by Loki Renard
I need a shower, but there’s probably not one of those to be had either. Having marked my spot, I turn around and head back to the cabin, or at least, I think I do. A half dozen steps later and everything looks exactly the same, but I have this horrible feeling that I’m lost.
“Uhm, hello?” I call out, waving the shovel around as if that’s going to help.
There’s no reply.
“Hello?” I yell again. I might have gone a little too far from the cabin, but I don’t think I went that far.
Again, the silence surrounds me. Is this how I’m going to spend the rest of my life, alone in the forest with a shovel?
“Helllooooooooo!”
Jesus. Where is everybody?
I am starting to get really panicky when someone starts lecturing me.
“Quit your hollering, girl.” One of the other guys appears out of the woods. It’s not Rock. It’s not the younger one, Tristan. It’s... Remington. I think that’s what his name was supposed to be.
“I’m lost,” I say.
His beard isn’t as long as Rock’s, and it grows in a sleek blond, maybe even silver gray mane in places. I think he’s the oldest of the group, though that’s hard to tell with so much hair. He definitely has the heaviest presence.
He lets out a grunt. “Cabin is over there.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Wait up, I’ll go with you.”
“I think I can probably get back on my own.”
“You’d think you could take a shit without getting lost,” he snorts.
I feel a flash of embarrassment, followed by annoyance. “It’s not my fault. These trees all look the same.”
“That’s why you stay close. Rock would have told you that.”
“You don’t know what he told me.”
I shouldn’t be getting antagonistic with this man. I don’t know him. For all I know he’s a dangerous militia member with an axe to grind against the world. I don’t know why that particular phrase popped into my head, but the more I look at him, the more it fits.
He gives me a look. A long look that seems to assess me down to my very core. Then he gives another one of those grunts.
“I see why Hammer likes you.”
I don’t know if that’s a compliment, but I’m kind of sensing that it isn’t. I know I don’t have much goodwill to burn up here, and I don’t want to have an argument on my first day. I want to stick close to Jake and work out how to get out of all the trouble we’re in—not find myself in more with his friends.
Keeping my mouth shut, I start walking in the direction he pointed. I can feel him behind me, a stern escort—and one I’m grateful for, given I thought I was going to be lost on the mountain forever.
We get back to the cabin a couple of minutes later, at which point I realize I might actually have walked a lot further away than I intended. It is easy to get lost out here, without any of the normal bearings of a city. I’m used to telling distance by blocks, not by trees.
“Found this wandering around out there,” Remington says to Rock, who is apparently completely fucking deaf.
“I said don’t go out too far,” he says, addressing me in that same stern tone Remington used on me, the one that makes my hackles rise.
“I didn’t know what was too far. I was calling out to you, didn’t you hear me?”
“I was a machine gunner. I don’t hear anything besides the ringing in my ears,” he growls.
And now I feel guilty.
“I’m sorry. I, er...”
“Do as you’re told and you won’t run into any trouble out here,” Remington says. “Wander off and do as you please and that death report of yours might turn out to be true.”
I guess Jake did tell them what was going on. How much did he tell them? What do they know about me? Do they know the part where my ex tried to pimp me out? Or do they just know that I was hooked up with a corrupt cop who wants me dead now? I don’t know why it matters what they know, but it does.
Thank god, at that moment Jake and Tristan emerge through the trees. They are carrying a small dead deer, the spoils of their hunt, I guess. I’d have been grossed out to see that a couple of days ago, but then again, a couple of days ago I wasn’t constructing my own toilets either.
Jake smiles at me and I feel the sky clear. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter what these guys say, or growl at me. I’m here with him.
“Food!” Tristan bellows joyfully. “We bring you meat!”
Rock and Remington smirk as if they think he’s corny, which he is, but they do look pleased. It’s not like there’s supermarkets out here.
“Let’s get this cleaned and hung up,” Tristan says, flopping the thing down on a red-stained bench out front that I am guessing has seen more than one carcass. I find myself staring as he takes a massive knife and plunges it between the animal’s front legs before sliding it back along the belly, letting viscera slide out...
“Come on,” Jake says, just as quite unpleasant things start happening to the deer.
We walk a ways away from the cabin, and nobody shouts at us not to go too far. I guess it’s just me who gets bossed around when the guys feel like it.
“How are you doing?” he says, giving me a friendly squeeze around the shoulders.
“Okay, I guess,” I say. “How are you?”
“Good,” he smiles. He looks fucking amazing. He’s changed into one of their woodsman style shirts, the yellow check pattern making his blue eyes pop. He has two days of stubble now that is threatening to turn into a beard at any moment. “You getting on with the guys okay?”
“Sure,” I say noncommittally.
“You’re quiet,” he observes. “Have you eaten anything?”
“Not yet.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wrapped ration bar. I’d turn my nose up at it, but it’s not like we can just go out for breakfast out here. This is probably the only wrapped food for miles around.
“Thanks,” I say, sitting down on a fallen tree as I start to gnaw on what the military believes is the appropriate nutrition for a hard day’s criminal enterprise. I do start to feel better once the food hits my system. Some of the tension and grumpiness fades away, but not all of it. I’m playing the events of the morning over in my mind. I’m wondering why they couldn’t just be nicer to me. Would it have killed them to, I don’t know, smile and say hello? I guess they don’t really owe me social pleasantries. I’m a stranger who has been brought into their midst, and I’m going to take a wild guess that these guys don’t like strangers much.
“So what’s the deal with this place? And those guys? Friends of yours, obviously?”
“More than friends,” Jake says. “Brothers.”
I nod and chew, then ask another question.
“So why do your brothers live so far out?”
“This is actually pretty far into civilization for them. We got lucky. If they were up at their usual camp, it would have taken us almost a week to reach it on foot.”
“So they just live wild?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. Why?”
“I guess they like it,” he says after a momentary pause that tells me there’s more to it than that, but it’s not his business to tell. Usually I’d want to know, but I’m hoping I’ll get to keep some secrets of my own out here.
“I think I like it out here too.”
Out here, among the trees, it’s already very easy to forget just how much trouble both Jake and I are in. The cares of the world are very far away, and the difficulty in caring for basic needs takes up all the mental space I have for worrying. When I was digging that hole today, I wasn’t worried about Rodney, or being allegedly dead, or anything. I was entirely immersed in the business of existing.
But we can’t stay here forever. There’s no way we’re going to find Rodney’s other victims out here in the woods, which was Jake’s original plan, though I don’t know how that’s going to work.
“You’re rea
lly quiet,” he observes.
“I’m just thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
“How nice it is out here. And how we’re not going to be able to stay out here forever.”
“Maybe not forever,” he admits, “but we can stay out here a while, take our time. Let those cops sweat.”
“If they find your car in the forest, they’ll be able to look for us.”
“If, and sure, but they don’t know which way we went. They probably don’t know we even came out here. It’s going to take a lot of good police work to find us, Jazz, and they’re not good policemen.”
“Maybe not, but when you fuck with cops, they bring in people who are.”
He nods. “I don’t want to say don’t worry about it, because I know that’s not possible, but try not to worry about it. Just have this day.”
This day. Even if we don’t get another one. Nothing feels guaranteed anymore. Nothing feels entirely safe, and as scary as that is, it’s also liberating. I’m realizing that there is so much life to be had outside the confines of the little routine I had made for myself.
* * *
Jake
She looks absolutely beautiful, sitting out here in the trees. Nature suits her. Suits most people really. Probably should have suited me, but I thought I’d make more of myself down in the city. All I ended up making was a goddamn mess. You’d think I’d learn, but apparently, I’m too old, too stupid, or too hardheaded.
“Do you want a shower?”
“Yeah, right,” she snorts. “There’s not going to be a shower here.”
“Actually, there is a solar shower. Won’t last long, but long enough for you to get cleaned up a little.”
“Really?” She brightens at that news. “I’d love one. Where is it?”
I lead her around to the other side of the cabin where there’s a tree that is just set back from the wall.
“Here you go.”
“Here I go what?”
She’s looking straight at the shower with a look of pure discontentment. “That can’t be it. It’s just a plastic bag hung in a tree. And there’s no curtain or...”
“Nobody’s going to look. I’ll go talk to the guys. You get cleaned up. I’ll find a towel for you.”
“Okay. Just. Stop all those guys from looking at me if I take my clothes off. I might just keep my underwear on.”
“I’ll let you work that out. And I’ll work on something to make the shower more private.”
“Thanks,” she says, making the effort to appear grateful even though she’s obviously disappointed. I could think of her as spoiled, but I know how hard the adjustment to living rough can be.
I get back to the guys. Remington is having a pipe on the deck while Tristan and Rock deal with the deer, which is now headless and gutless. We’ll have to take the scraps a decent way from camp and bury them for the bears.
“Hey, Jazz is having a shower, so we’ll leave her to it.”
They nod and get back to the work of handling the deer corpse. I lend a hand, which isn’t really necessary. Any of us could gut and hang a deer on our own.
“It’s good to have you back, Hammy,” Tristan says as we work. “How long you going to stay?”
“Not sure,” I answer. I really don’t know. I told them a bit about what was happening last night, but not much. We are men who can keep our secrets, and know better than to pry into each other’s.
“You think we need to get moving into the interior?”
“I don’t know about that either.”
“So what’s going on with you and this girl?” Remington asks the question bluntly. He’s the oldest of us, has led all of us in battle at various times, and he’s about the only guy who might have some rank over me, except for the fact that when I was ousted from the military, I’d been promoted over him several times. He was the old guard. I was the new. Now we’re both surplus to requirements.
“Best you don’t know,” I say.
I trust any one of these guys with my life, but I don’t want to tell them too much and end up making them accessories to the crimes I’m alleged to have committed—and the ones I still plan to commit.
“She’s trouble, huh?”
“Now how would you know that?”
“It’s written all over her,” Rock says. “Don’t throw your life away again.”
“I never threw my life away in the first place.”
“Yeah. You did. In that bar.”
“You know I don’t regret that.”
“Well,” he coughs. “You’re stupid not to. I sure as shit regret it. You let one girl you didn’t even know change everything for all of us. Unit wasn’t the same after you left.”
He’s never going to stop guilt-tripping me over the incident that saw me dishonorably discharged. That’s one of the reasons I don’t hang out with these guys as much as I’d like to. Remington can’t let go of anything.
“Girls aren’t worth fucking your life over for,” he growls.
“Doing the right thing is.”
“Uhmm...” A soft female voice interrupts our argument.
Jazz has managed to sneak up on four ex-military men, and she’s close enough that she definitely heard what was being said. Her hair is wet, so I guess she showered, but she’s put her old clothes on again, probably because she doesn’t have anything to change into, and I forgot to grab her that towel.
The expression on her face is hard to read, but I know she can’t be happy about what she heard. She probably thinks Remington was talking about her, and he wasn’t. I know she hasn’t exactly had a warm welcome. The guys have let her stay, but they’re treating her more like an unfortunate appendage than a person they’d like to get to know. None of these boys is very good at relationships, and it’s showing.
“Let me get you that towel,” I say, getting up.
She doesn’t say a word to any of the others, just turns and walks away back toward the solar shower. Goddammit. I’m more sure than ever that she heard more of that than she should have. I grab a few things before I go get her, knowing she’s going to need them.
“I don’t need a towel,” she says as soon as we’re alone. She looks like a drowned rat, her hair all matted and wet.
“Sure you do. Towel and dry clothes.”
“I’m not interested.”
“The thing about being out here is, it doesn’t matter if you’re interested, being wet leads to being chilled, leads to being sick, and we can’t afford to get sick. It’s not like either one of us can go to the hospital right now. You’re officially dead, and I’m wanted for your murder. So take this towel, get those clothes off, and put these ones on.”
“Those aren’t my clothes.”
“They’ll do.”
She pouts, her lower lip stuck out ever so slightly I don’t even know if she’s doing it on purpose or not, but she’s absolutely adorable. It doesn’t matter how cute she is though, she needs to get dry and warm. Quick.
“Put those clothes on,” I growl, “or I’ll put them on you myself.”
Jazz narrows her eyes at me and shakes her head. “You’re mean. Just like them.”
“I’m mean, nothing like them,” I say, grabbing her up. I’m going to strip her down right here if I have to, dry her off myself. I get that what she heard was upsetting, but she still has to do as she’s told. It’s probably not that obvious to her out here, but this place is still run in a militaristic type way. I expect obedience from her.
She doesn’t resist as I peel her clothes off and get to work on her naked body with the towel. She doesn’t help either. She stands there, sullen and very much avoiding my gaze.
“Hey, what you heard...”
“They don’t want me here,” she says, interrupting me.
“It’s not that, believe me.”
“Sure it’s not. This place might as well have a ‘no girls allowed’ sign nailed to the front door.”
“It’s not because you’re a girl. It’s
because they don’t know you, and this is not a place we bring anyone that we don’t all know. They’re taking a risk having us here. We’re wanted.”
“You’re all wanted? What did they do?”
“I’m not sure. There’s questions we don’t ask or answer. Also. What you heard Remington talking about, it’s not about you.”
“Oh. So you have a habit of picking up trashy girls and playing hero to them... Ow!”
I smack her ass hard.
“What was that for?”
“You don’t call yourself trashy. You’re a nice girl.”
“We both know that’s not true,” she says as I pat the towel over her breasts and belly, then wrap it around her head and give it a good rubbing. When I pull it away, her hair is a mass of dark curls over her face. She pushes them back with her fingers and looks out between them.
“What did he mean, throw your life away again?”
I didn’t want to tell her this part of my life, but I guess I’m going to. Can’t preach a rule of no secrets and then keep this from her.
“I was dishonorably discharged,” I tell her. “One night, I was drinking in a bar just off base. A couple of my superiors had taken a liking to a girl who hadn’t taken a liking to them in the same way. They weren’t too bothered whether she wanted what was coming or not. So I got involved. And by got involved, I mean it got violent.”
“Did you kill them?”
“If I’d have killed them, I’d still be in military prison. Nope. Half-killed them, and managed to avoid a sentence by being discharged instead of court-martialed. They wanted to keep the whole thing quiet for obvious reasons.”
“Wow, so you were punished for doing the right thing?”
“No good deed goes unpunished, at least, not in my life, and not in my experience.”
She’s getting dressed now, without my having to force her into her clothes, which is nice. I can see she’s thinking about what I’ve told her, trying to work out if she’s a charity case or I’m a compulsive hero. She’s not, and I’m not. It’s just that life has thrown some fucked-up situations in my path, and I’ve not been prepared to just walk away from them.