Chimera, page 25
I began to take my backpack off my shoulders but Samuel stopped me. “Oh we’ve got a ways to go yet,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, breathing deeply.
Twenty minutes of walking later, though it was still only noon, it began to look like dusk. The trees grew denser and denser the farther along we walked and the canopy above us allowed only a little of the sun to reach us. The further we walked, the less we saw of people. Beyond the first group of campers, there were smaller clearings with only a tent or two gathered around a campfire: teenagers who probably talked their parents at the first campsite into letting them go off on their own, young couples without children, even an older couple, who smiled and waved at us as we kept walking. But what we were seeing now were grubby two man pup tents, no TVs, no children, no barbecues, only mostly men, middle aged, wearing camouflage, binoculars hung around their necks, some wearing bright orange vests.
We had left anything resembling a trail by now and I was again starting to get worried. Samuel seemed to know where he was going but I was completely lost.
After not seeing anyone for another fifteen minutes, we passed a group of three men sitting on a fallen log around a stone circle. No chairs, no tent, only dingy, greenish-brown sleeping bags on the ground and one dented metal cooler. Three shotguns were propped up against its side. The men looked our way, all of them bearded, all of them sturdy looking, wearing work boots, jeans, flannel shirts. They nodded at us, but looked at us strangely. I knew what they were thinking. They were thinking all three of us would be dead by morning and they were going to have to be part of the search and rescue team by mid-afternoon tomorrow. It was certainly what I was thinking.
“They can’t be hunting out here can they?” I asked Samuel as soon as the men were out of earshot.
“No, not this close to the other campsite. Besides, those are shotguns. Meant for stopping bears, not hunting,” he said.
“Bears?! There are bears out here?” I said, stopping, looking around, as if I expected a giant grizzly to come charging out of the trees.
“Well, it’s the woods, Emi, where else are the bears going to go?”
“Well, Samuel, that’s not really the question is it? The question is why the hell are we out here…and put that food away!”
Samuel had a granola bar in his hand. He’d taken a bite out of it, but the rest was open to the wind. The scent of it free to waft in the air and into the path of an animal that could rip our heads off our shoulders with one swipe of its giant paws. I knew bears were capable of smelling food miles away. I hoped the hot dogs and hamburgers from the first campsite was enough to draw the bears that way. Every man for himself, like they say. I wished they’d thought to bring Mustard along. Bears tended to leave dogs alone, I knew that much.
Samuel stuffed the rest of the granola bar in his mouth, said “Okay?” Little flecks of granola flew out of his mouth and onto the ground between us.
“Don’t worry about the bears, all the snakes will have driven them off,” Catherine said from behind me.
I knew she was joking, but only just. I tried to think of how to identify poisonous snakes. Yellow and red, you’re gonna be dead? Is that how it goes? Green and brown, turn up your frown? At least you knew where you stood with a bear. They were all deadly. Sneaky damned snakes. Hiding behind pretty colors.
Not only were we in danger of being bitten by snakes or ripped to shreds by bears, the trees alone were dangerous. I had several scratches up and down my arms from needle-like branches and I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I was also starting to itch. Poison oak, or ivy, with my luck. Are there poisonous dart frogs in North America? None of us were dressed for poisonous dart frogs.
“Are you sure we’re not going to get lost? People have been known to walk in circles thinking they’re on the right path. I can’t even see the sun through all this.”
Samuel stopped short in front of me. “Listen,” he said, putting one finger in the air.
I stopped immediately and extended my arms out to the side, as if that stupid gesture could somehow fend off a bear. “You see this bear? My arms are extended. You better watch it.”
I kept my head still but my eyes darted everywhere. On the ground, around at the shrubs, up into the branches for tree snakes. I couldn’t hear whatever it was Samuel heard and if he were making fun of me, trying to scare me, I was going to spray bug spray in his eyes the first chance I got.
“It’s water. We’re almost there.”
Finally, after what seemed like hours of walking, we dropped our bags onto the leaves and dirt beneath us in a small clearing near the river, which was really not much more than a creek, though Samuel looked at it like it was a tropical oasis. He looked eager to rip his clothes off and go for a swim, but from here, it didn’t even look deep enough to cover our ankles.
“Did you bring any duct tape by chance?” I asked Samuel as soon as Catherine set up the tent. It was one of those tents you pull a string on or wave a magic wand over and poof, instant colorful shelter.
Samuel grabbed the backpack Catherine brought from the junkyard and pulled out a grey roll of the stuff. “Of course, never go anywhere without duct tape.”
I took it, and a can of bug spray into the tent.
“What in the world?” Catherine asked as I emerged from the tent ten minutes later.
I had changed into a long sleeved thick cotton shirt and had wrapped my legs from knee to ankle in four layers of duct tape.
“Mock if you must, but everyone knows duct tape is near bullet proof. When you’re writhing on the ground from a snake bite to the shin don’t expect me to go sucking out the venom.”
“Suck out the venom? You know that doesn’t work don’t you? If you did that, you’d probably die quicker than I would,” she said. “See the venom enters the lymphatic system pretty quickly—“
“Your lymphatic system—“
“What you should really do is try to calm the person down—“
“Calm you down, my shins are safe behind armor—“
“—try to keep the heart pumping as slowly as possible—“
Samuel had bent down and was lightly rapping his knuckles against the duct tape, shaking his head.
“Okay, enough first aid talk,” I said, and shoo’d Samuel away from my leg. “You forget Catherine, that the best offense is a good defense. Hence,” I pointed down to my shins, “no snakebite in the first place.”
“Come on,” Catherine said, looking at Samuel, who was staring at the river fifteen feet away from us, just visible through the trees.
On our way there, Samuel was lamenting the fishing pole left at the store. “Fresh caught salmon would have been nice. Have you ever eaten salmon fresh out of the water Emi?”
“The only salmon I’ve ever had has come wrapped in white paper, or brought to me by a waiter.”
“Then you don’t know what salmon really tastes like,” he said, as we neared the stream.
“How long are we going to be out here? How will we know when it’s safe to go back?” I asked, as Samuel hunkered down near the water’s edge.
“Someone will come find us, don’t worry.”
Samuel cupped his hands near a large rock and the clear water spilling up and over it fell into his hands. He raised his hands to his mouth and slurped it all up. I hoped I wasn’t going to have to listen to him vomiting all night.
He did it again, filled his hands up with water, and drank it, slower this time, enjoying it. He noticed me watching him, concern in my eyes. “Come on, Emi, have some. So long as it’s fast moving, which this water is, it’s perfectly safe.”
“Perfectly safe? Really? Perfectly? No little pathogens, no urine? You’re saying you know no one upstream, no animal has pee’d in it?”
“Do you know everything that’s happened to the water you’re drinking?” he asked, pointing at the bottle of water I’d brought along. “Sure no one picked their nose just for the fun of it and dipped their finger into the batch of water you’re drinking? People do some weird stuff.”
“Well, thank you for that,” I said, and screwed the cap back on the bottle. I wanted to lift it up, try to see if there was indeed anything floating in it but he was looking a little too smug, so I didn’t.
We crossed the river easily, using rocks as step-stones and sat on its small bank after Samuel had gotten his fill and listened to the birds chirping away somewhere up above. It really was beautiful out here. Peaceful. Balmy. Still. But that was now. What would it be like at night? If the sun barely penetrated the canopy, the moonlight wouldn’t have a chance. We’d only seen a squirrel, as far as animals went, but once the sun went down and it went completely dark, other animals, predators, would come out to hunt. I should have asked for a gun, not a radio.
Catherine laid down on the leaves, looking up at the sky, which could be seen here, by the water, where the trees parted. Samuel and I were running our hands through the water, and trying to find the prettiest rocks. Round, black and grey, smooth stones worn down by who knows how many thousandss of years of constant water rushing around them. I found one I particularly liked, a small one, the diameter of a nickel, black, with a thin ribbon of brown running through it and pocketed it. Thinking that when I saw Kam again I could ask him if he could show me how to drill a hole in it, make it into a necklace.
I don’t know how long we sat there, but long enough for Catherine to doze off, and Samuel to tell me a few stories about his father. Of how they use to go fishing nearly every weekend together, catching enough fish to feed them for days, of how he wished he could have just one of those mornings back. If I had known that back at the store, I would have given up the radio, insisted Catherine let him buy the fishing pole instead.
“My sisters, especially the youngest, were always jealous of that, our fishing trips. But my father kept those just for us.”
“I didn’t know you have sisters, where—“
The snapping of twigs, of leaves crunching underfoot came from behind us. Samuel turned his head, looking around me, but didn’t seem particularly concerned. I, on the other hand, thought of giant wild boars, wolves and coyotes and jumped up, ready to run if I needed to.
Catherine jerked awake at my movement and stood up as a man and a little girl came walking out of the tree line behind us to our right.
The man, wearing khaki pants, a blue chambray shirt, and loafers, stopped short when he saw us, surprised to see other people out this far into the woods. He looked out of place. He looked like he belonged to the weekend camper group. His hair, neatly combed, was parted on the side, his clothes, ironed, creased, and he was wearing a pair of delicate looking wire-framed glasses. The little girl, who appeared taller than she was due to her long thin limbs, had blondish hair and large round brown eyes, the same color as the man holding her hand. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a short-sleeved t-shirt with a picture of a rabbit on it, a white poof-ball for the tail. She had had no better luck than I had, I could see, at avoiding scratchy branches.
“Oh. Hello,” the man said, pulling the little girl closer to him as Samuel stood up.
“Good afternoon,” Catherine said, walking towards them. She turned to me as I walked beside her, arching her eyebrows. See? I can be pleasant.
“Hello,” Samuel said. He walked quickly around us and got to the man and little girl first. He wasn’t addressing the man, he was talking to the little girl. He bent over, hands on his knees, and smiled at her. She smiled shyly, then turned and buried her face in the man’s pant leg.
“She’s a little bashful,” the man said, keeping his eyes on Samuel and I noticed he positioned the girl a little further behind his leg.
“I’m Samuel,” Samuel said, straightening back up, “and this is Catherine, and Emile.” The man, who had extended his hand, lowered it when Samuel didn’t move to shake it and then looked at Catherine, nodded his head, then to me, confusion in his eyes as they fell to my shins and the duct tape.
“Andrew, and this,” he said, placing his hand on top of the girl’s head who had turned once again toward us, “is my daughter Miranda.”
Samuel looked down at her and smiled. “Hello Miranda, that’s a very pretty name.”
She stared at Samuel’s lips, then turned to look up at her father and with her right hand, signed something to him.
Andrew momentarily let go of her hand and signed something back at her.
“What did she say?” Samuel asked.
“She said hello.”
It seemed like a little too much signing for a simple hello. I don’t know sign language, and she signed so quickly and her hands were so small that it was hard to tell, but I knew what it looked like when people sign out letters and not words and that’s what it looked like she did. Samuel seemed to have caught on to it as well but said nothing.
“It’s uh, a little rugged out here, for a little girl,” Samuel said instead, looking around.
Andrew surveyed Samuel with his tight slacks and button shirt that looked more appropriate for a runway than the wilderness.
“She’s a tough little girl,” he said with a slight edge to his voice.
“A tough little girl,” Samuel repeated in Andrew’s direction, then looked down and said to Miranda: “And a very pretty one too.” He moved his open hand across his own face, closing it as he completed the sign. It must be the only bit of sign language he knew because it was the only sign he made.
Miranda smiled brightly at the sign for pretty or beautiful, her father did not.
“Say, do you guys have a phone, something with the internet? Or a radio? I didn’t check the weather report before heading out and I don’t want to have my daughter out here if it’s going to rain.” He was still eyeing Samuel suspiciously, and really, I couldn’t blame him. Samuel was staring at Miranda a little too fondly for my taste.
I started to say we did have a radio but Samuel cut me off before I could say anything.
“No, sorry, we’re roughing it.”
Andrew looked again, at the three of us, at the way we were dressed. Nothing about us said “roughing it.” He raised his head, looked at the small patch of sky above our heads and said “Well, doesn’t really seem like rain, guess I’ll have to chance it.”
I looked up as well and could see that he was right, the sky was clear, only a few wispy clouds hovered over us.
“Where’s her mother?” Samuel asked, peering around the man and his daughter.
“At home, I imagine. We’re no longer married. This is my weekend with my daughter.”
Samuel nodded his head, pursed his lips. I looked at the two of them in turn, not knowing what to make of it all. Samuel, who was normally so easy going, so calm, now looked bullish. He’d stepped closer to Andrew and although he was taller than the smaller man by about five or six inches, it seemed like much more the closer he got, and the more Andrew had to look up as they stared at each other.
The little girl was still clinging to her father’s leg, and her father had pulled her further behind him, gripping her hand tigher, shielding her from this strange tall guy asking questions.
“Hm. At home,” Samuel said quietly, as if to himself.
“Yeah. Just like I said.”
I was just waiting for the two of them to rub their feet on the ground beneath us and charge at each other, heads lowered, like rams. I could hear Samuel breathing louder than usual and Andrew’s hand, the one not holding Miranda’s, had tightened into a fist.
Then something broke. Samuel took a step back, visibly relaxing his shoulders, coming out of his alpha male stance and said as casually as he could, “Hey, why don’t the two of you camp with us? Safety in numbers and all that. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to your daughter.”
The man eyed Samuel for a few seconds more and relaxed his hand. “No thank you. I don’t get enough time with my daughter as it is and this is our father daughter time, you understand.”
“Where are the two of you camping?”
“Well, we better get going, it was nice chatting with you,” Andrew said.
Samuel bent over one last time, this time extending his hand to the little girl. .
“Bye Miranda, watch out for bea…bugs,” he said, changing the word midway, not wanting to frighten her, in case she could read lips.
The little girl smiled, lifted her own small hand, and touched the tips of Samuel’s fingers with her own before her father pulled her away.
Samuel watched them intently as they walked back to where they’d come from. Miranda looked back before they disappeared, smiled, and waved at Samuel, who smiled and waved back.
There it is again. That feeling. Creepy. I had almost forgotten about the little red-headed girl in the SUV that long time ago when I didn’t know Samuel yet. When I thought he was a deranged, psychotic kidnapper. I knew better now, but that feeling persisted. It was unnatural. The way he had looked at that little girl then, the way he had looked, just now, at Miranda. I had learned to accept some things since I’d met them, but killing adults, adults who are shooting at you, was one thing. Touching a child was something else entirely. It was unforgiveable.
Catherine, who had remained silent the whole time, tugged at Samuel’s sleeve.
“Come on, leave it.”
We crossed the river again, walked back to the tent, and despite the clear sky, it did start to rain, but there were only a few sprinkles before it stopped.
Samuel remained in a sullen mood the rest of the day and into the evening. The radio didn’t help much, though I tried to find upbeat songs, tried to lighten the mood. Samuel, however, seemed irritated with every station I picked so I finally gave up, handed him the radio, and let him choose what he wanted to listen to. Bad idea. He quickly changed it to talk radio, and then switched stations every five minutes when he didn’t agree with what was being discussed.
