My Abandonment (5 page)

"I don't know," I say. "Everything was this way when I came back so I climbed up here to be safe."

"Good girl," he says. "You come down, now."

Later while he's reading Father looks up and says, "Are you sure you didn't see anything today? It seems like we'll have to move again."

"No," I say.

"You didn't see anything?"

"Not here," I say. "By the water tank I saw a boy and a girl."

"That's what you're writing about?"

"Yes."

"And what were they doing?"

"Taking off their clothes."

"Taking off their clothes?" he says. "Why would they do that? To get a suntan?"

"I don't think so," I say. "I don't know. Maybe to see what their bodies looked like."

It's late in the afternoon on a Friday and I hear the sound of dogs barking and echoing like they're in a cave or something. Usually when I hear them their barks are getting louder so they're running closer to me or they're fading away so the dogs are running in another direction. This time the loudness and so the distance isn't changing and I try another direction, walking, where it gets louder as I go and I hurry on down the slope.

I squint my ears and still can't tell if it's Lala. What it is is all the barking comes out of one white metal truck and even a hundred feet away through tall grass waving in the wind I can see the word
CANINE
painted on the side. I can see dark shapes and shadows back behind the bars. It's a truck full of dogs.

And the tall grass between the truck and me isn't really waving in the wind, it's chopping back and forth with pieces tossed in the air. Flashes of orange break through, and arms with long tools. It's the men again in their orange outfits, the criminals cutting down the tall grass. Still walking closer, I slow and stay in the shadows. I notice two men between the criminals and the truck, now, holding rifles pointed in the air. If a criminal tried to run away into the forest park they might shoot him or they might let the dogs loose to chase him. I sit and think that the dogs might not care once they were up in the trees where I am. They might just keep running until they meet up with my dogs and could run along with them all night. This is what I'm thinking when I look up and a man is closer, chopping at the grass. He stops to rest, wiping his black face with an orange sleeve. He sees me and he stares.

I step further back into the shadow and then turn and begin to run slipping back and forth through the trees up the slope. Behind me I can hear nothing but the dogs' echoing barking and then even that fades away so I know they're not after me.

I don't reach out for the blackberries along the trail since Friday is the day we fast which makes me hungry and I don't feel strong but you get used to it by the afternoon. The thorns on the vines scratch me as I go.

I slow and check around and I'm close to my secret lookout so I circle and come in the other way and climb up and stretch out, resting. The sky is hazy and hot, not exactly clouds.

I close my eyes and all at once there's a cracking like the dogs but no barking anywhere. I peek over and Nameless is coming. On all fours he shoots down a pathway then darts on his feet sideways over a stone and ducks low beneath a sword fern. He steps out, checking his trail to see the marks he made, if he made any. Then he backs up and does it all over again. I can tell that he's practicing.

"Hey," I say, hissing down at him. "Nameless."

He doesn't look up until I break a stick from a dead branch and throw it down at him. His face is blacked out and his teeth and eyes are both more yellow than I remember.

"You're smart to get out of the men's camp," I say. "We're never going back there again. You could say my name," I say. "Or don't. Just look at me." But he doesn't except out of the side of his eye.

He turns away and I start to climb down before he's gone.

"There's criminals over there," I say. "And dogs."

Halfway down the tree I can see him starting to go through his routine again like he can't even tell I'm there. I wait until he comes back into the clearing.

"You're not deaf," I say. I jump down and step right in front of him so he has to look at me and when he does it's like he's going to smile and then he doesn't make any expression at all. Up close it isn't dirt on his face but blackberry juice, smashed on and sticky. That's what's clumping his hair together too. A fly lands under his eye and he doesn't brush it away. I do and he leaps back like I pinched him.

"Nameless," I say. "Haven't I always been your friend?"

His breath is foul like dirt and like he really does eat bugs and banana slugs. He breathes through his mouth which is a loud way to breathe. Around his ankles are what look like rawhide shoelaces.

"Those could trip you," I say, pointing, and he doesn't even look down. I say, "If they snagged on something or something. What, you think it's pretty funny to see if I get frustrated? Listen, I don't have to talk to you."

My voice is louder than I want it to sound and still I keep talking fast like that will hold him there and finally make him answer.

"I met a boy who thinks you're a Bigfoot," I say, and for a moment I think he's actually listening and might say something. "Does that make you happy?" I say. "You know, just because you're so dirty doesn't mean anything. My name is Caroline, in case you forgot it."

Now he really turns away and I don't care but I follow him anyway, just to show that I can. It's dusk now but my eyes are adjusted. Nameless is really going on all fours, not crawling exactly since his feet are on the ground so his butt is up in the air and he's practicing spinning around behind trees to hide and when he stop he sniffs at the air like he can smell something but really if he could he'd know that I'm following him which he doesn't know. So I stop following and let him go since I don't know what else I would say.

So I walk all the way down by Balch Creek where it's cool even on the hottest days. I go on a side path past the broken down stone house and I backtrack where I cross a trail that's on a map and I walk backward for a while, putting my heels down first so anyone would think that I'd gone where I'd come from when actually I am in another place entirely. I am walking in the dusk through the last stand of trees, toward the first houses and I can see their black rooftops through the leaves closer to me and also lights in some of the windows.

But there are no lights in Zachary's windows and I watch a long time almost twenty minutes and do not see any dogs inside or anyone. After another ten minutes it's dark out and I climb the short wire fence and step across the yard. I knock on the back door and the sound is small so I knock again louder. I decide that if Zachary comes out and talks to me I'll let him take my picture this time.

Headlights flash along the side of the house and a car's engine chokes down. I run back to the fence, climb it, drop down low. No one comes. I wait another ten minutes and nothing changes at Zachary's house. All the windows are dark and quiet.

I check my watch again but there's two hours left of alone time and all I want is to see Father since I know at least he's a person who will actually talk with me. Nameless I am thinking about. How he tries to convince me he can't speak or tries to convince himself that he's changed like that or that a person can change like that. Once a person knows how to talk they know how unless they have a sore throat but that can't last forever and even then you can whisper. I'm thinking that Father and I will set up a snare and catch Nameless up just to show him who knows the forest park best and is not just pretending.

We've almost done my history homework and we're playing a game of chess when Father hears something I don't hear.

"Caroline," he says. Before he was talking softly, laughing, but his voice is a sharp whisper. "Quiet," he says. "Quick to the hiding holes."

A dog barks, a dog whines, closer to us. The chess pieces spill across the bed and we're running away, Father looking back and I'm keeping up afraid because of the look on his face and still thinking maybe it's a game or practice but the branches are snapping back behind him just over my head. We're not halfway to the hiding holes and there's a closer bark and the rasped breathing of a dog and a man shouts somewhere behind us. Above the birds escape through the branches of the trees.

Father reaches back for me. "Caroline," he says. "The trees."

I'm faster climbing and branches break off under his feet since he's so big but we're in the trees next to each other and twenty feet off the ground when the dogs arrive, really barking now. They don't pass us by, they sniff right to the bottom of the trees and look up and there's no making friends with them. They leap with their front paws clawing the bark and land and do it again. They wear red vests that say
POLICE
in white letters. One is a shepherd dog and the other has floppier ears and a looser face. They keep on barking until the men arrive.

"Weapon!" one man shouts. "What's that in your hand, sir? Drop it!"

"Bracelets," another man says. "Calm down."

There are six men and four are holding guns and two are dressed in camouflage clothing like hunters. Two are policemen and one is in tan-colored pants and a white shirt, sweating. The last man is in regular clothes too. It takes a moment for me to see that it's the runner who ran through our camp.

"Please," one policeman says. "Come slowly down from the tree."

Father gets down first and they're all around him.

"There's no problem," he says.

"Then why were you running?"

"We didn't know who you were," he says. "And then we were running since you were chasing us, and with the dogs."

"Slow, slow," a policeman says. "Do you have any identification?"

"Not on me," Father says. "I'm a veteran, though. This is a misunderstanding."

"I hope so," the policeman says.

I'm still in the tree, ten feet up. The other policeman has the dogs back on their leashes and is feeding them something from a pouch on his belt.

The men are very nervous with their guns out. They stay all around Father but when he moves in a direction they back up.

"It's a misunderstanding," he says again.

"Sir, stay where you are. Stop moving around."

He's trying to get closer to the tree where I am and I am trying to look back like he shouldn't worry.

"We need you to come along with us," the policeman says to Father. "Back to your camp, first. If you cooperate everything will be easier."

"Certainly," Father says. "There's no cause for handcuffs. I'd rather you didn't do this in front of my daughter."

The man with the tan pants and white shirt is beneath me now, wiping his head with a handkerchief, eyeglasses round around his eyes. He's reaching up like I need his help to get down.

"My name's James Harris," he says. "You can call me Jim. You'll come with me now."

"Father," I say.

"Trust me," Mr. Harris says. "We'll figure it all out."

Father's hands are behind his back and the men lead him away, back the way we'd come. After a moment Mr. Harris puts his hand on my shoulder. He's stayed behind with one police officer who stands in back of me when we start to walk after Father and the other men whose heads are lower than Father's and they're spread on all sides of him, walking with nervousness even though his arms are tied back.

"And what is your name?" Mr. Harris says. "Usually one person introduces themselves and then the other says their name."

"You can call me Caroline," I say.

"Is that your name?" he says.

"Yes," I say. "I said so."

"Caroline," he says, "this is Officer Stannard."

The policeman is walking behind me in case I try to run away and I almost laugh since I know that I could, that he couldn't catch me unless he let the dogs loose again and even then if I didn't climb a tree maybe I could gentle them. I almost want to try it but then that wouldn't help Father. I'm looking down at Mr. Harris's shiny black shoes with their pointed toes and slippery soles.

"Without the dogs you wouldn't have caught us," I say.

"We're trying to help you," he says.

"But you needed the dogs."

"That's probably true," he says, like that's not the point.

The dogs are up by Father, still wearing their red vests. I don't know if they would have smelled us if we'd reached the hiding holes in time. Mr. Harris stays close next to me and either can't walk any faster or is trying to slow us down. Soon I can't see Father ahead of us but I can hear the men's voices.

"This is a misunderstanding," I say but neither Mr. Harris or the policeman says anything. I wonder where Lala and my dogs are, or anyone who might help us.

When we get back to our house one of the camouflage men is gone and I don't see the dogs anywhere. Now I really could run, easily, but Father is facing away with his hands tied and when he tries to look around they try to turn him back. The runner is gone too, and two of the men are looking inside our house, then up at Father.

"I have some library books," he says. "Some other things I'd like to take, if we're going. My pack is the red one, there on the side. Yes. Come on, there's no call to make such a mess. We're not hiding anything from you."

"Except everything," a man says.

Mr. Harris leads me to sit on a log that we never sit on since it would crush down the grass and show that people live here. I look back to where they are talking to Father.

"Don't worry about him," Mr. Harris says. "He'll be all right. What we are going to do here is worry about you."

"Lettuce and beans growing over here," one man says. "That's really something. Check it out."

Everything is getting beaten down so it will take a long time to get it straight again so it looks like no person has walked here, like no one lives here. Father at least is still only stepping on the white stones. His voice is the calmest of all of them, the softest and deepest. I can see Randy still on the mattress, the black chess pieces against the white sheet. It's so strange to see Father's pack on someone else's back. It makes the policeman look small. He adjusts the straps, keeps bouncing it up to make it comfortable. Next to my hand on the log ants are going into tiny holes. I am so much smaller than everyone around me. My fingers are thin and can circle my wrist. I am not strong enough to change what is happening.