The Trip to Raptor Bluff

by Annie O'Haegan

  Brenda thought for a second before laying a hand on Pepper’s shoulder. “You are right. She will ask to see him unless we can tell her he’s already buried. We can dig the hole where we hid him at the back of the property.”

  “Did you see the sky? It’s going to start raining and besides, the only area that isn’t rocky is the front lawn, and I don’t think we should put him there. Diana has a big raised garden in the back yard; it’s where I found the shovel and pick. We can bury him there. The hole won’t be that deep but we can cover him with a pile of rocks.”

  “Pepper, we would be running in circles if we didn’t have you here to guide us,” Brenda said. She was trying to be playful but her eyes filled with tears. “I would still be struggling up that broken road if you hadn’t found a short-cut through the woods.”

  Pepper brushed off the compliment with a half-smile. “It seems to me like everyone on our team has some qualities that keep us going.”

  Pepper sat with the sleeping Diana while Brenda dug the grave. Libby and Shelly were sent to the previous night’s camp to fill the empty water bottles and retrieve their remaining supplies. When they returned from their second trip and all of their belongings were safely stashed inside, Brenda asked Libby to stay with Diana. She, Shelly, and Pepper moved Edward’s body into his shallow grave and covered it with a mound of garden dirt. Afterwards, they placed a large pile of stones on the grave.

  “Here, let’s hold hands and have a few moments of silence,” said Brenda. “We’ve done the very best we can to give Edward a decent resting place. His grave looks like an ancient cairn: a burial monument made from stones. Something tells me he appreciates that.”

  Libby stayed busy moving mattresses from the bedrooms to the family room, and picking up fallen clutter in the kitchen and living area. She had already started a fire in the large stone fireplace and stacked the hearth with a pile of split wood she found beside the garage. Everything that could be moved from the exposed master bedroom - even the items from the dresser drawers and closets - was piled neatly in the guest rooms and office.

  The rain started as Brenda, Pepper, and Shelly were walking to the back door leading into the kitchen.

  “Just made it! We’ve been really lucky today,” said Shelly with a shiver.

  “We’ve been more than lucky. We’ve been blessed,” said Brenda a few minutes later. She walked out of a large pantry carrying a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a squeeze bottle of honey, and a tin of gourmet cookies. “The pantry is completely stocked.”

  Dusk was upon them when Diana whimpered in pain and began to awaken. Brenda removed a steaming teapot from the fireplace and made a cup of tea. She sweetened it heavily and sat on the floor beside Diana’s mattress. Fifteen minutes later, Diana whimpered again and opened her eyes. She blinked in confusion and then her face crumpled as memories assailed her. “Edward,” she wept.

  Brenda grasped Diana’s hand and said nothing.

  “He didn’t make it, did he?” Diana’s eyes were squeezed shut and tears ran down her temples and into her hair. “He never made a sound. I should have heard him calling for help but he never made a sound.”

  “He died instantly, Diana. He didn’t suffer, I can promise you that,” Brenda said softly. “We buried him in your raised garden. It was… it was necessary to bury him as quickly as possible.” She gently wiped the tears from Diana’s face. “I need to ask you a question, OK? It is important. Is it possible that there are more people up here who might need help?”

  “No. These are summer homes and most people don’t arrive until mid-to-late June.”

  “Are you sure about that? I found a bag of fresh potatoes in a home one street below yours.”

  “The Grants have their groundskeeper stock up on food before they get here. They always arrive the third week of June. I would know if anyone else were here because we all make a point of announcing ourselves when we arrive. It’s a custom we’ve always kept to.”

  “Can you help me sit you up? I have some warm tea for you, and you need to eat something.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that Diana realized she was indoors. “How did I…”

  “We were able to free you from underneath the tree and bring you inside. Your foot and ankle are broken in multiple places. Here, help me pull you up.”

  Diana struggled to sit up and screamed in agony.

  “There’s nothing I can do for you except try to minimize the pain,” said Brenda, shakily. “I’m so sorry!”

  “Shelly and I can help lift her shoulders,” said Pepper. “Libby, go get Diana a nightgown or something, OK? I don’t know where you put her stuff when you moved it out of her bedroom.”

  Brenda gave Diana an OxyContin and hand-fed her bits of a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Tears continued to fall from Diana’s eyes as she ate. By the time she finished her second cup of tea, the tears had stopped and her eyes were heavy lidded and dull from the opiate. Brenda exhaled deeply when Diana finally closed her eyes, and then groaned when the strong smell of urine suddenly permeated the area.

  “The towel diaper with the garbage bag over it was a brilliant idea, Libby,” sighed Brenda. “Let’s get her cleaned up and then we can all go to bed.”

  They were settled on their mattresses a few minutes later when Shelly’s soft voice floated through the darkness. “You did a good job with Diana, Mom. You’ve done a good job with everything.”

  “I’m just so happy to be full and warm,” whispered Pepper.

  “I’m not so scared anymore,” added Libby.

  “I’m so proud of all of you,” choked Brenda. “Sweet dreams.”

  The rain continued to fall and the house rattled as an aftershock pitched the ground, causing Diana to cry out in her coma-like sleep. The candles on the hearth and floor flickered. Brenda waited for the earth to settle and released the breath she held. The house was still stable.

  Rick, Abby, and Leanna

  Leanna struggled to keep up with Rick and Abby but wasn’t about to let them know it. When they awoke the morning after their hike down Hammer Mountain though, she couldn’t suppress a groan when she stood up.

  “We will take it a little easier from here,” said Rick. “I’ve thought through our evacuation plan and changed my mind. We are not going to try to follow a main highway heading in any direction. I think we need to follow our water source, which heads straight east…”

  “Why?” interrupted Leanna. “The highway should be just a few miles from here. Why would we follow the creek instead? Even if the highway is torn up, at least the ground around it will be somewhat level. If we keep going east, we will have to go through all those trees and brush. And look at the hills!”

  “What’s your thinking, Rick?” Abby asked, giving Leanna an irritated sidelong glance.

  “The whole USA got a D+ rating when bridges, roads, overpasses, dams, and other infrastructure were assessed, and that was only a few years ago. New infrastructure is still in the planning stages and very little has been done to replace our old structures. Besides that, most of the bridges in the Pacific Northwest were built long before scientists knew that the Cascadia subduction zone held the threat of a megathrust earthquake. My thinking is that most of the highway bridges will be impassable, along with long stretches of the highway itself.”

  “So we won’t be able to cross any rivers or gorges along the way, even if the roads are passable,” said Abby.

  “I am less worried about crossing rivers than I am about mixing with hordes of frustrated humans. Think about it. Everyone who was in Port Fortand and survived the quake and tsunamis will go to the coast because the bridge collapsed and there aren’t any roads out, right? They know that rescue and aid will have to come in by helicopter or boat. Everyone who lived outside the town probably found the nearest highway and headed anywhere but west.”

  “So?” cried Leanna with frustration. “I wouldn’t mind being around other people right now. I guess I just don’t understand your wo
rry.”

  “Rick, I think I see where you are going with this,” said Abby. “Thousands of people tried to evacuate along the highways and got stuck. There will be traffic jams and food and water shortages.”

  “The main highways will be thronged with people who can’t get past demolished overpasses and bridges. It will be mile after mile of parking lot. Hungry and thirsty humans will be everywhere. Some will be thugs and some will be desperate. Lots of them will be armed. It’s just too dangerous. We are staying off the roads until we get well inland, and even then we are going to avoid the main roads.”

  Abby nodded in affirmation. “We could see some houses and planted fields to the east from Hammer Mountain. They were really far away but I agree with Rick. I would rather walk on tougher terrain, especially with clean water running through it, than get stuck in riots.”

  “I wish I had gone with Lucy’s group,” muttered Leanna dejectedly.

  “It’s not too late, Leanna,” Rick said mildly. “Go due north on level ground and you can’t miss the broken bridge. You will smell marine decay from the tsunami before you even get there. It will be a tough walk to the coast through the debris fields but you should still arrive by nightfall.”

  “By myself?” Leanna looked stricken.

  Abby shouldered her backpack. “Make up your mind, Leanna. Either come with us or go to Port Fortand. I don’t feel like spending any more time rehashing everything we already told you. You need to make a decision.”

  “What’s your problem?” snapped Leanna.

  “I don’t have a problem. You do. You…”

  “Truce!” cried Rick, stepping between the girls. “We are all tired, hungry, and sore. Let’s not make this any worse than it already is, OK? I’m heading east. Whoever is coming with me, let’s just go.”

  Leanna struggled into her backpack, sighed heavily, and followed Rick and Abby.

  “You guys want me to tell you the most disturbing true story you will ever hear?” Rick asked. “And you have to give me your word that you will never ever repeat it.” His tactic to quell the tension worked instantaneously; both girls scurried up beside him.

  “My grandmother was a Nazi concentration camp guard.”

  Abby laughed out loud and Leanna quipped, “Yeah, sure Rick.”

  “I kid you not! She was my mother’s mother and she kept it a secret from everyone, even my grandfather. Granddad died without having a clue. Mutti, my grandmother, confessed it to my mother the night before she died. I was in high school at the time.”

  “You are serious, aren’t you?” gasped Leanna.

  “He’s joking, Leanna. She would have been prosecuted for war crimes. No one can keep a secret like that from Nazi hunters. They are too good at what they do.”

  “It gets much, much worse,” said Rick.

  “Well?” Abby poked him in the side to end his smug silence. “Are you going to say something or do you need more time to fabricate your story?”

  “Mutti was born in Germany in 1925. She told my mom that she was born to a dirt-poor family, and when I say dirt-poor, I mean go-to-bed-hungry poor. She was basically an illiterate peasant until Hitler came to power. When she was in her late teens, the whole world opened up for her in the form of paid work overseeing the kitchen at a female concentration camp outside of Leipzig. I can’t remember the name of the camp, only that it was a sub-camp of Buchenwald that used slave labor to make munitions for the German army. For the first time in her life, Mutti had enough to eat and some control over her own destiny. She rose in rank until she had responsibility for critical factory assembly lines. She worked there for two years overseeing those slave laborers. Most of them were Jewish women who were transferred from other camps, including the camps at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. In April of 1945, American servicemen liberated the camp. By then, most of the women prisoners were already gone; they had been sent on a death march heading towards Czechoslovakia. Only the sick ones were left behind.”

  “Are you for real, Rick?” Leanna demanded.

  “Leanna, I swear on my own life. I am telling you the truth.”

  “Keep going!” Abby urged impatiently.

  “Mutti was illiterate but she wasn’t stupid. While she worked at the camp, she bribed the prisoners with food to teach her how to read, write, and do basic math. It wasn’t hard; the prisoners were literally starving to death, and a lot of them had university degrees. Then she planned for the future. Germany had already lost the battle for Stalingrad and people were talking about the possibility that Germany could lose the war. Mutti had a plan to save herself either way. If Germany won the war, she would present herself as a loyal Nazi and be rewarded for her war effort. If Germany lost the war, then she would present herself as a prisoner of the Nazis. In other words, she would tell the Allies that she was a slave laborer in the camp where she worked as a guard.”

  “Hang on, Rick,” scoffed Abby. “So how did a healthy guard pass herself off as a starving prisoner? And why didn’t the real prisoners turn her in for being a Nazi?”

  “That is an excellent question, Abby. Mutti waited until the death marchers and guards were gone before she shaved her head, stole filthy prison clothes, and hid in the vacant barracks while the US soldiers and the Red Cross took care of the prisoners who were too sick to transport. She was thin to begin with, and she didn’t eat for the entire time she stayed hidden. She slept on filthy straw under the bunks, and she didn’t even wash her face while she waited for the very last of the Americans to pull out. Then she appeared from out of nowhere looking hungry and filthy, which she was. My grandfather, a nice Mormon farm boy from Idaho, was in the Jeep she flagged down. She told him she had stayed hidden because she was afraid the Nazis would come back, and based on her appearance, he believed her. She claimed that her whole family was dead so she had nowhere to go, but she begged him not to send her to a refugee center; she said the sight of other camp survivors would be a terrible reminder of her suffering.”

  “She didn’t want to be recognized by the real survivors,” stated Leanna.

  “Exactly.”

  “Your grandfather didn’t look into her past? Couldn’t he just do some kind of background check on her and find out she was really a guard instead of a prisoner?” asked Abby.

  “That’s another good question, Abby. Mutti told him her name was Greta Weber. The real Greta Weber was a friend of hers who was killed in a Leipzig bombing raid late in the war. Things were such a mess in Germany at that time with so many people dead and missing, that even if Granddad had checked up on her – which he didn’t – her story could have checked out.”

  “So they got married and lived happily ever after,” said Leanna. “You are right. That is the creepiest story I have ever heard.”

  “It’s evil,” shuddered Abby. “What I don’t get is why she spilled the beans after keeping the secret for so long. I mean, you said your grandfather didn’t even know about her past when he died. So why did she tell your mother?”

  “That’s the worst part, actually. Mutti was dying of cancer when she told my mother. It was the night before she died and Mom was visiting her in the hospital. Mom came home that night looking shell shocked, and she didn’t say a word for weeks. It was right around that time that she started seeing a psychiatrist. We kids couldn’t get her to talk about it for a couple of years, but we never stopped bugging her about ‘the night she came home different’ and she eventually told us.”

  “That story would send me to a psychiatrist, too,” said Leanna.

  “It really devastated Mom, but Mutti’s role as a Nazi guard wasn’t the worst part of the story; it was the way Mutti felt about it. Mutti wasn’t crazed on drugs or demented when she told Mom about her past; she confessed to my mother that she didn’t want to die without telling someone about her proudest lifetime achievement. She just had to brag about pulling herself out of destitution and illiteracy by becoming a prison camp guard for Nazi Germany. In her mind, that job was the most rewardi
ng experience of her life.” Rick looked like he was still trying to grasp the horrible concept when he said, “Mutti always came across as cold and distant, but Mom said everyone attributed that to her years in a concentration camp. The Mutti that everyone knew was loyal to her husband and took good care of her house and daughter, so people made excuses for her cold personality. Now we know – all these years later – that my grandmother was a true sociopath who successfully hid her true self until the night before she died. She flat out refused to tell Mom her real name so there is no way to trace her. Mom found her Nazi work permit rolled up inside the leg of an antique table when she was refinishing it, but the name on the permit also belonged to a dead woman. We hired investigators in Germany and even they can’t find her. They found records for Greta Weber, who really did die in a Leipzig bombing raid, and they found records for the dead woman named on Mutti’s work permit, but they cannot find the real Mutti.”

  “So she stole an identity before she even applied for the prison guard job,” said Abby. “She must have been in some kind of trouble with the law before she worked for the Nazis.”

  “That’s right. She had to be a criminal of some sort, even as a young girl.”

  “Oh my god!” cried Leanna. “Your poor mom!”

  “It was really hard on Mom for a while, but the therapy worked and she started to feel better. She felt much better, actually. She went to the psychiatrist for help getting through the terrible guilt and shame she felt, even though she was innocent. The psychiatrist uncovered a second issue that hadn’t even occurred to Mom. Mom had lived her entire life thinking there was something was wrong with her because her own mother didn’t love her. Mutti played the part of wife and mother so well, and she was an active member of the Mormon Church. She couldn’t fake love though, and something inside Mom’s subconscious mind sensed that Mutti had no feelings for her. In the end, that terrible truth about Mutti’s secret past freed Mom. Mom came to understand that it wasn’t her fault that Mutti didn’t love her. Mutti was incapable of loving anyone. She was a monster and a coward who chose to burden her only child with her horrible past, but refused to reveal her true identity.”