Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  “Doug,” the man said, bowing his head. “I wish I had known his name.”

  “Why?” Natalie asked, whimpering with fear. “Why do you wish that? What happened to him?”

  The man set the plate on the ground and took both her hands in his. “I’m truly sorry,” he said, “to have to tell you this, especially right now. I wanted to wait for you to recover more fully first.”

  His face became slightly less serene, focused intently on her. Then he opened his mouth to speak.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Your husband was suffering from an intestinal bacterium,” the man began.

  Was, Natalie heard. A tear ran down her face, joined by a flood of others, and the salt stung her still partially open wound. The ability to cry was both a blessing and a curse. She knew that now.

  “Giardia probably,” the man went on, “or its ilk. A killing malady. Few people survive it, especially out here without access to medical intervention.”

  “Where is he?” Natalie asked.

  “I have him in a comfortable spot,” the man replied. “A sacred spot even.”

  “I need to see,” Natalie said. “I need to see him.”

  Recollections were coming back to her now—the moment when Doug had collapsed and she’d been too weak to reach his hand—but she still couldn’t believe that her vital young husband could be dead. Even though she knew that vital young people died all the time.

  The man gave a hard shake of his head. His thick hair, dark enough to reflect the moonlight, rearranged itself over his shirt collar. “You’re not strong enough yet.”

  Did he mean physically? Or emotionally?

  The man studied her, and his eyes reflected compassion. Though they were dark and hard to read, Natalie saw in the man’s eyes a mirroring quality, like pools of water beneath a night sky. He seemed to truly want to know and understand her.

  “I know how hard this must be,” he said, his voice pitched low, as if to lessen any need for alarm.

  Still, Natalie felt fear climb to a teetering peak inside her.

  “Even if things between you didn’t exactly amount to newly wedded bliss.”

  Natalie whirled on the man so fast that she swayed. Using a tree to brace herself, she cried, “What do you mean? How do you know anything about us?”

  Oh God, what might Doug have said in his final moments? What had his dying words been? Natalie was going to have to live with what the end had been like between them. So ugly, stripped away, two people at their worst and weakest selves.

  The man took a step forward, palms out-turned. “Doug didn’t tell me a thing,” he said consolingly. “He was in no condition to speak. But you both wound up in the woods, half-dead in your case, and in his—” He broke off. “That’s all I meant. That this wasn’t exactly your typical start to a lifetime of togetherness.”

  The night had grown cold. Goose bumps dotted Natalie’s skin, and she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

  The man gave his leg a light punch. “I knew I didn’t want you to have to hear this news now. Getting chilled will set back your recovery. Let me help you into the hut.”

  They walked together, Natalie so exhausted that she found herself hardly able to lift her feet. At the entrance to the hut, she shuffled inside and collapsed.

  The man zipped the sleeping bag snugly around her, squatting on the dirt floor and appraising the small structure with his eyes. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here.”

  His words struck an odd note—as if he was looking for something Natalie wasn’t quite sure how to give—but she offered a nod.

  “You good?” he asked, and she looked up at him. He gave his leg another smack of reproach. “Given the circumstances, I mean. Do you at least feel warmer now?”

  Natalie turned her head. There really wasn’t anything strange about his queries; the man was just trying to make sure she was okay. She had no right to take out her grief and anger on him when he’d done nothing but try to help.

  Sleep, that dashing temptress, came and beckoned Natalie away. Down a dark tunnel to a place where the fact of her loss, her aloneness, had no way to follow.

  • • •

  Sometime before consciousness stabbed her, Natalie began to mourn Doug, and woke with the sleeping bag soaked beside her face, its loft flattened by tears.

  She’d thought that her marriage had come to an end after Doug confessed his lies, but now she realized that only death could act as a permanent sever. The two of them might’ve gotten past their shaky start. Gone to counseling. Explored the themes they had both raised about their childhoods and families of origin. Just as Doug had proposed on the night he’d finally told her everything.

  But Natalie had spurned his suggestion. She’d told him it was over—that they were over. That was what her husband had to take with him of Natalie at the end of his life. An assertion of abandonment. Her statement that they were through.

  Natalie shifted on the sleeping bag, the fabric emitting a rustly sound. Otherwise, it was silent in the hut. The noises she had grown used to while camping—cricket song, rattling wind, small disturbances in the woods—were damped by the walls and roof.

  She had to make it to wherever Doug lay in rest; she needed to see him for herself. Until that moment, his death wouldn’t feel real. And then she had to figure out how to get the two of them out of this place. Would the man hike out, bring back help? Some kind of search-and-rescue team perhaps. A helicopter with a body bag.

  She shuddered.

  The man stooped to enter the hut, as if summoned by her troubled thoughts. He held out the battered tin cup, a curl of steam rising from it, and what could only be described as a wilderness salad: a tangle of jagged-edged green on the metal plate.

  Natalie downed every mouthful, cursing her voraciousness. How could she feel hunger when Doug would never eat again? His death should’ve halted the needs of her body, made it so that all appetites ceased. But her stomach sang a different song from her heart’s ballad of loss, and she gulped and gobbled and licked up every shred of leaf.

  The man watched her carefully. “Tea made from raspberry leaves,” he said. “And foraged greens. If they go down well, later on you can have some more meat.” He leaned closer. “Your eyes are swollen. Are you experiencing any difficulty with vision?”

  Natalie shook her head rapidly. “I have to go see my husband,” she told him. “Please. Even if you have to carry me there.”

  He continued to examine her, then said, “Tears. You’ve been crying,” as if realizing something.

  But he had already noted that her ability to cry had returned. Natalie felt a sense of mounting impatience. “Yes,” she responded. “I’m much better. Please, will you take me to my husband now?”

  Still, the man hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s best. You’re weaker than you may realize.”

  Something about the words made Natalie sit up a little straighter, the sleeping bag slipping down around her waist. She set the tin plate and cup beside her, registering for the first time that the floor of the hut was bare ground. Then she began to rise, breaking the move into discrete parts. First onto her knees, with a momentary pause for rest. Then, one foot on the earthen floor. She pushed down, trying to get the other leg under her, but failed and flopped back, panting.

  The man watched the series of maneuvers, staring down at her from what seemed a great height, his face calm and serene.

  “Please,” Natalie whispered. She didn’t even know if he could hear her.

  At last he gave a nod. “We’ll take a walk around the yard. You can lean on me and drink some more fluids. If you seem okay after that, then all right. I’ll take you.”

  “Thank you,” Natalie said. She couldn’t believe the gratitude that suffused her, her driving need to—if nothing else—at least kiss her husband goodbye.

 
They covered the area the man had referred to as the yard: a plain of cleared dirt and open space. There was another hut propped against the one in which Natalie resided, somewhat bigger in size. And a cage made out of wooden sticks, with a family of chipmunks scampering around inside. An area fenced off by taller, thicker sticks was home to a few rows of limp, straggly plants, nothing recognizable like lettuce or peas, although what appeared to be a single stalk of corn was fighting for life.

  The man who had saved her appeared to be some kind of society dropout. Judging by this uncertain array, the endeavor was harder than it appeared on TV or in books.

  He studied her face as he guided her along. “It’s not as meager as it may look.”

  “What?” Natalie asked. She glanced at the man, whose normally tranquil expression seemed to have slipped, a certain upset behind it. “Oh, no. I wasn’t thinking that. I was actually imagining how hard it must be to have created all this.”

  “Please don’t lie,” he said mildly.

  Natalie looked down at the ground, concentrating intently on her steps.

  “Has it seemed difficult to you?” he went on, steering her nimbly around the cage. The chipmunks ceased their darting and held still. “Staying here? I was hoping you’d have everything you needed. That you’d feel well tended to.”

  “I do,” Natalie responded truthfully, though it occurred to her to wonder why this mattered to him. “When I first arrived…well, it seemed like paradise.”

  “That’s good to hear,” the man said, still eyeing her closely. “Why don’t you have a little water now? Then we can take our walk to go see your husband.”

  She’d forgotten her loss for a moment, and the return of grief was crushing, like a tidal wave slamming against her from behind.

  They set off into the woods, the brushed-clear dirt of the yard giving way to uneven terrain beneath Natalie’s feet.

  “Stay right at my side,” the man instructed. “That’s very important.”

  As if his words served as some kind of trigger, a barrage of images assaulted Natalie. She was dipping her paddle into the sweep of whitewater; the high-up log she and Doug had walked across jutted out over its chasm; the two of them were running, racing, breaking through the woods. Natalie became aware of a high, keening sound and braced herself for a strong wind, but no wind came. The air didn’t so much as stir. Then she realized the noise was being made by her.

  “Shh,” the man said. He patted her with a strong, plank-like hand. “I should’ve realized. Of course. This is the first time you’ve reentered the woods.”

  His voice was the comfort she sought; she turned to its source as if imprinted upon it. She held on to him, sobbing into his shirt.

  “I was so scared,” she cried.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Then, “Yes. Of course you were.”

  She let out a sob. “I didn’t know if I was going to survive.”

  Another reply uttered after a small delay. “You must’ve been so scared.”

  Natalie became aware of what she was she doing—breaking down in the embrace of a man she didn’t even know—although she noted that he wasn’t exactly holding her in return. His arms hung like poles by his sides. Natalie breathed in deeply, then made herself straighten. The man offered her the corner of his shirt to wipe her eyes.

  Natalie sniffed in a rattling breath and braced her shoulders. She didn’t want to enter the place that had robbed her of Doug. But nor could she stay out of it either.

  The man repeated his order to stay close by his side. “You won’t get lost again,” he reassured her. “I won’t let that happen. But these woods hold other dangers.”

  Now that they had broken the barrier of brown and green, Natalie’s feet felt surer, and her strength seemed to be returning.

  She had to see Doug. It was all she wanted in this world.

  The creek began to burble audibly before they saw a glint of water. Natalie fought to hurry, the man easily matching her stride.

  “Right there.” He pointed. “I thought by the creek made the most sense. Given his condition. Don’t worry, I’ve kept him warm.”

  Natalie realized she had closed her eyes, and forced them to open. A shaft of sunlight momentarily blinded her. Then Doug’s fallen form came into view.

  He was lying beside the creek on a raised cushion of dirt. A second sleeping bag had been placed over him and drawn up to his chin. A few scraps of cloth lay on a nearby rock, drying in the sun beside a rough piece of bark. They smelled clean and fragrant, pine scented as if the bark had been used as a scrubber. Natalie realized that the man must’ve used them to wash Doug’s body.

  Like a ritual bathing, as if the man were preparing her husband for burial.

  Not here. Natalie would never let this loathsome wilderness have Doug. They had to get home.

  A long, high cry escaped her, like a whistling wind. It was the sound of pure loss.

  Doug’s face twitched, and he blinked.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “Doug?” Natalie said faintly, disbelieving.

  He blinked again, though he didn’t lift his head or make any other move.

  “He’s alive!” Natalie cried out. Her knees buckled under her, and the man grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. Natalie wrenched herself free. Her gaze shot back and forth; it couldn’t seem to decide where to settle. There was the man who had appeared to be nothing but savior till this very moment when she realized that he’d lied to her; her husband, lying prone by the side of a rushing creek; and her own feet, newly planted with firmness on the ground. “He’s alive,” Natalie said again.

  “Of course he is,” the man responded. He regarded her as if he had only now thought to question her grip on sanity. “I’ve been attending to him very carefully. It wasn’t easy when you needed so much care yourself.”

  “But…I thought you said—” Natalie broke off, unable to complete the thought, and ran for her husband.

  She knelt, hands carefully seeking some part of Doug’s body it might be safe to touch beneath the puffy sleeping bag.

  “Be careful,” the man said from behind. “In addition to the intestinal distress, he seems to have hurt his right elbow.”

  Natalie had forgotten all about Doug’s injury. She looked at her husband, whose eyes appeared to be trying to stay focused, but kept falling shut.

  The man spoke again, from a little closer, to judge by the sound, although Natalie didn’t turn around and look. She couldn’t take her eyes off Doug.

  “He was better off here rather than at the hut,” the man explained, “because I could keep him clean. It was easy to use creek water to wash him, and I laid the sleeping bag on top to keep his core body temperature up.”

  “I don’t understand,” Natalie whispered. “I thought he was…” She trailed off, not wanting Doug to hear what she had thought, how easily—it struck her now—she had given him up for gone. But when she looked down again, her husband had drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep: regular breaths and soft, ruffled snoring. Natalie rose more agilely than she had in days. “You said ‘was,’” she charged the man. “That Doug was suffering from giardia, or something like it.”

  “He was,” the man said, frowning minutely. “He seems to be over the worst of it now. He took in a few ounces of water this morning, and has so far kept them down.”

  Natalie shook her head. This couldn’t just be a simple misunderstanding, yet she had no idea what other explanation there might be for it. “But…you called it a killing malady. Whatever Doug had. You said few people survived.”

  “Few do,” the man agreed.

  Natalie stared at him, looking for signs of duplicity or malice in his eyes. There were none. No signs of anything bad at all; only rapt, avid concern and a reflection of her own upset.

  “Why didn’t you want to give me the news then?” she ask
ed. “You said you wanted to wait till I was stronger to tell me what happened to Doug.”

  “Look, I don’t know how to put this delicately,” the man said, blinking at her blamelessly. “I figured few women would want to hear that their new husband was lying unconscious by a creek bed, covered in his own filth. I felt that it’d be better if you were a little stronger by the time you had to take that in.”

  Natalie had no idea why she was continuing this interrogation. Doug was alive—saved by the man—and she should be nothing but grateful. But it was as if her world had been given a hard spin on its axis, a lifetime-sized change taking place in a nanosecond.

  Speaking loudly enough that Doug stirred on the ground, she said, “You referred to this spot as sacred. Remember?”

  “It is,” the man said calmly, gesturing to the silvery creek. “Can you imagine a more peaceful place in which to heal?”

  Natalie finally subsided. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to give you a hard time. You’ve been so good to us. To us both.”

  “No apologies necessary,” the man replied. “You’ve been through hell. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t be acting quite like your normal self.”

  Natalie let her head drop, staring down at the ground. “I think it’s time you told me your name.”

  “Kurt,” the man replied. “Kurt Pierson.”

  “Kurt,” Natalie repeated.

  “And you’re Natalie,” Kurt said to her.

  Again, she felt curiosity extend to a touch of suspicion. “How did you know—”

  “Your husband,” Kurt said. “He kept muttering your name. Doug was so worried about you. Even when standing at death’s door himself.”

  Natalie felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. A wind rose up, and the fir trees soughed all around them. The breeze stirred Doug’s hair, moving the ends on his scalp. His hair looked clean; the man must’ve washed it. His newly grown-in beard was bristly with life.