Chapter 8 A Growl in the Aftermath
The busted Prius felt very illegal to drive, but Green drove it anyway.
Valentina rode in the passenger seat with all the composure of a wet cat.
“I offered to travel your way,” Green said.
“You aren’t ready for the ways I typically travel.”
He leaned toward the console, looking out the sagging hole in the windshield, blinking against the cold wind numbing his face and stinging his eyes.
“We’re absolutely going to get pulled over.”
Valentina shook her head.
“The police are busy.”
They pulled into the Count and Countess gas station without incident and parked along the side. Alf paused in tying off a trash bag by the dumpster to stare.
Green climbed out and waved.
“Hey, bro. Little car trouble?” Alf said.
Along with the shattered windshield, the hood was dented concave and pocked with deep gouges.
“Yeah. That’s fair to say. Had a bit of an accident.”
“Mountain’s a little too full of accidents last couple days. You hear?”
“I did. It…really sucks.”
Green felt the urge to apologize, but he couldn’t find the words. He felt responsible. All the misfortune arrived with him.
“Friend of mine works as a dispatcher for the cops. Said those campers OD’ed. Like, all of them. Simultaneously. Shit.”
“I guess that could happen.”
“I guess. But two fatal nights in a row? I don’t like it, bro. It’s fucked-up.”
Green looked at his feet. He had no words.
“Hey, like, I don’t wanna get too personal, but…Did you grow a beard…in, like, the last forty-eight hours?”
“Oh. I guess I did. It’s been a strange couple nights.”
Alf tossed the trash in the dumpster and motioned for Green to follow him into the store. Jerome was in his spot behind the register, shuffling his deck of cards. He lifted his chin an inch to greet Green.
Alf pulled out a high stool, sat, and began peeling a banana.
“You want one?”
“No thanks.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to quit too. So, what happened to your ride? And who’s the angry lady?”
“Wildlife encounter. The lady is Valentina. She’s my neighbor up at Dancer’s place. And she’s sorta my boss now.”
“She lives around here? Huh. Okay. Thought I knew everybody in the neighborhood.”
“I don’t think she gets out much.”
Jerome tapped his deck on the counter and looked at Green.
“Oh, right,” Green said, bringing two fingers to his temple. “I got one in mind.”
He tried to think the card at Jerome, imagining the mysterious communication methods of red oaks.
King of clubs. King of clubs.
Jerome pulled a four of hearts from the deck and displayed it.
Green shook his head.
“Sorry. Not this time.”
The bell above the door jangled and Valentina walked inside.
“Cars are vampires and gas stations are the necks they bite to suck the blood of the land,” she said.
Jerome and Alf exchanged a look.
“Right on,” Alf said.
She walked to the snacks, grabbed a bouquet of Slim Jims and a bag of jerky, and turned to leave without slowing.
“Green will pay,” she said, passing back out the door.
“I got it,” Green said. “She isn’t usually like this. She really hates cars.”
“Damn,” Alf said. “I kinda like her style.”
“Hey, you think I could get a little more advice? I don’t exactly know anybody around here and my phone gets service like ten minutes a day. Do you know somebody who can fix my windshield? We’re in a hurry today, but maybe I can meet them later or drop it off?”
“In a hurry?”
“Afraid so. Valentina is kind of an expert and she has some business to do. Helping with the recent…accidents.”
“Shit, bro, yeah, I’ll help with that.”
Alf’s expression made it seem like he knew more about the real subject of the conversation, more than he was willing to speak aloud. He thought for a beat, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring.
“Trade me.”
“What?”
“Give me your keys, man. My girl Casper can fix your windshield. She can probably do it here. Or we’ll work something out. You just take my truck and go do your business. Jerome can drop me home tonight. No big thing.”
Jerome shrugged an agreement.
“That’s…really kind. I guess I won’t argue. It’s important I get Valentina where she needs to go.”
Alf grinned.
“You can buy me a six-pack sometime.”
The two exchanged phone numbers and Green turned to go. He paused by the door and looked back.
“Alf and Jerome. Keeping the fires of hope burning on the edge of the wilderness. Making community a verb.”
Green felt instantly embarrassed of his words.
Alf laughed a good-natured laugh.
“You a poet, bro?”
“I think it’s just the gas station ambiance.”
“Yeah, we know how that is. Good luck. I’ll text about the car. Probably won’t go through. Stop back if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow.”
He went out and found Valentina standing at the edge of the parking lot, facing the woods and eating a piece of jerky like it had wronged her personally. She wore a heavy backpack that, apparently, she wasn’t comfortable leaving in the car.
“Teacher? You alright?”
“No, Mr. Green,” she said through the chewing. “But I’m working on it.”
She continued to do violence to her snack.
“I’ll…just wait in the truck.”
“Truck?”
“Alf is loaning us his vehicle.”
He climbed into the truck and waited.
After a few minutes, she walked into the gas station, returned, then climbed into the passenger seat.
Green shot her a questioning look.
“I needed to thank him.”
“Oh? That was nice. Why?”
“Because the point of manners is to remind us to align our behavior with our values even when we don’t feel like it. Now drive.”
He did.
Alf’s truck was old and well maintained. It ran rough, but felt solid.
Valentina, with crossed arms and threatening blankness, guided Green to Kinkaid Cabins, a small camp in the foothills south of Candle-Fly.
Most of her guiding involved barking out cardinal directions and working to contain her annoyance when Green’s internal compass failed and he had to ask, “Right or left?”
It was late afternoon when they arrived. The shadows had all bled together beneath the looming western mountains. Green spotted a sheriff’s cruiser blocking a narrow drive leading off into the woods next to a large, colorful sign for Kinkaid Cabins.
“That’s it,” Valentina said. “Drive past.”
The cruiser was empty. Green drove on, slowing the truck around the next curve.
“Okay, now what?”
“We find a place to park on the shoulder out of view of the entrance.”
Her businesslike neutrality was back. It was worse than her anger. It brought to mind the seriousness of the day’s work.
“There. Park there.”
Green pulled the truck off onto the wide gravel berm.
They climbed out and Green felt a pang of guilt about leaving Alf’s truck on a roadside while they were probably committing a crime.
This is literally a matter of life and death. He’d understand.
Valentina leapt up the steep ten-foot embankment like a mountain goat and disappeared onto the flatter ground above.
Green did not leap up like any kind of goat. He scrabbled up on all fours, sliding two feet for every four he gained. He arrived at the top with muddy hands and knees, smelling like humus and leaf rot.
Valentina was twenty feet ahead kneeling over her backpack. He joined her, breathing hard.
“Hey, Teacher, what do we do when we do encounter the police?”
“I am preparing for that now.”
Valentina pulled a soiled tan pillowcase from her bag and held it up. Something the size of a softball swung within. The bulge struggled and then went still.
“What is that?”
She shouldered her backpack and carried the pillowcase at her side.
“Come. We can walk and discuss this. We’re losing the light.”
Green saw something in the pillowcase kick off of Valentina’s leg as she walked.
“Really, though, what is in there?”
Valentina sighed.
“Mr. Green, none of what has happened in the last few days would have been anywhere near my first-year’s cryptonaturalist curriculum if I could have arranged ideal circumstances. Do you understand that?”
“Sure, I get that. Why?”
“Well, because this follows that pattern.”
They walked through woods clinging to late summer, wading through waist-high underbrush, skirting the grasping thorns and briars where they could.
“Concealment is worthy knowledge for a cryptonaturalist,” Valentina continued. “But obviously we would prefer circumstances less grim and a method less suspect.”
“Suspect?”
“I am mincing my words. Unethical is what I mean. The method we use today is frankly unethical. It’s a poor excuse, but we are in an emergency situation with no time to prepare something less distasteful.”
“Alright. So? What is in that bag?”
“Do you know what a mole cricket is?”
“No.”
“Fascinating insect. Herbivore. Incredible burrower. In the family Gryllotalpidae, in the order Orthoptera.”
“And that’s what’s in the pillowcase?”
“No, I was using an insect I thought you would know as a reference point.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Ignorance is not a sin, Mr. Green.”
“So, this thing is like a mole cricket?”
“Yes. But much larger. Rarer. Meaner. And venomous.”
“Jesus. You’re going to let a venomous cryptid attack the police?”
“No, it’s going to attack us.”
Green’s stomach did a somersault. He looked at the lump in the pillowcase. It seemed bigger than before.
“So, when you said unethical, you meant unethical to us?”
“No, unethical to put a living thing in a sack and frighten it into a defensive behavior. This is not how we conduct ourselves. I am doing it to save lives. It won’t do lasting harm to the cricket, but it is still ugly behavior for any kind of naturalist. I knew where one was and I couldn’t arrange another method by this afternoon. ”
“What is that thing called?”
“Pennington’s Cricket. A tacky name given by an odious man, but hardly the fault of the animal.”
Two gunshots rang out ahead.
They sounded like firecrackers, so loud and close that Green was shocked they couldn’t see the source.
“We need to move,” Valentina said.