The New Wild (4 page)

“Oh, that’s a jee-bow,” she says.
“They used to grow here in this valley decades ago, but went extinct the year
the power plant broke ground upstream.”

“
Jee
-sus,” I sputter. “I
took botany, and I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. It’s been a
long time since they were around. My great-gran used to press them in books and
frame them for us kids. I hadn’t ever seen a live one until I found this one
blooming when I woke up this morning like it’s been here forever!” she
exclaims, throwing her hands into the air.

“Wow.”

“See? This is just what I’m trying
to tell you, girl. The return of the jee-bows, to me, is further proof. Mother
Nature’s starting over. And, for some reason, she’s giving us another chance.”
She starts brushing out the dog, and I look back at the flower. My breath catches
in my throat. Now it’s aqua blue. “What the—”

“Oooh, yes,” she says. “It changes
to suit your mood.”

“Crazy.”

“My great-gran told me if you cut
it it’ll stay that color ‘til it wilts, but I don’t want to test it. I’m
worried it wouldn’t grow back.”

I can’t believe what I’m staring
at. Now the petals are blood red with saffron polka dots leading to the stamen.
I can’t believe what’s happening. I’m amazed, and more than a little bit
scared.

* * *

Later that
night, I’m totally zonked but too freaked out to sleep. A part of me wonders if
Deb is right. Yes, she’s obviously crazy, but seeing that jee-bow got me all
kinds of worried. I’m so scared for my mom, for Bernard, and for everybody else
I even halfway liked back home. What if they’re gone? I can’t picture my life
without them. And if Deb’s right and Mother Nature
has
taken everything
modern technology has afforded us—planes, trains, automobiles, etc.—aren’t
I kind of, well,
fucked
? How the hell am I ever going to get back to
Oregon?

I go out to the back porch to
think. Whitman comes waddling out, too. She slinks down next to me, putting her
warm head on my knee. I wrap my arms around her and start to cry.

I can’t get my mom out of my head.
I keep thinking about the last time I saw her, when she hugged me good-bye at
the Portland airport
so hard it seemed like she would never let go. If what Deb
says is true, she’s almost three-thousand miles away and totally freaked out,
if she’s even alive at all. I have a feeling she is, though. She’s an
environmental lawyer and always hollers at me to take shorter showers, turn the
light off, blah-blah-blah. But if she lived, could she survive? Those are two
different things to me now.

I’m a little less worried about
Bernard. His dad’s a big hunter, and as much as he hates the outdoors, I’m sure
Bernard will do what he has to, even if it means getting his Oxfords dirty. He
used to help his grandmother in the vegetable garden every spring. As long as
he doesn’t see a spider, he’s good. But like me, Mom doesn’t know
shit
about
surviving in the wild
. I’d probably be in the process of starving to
death right now if Deb hadn’t found me.

I have no idea what to do. Deb
said she walked as far as the local train station, and all the roads were burned
up, the train tracks melted. Her cellphone is like the ones I saw at Camp Astor
—
toast. I know I
want to get home, but what am I gonna do,
walk
there? I’d probably get
eaten by a pack of wolves in the first week. And what if I did get there, after
months and months of fighting my way west, only to find her and everyone I love
gone?

I lean my head back against a
post, letting my eyelids droop. Whitman’s tail is thumping wildly, her nose
pointed high in the air. She barks—a low, guttural sound—but
there’s nothing out there, just trees whistling in the wind. “Shhh, baby girl,”
I say, comforting her. The moon is full, or seems to be, because the whole
garden is cast in surreal white light. I look down at my compass, and the tiny,
shimmering diamonds imbedded in the lid seem to wink at me. It’s like they’re
telling me it’s okay—that it’s all going to be okay. The Oregon state
motto engraved in it, “She Flies With Her Own Wings,” bolsters me. It makes me
feel like I could actually do this.

I have to go west. I have to go
home to Oregon. I have to find my mother.

I tell Deb
my plan to head home as we’re sitting on the front porch the next morning, and
she doesn’t ask me to stay, but she also doesn’t offer to come along. “I prefer
my lonely little utopia,” she says. She does, however, tell me she won’t let me
leave until she’s taught me all the wilderness survival skills I’ll need to make
the trip.

Turns out Deb knows nearly
everything you need to know to survive in this world, and I mean
survive
.
She grew up in the mountains of Appalachia, in the eastern arm of the shotgun
that is Tennessee. Her dad came home from coal mining one day and said, “No
more, never again.” Her mother left right then, but young Deb stayed with him,
living off the fat of the land, eating wild “varmints” and vegetables they grew
themselves. She knows how to live in the wild—and can do it without waterproof,
featherweight, Plasticine camping gear.

Before Deb starts our first
lesson, she narrows her eyes. “You listening? Don’t waste my time,” she warns.
“We need to get through this fast.”

“Yes! I’m going to listen to every
word,” I reply, nodding furiously. She is, after all, my only hope.

“All right then,” She assents,
setting her mouth in a thin line. “What’d they teach you over at Camp Astor?”

“Not enough to keep myself alive,”
I say, thinking back to the fires we started with kerosene, and the dinners of
instant soup and s’mores.

She shakes her head. “Why doesn’t
that surprise me?” She stands, clasping her hands together. “Okay then, let’s
start with the basics. Fire.” She hobbles inside the house and returns with a
rock and a knife. “Go out there and gather up some dry twigs and grass,” she
says, pointing to the woods. I hesitate, dumbfounded. “Quickly!” she orders.
“We have a lot to go over.”

I scramble to my feet and, a short
while later, I return with a little pile and place it on the porch.

“Well
don’t
bring it
up
here
,” Deb says. “You think I want to set the whole place on fire?”
She rolls her eyes and points to the yard. “Out there, in the fire ring.”

“Oh! Right,” I say.

She bends over and brushes away
the ashes. “Now,” she says, bending down, “this is your basic jumpstart, which
is what the boys at Campstravaganza World won’t tell you because they want to
sell you all the gear you ‘need.’ I assume you’ve never done this before.”

I shake my head. “None of it. I
haven’t done any of this shit.”

“Watch your language, young lady,”
Deb snaps.

“Sorry,” I murmur lamely.

“Now, where were we? Right. If you
learn the basic tenets of making fire, you shouldn’t have any trouble, as long
as it’s dry. This is your flint and your steel,” she holds up the rock and the
knife. “And what you brought is your tinder—to catch the sparks—and
your kindling.”

“Kind-ring?”

“Kind-ling, the tiny bones that
make up the big fire.” She looks at me like I’m an idiot, and I’m starting to
feel like one. I look down at my feet. “That’s all right,” she says, “I don’t
expect you to know anything. So, you take the knife and beat the backside of it
against the rock like
so
,” she says. “See those sparks? Do it over
and over and over again, quick, quick, quick, and let the sparks shower down onto
the tinder.”

Soon, a little smoke starts rising
from the pile.

“Sometimes you’ve got to blow on
it a little to get things going.” I crouch down and blow as hard as I can.

“
Whoa,
Nellie, a little
softer. Fire doesn’t take well to hurricanes.” Deb bends over and does it
herself until little flames hop from the tinder. “Then,” she says, “you slowly
add kindling wood until it catches. Not too much, though. You don’t want to
suffocate it.” Soon, there’s a nice tidy blaze warming my lower half.

“Amazing,” I say.

“It’s not so hard. You’ll get used
to it after a while,” she says.

“I doubt it.”

“You will.”

Deb takes me through the process
of making river and lake water safe to drink: you either boil it over the fire
or filter it several times through a dirt and rock sieve made out of old coffee
cans with holes in the bottom. She tells me how to make shelter in a pinch, how
to forage for non-poisonous edibles, and then goes out to a pen in her yard to
grab a chicken.

“You’ve got to know how to kill a
bird,” she says. My heart sinks, but I know she’s right. I have to do it.

She hands the tiny, squawking fowl
to me. Its feathers are soft to the touch, its body warm and quaking. It knows
its life is almost over.

“This is all a whole lot easier
with an axe, but I’ve only got one, and you can’t take it,” Deb says, handing
me a steel knife.

Jesus. I shudder at the thought of
killing this chicken. It’s going to be so bloody. But then I consider going days
without something decent to eat, and I feel my stomach cave in.

Deb tells me to grab both of its
legs together in my left hand. For several minutes, I hold it against my chest
like before and try to calm it down. Its wings flap for what seems like
forever, but then it relaxes. “Okay, chicken, I’m sorry, but it’s time,” I say.
I tie its feet together with some twine Deb hands me so it doesn’t run, and lay
the bird down on a fallen log. I throw my left arm over its wings to hold them
tight against the wood. My hands are already shaking; if it moves too much,
this will be uglier than it has to be. I brace myself, fingering the handle of
the knife, and on the count of three, plunge the blade into its neck as fast as
I can. The chicken freaks out and I want to let go, but I know I need to put it
out of its misery. I clamp the bird down with my knee and saw until its neck is
cut through. Blood gushes everywhere, and for some reason, I’m surprised to
find it’s warm. In a matter of seconds, the chicken’s head is 100 percent
decapitated, but its feet still struggle, its wings still flap. I hold the body
by its feet, letting the blood run out of its neck. The bird’s wings continue
to flap as blood pours out of its gullet. Deb says the flapping helps drain all
the blood, but it’s totally freaky. Finally, the spout slows to a trickle.

I’m almost too nauseous to
continue. My face is twisted up in disgust, but I try not to squeal more than I
have to.

Deb looks at me with something
that amounts to awe in her eyes. I guess she didn’t think a city girl could get
through that. I’m not sure I thought I could get through it, either.

“Wow,” she says. “You did it.”

I want to bawl. That was awful.
That poor chicken!

“Thanks, I guess,” I say meekly. At
least it’s over.

“The hardest part of killing a
chicken is plucking the feathers,” she says. “It’s easier if you can dip the
body in some boiling water first, to loosen them. But if you can’t, you’ve just
gotta keep tugging until it’s done.”

My head’s starting to spin. I don’t
know how I’ll make it all the way to Oregon.

“What do you do when you see a
mountain lion?” Deb asks.

“Uh, die?”

She chuckles. “You
have
to know this stuff Jackie. I’m not going to let you leave my sight if I don’t
think you can hack it.”

“You’re nice, Deb, but I’ll make it.
I have to.” I exclaim.

“Nice has got nothing to do with
it,” Deb admits. “It’s purely selfish—I don’t want you weighing on my
thoughts.”

“Well, thanks anyway.”

“Don’t thank me until you see the
whites of your mom’s eyes.”

“I hope she
has
eyes,” I
mutter, sulking. I’d be so destroyed if I made it all the way to Oregon only to
find she’s a rotted corpse.

“Don’t think about that now,
baby.” Deb says gravely. “Oh, and stay away from snakes, spiders, anything
rabid. Basically, if it looks scary as heck, don’t go near it.”

“I think I’m gonna puke,” I say. I
really do feel nauseous. Not sure if it’s how I actually feel or if it’s just my
thoughts wringing my stomach like a wet towel. Either way, barf-ville, here I
come.

“Sit
down
, child,
you’re turning green,” Deb says, taking me by the shoulders and lowering me
onto the grass.

I don’t sit, I lie flat over the
earth. Deb is standing over me, a concerned look in her eyes. The smell of
smoke is taking me right back to yesterday, to the massive eerie destruction of
it all, to that life-is-over feeling of being truly alone. I don’t know what
I’m thinking, going west by myself. Whitman licks my face. Deb brings me a mug
of water.

“It’s going to be okay, kiddo,”
she says. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

I keep picturing my mom’s face at
the airport. I can still smell her perfume. Every hour I’m away from her is
another hour she’s wrecked with worry. She almost had a heart attack the night
I blew my curfew by twenty minutes. I can’t wait another hour more than I have
to. It may take me six months to walk home, but I have to get going.
Now
.
And that’s what I tell Deb.

I get up. It must be noon, the sun
is right above us. “Listen, baby, stay one more night. We’ll set you off at
dawn so you’ll have a full day of light. And in the meantime, I can show you
more of what you need to know. You ever catch a fish?”

“Yes!” I say, a little too
impatiently.

“With your bare hands?”

I shake my head.

“We still have a ways to go,
child. Now listen close.”

We spend the rest of the afternoon
going over every little thing: how to treat a spider bite, how to evade a
grizzly. There’s no way I am going to remember it all. By sundown, I’m so
exhausted I crash onto the feather mattress Deb set up on the living room
floor. My mind is going a mile a minute, I’m so anxious to get out and get
home. Whitman saunters over and curls up next to me like she can sense my
nerves. I bury my face into her thick fur, and the slow rhythm of her breathing
lulls me to sleep.

Before I know it, Deb is shaking
my shoulder as the sun is warming up the sky. Whitman helps out by planting a
wet one right on my mouth. That gets me up quickly.

“Get up now, child. It’s your day.
I packed some things for you.” Deb gives me the knife and flint, a small copper
pot with a lid, the dead uncooked chicken we killed, and a scratchy, wool
blanket covered in dog hair. I love it.

“Deb, I don’t know what I would’ve—”

“Oh, you would’ve done
fine
,”
she says, though it’s completely obvious to both of us I wouldn’t have. Her
phony confidence does make me smile. “See? You’re feeling better already,” she
says.

“It’s all smoke and mirrors,” I
say.

“Well, I’m not worried. You’re
still here for a reason, don’t you go forgetting that. Mother Earth spared us
once, I think she’ll keep you safe now.” Her eyes are kind and calm, and I know
I’ll always remember them.

She gives me a giant hug and tells
me I can always walk right back here and stay with her as long as I need.

“Thanks, Deb,” I reply, but I know
I have to go.

“I mean it, kid.”

I salute her as I slowly wind my
way out of her garden and into the woods. She smiles at me, but I can see
sadness in her eyes.

* * *

The sun
beats through the trees, casting its dappled shadows over everything. I reach
down to Bernard’s compass, still hanging around my neck. I lift it up into the
sunlight, prying open the lid. It’s still perfectly intact. Against the flat of
my palm, the dial wobbles its way toward north. I face that direction, then
pivot on my heels forty-five degrees to the left until I’m facing due west.
Home.

The world has really changed. When
I got to Camp Astor, I noticed a sparrow or two—that was it. Now, on the
charred, pebble path that used to be Interstate 449, I see strange creatures everywhere:
chipmunks with bright pink tails, an adorable baby gopher with the coloring and
spots of a leopard, a bird a bit larger than a hummingbird with a neon-green
pompom on its head and red tail feathers. I can’t believe this.

The foliage has transformed, too. Before
“it” happened, all the greenery was dry and wilting in the summer heat. Now
it’s thick, lush, and filling the air with a sugary scent. The jee-bows dot the
landscape; tiny ones even peek out of the cracked pavement. They’re white when
I first see them, but as I get closer, they turn deeper and deeper shades of red,
like they can sense my fear. It’s amazing. I would give anything for my camera
right now. If I make it home, nobody’s going to believe the things I’ve seen.

I’m well out of the woods now,
walking by what used to be a big box store. Mom and I used to spend lots of
time in shops like that, getting stuff for the house. My heart physically hurts
when I think of her, of the memories we share. This store to my right is still
a box-shape, but now it’s a big, soot-black one with vines growing over it,
cramming their spiraled tendrils into the cracks. I wonder what Mom would think
of that.