I thought again how easily we could have just jumped into the truck that night at Fobb Bottom and left, or if we had just camped on Mill Creek as Mike had wanted, nothing would have changed. He would be alive, and I would be at home. We never would’ve known about Randy and his brothers. I never would’ve shot that propane tank. Eades would still be alive, not lying there in the dirt with his legs twisted under himself.
The more I thought about him, the more the rabbit twisted in my stomach. I didn't actually throw up, but almost. All the things I should’ve done kept swirling in my mind, all the reasons it was my fault. I kept remembering the look on Dad's face when he told me to leave and wondering what prison would be like if they found out what I'd done and started looking for me.
I woke up at first light, again missing my dark little bedroom, whose only window faced west. It stayed dark until far into the morning, letting me sleep as late as I wanted on the weekends, assuming Dad didn’t roust me out for some extra chore.
I forced myself to stop being such a whiner and went down to check the trotline. It was empty. So were all my snares. I’d developed a cold, probably from my river crossing two days before. I’d managed to dry my boots out pretty well over the fire that night, but late November wasn’t the smartest time to be swimming in Oklahoma. Doing it in a spring-fed river was even dumber.
I gathered some cedar needles and set them to boil in a bit of my quickly dwindling supply of bottled water. Needles from pine, cedar, or most evergreen trees were high in vitamin C and the best way I could think of to fight off a cold. The tea tasted of sour wood and was basically disgusting, but at least it was something warm in my stomach that might help beat the sniffles. I thought longingly of the well-stocked medicine cabinet I should have raided before leaving the house and opened a can of SpaghettiOs for breakfast. I ate half the can before wondering if Eades had children, then I threw the rest of the can into the fire to sizzle and smoke while I wept. The idea that I might’ve taken away some little kid’s Daddy was devastating.
Things went on that way for two days with no fresh meat or fish. The deer seemed to sense my presence and stayed away. Thanksgiving Day, I hunched over a charred can of ravioli and some lukewarm green beans. Thinking of the dinner table piled high with turkey and dressing, smoked ham, potatoes, giblet gravy, corn, and a wide variety of Mom’s pies on the counter took all the joy out of my food. The tears came in a rush, and I spent the rest of that day curled up on my sleeping bag, mourning for everything I'd lost.
The next morning, I set off to find a trail up to the cave I’d heard about, but that took a couple of hours, and the cave turned out to be on an entirely different ridge than I’d thought. That turned out to be a good thing, though. The only trail up to it from below was narrow and entirely visible from a ledge at the mouth of my new home. It was low and deep, running all the way through the hill to a crack between some boulders on the back side. If anyone tried to come up from the front, I could easily toss down rocks or just slip out the back and run.
I used the rest of the afternoon to cut and carry up some thick cedar limbs and wiry grass to make my bed. It wasn’t a feather mattress, but it sure beat the bare ground, and I moved in just after sunset. I built a fire in a depression in the floor and slept soundly for the first time in days.
Chapter 4
Sometimes, I didn’t miss home at all as the days became weeks. The sun rose slowly over the mountains, shining brokenly through the trees, gently teasing me to consciousness. Where I was, when I was, why I was there—none of that even crossed my mind.
First, I would hear the excited whistling and chirping of sparrows and blackbirds. I relived long walks with Lauren by the lake, her hair glowing in the light and her laughter music on the breeze. I remembered wrestling with my dog, Useless, and thought about family dinners, late nights with friends, and Saturday mornings with nothing to do and no care beyond what was for lunch or where to go swimming.
I rose late, traded some chattering obscenities with Bushy and Red, two squirrels who hung around the cave, waiting to invade my stash of pecans and hickory nuts when I left the cave. I smiled my way through checking my traps and snares, restocking my pile of firewood from downed limbs and driftwood on the banks of the river below, and walked silently among the oaks and cedars, pretending to hunt. In the evenings, I watched the sunset from high on a cliff above the river and eventually stumbled back to my itchy bed in the smoke-filled cave, hoping I wouldn't dream.
Other days, the blue jays and crows woke me with their raucous cries and raspy squawks turning my dreams dark and the sun dim, reminding me of just how cold and harsh my world had become. All the reasons that had led me to restless sleep on cedar boughs and rocks in a damp cave lost far back in the Arbuckles came flooding back. Then I gave up on peace and rest, struggled into my rotting boots, and forced myself through another lonely day, wondering why and what if? I would remember that horrific night on the beach and see Randy’s face glowing in the firelight.
#########
The first time I met Randy was in fourth grade, halfway through peewee football practice. I was panting and dirty, sweat washing dirt into my eyes and mouth and staining my oversized jersey and pants with yet another round of grass stains and grime Mom would labor to clean before Saturday morning’s game, as she did every Friday evening that fall.
I stood in line for the water hose, patiently waiting my turn to fill my belly with cool sweetness before ramming the hose down the back of my shoulder pads, to shiver at the sudden chill.
Finally, my turn came, but just as I reached for the hose, Randy shoved me aside and said, “Move it, bitch. Faggots go last!”
Then we were rolling in the mud, flailing at each other before Coach Black jerked us both up by the arms, toes barely touching the ground as we glared and kicked at each other. That was sort of the way our relationship went that whole fourth-grade season. We went to different schools, so I didn’t see him much after that.
When the next August rolled around, I expected more of the same when Randy climbed out of the rusty, primer-blotched Thunderbird his father sat in during practice, drinking beer and smoking cheap cigars until Coach finally let us go for the day.
We were both big for our age, racking up tackles and great blocks play after play. We weren’t really that good, but when we outweighed everyone else on the field by forty or fifty pounds, it was like hitting a Pinto with a Mack truck. Kids sometimes just folded up when we got close.
You couldn’t have called us friends, really, but our scuffles and insults got fewer and further between. They also got more vicious, but even as we launched ourselves at each other, we were usually smiling, and even Coach rarely bothered to break us up.
By junior high, we were almost pals. We even shared a few dirty jokes from time to time. I talked about my family sometimes. Randy never mentioned his.
We made a weird pair. I was dark and quiet most of the time, while Randy was obnoxiously loud and pale, with a blond buzz cut and bloodshot eyes that sort of hurt to look at. I usually made A’s and B’s. Randy tended toward D’s and F’s. The only time he ever did homework assignments was when I passed him my paper to copy, but sometimes, he made better grades on the tests than I did.
When older boys picked on me, Randy always appeared beside me, and I did the same for him. We took beatings as often as not, but since Randy was always quick to pick up a rock, stick, or just a heavy textbook for a weapon, most of the local bullies looked for easier targets.
The summer after ninth grade, my parents moved us to a house in the country. I changed schools and rarely if ever saw Randy, even from a distance. I ran into him once in the sporting-goods section of the new Walmart. He had ragged casts on both arms and fresh bruises, and a large knife was hanging on his belt. I waved at him, and he gave me the kind of look I usually reserved for extra-rotten roadkill. I turned back to the fishing poles and didn't see him again until that night on Lake Texoma.
########
I thought one day might have been Christmas Eve. I couldn’t remember for sure when I’d started making scratches on the wall or if I’d even made a new one each day. The trees were completely bare. Their limbs resembled sad fingers reaching for the sun, hidden behind a week of clouds and brief, drenching rains. Plenty of dry wood was stacked in the cave, but I needed meat—lots of it.
I climbed the steep ridge behind my hole in the rocks, hoping the view might raise my spirits. Downriver a ways, I crossed a thin edge of rock between hilltops I hadn’t dared to try before. It wasn't that bad, really. I’d just never liked heights much. I always got dizzy when I got too close to the edge of something. That day, I just couldn’t seem to care. Besides, maybe I deserved to fall. Sharp, jumbled boulders lay below on one side and a two-hundred-foot tumble to certain death in the icy water on the other. Either would almost be a blessing. At least I wouldn't be starving anymore. I made the crossing to the next ridge and pulled myself from tree to tree up a steep incline. A small clearing lay at the top. In the middle, close to the edge of the drop, was a grave.
Small rocks and gravel were piled in a mound about a foot high and six feet long. At one end was a bare bush a little taller than me. A few feet to one side sat a rough stone bench made from a flat slab of rock laid across two boulders. The whole thing was too weird to be real. I sat down on the bench, facing the cliff and the faint glow of the sun through the clouds, and started to pray.
I didn’t pray the way Mom had taught me. I griped out God. I took everything out on Him: Mike's death, the cops’ indifference, my father’s weakness, my own stupid attack on the Stanglers, the lack of food, my filthy hole of a home, everything. I was going to die there, and He was doing nothing. I didn’t expect a burning bush and a T-bone, but just then, a couple of squirrels would have seemed like manna. By the time I wound down, I could barely see for the tears streaking the dirt on my face.
I got a twitchy feeling as if somebody had just left or was hiding, watching me. I couldn’t see any sign of tracks, but the feeling was there just the same. I had a jagged piece of bright-green flint I’d been toting around in my pocket for a couple of days for no particular reason other than it was pretty. For some reason, I took it out and laid it on the grave. Again, I prayed, but that time, I asked for forgiveness and something, anything, to eat.
Eventually, I ran out of words and gave up without an amen. I glanced around, saw a clearing through the trees at the bottom of the ridge, and decided to check it out. I slipped down the hill as silently as I could on wobbly legs. Some trails in the brush looked promising, so I settled in between an old oak and small cedar tree, waiting for a deer, hog, or rabbit. Hell, at that point, I would have given skunk a try and been grateful for it. I must have dozed off because suddenly, standing there in the clearing, were four wild hogs.
A young boar was standing not more than thirty feet away, snuffling at the air, but the slight breeze in my face gave him no warning. I'd already nocked an arrow to the string of my old Pearson Shadow. So slowly I was barely moving, I raised the bow with the arrow pointing just behind his shoulder, drew the string back to the middle of my cheek, locked the hollow at the base of my thumb behind the corner of my jaw, thought, Please, God, and released.
I knew as soon as the string left my fingers that I’d muffed it, but at the sound of the bowstring snapping tight, the boar leapt forward directly into the path of my crappy shot. I got him only an inch or so from where I’d been aiming, a little behind his shoulder. He squealed and fled for the trees but stumbled at the third leap and struggled into the brush. The three sows each picked a different direction and tore up dirt and brush while running away. I waited, listening, and after a few seconds, all was quiet.
I took my time, found my dripping arrow halfway across the clearing, and walked to the brush where he'd gone in. I spotted some blood on the leaves and began tracking him. Fifty yards away, the boar lay tangled in old briars. Before I could stop myself, I whooped like a drunken monkey and danced a foot-stomping, elbow-pumping jig.
Once I regained control, I set to work, gutting him and pulling out the innards carefully so that I wouldn’t bust his organs and spoil the meat. I tried to wait until I could get back to the cave and do it right, but hunger overcame my good sense. Once the guts were safely off to the side, I picked up the liver and took a bite. It was tough, and the hot, salty bitterness of it made me heave a little. I kept chewing anyway. Liver was supposed to be full of minerals. I gobbled most of it in half-chewed chunks, giggling and choking the whole time. It was disgusting. It was wonderful.
By the time it was gone, my hands were covered in gore, and my cheeks were worse. I was too happy to care. If anyone had seen me right then, they would probably have run screaming. Hell, I might have myself. I was filthy, covered in blood, and grinning to beat the band with a piece of wild-boar liver stuck to my cheek.
Merry Christmas to me.
Chapter 5
I was pretty sure that if I ever left the woods and told my story, I would leave out having a bony boar for Christmas dinner, but honestly, that hog was amazing. His meat lasted three days. His guts furnished bait for my trotlines, which produced a few scrawny fish. I stretched his hide on a rack of limbs I braided together with some old fishing line. I scraped and tanned it as best I could with a paste made from his brains and some fat, and after it dried, I made myself some fur-lined mittens sewed together with leather strips cut from his legs. I even made soup from his bones.
Now that I had a way down the back side of the ridge across from the cave, the hunting and snaring picked up too. I finally figured out where all the rabbits and deer had gone and rarely went to bed hungry. I got lucky one day on a fresh game trail and shot a young hog. She probably weighed less than fifty pounds, but anything different was delicious. I just wished I knew how to make bacon out of her or had some barbecue sauce for her ribs.
I ranged farther from the cave each day. I killed a fat doe and smoke-dried all the meat I couldn’t inhale. In a valley a few miles down the river, I found a field full of pecan trees. By watching the squirrels, I managed to raid their nut stash in an old hollow tree trunk and went home with my pockets bulging.
I knew it wouldn't make much sense to anyone else, but since all that abundance had started with crossing that sharp ridge and finding the grave, I began decorating it. I used feathers, colorful rocks, a hog tusk, old antlers, whatever I happened to find, really. Each time I passed, I left something small as a thank you. Before long, it was pretty in a pagan sort of way, and I spent more and more time on the stone bench there, thinking about home and how I might someday get my old life back.
A few weeks later, the first greens of spring appeared on bare limbs and brown earth. I only needed my fire to cook and heat the cave at night. Blue jays and robins showed up, and I knew spring was finally there to stay. How they always knew exactly when the last of the cold had come and gone, I couldn’t say and didn’t care. I was too happy to be living in a world of bright colors once more.
March brought the first of the spring rains and spring mud, but the days were so warm after what I’d been through that I didn’t even mind the filth. I found more edible plants to add to my menu and felt stronger with every swallow. The wild onions and dandelions were especially tasty but probably didn’t do much for my breath.
########
One day was perfect for stalking deer. There had
been no moon the night before, so I knew they would be sleeping, not feeding. Clouds had moved in before dawn, dumping enough rain to soften up the leaves so they didn't crunch underfoot. A steady drizzle was still falling, hiding whatever sounds I made while sneaking through the brush.
I was crouched among the limbs of a cedar, trying to hide my scent by rubbing some of its needles on my clothes and trying at the same time to find a little respite from the cold rain running down my collar, when suddenly I got that twitchy feeling again, and I knew someone else was close. My skin got tight, and little hairs stood up all over the back of my neck. I didn’t really hear or see anything to tell me someone was there. I just knew. Dad had often told me I would develop instincts I should trust if I stayed in the woods long enough. I used to think that was slightly crazy Special Forces talk.
At first, I felt silly, like some front-porch poodle that had just caught sight of a Doberman, but the longer I held still, the more I knew something was wrong. Fortunately, my camouflage jacket and pants were still holding up fairly well, so I had that advantage, anyway. For about five minutes, I was completely convinced the Stangler brothers were there. I couldn't imagine how they could have found me, but being rational was tough when I was that scared.
Half an hour later, I finally crawled out of hiding and snuck back to my cave, using every bit of stealth Dad had ever tried to teach me. I hid there the rest of the day with the Mauser and shotgun loaded, wondering if the ridiculous booby traps of twine and sharpened sticks I’d planted along every approach to my shelter would actually do me any good if the Stanglers came for me. I knew my bad attempts at punji stakes and deadfalls would never have fooled my father, but those guys weren’t exactly Daniel Boone.
A Portion for Foxes Page 4