California(33)

“If anyone tries to hurt you out there”—he swung his head in the direction they were headed—“I’ll shoot them.”

“I know you will.”

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m great, why?”

“I mean, do you feel different?”

She paused, thinking. “I know everything will be fine, if that makes sense.” She grabbed her breasts. “And my boobs, they’re really sore.”

“They are?” He put his hands on her chest. “They feel the same to me.”

“I must be mistaken then,” she said. “What do I know?”

“It was stupid to lie to you.”

“We all have our secrets,” she said.

They kept walking into the dense forest, where a few of the dogwoods were starting to change color. Frida allowed Cal to lead her, though he imagined she felt vaguely embarrassed to be following him blindly, as if he were her camp counselor. Bo had said only that the Spikes were due east, and already Cal and Frida’s way had been obstructed by fallen trees and a wide river neither of them could have imagined and that they had to wade across, and the sound of animals was close enough to make Cal stop and reach for his pistol, one arm across Frida as though they were in the car and he’d stopped short at a red light.

They eventually rediscovered the tracks of August’s carriage. Cal had been certain that would happen. From then on, they traveled more easily along his path. Cal thought August probably took a variety of routes; this one wasn’t well trampled enough to have been used more than a couple of times.

“You don’t trust August,” Frida said from behind him.

“He doesn’t trust us,” he said. “Have you ever seen his eyes?”

“No. Have you?” He heard her fake gasp. “Are they made of glass or something? Or robot parts?”

Cal turned back for a moment. “Could be. I’ve never seen them either. That guy is always hiding something from us.”

If they had still been new to the wilderness, the woods that surrounded them would strike him as identical to the ones they’d settled in. But Cal could see all the differences, however subtle: the space between trees, the light, the smells. It was incredible, to think this world had grown readable, as familiar to him as the street he’d grown up on. He couldn’t fathom how strange it would feel to come upon these Spikes. Would he be too afraid to continue?

He began counting under his breath, One-two-three-four, again and again, a step for each number. He counted a little louder. These numbers would announce their presence.

Sometimes, as a safety precaution to scare away animals, he sang while they hiked; his father had loved Sinatra, and Cal could do a passable rendition of “I Get a Kick Out of You.” Frida said she liked to imagine the bears swaying to his croon.

But this counting, it was different than singing. Something about the repetition, the way he could break the distance into these manageable parts, bolstered him.

He felt heat on his neck—a breath, a presence—and spun around. There was Frida, at his back, keeping close to him again.

“Hi, darling,” she whispered, and like that, they kept walking.





7



Hours into their journey, Frida remembered something her mother had told her when she was a teenager. “I felt so confident when I was pregnant with you,” Hilda had said. “And then it happened again, with Micah.” She’d gone on to describe a peculiar peace that descended upon her with each pregnancy. As if, along with the necessary hormones and the double volume of blood swimming through her veins, a mother-to-be produced a reserve of courage for the life to come. Even na?veté could have a purpose. It was a survival skill, the same one that made a woman forget the pain of childbirth soon after it happened, so that she’d be willing to do it again someday. The species had to continue, didn’t it?

Maybe Frida was feeling what Hilda had described. How else to explain how easily she pushed through these foreign woods, as if she would never be afraid again. She gave a secret nod to the coyote, hoped he’d eaten his kill and had taken a long nap after she’d run from him. Frida hadn’t told Cal about the coyote, and she wasn’t planning to. She deserved another secret from him. It evened the score.

At dusk they tucked themselves into what must have been a campsite for August and his carriage. It was a clearing just big enough to set up a tent and let the mare rest, drink water from one of the many nearby streams, maybe eat a bucket of oats. Was that what mules ate? Frida had wondered before where August had procured his animal, and if it slept in a stable somewhere, if it was offered a modicum of comfort and safety after each journey. Maybe Frida would finally find out.

Cal made a small fire while Frida unpacked their bedding and pulled out provisions for dinner. At the bottom of her backpack, rolled in a sweatshirt, nestled the turkey baster. She’d nearly forgotten about it. Her contraband.

She’d pulled it from the other artifacts after Cal had told her everything, and after she’d banished him from the house. She’d told him she needed to be alone to think, that he didn’t deserve to share a home with her. Once she was alone, the plan was already sprouting in her mind: they would go find these people, and she’d offer the baster as a gift. This was how disparate civilizations were supposed to interact, wasn’t it?