by Amy Briant
She started reading them out loud.
“Visions of Beauty—I call dibs on that one. Boring, boring. Toss. Ooh, Rockridge & Piedmont, Purveyors of Fine Soaps! Here, I’ll set aside the good ones and we can open them up like it’s Christmas.”
I tuned her out while I took another look around the interior. A red metal dolly was secured to the wall close to the door. It was of no use to me, but the bungee cords dangling from it were still in decent condition. I stuck them in my backpack. Above the dolly was a metal box, also secured to the wall. A first aid kit! Excellent timing, considering my banged-up state. We’d used up the contents of the Tucker box first aid kit some time back. I sat on the tailgate and doctored myself with some stinging antibacterial pads while East continued her sorting. My ribs were increasingly sore and my head was starting to throb. I popped some of the powdery aspirins from the kit.
In the end, East had set aside only three packages. I took a quick look at what she had tossed and kept a couple, but the rest was all the same: paperwork, electronics, ruined stuff, useless stuff.
“Why do you think nobody’s found this truck before?” she asked me.
I’d been wondering along the same lines.
“I think it came off the road up there about where I fell. And this spot’s nowhere near the road. Remember how it curved?”
It seemed to me that the road must meet up with the creek several hundred yards downstream. Which meant we were in an off-the-beaten-path kind of spot. A rather idyllic one too. The creek rushed and gurgled. Just upstream, a waterfall cascaded down the bare rock face of a cliff, filling a pool below which narrowed at one end to become the creek. The big tree that must have stopped the truck so long ago provided shade for us and housing for multiple squirrels. (Whose demise I was already plotting.) The ground was level. It would have been a great place to make camp if it wasn’t early afternoon. Although between my ribs and my head, I wasn’t looking forward to several more hours of hiking.
“How long do you think it’s been here?” East said, shivering a little in the dappled sunlight. It was a little creepy—going through packages sent by and to a bunch of dead Before people.
“Well, if they were still out on the roads delivering mail, it must have been before the Bad Times really kicked in, right? Maybe just before, since they apparently never found it. I wish they’d been smart enough to be shipping each other survival gear and weapons, instead of all this paper and crap.”
“So why did he crash then?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see any bullet holes. Maybe it was just a simple accident—a deer in the road or an earthquake.”
“Hmmph,” she said, a little downcast.
“What?”
“Well, dang, I never would have figured all that out. You know you make me feel pretty stupid sometimes, Kell.”
I stared at her. I wanted to tell her no, she had that backwards. But I chickened out and asked her instead if she wanted to start opening packages.
“No, you go first. What have you got?” she asked, excited again.
I sat down next to her on the tailgate. I held up the first of my two packages, a small, square, plastic envelope.
“Presidio Custom Guitarworks.”
“Uh, pretty sure it’s not a guitar,” she said sarcastically.
Much better, actually. Guitar strings. Thin metal cables which I immediately set about twisting into squirrel snares while East opened one of her selections.
“Visions of Beauty,” she intoned with great solemnity. To her disgust, the little box contained only a pair of eyeglasses. Ugly ones, at that. She tried them on, blinking and squinting at the result.
“Do I look smarter?”
“Oh, absolutely, Professor,” I told her. “Wait, don’t throw those away—we can use them to start a fire.”
She made a silent “oh” with her mouth and stuck them in her backpack. She held the next box up to her nose and inhaled deeply.
“Here, smell this.” The fine soaps had weathered their stay in the back of the truck well. East kept one bar for herself (French lavender) and tossed me the other, which smelled divinely of grapefruit and watermelon.
Her third box was a knee-high rectangular tower, but she insisted on opening that one last. I handed her my other package—a lumpy cardboard envelope addressed to Mrs. Lois Pomeroy which had caught my eye solely due to the colorful kid’s drawings adorning it. East drew out a fat wad of photographs, a letter and a shiny compact disc labeled “photos for Grandma Lo.” East promptly began to use the CD as a mirror, tilting it this way and that to get the best look at her reflection.
“Oh my God, I’m a mess!” She started fussing with her hair.
I unfolded the letter and began to read it aloud. Dear Mom, it began, I printed all the pictures from Logan’s birthday party, but made a CD for you too in case you want to put them on the computer. I stopped there. I couldn’t go on. The words were so ordinary, so innocent, so completely unaware of what was coming. Normal people, normal lives, a birthday party with the neighborhood kids, one of the twins skinned her knee and the dog got into the cupcakes. My throat just closed up on me and the words on the page swam.
East was thumbing through the photographs.
“Nice party,” she murmured. “Nice family.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her tuck one of the pictures in her back pocket when she thought I wasn’t looking. But then she caught me trying to clandestinely wipe my nose on my sleeve.
“Oh, Jesus, don’t you start crying,” she told me irritably. “You’ll make me cry. Plus, check it out—I got one more box here. And I saved the best for last!”
“Where’s it from?”
She gave me her best devilish grin. “Bay Area Whiskey Lovers Club.” She held up the package and gave it a jiggle. “And it sloshes!”
She had it open in no time and took a sniff at the contents.
“Smells good,” she declared. “Probably even better after a few extra years in the dark.”
“I don’t know, East, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“Oh, come on,” she said dismissively, then downed a healthy slug. She grimaced appreciatively, patted her chest, then took another drink.
“East!”
“Oh, sorry, here you go.” She passed me the bottle despite my continuing protestations and watched me expectantly.
I cautiously sniffed it. Well, maybe one swallow wouldn’t hurt. Might help the pain in my ribs and the dull thudding in my head. Whoa—liquid fire passed from lips to sternum, searing a path to my stomach where a pleasing warmth then developed.
East screwed the cap back on the bottle, then rose to her feet. “So are we done here?”
I must have stood up a little too fast. I felt dizzy all of a sudden and little black dots swarmed my vision. I swayed a bit and sat down rather heavily on the tailgate.
“You lightweight, Dupont,” East scoffed. Then, with some concern, “Wait, are you all right?”
I put a hand to my head. The dull thudding had upped its tempo to more of a sharp pounding.
“Is it the whiskey?” she asked. “You don’t look so good.”
“I think I’ll just lie down for a little while, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll set up the tent. No, don’t argue, it’ll only take a couple of minutes and the bugs won’t bother you in there.”
I couldn’t remember East ever putting up the tent before, although she’d watched me do it a hundred times. To my surprise, she chose a good spot without prompting from me and had it set up quickly. I was feeling too punk to compliment her, however. It was all I could do to crawl inside and lie down on my sleeping bag. I could not keep my eyes open, but I never did quite drift off to sleep.
An odd afternoon ensued in which I lay there in a dreamy twilight state, keenly aware of various aches and pains announcing themselves, while I listened to East move about the campsite. Talking to herself, singing, laughing. I was pretty sure the whiskey bottle wa
s keeping her company, but I simply felt too unwell to protest. I finally drifted off to sleep when darkness fell.
When I awoke, the particularly beautiful light of early morning was illuminating the tent with its rosy pinks and cheerful yellows. The harmonious sounds of the forest—stream gurgling, birds singing, leaves rustling in the breeze—were unfortunately overwhelmed by the sounds of East retching down by the creek. Ah, Nature.
I stretched and put a tentative hand to the bump on my head. Didn’t seem to be any bigger. No swarm of black dots appeared when I sat up, so I crawled outside to greet the day. The landscape briefly whirled about me when I stood, but settled back down when I closed my eyes. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew hiking was out of the question for at least the next twenty-four hours. I knew the smart decision was to listen to my body. And it was saying ow.
The remains of a fire were down to a few winking embers. I built it back up and put some water on to boil. East joined me, looking even worse than I felt. I silently handed her a cup of water when it was ready.
She eyeballed me, then finally spoke. “Just say it,” she said. The knife edge of her temper gleamed in those three short words. It was like the fun we’d had the day before with the packages had never happened. Mean East was back.
I shrugged, hoping to avoid confrontation but she seemed dead set on it.
“So big deal,” she said angrily. Her rage seemed to grow, feeding on itself with each succeeding word. “So I took a little vacation day. So did you. I wasn’t the one sleeping all day in the tent. Don’t you think we deserve a holiday once in a while from this freaking wild goose chase?”
I thought it a bit unfair to call the day I’d had a vacation, especially since she was the one who had knocked me down the hillside in the first place. But there was no point in arguing.
“One more day,” I told her. “One more day here, then we hit the road again tomorrow. Okay?”
As far as I could tell, she spent the rest of the day feeling absolutely shitty while I fished, set up my squirrel snares and otherwise enjoyed relative leisure. The highlight was washing up in the pool beneath the waterfall with my new bar of soap. It smelled so good I was inspired to do laundry as well. Mine and hers.
Saint Kell.
Dinner that night was trout with a side of trout. East picked at her food. Finally, she thrust her plate aside.
“I’m sick of fish.”
I was tired and hardly in the mood to take her crap. My head was pounding again.
“Yeah, well, why don’t you catch us something better tomorrow?” I said.
“Very funny,” she said savagely.
I didn’t get where all her hostility was coming from except we were both exhausted and scared. I dealt with it by working hard and pushing myself to ever greater limits, anything to avoid dwelling on thoughts of failure. But she always had to vent, always had to take it out on me.
“I’m serious, East,” I told her. “You need to learn how to do these things for yourself. Just in case.”
She went off on me then, a tirade of cursing and blame and insults and imagined slights. I sat there silently, staring into the fire and thinking what a bunch of immature nonsense it was. I was trying for no expression whatsoever on my face, but I’m not sure I succeeded.
“Fuck you, Kell,” was her closing statement as she stalked off into the darkness. I heard her throwing rocks in the stream and angrily muttering to herself.
I let her go. If she wanted to be an idiot, I couldn’t stop her. I did the dishes and went to bed. Another long, lonely night. I wished I could at least dream of Segundo or even of the Settlement—escape in my subconscious to a better place than this. But those dreams had stopped some weeks back. And Gabriel’s image was fading as well.
I rolled over and shoved my face in my sleeping bag when I heard East come in the tent. I was damned if I would let her hear me cry. The truth was, I was losing hope. What I would do when it was finally gone was one more thing I couldn’t let myself think about.
Chapter Thirty-six
Rabies Stew
My squirrel snares came up aces overnight, but that turned out to be the last meat we’d see for quite a while. Our north and east path had taken us into stony foothill country where both game and vegetation were scarce. The lack of sustenance was a constant and worrisome reminder of the food chain of which we were clearly not the top. We found things to eat here and there—occasional fruit, a stream now and again in which to fish, the much-despised cattails. But we were always hungry now. Always.
In my head was a near-constant fight—should we stick to the north-and-east plan that, in theory, might lead us to Segundo? Turn back to a more fertile area where at least we were assured of finding food? Give up altogether and head back to Tres Hermanas?
You’re a mule-headed Dupont, all right, Gran said in my head.
I doggedly kept us moving forward—north in the a.m., east in the p.m.
One morning, we awoke to a fine white mist enshrouding everything. It was hard to tell what time it was, but it felt early. The fire had died in the night, quenched by the wet enveloping vapor. I couldn’t get it restarted. Everything was covered with dew. We’d found some nuts the day before and the few remaining were our less than hearty breakfast. My stomach was growling as we set off into the sluggishly receding fog. I knew from yesterday’s bearings that north was uphill. There was no point sitting around a non-existent campfire with nothing to eat. So up and at ’em.
But it was a cold, hungry, clammy way to start the day. Visibility was limited and East was not a morning person, so we were moving both slowly and quietly up an uneven slope when I heard something. I stopped and motioned to East to halt as well. I could tell she had heard it too. We strained to see through the ragged remains of the mist. We could see a stone’s throw in each direction before it swallowed up the world.
A drumming, thrumming sound. Louder. Faster.
Hoofbeats.
Maybe fifty feet away, a stag burst through the mist and ran like hell straight up the hill. It all happened so fast I hardly had time to blink before he’d disappeared again. Half a moment later, something else big, but making a lot less racket, raced past us, just out of sight. Seconds passed. I held my breath. A faint cry in the distance held no clue as to the outcome. The terrified final shriek of the prey? The predator’s disappointed snarl?
I had my fingers crossed for the former. Better it than us.
“Did you see it?” East whispered. “What was that?”
“Cougar, I’m guessing,” I said loudly, startling her. You want to be big and loud and intimidating if there’s a mountain lion around. And don’t run. At least that’s what I’d been taught. I threw a few rocks in various directions while continuing to loudly declaim, rattling my pack and stomping about. East looked at me like I was daft. Not the first time that had happened.
We knew there were predators around us, though we rarely caught a glimpse of them. We heard howls in the night, found their scat on the trails we followed, sometimes came across the very little that was left of some creature they had savaged.
We were lucky, I guess.
Hard to feel lucky on an empty stomach.
We walked. After seeing the one deer, I had hopes of finding more, but the game seemed to be thinning out the further we went. I couldn’t understand it. An overabundance of predators? That was a scary thought. I wasn’t as worried about pumas and other larger-than-Kell critters as I was about the wild dogs. At least a puma or a bear would be quick. Being torn to shreds by a pack of dogs, though—that was the stuff of nightmares.
We were traversing a ridgeline late one afternoon when I heard them yipping and baying in the meadow below. We were high above them and the wind was in our favor, for which I uttered silent thanks. Nevertheless, I motioned East to take cover with me behind some rocks. I made sure the gun’s safety was off—if the dogs were coming our way, I would be ready.
From our hiding place, we had a good view.
A good view of a horrible sight. The pack—half a dozen slinking, snarling curs—had chased down a doe and her fawn.
“Oh, God,” East whispered, distressed. “Kell, can you—can we do something?”
I just looked at her. Do what? It was an impossible shot from that distance with a handgun, even if I were willing to give up the six bullets.
“Don’t watch,” I whispered to her. But it was as if she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—look away.
When the slaughter and the feeding were over and the dogs had moved on down the valley—farther away from us, thank God—East had one more question. Her voice was high and a little shaky.
“Can we eat that? Now that they’re gone? I’m so hungry…”
“No,” I said. “It’s not safe.” And there was none of “that” left, I was pretty sure. The pack had ripped the poor creatures apart and devoured them.
“But you’ve got the gun. And there might be something left, maybe bones for a soup or a stew or something…We’ve got to eat, Kell.”
I explained to her about the possibility of rabies, and that a rabid dog would have infected the meat and the blood. We couldn’t take the chance, not even as hungry as we were.
She stared at me angrily. Desperately. I could tell she wanted to argue. I could see in her eyes that she would have eaten the sickening remains of the deer if I weren’t there to stop her. I put my hands on her shoulders. So thin now.
“Come on, East. We’ll find some food. Soon, I promise. You help me look, all right?”
She was in no mood to be coaxed. I knew it was the wrong approach as soon as I said the words, but the damage was done. The whirlwind of her anger was unleashed upon me again. Such a waste of energy.
To summarize, it was all my fault. I treated her like a child. I’d failed to train her properly. I thought I was such a know-it-all, but she could do shit too if I’d only give her a chance.
She was really starting to piss me off.
“Well, step up then,” I said rather heatedly.
“What the fuck does that mean—step up?”