7. Caroline
CAROLINE
I know from the moment I open my eyes that today is going to be a very bad day.
Clearly, Afon didn't turn himself into Frosty the Snowman or Jack Nicholson from The Shining, because I can hear him moving around the cabin, the clank of the coffee pot, low grunts as he talks to Wolf. I don't know what time he came back inside after his late night temper tantrum, though.
But I also know, from the stiffness in my bones and the grit in my eyes, that I slept like absolute dogshit. Every time I started to drift off, my brain helpfully replayed the moment his face went cold—How do you know that name?—and I'd jolt awake with my stomach in my throat.
I'd really like to stay in here forever. It's nice that the bed is cozy, but it's mostly because I'm a yellow-bellied chickenshit, as my dad would have said.
I'm being dramatic, but only a little bit.
What the hell am I supposed to say to Afon?
Hey, sorry I went through your nightstand, found the photo of your dead brother and a woman you clearly loved so much that you still scream her name in your sleep twenty years later, and then brought it up while you were sitting on my bed at 2 A.M. in a cold sweat. My bad! Anyway, about those envelopes—
Safe to say that's not going to work.
I press the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and exhale. As bad as that whole aspect of things is, the rest of my world is… about the same or worse, actually. My ankle is a swollen, purplish disaster. The knot on my forehead is lightly thudding along. I am, in every sense of the word, a wreck.
The bedroom door opens without a knock.
Afon fills the frame. He's fully dressed—boots laced, jacket on, the Remington slung over one shoulder by its strap. His eyes are flat and opaque, like someone poured concrete over whatever was behind them.
"Get up," he says. "We're leaving."
"Who's 'we,' and where are they going?"
He is in even less of a mood to tolerate my sparkling wit than he was yesterday. "Snow's stopped. Road's passable. I'm driving you to town."
"Now?"
"Right fucking now."
He turns and walks away, leaving the door open.
I stare at the empty doorframe for a while. Then I stare at Wolf, who pads up to take up the space where Afon was just standing.
"He can't be serious," I say.
Wolf tilts his head.
I guess he's serious.
I find my boots by the fireplace, still damp from two days ago.
My socks are crusty and stiff. My jacket, the cute Patagonia puffer I bought specifically for what I'd envisioned as a scenic autumnal hike, not a Bear Grylls survival situation, smells like wet dog and smoke.
I pull it on anyway, because it's either that or knife-sharp nipples, and I'm not in any mood for that.
Afon is outside, scraping snow off a vehicle tucked away in a stand of trees out back. It's an ancient Ford Bronco, army green, with rust blooming across the wheel wells. I didn't notice it on my way in, though in my defense, I was a little preoccupied with the blunt force trauma to the head.
"Where was this hiding?" I ask, struggling down the porch steps. The cold air nips at my face and makes my eyes water.
"Under the tarp." He jerks his chin toward the side of the cabin where, sure enough, a blue tarp lies crumpled in the snow. "I keep it for supply runs."
"Supply runs? To where, the canned bean store?"
Wow, I really thought that would get a laugh. But it doesn't even get a snorted exhale, much less a smile. Tough crowd today.
I stand in the snow, shivering, looking all around me. The clearing is blinding white. The mountains rise around us, huge and enormous. Everything is very still and very bright and very final-feeling.
"Afon, before we get all hasty, can we just—"
He rips open the passenger door and jerks a thumb at the seat. "Get in."
"Right, yes, that's what I'd like to discuss. I feel like we've gotten off on the wrong foot, so if I could have a moment to—"
"Get in the damn truck, Caroline."
His voice is not cruel. That's what gets me.
Cruelty I could argue with, cruelty I could fight.
This is something worse: it's resolved. He has made his decision, and my voluntary participation is not required for what happens next.
His manhandling of me onto the kitchen counter yesterday was proof of that.
It'd make things easier if I go along with it, sure.
But it's not mandatory.
Wincing, I get in the truck.
The leather seat is cracked and patched with duct tape. I'm pretty sure this vehicle predates my existence on earth, because there's no discernibly recognizable technology. Is that a cassette deck?!
I start to ask, then take one look at Afon as he climbs in on the driver's side and decide maybe that's not so wise.
He jams a key into the ignition and turns it hard. The engine coughs to life with a tubercular rattle that does not inspire confidence. Wolf jumps into the truck bed without being asked, settling down with his chin on his paws like he's done this a hundred times before.
We pull out of the clearing and onto a narrow dirt road—more of a suggestion than an actual road—that cuts through the trees. The Bronco bounces and lurches over ruts hidden beneath the snow, and I grip the door handle with both hands to keep from being flung into the dashboard over and over again.
We drive in silence for ten bumpy minutes. Fifteen. As we slowly crawl down the mountain, I feel my sass diminishing and my hopelessness growing.
I came so far, and now, I'm leaving with nothing I wanted. In fact, I'm worse off than when I started. I have only a bum ankle and a goose egg on my forehead.
"You promised," I finally say, unable to help myself. "You said you'd tell me."
His eyes don't leave the road. "I know what I said."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Because it's not safe for you here."
I don't like the way he says that. You don't use that tone when you're talking about bears and hypothermia and treacherous, grasping tree roots.
You use it when you're talking about something that's hunting you.
"Not safe how?" I press. "Is this about last night? Because I swear, I'll never mention the photo again. I'll never say her name. I'll forget I saw it and—"
"It's not about the photo, Caroline."
"Then what is it about?"
He takes a turn too sharply and I slide across the bench seat until my shoulder hits the door.
"You don't belong here," he says at last. "You belong in Manhattan. Not in a cabin in the mountains with a man who—"
He stops himself. His jaw roils beneath the beard.
"A man who what?" I whisper when he won't fill in the end.
"Who can't help you."
The road widens. Through the snow-covered trees, I can see the faint outline of other structures—a gas station, a water tower, the pitched roofs of a small town emerging from the forest.
"You're the only person who can," I beg him.
My eyes are burning with unshed tears. "My father is dead.
My mother is dead. Matvei's given me what he knows, but it isn't enough.
You have the rest of the story, Afon. You have the whole story.
And you're just—what? Going to drive me to a bus station and pretend I never came? "
"Yes."
One syllable.
Might as well be a bullet between the eyes.
We pass the gas station. A hand-painted sign reads PIKE HOLLOW — POP.
412. The bus depot, when we reach it, is not so much a depot as a wooden bench beneath a sheet metal awning attached to the side of what appears to be a combination bait shop and post office.
A schedule is tacked to a wooden post, laminated and yellowing.
A single security camera points at the bench, its red light blinking sluggishly.
Afon pulls the Bronco to a stop and puts it in park. The engine idles, coughing. He won't even be here long enough to justify turning it off.
"Bus to Kingston leaves at noon," he says, checking his watch. "From Kingston, you can get Amtrak to Penn Station. You'll be home by dinner."
When I don't move, he reaches across me and pops the door handle. The passenger door swings open, admitting a blast of frigid air that makes my eyes water again.
"There's cash in your jacket pocket," he says. "Left side. Enough for the bus and the train."
I pat my pocket. Sure enough, a fold of bills crinkles in response. He must have slipped it in while I was getting dressed, or maybe last night after I fell asleep, because I certainly didn't have it before.
The thoughtfulness of it pisses me the fuck off.
"I don't want your money," I snap.
"Then burn it for warmth. I really don't care, Caroline."
I turn to glare at him. His hands are on the steering wheel at ten and two, knuckles white, the bronze ring catching what little light filters through the dirty windshield. His profile is iron. He stares straight ahead at the bait shop as if it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.
"You're scared," I accuse. "So you're just dumping me on the corner like a stray cat and hiking back up that godforsaken mountain to hide in your little hut. That's cowardly."
For the first time since we left the cabin, he looks at me. "Go home, Caroline," he says. "Please."
The please pisses me off almost as much as the cash did. How dare he?
I step out of the truck. My boots hit the slushy gravel. The cold is immediate and all-consuming.
"If you change your mind," I say, gripping the door, "you know where to find me."
Afon just reaches over, pulls the door shut, and drives away. I stand there for a while and watch the Bronco disappear down the road toward the mountain, Wolf's dark head visible in the truck bed until it rounds the bend and is gone.
Then I'm left all alone in front of the Pike Hollow Bait Shop / Post Office / Bus Depot in my dirty Patagonia jacket with a wad of smoke-scented cash in my pocket and absolutely no idea what to do with the ragged, gaping hole in the center of my chest.
The bus comes at noon. It's 9:47.
I plop down and wait.
By 10:30, I've concluded that Pike Hollow is the saddest place I've ever been, and I once spent an entire Thanksgiving in the Newark airport Chili's.
The bait shop is closed. The post office is also closed, though a handwritten note taped to the window says BARB IS AT THE DENTIST, BACK WHENEVER, which at least suggests the existence of operating hours at some point or another.
Across the road, there's a shuttered bar called The Rusty Trout, a single-pump Sunoco, and a church with a sign that reads GOD IS WATCHING. PLEASE PICK UP AFTER YOUR DOG.
I've drawn faces in the slush on the sidewalk.
I've picked the lint off my leggings. I've imagined, in vivid detail, what I'm going to do to Guns McTaggart when I get back to the city: take those stupid crayons he used to draw that stupid map and shove them so far up his stupid ass that he's gonna taste Mango Tango.
The wind picks up, and I pull my jacket tighter. Noon feels very far away.
That's when the van pulls up.
It's a white panel van. Unmarked, windowless in the back, but generally innocuous and hardly worth noticing. I wouldn't have paid it any mind at all if it hadn't slowed passed the bus bench, then come to a stop about thirty feet away, engine humming.
My internal alarm goes off like a fire station klaxon.
I stand up. My ankle protests but I ignore it. There's nowhere to go. The bait shop is locked. The bar is shuttered. The church is across the road and up a hill. And even if I could reach any of those places, there's no guarantee that any living soul is inside a single one of them.
I'm alone.
The van's passenger door opens.
A man steps out. He's stocky and dark-eyed, wearing a hunting jacket and work boots. He has a buzzcut and a neck like a fire hydrant. The smile on his face looks painted on.
"Morning, ma'am," he calls over. "You waiting on the bus?"
"Yep," I reply, keeping my voice sunny and casual, the voice I use with sketchy men at bars and sketchy men on the subway and, apparently, sketchy men in the Catskills. "Should be here soon."
"Noon bus, right?" He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. "That one's been canceled. Snow on the pass."
My stomach drops. "How do you know that?"
"Buddy of mine drives it." He takes a step closer. "We can give you a ride into Kingston, if you want. No trouble."
"That's really kind, but I'm fine. I'll wait."
"Could be a long wait." Another step. He's close enough now that I can see the veins in his temples, the dirt under his fingernails, the flat blankness behind his eyes. "Cold out here for a lady on her own."
The driver's side door opens. A second man gets out. Taller, thinner, with a scraggly beard and a beanie pulled low. Unlike his buddy, he doesn't smile at all.
"We're just being neighborly," Buzzcut says. "Hop in. We'll have you in Kingston before lunch."
I take a step back and feel the bench press against the backs of my knees, caging me in. "I said I'm fine."
At that, the mask comes off. His smile vanishes like smoke. "You came down off that mountain this morning," he says. "With the Russian."
My blood turns to ice. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do." He's snarling now, practically gnashing his teeth at me. "Big guy. Lives alone. Got a dog. We've been looking for him for a while now. Imagine our surprise when a pretty girl shows up in the woods and leads us right to him."
The second man has circled around the back of the van. I hear the rear doors swing open behind me.
I open my mouth to scream, but Buzzcut is on me too fast for that.
His hand clamps over my mouth—calloused, reeking of cigarettes—and his other arm locks around my waist, pinning my arms there.
He lifts me off the ground like Afon did, except there's nothing careful about it, nothing that even remotely resembles concern for my well-being.
I bite down on his palm. He swears—"Fuck!"—but doesn't let go. The second man grabs my kicking legs.
They carry me to the back of the van. I thrash, I claw, I do everything the self-defense class at the 92nd Street Y taught me, but there are two of them and one of me, and I've been through so much in the last few days that I just don't have much fight left in me anymore.
The last thing I see before the doors slam shut is the blinking red light of the security camera on the bait shop wall, recording everything or perhaps nothing at all.
And even if it is recording, who would be around to watch it?
The fishermen are out, Barb is at the dentist, and God is busy ensuring that all the dog owners pick up after their pets.
There's no one to see me. No one at all.
There's only closing doors, and then darkness.