Reckless

by Lesley Choyce

  I wondered for a minute and then decided not to say, I didn’t. Maybe it really was his birthday. Maybe not. I let him have his moment. He lifted out the potatoes. “Spuds. Haven’t had spuds in a year. I’ve been eating these instead,” he said, pointing at the roots he had gathered, now laying on the ground. “Indian cucumber, it’s called. It’s all right but not the same. Some nights I wake up dreaming that I’m frying potatoes in a pan. I can even smell them cooking.”

  He continued to look at each item in a kind of wonder, moving his hands around the square bottle of corn oil and weighing the bag of flour. And then he sat down on the ground and began to cry.

  I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing. After a few minutes of sobbing, Jonathan stood up. He looked embarrassed. He blinked a couple of times and said, “There, I think I can see better now.” I think he was joking. He motioned for me to sit back down in his homemade chair. He sat down on a log.

  There were rifle shots—hunters. But they were a long way off. Jonathan’s eyes darted away, but then he looked straight at me.

  “When you kill a man with your bare hands, your hands are never the same again,” he said. “And you have to look at those hands for the rest of your life. That’s the hard part.”

  “This was the war?”

  “I never should have gone. Worst of it was, I was good at it.” There was another gun shot. And another. “Guess I was like them.” He nodded toward the gunfire. “It’s easy to kill a living thing, even a man, from a distance. You aim, fire, walk away. But I ended up in a foxhole. Thought no one was there. And there was the enemy. Face-to-face finally. No room to shoot. All I could do was put my hands on his throat. No time to think. It wasn’t until he was dead that I realized he was just a kid.” He paused. “Your age.” We heard another three shots and someone yelling in triumph. I wondered what they had killed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was. All I wanted to do was run and hide.”

  “That was all a long time ago, right?”

  “I was married, you know,” he said.

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “When I finally made it back home, she said I should turn myself in. But I couldn’t do that. So I ran. I came here.” He swallowed. “And never left.”

  He had a far-off look now. “You okay?” I asked.

  “Everything went out of focus and dim again,” he said. Then he shrugged. “But I guess I’m getting old.”

  “How often is this happening?”

  He swallowed and tried to focus on me again, but it was like he was seeing right through me. “It was like once a month before. Now it’s a couple of times a day.”

  I thought about it for a minute. There was a doctor in town. An old guy, kind of quirky and retired. “Jonathan, why don’t you let me ride you into town so you could get checked out by a doctor?”

  He stood bolt upright, and a look of panic came over him. He stepped back and stumbled a little. “No,” was all he said. “Now go.” He turned and went into his cabin. I heard him lock the latch.

  chapter nine

  It took a couple of trips back to Jonathan before he accepted me again. I told him I wasn’t going to take him to a doctor. I brought him more food and even multivitamins. I had read on the Internet that kids in poor countries have failing eyesight from a lack of vitamin A. It was likely that Jonathan was missing some things in his diet, so what the heck.

  I handed him the bottle of vitamins and told him to see if they helped his eyesight.

  “I don’t take drugs,” he said.

  “These are vitamins, that’s all.”

  “Manufactured?”

  “Well, yes. I guess so.”

  “I don’t trust the companies that make them. You don’t know what could be in there.”

  “True. But trust me on this.” I cracked the seal on the cap, opened it and popped one in my mouth. “They’re chewable,” I said. “Tastes like oranges. Well, sort of like oranges.” I handed him the bottle and he studied it.

  Then we sat in silence for over ten minutes. I had learned not to push things.

  Eventually he put the vitamins in his coat pocket and pointed up at the sky. “You believe in UFOs?”

  “Maybe. You?”

  “Yeah. I think they’re up there protecting us.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just think they are watching us. I think that they watch all the terrible things people do and wish they could stop all the hurting. But they can’t.”

  “You’ve had contact with them?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I see things moving in the sky at night. I’m pretty sure the aliens are smarter than us and friendly. I think they step in when things get too bad and prevent us from blowing up the whole world.”

  It was crazy talk, for sure, but who was I to say he was wrong. “Good thing they’re up there then.”

  He nodded. “But they’re sad. Real sad. They wish they could help more.”

  “Yep. We could use all the help we could get.”

  “You betcha.” He blinked hard and then took the vitamins out, unscrewed the lid, popped one in his mouth and chewed.

  “Hmm. Like candy,” he said.

  “You like candy?”

  “No.” But he chewed and swallowed anyway. Then he got to his feet. I was afraid I had scared him again somehow. “C’mon. Gotta show you something.”

  I followed him to the shed. He went inside, and when he came back out, my jaw dropped.

  He was rolling out a really old stripped-down motorcycle.

  And there was a big smile on his face. It was a crazy smile, for sure, but I was getting used to that.

  “No way!”

  “Oh yeah. It’s how I got here. This was my father’s. He wanted me to turn myself in too. Instead, I stole his motorcycle and rode it here. It’s a nineteen forty-nine Harley. A classic.”

  “It’s a monster,” I said. “A beautiful monster. Does it still work?”

  Jonathan straddled it and kicked the starter. It fired up immediately. The sound of the engine was deep but soft. I’d never heard such a quiet bike. He closed his eyes for a second.

  And then he turned if off. “I don’t ride it much anymore. When I left my wife and my hometown and got on this bike, I decided I would ride it until the road ended and the forest began. And I’d go as deep into that forest as I could, park the bike and live there. Alone. And that’s what I did.”

  I tried to picture a younger version of the old hermit on a Harley—no helmet, the wind in his hair. I thought about how hard it must have been to leave everything behind. He must have felt the whole world had turned against him.

  “Farther to the north, there’s an old road that miners once used. It must have connected to the outside world at one point. A big section of trees blocks the road now. It begins and ends in the middle of the forest. Sometimes I go up there.”

  “Could we do that together sometime? I’d follow you on my bike.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. But winter’s coming. Might not be many good days left, and I’m saving my last can of gas. Just in case…” He didn’t seem to want to finish the sentence, and I knew better than to ask.

  chapter ten

  I headed out to Xanadu again the next day. It was getting colder and the days were shorter. The ground was frozen hard, and riding the trail was more like riding pavement.

  I helped Jonathan haul dead trees to his shack, cut them with a big-toothed saw and split some logs with his ultrasharp ax. The wood was stacked both in the house and in the shed. He told me that he now took a vitamin every day. He said he still had some “fuzzy eyesight now and again,” but it wasn’t as bad as before. “Guess I should call you the doctor from now on,” he said.

  One Sunday, Dave Jenkins, along with Dwight and Carl, showed up on their four-wheelers. They had supplies for Jonathan. Jonathan built a fire, and Dave brought out a six-pack of beer.
He gave a can to each of his buddies and one to Jonathan. I could tell they’d played this scene before.

  Jonathan popped the tab on the can and then swallowed the contents in a single long pull. He crushed the can and handed it back to Dave with a smile on his face. Dave gave him a second can, and Jonathan did the same with it. Then he looked at me and saw the concern on my face. “Don’t worry, kid. Two’s my limit,” he said.

  The other men took their time drinking their beers. “Ready for winter, Jonathan?” Dwight asked.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said. “The doc here helped me with firewood and fixing the place up a bit.” I had thought the pipes to his stove looked too thin to be safe so I found some stovepipe in our attic and took it out to him.

  The men nodded their approval. “We brought you the usual,” Dave said.

  “Much appreciated,” Jonathan said.

  “No sweat,” said Dave. “Hunters giving you any grief?”

  “Nope. They keep their distance.” Jonathan didn’t like hunters, even though he snared rabbits too.

  “The forestry people wanted to let you know they’re doing a survey of the tree growth. They’ll be flying all over here soon—just routine stuff, but they wanted you to know.”

  Jonathan’s eyes began to dart back and forth. “I hate helicopters,” he said.

  Dwight changed the subject. “How’s that tarp working out? Keeping water out?”

  “Yep.” I was used to the squalor of the shack. But the tarp on the roof seemed like a primitive arrangement—especially during winter.

  Dave must have been thinking the same thing I was. “We could rent a generator, haul some tools out here and build you a new cabin some day.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “No, I couldn’t let you do that. This is my home. Be it ever so humble.” And then he did a strange thing. He proceeded to recite a poem.

  “To thee I’ll return, overburdened with

  care;

  The heart’s dearest solace will smile

  on me there;

  No more from that cottage again will

  I roam;

  Be it ever so humble, there’s no place

  like home.

  Home, home, sweet, sweet, home!

  There’s no place like home, oh, there’s

  no place like home!”

  The men did not look surprised. “Two beer and he always recites a poem,” Dave said. This was a side of Jonathan I’d never seen. He looked much calmer now.

  “When did you learn that?” I asked.

  “Oh. Long time ago. So long it doesn’t even seem like it was in this lifetime. The author was John Howard Payne. I learned it in school, I guess. I liked books. Planned to become a high-school English teacher.”

  “No way!” I said. There was so much about Jonathan I didn’t know.

  “It’s true. Then the war mucked things up. I got drafted before I ever set foot in a university classroom.”

  I heard motorbikes in the distance, and everyone grew quiet. Dave put the small fire out by shoveling dirt onto it. I recognized the unmistakable sound of Anton’s repaired bike and two others. Jonathan closed his eyes and his lips moved, but he didn’t say anything out loud. Soon it became clear that the bikes were not coming this way. I secretly wished that Anton would hit a patch of ice so he could put a few new dents in his machine. We listened as the noise of the bike engines faded in the distance.

  “Gonna snow this week for sure,” Dave finally said, breaking the silence.

  “The birds tell me it’s gonna be a real wicked winter,” Jonathan added. And then he smiled and let out a whistle through the space between his front teeth.

  chapter eleven

  Dave was right. It did snow. The first big blast of the year. I worried about Jonathan, although I reminded myself that he’d survived out there for forty years. He had firewood. I’d help change his stovepipes.

  He had supplies.

  The snow stayed around for over two weeks. There was no way I could ride out to visit the hermit.

  Dave Jenkins gave me a part-time job at the hardware store. It was mostly loading lumber and bags of stove pellets into people’s cars. After two weeks I had enough money to buy spiked snow tires for my bike. I’d noticed the helicopters doing their survey, and I was worried about Jonathan out there in the forest all alone. Was he freaking out every time one came close? Was he having flashbacks to Vietnam?

  Part of me identified with Jonathan. Some of us truly don’t fit in with the rest of society. I was one of those people.

  I could see why someone might want to ride into the woods on a stripped-down Harley and just chill for…well, forty years? And I couldn’t even begin to imagine the horrors of a jungle war.

  It was alternating between snow and sunshine on Saturday. But my new tires were great, and I had a snowmobile suit and winter boots. There was supposed to be a big snowfall, but the storm wouldn’t pick up until the afternoon. If the snow got really deep, it wouldn’t matter how good my snow tires were. Even now it was going to be tough traveling through the woods on two wheels. But I had to check on Jonathan.

  I bundled up, packed some food, left a note for my folks and rolled the bike out of the shed. I noticed a helicopter passing over, heading toward the forest.

  My road was icy from the compacted snow. Even with the studded tires, I felt the bike slide around under me. It was better in the forest, but the trail had been used by snowmobilers so there were deep ruts and icy spots. I took it real easy.

  The forest seemed completely unfamiliar to me with everything covered in snow. I stopped a couple of times just to look around. When I turned off the engine, there was a beautiful silence unlike anything I remembered. Birch trees hung over, weighted down with snow. The sun filtered through the bare frozen branches of the hardwood trees. I took a few deep breaths, feeling good to be alive.

  I thought I was close to where I’d need to turn off the trail to find Jonathan’s cabin. But with the forest floor covered in snow, I wasn’t sure. There were no footprints in the snow to follow either. I got off my bike and paced up and down along the trail, hoping to see something to remind me of the way to his cabin. No luck.

  I decided to do what I had done the first time. Where the road veered away from the creek, I took my bike off-trail and followed the bank, picking my way slowly through the soft snow. Twice I disturbed snow clinging to spruce boughs. I got dumped on each time, and snow found its way down my back and gave me chills.

  And then I saw the hermit’s cabin.

  But something was wrong.

  There was no smoke coming from the chimney.

  I revved the bike and plowed through yet more snow to get to the cabin. I threw off my helmet and parked the bike, but the kickstand wouldn’t hold and it fell over. I left it.

  The door to the shack was open.

  “Jonathan!” I yelled. Was he out in the woods somewhere? Maybe he was hiding. Maybe he’d heard the bike and didn’t know it was me.

  I walked around the outside of the cabin first, figuring that if he was home, the fire would be burning. There would be smoke coming from the chimney. I yelled for him a couple more times, but there was no answer.

  I walked into the cabin. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. And then I saw him.

  Jonathan was lying on the floor with a long gash in his leg. There was a pool of blood on the rough boards of the floor.

  He’d lost a lot of blood. I was scared and not at all sure what to do. But I had to do something. The room was cold. The door was open, and the fire in the stove was out. I leaned over him to hear if he was breathing. My heart was racing so fast that I couldn’t hear anything else. I had to put my ear right up to his mouth. He smelled really bad. I had never gotten used to that. I held my breath and steadied myself. And then, yes, I detected it. He was breathing, but it was very light, very shallow.

  He’d been like this for a long time, I was sure. He must have lost a lot of blood. I ha
d to stop the bleeding somehow, and wasn’t sure how. I reached inside my snowsuit and yanked off my leather belt. I’d taken a first-aid course a long time ago. I remembered being warned that if you put a tourniquet on, you couldn’t undo it until the victim was safely in a hospital.

  I had no idea how I was going to get Jonathan to a hospital. The gash was deep and long. An animal? I wondered. A bear? The cut was awful. My head felt light, and I thought I was going to throw up. I’d never seen anything like this in my life.

  I decided to bandage the wound and try to stop the bleeding. A tourniquet might be too dangerous. I tore off the snowsuit and ripped off my shirt, then wrapped it around Jonathan’s leg, tying the arms together to hold it in place. The blood soaked through, but it began to slow down. I gently moved Jonathan’s legs away from the bloody mess on the floor. He groaned but did not wake up. Again I wondered what could have done this. That’s when I heard the helicopter.

  I ran outside and started waving my arms as the chopper flew over. I yelled and waved, but I was sure the pilot couldn’t see me. The hermit’s cabin was well hidden in the trees. I pulled up my snowmobile suit and decided to run to the creek. If the helicopter came back and I was on a rock in the middle of the creek, he’d see me. I hoped they were doing back and forth sweeps as part of their work. It was all I could think of.

  I ran through the snow toward the water, falling several times, getting out of breath, but I could still hear the engine. As I approached Loggerman Creek, I could tell the helicopter was coming back this way. The noise of the engine and the whirring blades grew louder. My lungs were burning from running so hard in the cold.

  The rocks at the edge of the creek were coated with ice. I slipped once and came down hard on my chin. I tasted blood. But I got up and tried to make my way from one ice-covered boulder to the next toward the middle of the creek. There was ice all around—on the rocks, on fallen trees. Everything was slippery. And the water was maybe up to my stomach. The current was raging. I had almost made it to my destination—a big boulder in the middle of the creek. If I could only get there and start waving, there’d be a chance.