Chapter 34 Cara
THIRTY-FOUR
CARA
My new Topanga Sunset Eco Yurt is everything the brochure promised! I’m buying another one so I can put them together and live the dream. ★★★★★
—Suzanne S
Perched on a rocky outcropping, Cara held pigeon pose and gazed out at the dewy, forested hillsides.
Last night, she had slept on a mattress—however thin and worn—inside the tidy, rustic yurt.
This morning, she’d used a clean outhouse, washed with soap and a bucket of fresh water, eaten a full breakfast, and done a series of asanas to relieve her epically sore muscles.
Thanks to Fisk, she felt almost safe. Nearly peaceful.
In the before times, Cara used to practice yoga in the hope of finding inner harmony, but really to tone her abs and arms. Namaste to that, she thought as she got up and headed back to the yurt.
Fisk was out front examining Lucretia’s front hooves.
“Had to remove a couple of pebbles, but she’s none the worse for yesterday’s wear,” he said.
“I have aches and pains in places I didn’t know I had,” Cara said.
“A few hard days in the high country will do that to a body.”
“How far did we go yesterday?”
“Probably eight miles as the crow flies but at least double that on the ground.”
Fisk slid a rope halter over Ruth’s muzzle. Lucretia and Joanie already had their leads on, and Maybelline was tied to a post, wearing saddlebags.
“What’s the plan for today?” Cara asked, expecting an answer along the lines of, Give a woman a fish and she eats. Teach her to fish in a crystal clear mountain lake, however . . . If they were going to be up here for a while, she needed to get outdoor savvy. ASAP.
“What’s your long-term plan?” he asked instead.
It was a good question. In fact, it was the question. “I’ve been so distracted by trying to stay alive that I haven’t been able to really focus on the future until . . . well, now.”
“Here we are. It’s now.”
What did she want to do? Right after the verdict was read, with the courtroom spinning around her, Roy Abel had whispered, “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”
He could have said anything—an asteroid just hit the earth, the judge is a cyborg, I have two Dodgers tickets, but I guess I’m not taking you—she knew it was just lip service.
But now, maybe it wasn’t. The only thing Cara wanted more than to have Karl back was to prove she was innocent of his murder.
Ironically, the best chance she had of making that happen was probably from prison, where, if she was extraordinarily lucky, she might live long enough for Abel to come up with a technicality or uncover new evidence and have the case reopened.
Going back to prison was a nonstarter.
In fact, she’d survived so many almost-endings in the last three days that she was definitely starting to believe in miraculous second chances.
LaDonna was right: the Lord had truly giveth.
With Fisk showing her how to live off the grid, it seemed possible to stay out of sight until she figured out her next best move.
“I guess I thought we’d stay here for a while until I can figure out how best to proceed,” she said.
“I figured you might say that.”
He headed toward the yurt, motioning for her to follow.
As Cara stepped through the squeaky aluminum front door, she saw that his sleeping bag had been stuffed in its sack.
On the worn wooden stump that served as both countertop and dining table there was a PB&J, a log of sausage, some cheese, and other snacks similar to the ones they’d eaten along the trail.
“Are we leaving again?” she asked.
“I am. You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want.”
He might as well have punched her in the stomach.
“By myself?”
“I need to make myself scarce until things blow over. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to go back to my place—assuming it hasn’t burned down by now. But they have to know we’re together, so I’m aiding and abetting a convicted murderer.”
“I really am sorry to have dragged you into all of this.”
He shrugged. “Shit happens.”
“Not this much shit.”
“War was worse,” he said. “To that end, the camo on top of the yurt is looking good, but with drones and satellites, you’re going to want to lie low during daylight. Best case scenario, they won’t find you until winter.”
She’d assumed he’d be with her, teaching her things until . . . she really hadn’t thought things through. By now, shouldn’t she have gotten used to the feeling of having her world upended every day?
“Have you ever spent a winter up here?”
“Tried it. Got snowed in for a whole month.”
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“I’m going to leave you with a gun. Do you know how to use one?”
Karl kept a Glock for protection, which she’d seen only once on the day he brought it home. The whole idea of having a weapon in the house freaked her out so much she’d told him she never wanted to see it again.
If he’d only ignored her and brought it on the glamping trip. . .
Fisk stepped over to his cot, grabbed a book from a small pile of yellowed paperbacks, and handed it to her. The title was stamped on the tattered forest-green cover in caution-orange block letters: How to Stay Alive in the Woods.
“Here’s the instruction manual. Read it cover to cover. But if you keep your firewood stocked, boil your drinking water, and don’t eat anything with white, milky sap that tastes bitter or soapy, or smells like almonds, you’ll be off to a good start.”
Why did it feel like another end?
“There are a few basic medications around, but if you get sick or hurt, or get any kind of significant infection—”
“I’m a definite goner.”
He nodded.
#LauraIngallsWilder
She wasn’t cut out for prison. But she wasn’t cut out for this life, either. “I don’t think I can make it out here alone, Fisk.”
“Well, people do tend to do better in the environments they know best.”
She could figure out how to cross the border into Mexico .
. . but what did she know of the country besides Cancun, Cabo, and how to order a skinny margarita in Spanish?
She couldn’t stow away on a ship . . . all that water.
Without a passport or any money to get a fake one she wasn’t getting near an airport.
The only place Cara really knew was Los Angeles.
And even then, only the Westside. “I can’t go back to Beverly Hills as the fugitive du jour. I’ll be recognized immediately.”
“That city goes on forever. It can be easier to get lost there than here. Most places, really.”
And what would she do when she got there?
Outside, Maybelline brayed in what sounded like sheer panic. Then Joanie, Ruth, and Lucretia joined in.
Without a word, Fisk rushed out the door.
Cara stood frozen, trying to decide whether to dive under a cot or run outside into the bushes.
“Got him!” Fisk shouted.
Cautiously, Cara peeked out of the yurt. Fisk had planted the blade of a shovel into a patch of grass near the donkey, severing the diamond-shaped head of a thick, tan snake whose body still wriggled enough to weakly rattle its tail.
“Is she . . . are you . . . ?”
“Everything’s OK.”
Cara stepped outside as Fisk dropped the shovel and petted Maybelline until she settled down enough to let him check out her legs, from hooves to haunches.
“You’re OK,” he murmured. “You’re OK.”
Cara’s heart was still racing. “What would you have done if—?”
“Can’t even think about it,” Fisk said, wiping away what might have been a tear. “Scoop up what’s left of that thing so Maybelline doesn’t start freaking out again.”
Horrified by the request, Cara stepped over to a pile of kindling and grabbed the longest stick she could find. She resisted the urge to close her eyes as she used both hands to lift the snake with trembling arms—it was surprisingly heavy—keeping it as far away from her body as she possibly could.
“Where do you want me to put it?”
“Edge of the firepit. I’ll show you how to skin and cook him before I take off.”
“The other white meat,” she managed, trying not to pass out.
Fisk laughed and shook his head. “Deep down, you really aren’t one of them, what do they call them—”
“Gold diggers?”
“I was going to say Karens.”
No Karen she’d ever known had a bingo card of grievances like hers: Husband Murdered. False Arrest. Life Sentence. Horrifying Van Accident. Harrowing Escape. Near Death Experience. Handling Bloody Rattlesnake Carcass was practically the free space.
“I can’t believe you know the term Karen.”
Fisk seemed to smile beneath his bushy mustache. “I’ve been watching you and thinking about starting my own YouTube channel to show people how to live off the land.”
“Very funny.” Cara dropped the snake by the firepit. “All I ever wanted or needed in life was security, and look at me now. How could I possibly be any more insecure?”
“It’s just my two cents, but it seems to me you’ve looked to everyone but yourself for that security.”
It was true that she’d been completely dependent on Karl.
After his death, she’d briefly trusted the police to find his killer.
Then she’d relied wholly on her lawyer. When the system failed her, she’d accepted that her conviction was the final word.
Her only chance of clearing her name was solving the crime herself.
And there was no possibility of that happening—not here in the backwoods.
But if she returned to LA, maybe she could find out what she didn’t know about Karl and his business dealings.
The spouse was always the primary suspect, but wasn’t she also always the last to know?
“Are you heading back to civilization?” she asked.
“I suspect our definitions of that are a bit different. But I think I’ll be safer on the streets for the time being than out here.”
As soon as he answered the question, she knew the answer to her own.
“Fisk, take me with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure that if I’m going to get caught, or even die, I have to do it finding my husband’s killer.”