Monster (35 page)

Pete sighed, deeply impressed with how badly things could go sometimes, no matter what he did.

Smoke rose from a small campsite back in the trees. He headed that direction and found Sing seated on a log near a fire pit. She was wrapped in a warm Indian blanket, tending a fire in which a piece of bear meat was burning and sizzling, sending up smoke.

Max Johnson was there, carrying on a one-sided conversation. “So really, there’s not a lot of point in prolonging this. I think you and Reed and Pete just need to settle this in your hearts and get on with your lives.” He spotted Pete as he approached. “Oh, hi, Pete! How’re you doing?”

“Beck Shelton is dead,” he answered, matter-of-factly, as he stepped into the circle of logs placed around the fire. “How should I be doing?”

“I’m so sorry. But it’s for the best, isn’t it—that you finally know? It’s closure. That’s what you’ve been needing for days, and now . . .”

“Max.” Pete looked at Sing, who said nothing, only watched the flames. “I think this is supposed to be a private moment.”

Max looked at Sing as if really seeing her for the first time. He nodded and, without another word, left them.

Pete found a few more chunks of firewood and carefully placed them on the fire, keeping the flames hot around the burning meat. He sat on the log beside her, as close as a good friend.

Before long, alive, safe, and silent, Reed returned from the woods. Pete and Sing greeted him with their eyes, but there were no words. Reed observed the fire and the burning meat, then picked up two more pieces of firewood and added them to the fire. He sat on the other side of Sing, and all three watched the flames together.

When the meat was almost gone, Sing closed her eyes, releasing a trickle of tears, and began a plaintive lament from the old traditions, rocking gently as the flames crackled. First she sang in low, mournful tones without words, expressing a sorrow that only the soul could know. Then sorrow gave way to pain and the song rose in volume and pitch, the anguish lofting like the smoke from the fire toward the mountains where a friend had gone, never to return.

Tears came to Reed’s eyes, blurring the flames, as the song wrapped itself around his heart, carrying his sorrow as if he were singing it himself. The song spoke for him.
This is me, who I am and where I am right now.

Pete removed his hat and looked toward the mountains, not thinking much, just wondering, feeling the same old
why
that always came at times such as this. The song spoke for the wondering too, and fit this place so well. Maybe the mountains had taught it to her.

The song had no ending of its own. When Sing was finished, when she had delivered in full her complaint to the mountains and the God who made them, when she had cried out her last farewell, the song came to a quiet rest, closing like a door on the past. Sing was weary and drained, but just a little closer to peace.

The bear meat was consumed by the flames. She opened her eyes and wiped the tears away.

“Thank you,” said Reed.

“Where’d you learn that?” Pete asked.

“My grandfather sang it when my grandmother died,” she said softly. “I don’t remember all the words—but I remember the feelings.”

Beck flopped to the ground once again, delivered there by her exhausted, frightened, adoptive mother in the same old way. The flight through the tangled forest was a perfect copy of the last flight through the tangled forest. Jacob led the group relentlessly, with Leah and Reuben following behind and Rachel last in line carrying Beck. Halfway through the long, frantic run, Beck recovered her senses and climbed around to Rachel’s back to ride conventionally, so even that was the same. As always, Beck had no idea where they were or where they were going, only that it was
away
from rescue,
away
from Reed and all she held dear.

She rolled onto her face in the undergrowth with her arms covering her head, trying to block out the sounds, sights, and smells of a wilderness obsessed with no better cause than tormenting her. It was so unfair! She couldn’t get away from her overly possessive “mother” even when she wasn’t welcome; she couldn’t leave a cell phone number in the dirt; she couldn’t let her grieving husband know she was still alive when he was inches away from her; and now—
Of course! Pardon me for even assuming that I could!—
she absolutely could not make use of a GPS she was certain Reed had left for her to find.

It was all so un—

“N-no!” Beck opened her eyes and forbade that thought to play through her mind.
No more.
She’d spent enough time and energy on it and gotten nothing but more unfairness for her trouble.

And what was she doing, lying in the weeds and bushes, feeling sorry for herself again? She’d done that before and, judging from how things were going, could easily be doing it the next day, or the next year, or even for the next twenty years, in the same weeds in the same woods at the whim and mercy of the same smelly, dung-eating, barf-chewing, power-struggling, upright-walking, run-from-everything pack of apes.

She sat up. Rachel lay next to her, her once-lovely coat reverting back to a walking dust mop for every type of forest debris. Jacob was perched on a mound with his back against a rotting stump, keeping watch like a lifeguard, looking tired and irritable. Only Leah’s left knee and stomach were visible above the undergrowth, her diaphragm laboring as she tried to catch her breath. Reuben sat beyond Leah, preoccupied with his toes.

So how about it, Beck? Want some more? Ready for another lap around the merry-go-round?

There was nothing like a dumb question to make things clear.
No more for me, thanks.

But what could she do?

It would help to have some idea where she was. They may have headed north again, judging by the location of the sun, but as always, nothing looked familiar.

She once heard Reed say that going downhill was always a good idea: every hill eventually drained into a stream, every stream eventually flowed into a river, and every river eventually crossed a road, wound through a town, or flowed by a settlement. It might work, except for . . .

When she tested her ankle, then looked at Rachel, who looked back at her with those watchful, motherly eyes, the outcome of such a plan became as predictable as night following day.

It made her want to kill Reuben—another plan with a predictable outcome that instantly ruled it out.

But she did give him a second look. She thought he’d been playing with his toes, but just now she thought she saw a glimmer of yellow.

Acting as lazy, uninterested, and detached as possible, she rose to her feet, stretched, faked a yawn, and double-checked.

He wasn’t playing with his toes. He was playing with the GPS, lazily batting it back and forth between his feet.

fourteen

The Lumberman Café was Cap’s third stop in Three Rivers. The folks at the local filling station hadn’t heard of a Dr. Adam Burkhardt; the lady at the Ace Hardware store knew him as an occasional customer but didn’t know where he lived. Mr. Dinsley, owner/proprietor of the Lumberman, knew just enough.

“It’s up the Skeel Gulch Road,” he said, scribbling a map on a napkin. “You go up there about two miles. You go over a bridge—it’s one of those little ones, you know, made of logs? It goes over the Skeel Creek up there. Then the road takes a left turn, runs along the creek . . .” He drew it as he said it. “And it’s up in there somewhere.”

Cap studied the map—three lines for the roads, a squiggle for the creek, and a little box for the bridge—and asked, “Uh, any sign out front, you know, house numbers or something?”

Dinsley shrugged. “Well, Burkhardt doesn’t like to advertise. But you oughta try Denny over at Ace Hardware and Lumber. He’s done a few deliveries up there. Adam was building a big old shop a few years ago.”

“Denny’s on vacation.”

“Oh, you’ve already been there!”

“Yeah. Claire told me.”

“Oh, well, I haven’t seen Adam for a week or so. Did you try calling him?”

“Lost his number.”

“Oh. Well, since you’re good friends, I guess he won’t mind you dropping in. He is a private sort of person, isn’t he?”

“He’s that way.”

Cap put the napkin in his shirt pocket, paid for his coffee and cinnamon roll, and went out to his car.

Down the street, in a pricey Mercedes that didn’t fit in this town, four men with specific orders watched Cap’s every move.

Beck sat quietly in the syringa and snowberry, invisibly tethered to Rachel, who appeared to be sleeping. She was watching Reuben with quick, careful glances, never a direct stare.

If she did nothing, Reuben would eventually destroy the GPS, probably chew it to smithereens. Even if he tired of it, all she had to do was show the slightest interest and it would become important to him again. If she tried to take it from him—well, she’d already tried that.

By now the sun and shadows told her the group was definitely heading north, and of course this was the wilderness; there were no boundaries here. The Canadian border wouldn’t stop them. They could keep moving as far as there was forest, which meant she could wander in these woods forever, be given up for dead, and never be found.

But she had an idea. It wasn’t a sure thing, but considering how the future looked if she did nothing, a failure wasn’t going to set her back that much. She hated having to be the one to change things, but for all she knew, she was the only player left on her team. Any change, for better or worse, was going to be up to her.

She reached for the hairbrush in her back pocket. It had gotten her close to Leah once. If Beck could buy just a little more favor from Reuben’s mother, then maybe . . .

She made sure Rachel was asleep, held the brush up in a wide gesture so Leah could see it, then ran it through her own hair a few times.

Leah sniffed and sat up straight. She was interested.

Beck set out before fear could catch up with her, quickly working her way through the brush toward Leah, head down, body language submissive, eyes lowered. For good measure, she added some quiet, conciliatory grunts and a little hum, a carefree, meandering sound.

Reuben saw her coming and immediately took a strong, protective interest in the GPS, clutching it close and eyeing her suspiciously. She ignored him, obvious about it, and held out the brush to Leah.

Leah grunted pleasantly. Beck met her eyes for a quick inquiry and found no fear or animosity there.

She began brushing, smoothing out the hair behind Leah’s left ear. Leah leaned into it. Beck breathed easier. This just might work.

Then Rachel woke up.

Beck could understand the displaying, crying, and commotion. After all, Beck and her hairbrush were the only unique claim to power or pride that Rachel had, and though Beck was by no means joining up with Rachel’s rival, how could Rachel understand that?

What to do? Commotion and disgruntlement she didn’t need, but she had to have Leah’s sympathy, and this was the only way she knew to get it. She kept brushing.

She hadn’t considered how Jacob might feel about it. His eyes had narrowed as she approached Leah, but since Leah wasn’t bothered but interested, Beck thought he wouldn’t mind. When Reuben got upset, Jacob’s hair began to bristle, but Beck wasn’t about to challenge Reuben and hoped Jacob would see that. Then, when Beck started brushing Leah, he grunted a warning, but Beck felt it was only precautionary.

When Jacob came thundering down at her, roaring and threatening, she didn’t think, hope, or feel anything, but leaped and rolled through the prickly undergrowth toward Rachel’s protective arms. A gust of wind blew past her, generated by a deadly swat of his hand that barely missed. Falling into Rachel’s enfolding arms was like running into a fortress, and fortunately, it worked.

Having returned Beck to her rightful place, Jacob backed off and sauntered back to his spot against the old stump, satisfied that he’d made his point—whatever it was.

Beck was shaking, very glad to let Rachel hold her and desperate to understand the rule she’d broken. Jacob had always made it clear that he was unhappy with Rachel’s adoption of a human, but having punished her for such a dumb move, he seemed to be tolerating it. Apparently his tolerance ended when it came to the human making any further alliances with his females. Whether out of jealousy or feelings of threat, he wasn’t going to allow it.

Beck set to work right away, brushing and grooming Rachel to be sure their relationship was intact. Rachel was forgiving, her same old doting self.

As for assuring support from Leah, that idea clearly wouldn’t work.

Dave Saunders surprised himself. When the concentrated effort of his search team found only a rusty hunting knife with the handle rotted away, a cluster of spent rifle shells, a canteen, and a set of car keys, he didn’t get discouraged, just more determined, even angry.

“Widen the search,” he ordered. “Same quadrants, double the size.”

The searchers had never met Beck Shelton, but they felt they knew her. They didn’t grumble or question, but went right to it.

Sing turned her motor home into the parking lot of the Tall Pine Resort, eased into the same place she’d parked before, and shut down the engine. With her chin in her hand, she looked through the windshield at the tired old lodge with the patched-together add-ons, the rambling, up-and-down porch, and the big, blackened outdoor barbecue, and mused on how she and Cap first came here to get away from the struggles, the pain, the disappointment.