The New Wilderness

by Diane Cook

  Agnes listened to Egret and tried to imagine herself that young, and she couldn’t. She was so much older now, so far away from her childhood she had trouble conjuring it. She flushed and wrapped her arms around her waist. It had been too long since she bled last and she wondered if she wasn’t bleeding because she was pregnant. She smiled a little at the thought. She didn’t want to tell anyone her suspicions just yet. It felt like a secret she ought to keep to herself. At least for a little while. She had finally convinced Jake to have real sex. His face was rose red and his voice so quiet she had to keep asking “What” to his murmurings. “I love you,” he would whisper into her neck. She didn’t know about that. But she did know when he tensed and became very still, his eyes rolling skyward, that she had someone else’s life inside her for the first time.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Why did I do what?”

  “Have me? Have a baby?” Agnes wasn’t sure if she’d ever asked this. When her mother looked at her as though struck by a thought that caused her great emotion, one she didn’t want to share, Agnes was certain she hadn’t.

  Her mother opened and closed her mouth several times. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

  Agnes tried to help. “Well, probably because you wanted to be a mom?” That seemed easy enough, she thought.

  Bea smiled. Her eyes got wet, and she touched Agnes’s cheek as though she were brushing away dirt.

  “Something like that.” Then she laughed seeing the irritation of a bad answer flit across Agnes’s face. Agnes’s frown turned to a smile. She always smiled when she made her mother laugh.

  “Big answer please,” Agnes sang and reached one of her small hands out to play with the fringe of her mother’s tunic. Her mother played with the fringe adjacent, and their fingers entangled.

  “The small answer is I wanted to be a mom.”

  “Okay.”

  “The big answer, I guess, is I wanted to be my mom. To live her life. The life I knew would work out. With the kid and with everything working out okay. It wasn’t even necessarily the life I wanted. It’s just what I assumed would happen. I wasn’t very adventurous, I guess.”

  “And was it just like that?”

  “Oh no, it wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, my mom raising me had already happened. And I knew that everything had turned out okay. But when I had you, I realized that nothing was certain. We were at the very beginning together and anything could happen. It’s obvious now, but for some reason it came as a shock to me. When you got sick, I had a hard time believing it. I remember thinking, This isn’t supposed to happen. So I got scared. It wasn’t all scary, of course, but I remember being scared a lot when you were little.”

  Agnes didn’t need her mother to tell her that it was both nice and not nice to have a child. It was always there on her face.

  Nervously, Agnes said, “I wonder if I’ll have babies.” She hoped she’d said it in a casual tone, one that wouldn’t give away why she was saying it.

  Bea smiled. “If you want to, you’ll have them.”

  “Do you think I’d be good at it?”

  “I think you’d be great at it.”

  “Will it hurt?” Agnes said, not sure what to imagine but imagining that it would occur in the thick woods in the dark or on a smelly playa, her anguish making birds caw and fly away. She’d heard some of the women give birth and it seemed awful. But she remembered secretly watching as her mother birthed Madeline’s little body. Her mother hadn’t looked to be in very much pain, and had been mostly silent, until after it was all over and she clenched her fists and screamed.

  “It will definitely hurt,” Bea said. “But the pain of labor doesn’t last forever. That’s just the very first part. There’s so much more to being a mom.”

  “Like what?”

  Bea cackled. “Like what,” she said. “Like what,” she said again, pulling Agnes up into a tight hug. Agnes squirmed but couldn’t free herself. She coughed and sputtered, made her unhappiness known in grunts. But it just made Bea laugh and squeeze harder, rocking her back and forth like she was a baby again. Agnes always felt so much younger in her mother’s arms. Her legs splayed across her mother’s lap, her arms like doll arms pinned uselessly at her sides. And so she relented to the swaying and her mother’s hard love and almost, almost, almost fell asleep.

  Agnes awoke warm and happy because they had all slept, Glen and Bea and Agnes, in a huddle by the fire. It was the first time since her mother had returned that they’d been together as a family asleep. Or as a family doing much else. The sun sliced between tree trunks on its way out of the ground. The rest of camp seemed to be asleep. She watched a robin hurry up to her as though it had something urgent to tell her. Then stop. Then hurry up. Then stop. Then the robin took off and a shadow overcame the sun and chilled her. She squinted up. Carl’s face was blocking the light, staring down at them. He didn’t speak. He didn’t wake her mother or Glen. They still lay in a pile, her mother’s head atop her pressed hands on Glen’s side, her shoulder fitted into his stomach, his skinny body curled, protective, around her. Carl paused only briefly and then prowled by, his bright eyes taking it all in.

  * * *

  After three days, Glen was walking around again spritely, eager. He got in line for breakfast and ate a full bowl of porridge. He helped clean up even though it wasn’t his job. And then he scouted for micro trash even though they weren’t packing up. He wore the oddest smile, Agnes thought. He looked serene. The rest, it seemed, had done wonders for him. Agnes noticed her mother watching him over the previous days, happy. As though admiring her accomplishment.

  After breakfast, Carl called a meeting around the fire.

  “We’ve had our rest and it seems time to get moving. The lucky thing is Adam couldn’t have gotten far with the Cast Iron. But he could have changed course. I want to send a couple groups out in different directions to track. We’ll meet back here just after the sun crests. Then we can still get in some walking for the day. Linda, Juan, and Helen, follow the arc of the sunset. Patty’s mom, Dr. Harold, and Jake, head toward the sunrise. And Frank, me, and Glen will head up the mountain. Everyone else will stay back with Val and Bea.”

  “Wait,” Bea said, confused. “Glen should stay back. I can go instead.”

  “Bea, I want to go,” Glen said with that odd smile. “I’m the reason we lost Adam’s trail. I want to help get us back on track.”

  Bea narrowed her eyes at him. “No. It’s not a good idea. You should stay here.”

  Everyone stared.

  “No, Bea, I’ve got to pull my weight. Carl’s right.”

  Her mother’s eyes flared at Carl. “What do you mean, Carl is right? What has Carl said?” Her face was a full-on panicked sneer, while Carl looked calm and bored.

  “I can’t just succumb. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “You’re here because our daughter’s life depended on it, remember? And because you like pretending to be a caveman.”

  Glen winced. “That’s not nice, Bea.”

  “I don’t care. You’re not going tracking. I’ll go.”

  Carl said, “I don’t want you to go, Bea. We need leadership here. We can’t just leave the kids alone with Val, no offense, and Glen, who you’re saying is too weak to walk. We don’t know who is out there. Plus, he’s going to be walking for days, so he might as well start now.”

  “Bea,” Glen said, “I need to do this.”

  “Maybe you should try listening to Glen for a change,” said Carl. “He understands that we have to keep agile. We have to be flexible. Or else we’ll never survive.”

  Bea stared hard at Carl, then at Glen. She looked like she might cry. But she laughed her haughty laugh instead. “Well, then, if Glen wants to go, who am I to stop him?”

  Glen put his cheek to Agnes’s cheek. “Bye, honey.” He squeezed her mother’s hand and seemed reluctant to let go, his odd morning smile giving way to a gl
umness at the corners of his mouth.

  Agnes watched her mother process all the information coming her way, trying to sort out what was real and what wasn’t. Carl and Glen both peered at Bea holding Glen’s hand, fighting to remain neutral. Agnes saw a deep distrust in her eyes. A blatant worry. It made Agnes’s heart skip a beat. She realized this was the first time she’d seen them interact publicly since her mother had returned. Even when they’d all slept by the fire together, they hadn’t spoken. Upon waking, her mother had silently walked away, and Agnes took her place keeping Glen warm, keeping him company.

  Glen was the first to let go, but he had to pry his hand from her mother’s, her grip was so desperate.

  * * *

  Everyone else had returned by the time Carl and Frank came back alone. Carl carried a fox around his neck, its tongue limp and pink. He stopped in front of Bea. “It was an accident, I promise,” he said, his face flat, his eyes averted. “I tried to bring him back, but he insisted I leave him.” He jerked his head in the direction he’d come. “About two miles up.”

  Carl knelt, drew his skinning knife, and went to work on the fox, its eyes so dead they looked like Xs.

  Without a word Bea moved briskly in the direction Carl had come. Agnes followed several paces behind, quietly, unsure if her mother even knew she was there. She had trouble keeping up. She didn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother move so quickly. Agnes stopped. No, she remembered.

  She watched her mother running up the mountain, with her beeline, her singular purpose, and saw her running for that truck, crawling over that driver and disappearing. But there was no one for her mother to run away with this time. There was nowhere for her to go. Agnes repeated this to herself, a bird call in her head. She sprinted to catch up, to follow her mother from a safe distance, as she so often did.

  In the forest Bea called for Glen, and after a while Agnes heard him reply, “Oh, hi,” with an ambivalent shrug in his voice. He repeated “Hi” so Bea could find him. And when she reached him and was standing over him, her hands to her face, he smiled and his voice turned affectionate and forlorn. “Oh, hi,” he said, smiling sadly up at her.

  Bea burst into tears.

  Agnes froze.

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Bea fell to her knees. “What have you done?” she said, cupping his face.

  “I fell down,” he said.

  His leg was twisted at the hip. The knee almost pointing behind. There was a gash on the side of his head that was the pink of inside flesh. Agnes crept closer until she was next to them. She saw blood pooling in his ear.

  “You must be in so much pain,” said Bea.

  “An excruciating amount.”

  “But you’re so calm,” said Agnes.

  “I’m happy to see you two.” He smiled and then Agnes noticed the tear trails through his dirty face. Dry now. His eyes vibrated at her. He was in shock.

  “Carl said it was an accident,” Bea said. “Was it an accident?”

  Glen shrugged. “Yeah.” He smiled at Bea and then up at Agnes, his eyes pooling. “It was an accident.”

  None of them mentioned trying to get him back to camp. There was nothing to be done. They all knew it.

  Glen sighed. “I guess we should have gone to the Private Lands after all,” he said, looking up at Bea.

  Bea laid her head on his chest. “Oh, Glen,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Glen licked his finger and rubbed Bea’s cheek.

  “You look ridiculous,” he said.

  Bea laughed through tears.

  But Glen said, “No, I’m serious. You look silly. This is silly. This whole thing. Go home,” he said. It was as though he’d just woken up from a dream clear-eyed and certain.

  Bea sat up. “What do you mean, go home?”

  “I mean go home. This is all stupid. The goal has been achieved. Agnes is healthy. You don’t really need to be living like this anymore, do you? So go home.”

  Bea stood up. She crossed her arms in front of her deerskin clothes as though embarrassed of them. For a moment she seemed not to know what to do. Then she kicked dirt at him.

  He chuckled and reached for her ankle. He gripped it, massaging behind her anklebone with his thumb. “There you go, getting mad at something perfectly reasonable. My mad Bea.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Always so mad,” he continued, moving his hand up to her calf. “That’s the first thing I liked about you. You got things done. You did. I mean look at her.” He pointed to Agnes. “Now go home.”

  “There is no home,” she said, her voice cracking again.

  “See, there you go again. Of course there’s a home.”

  She kicked him for real, and he winced. “I had plans for us and they were working.”

  Agnes stepped toward them, on instinct, to protect, but Glen didn’t seem affected.

  “I’m sorry I ruined them,” he said, running his hand up her calf, over its ropy muscle, dusted and grimy. “I love you, Mad Bea. Please take Agnes home.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Bea said.

  “It’s over.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like in the City.”

  “I know it’s bad. It was always bad and we did all right. Go home. Think about what’s next. You were right, this was always a stupid thing to have done.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Of course you did. You said it all the time. And you were right.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Do it for Agnes. She’s strong now. She doesn’t need you to protect her in this way anymore.”

  “Don’t tell me about my daughter.”

  His smile drooped at the corners. He released her leg, dusted it with his hand. The muscle quivered. He rolled moaning onto his side and into as much of a ball as he could. His dead leg dragged behind.

  Agnes watched her mother stand over Glen, peering hard at his back, at the worn deerskin that covered it, the pelt worn through in places because no one had ever given him a new skin to wear nor a raw skin to fashion into something. He wasn’t a good hunter, and whenever he did catch something, he never kept anything good like the hide for himself. Agnes thought of the many pants he’d made her from the skins of deer he hunted. Everyone gave her little garments or scraps to make clothes from. They all did that for the children. So she had barely noticed that Glen did so with his meager amounts, even as it meant he went without.

  “You should have done more,” Bea accused, choking on the words, part anger, part despair. She put her foot against that worn skin and shoved his limp body.

  “Please don’t kick me anymore.” He curled tighter, his head hiding in his hands as though he expected a beating. “You may have noticed I’m not doing well.”

  Bea pushed him with her foot again.

  Agnes hauled her little leg back and kicked her mother’s leg.

  “Hey,” both Glen and Bea cried.

  Glen snapped, surprisingly harsh, “Don’t kick your mother.”

  Agnes’s tears sprouted. “But she’s kicking you.”

  “She’s allowed to kick me. But you’re not allowed to kick her. Do you hear me?”

  Agnes did not remember Glen ever raising his voice at her. Her mind spun. She felt hot and short of breath. She squeezed her eyes shut. Count to ten, she thought. Then it will all make sense. She counted to ten, opened her eyes.

  Glen’s hand was on Agnes’s foot, his somber smile, his welling eyes looking at her. “Hey, I love you.” Agnes knew her eyes were wet now, but she didn’t feel the tears.

  Bea whimpered and shrugged off her coat, made just before these last snows had ended, warm, fluffy, still smelling of smoke and the animal, and laid it over him.

  “Thank you,” he said, pulling the arm of the coat closer and feeding the edge into his mouth. He bit down and groaned. It was a dark, violent noise.

  After, he looked at Agnes. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, his voice a bit muffled by the coat. “Maybe
you should be in school?”

  Bea felt his forehead. “Are you delirious?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You rhymed,” said Agnes, and smiled her best crooked smile at him.

  Glen coughed, shivered. Hugged the coat again.

  Agnes’s throat tightened, and she felt ashamed for saying something so lighthearted. Her heart sank like a boulder.

  But then Glen said, “Ha-ha-ha,” in this new shrugging voice, almost droll, and they all, incredibly, laughed. Her mother and Glen laughed uproariously, till more tears came out of their eyes.

  The laughter trailed off, and Agnes watched Glen’s smile slowly remove itself from his face. She watched every twitch as it disappeared because it would be the last one she saw. She felt him leaving. She looked at her mother. Did she feel it too?

  “Shhh,” Bea said, even though no one was making any noise. As if to discourage any more talking, or maybe she was trying to soothe them. Still cupping Glen’s cheek, she said, “Agnes, I think it’s time for you to go back now.”

  “Why?” Her voice was shrill, out of control.

  “Because.”

  “Are you going back?”

  “No, I’m going to stay here a bit longer.”

  “I don’t want to leave.” Agnes dropped to her knees next to Glen. He was still smiling at her, sad, in agony, but steady. She balled her hands in her lap.

  “Agnes,” her mother said, “I want you to go back and let everyone know we’re here. I want you to stay there until I return. Tell them not to leave. Tell Carl not to leave.”

  “No. Please.”

  “Agnes, go back to the camp.”

  Glen touched her foot. “It’s okay,” he said. “We can say goodbye now.”

  Agnes couldn’t move. She knew she would never see Glen again, and that was bad enough. But she didn’t trust she would see her mother again either.

  “Agnes,” her mother said again, firmly.

  Agnes put her fingers to her mouth and chewed their tips.

  Glen gently took her fingers out of her mouth and squeezed her hand. “She’ll come back, I promise.”

  Her mother’s face went bloodless while Agnes blushed, exposed and raw. Known.