On the Free

by Coert Voorhees

  On their way downriver, they check on the carcass, which looks like a whole family of bears ripped it apart: hide shredded and peeled away haphazardly, chunks of flesh missing from the back, one of the hind legs almost entirely torn away, holding on by a few tendons.

  “I thought you said it was untouched since last night,” she says.

  “It is.” They stare at it in silence for a minute. “You really did a number on that bad boy, didn’t you?”

  The deer is way more mangled than Amelia expected, and she can’t decide if Tyler would be proud or offended by her work. She knew she wasn’t exactly being surgical, but she didn’t expect it to look like this. “We were hungry. And I didn’t exactly have a lot to work with.”

  “Either that or the chupacabras came along—”

  “Okay, okay.”

  They stand quietly again, contemplating the remains. Santi clears his throat. “I feel like we should say something.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve said enough already,” Amelia says.

  He waves his hand out in front of him, making something like the sign of the cross. “Dominus ominus.”

  “You’re weird.”

  Another two hundred yards downriver, they stop for the black trash bag, which is dancing erratically against the current, tied to the trunk of a nearby bush with the last remaining strips of Jerry’s sweatpants.

  Santi kneels and unties the makeshift rope. He hauls the bag out of the river—hand over hand, like a fisherman pulling in his net. “Nature’s fridge.”

  “You dead yet?” Amelia says, watching him load the meat into their backpack.

  “Not yet.”

  “We’re going to get out of here, aren’t we?” The words feel different in her mouth now that she actually believes them. Empty hope was worse than no hope at all; real hope is better than both.

  “You had to go and jinx it, didn’t you?” Santi says. He dons the backpack, and with a last glance upriver, they’re gone.

  Compared to the terrain they’ve struggled with over the last week, the gentle slope alongside the river makes for an unsettlingly easy walk. Amelia doesn’t trust it. Every time they round a bend, she expects to find some new, ridiculous obstacle, like a cliff wall they have to ford around or underbrush dense with brambles and thorns. But while the bushes are a little thick here and there, and they occasionally have to navigate piles of stones along the riverbank, nothing they run across comes close to the dangers in her imagination.

  “When I was in juvie,” Santi says after about fifteen minutes of solid progress, “I would lie in bed at night and play the ‘When I get out of here’ game. You know: I’m going straight to Blake’s Lotaburger for a green chile cheeseburger. I’m going to study for real this time. I’m never going to do anything bad again.”

  “I hope you got that cheeseburger, at least.”

  Santi shakes his head. They reach a bend in the river and start to scale a pile of small boulders. “The only thing that matters now is my sister. I know I can’t get us out of Ray’s house, but I can be there with her.”

  “Is it weird that I don’t want to go back home?” Amelia says.

  Santi’s laugh is a sudden, singular Ha!, like the pop of a firecracker.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she says. “I want to get a cast and some painkillers and take a shower and all that. But I’m kind of dreading everything else.”

  They walk in silence for a minute or two, with the wind occasionally gusting at their backs. The sun has crept entirely above the ridge, and while the morning chill hasn’t gone away, the air is crisp. Even the river is calm, having doubled in width; the water moves with a soothing gurgle.

  “No, it’s not weird,” Santi says. “Everything good that’s ever happened to me has happened in the mountains.”

  “Except for the part where you stole that piece of gold.”

  He stops and glares at her, like he’s been betrayed. “Come on, man. I thought we were having a moment.”

  “Sorry?” Amelia says with a wince.

  “I don’t even know why I did it, you know? It was there, I took it, and then it was too late to un-take it. I didn’t know what I was doing.” He shakes his head again. “I don’t ever know what I’m doing, really.”

  “Who does? I think everyone is just as lost as the next person.” She turns to him and holds her arm out wide. “When you see me, what do you see?”

  Santi pulls the water bottle from the pack’s side pocket and contemplates her as he sips. “I thought you weren’t up for sharing circle.”

  “My dad once told me that I’m the only one in the family he doesn’t have to worry about.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “No, not complaining, but what am I supposed to do when he says that? What if I need him to worry about me? I’m about to go to college, exactly what I should be doing, what’s expected of me. I’m the easy one, right? But I’m not ready. Not for college, not for life, not for any of it.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn’t. If you don’t have your shit together, what chance do I have? Private school, country club, oysters—”

  “Oysters?”

  “Or whatever rich people eat,” he says with a laugh.

  “Rich makes no difference. There’s a girl I went to school with,” she says, holding her hand out for the water, “Heather DuBois. Fought with her mom constantly. She went out and bought a $10,000 dress with mom’s credit card—”

  “No way—”

  “Swear to God. She didn’t even like the dress. Had it altered right away, though, so her mom couldn’t return it.”

  “What did her mom do?”

  Amelia laughs. “More coke, probably.”

  Santi laughs with her. She’s about to put the water bottle to her lips when a gunshot splinters the morning stillness.

  Amelia and Santi run to the underbrush, and by the time the echo fades, they’re both crouched down for cover.

  Santi looks just as afraid as she feels. He whispers, “Was that—”

  “A .22?” she says. “Yeah.”

  “It was really close. Closer than last time. I bet he saw our fire.”

  Before she can say anything, another shot rings out, followed by another. And another. “What is he doing?”

  In answer to her question, a scream fills the river valley. Not a scream of anger—it’s one of fear. Of panic. It doesn’t make any sense.

  She cocks her ear to the sound as it fades. “Why would he—”

  Another gunshot interrupts her, followed by a single word.

  “I think he just called for help,” Amelia says, still confused, still not ready to trust what her ears are telling her.

  “What do we do?” Santi says. “He sounds just as crazy as the last time we saw him.”

  “We have to help him, don’t we?”

  “What if it’s a trap?”

  Victor’s voice again. Help. This time, there’s no mistaking it. Amelia glances longingly downriver. “You know we have to go back.”

  Santi winces but says, “I know.”

  Uphill takes longer. They move slowly, hunched over to stay hidden, keeping as quiet as possible. She doubts it’s a trap, but if it is, she’s not about to run right into it.

  There are no more gunshots, but Victor’s screaming has become a constant. Ragged with a fear that’s more apparent the closer they get. They stop to rest at the spot where they’d tied the meat for the night.

  “He’s got to be at our campfire,” Amelia says. She points to the trees, away from the river. If they stay by the river, they’ll be more exposed as they get closer. Better to hide in the trees.

  Santi nods, and they zigzag forward quietly, with the trees as a buffer between them and the sound of Victor’s voice. They’re close now, only fifty feet from the deer carcass. As Amelia starts to run toward the next tree, Santi grabs her shoulder—the one connected to her broken arm—and pulls her back. Somehow, she swallows the yelp as a
wave of nausea overtakes her. When she turns to glare at him, the color is gone from his face.

  She follows his terrified gaze and can’t swallow the yelp a second time.

  A mountain lion. Pacing back and forth between the site of their fire and the cliff-side spot where they’d left the deer carcass.

  It’s beautiful. Light brown with a hint of white along the fur at its belly, its long, thick tail whipping back and forth as it moves. It keeps its head low to the ground, which accentuates the muscles in its front shoulders. The power is evident, even as it stalks.

  “He’s trapped in there,” Santi whispers.

  With Santi behind her, Amelia slowly moves toward another tree, parallel to the river, until she can see where Victor has stationed himself: the gap in the cliff. He stands inside at the closed end, his backpack at his feet, holding his rifle by the barrel and waving it like a sword. The only thing between him and the mountain lion is the deer carcass.

  “He saw our smoke,” Amelia whispers, once again grateful for the noise of the river. “The mountain lion must have showed up just after he did.”

  Santi’s reply is so quiet that reading his lips is the only way she can understand him. “What if it just wants the deer?”

  “It’ll attack him if he tries to escape,” she says. She doesn’t know much about how to survive a mountain lion attack, but she does know that running away triggers the predator instinct. “He won’t stand a chance.”

  “We need to distract it, then,” Santi says. “Scare it away.”

  “That’s insane. If it notices us, we’re dead too.”

  “How much longer do you think it’s going to pace there before it gets bored and goes in?”

  “I don’t want to see Victor mauled, Santi. But I really don’t want to be mauled.”

  Santi removes his backpack. “I have an idea. Wait here.”

  “What are you going to do?” she says, grabbing his arm.

  “He’s trapped. He’s out of ammo. His only way out of there is if the mountain lion leaves, and I’ll bet you a million dollars that Victor panics and does something stupid before that happens.”

  “That thing could gut you with one swipe.”

  He takes a deep breath and nods, more to himself than to her. “I never do the right thing.” His smile is no match for the fear in his eyes. “I wonder what it feels like.”

  “Just be careful,” she says.

  “I love you too.” He winks and turns downhill before she can give him the finger.

  The next five minutes are torture. Amelia doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’s doing. All she can do is wait. The mountain lion seems to have no interest in leaving. If anything, it’s inching closer to the entrance. Closer to Victor, who swings the gun more wildly every time. Santi was right about one thing: panic is taking over.

  Victor yells again, and for the first time, the mountain lion yells right back, an angry, high-pitched screech. Amelia expected something deep and menacing, but this is infinitely more terrifying: a shriek that echoes down the valley.

  This will all be over soon. One way or another.

  Amelia catches a glimpse of movement on top of the cliff. It’s hard to see through the tree branches, so at first she thinks her eyes are playing with her. But there it is again: Santi, crouched over, far enough from the edge that he’s hidden from below. He shuffles forward, partly out of stealth but mostly because he’s struggling to carry a rock the size of his chest.

  When he’s almost above the fissure in the cliff wall, he eases the rock to the ground and lies on his stomach behind it. Advancing slowly—Amelia can’t be sure he’s actually moving at all—Santi pushes the rock toward the edge of the cliff, crawling military style behind it, until it’s teetering on the brink. He’s waiting for something. What is he waiting for?

  The mountain lion arches its head toward the sky, but before its screech is fully formed, Santi yells at the top of his lungs and pushes the rock forward. It clatters down the rock face, cracking off smaller stones on the way, making enough noise that Amelia can hear it over Santi’s shout.

  Then chaos. Ear-splitting chaos.

  The mountain lion screams again, and Victor screams, and Santi is still screaming. The boulder hits the ground and keeps rolling, and the mountain lion prances straight up, its back arched like a startled housecat. With one final screech, it sprints uphill and disappears through the trees.

  For a moment, there’s only the rushing of the water.

  Amelia hides behind the tree. Santi lies motionless on the ground at the cliff’s edge. Victor, still in the open cave, spins in circles, looking all around him.

  When she’s convinced that the mountain lion is truly gone, Amelia steps out toward Victor. He sees her and freezes. He stares at her as she strides closer, his eyes wide as if in shock.

  Amelia puts her hand out like a stop sign as she passes by their campfire, then pauses at the entrance to the fissure.

  Victor looks ragged, spent. His chest is heaving; his clothes are just as filthy as Amelia’s.

  “You okay?” she says.

  It’s as though a spell is broken. His shoulders sag and he drops the gun, and the shock in his face turns to exhaustion.

  “I . . . I don’t . . . Thank you,” he finally says.

  “Don’t thank me.”

  A rock falls to the ground at Victor’s feet, and he flinches backward. Santi swings his feet over the cliff edge above them and sits down. Victor starts to turn toward Santi, but then he notices the rock on the ground.

  He squats to pick the thing up, then holds it in front of his face, squinting, and Amelia realizes that it’s not just a rock.

  “Sorry about the whole ‘stealing gold from your stepdad’s secluded mountain cabin’ thing,” Santi says from above.

  Victor’s chest is still heaving, but he nods, then he nods again. He hunches over. He looks broken. He turns his attention back to the gold in his hand, tossing it up and down as if checking its weight.

  Amelia is about to step the rest of the way toward him, to put her hand on his shoulder and tell him that everything is going to work itself out, when Victor squeezes the gold in his fist until his knuckles turn white. He picks his head up and rolls his shoulders back.

  He looks back up at Santi and out to Amelia. The anger in his eyes is gone, as is the fear. Victor turns his hand over and studies the nugget resting on his palm, and then he smiles—just a little one; if she’d blinked, she would have missed it—and takes two enormous strides and throws his stepfather’s gold out over the river.

  His yell thunders through the valley, rippling back to them in waves, as the gold catches the sun and sparkles briefly before the wilderness swallows it whole.

  Acknowledgments

  I’ve been working on this book on and off for so long that there’s no way I’ll be able to thank everyone who has played a role in getting it this far. I will try to do so anyway.

  For early encouragement and honest reads, I want to thank the Antidote Workshop: Alexander Parsons, Colin Tangeman, Greg Oaks, Casey Fleming, Scott Repass, Katy Miner, Ranjana Varghese, and Robert Liddell.

  I am indebted to Tyler Stableford and Stableford Studios for a place to work in Colorado and the fine folks at CHMSNA, in particular Sunil Yapa and David Wolman, for their perceptive feedback and unrelenting support. Thanks to Win and Lynn Campbell for being such enthusiastic champions of mine and for continuing to share their Alta Lakes pride and joy.

  I am grateful to the American Library Association for selecting my first novel, The Brothers Torres, for the Great Stories Club, and to the GSC program coordinator, Lainie Castle, for making it all happen. Thank you for sending me to juvenile detention centers around the Gulf Coast and for giving me an opportunity to meet and learn from the kids. Thanks to the staff members, librarians, and detainees of the centers I visited, in particular: Kathleen Houlihan and Heather Schubert at the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center in Austin, Texas; Stephanie Wilkes at
the Green Oaks Detention Center in Monroe, Louisiana; and Francie Clinton at the Southwest Oklahoma Juvenile Center in Manitou, Oklahoma.

  Sara Crowe stayed in my corner throughout, and Greg Hunter gave the book the most thoughtful and thorough reads I could possibly have hoped for.

  I could never have written this book had I not spent so much of my childhood in the mountains with my mom, dad, and sister. Thank you for the campfires, the hot cocoa, and the best steak in the history of the world. We all know what Dad is, do we not?

  Finally, to Molly, Dayton, and Annie Voorhees: Thank you for believing in me, challenging me, supporting me, and most of all, thank you for being with me every day.

  About the Author

  Coert Voorhees is the author of the novels In Too Deep (2013 Junior Library Guild Selection), Lucky Fools (2012 Junior Library Guild Selection), and The Brothers Torres (2009 ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults). He holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Houston, spent time in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar, and taught at Rice University as the Visiting Writer in Residence. Coert is the founding Mayor of Grammaropolis(.com), and his books for children include the Meet the Parts of Speech series and Storm Wrangler. When he’s not camping or scuba diving with his family, he lives with them in Houston, Texas. Visit Coert’s website at www.coertvoorhees.com.