A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  I hit the nozzle. Orange mist fogs the air, but I have no idea if I’ve managed to get his face. I’m worried I’ve only sprayed his chest, but adrenaline catapults him on top of me. I spray again, and he gets off me and retreats immediately. I pick myself up, an intense, dizzying rush filling my head. Blood drips before my eyes, and I can barely see which direction I’m heading, but I begin to back up, still holding the spray in front of me. The ground is wet and slippery. I’m not sure where McKay is; I’m too nervous to take my eyes from the direction the grizzly went.

  I’m still backing up with trepidation, placing one foot at a time behind me, afraid to stumble over an exposed root, when I see a small silvery-brown blob cross into some brush ahead. I realize it’s not a him, it’s a her, and I think she’s one angry mama, especially since I’ve filled the air around her and her cubs with capsaicin. Then I hear a loud thrashing again, and she appears from the dense forest and charges at me again. This time I get off a proper dose, zigzagging from high to low and covering a larger area. She halts, her large body thumping to a heavy stop, then turns and retreats into the brush again.

  I stand panting, my chest heaving. I’m gulping in air. McKay lets loose another long whine, and I look down and see him by my side. He doesn’t look injured, but I’ll have to check him. I begin to back away again in clumsy steps from the brush, but I’m still afraid to turn my back to the bear’s direction.

  After a moment, I hear some breaking foliage down lower, down the drainage. I realize she doesn’t appear to be coming at us anymore. I turn and begin to run back to the camp, but I can barely lift my right leg and I trip and fall to the prickly ground. I look down at it. Deep slashes traverse my thigh, tearing through the fabric and into the muscle, where she’s swiped me with her long claws. Blood and some kind of white matter, maybe fasciae, bubble out. Deep cuts slash across my left forearm as well.

  I continue on, hobbling forward until I get to my camp. I’m terrified she’s going to come back up to the campsite, but I untie the parachute line I’ve used to tie up my pack with the food supplies. My hands shake so aggressively, it takes me three times as long to undo the knots, but finally I lower it from the tree. I root around in it to find my first aid kit, some scissors, and a roll of gauze, nervously looking over my shoulder and scanning the area in case she comes back.

  I’m not sure I want to stay here to dress my wounds at all. Adrenaline is coursing through me and all I want to do is hightail it back down and out of these woods. But I force myself to think. If I start bushwhacking down straightaway, I have no vantage point. At least if she returns here, I’m out in a clearing and I’ll have a better shot. I try not to think of how the gusting wind might blow the spray straight to the side, but I realize I can compensate for that a little by adjusting my aim slightly.

  I cut away the fabric of my Carhartt from the upper leg and clean the wound the best I can, but it’s bleeding profusely. I tie the leftover fabric above the gashes to apply pressure and to hopefully work as a tourniquet, then pour the tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol I have over it. The long, deep gashes are still bleeding, but I apply the gauze anyway, circling it around and around until the entire roll is used.

  With still-shaking hands, I wipe my head next with some gauze pads from the kit and apply pressure to those too, but I have only a few left. I use what’s remaining on my arm. I remember using some of them on the scratches Anne Marie gave me. They seem so tiny, so inconsequential, compared to these. Anne Marie. The vision of her comes back to me and seems to burn in the puncture wounds on my scalp, as if she is the cause of an entire chain of events culminating in a grizzly attack. But then I think of Sam, and that memory burns deeper. Flashes of shooting him, of his life leaving his body, come back to me as I try to dress my wounds, and I realize that Sam’s death, not Anne Marie’s, is the beginning of everything—the Big Bang setting off the whole chain of events in my life.

  The wind begins to scream as it edges around the ridges and funnels into the canyon where the lake is. The sludge is all snow now and blows sideways. It’s beginning to collect into a thin film on the ground, the logs, and the colorful rocks by the lake. More blood has begun to stream down my face and into my eyes. I wipe it with another shirt I have in my pack. On some level, I’ve asked for this nastiness. I’ve been scared, but mostly I’ve been stubborn. Who do I think I am, traipsing around out in these mountains in the fall, acting like I’m doing my job when ultimately I’m just running from the police, running from myself?

  I check McKay next, running my hands over his entire body, looking for wounds. He’s perfectly fine and uninjured, but he’s trembling too, and he keeps trying to lick the blood on my leg. “You lucky bastard.” I push him away from my leg and manage a half-grin at him, but the pull of my own smile on my torn flesh stings enough to take my breath away. “How did you come out of this unscathed?” I ask him anyway.

  He tilts his head, trying to read me, his whole body still shaking like mine, either from the trauma of the bear experience or the cold, or both. The temperature has dropped by at least fifteen to twenty degrees.

  “We have to go down these mountains,” I say. “We can’t stay here. I need to get to a hospital to get stitches.” I know McKay has no idea what I’m saying, but his large liquid eyes look up at me like I’m crazy.

  “I know,” I say. “But we have to.”

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Tuesday

  AT FIRST, WHEN I went into the old man’s house, I wasn’t sure I wanted to call 911 without fully understanding what was going on, before I could admit something so awful and impossible to myself. But now if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that Rose is guilty. Guilty of what exactly, I don’t know. Whether she’s an accomplice or Anne Marie’s killer is the question, but the answer isn’t something I can find out on my own. That had been my first impulse, of course, but I’m already in deep with Shackley, and I realize it would be worse if it looks like I am somehow covering for her.

  I leave the old man, Mr. Desoto, and thank him for letting me use his phone. On my way back, I intend to pick up Reeve’s rifle, which I hastily hid in the bushes outside. But first, I stand on the sidewalk outside Mr. Desoto’s house and look around. The neighborhood is quiet except for the wind chimes.

  “Rose,” I whisper, “what in the hell have you done?”

  I take a few steps when I hear a kid’s voice, loud and excited from across the street. “Mom, Mom, there’s someone in my tree house.”

  I swing around. I hear a screen door slam behind him. I can’t see the boy because he’s yelling from a backyard, but it sounds close. I dash across the street to the house across from me, where I think I heard his voice, and go around back. A tree house stands on long wooden stilts in the back corner of the yard next to an apple tree. The day is fading fast, and a pale sky and spindly branches frame the rickety-looking wooden contraption—a tiny square hut. Rotten, pocked red apples skirt out from the tree next to it over the dead, matted grass.

  “Hey,” the mom says to me as she comes out the back door. I’ve already set one foot on the first rung of the ladder leading up to it. I look over my shoulder at them. “What’s going on?” The boy—maybe eight or nine—stands to her side, lagging behind for protection.

  “There was someone in your tree house?” I ask him.

  He nods.

  “A woman?”

  He nods again.

  “Did she leave?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Stay there,” I tell them both, then climb the narrow wooden ladder. I have my gun ready as I approach a three-foot plank outside the child-sized door. “Rose,” I say, “are you in there?”

  If she is, she doesn’t answer.

  I’m fully aware that if I enter a small space with my back and head bent over, she will have the advantage and could easily hit me with something or even push me back. I could go back down and stand at the base to guard the place and wait for backup. B
ut I have to know if she’s even inside. She could have come down right after the boy yelled and ran to his mom. I was here quickly, though, and would have seen her if she did because she would have had to navigate the narrow ladder.

  I have to go in. It’s Rose. It’s just Rose. She wouldn’t hurt me. “Rose,” I say firmly, “I’m going to come in. I’ve got my gun out, so please, okay, please don’t do anything stupid.”

  Silence again. I hear the boy whisper something to his mom from across the lawn. I crouch down rather than bending over so that my head is up and waddle like a duck up to the small entrance. I swing open the faded wooden-planked door. It makes a loud creak, and I sit on my haunches, waiting, my elbow cocked with my gun poised. I scooch a little closer into the entryway and peek in. Twilight is just beginning, and pale slivers make their way in from the open door and the open slits between the wood planks. My eyes take a moment to adjust, but I see her. She sits in the corner, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She looks cold and childish, even though I know how tall she is.

  “Rose,” I say, “why won’t you answer me?”

  She still doesn’t respond. I scoot the rest of the way in and kneel in front of the small door. “Okay,” I say, “you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” she says. It comes out more as a mumble, but I catch it. She clears her throat as if this were the first time she’s spoken all day, even though we were chatting and joking around about the girls less than an hour ago.

  “Then what’s this about?”

  She shakes her head in little vacillations, indicating that she has no desire to talk to me.

  “This has something to do with Anne Marie Johnson?”

  She stares at the wooden planks before her, her arms still hugging her legs. Her hair is still wet and hangs in clumped-up strands around her face. Dirt smudges mark her pale toes. The dankness and the dying wood give off a fusty smell. She doesn’t shake her head, so I take it as a yes, that it does have something to do with Anne Marie. “Look,” I say, “this is silly. You’re sitting in some kid’s tree house, and you’re clearly freezing. Let’s go home and get you some warm clothes.”

  “You don’t understand,” she says. “You think you’re so smart, but you don’t understand shit.” Her voice comes out like a snarl, and again it reminds me of Toni when she told me the same thing when I tried to help her. It hits me like a flash of light that it might not be only Rose’s laugh that reminds me of my sister. There might be other things: deep, scary things like the ability to lie and steal and throw other people under the bus to get your way.

  “Okay, what don’t I understand?”

  “Nothing.” She sounds petulant, like a teenager talking to her mother. But there’s more than peevishness in her voice. There’s a cold, hard bite to it that reminds me of criminals I’ve arrested in the past. This is insane, I think. It’s just Rose. I’ve known Rose for four years. She takes care of my little girl so I can be on call most days of the week.

  “Rose,” I say, my voice sounding more hurt than I want it to. I want to sound cool and collected, but I can hear the strain of it through the thickening of my throat. “What’s this about?”

  She looks up from the plank floor and stares at me. Her eyes gleam like black angry slits in a white papery cutout of a face in the dim light. Her lips part, and I think for a second that maybe she’s going to answer, but then I hear a screen door open—the same one I heard earlier—and voices from across the lawn. I recognize one of them: Herman. He’s saying, “I’d like for both of you to go back inside and stay there, please.” I presume to the mom and her son. Footsteps shuffle across the grass and through fallen leaves and dead apples, then stop below us.

  “Agent Paige,” Herman shouts up, using my last name as we would on any scene outside the personal space of our office.

  “I’m here,” I yell back.

  “Are you in danger?”

  “No,” I yell down, keeping my eyes on Rose. “Can you give me a minute?” It’s just Rose. It’s just Rose, I repeat in my head. But I can’t deny it: she ran. Plus, there’s something deeply disturbing about the anger in her eyes. I can feel them burning in the small dank space as if they’re flames emanating outward, their fervor reaching me and singeing my skin. For the first time in four years, I sense that I have deeply misjudged the person whom I’ve hired to care for my daughter. The thought snatches my breath away.

  “I’m coming up,” Herman yells from below. “The county’s here too.”

  “Don’t bother,” Rose calls out in a firm, loud voice, almost as if she’s bored. She puts one hand down on the plank to push herself up. “I’m coming down.”

  “Paige?” Herman questions the move.

  “Yes, it’s fine.” I shuffle to the side, keeping my gun cocked before me and letting her pass. “Rose is . . .” I say, then pause and rethink my word choice. I know I need to start somewhere. “The subject,” I call out loud and clear with my authority voice, “is unarmed and is voluntarily coming out of the tree-house door and down the ladder. I’ll be watching from up here. She knows better than to run again.”

  Reeve

  * * *

  Present—Tuesday

  AS THE PALE light settles behind the jagged edges of the darkening mountains, I root around in my pile of wood I’ve collected for a fire because I remember a long pole-shaped piece that I’d thought would make a good walking stick when I’d collected it. My head, forearm, and thigh are bleeding heavily and the blood is soaking through the layers of bandages I’ve applied. It oozes down my exposed right leg in red rivulets. I look around at my camping gear and know I won’t make it out if I try to carry it all on my back while limping. I decide to leave some of it behind to lighten my load, but I know I’ll need my sleeping bag and tent because there’s a chance we won’t make it out if the storm makes it unbearable to proceed or if my leg gives out completely. I figure we’re at least fourteen miles from my truck through rugged terrain.

  “Come on, McKay,” I say as I bend over to pick up the walking stick, ignoring the pain in my chest and back. The bear didn’t bite me or scratch me there, but I think I’ve broken a rib or two and hurt my back when she flung me onto the ground. McKay comes over, whining, sniffing my leg for the tenth time, and trying to lick the wounds through the bandages. “No,” I command, and he stops and looks up at me and points his nose up into the air again, trying to read it for signs of danger. I stand, straining to hear through the wind and the brush for any indication that she’s returning, but I think she wants to get her cubs away from us just as much as we want to get away from her. But still, I’ve heard all the horror stories: the grizzly that came back for a second and third round until he was good and sure that the man was not a threat, and the grizzlies that stalked photographers whom they deemed threatening because, after all, the photographers were stalking them first.

  Bushwhacking down the mountain is difficult. In an effort to stay clear of the grizzly’s path, I’ve veered in the opposite direction and have managed to get myself mixed up on a steep slope that is thick with tamped-down alder branches from previous years of wind and snow. They’ve grown sideways against the ground, the roots from the shrubs sprouting out horizontally in parts and covering the forest floor. They’re challenging to hobble across, and with the snow, they’re slick and treacherous. McKay whines his disapproval. He’s worried. Very worried. He sticks next to my leg like glue, making it even more arduous to walk. “You big baby,” I say, “it’s over now. She’s gone.”

  But I don’t know that for certain. I think she’s gone, that she’s going to stay clear of us, that she was just as scared of us as we were of her. “It wasn’t her fault; she was protecting her cubs,” I say to McKay, but more for myself. “They’re programmed to charge if they’re caught off guard. It’s instinctual,” I continue in a breathy voice that sounds alien to me. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell my dog as soothingly as I can muster.

  Suddenly every part of me si
mply wants to get down the mountain, to my truck and to the hospital. The will to survive beats strongly with each throb of my head. I take another step, trying to steady my stick on solid ground, but I can’t find purchase and slip on one of the slick roots. I crash down to my side, my rib cage screaming at me, and slide some thirty feet down the slope. I hear myself call out, and when I come to a stop, McKay bounds after me and practically lands on top of me. I swear from the pain, grit my teeth, and hit the ground with my fist. The agony in my leg reverberates up into my hip, and I wonder if I’ve done something to the joint. I stand carefully and try to walk, or limp, as I’ve been doing. I’ve lost my walking stick, and my tent has slipped out of the looped straps under my pack. I can’t see it and figure it’s under some brush farther up where I fell. I check for my sleeping bag and am relieved it’s still attached securely to my pack. I’m in no shape to hike back up to get the tent, so I’ll have to rely on a lean-to and my sleeping bag if it comes to that.

  I stand up and test my leg. It’s no worse than it was, so I gingerly continue down the steep slope, grabbing onto prickly bushes to keep from slipping.

  When I finally reach the bottom of the first slope and feel the nasty storm ripping across the ridges and rushing through the canyon, the danger I’m in with my injuries begins to sink in. My wounded leg begins to feel numb, but I can’t tell if it’s from severed nerves or the rapidly dropping temperatures. The cold that began in my feet and hands has crept to my shoulders and is now burrowing into my chest like a deep well. It’s numbing the pain from my broken ribs, but I know it’s a bad sign. Each breath I take is an effort and I’ve been spitting blood onto the collecting snow. I need to find a place to stop and make a fire, and I begin cursing myself for not staying put where I already had a camp set up just because I was afraid she’d come back. If my injuries take me now, it won’t matter if I’m a few miles down from that desolate tarn or not.