Her mother’s hair, nurturing baby birds. It was a small, comforting raft of a thought in this turbulent sea of sadness.
Colden tugged on the hair, releasing a few pieces and watching them float away on the wind. She pulled at a few more, twisted them together, and wrapped them around one of her fingers. She’d find a locket. Or at least an envelope. It wasn’t much. But it was something. It completed something.
She felt a clutch of emotions shake free and drift away on the breeze, just as the strands of hair had done.
“I had no idea it, all of this . . . would be so . . .” She searched for the right word. “Pathetic.”
“Yeah,” Drew concurred. “But maybe it wasn’t so bad back then.”
“I think it was pretty horrible even then. Sally had been trying to sell it for years. He was her only option. My dad told me they were supposed to be taking care of runaways. Who’d want to run away to here?”
They both looked around. They both knew as forlorn as this place was, it was still better than what many endured at home.
“What did she see out here?” Colden asked.
“Hope?” Drew suggested.
“Hard to believe someone would give up my dad, my home, for this.”
“I guess, for some people, having it all is a burden, not a gift,” Drew mused. “They need to go find a mess to clean up to give their life purpose.”
“Nature is slowly cleaning up this mess,” Colden said. “We so often think she needs our help. Ha. Hardly. She just needs us to leave her alone.”
Colden lifted her head. The house was in a damp bowl of a valley. Steep hills rose up around them. The maples flared red, the birches yellow, the evergreens a dark counterpoint. A raven flapped overhead. Every living thing in these stark and weather-beaten mountains eked out its own life. In their search for survival, creatures often raised, more often lost, and sometimes abandoned babies. Siblings fought and pushed their brothers and sisters out of the nest to die slowly and painfully, before becoming food for insects and other minuscule creatures. Animals hurt each other. They didn’t mean to; they were just trying to get by in the best way they could. There was little meaning and even less fault in most of it.
Acts of selflessness were unusual and fragile, yet they did happen. Humpback whales were known to save other species from orca attacks. In turn, orcas were known to help drowning dogs get back to shore. Animals took in orphans. They cared for the sick members of their family or troupe. This commonness of evil and rarity of goodness was not a cause for despair—Colden felt this with a sudden shiver of awareness. It was simply a reason to seek out and nurture those better, kinder qualities in the self and others. For both the self and others. It was all so messy, inefficient, brutal, gorgeous, and glorious. So massively mysterious. Colden realized for the first time in her life and in all her years of scientific inquiry that she could seek to understand it, without solving it.
She turned and looked at Drew. He met her eyes and waited for whatever it was she was about to say.
“Drew.”
“Yes?”
“Stay with me tonight.”
His face tightened, and he glanced away.
“Colden,” he said cautiously, facing her again. “Sometimes. Certain things.” He paused and then went on in a rush. “Colden. You’re a beautiful, smart, sexy woman. But for me, sexually, I mean, well, things can be difficult. Sometimes impossible.”
He is so brave, Colden thought.
“I’m not asking for any of that,” she said. “I’m just asking you to stay with me.”
Drew looked at her carefully, cautiously. She responded silently, by creating a picture in her mind of them both lying atop the sheets, huddled under a blanket, fully clothed, curled in on each other like puppies, foreheads touching, legs entwined, holding hands, eyes closed, his long, dark eyelashes resting against the high bones of his cheeks.
“I’ve wanted that for a long time,” Drew finally said, his voice a whisper. “To stay. With you.”
Colden released a breath it seemed she’d been holding on to for years.
30.
Brayden didn’t understand why these people were all being so nice to him. He simply followed the crumbs of kindness they dropped.
He had spent the bulk of his years storing emotions, as his life had no room or space for the luxury of feelings. He was not able or ready to feel “good,” but he was no longer feeling quite so “bad.” The boxes of painful memories and experiences were still there, the contents would need to be sorted out someday, but no one was adding to them. The tape that sealed them shut was holding.
His sentiments did flow freely for the three-legged dog, Daisy. She reminded him of the dog he’d seen that day in the woods with Colden. But of course, he reminded himself, that dog had not been injured. Daisy gave him his first experience of abundant, amusing, unconditional love. Of course, he loved his sister, but love in a war zone is both desperate and thwarted by the constant threat of danger and harm. Daisy was an exuberant, happy creature, her face filled with straightforward joy at his presence and a constant readiness to connect. He was sad for the loss of her leg. No one would tell him what had happened, just that it had been an accident. Daisy didn’t seem to care or miss her leg, so he wouldn’t, either.
Every day, he stared at the piece of paper Sally had left for him on the refrigerator. It took three before he was ready to close the door to the study, pick up the phone, and dial the numbers. Silent tears slipped from his eyes when he heard her voice. She said hello several times before he was able to respond. There were no exclamations of joy at reuniting, just the quiet relief of finding something important, familiar, cherished, and long lost.
She told him how extensive hunting on social media had led her to a distant relative. Yes, they were orphans, but their mother had people up in Canada. There were aunts and uncles and some cousins who had watched their birth mother fall apart to the rot of drugs and addiction and then follow their father south into the United States, where they’d lost track of her. Belinda assured him they were happy to have her among them. They were not wealthy, like their adoptive parents; they worked in factories and cafeterias, had at-home day cares, and fixed cars out back. They worked with their hands and on their feet. They were really, really nice, she said.
They wished to meet him, this couple she was living with, this distant aunt and uncle who had opened their home to her. There was an extra bed in her room. She told him she had found out that they had Native blood. Enough to get some benefits. College was a lot less expensive, much more accessible. She was getting counseling. He could, too.
“Does he know?” Brayden eventually asked. “Did you tell them where you are?”
“I wrote them not too long ago,” Belinda said. “Told them I was fine and that I wanted to contact you. I gave them a PO box, nothing else. I didn’t want to write to them, but I wanted to find you. He sent a note saying he was sorry. That you’d run away and that they didn’t know where you’d gone. He wrote over and over that he was sorry.”
“Sorry,” Brayden repeated, the word empty of everything but a hollow sound.
He’d said that to Brayden before. He’d said it every time he’d come into his room and again when he left. That’s why Brayden would never give him the chance to say it to him again.
“Where have you been?” Belinda finally asked him.
“In the woods.”
“This whole time?”
“Yeah. Until these people found me a few weeks ago.”
“Where are you now?”
“They have an animal shelter. I’m here. There are dogs and cats. A couple of horses and a donkey. Lots of chickens and ducks and stuff.”
“Are you OK?”
Brayden shrugged. Of course, Belinda couldn’t see that. He didn’t know what to say.
“Yeah,” was all he could muster.
He realized that during those years with his adoptive father, he could neither fight nor take flight, so he h
ad frozen. He’d learned in his recent reading that these were the only three options available to animals under attack. Then he did fight, he did flee, and over the months out there in the woods, he had started to thaw.
“Come up here, Brayden,” Belinda said. “Come live with me, with us. Come, and we’ll make our own home.”
Another faint trail of crumbs had been laid out for him. This one led to his sister.
“OK,” he said. “OK. I will. There’s just one thing.”
He asked; she told him to hang on, came back to the phone, and said yes.
31.
It had been a long time since Colden had seen Gene. As she drove up to his house, fallen leaves swirling beneath her truck tires, she feared for his health, hoped he hadn’t worsened. If something truly bad had happened to him, she would have heard. He had friends. He had people he supplied with “medicinal herb,” as he called it. However, these people would likely not notice a change in his limp, swelling at his ankles, or weight loss in him or his dogs.
She parked the truck, got out, and slammed the door. That was the equivalent of ringing a doorbell, here. She held her breath in the almost-cold air and listened. Dogs were barking in both protection and anticipation. The door opened; a flurry of fur and legs emerged and rushed toward her. She squatted and let her hands run over ears and ribs and muzzles. The dogs’ happiness seemed to wick upward, through her fingers, into her body. Then came the clump, clump of Gene’s cane and footfalls. She looked up and saw, instantly, that he was healthy. At least as healthy as she’d ever seen him, if not even better than usual. His color was good, he’d put on weight, he was less stooped. Colden retrieved something from the passenger seat of her truck and then pushed carefully through the dogs.
“Been a while,” Gene said.
“Yeah. Bit busy,” Colden replied. Then added, “Sorry.”
“What’s that?”
He nodded his head toward what she was carrying.
“A pie.”
“A pie? From your dad?”
“From me, actually. Well, both. He’s been teaching me. But this one I made all myself. Apple. Spiced apple. Even the crust is from scratch.”
She set it down on a small table on the porch. Gene settled into his rocker, smiling. It was his way of accepting the gift. She listened as the chair legs creaked back and forth. She lowered herself to the step.
“Where’s your three-legged dog?” Gene asked her.
“She got adopted. Moved to Canada. Helping heal a young man who needs it. Great match.”
“You still out chasing moose?”
“Yep.”
“Learning anything?”
“Not much. Not as much as I’d like. Not yet, anyway.”
“Nice to know some things manage to remain mysterious and refuse to be understood.”
“Kind of like you, Gene.”
“Find your gas can?”
“Nope, no luck that way, either.”
“Come across any Sasquatch?”
“Actually, I did! Turned out to be a bit of a poser, though. Not the real deal.”
The dogs were settling in the yard. The ground was dry, with a smattering of red, yellow, brown, and orange leaves decorating the desiccated grass, like leftover confetti.
“How about you?” Colden asked. “Find your thief?”
“Well, I didn’t, but the sheriff did.”
“Really?”
“Yup. The usual. Few meth heads cooking in some old deer camp. Stealing shit here and there.”
“Huh. Surprised I didn’t run into them out in the woods.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe they took your gas,” Gene said.
“Were they the ones who did the damage to the logging machinery out by your property line?”
Gene didn’t answer right away. Colden looked up at him. She noticed for the first time that he was wearing a pair of almost invisible, rimless eyeglasses.
“You got new specs!”
Gene smiled widely now. Colden’s eyes shot open in surprise.
“Wow. And new teeth, too!”
No wonder he looked so good. He was undoubtedly eating more and better.
“Where did all these new goodies come from?” Colden asked.
Again, Gene didn’t answer. He was considering something.
“Get a sudden windfall?” she teased. “A fresh crop of your ‘medicinal’ plants?”
Gene stared out into the yard. Colden was waiting for him to tease her back. He looked strangely serious.
“You still hanging out with that guy, Drew?” Gene asked her, seemingly uncomfortable, changing the subject.
“Yeah,” Colden answered, wary of this new line of questioning. “Why do you ask?”
“He’s a good man, Colden,” Gene said, sincere and grave. “A fair man.”
Colden had that rush of discomfort again, the peevish heat of feeling left out. She’d almost forgotten that Gene and Drew had become buddies behind her back. That they had been involved in solving the mystery of the equipment vandalism and had kept the resolution from her. Her annoyance expanded, and as it did, it gathered up the disparate bits and pieces of this conversation and several prior ones. The evidence arranged itself in her mind. Then, suddenly, all the parts snapped together. It took her several minutes of silent contemplation to believe what had become very clear. Her irritation vanished. She started to laugh.
“Gene,” she said, drawing out the word.
He would not meet her eyes.
“Gene, Gene, Gene. You old devil.”
“What?”
“So. It was you. You are the vandal. You ornery old bastard. It was you Drew negotiated a settlement with?”
Gene said nothing. Which was confirmation.
“What was that all about, Gene?” Colden pressed.
“They were using my right-of-way,” Gene said imperiously. “They were trespassing.”
“You could have gone to jail,” Colden scolded him.
“I was angry. I was stupid. I admit it.” He shifted in his seat. “I might have had one too many. Or three too many.”
“Who would have cared for your dogs if you went and got yourself in trouble?”
“You would have.”
Colden sighed.
“Why didn’t you tell me? When I was asking you about the situation?”
“Well, Colden, let’s just say I didn’t consider it my finest hour.”
“No, I suppose not,” she concurred. “But Gene, that’s what friends and family are for. To be there for one another when we’re not at our best.”
“I maybe don’t have as much experience of that as you do,” he said quietly.
Colden nodded. She’d recently had plenty of proof of that.
“He’s a good man, that guy, Drew,” Gene continued. “Never met a lawyer like him. You know how I feel about lawyers.”
“Yes, if Drew hadn’t been accompanied by my dad when he came out here, I’m quite sure he would have run the risk of getting shot at.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Gene said.
“Well, it looks like everyone got what they needed in the end,” Colden said. “I’m glad the settlement got you new eyes and new chompers.”
“Rarely works that way. But yes, indeed.”
Colden turned her face toward the late-fall sun. Her nose was filled with the sharp smell of fresh decay. A chill breeze came up, carrying the portent of the season to come. There was work ahead of her. Back to Albany. Back into the woods. Back to studying moose and beaver. They were lining up the helicopter surveys again. They were going to use a different outfit for the piloting and capture this time. Maybe she’d try again with the coywolves. She felt sure they were out there. She just needed to keep at it. Keep putting herself in the way of whatever there was to discover.
Gene stopped his slow and methodical rocking. He cleared his throat.
“Colden, I don’t often give advice.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Not much to go on, here,” he said. “Not anyone to give it to, really. And I’m not much of an example to follow.”
“Maybe that is the best reason to give advice,” she said.
“Well, I’m giving you some now.”
“OK.”
“Hold on to that guy. That Drew. He’s a keeper.”
Colden smiled. Not just at Gene, but at the day, at the revelation, at the work ahead. And at the man who was not there, who was waiting for her in Albany, where she was headed, whom she was going to see in just a few hours. She had another pie in the truck, the same kind, that she was bringing to him. They’d cut into it after dinner. He was cooking, traditional Italian, his grandmother’s recipe, in his home, still all-plywood floors and dust, raw electric service, and heat in only some rooms but with a functional kitchen and a bedroom that he’d just upgraded from a bare mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag to a real bed with sheets and pillows. Where she would be spending this night, and the next, and the next. They would be returning to the mountains the following weekend. She was taking him on a real hike. A long one. They were going to climb Mount Colden, the long way, through Misery Mile and Avalanche Pass, past the False Summit. They’d camp at Lake Colden. He had asked her for this, for her to show him the place she was named for.
“Yes, Gene,” Colden said. “Drew is a real keeper. That he is.”
“And Colden?”
“Yes, Gene?”
“So are you.”
The End
Acknowledgements
Thank you, Amazon Publishing, for offering writers so many different ways to get their work out into the world.
Thank you, Danielle and Meghan, for going above and beyond with sharing your assistance, talent, and encouragement.
And thank you, each and every reader, for spending your time with my words.
Beneath the Trees Page 26