If You Find Me(69)

He’s off tramplin bushes, getting’ thwacked in the face by low-hangin branches. He cuts a careless, sloppy trail. It’s perfect for trackin’ an animal.

I only have time to shove my feet into sneakers and grab the flashlight from a crate under the table before settin off after him, trackin’ him deeper and deeper into our Hundred Acre Wood. Soon, a heaven of stars map his trail. I see the violin constellation, the one I don’t know by its real name. More than once, its brightest star has been my point of navigation, leadin’ me back to the camper if I’ve wandered too far.

The man is mak’ decent time, if all be told, only he don’t know he’s travelin father into Obed. I follow stealthily, thankin’ Saint Joseph for all those years of practice huntin’ our own food. I’m a sure shot, exerci-sin a precision that comes from those things we do over and over again, day in, day out.

When I get close enough, I hear Mama’s voice in my head, her words slurred but true.

“We get what we deserve, Carey. Sometimes we’re the getters, and sometimes we’re the givers.”

I palm the flashlight, glad to have it. By the light of the moon, I see him bent over at the waist, palms on his thighs, breathin’ hard. When I snap a twig, he ups and dominates the clearin’, swackin and stabbin the night with a broken branch while turnin’ in circles.

Lookin’ for me. He’s naked from the waist up. He’s tied his sweat-stained T-shirt tight around his upper arm, I reckon to stop the bleedin.

When I’m close enough to smell him, I shoot straight toward his form, aimin’ at heart height. His mouth forms a scream that never comes. He collapses to the ground.

I circle him, careful not to get too close. I sweep the flashlight over his chest, his face. I see no signs of breathin’. I feel nothin’—no triumph, no remorse. Bness. Although my body shakes against my wishes, and I let it. He’ll make a bear or a pack of coyotes a right fine meal.

On my wrist, I’m wearin Mama’s watch, like I always do, the one she taught me time on. The one I’d used to teach Jenessa. Checkin’ it, I see it’s taken more than forty-five minutes to get back to the camper, and it’s a lucky thing. No one wants a corpse rottin close to their camper. He’s too heavy to drag or carry, and diggin graves is an act of respect.

The river sees everythin’ and is cold to the marrow, but I peel off my T-shirt and wade in up to my chin, the moonlight blue on my bare skin. I hold the shotgun over my head; I can’t get myself to put it down. The river cools off the swollen parts, baptizin me back into skin and bone and savin me into a new Carey, a Carey who, tonight, let go of childish things.

I shake so hard, my teeth clatter against each other. I’m standin nek-kid in the winter water, and I can’t do it for long. I command myself to put the jeans back on, crumpled atop the wanwood leafmeal. I only have two pair, and I need ’em both at night.

My gait is thick and wobbly, my girl parts split like a wild turkey’s wishbone. I reckon Mama would say I’m a woman now. I lean over into a bush and retch and retch. I pull a clean T-shirt off the line and fumble with the arm holes.

Afterward, I pretend I’m fingerin’ Dvorak’s Romance for Violin, usin the music to steady my breath. When that don’t work, I repeat the lines in my head, from beginnin to end and back again, only this time, I insert my own name.

Carey, are you grievin

Over Goldengrove unleavin ?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! as the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sorrow’s springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Carey you mourn for.


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Against the walnut’s rough bark, the hatred slides down my face and my sobs are shardlike and stranglin. I pick up my pee coat and slide it on after pickin’ off chips of leafmeal stuck to the matted collar. I sit my butt right down on top of the metal table, reclaimin’ it.

Accordin’ to the watch, it takes twenty minutes for the violent shudderin’ to stop. That’s when I get up, knock on the camper door.

“Ness? It’s safe, baby.”

No response. I swear under my breath, catchin sight of the camper window, screenless and unlocked. I squeeze my head through.

I find Ness in the circle of my flashlight, her thumb stuck in her mouth and the cot’s thin blanket wrappin her up in a cocoon. Her legs are drawn up to her chest and she rocks back and forth, back and forth. She sees right through me, and it’s like she don’t hear me, neither. She don’t make one peep.

I scramble through the window and scoop her up in my arms and out the door. When we reach the river, I strip her bare. One dunk, that’s all she can handle, and then I wrap her back up in the blanket and sit her in my lap in front of the fire.

We watch her dress, the T-shirt, and our underwear curl into the flames, all reminders torched to ash in less than a minute. Her blond ringlets hang limply, all the light gone out of ’em. Droplets of creek water sit on her eyelashes, and she blinks them down her cheeks. When she’s warm again, I help her put on jeans and her sweatshirt, tyin the hood snug.