part0308

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”

“What?” I said, squinting as I glanced from my backlit eReader to my brother Billy. I had a gray spot in my vision from staring at a bright screen in a dark room for too long.

He glanced at Marissa. Even with the lingering gray rectangle clouding my vision, I saw them exchange a look. Her lips pressed together, her eyebrows raised meaningfully, her eyes slightly narrowed.

Marissa the traitor.

Billy’s eyes widened, then he looked at me and growled. “That’s it. Get up.”

He didn’t wait for me to move. He walked around my mother’s hospital bed where she lay asleep, and he pulled me from the recliner by my elbow and steered me out of the room.

Billy didn’t stop until we were at the bottom of the stairs, and he only stopped then because I tugged my arm out of his grip.

“Wait a minute!” I spluttered, “Would you just hold your horses?”

His expression was impatient and irritated. “What?”

I frowned. He looked tired. His suit was wrinkled, and his beard was askew. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine, Ash. Except for the fact that my momma’s down the hall dying and my sister, after disappearing for eight years, has returned home just to become a ghost. Other than that, everything is just fine.”

I flinched, partly because the family room was brighter than the den; but mostly because his words scalded the marshmallow wall I’d been trying to build around myself.

I had dropped all of the balls I should have been juggling—specifically, the care and feeding of myself and my family—in favor of spending every spare minute with my momma. She’d even remarked on it, joked that I was hovering, commented that I’d become so pale I was translucent. She called me a glowing white angel sent to take her to heaven.

A week had passed since my strange interaction with Drew on the porch. Since then I’d been pointedly avoiding him and everyone else. Whenever he came into the den to visit Momma, the air seemed to shift. I always ignored it and him by burying my face in a book. Seeing him and being near him made me feel off-kilter.

Something in my expression must’ve made Billy regret his last statement, because his eyes softened a fraction, and he tsked.

But then he growled with exasperation and said, “You need to snap out of it—out of this. You can’t sit inside all day. Plus, you’re not eating, you don’t speak to us, and you don’t even acknowledge when we’re in the same room with you.”

“No, you don’t. Since your friends left, I think I’ve heard you say three words that weren’t spoken to Momma or to one of the nurses about Momma.”

He was right. When Momma was awake, we talked, I fed her, I bathed and dressed her, or I read to her. Every day, however, she continued to dispense random bits of perplexing wisdom.

When Momma was asleep, Marissa tried to draw me into conversation.

But mostly I slept, made mental lists regarding Momma’s eating and sleeping habits, or I read. If I remembered, I ate.

Until this moment, my brothers had let me be.

But I sensed that they were waiting for me to step up and demonstrate strength of character and leadership. I didn’t want to, and I honestly felt like I couldn’t. I wasn’t a leader—but I wasn’t a follower either.

I’d reverted to my childhood default; in Tennessee, I was an overly sensitive loner.

Now, as the truth of Billy’s words sank in, my gaze dropped to the floor and I shifted my weight. I saw that my feet were bare and a little dirty. Then I noticed that I was in yoga pants. I wondered when I’d last changed my underwear.

“This is it,” Billy said. “This is your come-to-Jesus moment, care of your big brother. You’re going to go upstairs,” he pointed up the stairs. “You’re going to take a shower, because you stink. Then you’re going to put on clean clothes and come back down here. I have an errand for you to run, and you’re not allowed to come back to the house until supper.”

I stared at him, opened my mouth to object, but realized I had no idea what time it was. “Wait, what time is it?”

“It’s almost noon.”

“Why are you home? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I came home during lunch because I was worried about you.”

I flinched, startled. Billy was worried about me. One side of my marshmallow wall melted into goo.

“Get on upstairs or I will strip you naked and force you under that shower myself. No need to knock; nobody is on the schedule for today.”

I nodded, my chin wobbling, my eyes filling with tears.

“And stop being so pitiful.” He said this harshly, right before he pulled me into a hug-and-hold.

I was shoved out of the house, but only after Billy supervised me doing my hair and putting on my makeup. He also picked out my clothes.

He justified all of this overbearing behavior by saying, “We are all worried about you.”

For some reason, this worked. I was discovering that my brothers’ concern for me was my kryptonite. Maybe I’d run away from them and Tennessee eight years ago out of an instinctual need for self-preservation and a desire to become someone else. They—as a group or individually—could effortlessly wrap me around their index, ring, or pinky finger.

Or maybe I was just feeling markedly overwhelmed, tired, and hungry, and was currently in a state of high suggestibility. Getting dressed, putting on makeup, and doing my hair all felt like going through the motions. I lacked the energy to care.

Whichever the case—dressed in jeans that were now a little baggy, a Mumford and Sons concert T-shirt, and converse sneakers—I was sent on my way. I was soon on the road to the backwoods ranger station; my mission was to give Jethro his provisions backpack.

I mostly knew where I was going. The twists and turns of the mountain road, along with the energy and focus required to navigate them, proved a great distraction. I was almost disappointed when I pulled into the makeshift parking lot for the small outpost cabin.

Billy had explained that this particular ranger station was a one-room cabin set on a hill. You parked at the base of the hill then walked a tenth of a mile (up the hill) to the cabin.

It was a beautiful day, and I briefly wondered what month it was. I decided, counting back two weeks, that it must be the middle of September. The air was still August hot and the ground was slippery from a morning rainstorm. I had to navigate the incline slowly, paying special attention to avoid the particularly muddy areas.

Halfway up the hill I felt the ground tremble in the same way it does when a galloping horse approaches. I stopped and surveyed the clearing.

Something was crashing through the forest. And it was large enough to make the earth vibrate. Before I could tell my feet to run, I saw it.

It was a black bear—quite possibly the largest black bear in the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest—and it was running right for me.

I gasped, horrified, even as I quickly calculated my chances of reaching the ranger station before the bear reached me. Those chances were a big, fat zero.

I did the only thing I could think of and what all children growing up at the edge of the wilderness are instructed to do if cornered by a bear in the woods.

I fell to the ground and played dead.

The muddy, wet ground seeped through my jeans and T-shirt. I tried to breathe and lay limp, but I couldn’t. I held my breath, my body taut with the anticipation of becoming a bear snack.

As a rule, black bears don’t eat people; not even the big, four hundred pound male bears like this one. They’re typically shy and only venture out at dawn and dusk. Usually they’re hanging out in trees, taking naps, and munching on berries.

So it made no sense for this creature to be running out of the forest at 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. He was plowing toward me like I was the last ripe berry bush of the season or a basket of fish.

I felt him thundering toward me as I played dead.

What are you doing?! Some part of me demanded. Get up get up get up get up!

I opened my eyes, stared at the ground. A little voice that was growing louder with each ground tremble commanded that I face the end of my story rather than hide from it and play dead. Hadn’t I done that enough? How much of my life was going to be about escape?

In a flash I remembered an article I’d read about a hiker who scared off a grizzly bear by standing tall and holding his jacket over his head; in essence it made him appear just as big as the grizzly.

Obviously driven insane by the pathetic notion of dying while playing dead, I jumped to my feet, grabbed the bottom of my shirt, and pulled it up and over my head as I faced the bear. It was close now; I could hear the labored breathing of the beast. I forced myself to open my eyes, and did so just in time to see it veer slightly off its original course. I tensed as it galloped less than two feet from where I stood like a mental patient with my shirt over my head.

That’s right. The bear ran past me like I wasn’t even there.

La-di-da, if you please.

And it kept on running, all the way to the other side of the clearing and into the wilderness beyond. I strained my ears, still holding my breath, and listened to the sounds of it crashing through the forest as the reverberations beneath my feet receded.

I twisted and looked over my shoulder, staring at the spot where it had disappeared into the woods.

“Oh my God!” I shrieked, looking to the left and right, followed by a startled, disbelieving, very hysterical laugh. “Oh my God, I just did that.” My legs gave way and I fell down, my bare back—save for the scrap of my bra strap—hitting the muddy ground with full force, and I breathed in the smell of the earth.

I didn’t care that I was caked in dirt and mud and grass stains. Nor did I care that my hair was damp and my body was sweatacular and sticky from adrenaline.

I was just happy to be alive with all of my appendages in place and not a scratch on me.

Then, I heard another noise, and I froze. It was a snarl. In comparison to the thunderous bear, it was a subtle sound. But the snarl caused a new wave of cold fear to twist in my stomach before crawling up my spine, because I recognized what the sound meant.

Slowly, I sat up and realized that the bear wasn’t running toward anything. The bear was running away from the rabid raccoon currently eyeing me with madness.

I screamed and jumped to my feet just as the tiny raccoon, its mouth foaming, sprinted out of the forest and into the clearing.

“Raccoon! Rabid raccoon!!” I yelled, running uphill to the ranger station. “RACCOON!!!”

The moment was both terrifying and preposterous. I hadn’t run from the four-hundred-pound black bear, but I was running from a rabid, smaller-than-average raccoon.

I hollered, “COOOOON!!!” but then grimaced, the hyper-civilized part of my brain shaking its head in severe judgment for using that word in any context.

I found I was gripping Jethro’s backpack of provisions in one hand and my shirt in the other; so I ripped open the bag and started throwing anything I could find at the rodent—my shirt, Jethro’s thermos, water filter, a bag of walnuts, underwear—all the while screaming, “RACCOON!!”

The little devil would not be deterred. It just kept coming and snarling and foaming. I tripped on something and fell, my arms bracing against stones, my teeth banging together with a jarring click, causing me to accidentally bite my tongue.

The iron taste of blood filled my mouth as my hands searched for something, anything to hold off the raccoon. I found a rock and threw it at the varmint, then another, and another.

In desperation, I screamed, “HELP ME! BEAR! BEAR!!”—deciding that the word bear would break through to anyone within earshot in a way that raccoon might not.

I clipped the little beast with heavy stone, confusing the animal for a few precious seconds, and launched to my feet. My hands were scraped; my arms scratched, bruised, and muddy; my jeans soaked through, but I launched myself up the rest of the hill, sprinting until I was sure my chest would explode.

When I was thirty feet from the cabin, I glanced over my shoulder and found the raccoon a mere five feet away. Reacting on instinct, I roared, turned, planted my left foot on the ground, and administered a swift goalie kick to the small raccoon in a way that would have made my high school soccer coach proud.

The raccoon sailed thirty or so feet down the hill then rolled another few feet. Apparently, it didn’t require much recovery time, because it immediately started back up the hill in mad pursuit.

I heard the door to the ranger station open behind me. I turned and began sprinting to the safety of the cabin, paying no heed to Drew’s bewildered and stunned expression.

“Ash? What the…?”

Without explaining or thinking, I reached for Drew’s gun, withdrew it, flicked off the safety, turned, aimed, and shot the raccoon.

I’d like to say that it only took one shot, but that would be a lie. I emptied the entire magazine and pressed the trigger several more times after all the bullets were spent. Some of the shots missed, some didn’t.

Rabid Raccoon: zero.

Ashley Winston: still alive and rabies free.

I stood, gun in hand, breathing hard, staring at the ground in the distance for an indeterminate period. Adrenaline waned, my heart slowed, and my body began to shake.

The sound of Drew saying my name startled me, and I jumped. Before I could make any other movements, his arm wrapped around my middle, strong and solid, and brought my back against his chest. His free hand reached for the gun. Gently, he took it, holstered it, and shuffled us backward.

I noted that he kicked the door closed with his booted foot and moved us farther into the cabin. Unexpectedly, my knees failed me and I sagged. Also unexpectedly, Drew swung me into his arms and carried me to a faded red and white checked couch. Even more unexpectedly, instead of placing me on the couch, he sat and cradled me on his lap.

I didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to cry. After a long time of sitting on Drew’s lap, I became aware that he was stroking my now wild hair and rubbing my mud-crusted, jean-clad thigh. I realized that I’d just faced a black bear with my eyes open and my arms stretched over my head. I replayed the rabid raccoon near-attack over and over in my mind, starting with the snarl and ending with eight gunshots.

Reality finally soaked in. I was wet, shirtless, scraped, bruised, muddied, and cold. But I was alive.

I stirred. Drew’s movements stilled. I shifted. He leaned his head away and peered down at me, his bright gray eyes wide and searching.

“Hi, Drew,” I said. The tremors had passed, and I wasn’t shaking anymore, but my voice was weaker than I would have liked.

“Hi, Ash.” His voice was deep, strong, and quietly commanding. “You want to tell me what happened?”

I blinked up at him, gathered a deep breath, opened my mouth to respond, and in burst Jethro through the front door of the cabin.

“What the hell is going on? The radio is going crazy with reports of a giant bear on the rampage and gunshots in this location. When I pulled up I found these…” Jethro held up his underwear, my shirt, his backpack, and a bag of walnuts, “…all over the side of the hill along with dead raccoon bits sticking to my shit like confetti, and…Ashley?”

Jethro glanced from Drew to me then back again. He seemed to be taking in my appearance: the scratches and fresh bruises on my arms, the dirt on my face, and the lack of shirt covering my torso.

His demeanor grew at once ominous and severe; he changed so abruptly that I flinched. His eyes were like glinting daggers as they settled to where Drew’s hand rested on my thigh.

His dark eyes lifted to Drew’s and held his with a menacing glare. “You want to tell me what you think you’re doing to my baby sister?”