Near the Bone(12)

He wore a bright coat with blocks of color on it—blue and orange, and it was made of a very shiny material. A windbreaker, she thought. I used to have one, but it was red. Heather’s was bright pink, like a glowing raspberry.

Aside from the windbreaker he wore gray pants with many pockets and brown leather boots with pine-colored laces. The stranger carried a very full pack on his back, the same bright orange as his jacket, with a bedroll (no, a sleeping bag) tied to it. As they got closer, Mattie saw he wore fingerless gloves with a mitten top buttoned back.

Every part of his appearance sparked something in her—curiosity, a memory, an unfixed kind of longing. She glanced up at William and hoped he wouldn’t see any of these things on her face. They would only make him angry.

The man appeared to hear them approach, for he dropped the camera back to his chest (where it was attached by a strap), glanced around, then stood, smiling. His teeth seemed very white and even. Mattie self-consciously pressed her lips closed in reply. She was missing a tooth from her lower jaw—it had gotten infected and William had to pull it out.

She shuddered, remembered the way William had strapped her head to a board with his leather belt so she wouldn’t move, remembered the horrible wrenching as the tooth pulled free of the gum, the blood gushing everywhere. The rest of her bottom teeth had moved around as a result of the empty space, some of them tilting crookedly like broken tombstones.

“Hello there!” the stranger called, waving.

Mattie felt she ought to wave back, but William had told her not to speak and she was certain waving counted as speaking.

William didn’t wave back, either, nor did he call out a response. He marched toward the strange man, so brightly colored against the faded meadow. The stranger’s smile wobbled, then receded as it became apparent that William was not approaching for a friendly chat.

Mattie struggled along just behind William, still feeling sick and dizzy, but she could tell the expression on his face just by the set of his shoulders and the stiffness in his walk. His eyes would be fixed in a cold glare, his lips compressed, a muscle in his jaw ticking like a bomb.

The stranger took a quarter step backward as William stopped a few feet away from him. Mattie came to a halt near William’s left elbow, half of her body hidden behind her husband. She saw the stranger throw an uneasy glance at the rifle held loosely in William’s arm.

“What are you doing here?” William barked.

The stranger had brown eyes, and now they flared in annoyance. Mattie expected him to yell at William, to respond to William’s aggression with some of his own, but the stranger only said, “It’s public land,” in a tone that was mildness itself.

“It’s public land, yes,” William said, “but it’s dangerous up here this time of year, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. The weather can turn in a second, and there are a good many bears, and they can be aggressive.”

The stranger gave William a half smile that did not reach his eyes. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ve had plenty of experience. What are you and your daughter doing up on the mountain so late in the season?”

He glanced at Mattie, who quickly turned her gaze to the ground. The stranger had dark curly hair that peeked out from under his knit cap. She saw that just before she looked away.

Mattie felt William swell up beside her, his anger a palpable thing.

“She is not my daughter. She is my wife,” he said through his bottom teeth.

If William had spoken to her like that, Mattie would have shrunk away, because that tone was a warning of what would come next. But the strange man didn’t seem to feel the danger, because when Mattie dared look up again, she found him watching her curiously.

He seemed to take in their clothing for the first time, for he asked, “Are you Amish or something?”

“No,” William said, and Mattie thought, Oh, stranger, please run away, can’t you tell that my husband is about to explode and when he does he will hurt you, he will hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before.

The stranger then looked from William to Mattie and back again, and said, in a very skeptical tone, “Your wife?”

He didn’t wait for William to respond but instead addressed Mattie directly. “Do I know you? You look so familiar.”

Mattie froze, because William had said not to talk to the stranger, but the stranger had asked her a question and if she didn’t answer, it would be rude. William might punish her later for being rude but he also might punish her if she talked to the stranger. Her jaw felt stuck in place, paralyzed by indecision.

“You don’t know her,” William said, shifting so the stranger could no longer see Mattie’s face. “We aren’t from this area.”

This was a lie, of course, a bald-faced lie. Mattie knew William didn’t want the man to know they lived on the mountain.

“What high school did you go to?” the man persisted, trying to see around William’s shoulder. “Your face—”

“You should move on from here as soon as possible,” William said, and something about the way he shifted the rifle in his arms made the stranger go still. “There are bears.”

“Bears,” the stranger repeated, his voice flat.

Mattie didn’t need to see his face to know he didn’t believe William.

“Let’s go,” William said to Mattie, grabbing her arm and pulling her away.