The New Wilderness

by Diane Cook

  “Okay,” Agnes said, standing up.

  “Okay what?”

  “We can go back.”

  “Did you find out which one was dominant?”

  “Yeah,” Agnes said.

  “Which one?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t.”

  Agnes whistled. This was a lot of work. “The one who snorted. She was the dominant.”

  “And what do you do with that information?”

  “If we kill her first, the others are easier to hunt. She’s their leader. Without her, they don’t know how to protect themselves.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “But what about the babies?”

  “Without the dominant, they’re even easier to kill.”

  Jake winced. “No.”

  “They are very useful. Their skins come right off.”

  “Please stop.”

  “They’re good to practice on for the kids. You should practice on one.”

  “Never.”

  “You will have to practice on one.”

  “Is this legal?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Agnes stopped. She knew there were things that were forbidden here, but this, she couldn’t imagine taking advantage of evolution being one of them. “It’s evolution.”

  “But you’re not allowed to grow things or build houses.”

  “And?”

  “Well, isn’t that kind of evolutionary?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t.” She said it firmly, but she wasn’t sure. She would have to ask Glen. She hated needing to ask things. She’d rather just know. But Jake’s questions were catching her off guard. Not too long ago everyone in the group had basically known the same things, and agreed on most. Not anymore. It was tiring. They acted so different from her, the Twins and Jake. They asked such different questions, noticed such different things. They did not take for granted what she took for granted. It made her curious, but she also hated it. Hated that they were different. It made her feel different. She knew that in the place where they came from she would be considered strange. But she had come from there too.

  She changed the subject. “Are the Twins really twins?”

  “No. They just met on the bus as far as I know.”

  “Is Patty short for Patricia?”

  “No, it’s just Patty.”

  “Is that a normal name?” Agnes only really knew the names of the Originalists, the Rangers, and names that came up in books they carried, names from earlier times, names from fables. They were grand-sounding. But Patty was so Patty. And Patty wasn’t a name like Val, short for something more enjoyable to say. Valeria was a song she could sing. Her own mother’s name was short for Beatrice. Beatrice was a name that stopped her cold. But her mother’s name wasn’t a name she ever had reason to say. And probably never would now that she was gone, dead, done. She wished she could remember the names of her friends from the City.

  “It’s not not a normal name,” said Jake.

  “Hmm.”

  “Actually they were both named Celeste at first, and for a few days they went as Celeste 1 and Celeste 2. Then Blue-Hair Celeste and Plain Celeste. Then Plain Celeste announced her name was Patty. And so now they are Celeste and Patty.”

  “Why Patty?”

  “My guess is she always wanted to be named Patty.”

  “But she gets so mad when people call her Patricia.”

  “Well, that’s because her name is Patty.” Jake shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be mad if people called you something else, like Agnestia, or something?”

  “But that’s not my name.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jake flicked his head back, removing his bangs from his face. Agnes watched them slide back. She felt in her pocket for something to cut them with, but her knife was at camp.

  On their way back, they came across a rattlesnake in the grass, and before she could warn him, the snake struck out at Jake. But he’d already altered his path, arcing away from where the snake was. He hadn’t acknowledged it or jumped, or even asked, What’s that sound? which she would have expected since he was so new. He never broke his pace, and he kept going on about the Myth of the Private Lands, as he called it, which Agnes had tuned out once she heard the first telltale shakes of the rattle. Somehow, he’d noticed the snake and given it room enough that he didn’t have to be concerned, even though it wasn’t enough room for the snake to not feel anxious. Agnes guessed that if she put her fingers to his wrist she’d discover that his pulse was steady, his skin cool. She spent the rest of the walk and the day pondering this realization, and later fell asleep to images of defensive goshawks, a rutting moose, cougars hovering in the trees. Their terrorizing faces confronting Jake’s tranquility. It took a lot for someone new to the Wilderness not to be startled by all it had to display. But a lot of what?

  * * *

  They camped under Winter Ridge for several nights, hunting, restocking, gathering pine nuts from the trees that hung heavy with cones, skinning game and smoking it. The smoking tent was up and running, and everyone had a job, shadowed by a Newcomer who scurried behind trying to learn it all. The hum of a village in the shadow of the Ridge. It was so familiar.

  Two trucks of Rangers rode up to their camp one morning. Ranger Bob drove one truck. The other truck carried two Rangers the Community didn’t recognize. They got out of their truck tentatively, conferring quietly with each other. Ranger Bob stayed in his truck.

  Agnes waved and started to walk up to his truck. Her mother had always liked Ranger Bob, and so had she. She’d never seen him outside Post before. But before she could get close, he shook his head and shooed her away. He pulled out a clipboard and a pen and stared intently at the other two Rangers. She stayed put, but she scowled and hoped he would see. She wanted a treat.

  The Rangers took attendance with a new roster, one that included the Newcomers. When Bea’s name was called, there was silence. The Rangers looked at them with irritation. Then one said, “Oh, she’s the deserter.”

  They conferred.

  “Then why is she on this list?”

  “Dunno, this is the list Bob gave us.”

  “Should we cross her off?”

  “No, we’re not supposed to do that. Bob made the list, so . . .”

  “So just leave her name and mark her absent?”

  “You’re asking the wrong guy.”

  “Well, you’re the guy who said not to cross it off, so far as I’m concerned you are the absolute right guy.”

  “Why don’t we ask Bob?”

  “Do you want to get fired?”

  “Hey, Meg, can you calm down?”

  They stared at each other, breathing fast for a moment. Then the anger slowly melted from their faces. Finally, they laughed.

  “Okay, folks,” the Ranger named Meg said, addressing the group again. “You know why we’re here, dontcha?”

  “You’ll need to move on,” the other Ranger said.

  They walked around, pointing to the bent and blistered grass under the smoking tent, the pit toilet that was too full. “You know you need to dig a new hole once it reaches halfway,” said Ranger Meg, jabbing into the pit with a stick. They claimed the pinyons had been overharvested.

  “This all needs to go,” the other Ranger said, drawing a circle in the air that was supposed to encompass all their belongings and them.

  “And make sure you do a micro trash sweep because I can see a lot of it,” Ranger Meg said, gesturing at a patch of clean dirt.

  “Should we go to Middle Post?” Glen asked.

  The Rangers shook their heads. “No. This time you’ll go to Upper Middle.”

  The Rangers turned to go.

  “Wait,” Glen said. “What do you know about the chairs down by the river where we picked up these new recruits?”

  “What chairs?”

  “Well, a circle of
chairs, old recliners, sofas. All organized as though there’s been a meeting sometime in the past.”

  “The recent past,” Val cut in.

  Ranger Meg and the other Ranger looked at each other. Again they stared intently. The other Ranger muttered through stiff ventriloquist lips, “Should we get Bob?”

  Ranger Meg shook her head. She turned to the Community. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “And so we don’t need to worry about it.”

  “Okay, well, what about the body up on Winter Ridge, do you know about that?” Val was riled up.

  Carl elbowed her.

  The Rangers exchanged looks while trying to seem like they weren’t.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ranger Meg said again, but her tone was high and excited.

  “A body, you say? Where’d you say again?” the other Ranger asked. His voice had taken on a dramatic curiosity.

  Carl elbowed Val again to keep her mouth shut.

  “On Winter Ridge,” Carl said casually. He poked a finger into the air above him. “Up there. We figured he was a visitor of one of the Rangers. He wasn’t dressed for the place.”

  Ranger Meg and the other Ranger exchanged more looks. “Oh, right,” Ranger Meg said. “That must be Brad’s uncle.”

  “What?” the other Ranger said.

  “You know, Brad’s uncle,” Ranger Meg hissed.

  “Brad—”

  “We got it,” Ranger Meg said. “We’ll get on that. Poor Brad. Anything else?”

  The Originalists and the Newcomers shook their heads cautiously.

  The two Rangers went back to their truck and filled out their own paperwork. Agnes turned toward Ranger Bob.

  Now he was smiling, beckoning her. But his smile turned into a frown as she got closer.

  He rolled down his window.

  “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  He shrugged. “You’re skinny.”

  She looked down at herself. She always looked like this. She looked back at the Community. The Newcomers were still fat and the Originalists were still skinny, just like it had always been. But she saw Glen slumped on a log. He looked the skinniest. He’d developed an awful, wracking cough recently, and looking at him now, she realized how sick he looked. Agnes said, “Now, Glen—he’s really skinny. I think he’s sick. He coughs a lot. Can you help him?”

  Ranger Bob looked around. Lowered his voice. “You know I can’t, sweetie.”

  She stepped onto the runner of the truck and tried to peer inside. She wanted him to give her a treat. He once gave her a banana. Another time an apple.

  “You look real hungry.”

  Her eyes widened. She stuck out her tongue, pawed her hands, and begged like a kit. “Don’t you have something for me?”

  “I’m serious. You sure you’re okay?” he asked again. His quietness made her feel like he was stalling.

  She slapped her hands on the door. “I want a treat,” she said sternly.

  He chuckled. “Well, you seem okay, that’s for sure.” He dug into his pocket and brought out two green lollipops. “I brought your favorite. Now don’t tell anyone,” he said. “Put them in your bag. I wish I had more.”

  She slid them into her bag. The plastic crinkled. It was so loud. “Shhh,” she said. She looked at them in the bottom of her bag, catching light, the green so unnatural. It was a lollipop, she knew, but she couldn’t remember when she’d ever had one. Why did he think they were her favorite? “What’re you doing here?”

  “On patrol.”

  “I didn’t think you ever left Middle Post.”

  He laughed. “Well, I have a new job. I train new Rangers.” He nodded over to where the Rangers were anxiously leafing through papers. He shook his head. “I’m out and about a lot now.”

  “Do you miss Middle Post?”

  “Well, Middle Post is closed now.”

  “Forever?”

  “I’m not sure. I hope not. I kind of prefer just hanging out at Post if you want to know the truth, but this is a good job too. I get to see more. And it pays the bills.” He shrugged.

  “What kind of bills does a Ranger have?”

  “Regular old bills. Everyone has bills.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You’re a kid.”

  Agnes puffed her chest. “I’m a leader.”

  Ranger Bob’s eyes widened in surprise; then he became very solemn and saluted her.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said bashfully.

  “I think I’ll try to talk to your mom soon,” he said. “Do you want me to tell her anything for you?”

  She blinked. “How are you going to talk to my mom?” she said.

  “I’m going to call her. On the phone. I want to tell her I saw you and Glen.”

  “But she’s dead.”

  His face fell, but then he smiled. “Sweetheart, she’s okay. She’s just in the City. You know that.”

  Agnes gripped the door. She thought she might fall. It’s not that she didn’t know, deep down, that her mother wasn’t dead. But she felt dead. What Agnes couldn’t believe was that she might be so easily accessible. A telephone. If Agnes was by a telephone, the distance might not have seemed so vast. But she lived in the Wilderness. Her mother was running around the City taking calls from Ranger Bob.

  “Do you talk to her often?”

  “No, but I’ve talked to her.”

  “Why?”

  “She asked me to look out for you. Have you talked to her?”

  Agnes frowned. “Of course not.”

  “Not even at Post? They were supposed to let you call her.”

  Agnes’s eyes swam. She studied Ranger Bob’s knuckle hair on the hand that was slung over the steering wheel. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been to Post. Or if she had ever used a telephone in her life. She shook her head.

  “Oh. Well.” He searched for something to say.

  “How is she?” Agnes asked. She kept her tone even like an adult would.

  “She’s okay. She misses you like crazy.”

  Agnes laughed like an adult would, like Val often did, theatrically, cynically. “Ha-ha,” she said. “Now that’s funny.”

  “She does.”

  Agnes laughed for real. Something newly bitter released from her. “Maybe,” she said. She squatted down to play with the dirt, but her body felt achy as though she had aged and become someone like Dr. Harold, who always cursed his stiff knees in the mornings.

  “Well, I’m going to tell her I saw you. You and Glen.”

  “If you want.” Agnes didn’t look up.

  He started his car.

  “Who is Brad?” she asked.

  “Brad?”

  “Ranger Brad? Wasn’t his uncle visiting?”

  He scrunched his face, still worried. “There’s no Ranger Brad. Is this one of your make-believe games?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I heard the coyotes talking about him.” She smiled and he laughed. She had offered a lightened mood and so his shoulders relaxed.

  “Well,” he said, “Brad’s uncle must be a friend of theirs then. You tell that Carl to give you some extra food tonight. Tell him Bob said to.”

  She nodded. She would never do that. She got the same amount as everyone else. She was certain of it.

  Late that night, as most of the Originalists and Newcomers slept, searchlights played high above on Winter Ridge, the hum of a helicopter circled around them. A truck’s lights washed over where the ridge dropped and swept against low-lying clouds. From where the Community slept it looked like a silent invasion.

  Most were asleep, but Agnes and Jake saw the lights. They saw because they stayed up later than everyone else and had been doing so since the new moon. Sitting together, most often silently. Staring into the fire and wondering about what the other was wondering about.

  They watched the lights curiously
for a few moments.

  “What is that? Is that aliens?” Jake asked.

  “It’s Rangers.”

  They lit the ends of sticks in the fire and took them away from the sleeping Community, picking their way in the dim dark through the grasses. They spelled out words in the air with the lit ends of the sticks, drawing with the embers secret messages for the invaders above.

  Agnes wrote, Liars and Cowards. And, Hi Brad’s uncle.

  Jake wrote, Dicks.

  The words burned into their sight so that they read them again and again against their eyelids whenever they blinked.

  “They’re so dumb,” Jake said, walking back to the fire.

  “Why?”

  “If they’d searched for the body in the day, we probably wouldn’t have seen them. Certainly not their lights. Maybe we might have heard them.”

  Agnes hmmed. It had been a sunny day. She would have seen the glint of the sun off the metal of the trucks. She would have heard the helicopter when it was many miles away. Tonight, with low-lying clouds, was a good night to try. If the clouds had hugged the Ridge as the Rangers must have assumed they would, their lights would have been mostly invisible. The clouds would have dampened the sound of the helicopter and made it sound possibly like some wild horses running close by but out of sight. Or some strange bug ticking nearby. The Rangers’ luck ran out when the clouds for a time left a gap that just happened to encompass the search party and the group below with clear cool air and a window to the starry sky. A middle-of-the-night search meant they had planned well, but nature worked against them, as it often did. And she and Jake had worked against them too, by being awake. She hmmed again and let Jake continue with his theory. She liked that he was trying to understand this new world of his, even if he got it so wrong. Someday soon, she’d explain the Rangers to him. That they were much smarter than they sometimes appeared, and much more powerful too. And that, even though the Rangers had attempted to conduct the search for the corpse in secret, they really didn’t need to hide anything from the Community. Ultimately the Community didn’t matter. The Community, as she understood it, had no power. Her mother had tried to have good relationships with all the Rangers, but as far as Agnes could tell, the only trustworthy Ranger was Ranger Bob. Jake didn’t need to know all of that now. These were things she’d just begun to understand, and she had liked her world better before she understood them. His wrongness made him seem innocent, and that made her feel protective of him.