you said to me?” Chase asked. “You said, ‘Nothing will change for the better if nobody tries to make a difference.’ Remember saying that?”
“And remember at the safe-house?” I added. “When you taught me how to shoot a gun? In fact, the first time I’d ever touched a gun, ever, in my entire life, was that day those goons were after you, and you gave me your pistol out in the neighborhoods. I hid in an old church until you got back.”
Ruby’s gaze zipped from me to Chase. Her mouth gaped and her eyes got big.
“How?” she whispered, elongating the word into an amazed sigh.
Behind her, Woolly stood with his arms folded but eyes narrowed, trying to decide what to make of all this. Arie was still and quiet, but listening intently.
“You went back to the Agency?” Ruby marveled, rocking in her seat to stand again. “You got it? You got the cure? It’s real?”
“No, not the Agency,” said Chase. “We don’t need them.”
“But your memories are back? All of ’em? How far back?”
“To the beginning,” I said. “Everything. The virus was real. The Agency serum was real. Whether or not the memory wipe part was necessary, we don’t know. But, Ruby—” my voice caught in my throat “—I have my life back. You can, too. All of us.”
She regarded us with open suspicion. Woolly and Arie seemed wary, too.
Ruby slowly shook her head and said, “Listen, you two, I ain’t gonna open up this whole camp to getting their hopes up fer nothin’. You’re gonna hafta explain to me how this all happened. You’re gonna hafta prove it. Take them packs off and sit your asses down. Woolly, take the kid and quick and get us some food and coffee and we’ll get to the bottom ’a this. Don’t leave nothin’ out.”
CHAPTER 60
I shouldn’t have been surprised at Ruby’s suspicious reception of the story we presented. Ruby’s doubt, her mistrust of us—I guess she had to approach our claims that way, for her own benefit and protection, and on behalf of the others in the camp. In fact, if I had brought the information to Ruby all by myself, I think she would have simply laughed in my face and sent me away again. But even with Chase to confirm it all, we had remarkable difficulty convincing her. We told the story at least three times. She cross-examined us again and again, asking for more detail, trying to trip us up, making sure my version of events agreed with Chase’s.
In the end, it was our actual memories that made the case. There were certain moments Chase and I had shared privately with Ruby that we could not know unless we had really lived them.
When Ruby had absorbed it all, finally accepted that Peter’s strange tea was our way forward, she sat in her chair for a long time. On her face she had a sort of shattered expression. I think I knew how she felt—a certain disbelief, a heavy sense of finality.
“Listen,” she said, her chin and lips quivering as though she were about to break down sobbing, “you all gotta give me a few minutes to myself here. I need a minute to just kinda think about—” and then she lost it.
Her stout frame shook heavily with great heaving sobs, and tears practically squirted from her eyes. She pressed the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. Her cheeks and neck were wet in no time. We stood up to go, but we crowded each other awkwardly to get out of the tent.
“I’m sorry, everyone,” said Ruby between her moans and sobbing, “I just can’t hardly believe we’ve finally made it.”
Woolly put one of his large hands on her shoulder as we went out.
There was another meeting after that. We crowded back into Ruby’s tent and discussed at length how to test the tea, how to distribute it, and what to do after that. We decided that a test-subject or two would be best to confirm that the concoction that Peter had given us would work the same way it had in Peter’s camp. Arie and Woolly instantly volunteered.
“No,” said Ruby. “Not you two. If I was ta’ lose you two I think I’d about die.”
“You’re not going to lose them,” said Chase. “It’s a mild hallucinogenic.”
“It’s a mushroom!” cried Ruby. “Mo
sta them things is poisonous!”
“You mean toxic,” said Woolly.
“Same difference!”
“Ruby,” said Woolly, “this seems very safe. I’m still dubious about how or if it will work, but Alison and Chase are standing here, perfectly healthy and with their memories. Arie and I will be more useful for managing this project after we’ve gone through the process and after we have our memories back. Who knows what we’ll remember?”
But Ruby would not relent. She scolded, shouted, waved her arms.
After what seemed like hours of bickering, Ruby agreed to let either Arie or Woolly serve as the test subject, and a coin-flip would decide the matter.
Ruby produced a coin—an ancient quarter from the back before. It was rubbed almost smooth, it’s markings distinguishable but only just.
“It was in my pocket the day I first woke up in the Agency infirmary. Don’t know where it come from, but I kept it ever since.”
Chase took it from Ruby’s palm.
“Call it in the air, kid.”
He placed the coin on his thumbnail. There was a soft ping! as he flipped it. It arced into the air, rotating, a blur.
“Heads,” shouted Arie.
Oh, please let it be heads, I thought.
We all stepped back to let it bounce on the floor of Ruby’s tent. It came to rest and we leaned in squinting to see.
Tails.
Woolly said, “Yes,” quietly, through clenched teeth.
Arie’s expression fell. I winced internally, too.
Ruby sighed. Her eyes welled with tears. She said, “All right, then. Go an’ try it.”
“What do I do?” said Woolly turning to me.
“We should set you up in a tent by yourself,” I said, “Where you can be comfortable and relaxed for a day or two. There’s still time tonight for your first cup, and then I guess we’ll see what happens.”
“My tent is still standing,” said Woolly.
“Then let’s go,” I said.
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 27