Double Exposure (11 page)

Over the years, as a child and as an adult, try as he might, for Christmas and birthdays, Remington had never found many gifts his dad liked or used. In the last few months since his father’s sudden departure, he was often profoundly grateful that he was able to get him the Grizzly before he died.

D
riving as fast as he dares.

Lights on.

Lights off.

Much of the brightness of the moon is absorbed by the canopy and walls of the overgrown path.

When the lights are on, they illuminate only a small area directly ahead, when they’re off, he’s flying blind through the blackness.

It’ll be okay. The path is straight. Just hold it steady. Stay straight.

When he was in high school, his first car had been an ancient Ford Thunderbird. Known as the big bird, the large, two-decade old car was an embarrassing, gas-guzzling black hole for all Remington’s income, but it had a lot of metal, making it far safer than most cars, which was all that mattered to Cole.

The once cool car, many years past its prime, had small headlight doors that raised when the lights were turned on and lowered when turned off.

Not sure how fast they lifted and lowered when the car was new, by the time it belonged to Remington, it was a slow process.

Dark nights.

Dirt roads.

Dates.

While roaming the many unpaved roads in the area for a place to park and make out with Lana—the one good thing about the car was the spacious backseat—he often turned off the lights, leaving them off until she pleaded with him to turn them back on.

One particularly black night, one on which they had been arguing about something monumental at the time, now trivial and long since forgotten, he turned the lights off and left them off for a long while, not caring if he happened to wreck the big, mostly metal machine.

—Turn ‘em back on.

—Say please.

—Please.

He still doesn’t.

—Come on, Remington, it’s not funny.

—Give me a kiss and I’ll do it.

—You said you’d do it if I said please.

—No, I just said say please.

Sitting next to him in the seat, she turns, leans, and gives him a quick peck on the cheek.

—What was that?

—A kiss.

—Not what I had in mind.

—Turn on the lights. Now.

—Give us a kiss, love, he says in his best British accent.

—Dammit, Remington, right now. He can hear the panic in her voice.

—I mean it, she says. You’re gonna get us killed. Please. I’ll kiss you—and more—as soon as you turn the lights on and stop the car.

—Before.

—Okay.

She slides forward, turns, and kisses him on the mouth, long and deep. As soon as she finishes, she leans back quickly.

—How about another?

—You promised.

—Okay. Okay. Keep your—on second thought—take your—As he pulls the knob, nothing happens. The headlight doors stay down.

—What is it?

—They’re not coming on.

—Slow down. Slow down. Stop.

He takes his foot off the gas, but it’s too late.

When the doors finally do come up, and the lights come on, they are speeding directly into a deep ditch on a sharp curve. No time to stop.

The best he can do is try to turn the car so they don’t hit head on.

Spinning the wheel as he stomps on the brake pedal, he slings the big back end of the car around and it begins to slide, skidding it into the ditch sideways, slamming him into the door, and her into him.

—You okay?

Simultaneously she begins to cry and wale on him with both fists.

—I’m sorry.

—Let me out. Call my dad.

—Please don’t. I’m sorry.

T
hinking back to teenage Remington’s interaction with Lana gives him a sick feeling deep in his stomach. Remembering the night he ditched his old car causes him to turn on the lights more often now.

Thankfully this path has no curves.

Still, what you’re doing is dangerous.

More so than making a great big visible target for Gauge?

The intermittent light flashes, more often now, strobe the path, giving it a staccato, stop-motion, horror film quality.

Incandescent.

Luminous.

Radiant rain.

Suddenly, the dark lane sparkles with the swarm of a thousand fireflies.

Shining.

Burning.

Minuscule Milky Way.

It’s as if he is traveling at the speed of light through the universe, shooting past stars and planets inside an enormous black hole.

Darting about like arcing sparks and falling drops of fire, the Lampyridae flies give the enclosed area a surreal, magical quality.

These days, he sees far less of these phosphorescent flying beetles than when he was a child, which wasn’t that long ago. Development of land causing loss of both habitat and food supply, use of pesticides, and harvesting for their luciferase has led to dwindling populations of the lucent lightning bug.

Are these fireflies left from summer? he wonders. It’s been warm enough—up until tonight.

Or are they juveniles of the more mysterious and interesting winter firefly?

No way to know. And it doesn’t matter.

He slows without stopping, pulls his camera bag around to the front, and withdraws it.

Power.

Lens cap.

Exposure.

Focus.

Click.

Click.

Click.

He can’t help himself. He’s got to capture this increasingly rare spectacle.

Click.

Click.

Click.

In a matter of seconds, he snaps several shots—some with the flash, others without, some with the Grizzly’s headlamps on, others with them off.

Within moments, he has ridden past the lustrous, shining swarm.

Replacing his camera in the bag, and spinning it back around, he glances over his shoulder. The fireflies are gone. Back to the hard, cold bark of the trees lining the lane.

They must have been responding to the intermittent illumination coming from switching the Grizzly’s lights off and on, on and off.

Certain he got some good shots, he looks forward to showing them to his mother, to finally fulfilling his promise to bring her the pictures she can no longer take. She’ll love these—and those of the bears, and the ones from his camera trap.

This last thought reminds him again of the horrific images on the memory stick in his camera, and how far he still is from home and help.

H
opeful.

He’ll soon reach the truck.

He might just make it.

Continuing to turn his lights on and off, he’s again tempted to leave them on.

Get a little closer first.

Okay. You can do this. You’re gonna make it. Don’t rush. Be cautious, but not hesitant.

He rides a little farther, branches slapping at him, one whacking him in the face, leaving a dotted line of cuts, the moist blood wet and cold on his skin.

Believing he’s nearing the place where he parked his dad’s truck, he slows the ATV and leaves the lights off for a few extra seconds.

When he turns them on again, the lights land on a man in dark camouflage overalls and a heavy black winter jacket, looking through a rifle scope at him.

He squeezes the brakes so fast and so hard that the back end of the ATV lifts off the ground and he nearly sails over the handlebars.

The first round ricochets off the front bumper.

Boot on brake.

Shift down, past neutral and into reverse. Gas.

Backing away as fast as he can on a path that was difficult in forward, he cuts his lights and ducks down on the right side behind the tire well.

Other shots whiz by, thumping into dirt and tree trunks.

Seeing a small opening in the thick tree line, Remington yanks the handlebars and throws the rear-end into the small gap.

Braking abruptly, he shifts into forward, turns the wheel sharply, and guns the gas.

Bullets continue to whistle by split seconds before he hears the crack of the rifle.

Racing down the way he’s just come, he crouches low and zig-zags as much as the narrow lane will allow.

Leaving his lights off as long as possible, he flashes them occasionally to peek at the path he’s bouncing down.

You’re driving too fast.

No choice.

If you wreck, he’ll shoot you for sure.

Not if I get far enough away first.

What if it’s a wreck you can’t walk away from?

He thinks about all the children in these parts who’ve been killed in four-wheeler accidents, some racing down dirt roads, rounding corners full bore, colliding head-on into cars, others running into trees or flipping the machines and breaking their backs.

What’s more dangerous? Flying down a narrow tree-lined lane at deadly speeds in the dark or being shot at by a high caliber rifle? Before this moment, it wasn’t something he ever imagined having to contemplate.

Don’t think. Just react. Move. You’ve just come down this path, you know it’s clear.

This time, he’s in the middle of the field of fireflies by the time they light up and take to the sky, and he’s driving so fast, several of them splat against the ATV, strike his jacket, and pop him in the head.

Sorry guys. I wouldn’t do this to you if my life didn’t depend on it.

Shots continue to ring out, rounds piercing the bark of trees next to him.

How long before he hits a tire?

Fearful the fireflies reveal his position, he ducks even lower, moves even more, jerking the handlebars from side to side, trying to find the fine line between being a difficult target and turning over the ATV.

In another moment, he’s through the swarm and the light-dotted sky dims again.

His radio crackles and he turns it up without removing it from his pocket.

—Is that you firing, Arl? Gauge asks. You got him?

—It’s me. It’s me. He’s on a four-wheeler. Nearly made it to the truck. Now he’s running down the little fire line.

—On foot?

—ATV. ATV.

—That’s what I thought, but you said running. Have you hit him yet?

—Not sure. Don’t think so.

—Don’t let him get away.

—Then let me quit talking and get back to shooting. A moment later, the shots start again.

—Anybody on the west side close to the fire line? Gauge asks.

Remington lowers his head, straining to hear.

—I can be at the end of the lane in a couple of minutes.

—Do it. Anybody else?

—I’m a mile or two away.

—Me, too.

—Well get moving. Head in that direction. Let’s circle around and close in on him.

L
ights off.

Rounds still ringing around him.

Distance.

Decision.

The farther away from the shooter he gets, the less accurate the shots become, but he’s speeding toward the spot where another shooter will soon be.

I’ve got to get off the path, but where? How?

How about here?

Too dense. Wouldn’t get far.

It’s the same farther down.

He flashes his lights.

Nearly to the end.

Slowing, he searches for any break in the woods big enough to squeeze into. Finding one, he turns the ATV to the right, heading back in the direction he had come from just a few minutes before. East. Toward the river.

If he can figure out how to negotiate his way through the dense timbers and thick undergrowth, the flats up ahead will provide ample room to open up the ATV and race to the edge of the river swamp.

The tree bases are big and close together, the understory high, concealing cypress knees, limbs, and fallen trees.

He tries flashing his lights periodically again, but the woods are just too thick.

Slowly, the large tires of the ATV climb over unseen solid objects, around massive trees, edging the machine and its rider ever closer to the flats.

—He’s not here.

—What?

—I’m at the fire line and he’s not here.

—He turned off. Heading east.

—Okay everybody. East side of the fire line. Don’t just look for his lights. Listen for the engine.

Easing.

Crawling.

Inching.

Progress through the forest is so slow, it seems like he’s not making any.

It’d be a lot faster just to run.

I know, but there’s just a little more of this and then I can race through the flats.

But they’re headed this way. Getting closer. Just a little farther. If I have to stop, I will. They’ll be here by then.

The dense ground coverage is so thick as to be nearly impenetrable.

What should I do?

He wishes he could ask Cole. He might not be able to tell him what to do, but his answer would help calm him, clarify his thinking.

He remembers calling Cole from college once.

—If I take an extra class this semester and two the next, I can graduate in the spring. If not, it’ll be December of next year.

—Well, we’ve got the money, if that’s what you’re worried about.

—Thanks, but I just wondered what you thought I should do?

His dad had not attended college, had never been faced with a decision quite like this one.

—I can’t tell you what to do, he says.

Remington tries not to laugh. His dad had told him what he should do his whole life.

—It’s like you’re driving down the highway heading home.

Here it comes, Remington thinks. Conventional wisdom from the most practical man on the planet.

—There’s a car in front of you. There’s one coming in the other lane. You have time to pass. Do you? It’s up to you. You’ll get home either way. You can get there a little faster if you pass, but even if you don’t, you’ll get their just the same.

—Thanks, Dad.

—Whatta you gonna do?

—Pass.

—Let me know how much the other class and books are and I’ll mail you a check.

Tell me what to do, Remington thinks now. Do I abandon your four-wheeler and run on foot or stick with it and try to make it to the flats?

No answer comes. Cole is gone. He’s on his own.

The thought opens a hole inside him, ripping emotional stitches, tearing the inflamed tissue, reversing any healing his grieving had begun.