The Onion Girl (30 page)
Authors: Charles de Lint
“Do you know anything about cars?” I ask.
Geordie shakes his head. “No. Do you?”
“I can't even drive.”
When we asked to borrow the car, Christy warned us that it might not even make it. “If it dies on you,” he told us, “just take the plates off and leave it where it is.”
That seems too strange. And besides, we're out in the middle of nowhere. I can't remember how far back the last farm we passed is and all that's ahead of us are the Kickaha Mountains, which, in this part of the country, are mostly wild and all reservation land, except for Tyson and the farms around it, though that's still a-ways off and to the east. The road we're on points straight north.
Geordie tries jiggling wires, cleaning the battery posts, wiping out the distributor cap, but nothing helps.
“I guess we walk,” he says.
I grin at him. “Good thing we packed light.”
We'd planned to stay overnight in Tyson at the very least, so we each have a little backpack with a change of clothes and some toiletries. Mine also has a sketchbook and some pencils and paints stuffed into it. Geordie has his fiddle with him. We have no food except for a bag of chips and some candy bars. Nothing to drink except for half a bottle of apple juice.
Borrowing my penknife, Geordie works loose the screws that hold the license plates and takes them off. The plates go into his pack and that's it. We're ready to go. We take a last look inside the car and in the trunk. There's a ratty old blanket in the back that I roll up and put under my arm. Geordie pats the hood of the car and then we set off, walking down the road.
“This is kind of nice,” I say. “It's a beautiful day.”
And it is. Blue skies, the June sun shining. Everything's in that in-between spring and deep summer stageâlots of fresh green pushing up through the old dead grass and weeds, whole squadrons of dandelions and other wildflowers adding splashes of color. Compared to the city, the air tastes like it's supercharged with oxygen and everything smells as fresh as a sweet Sunday morning, to quote a line from a song in the repertoire of one of Geordie's pickup bands. The temperature's balmy and there aren't even any bugs. It's still too early for deer flies and happily just past the black fly season, though if we're still out walking this evening, we'll certainly have mosquitoes to contend with.
Turns out mosquitoes are the least of our worries.
By the time the poor old abandoned Chev is two hills behind us and well out of sight, our brisk walk has slowed to an amble and threatens to simply come to a halt. It just feels like too nice a day to do anything more than laze about. All I want to do is lie on my back in one of the fields on either side of the road and stare up at the blue. Sketch, maybe, while Geordie plays a few tunes. I could sketch Geordie
playing
a tune.
playing
a tune.
I suggest we do just that as we reach the crest of yet another hill. Geordie shrugs. I guess he figures it's my road trip, so I can decide the agenda. He's just along for the ride. While we had a ride, that is.
I look ahead. The road drops into a valley below us before it starts to climb up the next hill once more. The forest is closer to the road here. The fields are spotted with scrub trees, outriders that will get swallowed by the forest as it marches a little closer to the road every year. I guess we're finally running out of old pastureland and getting into the reservation proper. The Indians only got militant about farmers running cows on their land a few years ago, so you still see sights like this all along the southern ranges of the rezâpastures returning to scrubland, then going completely wild.
“How much farther do you think it is?” Geordie asks.
“To what?” I say. “Tyson?”
He smiles. “Sure. Though I'm thinking more of a restaurant where we can grab something to eat. Or a motel for later. We're not exactly geared for overnight camping.”
I know he grew up in the country, but he's beginning to sound like a city boy and I tell him as much.
“I know we can rough it if we have to,” he starts to say, “but I'd rather sleep in a bed than a field, and eat in a restaurant instead of foraging for edible roots and ⦔
His voice trails off. I look to see what's distracted him and spy a plume of dust coming down the next hill. Squinting, I can see it's being kicked up by the wheels of a red pickup truck. Geordie perks up beside me.
“Hey, maybe we can catch a ride,” he says. “They're going the wrong way, but if we can get back to the highway we canâ”
But I'm grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the ditch. He follows a couple of steps, then stops and that makes me stop, too.
“Jilly,” he starts, but I interrupt him.
“Come on,” I tell him, tugging on his arm. “We don't want anybody to see us on this road before we've checked them out first.”
I don't know if the occupants of the pickup have spotted us yet. All I know is I want to be gone before they do. Geordie didn't grow up in these hills, but I did. I know all the stories. Guys like my older brother liked nothing better than to go cruising along the edge of the rez, looking for Indians to harass. And if they couldn't find any Indians, a couple of hippies' d do just fine.
Now maybe that pickup's carrying no more than some old farmer or an Indian taking a back roads shortcut. But it's just as likely to be full of the kind of white trash I grew up with who'll want to have their idea of fun with us. A longhair like Geordie, they'll just beat up. Me, well, they won't beat me up. Or at least not right away. They'll have other things in mind first.
I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. But I'm not as trusting as people think I am. Sure, I see the best in people, but that doesn't mean it's really there.
“We have to
go
,” I say.
go
,” I say.
And this time I give his arm a yank that pulls him off balance so that he has to take a few steps in my direction or fall down.
I hear the pickup's engine revving louder. Could be it's just to make the steeper grade. More likely, they've spotted us.
“Run!” I tell Geordie.
I scramble down into the ditch, then back up the other side. Tossing my backpack over the fence, I squeeze through the strands of barbed wire. Geordie hesitates a moment longer, still not understanding, but when he sees I'm serious, he follows. I grab his fiddle and lift the wire when he reaches me, making it easier for him to get through the fence.
“It's not hunting season,” I say, “so they probably won't have serious hunting rifles with them. But you can die just as easily from a .22.”
Geordie gives me a shocked look. “Oh, come on.”
“Let's talk about it later, okay?”
“Butâ”
I ignore him and take off at a run through the field, dodging around the scrub trees. Glancing over my shoulder, I see he's following. I also see the pickup come to a skidding stop. Dust clouds around it, but I get a glimpse of a young hard face looking at us through the driver's side window. I have to look away or I'll run smack into some little tree, but I keep glancing back. Geordie's almost caught up to me. I look again and I see someone standing on the hood of the pickup. There's a glint of metal.
“Start weaving,” I tell Geordie.
“What?”
But then he hears the crack of the rifle. Something goes whistling by us, far to the right. Now Geordie knows this is serious. He almost passes me.
“Puh ⦠pace. Your. Self,” I tell him, the words coming out in gasps.
I drop the blanket but don't go back to get it. There's another shot, also wide. This time it's on the left.
I don't think they're really trying to hit us. This is just a laugh for them, scare the shit out of a couple of hippies. But it's frightening all the same. Maybe they're not aiming right for us, but that doesn't mean they won't hit us. Doesn't mean they won't come over that barbed wire fence themselves and do a little hunting. And if they do catch up with us â¦
My friends complain that I'm fearlessâthe way I'll walk around by myself at night or won't back down from bulliesâbut that's not true at all. I get just as scared as anybody else in a situation like this. The difference, I guess, is that I no longer let my fear paralyze me. I've already been to the bottom, thanks to my brother, to my boyfriend-turned-pimp Rob, to the johns that got mean or violent, to the creeps on the street getting a laugh at beating up some screwed-up little junkie, to all those people who like to power-trip on those more helpless than them.
I'll stand up and face them now, because what else can they do to me that hasn't already been done? Kill me, I suppose, but I'm not afraid of dying. There were times in my life when death seemed a sweet promise, not something to fear.
No, I stand up to them all now, each and every one of them, because to do otherwise is to start the long spiral back down to the bottom and I'm never going there again. My panic attacks only really come from having to deal with ordinary people and they're centered around the shame of who and what I once was. It's something I can't quite shed, no matter how I try.
I guess the scariest thing is knowing that it could have gone either way. If Lou hadn't found me. If Angel hadn't sweet-talked me into one of her programs. If the professor hadn't been my sponsor. If Wendy hadn't rescued me from the crowds on frosh week and walked me through registration. If Sophie hadn't come to my rescue again on my first day of classes.
I made a choice to be where I am today, but I wouldn't have been able to do it without people like them.
When Lou first found me, I no longer even knew there was a choice anymore. But I got lucky. I got helped out of the darkness. And I did make the choice not to go back. And that led to the other choices by which I live my life: Not to back down. To help anybody I can. To find beauty in the unlikeliest places and show it to the rest of the world. That's why I paint what I do. Why I do the volunteer work that I do. Why I look for the best in people.
I'm not trying to build myself up here. I'm just trying to explain why I can seem fearless. Why I go out of my way to help others. I said that I made these choices, but the truth is I don't have any choice in those matters. To do or be otherwise would make me no better than the freaks and monsters who tried their damnedest to cut me down and keep me there. Every day I liveâoffering a smile, a kindness, a helping hand, a paintingâis a day I've stolen from them. It's a day they can't have.
But there are times to stand up and there are times to cut and run. Out here, in the middle of nowhere like we are, there's no percentage in standing up against a bunch of yahoos, probably drunk, certainly armed, definitely with a mean streak running through them.
It's different here, in the hills. There isn't a cop on every corner. There's nobody you can turn to. Everything depends on your reputation.
Who you are, who you know. If you're from a certain family, a certain part of town, a certain holler, no one will mess with you. If you don't have the connection, then you become fair game. By the time the law gets called inâand it'll have to be you that does the calling, if you're even in enough shape to pick up a phoneâit's all over, one way or another.
Who you are, who you know. If you're from a certain family, a certain part of town, a certain holler, no one will mess with you. If you don't have the connection, then you become fair game. By the time the law gets called inâand it'll have to be you that does the calling, if you're even in enough shape to pick up a phoneâit's all over, one way or another.
I'm not saying everyone's like that. Far from it. But if you get caught alone somewhere by the ones that are â¦
We're almost to the forest now. Once we get there, we'll be able to lose them if they decide to come chasing after us. But the forest presents its own set of problems. It's easy to get lost thereâeasier than you'd think.
They're still shooting at us. I can hear more than one rifle, but I can't tell if there's two or three. Some of the bullets are coming closer than I'd like. That's a laugh. Any bullet coming in your direction is too close for comfort.
Then we're in under the trees. A bullet hits a pine tree to my left, right between Geordie and I. It skids off the trunk, spraying bark over us. A wood chip catches me in the back of the head and for a moment I think I've been hit. By the time I realize I haven't, I've lost my balance and go tumbling to the ground, bumping into a tree trunk as I go down. Geordie turns when I fall and comes back to me, bends down. I've never seen his face so pale. He looks at me, back out to the field, down to me again.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Were you hit?”
I've got a bruised shoulder from where I banged against the tree and I have to catch my breath, but basically I'm fine and give him a nod.
“Can you ⦠see them?” I ask when I get my breath back and sit up.
He looks out between the trees again, starts to shake his head, then freezes. I follow his gaze and see them, in the field still and far enough away, but only for the moment. They seem to be arguing. We can hear the faint sound of their voices, but not what they're saying. I grab a hold of some scrub sapling and start to get up. Geordie helps me the rest of the way.
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