by Diane Cook
She’d been staring at Agnes and Agnes at her when Agnes’s gaze darted to the ridge above them. But Bea saw nothing. When Agnes turned back, Bea felt a primal chill and she looked back up on the ridge to see what up there might have its gaze fixed on them. Where was Glen? she wondered and began to worry. She stood up reflexively, searching the ridge. When she looked back across the fire, Agnes was gone. Bea spotted her walking toward where the sleeping circle had been. There was Glen shaking out the bedding. Agnes arrived and helped him. My weird family, Bea thought, and watched them, her heart light with love but heavy with regret for whatever it was that made people keep one another at arm’s length. It was a deep, human, instinctual regret. But it was also personal.
As the Community cleaned up and set up bed, they were surprised to see a light blink on in the distance. The light seemed to be moving. Carl cupped his ear toward it.
“It’s a truck,” he said, and the suggestion translated for them the strange alien hum that had broken their desert silence.
“A Ranger truck?” asked Val.
“No, a truck truck.”
“We must be near the Boundary Road,” Glen said, pulling out the map.
Supposedly a raw and frost-heaved road ringed the Wilderness State, connecting the Posts and allowing the Rangers access to different regions without having to disrupt the remote and wild middle. They’d only ever seen the part that stretched between the Posts farther east. There was never anyone on that road, but out here, where it felt emptier, they saw another set of headlights flick on. And then farther ahead another emerged. Then the red tail of a vehicle heading in the opposite direction.
Bea walked deeper into the playa and stood. It wasn’t as though they never saw other people or structures. There were check-ins at Post. They met Rangers in the woods, in the plains. Rangers even drove up to them in trucks. But these cars and lights dazzled her, and she felt just how lonely she had become. Who were all these people, and where were they going? Was there somewhere to go to not far from here? Her heart galloped at the thought.
She heard footsteps behind her, a soft crunch, somewhat stealthy. But definitely biped. She didn’t turn around.
Carl appeared beside her.
“Got to spend some time with Glen the other day,” he said.
“Yes, you did.”
“It’s been a while since we just talked.”
“Yep.”
“Great guy.”
“Great guy?”
“Yeah,” Carl said, looking surprised. “He’s a great guy.”
“You’ve lived with him, slept next to him, shat in the same hole he shat into for years. And before that he was your mentor. And you just figured out he’s a great guy?”
Carl scowled. “No, I know he’s a great guy. I’m just saying it. It’s been a while since I said it. Can’t I just say it?”
Her knee began to bounce, a nervous tic she hadn’t felt the need for in years. She sighed. “Of course. He is a great guy,” she agreed.
“He handles the Rangers well,” Carl noted.
“He respects them.”
“I don’t know how,” Carl said, his signature irritation creeping in.
“I think,” Bea said, knowing she might be saying too much, “he wishes he were one.”
Glen had told her once that the Rangers had it best. Freedom to roam, he’d said, and still a bed to sleep in, a warm house with electric lights to ward off the darkest darkness. They’d been lying under a skin one cold night in their first year. They had been encountering a lot that frightened them, but they were also feeling emboldened by having made it so far, especially when others hadn’t. But that night Glen held her tighter and perhaps his weariness was making him honest.
He had whispered, “Imagine having the comforts of modern life but also having access to this vast, beautiful place. To know it like the back of your hand because you’ve walked across it for years and years and years and years . . .” He yawned and trailed off.
“But that’s us now, isn’t it?” Bea had asked.
“Yes and no. We’ll never see it all, I fear.”
Bea smiled, realizing this probably was an actual fear of his.
“But a Ranger will,” Glen continued. “He’ll see it all again and again.”
“But he won’t know it like we do.”
“I’m not sure. I bet a Ranger could know it like we know it. I would if I were a Ranger.” He sighed. “How did I not know about being a Ranger?” he whined. “I never saw it on those career lists, did you?”
“I don’t think so. But maybe I got different lists.” Bea wouldn’t have wanted to be a Ranger, not when she was young and deciding such things, and she guessed that Glen wouldn’t have either. The world had been different enough even then. Who could have imagined that the Rangers would be the lucky ones? “Maybe you didn’t get the list with Ranger because you’re old,” she teased. “It probably wasn’t such a good job back then. I bet they don’t even like it.”
“Of course they like it!” Glen had exclaimed.
“Shh. You don’t know that. Sometimes they look beat and irritated.”
“Because they’re dealing with Carl.”
They had both laughed.
Glen had hugged her hard then, and as he fell into sleep, his grip had relaxed little by little, reluctantly.
Far across the playa, a new car appeared. It seemed closer. From where Bea and Carl stood, its whine sounded at first like a young coyote calling from the ridge.
“Can I tell you a secret,” Carl said.
Inside Bea groaned. She did not want to be a receptacle for Carl. She didn’t think there was any benefit to being his confidante. She hmmed quietly and let him translate that as he wished.
He barreled ahead. “I tried to be a Ranger once.”
Bea snorted in surprise, but then realized she wasn’t surprised at all. “Of course you did,” she said and wondered if it had come across as snide as she felt. But Carl chuckled, pleased with himself and her reaction.
“I did. But I didn’t have what it takes, they said.”
“Did you apply again?”
“You can only apply once. I would have applied a million times. It’s all I wanted.”
“Do you know why?”
“Why what?”
“Why you weren’t accepted?”
Carl twisted his face, thinking hard, as though he had never thought to wonder. “I mean, I assumed it was because I wasn’t cozy with the idea of enforcing all their rules.”
“That makes sense.”
“The Rangers have always been real yes-men. They’re just the police in green uniforms. I wanted to be a Ranger to access this place. That’s all I cared about. I didn’t care about enforcing rules.”
“Let me guess, you told them that.”
“Probably,” Carl said, swallowing the acknowledgment, embarrassed.
She felt a familiarity creeping in like the feeling between them the other night. Like they were two people who could talk, could share things, even though she’d never believed it before.
She hugged her arms to herself, putting up a barrier. “So,” she said, being chipper. “You finally got what you wanted. You must be happy.”
“That’s the thing, Bea,” he said, casting his eyes to her briefly. “Now that I have what I wanted, I feel somehow freed up to want more. Free to want without hesitation. I think wanting is man’s natural state. Now want is an insatiable thing in me. Painful almost how much I want what I want.”
He stared hard at Bea.
She cleared her throat. “I think you just described what being a child is like.” She smiled innocently, trying to deflect his energy.
He smiled at her comment, but his stare did not waver.
She laughed. “Why are you staring at me?”
Carl said, “You know why.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“I’m not trying to tell you something. I am telling you.” His smile masked
an edge in his voice. Like his wants were dangerous.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay what?” he asked.
“Okay,” she spat. Now she felt like a child. She mumbled, “I get it. You want to fuck me.” The word, in this context, felt like dirt in her mouth.
“Of course, but that’s not it. I want to fuck everyone. It’s just what this place does to me. Like I said, it frees me up.”
“So then?”
“I’m going to stop playing nice someday,” he said.
“Oh, you’re playing nice?”
“You can’t insult me, you know that right?”
She blinked. She did know that. His forthrightness was like a slap in the face.
“Bea, I think you’re powerful. And I think we could be very powerful together.”
“What about Val?”
“What about Val?”
Bea raised her eyebrows.
“Look, Val is Val,” he said. “But Val is half the woman you are.” He said it without flattery. Just stated it flatly, as though it were fact. Bea felt bad for Val, even as she hated her. “People follow you. You lead without even realizing you’re leading.”
“But Carl,” Bea said, “none of us leads. We all make the decisions. Together.”
Carl giggled. It was a boyish giggle designed to make her feel foolish, and it worked. “You don’t think some people are influencing things to get their way? They’re getting what they want and calling it consensus. And no one is the wiser. They’re the ones leading.”
“I suppose one of those people is you.”
“Of course.”
She nodded.
“And one of them, I think, is you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, this stealth-style leadership won’t last forever. And I’m telling you, if you’re smart, you’ll accept that we should be a team, you and me. Not whatever it is we are now,” he said, sounding a bit mournful, a bit bitter. Impatient. He put his hand on her shoulder and she winced—at his touch, at the idea that he thought they were something, anything, together. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Not really,” she said, dodging. But the space behind her eyes throbbed and her gaze unfixed itself so that the dark horizon became a void.
“Don’t play dumb,” he warned. “It’s beneath you.” Sharply he took her chin in his hand and snapped her to attention. She swallowed hard against his fingers on her jaw, her throat.
“One day you’re going to need me,” he said calmly. “Me. Not Juan. Not Debra.” He paused. “Not Glen. You’re going to need me. You’re going to want me. And I will be there for you.” Then his hand was gone, and she sensed he was gone. But she could still feel him lurking in the tension between her shoulders. Thought she could hear his breathing, his steps breaking the salt crust, she felt his eyes on her. She turned. He stood at the edge of camp facing her. Behind him, she saw Val watching too. And behind Val, like a child hiding behind a mother’s skirt, was Agnes.
Bea turned back to the dark road.
In the course of a night, what had seemed an uncomplicated situation had become overwhelming and messy. For the first time, she wasn’t sure who knew what or thought what about her, and this frightened her. These people she had lived so basely with for so long felt like strangers. She didn’t like for things to shift between them. But she guessed they had been for some time. It made her feel out of control, and in that feeling she realized how in control she’d been since arriving. She’d been a person others deferred to or followed, and she hadn’t even noticed. She hadn’t noticed because she hadn’t cared. Why hadn’t she cared? Maybe because she hadn’t cared about any of this, the experiment. It was a game. It made her wish to disappear, to regroup, to assess what her role here was. But thinking of going off alone made her shiver from fear.
So then, take Agnes and Glen, she thought. Shake them awake in the night and steal away, back to Post, back to the City. Live that life again, with all the risk it holds. But no, the fantasy was over before it began. They would never leave. The lump in her throat stopped her breath.
It’s not like she hadn’t seen Carl for what he was. But faced with it now, she could smell the rot, the bile. So she gathered that cold, fearful feeling into her gut and held it there, squeezing until it was hard and compact, a new part of her.
The moon was arcing toward the ridge, and so the depth of the foothills and the ridge face were glowing. It’s pretty, Bea thought. The mountains were tall, and they were real mountains, fronted by a real craggy and proud ridgeline. She suspected the highest point of the ridge might rise a mile above them. If they began to climb, they’d find out how layered and deep the small foothills were. During the day, she’d hardly noticed any depth—in afternoon light it had looked like a flat wall. But now she realized it might be miles and miles of gradual walking before you got the final steep climb to the top. There were mountains to climb before that ridge.
She heard no more cars and saw no more lights. And in their absence that ridge became enormous. She felt its foreboding all at once. Now that she knew how vast everything was. Were they even near the Post? Her legs wobbled. She felt exhausted and wrecked. She wondered if she would freeze to death if she slept right here. She felt such dread in her heart she wasn’t sure her feet would oblige and take her back to camp.
She heard “Psst” behind her.
“Hey, ladybug.” It was Glen. He was there and wrapping a pelt around her shoulders. She felt then how deeply she’d been shivering. “Ladybug,” he sang quietly, and swayed with her there in the blanket. “I didn’t think ladybugs liked the cold,” he whispered into her ear.
Her shivering subsided as he and the blanket warmed her. She realized he was holding her up. Her knees were loose and making circles above her feet.
“Would you like to come to bed?”
She nodded, and felt tears dislodge from the corners of her eyes.
“Would you like some help?”
She nodded again. She felt forgiven. “Take me home,” she said, and he scooped her up and took her to their bed.
• • •
A driver lay on the horn as the car rolled slowly by. Palm to the center wheel, one long jeer. With the other hand he brandished his middle finger. The tires spun by, kicking up the remnants of a rare dump of rain collected in the grooves of the asphalt. After the car squealed past, its spent gas burned their nostrils. The children hacked as though they were back in the City with their faces in their pillows.
They’d awoken in puddles, the dry earth unaccustomed to soaking in any water. They couldn’t remember the last time they’d felt rain and scowled that it had come while they slept and so they hadn’t collected it or washed in it. Now their beds were wet. Their clothes stuck to their grimy bodies.
They walked on the road because the dirt shoulder was mud and so was the playa. “Car,” they called up the line. “Car, car, car,” and then a slosh through the mud until it was safe.
The clouds hung in the sky like dirty globes of cotton. An hour into the day’s walk, it began to rain again.
The glinting roof they’d spied from a distance had been nothing but a collection of abandoned buildings, an old Post, inhabited now by a suspicious great horned owl and several families of irritable crows. An empty horse corral was scattered with dried pucks of shit, but no horses. A watering trough with nothing but a shriveled wood rat dead in its bottom. On the door of one of the buildings was nailed a splintery board of wood with a paint-scrawled note: We’ve moved down the road! An arrow pointed to their left. They trudged to the water spigot, and all that came out was a puff of rust. With shoulders slumped, they walked on.
They heard a loud roar behind them, as though a plane might swipe so close it would blow their hair around. When they looked, it was a truck, still miles down the road. As it got closer, it flashed its lights at them and they cleared the road. “Truck,” they called out, and moved to the side.
The truck shook with effort. Its silver paint was muted with dirt and grime, caked on and not coming off anytime soon. It slowed and tooted its horn. It sounded friendly but still all the children except Agnes hid behind the adults.
Even though it was going slow, when the brake was applied the rig convulsed and the back swiveled, out of control briefly. “Whoa,” the driver said as he stopped next to them. “This monster’s not used to the rain.” He smiled with impossibly white teeth. “Are you those folks I read about?” he asked.
Carl stepped in front of the Community, puffing his chest. “We are.”
“Damn it all. Maureen is never going to believe me.” He fumbled with something in his lap. “Let me take a picture,” he said, producing a glimmering rectangle.
“We’d prefer you not,” Carl said, but the man was already tapping it, saying, “Good, okay now, squeeze together,” and they instinctively did what they were told. The camera shimmered just like the guns on the Rangers’ belts and made a loud chirp like a robotic bird with every tap. Sister, Brother, and Pinecone started to cry, at first quietly, then loud and uncontrollably.
The man lowered the rectangle. “Hey now, why are they crying?” he asked.
“You scared them,” said Debra. “They’ve never seen a camera.”
“Oh,” the man said, looking sincerely forlorn. “I feel bad,” he said. His shoulders slumped and he stared intently into his lap. Then he brightened.
“Hey, I can make it up to them. Wanna lift?” He nodded to the flatbed of the truck, caged in steel rails to keep loads in. But there was no load. It was long, empty, and wet. “Won’t keep you dry, but you’ll be wet for less time. Please stop crying, little ones,” he said, but they already had.
They all looked at one another, then closed into a huddle.