In the Heart of the Dark Wood

by Billy Coffey

  “He’s okay.”

  Allie lifted her head and peered around the backside of the flames. Zach sat hunched over the fire, poking at the wood with a long stick. The flames rose to lick at a makeshift stove-top fashioned of small saplings. On top lay hunks of fish. They sizzled and popped in the fire. The breeze carried the smoke to her.

  “Breakfast time, Allie.” He smiled through the dirt and blood on his face. It was a tired grin, the look of a man made weary by a long journey with no end. “Sure does smell good, huh? Better’n Milky Ways and such, I’d say. Surely better’n some old pine bark.”

  He speared three big pieces on the end of a stick and handed it to her. Allie sat up and, making sure she was still covered, took the stick in her hand. The meat was hot and sweet. She’d never tasted anything so delicious.

  “Better eat slow,” Zach said. “Couldn’t gut them proper without a knife, but I found a sharp enough rock to pretend. Still got some bones in there, probably.”

  Allie didn’t care. She’d eat the bones, too, would eat anything. She gobbled her first helping and then asked for a second. Zach obliged.

  “This is awesome, Zach. I mean it.”

  Zach settled in with his own portion. He blessed his before taking the first bite. “Plenty here,” he said. “I tried feeding Sam. He’s too far gone right now, but we’ll be full today, Allie. Full and ready.”

  In the rocks to his left stood a cedar sapling no more than two feet high. A black ball of dirt and roots rested beneath a pile of river rock. Smaller stones had been laid in the branches, along with dollops of moss and grass. An acorn was lodged into the topmost branch.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Figured we’d might as well celebrate,” Zach said. “I done some thinking. We spent one night under the pine, the next at the pond. The rocks were after. Now the riverbank. If I figured right, it’s Christmas Eve.” Another grin. So tired, so beaten down. “Merry Christmas, Allie.”

  She studied the tree and then Zach. There was a warmth in his smile that reached places the fire never could.

  Allie had no idea they had been gone that many days. She wondered how her daddy was and if he still searched for her. In a way she hoped he had given up, hoped everyone had. The pain of looking for something you’ve lost was tall and wide, but the pain of looking without knowing you’ll ever find that something again was deep. Tall and wide could be overcome well enough, even if it made you into someone else in the end. But what ran deep in a person could loosen him from his moorings and set him adrift in the dead space between yesterday and tomorrow. That was a feeling Little Orphan Allie knew well. Should things come to that, she would rather her father give up than hang on.

  What pain she felt over Marshall doing just that—giving up—was assuaged by the hope he would never have to, and for this one reason: it was Christmas Eve. The part of Allie still hardened under a cold far more dangerous and lasting than any in the woods balked at that notion. But this was different now. She would still not allow herself to believe all the way, but if they were almost to the end, she believed that end should come at Christmastime. That’s when most miracles happened.

  It was a sentiment much of the town believed as well. Jake and Kate Barnett continued organizing the day’s search, fanning volunteers out into the forests that lay at the foot of the mountains and passing word of the midnight vigil downtown. Marshall woke that morning to the notion that the stale, empty room next door had become a new normal. He thought the old normal had hurt enough, even if it had gone dull around the edges thanks to the fog he walked through much of the time. And though his eyes still burned from the tears he’d shed the night before (and though he could feel the soggy spots still on the knees of his jeans from bending down to lap back up the old life he’d tried to pour away), Marshall vowed to at least face the loss of his little girl straight on. This time, he would not bow to his lower self. He would not become Bobby Barnes. That kindled a hope in him, however small, much as the one that kindled in Allie even now. He found Grace asleep on the couch and felt that familiar heat of hell and longing, a heat Grace now felt as well.

  2

  “Merry Christmas, Zach. I think your tree is beautiful.”

  “Sam’s okay,” he said again. “He even stirred some in the night. He can move his front legs, I think. Least he did well enough jittering in his sleep. I think he was having bad dreams.”

  “Did you have any?”

  “No,” he said. “I never got that far. You?”

  She remembered the cliffs and the coffin and the sound of God coming behind her. “No.”

  “Good,” Zach said. “I stayed awake all night standin’ guard.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  He answered, “Yes I did,” and the look of his eyes—stone-set and determined—told Allie not to say otherwise.

  “Thank you. That must be why I slept so good.”

  Zach nodded. The dip of his chin lasted a bit longer than its coming back up, giving Allie a clear view of the gash on his head. He coughed and spat onto the rocks—more blood. He said, “Your clothes are dry. Even your shoes. I made sure. You can get yourself dressed, I won’t look. And I made something. Besides the tree, I mean. It’s for Sam.”

  He pointed to a spot between the rocks and the darkwood, perhaps seven feet away. A clump of wood sat there in the shape of a rough triangle. Two gnarled limbs as long as Allie was tall had been tied into the shape of an upside-down V. Midway to where the limbs were farthest apart, three smaller branches had been lashed horizontally like steps on a ladder.

  “What is it?”

  “A travois. Figured we couldn’t carry Sam no more, not with us maybe having a ways to go yet. We can put him on that and drag him, though. Had to take your shoelaces to make it, and one from my boot. I saved the other one for the fire bow, in case you can start another one.”

  There was a poison in Zach’s voice he couldn’t help. He hoped it wouldn’t show.

  Allie stroked Sam’s head and said, “That’s very kind of you, Zach.”

  She rose up and gathered her clothes, careful not to let too much of her legs show. Zach stared at the fire as she dressed.

  “Don’t matter, I guess,” he said. “We won’t take Sam nowhere till I know where to go, and I don’t.” The words came out tasting bitter, but Zach felt he had to say it. He had to be honest. He’d sat up all night feeding the fire and watching Allie and Sam—protecting them, if that could be called protecting at all. Zach had used that time to do more than fix breakfast and decorate a sickly tree and fashion a misshapen barrow. He had thought long on just what to say to Allie when the night finally yielded to daybreak. After running through so many lies and omissions, he’d settled on the plain truth, as hard as it was. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Allie. I don’t think I ever did. All I’ve done is get us into more trouble. I couldn’t even start the fire.”

  “That don’t matter—”

  “Yes it does,” he said, and a little too loud. “And don’t say it don’t. I peed my pants, Allie. I peed’em because I was scared and I started bawling when I coughed up that blood because I was scared and I ran away because I was scared. And then I”—those pennies in his mouth, so awful—“and then I saw those eyes when It came up on me and I ran again. I ran away from you.” Zach bit his bottom lip to keep it from shaking. “Because I was scared.”

  He looked down at a pair of hands covered with slits and cuts from all the miles they’d covered. The fire cracked and sparked in the silence between them. Allie breathed in the sweet smell of the smoke and thought of home. She thought of her father and how hard he’d tried to make things good for the two of them. How the more he’d tried, the more he’d hurt, and yet he’d tried anyway.

  “But you came back,” she said. “That’s what matters, Zach. Not that you left, but that you came back.”

  That wasn’t what mattered at all, at least to Zach Barnett. He knew the courage he’d always thought
he had was a fleeting thing. It was something as easily lost as his daddy’s hat. And even if he found it again, there was no way to hold it so tight that it wouldn’t blow away once more.

  “I ain’t leaving you again, Allie. No matter what.”

  “I know you won’t.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed. And though that one small act felt more intimate than even the kiss they’d shared the week before Carnival Day nearly two years gone, they both let that touch linger. “I saw my momma, Zach. She was right here.”

  Zach fed the fire and picked at another hunk of bass. He didn’t know what to tell her and settled on plain truth again.

  “I didn’t see no one here when I came up on you, Allie. You were just standin’ there with your arms out.”

  “It was the light, Zach. It was the same light we saw at the pond.”

  “I don’t know what that light was at the pond.”

  “She was here. I don’t know what you didn’t see, but I know what I did. She told me we’re all goin’ home soon—you and me and Sam and her. She’s waiting at the red trees, Zach. Just like you said. She said all we gotta do’s be brave.”

  “Ain’t no brave left in me,” he mumbled.

  “She said there is. She said you’re gonna find something wonderful.”

  “A road’d be wonderful,” he said. “Or some demon repellent. Can you walk? Your feet look bad.”

  An understatement if there ever had been. Allie’s feet looked as though they’d been dipped in the fire to roast sometime overnight. The skin was still waxy-white, but not much of it could be seen for the blackened blisters that covered them.

  “Ain’t got much choice, do we?” she asked. “We can’t stay here. I can’t feel them noways. Just fix me up a brace for my ankle, and I’ll be good to go. How’s your sick?”

  He shrugged. “Ain’t got much choice, do we? But I don’t know where to go.”

  “I do.” She turned and looked over her shoulder, to the trees along the riverbank. “Through there, Zach. On downstream. That’s where Momma came from, so that’s where we need to go.”

  “That’s where It wants us to go.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I know something He don’t. I know where God’s gonna be, Zach. So long as we know that, we can keep away. Let Him sit there waitin’, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Where’s It at?”

  She pointed on past the trees. “Somewhere down there’s cliffs. That’s where He is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I dreamed it. Those cliffs are a bad place, Zach, maybe the worst place of all. We can’t go near there, no matter what. We stay far away, we’ll be good.”

  Zach wavered. Going by dreams seemed just as silly as going by visions conjured by fear and freezing water. He asked himself if he didn’t want to walk on past those trees because that’s where those glowing eyes and sharp claws wanted them to go, or because that was where he was afraid to go.

  Allie sighed. “Zach Barnett, it’s time for me to take my morning inventory. It’s a thing I always do but always kept private, but today I’m gonna say it out loud because it’s something you need to hear.” She looked at the sky. “Cold today. Still cloudy. Looks like we got a pressure system stalled right over our heads. But those clouds look a little thinner than they did yesterday, and that leads me to believe there might be some sun before it’s all over with. Today is Christmas Eve. We’re worse for the wear. Cold but not hungry, ’cause our bellies are full to bursting. We got water so long as we got river, however disgusting that water is. Sam’s alive. We’re alive. Something is out here close, watchin’ us. That’s okay too. For now, anyways. And do you know why, Zach? Because God or demon or beast don’t want me finding Mary, but it don’t matter. It’s the fourth day we been in these here woods and the five hundred and forty-eighth since everything ended, but this here’s gonna be the first day that all gets put to rest, because this is the day we bring Momma home.”

  She finished her speech and looked at Zach. He took a bite of fish. He wasn’t hungry (in fact, Zach was so full at the moment he didn’t think he’d ever be hungry again), it was just that he felt he had to do something or there would be nothing to do but answer everything Allie had just said. And he couldn’t.

  “I’ll douse the fire,” he said. “Then I’ll help you with Sam.”

  Allie smiled. It was a thing so pretty to Zach that he felt it almost awful. They would go on, yes. He did not know to where, not with the sun hidden above the thick clouds again. He did not know to what end. Nor, he suspected, did Allie, regardless of what pretty speeches she made and what visions she thought she’d seen. And yet the reason she smiled on while Zach lowered his head was because Allie had found what he had lost.

  Hope.

  One that said the moorings of her life may have come loose, but what was loosed could be tied back again.

  3

  The morning stood gray and cold but windless. Zach packed what possessions they had, which amounted to little more than the bow drill, the travois, and what was left of the fish.

  Zach considered bringing their Christmas tree as well. The sapling wasn’t big and could probably fit just fine in Allie’s backpack, and leaving something so pretty alone in all that ugly felt wrong, like an abandonment. But in the end he decided the tree should stay where it was, just beyond the lip of that surging gray water. He stacked more rocks around its base of dirt and old leaves and packed it down as well as he could. It wouldn’t be long before the river swelled and carried that tree away, or the wind turned the green branches brown and brittle. Let some beauty be planted here, he thought, no matter how short it lasts or if no one else sees it.

  Sam rested on a pillow of pine and cedar branches in the middle of the travois. The scarf still covered him and he was still breathing, had even opened his eyes and lapped the water Zach had carried from the river in his hand. Still, Zach thought the demon had taken more than hide from Allie’s dog. He was but a pup. Long and full years had lain ahead of him when they’d first stepped into the woods. Now those years had become days. Hours, if Zach could not find them a way out.

  In order to do that, they would need to push on soon. Zach didn’t see this as a problem, even when he coughed and spit a wad of bloody phlegm. They were warm and fed and at least had a direction. No, the problem lay in the patch of darkwood where Allie had disappeared nearly ten minutes ago. So much of a man’s life was spent waiting for the one he loved.

  He was about to call for her when the scrub parted. Allie returned with her backpack slung over her left shoulder. Her eyes were down. Watching her feet, Zach thought, though in fact it was because Allie could not bear that questioning, hurry-up look she’d seen on his face. That expression became more questioning and less hurry-up as she padded her way toward him. Her pigtails were gone. The two bands of elastic fabric that had kept them in place were now around her left wrist. Her hair—Just like her momma’s, Zach thought—had been pushed back in the front. Long curls hung from either side of her face. They bobbed like springs with each step Allie took.

  She reached Zach and said, “What?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Well, close your mouth before a fly lays eggs on your tongue. You’re freaking me out.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Everything okay? Thought you got lost in there. Or worse.”

  Allie laid her backpack down long enough to tuck the fire bow inside. She was careful not to crush her lunch, which she’d wrapped in a section of Zach’s coat the darkwood had left torn and dangling.

  “Only thing in there’s the forward march of time, Zach Barnett.” She slung her arms through the loops, centering their provisions on her back. “That’s a ride we can get off only once.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Sam okay?”

  “He drank some.”

  “You sure that thing’ll carry him?”

  “Should,” he said. “We’ll go slow. Migh
t be some bumpy ’cause of the rocks, but it’s best we go along the bank as long as we can. Darkwood might get close on down, but I don’t want to go in there unless we have to. We’ll have to carry him then. You sure we should go on ahead, Allie? If that Thing’s on some cliffs ahead, the way upstream’s clear. That’s where town is.”

  “We ain’t goin’ to town, we’re goin’ to my momma. She said she’s waitin’ at the red trees, Zach. That’s the very same thing you said after you conked out on me and Sam.”

  “I don’t remember saying that, Allie.”

  “Which means what?” she asked. “I’m makin’ that up just like I made up seeing Momma?”

  Zach didn’t say. Honesty didn’t seem the best thing just then.

  “You go on if you want,” Allie said. “Me an’ Sam’s going this way. I love you, Zach, but this ain’t about you no more, or even me. We keep going, even if it kills us.”

  Zach would have argued that point had Allie not already grasped the two handles on Sam’s travois and begun pulling away. He followed only long enough to realize he wasn’t leading, then caught up. Sam’s body hopped up and down as the poles skipped over the rocks, but not enough to wake him. Nor did he appear to be in any pain.

  That was more than Allie could say for herself. Her body hurt from sleeping on a pile of rocks all night. Her pride hurt maybe even more, having to endure that look from Zach when she came back from the scrub. Her ankle throbbed even with the new brace Zach had tied on, making her steps along the rocks sluggish and jerky. At least there were no pine branches shoved into her shoes. Allie had told Zach not to bother, she couldn’t feel her feet anyway. Zach was more worried than Allie about that, and had been ever since checking her blisters before she’d walked into the scrub. He’d run a finger down the bottom of Allie’s feet from her toes to her heels to make sure she wasn’t fibbing. She’d felt nothing at all.