Snow Creek(2)

Then the fireball gave way to a column of black smoke rising above the treetops. It was heavy, oily and very scary. It took her breath away.

I need to get out of here. Wait until I tell Amy. Oh God. She probably won’t even believe me.

Regina turned to leave and a voice called out from the logging road above.

“Someone’s down there.”

Another person called out.

“Shit no!”

“I saw something move,” said the first one.

“You’re crazy. You saw a deer.”

“No, it was more than that.”

“A bear. A cougar, then.”

Regina didn’t move. She wore a dark shirt and khakis that she rolled up above her dark blue Crocs. She didn’t know why for certain, but she was terrified.

Stay still. Still will make it go away. Make them go away.

She wondered if the animals she’d trapped felt the same way when a snare caught their little legs.

She turned and took in a big puff of air and ran as fast as she could. She never looked back. Not even when she lost a Croc to a root over the trail. She was the rabbit that got away, though she still wasn’t sure what she was running from. She carried that puff of air in her lungs, forgetting to exhale until nearly passing out. When she returned home, she noticed that her bare foot was bleeding. She’d cut it somehow. Sweat had drenched her back, leaving a racing stripe from her neck to her waist. She removed her clothes on the front porch, then let the water of the outdoor shower run over her. It was cold, spiking her body, mixing with her tears.

She hadn’t cried in a long time.

There hadn’t been any reason to.

Regina thought she heard Amy call out. She turned the faucet from her face, twisted off the water and retrieved a stiff, formerly white towel from a peg, wrapped it around her and went inside. She poked her head into the living room. Amy was still asleep. She didn’t like to be wakened. She needed her sleep. Sleep would return her to her old self.

She’d tell her everything tomorrow.

She’d also go back and find out what had happened on what the couple had long believed was an abandoned road.



The next day, despite the excitement, as she now called it, Regina went about everything as she did every single day. No deviation whatsoever. She checked the stove and added an alder log because a good one could last all day. She went into the yard, down a slight incline, to the outhouse and relieved herself. She made a pot of coffee on the woodstove. Dressed. Returned outside and fed the animals. The female goat needed milking, so she did that too.

Back inside she told Amy everything and implored her to stay put.

“I can handle this. Don’t give it a second thought. Something bad went on out there, but nothing happened to us. We’re fine. We’re good. Do not worry.”

Amy nodded.

Regina kissed Amy and went for her long walk, her heart beating harder the closer she got to the place where everything had happened. She kept her eyes peeled for her missing Croc, though it was nowhere to be found.

That’s my last pair. Maybe I can use Amy’s old pair. Purple’s good.

The forest was quiet, and the air had thickened. The change in weather had come. Early summer rains had finally given way to the warmth of high summer. Regina’s garden had a chance now. The growing season in western Washington is somewhat short and unpredictable. Last year Regina and Amy had a bumper crop of ripe tomatoes. The year before, nothing but a bounty of the fried green variety.

She stood still and listened. Nothing. Then she started to climb up to the road, her eyes searching for the spot where she’d heard the couple arguing, where she heard the car and saw the channel of smoke filtered through the trees.

Tires had cut ribbons of mud, and footprints were scattered about like fallen leaves. She rested a moment, taking it all in, before making her way to the obvious location where the crash and fire had occurred. Tracks led to the edge of the rutted road.

She stood there looking down into a ravine, and once more filled her lungs out of fear.

A body, blackened and motionless, lay splayed out in the bushes.

Oh no. Oh God, no. This is horrible. Someone will come.

It took only a moment before she went into action. Regina concocted a plan to make sure that no one could find the burned-out truck or where it left the road on its way to oblivion. It would be no easy task. Concealment is hard work. She knew that from experience. She and Amy didn’t want visitors. They just wanted to be left alone. Live their lives without the intrusion of the outside world.

How to do this? How to stay safe? Keep people away?

The slash pile left by the loggers beckoned her.

Erase.

She selected a skeleton-like fir tree branch from the slash. She surveyed the scene one more time, scanning for every telltale sign that someone had been there. Walking backwards from the furthest edge of all indicators, she began to sweep away the muddy tire tracks. Methodically. Forcefully. It took some doing, but she worked her way to the edge of the logging road where the truck had plummeted downward. Back and forth, the fir branch swished away everything. It was sandpaper. It was a cleaning cloth. A vanishing act.

She stopped and regarded her handiwork. It wasn’t perfect. Regina was fine with that. Nature isn’t perfect, after all.

Brushing her forearm against her sweaty brow, she looked one last time, before disappearing down the trail, still walking backwards and adjusting forest deadfall to vanquish her own tracks.