Ruthless (16 page)

Five Years Ago

THEY'RE ALL WAITING BY THE
horse's stall. You're not supposed to ride your horse into the barn. You're supposed to dismount outside, but the girl rides all the way up to her family. There is elation in their smiles, in their hugs; there are even leaps into the air, hands clasped over mouths.

The girl slides off her horse.

Her parents are holding one another. Her mom is crying, and her dad wears an expression she has never seen before. They pull her into their hug. She mimics them, raising her arms to follow the motion of an embrace. Then her grandparents take her, hold her close, say all kinds of nice things. The boy's mother grabs her next. She manages to pull herself away, manages to just stand next to the boy. He doesn't try to hug her. He doesn't smile.

“What's wrong?”

She shrugs, but he won't be deterred.

“Tell me.”

She lets herself look him in the eye; she lets him see her. “I've got to keep this going.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ONE BY ONE THE GHOSTLY
redheaded girls walk off into the forest, forming a single-file line. I fall in, relieved to be led. It's not on me anymore. I can just follow, a willing and patient soldier, no longer the captain.

The girls take me toward a rocky outcropping. It's a feature I would have avoided on my own; it looks sharp and treacherous. They guide me into the rocks, to a hidden path that's easy on my feet. We go on in this way for some time, going ever upward, until the path peaks in a grove of beech trees. The trail slopes downward now, and a new sound hits my ears.

It's unfamiliar after so much silence, but I believe it's the sound of traffic.

The noise awakens something within me, something that sniffs the air with ears pricked. No sooner has it shown its head than it
has to return to ground, however, as the trail turns steep. Every bit of energy I have must go to picking my way down the rocks. The girls never take a wrong step, so I follow them, footfall for footfall. As we descend, the rushing noise grows louder.

Steep turns to nearly vertical, and I'm forced to use my hands. My shoulders don't like it, not one bit, but I tune them out. All the while the sound grows bigger and more mysterious. I still suspect it's traffic, but something's not right.

There's no room to look around and figure out what I'm hearing. I'm in a crevice of black rock. The slightest mistake would mean a broken neck, especially as the stone turns wetter the lower I get.

The last thirty feet is nothing but focus, nothing but wet rock and handholds and footholds and blackness. I arrive upon level ground to find the girls are gone. I'm not even sure when I last saw them or if I really saw them at all.

One thing is clear, though, undeniably giant and real. The sound was not traffic. The sound was water. I'm in a ravine through which courses a mighty river. There is a level spit of land under my feet. Above me hulks an impossible wall of granite. Had I known what I faced, I would never have made the attempt.

That creature that lifted its head and smelled the air at the top of the cliff returns. Traffic would have been better than water, but this is something. When I first entered the forest, I hoped to find a river. Big rivers lead to roads and this is a big river.

The patch of earth I'm on doesn't look too big. I take two steps forward, intent on investigating this new world, and bump into something strange. It moves away from me with a skitter, too light
and airy to be a part of nature. Reaching down, I feel rubber. It's an inner tube. A fancy one too. Almost more a boat than a tube. Thick walled, there's a floor to it. . . . It even still holds some air.

Pulling it forward into the starlight, I examine my find. It has two compartments, fore and aft. The front section is somewhat inflated. The back is almost flat. Without pausing to consider, I get to work on my tube. I blow air into it and listen for the hiss. With my fingers, I search for the hole. With Wolfman's duct tape, I patch it.

The stars shift overhead, but I pay them no mind. Everything I have is bent on my little boat. Blow, listen, feel, patch. When the night has reached its darkest point, the tube sits before me, full and waiting. I pace my spit of land, looking for the best place to launch. Only now do I realize how small this place is, surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs and fast water. Had it not been for the boat, I would've been trapped.

In the end, no place is better than any other. I'm not afraid of drowning, having grown up as a river rat. I'm afraid of getting wet and getting cold. It's much warmer tonight than it has been, but once I'm dunked in river water, it'll feel freezing in a hurry. Just as I start to overthink the problem, I find my courage and jump in.

The motion is as smooth and seamless as anything I've ever done in the show ring. There's a tremendous relief in the action. Not only did I stay dry, but my body and mind felt like my own again. In pushing off from the land, I felt athletic and brave. I felt like a fighter. I felt like me.

I'm not dead yet.

The water moves quickly, but not so quickly that it scares me.
I pull a floating stick out of the river to use as a raft pole, well aware rapids might make such a thing necessary. But so far it looks manage­able, and hopefully it will stay that way.

I let go of a breath I didn't know I was holding.

For a few minutes I simply sit in my boat and let go of a lot. And when I've let go of enough, I lean back and find myself literally star struck.

Framed by rock and tree is a night sky unlike any that has ever been or ever will be. It is too big to understand, but I can't stop trying to understand it. I want it all. I want to take it all in. Every enormous star, the haze of the Milky Way, the deep blue-black of space, it is vast beyond my ability to reckon. Behind me the river gurgles a soundtrack, accompanied by the rustle of the trees. It is beautiful.

In this otherworldly moment I am profoundly grateful to be here, to be alone, to experience this thing that no one has ever experienced and that no one else ever will.

Even if I die, I will have known this.

As I gaze up into the stars, my grandma's favorite exclamation comes to me. “Heavens above!” The sound of her voice and all the different ways she says that phrase—irritated, awed, happy, ­dismayed—run through my mind. It cracks something open inside me, and all the things I've held back, the voices and faces of my loved ones, my prayers for survival, all of it comes rushing back to me. The wind freeze-burns the path my tears have made.

Without warning I start to sing. I didn't even know a song had fought its way to the surface of my mind, but it's there, coming out of my croaking throat.

“O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining . . .”

It is my favorite hymn. I have no voice for singing, never have, but I sing it anyway.

“It is the night of our dear Savior's birth. . . .”

It's no time for Christmas carols, floating half-dead down an unknown river in the middle of autumn, and yet this carol wants to be sung.

“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices . . .”

It's not the right line. The song is coming out fractured, broken. I don't care. I just sing whatever line presents itself.

“Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! / O night divine, the night when Christ was born . . .”

I fall silent. I think the singing is over, but then the chorus rises up within me, and I fully let go of the music, letting it sail all the way to the heavens above.

“O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!”

And then once more, softer, almost a whisper.

“O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!”

As the last line dies upon my lips, the moon makes its appearance, sliding out casually from behind a rock face. He's not as full as he once was, but he remains blindingly bright.

“Moon!” I say. “Oh, Moon, it's good to see you.”

It's good to see you, too,
he seems to say to me.
You're alive.

“I am.”

It's good to be alive.

“Yes, it is.”

Take courage and rest. I will watch out for you.

“Thank you, Moon.”

The night returns to the music of the river and the trees. I half
shut my eyes and open my ears, listening for the sound of rapids. I don't worry, though. The moon is protecting me. If rapids are ahead, I'll hear them and it will be okay. It's important to rest, to feel whatever peace is available to me. Who knows how long it will last.

I wake up, curled into a ball at the bottom of my boat. There's no memory of how my night ended, but I've run aground in a shallow tributary. The main river is to my right, only a few feet away. The sun is up, and today promises to be even warmer than yesterday. My socks have dried, which is nice.

I wobble in my boat, but manage to step off onto some rocks and keep my socks dry. I drink deeply from the small creek, which helps. The water is crystal clear and cold. The big river draws me to it, as though it might explain some things to me. My thigh muscles quiver, so do my arms. Walking isn't as easy as it once was. I reach the bank, but the water doesn't have much to say. The forest is so high and thick, it's impossible to get a sense of where I am or how far I've traveled downriver.

Alongside the waterway are giant boulders. I reach out a hand, wanting to steady myself, and see a little miracle down by the water's edge. Mussels. Freshwater mussels. And there are a lot of them. I fish out the knife and get to work on the mollusks.

It is bliss eating the mussels. Not just because they're food and I desperately need to eat, but because the act of finding them, cracking them open, and swallowing them takes every bit of brain power I have. It's something to do and it is all consuming. The distraction is as delicious as the protein sliding its way into my belly.

I eat every single mussel I can find. By the end I'm full, even though a week ago it would have been a light meal at best. A rounded rock looks like a good place to sit down and digest. As I look out over the river, last night returns to me. The sight of the stars and the moon, the ability to remember the faces of my family; something healing happened last night. Something corrective.

The paranoid idea that my family would not be looking for me seems ridiculous now, in the light of day. Of course they're looking for me. Whether or not I'll ever be found, I don't know. But the certainty that they're searching for me rests in my heart.

A physical ache that has nothing to do with my injuries fills me. It's the bone-deep desire to tell them how much I love them, to tell them I'm alive. This is what I have been protecting myself against, the overwhelming agony of knowing how much they must be hurting. I wish I could tell them it's okay. I wish I could tell them what I've learned. I wish I could tell them how sorry I am.

The idea comes to me that if I pray hard enough, their souls will hear mine. If I've learned nothing else out here, I've learned that there are mysteries that cannot be accounted for. Had it not been for the hallucination of the redheaded girls, I would never have made it down that cliff, never would have found my boat. So I believe there's a chance my prayers will be heard.

“Mommy,” I begin. I haven't used that name since I was five. “Mommy, I want you to know I love you and I'm alive. I want you to know I'm sorry for all the things I've ever done. For being mean to the other girls at the farm and for being too hard to deal with. I really didn't know what I was doing. I really didn't. But I do now,
and if I get a chance to live life again I'll be different. I swear to God I'll be different. I'll be a good daughter. I promise I'll be good.”

Tears threaten to shut down my throat, but I force myself to keep going.

“Daddy, I love you with all my heart. I know you're looking for me. Please keep looking. Please go to the mountains. I'm in the mountains, Daddy. I'm alive and I love you and I want to see you more than anything. I will never argue with you again, I promise. I know I used to argue over every little thing, but I really didn't know what I was doing. I thought I was doing right; I really did. I know better now.”

“Grandpapa and Nana, I'm so sorry. I guess I didn't fight hard enough. You believed in me, and you always told me I was strong enough to do anything. But I want you to know I've tried my best. I've given it everything I've got. Sometimes that hasn't been very much. I guess I'm not quite as strong as we thought I was. But I'm not giving up. I'm still alive, and I'm not giving up. Not until I'm dead. I love you, Nana and Grandpapa. You've never been anything but good to me, and I love you so much.”

The next person in line sobers me up a little. “Grandma, I know you don't totally get me. I don't totally get you, either. But I love you. If I get out of here, things will be better between us. I'll be open-minded and go shopping with you. I love you, Grandma.”

Finally my mind turns to a face outside my family, and for a while all I can do is cry. “Caleb. I am so, so, so, sorry. I've been a coward. I've been mean. I've been selfish. I have no idea why you love me. I don't deserve you. I never have. I want you to know that if I get out of here, it will be different. I've always thought I was so
tough and strong, but I've never been brave enough to love you back, even though I love you in my heart. I've always been too worried about what other people would think, what my family would think. From now on, I'm going to be brave. I promise you, I am going to be brave. I love you, Caleb. I'm so sorry.”

Having said my confession prayers, I feel better, clearer, stronger. It seems a natural idea to keep going downriver, hoping to hit a highway. Pulling my boat out, I find it's gone a bit flat. I add air and patch up areas that seem leaky.

My raft pole is still with me, which is good. It's nice and straight, without any rot. As I get into my boat and set off, the sun at my back, everything seems brighter. I've escaped Wolfman. I've lived a day alone in the wilderness. I've eaten a good bit of protein, and there's plenty of water to keep me hydrated. I'm confident this river will eventually lead me to a road.