by Jim Heskett
She scans the nearby area. To her right is a hill littered with skinny tall trees. To her left is a valley, which quickly becomes steep as it drops to a creek below. Uphill. The best choice.
A second of panic. Is she still naked? She looks down. Keeps forgetting that she put on her clothes before she left Lake Verna.
She darts up the hill and traversing the incline burns her quads. The trees are too skinny to hide behind. A pile of them up the hill might provide cover, but it’s too far away.
Maybe she can make it. She has to make it.
The voices pulse below her as she lunges toward the pile, chest heaving. The collection of fallen wood lies sad and dead on the hillside. She feels pain for the trees, but it’s just another part of the rebirth of the forest.
She scrambles behind the pile and peers over. Two males and a female hike below on the trail, all three of them young and glowing with energy. Reagan forgot about seeing auras. Light practically radiates from their heads as they climb uphill, tapping their hiking poles against the ground.
Reagan squints to get a better look at them. One of them is wearing an enormous black pad on his back, like a mattress folded in half. It’s a bouldering crash pad. These kids aren’t part of Dalton, they’re here to rock climb.
Still, Reagan has committed to her hiding place. She can’t leave it now.
“Don’t trouble yourselves,” she whispers to the log.
In a minute, they pass, the youthful energy of their voices fading. She waits until they are definitely gone and then returns to the trail. Part of her feels silly for hiding, part of her thinks she did the right thing. No way to know.
The trees sigh. The breeze takes the sounds and massages them. The rocks bleed minerals into the air, and Reagan’s lungs pull in the minerals. She exhales the elements she doesn’t need, now understanding how the universe works. What if no one else understands? Spoon will understand. He is so much smarter and more talented than he realizes. He is a beautiful Australian boy and she loves him, even though she hasn’t shown him properly for too long.
A couple minutes along the trail, she finds the truth of the warning nailed to the tree before. Several thousand square feet of trail have been burned to a crisp. Apparently, an avalanche has come through recently, because the trail appears broken, sections of it vanished and cratered like canyons. Feelings mix as she looks over the devastation of the fire zone… sadness at the loss of life, but hope in the renewal of the forest.
All around, burned tree limbs litter the ground. The husks of these burned limbs shimmer like scaly snakeskin under the force of the sun. The trees that haven’t fallen stick up from the earth like chopsticks, wearing grungy black coats of amber and ash.
At the end of the burned area, another tree wears the same laminated warning card. She touches it as she moves past the devastation.
Within two hours of starting her hike, as the sun begins to toast her skin, she reaches One Pine Lake at the bottom of a steep trail. She knows this place now, and she’s oriented. She hiked this trail the summer after her first year in college. But she was only two-dimensional then, or closer to it. She didn’t understand it as she does now.
At the lake, she pauses to splash water on her face and consider her options. She reads the rain-blurred letter from Dad again.
Dearest Reagan,
I wish I had time to write everything I want to say, but … I had hoped that you … I made some mistakes. I was selfish. And I’m sorry … what the key in … farmer’s market. You’ll understand when you get there. Your grandfather … I hate to be so vague, but I … to say I’m sorry, other than to tell you that I’m proud of you and I love you. I know that’s not good enough.
Dad
You’ll understand when you get there.
“What were you selfish about? Where will I understand, Dad?”
All the terrible things Dalton said about him. Degenerate gambler. Empty casket. Or is the casket no longer empty? She spread the ashes into the water. Did it work?
And what does her grandpa have to do with anything? He is slipping away in an old-folks home in Boulder, his life slowly extinguishing. Is she supposed to take him to the educational center? Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe he is meant to be a teacher and help spread awareness of love, with whatever time he has left.
The lake has given her some answers, but not enough. She removes a granola bar from her pocket and reads the ingredients. High Fructose Corn Syrup. Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil. Poison. She almost throws the bar into the lake, but that’s a terrible way to repay the lake for helping her understand some of Dad’s letter.
As the sun rises overhead, she reaches the East Inlet Falls. Her skin begs for sunscreen, but she has none. There are a number of people watching the falls, and none of them scare her until a little girl waves. Why is she waving? What does she know? Reagan decides not to find out. She must leave.
She follows the falls to the East Inlet river, which will take her to the trailhead. What will she do there? She’ll still be a few miles from her car. Can’t worry about that now.
The river winds and bends next to the trail and it whispers that she is doing the right thing, that her cause is noble and just. That no one can hurt her as long as she remembers that.
But what if the river is lying?
Degenerate gambler.
Charlie. She left him behind. He was injured and hurt and scared and she ran away. He needed healing almost as much as Dalton and she abandoned him. That was wrong. But what can she do about it now? He is with Dalton and Dalton is sick and so Charlie is suffering. When Reagan gets stronger, she can heal them all.
She comes to a broad open meadow on one side and a hill reaching a small peak on the other. Grunts mix with the whispers of the aspens and the river. The grunts don’t fit. They are not trees or river or wind or bird calls.
The grunts belong to a moose. A baby calf, no bigger than a golden retriever. Its coat is the color of rust. The grunts are the sounds it makes as it yanks leaves from the twigs of a freshly-fallen tree.
The baby is beautiful. It is not the trees or the river, but it is nature too. Its grunts do fit and Reagan can now categorize them among the rest.
“You are beautiful.”
The calf stops chewing and stares at her. It looks into her eyes and it is not afraid. It does not run away.
“I understand you,” Reagan says. “I am of nature too. Maybe you can’t see that but you and I are the same. I’m here for the same reason as you.”
The calf now retreats a few steps. It’s looking past Reagan, looking for something else.
Louder grunts. Two hundred feet higher on the hill, another moose roots through a disintegrated log. This one looms larger, its coat a husky gray. No horns sit atop its donkey-like head.
This is the baby’s mother.
“Hello, mother,” Reagan says. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m not going to harm your child. If I harm her, I harm myself. Do you understand?”
The mama moose, which has been chewing, stops. Her angular head points at Reagan, eyes black and devoid of emotion. Her fuzzy brown ears flatten against her head. The moose eases down the hill toward her. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed. The sound of hooves tromping the hillside grows louder.
Only a hundred feet separate Reagan and the mama. “It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt your baby.”
Mama grunts. She’s closing the distance between them.
Danger. This is danger. Needles dance all over Reagan’s sunburned skin and she feels like she’s falling. The moose is going to kill her because it doesn’t understand. It doesn’t see how they are all the same and must hear it out loud.
“You’ll be killing yourself,” Reagan shouts. “Why can’t you see that?”
Thirty feet between them. The moose stops, its hooves digging into moist earth.
Reagan looks left and right. There are trees to climb, but they are too skinny. The branches won’t support her, and the
moose will ram any tree she climbs to knock her out of it.
“Don’t do this,” Reagan says, widening her stance and holding out her hands.
The moose lowers its head and charges. Hooves like thunder against the grass.
In a flash, brown and gray rush toward Reagan. She wants to run, but she knows the moose is too quick. She can’t outrun it. So she waits.
Twenty feet. Ten feet. The moose is upon her.
Reagan ducks and rolls to the left while the moose runs past. Reagan’s shoulders crunch against the ground as she tumbles. Pain sprinkles along her back.
This freedom won’t last. The moose scrambles and turns back to her, nostrils flared and eyes on fire. Only five feet away, the moose lowers like a cat readying to jump.
Reagan tries to stand, slips, and she’s on her back. Above her, the moose raises its front hooves and emits some kind of awful scream as it thrusts them forward. The wind moves, then she feels the horrible sensation of being punched in the stomach, but harder and more painful than anything she’s ever experienced. The moose’s hooves have dug into her ribcage.
If Reagan had eaten anything today, she would have spewed it all over herself. She gasps for breath as the moose removes the hooves from Reagan’s belly. Can’t breathe. The moose has stolen her air. Reagan’s vision turns spotty and full of pinpricks of light.
The moose rears back to attack again, but this time, Reagan reacts. When the moose’s body falls, Reagan twists out of the way, and the moose hooves slam into grass. Pushing off the ground, Reagan thrusts her shoulder into the furry belly, which knocks the moose off-balance, its body twisting in midair. With a wail, it falls on its side, thudding against the ground.
The beast shudders and moans. It kicks hooves through the air.
Gasps turn into coughs, and Reagan’s eyes land on the trail.
She jumps to her feet, vision swirling, as the massive creature struggles to get its legs under it. Reagan’s breath comes in interrupted gasps and hitches as if she’s choking.
She hurls her body forward with all her might toward a cluster of aspens, her vision jerky and her chest on fire. Her heart might explode against her ribcage. She has never felt danger like this before. All of her senses come alive at once and she can’t tell the difference between the sounds of the birds and the feeling of the dirt beneath her feet. Sensation is realization and the world is burning.
She reaches the aspens, into a cluster of three trees close together. Close enough that she can wedge herself between them. It’s cover, but if the moose charges again, it can probably smash through, and then Reagan will have nowhere to run.
The moose stands still, a massive bulk rising and falling with each labored breath. The beast shakes its body like a dog drying off after a bath.
Reagan and the moose look into each other’s eyes, silent. Knowing. Understanding.
The calf tumbles toward its mother, little skinny legs moving awkwardly as if they are working independently from each other. The calf bumps against its mother’s leg. Mama pauses, then lowers her head and nudges the calf away.
Reagan stays motionless. Is the moose’s vision based on movement? She can’t remember.
The calf mewls and the mama nudges her again, stamping a hoof against the ground. The baby trots toward the meadow and the mama follows. They are leaving.
Reagan spends thirty seconds—or maybe thirty minutes—bracing her hands against the aspens and letting her breath return to normal. Her heartbeat becomes regular, and the danger drains from her senses. She had to hurt the moose, and for that, she feels terrible. But what else could she have done? There was no time to create a better reaction. No time.
Did that really just happen? Maybe that didn’t happen. The world oozes and bends, and she can’t be sure.
She lifts her shirt and examines the reddening circle across her midsection. Doesn’t seem like her ribs are broken, but it’s hard to tell. Breathing hurts, but she can move without too much pain. Just a low throb.
She looks back at the trail. Maybe three or four miles to the East Inlet trailhead. Then somehow, she has to get to the North Inlet trailhead where Dad’s car waits for her.
She staggers from her hiding spot, one hand caressing the thudding ache forming in her stomach. Keep going. Whatever else, have to keep going.
Then a new thought materializes: what if Dalton is by her car, waiting for her?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
11:15 am
Spoon looked down at Tyson and his associate from his perch atop A1 Lawnmower Repair. The surveillance mission had gone from promising to complete disaster. Chances of convincing them he wasn’t up on the roof to spy on them: slim to none.
“Get your ass down here,” Tyson said. “I’m not going to tell you again, and I’m not coming up there to get you. You’re trespassing. I don’t even have to call the cops, I’m just going to shoot you.” Then, to his associate: “Gus, go inside and get my revolver.”
Spoon raised his hands as panic shuddered through him. “Whoa, hey now, reckon that’s not necessary, yeah? No need to do anything rash that some of us might regret later. I’ll come down and explain all this.”
Gus evolved his smirk into a full-on smile. Spoon had no desire to find out what the bloke thought was so amusing.
“You can explain?” Tyson said. “What I really want to know is if you can tell me where my money is. And don’t even try to tell me that you have no idea what I’m talking about. I am so unbelievably sick and tired of everyone filling my ears with horseshit.”
Spoon shook his head. “Honest truth is that I’m afraid I don’t know where it is.”
“We’ll see,” Tyson said.
Spoon inched toward the edge of the overhang. His crutches were in the back of the shop, but if he met these two men on that side, there would be no other people around. At least out front, they were close to a street full of cars whizzing by. They couldn’t do anything out in front of a place of business, in plain view of anyone who might see. Could they?
He slipped his legs over the edge and let his body ease forward until he was hanging from the roof by his hands. The trick was to fall on his good leg by keeping his bad leg bent, even though flexing those muscles was painful.
But he didn’t get a chance. Hands grabbed his legs and yanked him from the roof. Searing pain bubbled up from his knee to every part of his body. They spun him around. Tyson stood centimeters from his face, close enough that Spoon smelled rotten breath leaking between yellow teeth.
“Look, mates,” Spoon said. “If you’d listen to me for a moment so I can tell you my side of things. Two switched-on fellows like yourselves, there’s no reason why we can’t be civilized about this misunderstanding.”
Tyson’s fist launched into Spoon’s stomach, and all of the air whooshed out of his lungs. As he gasped and coughed, he felt Gus dragging him toward the shop, then inside, away from the eyes of the outside world.
CHAPTER THIRTY
1:40 pm
Reagan’s day, which began as green and beautiful, is now fading to black. Black is fear and despair. Black is the unknown. She has survived a moose attack, something she’s never dreamed she would even need to face. Her stomach throbs from contact with the moose’s hoof, like cramps after a bad meal.
Optimism is dying. Its hope is fading. Now she has only possibilities that flash before her like flights on an analog airline terminal display, changing and updating every few seconds. Tick. Change. Tick. Change.
The terrain on the trail challenges her. Even though she’s progressing downhill and it’s not as strenuous as going uphill, she’s exhausted. Her body is weary and needs to stop this forward motion, but her mind carries on, never stopping, never relenting. The trail has moved into the grassy meadows of the western edge of the park. Soon, she’ll reach Adams Falls, and that’s near the trailhead. The end will come.
Sometimes, there are large tree limbs blocking the trail. This should mean that the trail is closed, and to diver
t. But it may mean that a tree fell here and no one has come yet to clear it away. Hard to tell.
She approaches a lone hiker, an older man with long blond hair. She tries to pull her thoughts back inside and focus so she can run if she has to, but there’s no energy left to run. Only forward.
He’s shirtless, and his skin seems bronzed and taut for a man closer to Dad’s age. He nods and waves. “Afternoon. How’s the trail up there? Muddy?”
“Moose,” she says, and speaking turns a vice grip inside her stomach.
“What’s that?” His face changes as he looks her up and down. “Oh my, are you okay? You don’t look okay.”
“Raised up against me, but I defeated it. All I wanted was to heal the poor thing, and it refused. So I had no choice. I feel awful about it, like it was all a communication problem. Spoon will understand. He’s the only one who can understand.”
“You’re not making any sense,” he says. “Are you dehydrated? Do you not have a water bottle?”
She tries to swallow, realizes she hasn’t had anything to drink all day. Saliva wells at the back of her mouth, begging for water to cool her throat. She eyes the drinking tube hanging from his pack and shakes her head.
He offers it to her. “Go ahead. Have a sip if you need it.”
She looks at him, his smiling face, and sees the deceit behind his eyes. What’s in the water? Could be anything. Could be poison, the same or worse as the poison in the granola bar she carries in her pocket.
She takes a step backward.
“Miss, are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Stay away from me,” she says, moving further back.
He watches her retreat, frowning. “Do you want me to go find a park ranger? If you’re in trouble, I can get you help.”
Lies, all of it. She looks to her left to distract him, then breaks into a run down the trail to escape. Every muscle resists the exertion, but the pain is a valuable lesson. Don’t talk to strangers. Who knows whom Dalton may have infected and the extent of the sickness inside the park? The moose had it. This stranger has it.