by David Hicks
“You’re good at this,” he said.
He felt Casey nod.
*
When he woke up, the hairs of his nostrils were frozen, but the rest of him was warm. He was alive. And something tiny was crawling across his belly.
He wiggled his fingers and toes: no frostbite.
A few years earlier, he had immersed himself in Walden Pond at twilight, swimming naked in the frigid water, feeling lightheaded and delirious before he came back up from its depths, blinked his eyes, and realized he was losing sensation in his legs. After he swam hard to the shore, he jumped around, massaged his toes, rubbed himself down with his shirt, pants, and some napkins from his lunch bag, then put his wet clothes on and half-walked, half-ran the mile or so back to his hotel, where he took a hot shower.
There are so many different ways to die, he thought now.
Casey was breathing soundly in his arms.
And so many different ways to live.
The landscape was tinted with something, a glint of light, and at first he thought the moon had come out, but then he remembered there was no moon. It must be the sun, he guessed, still an hour or so from its rising, giving off a glow from where it had already risen over the plains of Nebraska and was poised to climb the eastern slope of the Rockies. He pictured the million or so citizens of Denver, awakening to the bright day.
He felt cold and hungry, and there was that insect on his belly, or maybe it was a lizard; but he lay still, listening and breathing, trying to remember what day it was.
Monday. Nathan and Janey would be going back to school—the end of their Christmas break.
He looked up at the now-clear, fathomless night sky. There were millions of stars, an unspeakable spectacle, and Flynn realized they were the source of the dim light, not the sun. It was probably only one or two a.m. He imagined his children sleeping in their beds—Nathan in the attic, which used to be Flynn’s office, and Janey in Nathan’s old room. Nathan would be on his side, curled up into himself, his face elf-like and fair; Janey would be on her stomach, her cheek flattened on the mattress, her pillows tumbled on the floor.
The house would be quiet. But soon, before the sun was up in White Plains, Rachel would awaken them and get them ready for school.
*
When Flynn awoke again, day was breaking; there was a distinct glow from the east. His mouth tasted bitter and pasty, as if he had swallowed something, leaf or bug. He swept aside some of the brush, rolled over, and spit. Casey stirred and reached for him.
“We did it,” she said.
They held each other for a while, then stretched off their sleep and kicked themselves out of their nest. They stood, stripped, and shook out their clothing. The cold was piercing, but the sky was still clear and the sun would soon warm them. And they were alive.
Flynn’s stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry,” he called out. “Let’s shoot a rabbit and make a fire.”
*
In the sharp light of dawn, everything was clearer. If they followed the edge of the mesa, Casey said, eventually they would have to meet up with the road they came in on. So they walked. Flynn carried the rolled-up blanket with the headstalls wrapped inside. His legs were stiff at first, from the hard ground and from riding, but he soon found himself moving more and more freely. As the sun continued its ascent, they talked as if they were on an excursion, the kind of pleasure hike they’d been taking every day. Flynn brought up his need to get a job when they got back to Sanctuary, apologizing for being so broke, and Casey told him about a nice couple that owned the only hotel in town; he could wait tables for them if he wanted. “We’ll be okay,” she said, and Flynn understood that this meant she had enough money for both of them. He told her more about his financial difficulties and missteps, keeping it general, as well as how Rachel had been preventing him from seeing the kids ever since he had filed for divorce, and about his lawyer’s refusal to do any more work on Flynn’s behalf until his back fees were paid. When he finished, Casey kept walking for a while, watching her feet. Then she said, “You need to stop engaging with all of them. You’re just giving them more power.”
“All of them?”
Casey nodded. “All of them.”
They walked along the ridge of the mesa. The sun began to warm the back of Flynn’s neck. He had been thinking that what he needed to do was not to disengage but to redouble his efforts, be more forthright and aggressive, especially about seeing his kids. He’d been passive his whole life. And to disengage now might mean losing them forever. He clutched the rolled-up blanket, watching Casey’s confident walk from his position a half-step behind her.
Just then, she lifted her nose. “Smoke,” she said.
*
As they approached the ranch, a lean black dog sprinted out toward them and jumped onto Flynn, paws on shoulders, nose to nose, its teeth wet and gleaming. Doberman. He drooled on Flynn’s shoulder while humping his hip, then growled and nipped at Flynn’s wrist when he tried to push him away. “Jesus!”
“Zeus!” a man barked out. He came charging up to the dog and smacked it across the nose. The dog yelped and trotted off a few paces. “If he does anything like that again,” the man said to Flynn, “that’s what you gotta do. Show him who’s boss.” He was a thin, slouched man, a little younger than Flynn, with tamped-down hair the color of cedar. He clutched a paintbrush in one hand and held out the other for a shake. “I’m Daniel,” he said. “You must be Flynn and Casey.” He looked back and forth between the two of them. “We weren’t sure which was the guy and which was the gal.”
“Well I’m the guy,” Flynn said while looking at Casey, who loved dogs more than she loved people. As a girl she had a black Lab that slept in her bed, protecting her from her abusive father, and she always joked that she preferred sleeping with dogs to sleeping with men. “This is Casey,” he said as he spotted the two horses out in the pasture, chewing grass, as if nothing had ever happened.
Casey lifted her chin as a kind of greeting. Daniel looked around. “Where’s your gear?”
Flynn pointed to Casey’s Forerunner, and Daniel gave a low whistle. “You slept out in that cold?” he said. “We figured you brought your tent with you, forgot to tie up the horses, and they ran off on ya.”
Casey tilted her head toward Flynn. “He doesn’t ride,” she said. “And we were out pretty far.” She shrugged a shoulder. “We were fine.”
No, we were not fine, Flynn wanted to say. We were lost.
After they got their duffle bags from the Forerunner, they walked past the sign that Daniel had been painting when they arrived—Welcome to the Desert Spring Ranc, it said. Inside, they were greeted by a young woman with a baby slung in one arm and a box of kitchen matches in her free hand. She looked as if she had just lost something critical.
“When the horses came back without you . . .” She smiled nervously at Daniel, then at the cowering but unrepentant Doberman by his side. “We’re so glad you’re okay.” Her voice reminded Flynn of a gurgling creek. She took out a Pyrex dish of enchiladas from the refrigerator and set them on the counter, then turned on the gas to the oven. “I’m Delia,” she said. “I’ll show you . . .” She struck a match, opened the oven door, and stooped to light the pilot, and as she did, the baby’s face dipped close to the puff of blue flame.
While the enchiladas baked, Delia gave them a quick tour of the house, stopping in the small middle room between the kitchen in front and a living room, which doubled as guest quarters, in back. There were just three things in the middle room: a yellow loveseat, an end table cut in the shape of a heart (with a photograph of Daniel, a pregnant Delia, and a red-haired man), and, in the corner, a fat, mop-haired, bloody-eyed, malodorous white dog. The dog growled as they entered, growled when Flynn stood too close to Delia, growled when Zeus came into the room, and growled when the baby reached down from Delia’s arms in an attempt to pet it. A wet, gravel
ly growl.
After they wolfed down their enchiladas and drank some instant coffee, Flynn and Casey went into the guest room to take a nap. The room had a large fireplace, a back door leading outside to a wood-heated hot tub, a folded-out sofa that would serve as their bed, a small television, and a DVD player. Flynn couldn’t fathom how everything in the house ran on propane. Delia ushered them in and said she’d leave them alone until dinner was ready. “After all, this is your honeymoon, right?” She winked, smiled at her baby, and then winced as she hustled into the kitchen.
Casey and Flynn sat on the bed and took off their boots. “I told them that so we’d get the discount,” Casey whispered. She shrugged and gave him her cute look. “But hey, you never know, right?” Flynn smiled, not knowing at first what she meant. They had yet to broach the topic of marriage. They had known each other for only five months, and Flynn had figured they were on the same page, taking it slow, given his still-legally-married status—until she had announced she was pregnant. Now, he wasn’t sure what was expected of him. According to his lawyer, his divorce was “still weeks, if not months” from being resolved, “especially given the payment issue.”
Casey stood, pulled off her shirt, and shook out her hair. “I am not having this baby out of wedlock, Flynn. That’s not how I do things.”
Flynn leaned toward her sympathetically and put his hand on her abdomen, but felt nothing—no heat. “I’m working on it,” he said, while calculating how much he had in his checking account, how many more months before she gave birth, what an engagement ring would cost, and how much he owed his lawyer.
Casey bent her head as she tugged off her jeans. “If you really wanted to be divorced,” she said, “then you’d be divorced by now.”
As she headed off to take a shower, Flynn stared at her back, then stood up and unpacked his duffel bag. All his clothes smelled like dust and sweaty socks. In the inside pocket of the bag were a few things he’d been taking out whenever he’d had moments to himself: a picture of Nathan and Janey in their Halloween costumes (his son a cowboy, his daughter Pocahontas), a “prescription” Nathan had written him while pretending he was a doctor (“Go owtsid and play mor”), and the stem from a pumpkin he had carved for Janey back in October.
He had taken her to Roosevelt State Park, where the trees were spectacular, stopping first at a local farm to buy a small pumpkin. He held his daughter’s hand and walked through the woods, then swung her onto his shoulders, as she told him in her three-year-old babble about all the events he had missed: their new cat Blackie, the man from the gas station who came to the house with flowers, the time the lights went out and they all read stories with flashlights. Flynn, who had spent the half-hour drive regretting that Nathan, who had the flu, couldn’t come along, found himself entranced with his daughter’s voice and enjoying her company. When they got back to the car, he took out the pumpkin, handed Janey a pen, and she drew a weird, crooked face on it. That’s when Flynn realized he forgot to bring a knife, so he took the longest key from his keychain—the one to his office at Fairfield—and hacked at the pumpkin with it, trying to follow her design, and when he was done, having sweat through his shirt and bloodied his fingers, Janey beamed, declared it a “cuckoo crazy” pumpkin, and said she’d put it on the front porch when she got home.
Now, Flynn clutched the pumpkin stem, picturing his daughter’s eyes. Was it possible to fall head over heels in love with his child, with both his children, to love them more than he had ever loved any woman? Was it possible to miss them with the kind of longing, the kind of desperation, he had only before read about in books?
He would never, ever stop engaging with them.
*
Flynn and Casey woke up to a sharp knock on the door. A man walked in—the redhead from the photograph. “Well, if it isn’t our two Survivor contestants,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat to Casey. “Rough night out there? It likely dropped below zero just before dawn.” He stood iron-straight in tight Wranglers, cowboy boots, and a pressed denim shirt.
“It was fine,” Flynn said. He sat up and wiped his mouth, embarrassed to be caught sleeping during the day.
The man strode over to the television, heels thumping on the old wood-plank floor. He held up a DVD. “Went to Junction yesterday,” he said. “Stopped at the Walmart and picked up Star Wars, the original. Three ninety nine! We’re fixin’ to watch it after dinner.” He picked up the television as if it were a rodeo calf. “Seen it probbly a dozen times,” he said with a crooked smile. “Care to join us?”
Flynn nodded, then shook his head.
“And you are . . .?” Casey said. She sat up, her flannel shirt unbuttoned.
“Oh, Delia didn’t mention me?” He half-turned and spit into the ash can by the fireplace. “I’m Butch,” he said. He tipped his hat again to Casey, and walked out.
“You certainly are,” Casey said to the closed door. She turned to Flynn. “So he’s the brother?” she said.
Flynn dug through his duffel bag and found a cleanish shirt. “Could be the husband.”
“No,” Casey said. “Daniel’s the husband. I can tell by the way Delia acts around him.” She got up and pulled on her jeans.
“Something’s off about her,” Flynn said, finding the pair of corduroys he had worn in New Mexico. His jeans smelled too strongly of horse sweat.
“Oh, her I get,” Casey said, buttoning her flannel shirt. “I’ve been her.”
“I mean physically,” Flynn said as he slid on the corduroys. “And she doesn’t finish . . .”
“It’s all connected,” Casey said.
Delia herself came in then with a rap on the door, still holding the baby. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to disturb your nap earlier, but . . .” She pointed to the trunk at the foot of their bed. “Etta needs . . .” She held the baby with her arms straight out so Etta was facing them. “Isn’t she . . . ?”
Flynn nodded. “Adorable?” he said. In truth, the baby looked like a bridge troll. But when Janey was a baby she had looked like that, chubby and complacent, with scattered hair, and she was turning out to be a beauty. As Delia bent over to open the trunk, which was stuffed with baby toys, Etta reached down for a rubber teething pretzel, her head swinging near the corner of the bed frame.
“So you like it?” Delia asked them, smiling with her lips pressed together. “We’re so happy here, we’re so . . .” She nodded, a lock of her hair floating over her nose.
Flynn nodded with her. “Content?” he said. “It is a great place.”
Delia’s eyes darted to the ceiling, to the door, and back to Flynn and Casey. “It’s sacred is what it is, it’s . . .” She set down the baby, and Etta tottered out into the middle room.
“At one time, maybe,” Casey said. She had a strong, nasal voice that sometimes surprised people. “A long way back.”
Delia nodded. “Lots of history,” she said. “Butch and Sundance, Billy the Kid . . .” She pointed to the shelves behind the television stand. “There’s books about it,” she said. “Built more’n a hundred years ago. Used to be where horse thieves and cattle rustlers hid out. Part of the True West,” she said, then sighed. “I’m just a little . . .”
From outside the door, the white dog, whose name was Apollo, snarled, a sound more sinister than the growling they’d already heard. Delia rushed out, and Flynn got up in time to see her scoop up her daughter, who had been pulling the old dog’s hair. Apollo’s bloody eyes were trained on Etta’s throat.
“Dinner!” Delia called back over her shoulder.
*
Before driving out to the Desert Spring Ranch, Casey and Flynn had stayed at a motel in Moab with wi-fi, the only internet access they’d had for the week. While Casey had taken a bath, Flynn had pulled out his laptop and found 294 new emails in his Inbox: friends at work, wondering why he had quit in the middle of the school year; a student, Audrey, s
ending him a link to the front-page article she had written for the Fairfield Mirror (“The Hawk Flies the Coop”); another student, Wanda, writing from Europe, saying she hoped it was “true love, and not escapism” that had triggered the abrupt move she had just heard about; his son’s third-grade teacher, filling him in on Nathan’s troubling behavior at school; his lawyer, insisting he be present for a court hearing in White Plains on January 12th; his friend Peter, begging him to call; and Rachel, detailing the many ways in which he was a terrible father and reprehensible human being.
And one from his sister. In it, she outlined how poorly Flynn was behaving: nobody should quit a good job in this economy; nobody should move so far from his family, especially with a mother as frail as theirs was; no father should ever leave his children; no sensible person should move to the Rocky Mountains, where there were no real job opportunities (that according to Mitch, her husband). Then, at the end: It’s not so much what you’re doing that’s wrong, Flynnie. It’s how you’re doing it.
It might as well have been their father, writing from the grave.
*
After dinner (pre-cooked pulled pork, creamed corn from a can, and scalloped potatoes), Butch wiped his mouth and dropped his napkin onto his plate. “Delia darlin’, that was delicious.” Flynn looked at Casey as if she were wrong about which man was the husband, but Casey only looked amused. “What do you think, cowboy?” Butch asked Flynn. “Don’t get too many meals like this where you’re from, do ya?”
Flynn shook his head, looking at the empty box of scalloped-potato mix. “Sure don’t,” he said.