As the powwow broke, Lamar and Coop headed for the shed while Gaby and Beverly moved to the eastern end of the wigwam to map out the optimal route for the trench. Ken started scouring the perimeter of the campsite for branches that would make suitable spears, while humming “I’m All Alone.”
When Coop reached the shed, Lamar was already inside, gathering an armful of canned food from the back shelf.
“Hey, why don’t we start by moving everything we can use into the wigwam?” Lamar suggested.
In response, Coop slammed the shed door behind him. Lamar started as the tiny space was instantly cloaked in darkness.
“What the hell was that all about?” Coop demanded in a fierce but hushed voice. “Now everyone thinks I’m holding out on them.”
“Uhmm … you are,” Lamar said, nervous but unbowed. “We both know what your ‘jewelry’ really is. What’s on your ankle could literally mean the difference between life and death for us.”
“If you know what this is, then you know what’ll happen if I remove it,” Coop retorted.
“I know it’ll be a parole violation, but …”
“No, no buts!” Coop hissed. “I am not going back to prison on your hunch. You want to find us a way out, try one that doesn’t get me shivved for refusing to swear allegiance to the Aryan Brotherhood!”
“You didn’t have a problem with exposure when it was my butt on the line,” Lamar muttered.
“Going to prison and getting harassed by gangsters are not comparable!” Coop spat back. “We’re talking about my life here!”
Lamar set down an armload of supplies he’d gathered to transport to the wigwam.
“No, we’re talking about everyone’s lives,” he retorted. “The battery powering your ankle monitor could save all of us.”
Silence. Through the closed shed door, they could hear Ken calling out from the other side of the camp.
“I’m going into the forest of death now … alone,” Ken shouted to no one in particular. “My tombstone will read: ‘He gave his life for wooden spears.’”
Coop still didn’t respond. In the darkness, Lamar couldn’t tell if Coop was wavering or if he was trying to control his emotions. He took a chance and forged ahead.
“Coop, listen, I’m doing my part, despite the risk,” Lamar pressed. “Now it’s your turn.”
Coop exhaled slowly. Lamar was secretly relieved it was so dark, as he didn’t want to see the look on Coop’s face right now. He felt Coop’s breath on his face as the slight man leaned in.
“Screw … you!” he hissed and shoved the door open, temporarily blinding Lamar as he stalked out.
“Hey, Ken!” Coop shouted as he walked across the compound. “Wait a sec. I’ll join you. I’m getting sick of this place, anyway,” he said loudly with a backward glance of disgust at Lamar.
Lamar watched him walk off with a pang of regret before picking up the supplies again to move them to the wigwam. He was so unsettled by the exchange that it took two more trips before he noticed that the jug of moonshine was missing.
* * * * * *
Coop was traversing a wide ravine about half a mile south of camp, searching a fallen tree near the bottom for branches suitable to weaponize. Ken sat on the edge of the ravine, overseeing him. They’d been out here for barely 90 minutes, and Coop was already regretting his decision.
For starters, Ken was surprisingly fussy about branch selection. He was the Goldilocks of the forest; every branch Coop found was too thin or too thick, too long or too short. And all of them needed to be perfectly straight. Additionally, Coop’s inability to locate the perfect branch was making Ken more dickish than usual.
“Hey, Butthole Buddha, you find anything?” Ken called from above.
Coop pulled a candidate branch from a pile of leaves, hoisting it over his head so Ken could see it.
“How about this one?”
“Looks flimsy,” Ken responded. “Can you snap it in two?”
Coop gripped it firmly on either end and pressed his knee against it. After a few seconds of exertion, the branch cracked.
“That’s what I thought,” Ken crowed. “One hard thrust and it’ll snap. It needs to be thicker.”
After searching several more minutes in vain, Coop climbed out of the ravine and rejoined Ken at the top. Ken was busy whittling four branches he’d deemed satisfactory, all found by him, of course. He tested the sharpened tip of one with his palm and smiled.
“I think this one is just about ready for Wade’s face,” he said, setting it on the ground beside him. “One more good one should do it.”
Coop smiled thinly.
“And how much longer will it take to find that last one?”
“If you were pulling your weight around here, we’d have found it a long time ago,” Ken replied snidely. He pointed to a cluster of ash trees in the distance ringed by a chest-high thicket of brambles. “You haven’t checked over there yet. Ash branches are usually sturdy.”
He tossed the newly fashioned spear at Coop, who caught it with a grunt of surprise.
“For reference,” Ken explained as he held another spear level with his eye to check its balance. “Since you don’t seem to know what a decent spear looks like. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find a bird or deer. Then you can take it for a test drive.”
“I don’t want to kill anything,” Coop declared obstinately. “I just want to protect myself.”
Ken stopped studying the spear point just long enough to roll his eyes.
“Have you always been a pantywaist?” he asked. “Or did it come with your decision to start dining on dick?”
Coop snorted in annoyance and looked away, trying to find the right words.
“Why are you so convinced I’m gay?” he finally asked.
Ken made a face like it was the most ridiculous question he’d ever heard.
“You mean, apart from the fact that you don’t deny it? How about because I have working gaydar,” he said, tapping his temple. “Hey, don’t get me wrong: I don’t have anything against homos. It doesn’t mean shit to me if you take it up the ass.”
“Then why do you keep bringing it up?” Coop insisted, growing heated.
Ken stopped whittling and looked him in the eye.
“Because I want to know what kind of man is fighting beside me,” he said. “Are you willing to kill to survive? Or will you drop to your knees at the first hint of trouble and blow Wade in exchange for your miserable life?”
Coop seethed with resentment. His grip on the spear tightened.
“I’m no coward,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Then prove it!” Ken shouted. “Go out there and find us another spear or kill something with that one. Just don’t come back empty handed.”
Coop stalked off for the ash grove with his blood boiling at the affront to his pride. Questioning his sexuality was one thing; questioning his manhood was something altogether different.
As he approached the grove, Coop entertained visions of Ken prostrating himself, humbled by Coop’s skill after single-handedly defeating Wade.
Even with his blood up, Coop still had enough presence of mind to make for the thinnest section of brambles, which formed a wide ring around the oak grove that extended at least 15 feet. He pushed through the hedge, ignoring the thorns tugging at his robes and skin. He held the spear in front of him to force a path through the brambles. On the other side, Coop found nine ash trees at various stages of development, clustered together in a space about half the size of a tennis court.
Coop wended his way among the trees, hunting for suitable low-hanging branches, occasionally stopping to compare candidates to the spear in his hand. As he searched, he noticed that the wild grass beneath his sandals was thinning out the further he walked. The trees themselves seemed to change, with the ones at the front of the grove vibrant and in full leafage, while the ones further back seemed wilted, with fewer leaves and smaller canopies, as though each step brought him closer to winter.
The leaf count on the ground started to decrease, and eventually only a handful of shriveled leaves appeared on the ground, alongside blighted grasses that highlighted the discolored dirt, which had taken on a chalk-like coloration.
At the back of the grove Coop found a single dead ash sapling. At its base was a fine line of a grayish powder, whose snaking tendrils extended into the brambles at the back of the grove and out of sight. Near the edge of the thicket he saw two more of these spiraling “arms”: one several feet to the right of the main one, which extended in a semicircular pattern several feet into the grove before disappearing back into the thicket. The other one started several feet to the left of the main one, and only reached a foot into the grove before ending in a fine point. The three tendrils collectively formed a swirling, pinwheel shape, one drawn with an unnatural level of precision.
Everything within the powder’s radius was dead: plants, grasses and trees alike. In the center of the spiral pattern was a dead squirrel. Its forepaws extended skyward while its haunches were splayed out to either side.
Coop stopped at the edge of the powdery trail as though there were an invisible barrier preventing him from continuing. His machismo-fueled anger from earlier had dissipated, replaced initially by curiosity and now by concern. Whatever this substance was, Coop instinctively knew not to touch it.
He poked his spear at the furthest extension of the substance — right at the base of the dead sapling — to test it. The grayish powder smeared black against the pasty dirt, just like ash from a fire.
After wiping the tip of his spear clean, Coop plucked up his courage, stepped as close to the substance as he dared and leaned forward to peek over the thicket, hoping to locate the source.
A voice in the distance stopped him.
“Hey, rump ranger!” Ken shouted. “What’s taking so long?”
The memory of Ken’s earlier insults reignited Coop’s anger, and he pulled back from the edge of the substance, determined to complete his mission and shut Ken’s big mouth once and for all.
Looking around, he couldn’t see any spear-worthy branches on the ground or hanging from the trees. He suddenly remembered the second part of Ken’s challenge. He looked back at the dead squirrel. It must have died recently, as there were no flies or maggots on it; in fact, Coop had neither seen nor heard any animals since stepping into the grove. There was no visible damage to it, but its tiny body looked desiccated as though its squirrel buddies had mummified it. Coop leaned forward to jab it with his spear tip while still avoiding the powdery substance. The spear pierced its body easily, and Coop hoisted it aloft and started back the way he came. He felt strangely proud as if he’d killed the squirrel himself.
Ken chided Coop as he saw him reemerge from the thicket.
“What, did you stop to take a piss?”
“No,” Coop said as he drew closer, holding the spear aloft. “I got us dinner.”
“No shit?” Ken exclaimed, studying the tiny body dangling from the spear tip.
“Man, that’s one butt-ugly squirrel!” he declared. “And you found it in there?”
“Yeah, it was just … gathering nuts and stuff. I snuck up on it and … BAM!” Coop lied. “It never knew what hit it.”
“All right!” Ken said, clapping Coop on the back hard enough that he nearly knocked him over. “So you finally popped your cherry. Maybe you’re not so useless, after all!”
Coop basked in Ken’s armchair accolades, even as he recognized how hollow they were. It felt good, even for a moment, to be accepted into the world of real men.
By the time the two arrived back in camp, some 40 minutes’ worth of Ken’s increasingly vulgar and misogynistic stories had completely cured him of that feeling.
* * * * * *
Gaby and Beverly were making good progress. It had been slow going at first — given that they only had one single garden spade between them — but in the past two hours they’d managed to dig a two-foot-deep trench around the front and the left side of the teepee, and had moved on to the right. They figured out after some trial and error that the most efficient way to approach it was to have Beverly do a first pass with the garden spade, breaking up the soil and digging a crude trench, while Gaby would come in behind her to deepen and straighten it out with her bare hands.
They made a good team, too, although Beverly had some frustrating habits that grated on Gaby the longer they worked together.
As if on cue, Beverly suddenly stopped digging to examine her spade hand.
“Damn, another nail broke,” she said with an exaggerated sigh of regret before eventually returning to work.
That was the first problem: complaining. Beverly complained about anything and everything, turning insignificant issues into cases for martyrdom. After the first few times, Gaby had reminded her exactly what was at stake for all of them. Now she didn’t even bother. It wasn’t that Beverly had forgotten; she simply needed to complain the same way others need oxygen.
As Gaby made her first pass on an untouched patch of dirt, Lamar came by with an armload of timber.
“Coming up behind you,” he called out as he passed, before dumping the lumber in an unceremonious heap on the edge of the trench. He paused to catch his breath, resting one palm on the hammer hanging from his belt loop as he mopped his brow with a corner of his T-shirt. His actions exposed his sweaty belly — which overhung his pants — to Beverly, who looked away in disgust. After a few more gasps of air, Lamar staggered back to the shed to collect more wood.
“Ughh!” Beverly said when he was out of earshot. “Every time that Lamar passes by, I have to suppress my gag reflex.”
Gaby paused her digging to look back at Beverly with a raised eyebrow, trying to decide if she should be offended or not.
Beverly registered the meaning of her stare and reciprocated with a look of mild annoyance.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “I’m talking about his odor. He smells like Pig-Pen looks.”
Gaby took her meaning and covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“I don’t think hygiene is Lamar’s top priority,” she said before returning to work.
“I doubt it’s even in his top 10,” Beverly deadpanned. She watched Gaby work for a moment before getting up and dusting herself off.
“Where are you going?” Gaby asked.
“I need a break,” Beverly insisted.
And here was the second problem: Beverly was constantly taking breaks. If it weren’t for those, they’d probably have finished the job already.
“But we took one 20 minutes ago,” Gaby protested.
“I’m not as young as you,” Beverly reminded her. “Besides, I need to take my ... medicine,” she said cryptically, staring off into the floodplain.
Gaby noticed that the older woman was pale and fidgety.
“Can you at least wait until we finish this section?” Gaby asked, but Beverly was already walking away, muttering something under her breath.
“S … A … L … T … S … A … L … T,” she said quietly to herself as she walked. Gaby watched, confused, as Beverly walked past the shower down to the floodplain, rather than to the wigwam, which would be a more logical place to store pharmaceuticals, since it held everyone’s luggage, including Beverly’s.
As Gaby watched her leave, Lamar came by with another load of lumber.
“I haven’t gotten this much exercise since middle school,” he said with a laugh as he dropped the lumber on the ground. He noticed that Gaby didn’t respond. “Is everything okay?”
“That’s her third break in the last hour,” Gaby replied.
Lamar misinterpreted her remark as a condemnation.
“Well, even with that, you two seem to be moving at a good clip,” he said cheerily.
“That’s not the point,” Gaby insisted, the concern now evident in her voice. “She’s acting strange.”
Gaby stood up and stretched her back.
“I wonder if it’s that salt thing,”
she said, still staring at the showers even though Beverly was long since out of view.
Lamar looked at her, puzzled.
“Salty?” he asked. “Like, she’s pissed off?”
Gaby shook her head.
“She spelled it out — S-A-L-T — like it was some kind of acronym. She did it once when we were looking in the shed and again just now. Any clue what it means?”
Lamar stroked his goatee as he thought.
“Nothing that fits,” he said after a few moments of reflection. “The only SALT I know is a list of triggers: Stress, Anger, Loneliness, Tiredness.”
Gaby tried to absorb this.
“Triggers for what?” she asked.
“For relapsing,” Lamar explained. “Alcohol, drugs and other addictions. They use it in 12-step programs as a reminder of what triggers to avoid when on the wagon. My father used it like a mantra on bad days.”
“You think Beverly is an addict?” Gaby asked, slightly alarmed at the prospect.
“Addicts go to 28-day programs, not on wilderness retreats,” Lamar said with a shake of his head. “I have no idea what it means to her.”
Beverly returned several minutes later, looking more herself and appearing in better spirits.
“All right, let’s finish this,” she said, rolling up her sleeves as she strode past the central firepit. In contrast with her high-strung demeanor not five minutes ago, Beverly now seemed at ease and more confident. Gaby started to hope that the older woman — despite her obvious distaste for roughing it — was finally adapting to her circumstances. That’s when she noticed that Beverly was about to walk right into one of the wooden stools surrounding the firepit.
Gaby called out to warn her, but didn’t get further than “Beverly!” before the older woman caught the stool in the shins and fell flat on her face.
Gaby and Lamar ran over to check on her. Beverly raised her head, dazed.
“What in the hell was that?” she asked as they helped her to her feet. She seemed disoriented, and was unsteady on her feet. Lamar supported Beverly as Gaby looked the older woman over.
The Truth Circle Page 15