The Last One(41)

“Ah.” Zoo is trying and failing to move as quietly and smoothly as Tracker. A branch snaps under her foot and she grimaces. The cameraman following them is even louder than she is. He stumbles and nearly falls. Zoo starts to ask if he’s all right, then aborts the nicety. He’s not here, she reminds herself. And then she laughs again, thinking: If a cameraman falls in the woods and no one turns to see, did he make a sound?

Tracker’s back and mouth curl ever so slightly.

The next team to receive their map is Carpenter Chick and Engineer. They’re on their way within moments, as are Air Force and Biology, once they receive theirs.

But the final group—the trio—struggles. Rancher is so thoroughly flummoxed by the map that he barely registers the Clue as Waitress reads it aloud. He knows his land, but his land is a single rolling vowel. The land here is a series of sharp consonants. Indecipherable lines burrow through his vision. Waitress is also far out of her depth. But the team’s biggest problem is Exorcist. His hands, shoulder, and pride still ache from his fall. By his reckoning, this Clue belongs to him and him alone—he was the one who climbed, the one who fell. He seethes and struggles not to rip the paper from Waitress’s hands. He is full of hateful thoughts—sexist thoughts, racist thoughts. The aftermath of his humanizing crash is the flaring of his most monstrous self.

Exorcist is well aware of this monstrous self, though he would never choose it. He wishes he could banish it. Every time he convinces a spurned mother or belt-whipped boy that their hatred is an outside invader, it helps. Converting another’s hatred into a demon and expelling it makes it possible for him to suffer his own. But there is no one here to exorcise. He’s taken the lay of the land and it is barren. This leaves Exorcist grasping at past experiences. The Clue echoes through his mind and he says, “Boulder. I knew a woman from Boulder once. She called on me to help with a certain situation.”

“Now’s really not the time,” says Waitress.

Exorcist plows forward. He has to. “She didn’t have a true demon, few of them do. But I could still help. I tell her, ‘Yes, you’re possessed.’ This woman, she’d been hearing ‘no’ for so long, just hearing ‘yes’ did most of the job. Lord, but did peace settle into her eyes right then.”

“We need to figure this out,” says Waitress.

Exorcist fiddles with the map, crinkling a corner. “After that, all she needed was a little handholding and prayer. Easy peasy.”

“What’s the Clue say?” asks Rancher.

Waitress has already read it aloud twice. “Here,” she says, handing him the slip of paper.

“They aren’t all that easy,” says Exorcist. “Most take a lot more effort. But there was something sweet about this case. They’re always thankful, but she was thankful. And I don’t mean sexually—I get that sometimes, though usually it’s part of the possession.”

“Can you focus, please?” says Waitress. “Do either of you know how to read one of these maps?”

“A creek’s U-bend,” mutters Rancher. “Well, blue’s water, ain’t it? And a creek’s a line, so where does a blue line bend?” He leans over the map. He’s holding his hat, and his striated hair falls forward from either side of his face like curtains closing.

“Lots of places,” says Waitress. “How do we find the tallest peak?”

“I think these lines are for elevation,” says Rancher.

Exorcist is quiet. He’s thinking more about the thankful woman. She was one of the few, perhaps the only, who understood. She’d held his hand before he left, clenched it tight, and said, “I know this wasn’t a real exorcism, but whatever you did it was supremely real. It helped. Thank you.” She was not the kind of woman to use a word like “supremely,” but that’s how he remembers it, though sometimes he thinks that maybe she just held his hand and didn’t speak at all.

“This one’s the highest, right?” says Waitress.

“Looks like,” says Rancher. Waitress makes him uncomfortable, crouched there with her midsection exposed. He thinks women should have a bit more modesty. Yet it’s hard not to sneak a glance every now and then. He’s married but doesn’t love his wife. He was head over heels once, though this no longer feels possible. He does love his children, however: two boys and a girl, ages fifteen, twelve, and eleven.

“So, a bend near this peak,” says Rancher. It’s not hot, but he’s sweating. He can feel the cameras on him.

“A river runs down either side,” says Waitress. “Both have bends. How do we know which one?”

“Something about the sunset?” asks Rancher.

“Ah, right!” Waitress claps her hands and smiles. “Never…eat…shredded…wheat!” She dabs her finger along the map’s compass points with each word. “West. The sun sets in the west, it’s the one on this side.” Her confidence flares; she’s enormously proud of herself for figuring this out. Rancher doesn’t catch her mistake. Most viewers won’t either.

Hours and hours of walking; who has the patience for so much walking? It’s unwatchable. Five teams, at least four miles each. Some take unintentional detours, and one is heading toward a point nearly three miles from where they’re meant to go. All that walking, all that struggle, condensed into a subtitle: HOURS LATER.