Beneath the Trees Read online

  The third day dawned overcast and cool. Colden was out of cameras. It was time to go home. She allowed herself the indulgence of looking forward to the hot shower and cold beer on the horizon at the end of her day. But first, there was plenty of hiking and ATVing to get through. As she rolled up her sleeping pad and took down her tent, she felt a little giddy. She couldn’t wait to get out of the woods, and she couldn’t wait to get back. She allowed herself another brief imaginative indulgence: that her cameras might be capturing something interesting, something valuable.

  Her pack was lighter and the hiking easier than a few days prior. The snow had dissipated, but the ground had not yet thawed into boot-sucking mud. She was refreshed by the concentrated work, the conversation-free solitude, and the long hours of sleep, so she kept up a fast pace and made good time getting back to the spot where she’d stashed her ATV. As she grabbed the first of the branches she’d placed to cover the machine, she felt clear and focused, as if she’d been scrubbed clean. Then the feeling vanished.

  Something wasn’t right. Her skin flushed warm and then cold with suspicion and alarm. The machine was right where she’d left it, but the branches were not. Had they just fallen away? No, there were the pieces with her own ax marks. Several had been tossed aside. By a good six feet. Not something an animal likely would have done. She looked for footprints. She found only indistinct depressions in the soft muck around the vehicle. The ground had thawed, refrozen, and thawed again in these last days, destroying whatever boot edge might once have been there. Colden pulled away the few remaining branches she’d used to obscure her ride.

  A gust of wind came up, the just-beginning-to-bud tree branches overhead swayed, and a bright reflection of the sun briefly bounced on and off the ATV’s now visible cargo carrier. Which was empty. It should not have been empty. It should have held a can of gas. Gas she needed to get out of here and all the way home. Colden traced her thoughts backward. She reimagined herself putting the red plastic extra gas can onto the back of the machine, double-checking the can itself for fullness and the seals and cap for tightness, using a bungee to strap it down, deciding to get an extra bungee because the terrain was full of bumps and because a bungee can always burst out of its clip. The can had been here. She had made sure of it. Now it was gone. One black bungee had been left behind, dangling there like something forgotten on a clothes line.

  This was crazy. No one in their right mind would steal gas from an ATV this far into the woods. They’d know that doing so was likely damning someone to a long walk at best and possibly an unexpected and underprovisioned extra night in the woods at worst. Colden quickly checked the gas tank—whoever had stolen the can hadn’t been desperate enough or mean enough to siphon out her tank.

  She thought back to her dinner with Drew. The area where his client had experienced vandalism was miles and miles away. Maybe it was the same person or persons, or maybe it was just a random coincidence. There were plenty of people in these mountains who were decidedly antiestablishment. Not in the way her mother’s groovy commune had been but in the conservative, keep your government out of my life, make sure you are well armed and stocked, prep for impending disaster sort of way. Of course, it could be anyone. So many folks around here were anti-something—against anything and everything they perceived as causing their own misfortune. Blame. Such an easy route to take. She thought back to the stories of petty thievery they’d been hearing about. Sleeping bags. Food. Gas. Essentials. Even magazines. People getting by by taking from. It wasn’t a new story. Just new to her experience.

  Colden shook off these thoughts. She had to get going. There was only a little bit of gas in her tank. She had plenty of unexpected hiking ahead. She didn’t think she’d have to spend another night in the woods—only if the weather got bad—but it wouldn’t be a problem. She always packed for a couple of extra nights as a precaution. She’d have a temporarily unexplained absence, but her parents wouldn’t worry. They knew where she was and would think the extra night had been her choice, as it had been on many other occasions. Still, she wanted to make the most of the light and fuel she had left. It didn’t take long before the ATV sputtered to a stop. It had taken her to the edge of the woods, where the trees and shrubs were beginning to encroach on an abandoned farm field. She dismounted and reached into her pack for her mostly useless cell phone. She turned it on and watched as it sputtered to an intermittent and single bar of signal. She sent a text, watched the wheel spin, and hoped the message would find a pocket of a signal to ride out on. She had no choice but to walk.

  Colden trudged through sodden fields and thick mud. It was hard work and slow going. But when she made it to the thin gravel of a small road that had once led to a long-forsaken farmhouse, her father was there, sitting on the tailgate of his truck in the slanting afternoon light. He had two small cans of gas, a large thermos of hot coffee, an Italian-style submarine sandwich, and a box of chocolate chip cookies. She stumbled toward his crooked grin and gratefully allowed him to lift her pack off her back. Newly lightened, she felt unstable. Dix helped her to the tailgate. She sat, and he bent over to unlace and remove her boots. He pulled off her sweat-soaked socks and handed her a fresh, dry pair he’d brought with him. She was happy to be a child for the moment. She was also relieved that no words were required between them. Not yet. He’d wait for her to speak. He knew how hard it was to get used to human company and conversation after a few days free of it. He handed her half the sandwich and poured the coffee. They both ate and drank. Colden threw a few scraps of bread to a chipmunk darting in and out of a crevice in a stump nearby. She was comfortable, warm, dirty, sore, and now also sated, safe, and content. These were feelings she associated with her father, having had just this combination of sensations so many times in his presence. She finished her meal, crumpled up the sandwich wrapper, and sighed. Her dad did the same. He put all the garbage in a bag and smiled at her. Now, explanations could ensue.

  “Who’s that?” Colden asked, jerking her head in the direction of the truck cab, where a furry black face was resting its chin on the sill of a window opened just enough to allow a dog snout through. She was not quite ready to get into her own story.

  “New girl,” Dix said.

  “Haven’t named her yet?”

  Dix gave each dog that came into his care a new name. It signaled a fresh start but also allowed the dog to drop whatever negative associations of abuse, mistreatment, or simply yelling in anger the former name might be carrying. He rubbed his facial stubble and shook his shaggy head of salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Working on a few ideas,” he said.

  “Have any ideas about who might have taken my gas can?” she asked.

  “Same person who took Fred’s chainsaw?” He shrugged.

  “Maybe it’s that Sasquatch Gene is always asking me about,” Colden said.

  “Nah. Sasquatch doesn’t have much use for gas,” Dix replied, handing her a cookie.

  The fat and sugar exploded on Colden’s tongue. It was delicious and slightly nauseating.

  “Guess I’ll have to get a chain and lock for the next time I go in,” she said.

  Dix offered a long and deep sigh in reply. Colden knew from their many past conversations that he was not sighing for her but for whomever it was whose life was such that stealing a gas can from an ATV deep in the woods seemed like a good idea. Or an obvious, necessary idea. The sigh expressed her father’s deep and unassuaged regret that so many people led such marginal lives of poverty and deprivation in such a stunningly beautiful place. It wasn’t exactly the scratch-and-peck existences that bothered him—many of the people they knew had actively and consciously chosen this lifestyle and rejected others. It was the poverty of spirit that sometimes came along with material deprivation and caused some people not just to envy others who had more but also to desire their downfall. Colden knew her father didn’t begrudge another person a thing. He didn’t think the world was a zero-sum game and had no bone for resentment in his
body. His sigh expressed his weariness that in spite of all this, one could not afford the luxury of naivete and still had to take precautions against the sometimes-hostile actions of others.

  “Bet Sally was pissed when you told her what had happened,” Colden said.

  Dix smiled that particularly wry grin he reserved for mentions of his wife. Colden and he were both amused by Sally’s rather more dim view of the rural poor. They also respected the fact that she had earned these feelings and opinions through her many years as a very effective social worker and advocate for the underrepresented and poorly resourced.

  “She had a few things to say, yes,” Dix replied.

  Sally did not have the same penchant for philosophical tolerance that her husband did. Colden took another cookie. Then another. She needed sustenance. It was time to trudge back to where she’d left her ATV, fill it with gas, and get it and herself back home.

  “Why don’t you take the truck,” Dix said, watching her. “I’ll go fetch the ATV and drive it home for you.”

  Colden shook her head, as she knew he knew she would. This was her mess. She’d clean it up. Just as he would have done if the roles had been reversed. Dix did not insist. Colden knew he respected her stubborn independence. He just waved her off and said he’d see her at home. They’d have a big dinner later tonight, no doubt. She’d indulge Sally’s inevitable and affectionate scolding over the perceived risks she took. Sally worried about her, Colden knew. Sally was not an outdoorswoman herself. She was not much for hiking or camping and occasionally sneaked cigarettes—Colden had found a stray butt or two out behind the garage—even though she had promised Dix many times that she had quit for good. Her father worried about her far less. He knew how well her skills and competence stacked up against the environment they lived in and the people they lived among because he’d given her most of those very skills and competencies. He was aware that she had picked up many others on her own.

  A stolen gas can was a nuisance, a price to be paid for living here, like putting up with blackflies. She’d just have to be more careful, take more precautions, next time. She knew he wouldn’t begrudge her getting the full impact of her error in not locking down her resources in a place where she had much and so many others had so little. It was no different than making sure your animal feed was secured from bears and rodents. She hopped off the tailgate, grabbed a can, and began retracing her steps through the fields.

  By the time Colden got back home, the house was filled with rich smells of onions, garlic, spices, and browned meat.

  “Eat or bath, first?” Sally asked when Colden stumbled through the back door and dropped her tired body onto a bench.

  “Dinner,” Colden said as she shouldered off her pack and unlaced her boots. “No, wait. Bath. For your sake as much as mine.”

  “How about beer?” Sally asked as she handed her a cold brown bottle.

  Colden took a long and grateful slug and soon heard the sound of water pouring into the tub—Sally, who always protested she was not very maternal, was prepping a hot bath for her daughter. Colden levered off her boots, released her feet from her socks, and examined a blister forming on her heel. She peeled off her muddy pants and her reeking shirt and walked to the bathroom in her bra and underpants. A thick layer of bubbles grew atop the steaming water. Sally waved Colden in, backed herself out, and shut the door. As she waited for the tub to fill, Colden looked at herself in the mirror. Her hip bones and collarbones appeared more prominent than usual. The muscles of her arms and legs seemed to push against her skin, unprotected by even a thin layer of feminine fat. A few light bruises from her pack straps were starting to bloom where her shoulders and arms met. There was a scratch she didn’t recall receiving, like a mark from a red sharpie. Dried mucus encrusted her nostrils. Twigs and a few dead leaves decorated her hair.

  No wonder I don’t have a boyfriend, she thought.

  She turned away from the mirror, peeled off her underwear, and eased into the slippery, sweetly scented water. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen. Muffled and intermittent conversation, the clatter of plates and silverware, the scrape of chairs—familiar, companionable things. She soaked; she scrubbed; she drained the cooled water from the tub and showered. Then she dried off with a thick, blanket-size towel, slathered herself with lotion, wrapped herself in a robe, padded to the kitchen, and served herself a heaping plate of sausage, tomatoes, onions, and peppers from the pan on the stove. Sally and Dix had already eaten and were in the living room, reading. Colden joined them there. She put a forkful of the still-hot food into her mouth and tasted last summer’s tomatoes and basil. She was suffused with feelings of well-being but also irritated by lingering sensations of disquiet. Her parents let her eat in peace. When she put her empty plate on the coffee table and tucked her feet up underneath a blanket, Dix set down his newspaper, and Sally put aside her case reports.

  “Well, what the hell was that all about?” Sally asked.

  Colden knew they’d all been puzzling over the same things separate and apart. So much so, it was almost as if they’d been conversing together.

  “I don’t know what to say.” Colden shrugged. “I don’t want to get paranoid. Maybe it was just someone whose own vehicle ran out of gas and they couldn’t, you know, leave a note.”

  “Nice of you to take that position,” Dix said. “But there have been a lot of incidents recently.”

  “Have there been?” Sally wondered. “Or have a couple of things led us to look for, to see, more than there really is? How much do we even really know? Are they all actual thefts, or in some cases, was it just someone too stoned or drunk to remember that they lost or loaned something to someone who never returned it?”

  “You’re referring to Gene?” Dix asked.

  “Gene. Joe. Dave. Rick. Whoever. Nothing new there.”

  “I think, in general, you’re right to be cautious about us finding patterns and causality where there’s just coincidence,” Colden said. “But things are adding up in strange ways. There’s the camping gear, food, and magazines Dad’s clients told him about. The equipment vandalism that my, my”—Colden wasn’t sure how to refer to him—“friend. That my friend Drew asked me about. Most of it isn’t enough to report to the police, so it’s hard to know what’s really going on.”

  Dix rubbed his chin. “Any recent prison escapes? Runaways?”

  Sally shook her head. “Inmates all accounted for. And there are always runaways. There are always teenagers out causing trouble. There are always addicts and idiots doing stupid stuff. Like what happened lately out at my grandmother’s place.”

  Colden and Sally looked at Dix. He’d have an answer. He usually did. If not, he at least would have a better question.

  “The motivations seem to be different. Between the robberies and the vandalism, I mean,” he said quietly. “The robberies may be totally unconnected. Teenagers in one place, forgetfulness in another, a needy friend or neighbor in another. Or a resentful friend or neighbor. People do plenty of silly things out of spite. Could even be copycat stuff. Someone trying to make one theft look the same as another in the hopes they can get away with it. That they’ll catch one guy and assume he did them all. The vandalism? That’s different. That’s someone trying to make a point. A statement. Whoever did that doesn’t get anything other than the satisfaction, such as it is, of knowing they messed somebody over. It’d be one thing if someone took credit. But so far, no one has.”

  “So, where does my missing gas can fit in?” Colden asked.

  “Hard to say,” Dix replied. “I’d go with opportunistic theft. Hunter or trapper would likely be the only ones out that way and also the only ones with the need and temperament to do something like that. Unless, of course, there’s someone out to get you that you haven’t told us about.”

  Colden flinched. Of course, he was joking, because who’d be out to get Colden? What had she ever done to anyone? But she knew about the Sasquatch e-mails, an
d Larry’s hostility, and the night with Liam. They did not. And she wasn’t going to tell them. These were her mistakes, her issues to deal with. She didn’t need them worrying about her. She didn’t even know what, if anything, there was to worry about.

  Colden spent the next couple of weeks mostly in her cottage, focused on her PhD research. She tracked moose movements, studied maps, overlaid data, plotted beaver dams and pond sizes. She was acutely aware that she was studying the outdoors from the indoors. It irritated her, but it was necessary, even though she had more aches from being in front of her computer for hours every day than she ever did from the most strenuous backpacking.

  At least I’m not getting any blisters, she thought.

  The days grew warmer. She was serenaded to sleep by spring peepers and woken before dawn by chirping birds. She opened the windows during the day, and the pungent scent of damp earth tickled her nose. The outdoors beckoned. She needed to survey a couple of beaver marshes and collect her own data cards. She also needed to get out of the house.

  She told her father she was planning to be gone again for a few days; he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Always a dangerous idea.”

  “I’d like you to bring a handgun with you.”

  “Oh, please. No way.”