by J. D. Palmer
“What’s that mean?”
Sheila points to a row of houses on the outskirts of town. The doors have all been carved, or burned, with what looks like a candy cane. A question mark without the dot. Six houses all in a row. Each with the symbol.
“No idea.”
None of us have any clue as to what it means. Or what any of the other symbols or phrases mean. “WE DESERVED THIS,” painted on the second level of an old hotel. “IS THIS MY FAULT?” is scrawled on the side of a semi-truck. Burned houses that sit alone, like a blackened tooth, are not uncommon. But, because we are closer to his home, I think Harlan takes these tokens of grief more personally. His kin, his kith… As we get nearer to where he grew up, the more likely this destruction will wear a face he recognizes.
But he walks with his head up. If I could paint, which I can’t, I’d use watercolor to capture his soul. And I’d try to portray a boxer who’d fought thirty fights and won twenty. A pugilist who had only fought for money, and the title, and himself. A man who was his own worst enemy. That face… But now smiling. The smile of someone who accepts the folly of their past and is somehow both happier, and more dangerous for it. That battered, beaten countenance, suddenly thrust into a real fight. Not the kind of bout refereed and fought for scraps of cash. But one that means something. Protects something. Resigned, but eager for the violence to follow. That is what’s written on Harlan’s face as he takes in each new dire slogan. Every small story of horror.
Har’s face is turned forward now. He is a man who will gladly bear the brunt of any hardship, if he knows it will save his loved ones. I just hope he knows that there is someone who has his back.
Oh Har, I’m scared.
A man can be ugly and still be beautiful. A man can be beautiful, and still be ugly. But I’d only follow the former.
The end is near. No one knows what that means. Steps are measured. Laughs are shaky. Questions and comments are voiced in hushed tones.
Everyone is probably thinking the same thing: how to deal with the others once we find… whatever it is we find. How will Harlan react? How will I react? Will we stay? Will we leave? Will… one person leave?
Too many variables.
Sheila asks too many questions. Theo thinks we are being followed. I get new clothes. Then other clothes. Then change back to what I was wearing before. I stink, the clothes are old. But new clothes are too much of a statement in my head. If his family is dead… If they’re alive… What if it looks like I’m celebrating? Or trying to look better than… What if… Just better to be the person he recognizes.
I’m overthinking this.
But to strive for a goal for so long, even if it isn’t your goal, that means something. It’s a purpose, of a sort. And to hold onto something that could be futile, or stupid, or irrelevant to your own life, is far better than having nothing. So this ending carries a bit of weight for everyone.
I miss Steven these days. I miss the smell of his cigarettes and his casual disdain for all things maudlin. He’d be sketching all this in his notebook, recording every step of the journey. He’d know how to deal with all of this. He always seemed so fluid with his view of the world. To him change was expected; good things would end, or bad things would happen… And to act surprised at these things was foolish. So different from his brother.
Steven would know what to do when we got to Harlan’s home. Whatever was there. He would know in his quiet way, even as John would be telling everyone what they should do. What the right thing to do would be.
“That deer is fucking huge,” Theo rumbles softly, pointing to a brown form at the edge of a tree line.
“Not a deer.”
Theo gives a soft whistle. “I’ve never seen a moose before.”
Harlan laughs. “Not a moose, either. That’s an elk.”
Theo’s eyebrows draw together as if perplexed. “What’s the difference between the three?”
Harlan shakes his head, but launches into a summary of the animals as we walk. His voice rising from a whisper until we all walk a little more loosely, a little more calmly.
And Theo gives me a grin and a shrug.
I guess maybe he knows what to do, too.
HARLAN | 38
I WAKE EARLY enough that I wonder if I actually slept. Nervous anticipation giving false energy and false urgency to wake when I should rest. The others are sleeping soundly. I grab my flashlight and ease my way past my slumbering companions and out of the room.
I pad to the bathroom and shut the door. I pour water into my hands from the bottle and splash my face. The gleam of the flashlight off the mirror makes me look sinister. Or maybe that’s just what I look like now. My hair is wild, long and wavy and snarled down to my shoulders. My beard has grown back since trimming it at the ranch. Patchy, thick on my neck and chin, sparse on my cheeks. My eyes are cold. Are those my eyes? Lines crease the area around the sockets but that’s not what is discomfiting. There is something behind them that wasn’t there before. Something colder and more harsh than the winter winds.
I barely recognize myself. Will Jessica? Will she know me? Another thought strikes me. What if she doesn’t like what she sees? What if I’ve turned into something too abhorrent for her to accept?
If she’s alive.
She has to be.
I’ve seen too much death to harbor much hope. There’s no way she could survive. No way she has the right blood type.
But…
I feel like puking, I’m so scared and nervous. Should I shave? Cut my hair? I run a hand through the tangled mass. Why would she care what you look like?
I take a breath and lean my forehead against my reflection, willing myself to retain some sense of calm. Emotions roil through me; anticipation, frustration, fear, love… guilt?
I open the door and wait for my eyes to readjust to the semi-darkness. Maybe I should go outside, watch the sunrise. Or maybe you should try to sleep, idiot.
The slow breathing of deep sleep greets me when I come back, except the glint of two eyes that watch me. I kneel by Beryl and put a hand on her shoulder.
“You okay?”
I nod. Give her a grin. “Thought about shaving.”
She makes a face that I can’t quite figure out. There is a grunt and I hear Theo roll over.
“What’s wrong?” Even whispering it still comes out as a rumble. I cringe, worried that it will wake Sheila.
“Nothing, go back to sleep.”
“Too late for that dickhead.” Dammit. Sheila gets up and that means everyone else has to get up, too.
“I’m sorry guys.” No one responds, but Theo claps me on the shoulder as he stumbles past me and outside to piss. Sheila pushes Pike over so that he wakes up as well. He yawns, and a sleepy whine escapes from his throat as he executes a full body stretch. He flops back down to go back to sleep, it’s been his habit to only get up when Beryl does. But his pretense at sleep is flubbed by the wag of his tail on the floor.
He senses the excitement in the air.
Apparently not the dread.
I go outside to let the others do their morning duties without feeling rushed. At least that’s what I hope. But it’s not long before they come out, eyes still half open and mouths yawning.
And then we’re on the road. The last stretch, easy as that. This whole thing should have been this easy.
We pushed it hard the day before, getting just past Rollins when the moon hit its zenith. I wanted to keep going, even knowing the others wouldn’t. Beryl didn’t say anything, although I know she wanted to. It was Theo who stopped me. Told me to stop, to rest, to wait until morning.
I guess part of me wanted to have the cover of darkness around me. To sneak up to the house and peek, alone. To get an idea of what faced me so that I wasn’t just plunged into something horrible. A toe dipped into the frigid lake of my future.
Theo was right. I was exhausted, and probably wouldn’t have made it the last fifteen miles. But dammit I wanted an end to this. To find my
family safe. Jessica safe. My child safe. Or to face… whatever needed to be faced.
Flathead Lake sits large and calm next to us as we walk. So blue. I can feel the chill from the glacier fed water from here. Honest water. Wisdom gained in its passage from the mountains.
My lake.
I don’t venture near it. Not yet. That will be for much, much later. When I can wash myself clean, completely and utterly, for the first time in a long time.
“Big Arm. Lakeside. Big Sky. You Montanans are pretty creative with your names, aren’t you?” Sheila flashes a wicked grin at me.
“We can rename them. See if you’re more creative.” A pang of sadness as we play Josey’s favorite game without him. I wish he had come along. I wish…
I’m glad he’s happy and alive.
“Hmm, that’s pretty hard. Guess if we end up sticking around here I’ll have to name one of these po-dunk little towns after myself.”
Silence after her words. The “if” sticking out more than anyone is comfortable with. Beryl’s hand finds mine, something she has been avoiding. Or I have. But now that it’s home I squeeze it hard.
“Tell us about all this,” she says, gesturing to the land, and I still marvel at the strength of her voice. The confidence. The steadiness.
“Okay.” I ponder for a second. “Well…”
”What are you smiling about?” Theo asks.
“When my mom was pregnant with me, my Dad had a job working this stretch of road. So he thought it would be cool to name me after the two towns he had to spend the most time in.”
I let the pause build, enjoying the memory. Tickled especially with the vehemence with which my mom rejected it.
“So what the fuck were you going to be called?” Sheila is already smiling, her ruthless sense of humor salivating at new fodder.
“Elmo Rollins…”
After that it’s not hard to tell them about this place that is my home. Being dumb teenagers and, since we didn’t have a car, walking the six miles to Dairy Queen. Which my friends and I thought was an epic trek at the time. The cliff jumping. The swimming. The boat I tried to fix. School trips and games and the best place to ski.
And I keep talking, knowing I am babbling. But vocalizing my past, coupled with Beryl’s hand, lets me get through the last fifteen or so odd miles without screaming, or crying, or stopping.
BERYL | 39
“THAT’S WHERE I would swim. That’s where my friends and I…”
Harlan trails off. He’s been doing this for the last couple hours. Attempting to distract himself by showcasing moments from his childhood. But then he gets broadsided by another memory and falls silent. Or he’s simply too nervous to continue.
We round a bend in the road, a huge sign letting us know that Somers is on our right. Odd, seeing it in large letters with an arrow. The place we’ve gone through so much to reach, and now…
Here it is.
We travel down a broad street that reminds me of the small towns depicted in the old west. Small homes and a small restaurant and a hardware store that never belonged to any of the major chains.
We pass them and come to a stop outside of a bar. Harlan drops his bag and kneels to ruffle Pike’s face. He takes his time, using the dog as an excuse as he gathers himself.
“That bike path,” Harlan gestures to the other side of the road, “it takes you towards the house. My house. It’s the big yellow one you’ll see in about a quarter mile. There’s a cut across. You’ll see it. Come and get me if I don’t come back here in an hour or two.”
I guess I thought that maybe he’d want me along. But this is it. I get it. He has to do this alone. It’s hard not to feel like this is the beginning of the end. For us. For this family of ours.
“Theo, you mind keeping Pike with you?”
Why didn’t he ask me?
Theo nods and gently reaches out to clasp Harlan’s hand. Forearm to forearm, the way they gripped each other on the roofs of San Francisco, covered in blood. Brothers, forged. “Yeah, man. You go, but you know we’re here for you, okay?”
Sheila starts to walk towards the bar door. “What are we drinking, Theo?”
Harlan takes a step forward. “Still be careful, guys. Keep your guns ready, just because—”
“Fuck off, Har.” Sheila says it. But she gives her version of a warm smile. And she gives me a look, too. One I can’t interpret.
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Harlan says it three times, nodding his head as if agreeing with an unseen voice. Then he looks up to me. “Ready?” And he holds out his hand.
Oh Har.
Yes.
We walk underneath an arch that proclaims the bike path to be of historical significance. Old train cars sit in an open field. Deer are everywhere, grazing on both sides of a fence that encircles the area. They freeze, standing stock-still to watch us go by. None of them move. As if it only took a winter to kill their nervousness towards humans.
We walk slowly. The fear in Harlan sheets off of him in waves, almost physically tangible. Sometimes we stop and he just scans the landscape ahead of him, face contorted as if he’s trying to solve the most complex problem he’s ever encountered.
Maybe he is.
And I doubt I’m any different. The fear of whatever we will find at the end of this road makes every step just as difficult for me as it is for Harlan. I want him to have his life, his happiness. But it’s so hard, so hard, to finally have something that you have yearned for your entire life… And then know that you might lose it.
I have spent so many nights hating this woman. Jessica. The idea of her. Of what she stands for. Always, always, she means the end. The end of the road. The end of the journey with Har. The end of my family. I have developed so much hatred for her, as irrational as that is, and now I’m so scared to find out if she’s alive. How guilty I’ll feel at the joy of finding her gone. Or dead. And how monstrous that is. How terrible that is.
And what if she is alive?
That… would be… okay…
Because it would mean, perhaps, that his child is alive. And more than that… It would make Har happy. And as I come to this conclusion, I realize I don’t hate Jessica. I am afraid of her. I’m afraid that she’ll be everything I’m not. Sane, and normal, and confident.
And if she’s alive… Then I will just have to deal. Shocking to realize that I believe I can do that. Now. Now, I can do that.
We have come so far together. We pause again, and I think back to the room. Not in the way that haunts me. But the time in which I saw a man, chained and stripped of pride. Stripped of his self-respect. Stripped of hope… A man who would say his name to me. Every day. A man who ended up fighting for me.
“My name is Beryl,” I say. And he turns to me. I can see how hard it is for him to smile.
“My name is Harlan.”
We stand in the middle of the path. Unmindful of the breeze, of the cawing of birds, or the clouds moving in from the mountains.
“If…” I begin, and he shakes his head.
“We’ll figure it out, Berly. We’ll figure it out.”
And then we walk. Through puddles and slush and stubborn streaks of ice not yet melted. The air different than anywhere that I’ve ever been. Warm but… full. A bundle of smells; pine and dead leaves and asphalt and earth. A myriad of scents that are heavy with the last gasp of winter. This is a place that has a long memory. A place I think Dancing Ghost would like. A place that Steven would have painted. A place for Josey to compose songs.
A place that I know I could be happy.
I want to say this. But the yellow house comes into view, and we take another pause in silence. He knows my mind, just as I know his.
For better or worse.
HARLAN | 40
I’M SUCH A fool. Will she even be at my house? Why would she wait for me? Would she be at her parent’s house? Or some other place? How long before she’d move along? Why would I assume…
Because she would know you would retu
rn.
Doubts hit me like a swarm of bees, a quick sting and then gone, only to be replaced by another. And another. And another.
We walk down the path towards my home. It’s not fall. It’s spring. The cold has given up; there is green on some trees, the snow is melting… But fuck it’s still cold. As if the dread has partnered with winter to settle into my very bones.
My heel goes out from under me and I almost fall. Beryl catches me as I cast a dark look at the slick leaves newly divulged of frost. This doesn’t fit my dream of homecoming. It had always been the fall. It had always been cold, and crisp, and dry… And lovely. It had always been sooner than now.
God, I’m scared.
Beryl still holds my hand as we trudge forward. And I’m thankful because I’m so terrified. I’m terrified to find Jessica dead. I’m terrified to find her alive and our child dead. I’m terrified to find her alive and with someone else. I’m terrified of all the million possible scenarios given to me by hundreds of sleepless nights.
She squeezes my hand. My footsteps slow and I blink back tears I didn’t realize were there. I don’t know what’s between Beryl and me. I don’t know if it’s love or desperation or something in between. Or more. Or so much more.
But she’s here. And Jessica, if she is alive, Jessica… Will have to understand that. That no matter the love between her and I, there is something unbreakable that lies between Beryl and myself. We were set adrift together, two imperfect vessels dashed to pieces by hate and anger and madness. Two ships, torn apart by a storm, and washed ashore in pieces. Scraps of wood, splinters of deck and mast. Rigging, and sailcloth, and the weathered grips of a broken helm.
Now, slowly, we have reassembled ourselves, together. As one ship, we move forward. Without the other we would sink beneath the waves, lost to a darkness where there is no feeling, no light. A gloomy depth where you merely exist, and nothing more.
And it may be sad, that we aren’t complete without the other. But there is a sense that it’s right. A beauty to it. That maybe we were always meant to be ripped apart and then melded back together. Not as something better, but something more… floatable.