The Wild Inside

by Christine Carbo

  “You spend a lot of time with Lewis?”

  “A bit. I try to help out as much as I can. I don’t want to enable her, but I like to be in his life. I try to provide as much stability as possible.”

  “Enable. That’s what your mom said too.”

  Heather chuckled. “Hang out with addicts for a bit and it doesn’t take long to speak the psychobabble.”

  “Leslie went through treatment?”

  “For a month. At a local inpatient facility in Kalispell.”

  “Before, during, or after her involvement with Victor?”

  “About seven or eight months before Victor. She’d been doing really well.” Heather looked down, her eyes heavy, and when she looked back up she appeared more tired than I first noticed when she walked up from the barn with her cheeks flushed from the cold. Now I could see faint dark shadows under her eyes, and I wondered how difficult it must actually be to hold down a farm on your own with little help. “She did okay with Victor for a while and even influenced him some, got him to settle a bit, but eventually, it just got out of control.”

  “Out of control?”

  “Well, come on, two meth heads having a relationship?” She lifted her brow to me. “A little here, a little there until both were using pretty regularly about three months into their relationship.”

  “What made her break it off with him?”

  “He was abusive, and it got worse when he was using.”

  “She told you that?”

  Heather nodded. “She didn’t need to.” She took a sip of her beer, and I wished I had accepted the offer to have a drink. “She’d show up with a hurt arm or a bruised eye, always making excuses, saying she bumped into something. You know, classic behavior for that kind of shit.”

  I was slightly surprised she swore; she seemed too poised for that, but she also seemed tough and not afraid to say what she wanted. “And she had the wherewithal to get out?”

  Heather stood up and walked to the kitchen. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

  “Actually, I’ll join you for one of those.” I pointed at the bottle in her hand.

  She fetched one out of the fridge. “Would you like a glass?”

  “Bottle’s fine.”

  She grabbed the opener off the counter, opened the bottle, handed it to me, and sat back down. “She broke it off with him more than once. I’m actually speaking of the first time, back in, oh, I don’t know, I guess it was January. It took lots of questions and prodding before she opened up, but one night, it got really out of hand and she brought Lewis to me because she was getting afraid. After Lewis went to sleep, I pinned her down, wouldn’t let her leave without telling me what was going on.” She took a swig of beer, then licked both of her lips. “So she agreed to tell me only if I didn’t say anything to Mom or Dad. I agreed and she spilled her guts about his temper. I did my best to help her. In large part for Lewis’s sake.”

  “How did you help her?”

  “It’s a long story.” She ran a hand through her hair, raking it away from her forehead and letting it fall back down in a golden wave.

  “I’ve got time and”—I smiled my signature half smile and held up my beer—“I’ve got a beverage now.”

  “First step was simply supporting her, getting her to wean off the meth, and getting her to open up. Once she cleared her head”—she looked toward a hallway, which I assumed had a spare bedroom—“she stayed here for a bit. Anyway, once she saw the light, I simply supported her in the breakup, which she did much better and stronger than I imagined she would. I was guessing that the year of counseling was paying off a bit because once she decided that she would get out of the relationship, she held pretty strong, at least for a month or so.”

  “Only a month?”

  “Maybe a month and a half or even two. It’s kind of a blur, but yeah, probably more than a month. He was pretty pesky and hard to get rid of, and he kept coming around, so after several weeks of that, I convinced her that we needed to go through the correct channels, through the police to get a restraining order placed against him. But that got messy because my sister is on record with social services for being a user and let’s just say, she didn’t have a lot of credibility with the system, and . . .” Heather tore the label even further off and started scratching at the remaining thin film of glued paper.

  “And?”

  She shook her head with a disgusted look. “She got back in the relationship before we even fully looked into the matter.” She stood and went into the kitchen again and tossed her bottle in the trash. I thought she might grab another from the fridge, but she didn’t. She simply leaned against the counter by the sink and folded her arms in front of her as if she was done with our conversation.

  I stayed seated but turned sideways in my chair to face her. “And that was in February?”

  “Near the end of February, I guess.”

  “And she stayed with him until summer?”

  She nodded, her face blank but serious.

  “And he continued to abuse her?”

  “I think he was on his best behavior for a while, but then it started again, and I’m assuming that is why she ended it the second time, although, as I told you at headquarters, who really knows why. I’m sure it didn’t hurt matters that she got interested in Paul, and who knows who was in his life at the time.”

  “And you like Paul?”

  “Yeah. He’s much, much better than Victor. Leslie’s doing really well with him.”

  “Is he a user?”

  “No, thank goodness. Not that I know of anyway.”

  “And Lewis?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did Victor hurt him?”

  Heather glanced at the ceiling, then back at me, her arms still crossed before her. “I’m not positive, but I don’t think so. He doesn’t say much when I ask him.”

  I got up and went into the kitchen and leaned against the counter on the other end. “Do you know of anyone who would do this to Victor?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help you, Mr. Systead.”

  “Please, it’s Ted. You know, I’m a friend of your dad’s.”

  “I know.” She looked down again as if she was shy, at the floor. “You’re from the area.”

  I nodded.

  “He speaks highly of you. But, as far as Victor is concerned, he was a real asshole. A lot of people might have wanted to hurt him, but I don’t know who actually would.”

  “Paul?”

  “No, I can’t imagine. Why? Is he a suspect?”

  “No, not really.”

  Heather looked out her kitchen window toward her barn. “I have a sick mare with a swollen ankle that’s not eating,” she said, and I felt a sinking sensation at being dismissed. I fought back the idea that my motives were not completely professional, that I really wanted to stay longer to get to know her better. “I was actually coming back to the house to grab her antibiotics,” she said. “If you don’t have any more questions, I’d like to get back out to her before it starts to get too dark to see if I can get her to eat with her medicine.”

  “Oh, no, that’s good. Sorry to keep you.” I drank the last of my beer and motioned that I would throw it in the trash under the sink, but she stayed where she was and held out her hand to grab it. “Thanks,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll need your number in case I think of anything else.”

  “Of course.” She began opening a drawer for a notepad and wrote her number down for me. And when she handed it to me and gave me the same small, nervous smile as she did earlier, I felt shy all over again.

  19

  TWO DAYS BEFORE my twenty-fourth birthday, I read a front-page story about a grizzly attack on two men in a backcountry Yellowstone Park campsite. I know exactly where I was when I read the news—in a coffee shop in Missoula near the university
surrounded by the buzz of the early fall semester energy. In fact, I always remember precisely where I am and what I am doing whenever I hear about a grizzly attack, the way people recall their whereabouts when they heard about Kennedy’s assassination or 9/11.

  The article said that the attack happened in the night near a lake about a mile and a quarter in from one of the main roads. The two men were each in their own tent on opposite ends of the site. With the first victim, the grizzly had torn open the tent while he slept, took him out of it, and dragged him about fifty feet away from his campsite, where his remains were found. Apparently, there were some screams, but judging by the tent, there didn’t appear to be much of a struggle.

  The second victim heard some of the commotion and screams off in the distance and wasn’t sure what to do. By the time the grizzly came for him, he was still in his tent, and when the bear went for him, he screamed and thrashed. And the louder he cried out, the harder the bear bit down. He could hear his bones breaking. Then, as I can only imagine when one undergoes a traumatic event—his adrenaline pumping, his mind slowing down and putting things in some strange, perhaps logical perspective, he decided not to fight it. He mentioned that it took all his strength to go completely limp, but when he did, the bear loosened his bite and left him there, injured. Luckily, there were two other people camping at the site: two male college-age students who helped him. One stayed with him and one ran back to their car to get help.

  • • •

  Mom didn’t ask about the park or about Ford anymore after that evening at Natalie’s, which surprised me, given her nature to dive right into things without beating around the bush. I’d caught up with her on the phone a few times since dinner, and she’d simply ask, “How’s the case going?” I’d usually give a one-word answer, like fine or good, and she’d get off the subject and go into details about her job or the grandkids. On our most recent chat when I returned back from Heather’s place, she asked about the cabin and if I was comfortable there. I said it was fine.

  “Do you ever go out?”

  I assumed she meant for dinner. “Pretty much for all meals. Once in a while I cook, which in fact, I’m just about to do.” I had picked up a steak and some fresh mushrooms at the grocery store in Columbia Falls on my way back from Heather’s.

  “I mean,” she said, “on a date?”

  I got off the subject as quickly as I could. I was pretty certain that Nat and she discussed my lack of a love life on a regular basis, but she wouldn’t let it go, so I told her that I dated someone two months ago, but that it didn’t work out.

  “Why not?

  “She was still hooked on her ex.” I took the frying pan I’d used once before to make some eggs out of the drying rack by the sink and opened the old fridge and grabbed the butter I’d bought earlier in the week.

  Ma went silent.

  I found a colander, threw the mushrooms in, and turned the faucet on to wash them. I knew there was nothing she could say since it wasn’t my doing that it had ended. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. “Ma.” I turned the water off. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  “I’m your mother; that’s my job.”

  “I know. But I’m fine with or without someone in my life.”

  “I know you are,” she said. “It’s just that . . .” She trailed off.

  I waited for her to say more, but didn’t push for it. When she didn’t, I promised her I’d come by soon.

  • • •

  While I was eating my steak and sautéed mushrooms, the worry in my mother’s voice started to needle me. I chewed my steak too long until it felt thick and hard to swallow. I had no appetite and pushed my plate aside. I began pacing the cabin, unable to sit and relax. I poured myself a whiskey but didn’t drink it. I tried to sit and read but couldn’t focus on the words.

  I pictured Aubrey, the last woman I’d dated, with her dark bobbed hair and round eyes. I had brought her to my apartment after dinner, put on some tunes, and poured some Cabernet. We talked for some time, laughed a bit, although probably not enough in retrospect, and when I kissed her it was nice. No sparks really, but nice. When I tried to go further with her—ran my hands under her shirt along her spine and eventually circled the butt of my hands so they were touching the sides of her breasts—she started to weep. I kissed a tear away and asked what was wrong. She poured it out then, that she’d been badly hurt by her last and still missed him.

  That was pretty much the end of it. She called me three or four times after that wanting to go out again, saying she was better and that she regretted ruining things between us, but by then I’d thrown sturdy walls up. Decided I didn’t need it in my life, and because of my traveling, she didn’t need it either. I thought of Monty. Marriages are hard. They’re really hard. . . . Even when you watch your own parents go through their shit, you think it will be different for you. . . .

  From what I remembered, my parents made it look easy, but maybe I just was remembering our family history incorrectly. The thought of my memories being imperfect, that time morphs all events in our minds, stabbed at me more than usual.

  I thought of Heather. A good-looking woman who seemed to be my age, living alone, not remarrying. Embarrassment over the fact that I wanted to have another beer with her, ask her about what went wrong for her, prickled me. I thought of Monty and how he seemed to pop right out of his sorrow over his separation and to light up around her. All men are such fools around attractive women, I thought.

  I lay in bed for over an hour, restless and unable to drift off. I got up and paced some more, my mind or heart aching with some nameless want or need. The wind was picking up again outside, making the cabin creak. I opened the door and stepped out into the dark to take a deep breath. The cloud cover had broken and the stars shone above like billions of false promises. I went back in and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went back out to look at the night sky. Instead, I found myself walking up the driveway from my cabin’s light and onto the dark road, where the night consumed me, enveloped me.

  I could feel my breathing quicken and my sternum clench stronger. Maybe it was just the conversation with my mother getting to me, but suddenly I felt a wave of anxiety crash over me: me telling Monty about Shelly’s miscarriage, Lou’s confession about Elena, the caged grizzly with his beady eyes out there less than a mile from where I stood, Ford and our dislike of one another, Aubrey weeping under my kiss, Shelly divorced after two children. . . . All of these unrelated things pressed in on me from every direction, looking for cracks to leak into and gain momentum. I wanted to scream into the cold air, to scare every living thing out there in the brush and trees behind the cabin away.

  I strode back into the cabin, determined, even though I had no specific goal. I grabbed my flashlight and went back out and started walking, a deliberate stroll, heading for headquarters while the forest vibrated around me.

  About halfway there I began to hear a moaning, a low-pitched and eerie part-groan, part-whine sound that rippled through the woods. As I rounded the last cabin on the block, I could see a reddish glow in the darkness: the heat lights from the bear’s cage. Someone had left them on. Surely, I considered, they were supposed to be off at night. The bear’s whining seemed to grow louder, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I was getting closer or if he was actually moaning more intensely.

  I kept walking, slower and with more trepidation than I had been, but onward. My limbs felt as if they were on autopilot, carrying me through the dark toward a grizzly cage I could scarcely approach in the light of day with all sorts of park employees around. I barely noticed the leaves rustling or pebbles crunching under my feet on the gravel road that bypassed headquarters and led to the path to the cage.

  When I reached the trail, the red glow and the moaning became more surreal—and for a moment I thought I was in one of my strange dreams. I walked down it—the one Ford
and I had walked, past where I had stood frozen earlier in the week, and up to the cage. The wild smell of grizzly filled my senses, seemed to enter my pores, my eyes, my nose. My heart pounded in my chest. The bear had been pacing the length of the enclosure, and now that I stood before him, he paused only for a second to hold his snout to the air, then returned to his pacing and moaning as if he didn’t care anymore who turned up beside his cage. One step—turn, one step back—turn, one step—turn, one step back—turn. Wailing the entire time.

  I stood and looked at him. I could see his hot breath in the cold air. I wanted to run, but everything felt like it was slowing and speeding up at the same time. My scalp felt like I was in the middle of an electric storm, but my mind went sluggish, like molasses was leaking into it, my vision going tunnel-like and dark on me with the red glow on the outer edges. My legs went limp, my knees buckled, and I fell to the hard ground to a kneeling position. Grotesque images tumbled through my mind and unheeded voices whispered in my ears. I thought I heard something loud in the distance, a train or a truck, and then the grizzly made an even higher-pitched wail, blocking all other noises out.

  Except my father’s voice. His screaming. Oh my God, a bear, he’s got me. I hear the rustling of his sleeping bag and screaming. Get out of your sleeping bag, Ted. Get out of the tent. I try to move, but I can’t. I’m a block of cement.

  If he comes for you, don’t move, Ted, play dead. I hear more screaming and I’m still frozen, my heart exploding in my chest. Don’t move, Ted, play dead. Go limp if it goes for you.

  Something is being dragged. I hear the breaking of branches, underbrush, bushes, and brambles suddenly as loud as a Mack truck barreling through the forest, and I think it can’t be him, but somehow I know it is. And still my father’s orders between screams, now from fifteen or twenty yards off to the side of the campground: Ted—if— He gets only part of what he’s trying to say out between ragged cries. If—there’s more screaming and I just lie there. If . . . if he comes for you—go limp.