by Avi
She pulled it out of my pack.
“Tell me some of those places again,” I said. “By name.”
She began to read them: “Rausch Gap. Rausch Village. Stony Mountain. Sharp Mountain . . .” She went on. But when she read, “Devil’s Race,” I said, “Stop! Devil’s Race. What is that?”
She studied the map. “A fairly deep creek.”
“Why’s it called a race?”
“Look here,” she said, showing me the place on the map. The lines were tightly packed. “You can tell—it’s some sort of deep gorge. When it’s full the water really races.”
“Why Devil?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it far?”
“About five miles.”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“Two, two and a half hours.” She studied the map. “The final part is off the Trail.”
I looked at her. “What do you think?”
Again she considered the map. “It’s not far from the military camp boundary.”
“That doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Long as we keep away. Why do you think that’s a good place?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It just sounds right.” I took a swig from the water bottle she offered. “I have to find him, and it has to be some kind of neutral ground.”
“Devil’s Race doesn’t sound neutral.”
“Where else? Can we camp there?”
“I suppose.”
“I want to go there,” I said, and sat up.
“Rest another minute,” she said. “I’ll go refill the water bottles.”
“Thanks.”
She stayed a moment longer. “We could go home,” she said.
“I don’t want to.”
She became thoughtful for a moment. “Be right back,” she said, and went. I watched her go, thinking how lucky I was to be with her. Briefly, I closed my eyes. When I opened them, John Proud was sitting opposite me.
32
He was sitting on the ground, arms wrapped about drawn-up knees, a relaxed, easy smile on his Face.
“Feeling better?” he said.
I gave a quick glance in the direction Ann had taken. I could no longer see her.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “She needn’t know I’ve come at all, not unless you tell her. That’s up to you.”
I started to move. He held up a hand.
“Listen to me,” he said, becoming more serious in manner. “You did well back there in the cemetery. You’re just as smart as I hoped you’d be. If you had stayed much longer . . .” He didn’t finish what he started to say.
“What would have happened?”
“Oh, what I told you would happen. The less you are, the more I become.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I know, you think I mean to murder you. But I promise—my word of honor—nothing like that at all.”
“Then what?”
“I want to come back, John, to the world. It’s that simple. But I can’t, not like this.” He made a gesture indicating himself. “I can frighten, alarm, but very little else. Really. In some cases, as with your Uncle Dave, that was enough. But I want to do more. To do more, I need to be more. So, you see, we need to replace one another.” So saying, he reached out and tapped me on the hand.
The first time I had felt his touch—that time we shook hands in the cemetery—it was little more than a point of pressure, like the wind. Now, as he tapped me, I felt something more, a flickering sensation, as if I were touched by a hand.
“See?” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “Already I’ve gained. The more you struggle against me, the more I shall become, while you dwindle. In time . . . we will exchange places. Won’t Ann be pleased? I intend to be bolder than you.”
Summoning all my strength, I tried to hurl myself at him, moving forward as though ripping away ropes. But I passed right through him, no less than if he had been a cloud of smoke. I went sprawling beyond.
He laughed, then stood up. “Devil’s Race,” he said. “It isn’t quite what I had in mind, but close enough. And you have Ann to lead you right there.”
“Here’s your water,” said Ann’s voice.
I spun about to find her there. Just as quickly I turned back to where John Proud had been. He was gone.
33
I started to say something, then stopped, realizing that Ann had seen nothing of him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I looked from her to the spot where John Proud had been.
“What is it?” she demanded.
I slumped back down, too confused and bewildered by what had happened.
“John,” she repeated, “what is it?”
“And you have Ann to lead you right there,” he had said. “It’s okay,” I said to Ann. “You startled me, that’s all.” I swung on my knees. She handed me the water bottle and I took my fill.
I capped it, then stood, aware that she was watching me, puzzled.
“Something happened, didn’t it?” she asked. “No matter what, you have to trust me.”
“I do,” I said, but I was lying. I was sure there was something wrong, wrong about her, but I just couldn’t figure it out.
“It’s important,” she said.
Again my doubts began to drift away. I lifted my hand and pressed the palm to the side of her face. She closed her eyes.
“Your hands,” she said, “have such a very soft touch.” She turned her face slightly and kissed my fingers.
I drew my hand back, trembling. Then I looked at her, too frightened to tell her my doubts.
We went westward on the Appalachian Trail, moving deep into the Wilderness. It was strange, beautiful country. We were walking through young forest, but, now and again, great bare mounds of black earth rose up. Under our feet, much of the earth was black too.
“Maybe a hundred or so years ago,” Ann explained, “they used to mine coal here. The heaps are what they left. Then they went after the timber. You can see how thin the topsoil is. The area must have been totally devastated, like after a war. It’s coming back, but I read somewhere it takes at least two hundred years. The whole Wilderness is nothing but an open wound. Do you know, when it rains, the ground bleeds black?”
I set the pace, steady, pushing, but not uncomfortable, though I needed to stop and take water more often than she. It was hot under the trees.
We went along for about an hour, moving upward at first, then on a long, level plain. We didn’t see a soul. It was as if we were alone in the world.
I tried not to think about John Proud and what he had said. I felt as if I were in a period of grace, a brief moment before the final struggle. I didn’t want to think at all.
I kept my eyes on the woods all about us, allowed myself to feel the weight on my back, my stride, the place. I wanted to become part of the peace that was there.
At about four o’clock the trail broadened into an open area. I could see rings of stone full of old campfire ashes. Right in the middle of this space was a mailbox, like the kind you see on rural roads.
“Yellow Spring Village,” Ann announced, and she let her pack down. I did the same. She stretched out, head against the pack.
“Look in there,” she suggested, indicating the mailbox.
Inside was a ruled notebook, the kind they use in elementary schools. It was full of messages, dated over a period of the last couple of months. “From Georgia to Maine,” one read. “Trucking on!” “Boy Scout Troop 16,” read another, followed by the scrawls of some fourteen kids. I searched for the last entry.
“Welcome to Yellow Springs,” it read, and it was signed “John Proud.” Added was today’s date.
I stared at it, shocked by how similar the handwriting was to my own.
“Interesting?” Ann called out.
34
She was stretched out, her eyes closed. I could hardly stay still. I poked at the ground, scraping up bits of black st
one and flinging them at the mailbox.
“How close to Devil’s Race?”
“We’ve made good time.”
“I’d like to get there.”
“Half an hour. Maybe a little more.”
I stood up and adjusted my pack. “Let’s go,” I said.
Still she lay there. “Don’t you want to rest some more?”
“Ann, I want to get there.”
She opened her eyes and sat up, looking at me. “You’re very edgy,” she said. When I didn’t reply, she got herself up slowly, and in a few moments we were on our way again.
At first the trail continued easily, with only a few dips and rises. But then, abruptly, it started to go up. I found myself forced to lean into the incline. I would go about twenty feet and stop, feeling sweat drip down my face. I drank lots of water.
“Careful about how much water you take,” Ann warned. “That creek might be dry.”
I continued to stumble along in the lead till we reached the top. Ann was hot and flushed, and though she carried lots more weight than I did, she wasn’t in such bad shape.
We had reached the turnoff. “No more trail,” she announced. “Bushwhack time.”
Using her compass and the map, she set our course. Then it was she who led the way through the woods, downward.
It was harder than going up. My pack kept throwing me off balance. My toes dug into my shoe tips and hurt. I kept feeling like I was about to fall. And it wasn’t easy to push our way through the underbrush.
Then, unexpectedly, a deep ravine opened out in front of us. Below, water churned, chewed by rocks. To either side of the ravine the rock face had been shaped and sculptured into smooth forms.
“This is it,” announced Ann. “Devil’s Race.”
35
The last time I put up a tent was when I threw a blanket over my folks’ card table, crawled inside, and read Superman comic books by flashlight. What Ann set up seemed almost magical to me: a brilliant blue-and-white bubble, supported by slender golden rods. It seemed to spring out of the ground science-fiction style, pegged down and ready to move into within moments. Inside the air was clear, with a soft light that gave a sense of a world apart.
Ann passed in the gear, leaving only the food outside. That done, she suggested we sit by the water.
We scrambled down into the gorge—about twenty feet deep—and sat at the water’s edge. There, the smooth rocks were flesh warm. Ann pulled off her boots and double socks, then plunged her feet into the water. I did the same. The shock was delicious.
“Like it?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
We sat there side by side, just drifting in an easy quiet, lulled by the sweet sound of water rushing past.
But as I sat there I began to think about Ann and what had been happening since I had come. I recalled her suggestion that her folks had been hurt because of me, not John Proud . . . or that I hadn’t been honest to her . . . or that I didn’t even know my own mind. . . .
My anger—for that was what I was suddenly feeling—continued to grow almost before I realized it was anger. Once again the same questions I had had before seemed to thrust themselves upon me: Why me? Why not her? Maybe she wasn’t so good after all. Maybe she was part of him, the way Uncle Dave had been.
I began to wish that she wasn’t there, feeling that in some way she was hindering what I had to do . . . that it would be better to be alone.
Only after I had these thoughts did I become aware that his silence, his presence, had replaced the quiet, replaced the very air with his breath. He was there, for exactly how long I did not know.
Stiffly, I sat up.
“What is it?” Ann asked, now aware of my change in mood.
“Don’t you feel him?”
She shook her head.
“He’s near . . .” I whispered.
Ann pulled her feet from the water and stood over me, looking in all directions. I searched too, trying to find his whereabouts, wondering what he would do.
A small movement on the rock caught my attention. I looked down. At first I lost it. Then I saw: an ant, an ant no bigger than a quarter of an inch, and crimson red, darting here, there, about the rock, close to Ann’s foot. Its brilliance transfixed me. Another moment passed. Then I realized what it was that I was seeing: him.
I watched, astonished, fascinated.
The ant kept shifting, pausing, as if seeking a place about Ann’s foot. Delicate feelers stroked the air. Joints flexed. The next instant he climbed on Ann’s foot, moved over her heel, scurried around her ankle, going toward her bare toes.
Irritated, Ann bent down to brush the ant away, only to lose her balance. She began to fall, tried to right herself, failed, screamed.
The scream brought me back to my senses. I shot out a hand, attempting to keep her from falling. Held, she twisted about, now falling toward me, reaching out, holding on, only to collapse by my side on her knee with a cry of pain.
For a moment she just lay there, gasping for breath. I hovered over her, not letting her go. “You all right?” I whispered.
“My ankle,” she said between gritted teeth. “My ankle.” She managed to push herself about, revealing a knee bloody where it had hit the rock.
Then she leaned down and began to rub her ankle. With a sudden movement, she dropped her foot into the cold water, only to lean back, grimacing with pain. “Damn . . .” she said between intakes of breath. “Oh, damn, that hurts. . . .”
She shook her head, pulled her foot out of the water, held it up, wiggled it, plunged it back. There were tears on her face.
I scrambled up and squatted down behind her, allowing her to rest against me. She was breathing hard.
“The cold water keeps it from swelling,” she managed to say.
“Just take it easy.”
“So stupid,” she whispered. “Some bug on me. Did you see what it was?”
Feeling alarm, I just shook my head.
“I’m not going to be much help to you now,” she said. “I won’t be able to walk for a while.”
“Ann . . .” I began, trying to find the courage to tell her what happened.
She closed her eyes and rested.
I looked about. A spot of color caught my eye. On the ground, not far away, was the red ant. It had stopped moving, as if waiting for me to act. I lifted my hand to strike when I realized that he had only done what I had been thinking about, found a way to leave Ann behind.
In a rage I brought my hand down. But he had fled.
36
Ann stirred. “Just a sprain,” she said. “But this is nice.” She snuggled back against me.
I felt worthless.
“It’ll take a while to ease up,” she added. “We’ll have to stay put. Me, anyway.” She moved so she was leaning against my chest. “Put your arms around me,” she said.
I did, mechanically.
“It’s lovely here,” she said. Her head dropped back, resting on my shoulder. Her eyes were closed. She wrapped her arms around mine, hugged them. “Lord, it hurts, and that water is freezing.”
I felt my own tension rising again.
Turning slightly, she tilted her face toward mine, kissing the side of my mouth.
“And you have Ann to lead you right there.” John Proud’s words.
She’s acting as if nothing has happened, I told myself.
Then I began to think back. Only when I was with her, I suddenly realized, did he appear. Was that true? She was close when I first saw him. And she was the one who led me, twice, to the cemetery. Wasn’t she the one who told me, by phone, all the things he had done? How did I know about them, except that she told me? I had believed everything she said. Just that day when I asked her why John Proud hadn’t used her, how pained she had looked. But she hadn’t really given an answer.
“And you have Ann to lead you right there.”
In my mind I heard Uncle Dave’s words: “If all you have are questions, you haven’t listened
to the answers.”
I had an answer now.
She was part of him. She was using me, for him. “What is it?” she said. “What are you thinking about? You look awful. What’s the matter?”
Too stunned to speak, I just shook my head.
She shifted her body away, drew her foot out of the water, wiggled, and looked at it. Without looking at me, she said, “Please tell me. . . .” Her voice had become tired.
I pulled my legs around and stood up, trying frantically to decide what to do. She had brought me out there, into the Wilderness, and now she would no longer help me. That was their plan. I was completely alone.
“Are you going to tell me or not?”
“No.”
“Why?”
I just shook my head.
After a moment she said, “I think I’ll lie down in the tent. Give me a hand.”
Not knowing what else to do, I reached out. Slowly, carefully, she drew herself up.
As we went, she hopping, me walking, she put more and more weight on me, until at the front of the tent she eased herself down. There she sat, rubbing her ankle.
“Glad I brought along an Ace bandage,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”
I stood there, watching her, hating myself for what I had discovered, hating her too.
She looked up, suddenly alarmed. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“You said you’d be honest,” I blurted out.
“John, I—”
“Honest!” I suddenly shouted.
Startled, she drew back, confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re with him, aren’t you? You are!”
Again she shook her head. “John—”
“I didn’t make all those things happen. Not one of them. Only you made me think it was me. I didn’t. I never did. I had nothing to do with any of it. It was him, and you! But it’s me he’s trying to destroy, not you. Well, I wish it was you! I do!” Unable to look at her, I turned, full of tears.
“None of that is true,” I heard her say. “None of it.”