The trail eventually narrowed and began running alongside a swiftly moving river, forty feet or so wide. We followed it until we arrived at a place where the trail merged with the water. The bank sloped down, like a fisherman’s spot or where someone would launch a small boat. We went to the river’s edge. The stars were casting their glittering wishes upon the surface. A melodic sound filled the night. On the side of the trees facing the river, moss-like patches of long red grass brushed back and forth in the breeze, sounding like harps. My skin tingled, causing a shiver to run through my body. It would’ve been beautiful, there on the bank, if there weren’t so many unknowns, questions unanswered, all itching at my mind.
Tabby knelt down. “Let’s stop here a minute,” she said. She cupped a handful of water to her mouth.
“Wait a second,” I said “You don’t know if it’s safe to drink.”
She turned and gave me a skeptical look.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“Looks fine to me, like momma’s milk,” said Colby, kneeling down beside Tabby. He quickly scooped a handful to his mouth and began rinsing it around exaggeratedly. “Mmmm, tastes like it too,” he said.
I joined them at the river’s edge, slaking my thirst with fresh, cold water as pure as any mountain spring in the Montana countryside. I hadn’t realized just how thirsty I’d been. We gulped like parched horses at the trough, splashing water on our faces and necks, washing away the sweat and grime we’d yet to cleanse ourselves of. And when we had our fill, we just sat there, bellies full. Then I remembered the heat from the pouch. I pulled it out from around my neck, and dumped the stone into my hand. It was exactly as I remembered––tiny, smooth, shiny, black. There was no heat coming from it, as there had been right before the bird dove at me.
Tabby nudged my arm. She gave a sneaky smile and gestured to Colby. He was using a piece of fern to wipe clean his Nikes. I couldn’t help but shake my head.
Suddenly a splash sounded upriver, followed by another and another. I lifted my head up to look but could only see the orangey light from the planets, similar to moonlight, reflecting on the river’s surface. The splashing became a steady rhythm, growing louder by the second, as if a rain cloud had opened up above the river and was moving toward us while dropping huge raindrops.
“What is that?” said Tabby.
“Don’t know, but it’s heading our way,” said Colby.
I stood up from where I’d been sitting and backed away from the bank, the others doing the same. Then I saw it, or should say them. Fish, tiny fish no bigger than minnows coming toward us, leaping ten, fifteen feet in the air, and then diving. Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, their scales glistening silver in the moony light as they arced through the sky. We reflexively backed away a bit farther. We watched in wonder as a steady stream passed us for what seemed like a minute. None of us knew what to make of it. Then just as quickly as they came, they went, the splashes fading off downriver.
“Whatcha think they gonna do at that waterfall?” said Colby.
“Probably fly,” said Tabby.
“Or maybe sprout legs and run off into the forest,” I said.
We all laughed. Even with everything that had happened, we were still able to laugh. And it felt good, really good.
Tabby dug into Simon’s gym bag and removed the water bottle and went to the edge to fill it. A raccoon scurried from the undergrowth and stopped behind her. It paused, turned first to Tabby, and then to Colby and me, fixing on us with its tiny black eyes, before making a grunting noise. Three baby coons that couldn’t have been more than a few months old, bounded to catch up, playfully bouncing into one another as if they were having a blast. When the brood was behind their mother, she led them down to the riverbank where they scurried upriver along its edge.
“Raccoons?” said Colby. No sooner had the words left his mouth, than I saw it emerge silently from the forest. Graceful, its white hide a sheen, a long ivory spire protruding from its forehead. A unicorn colt, just like the kind I’d heard about in fables and myths since I could remember, stood right there in front of us. Statuesque.
Tabby and Colby looked at me, both their faces slack, mouths hanging open farther than I thought possible. The unicorn went down to the river and sniffed the water. When he lowered his head to take a drink, another unicorn emerged from the forest. This one was larger. It was a mare. Neighing loudly, she trotted over to her colt and nudged him aside with her head. She sniffed the water herself, like she was inspecting it. She lifted her head and whinnied, then she cautiously started to drink. The colt joined his mother, neither paying any attention to us.
“Unicorns?” whispered Colby reverently.
“Like we don’t exist,” whispered Tabby.
“They aren’t afraid,” I whispered. “Either never seen people or the ones they’ve seen treated them kindly. The deer, raccoons, and even skunks are like that around Whispering Cedars. They’d come right up to me and eat out of my hand.”
“That’s what animals were like in North America before Europeans arrived,” said Tabby. She took a few steps toward the unicorn mare. She slowly reached out. Only when she brushed her fingertips along the mare’s neck did the mare lift her head to look, with a honey-colored eye, before lowering it again to continue drinking.
In that moment, the direness of our situation seemed to diminish, and our surroundings no longer felt so alien and bizarre, as though the forest’s inhabitants had come out to greet us, letting us know there was nothing to be afraid of. I felt calm, even safe, for the first time since we arrived on that strange new world. Then something caught my eye. A flicker of light a ways off through the trees. I waited for it to vanish, but it continued to glow, only broken intermittently by the forest’s undergrowth.
“Hey, look, a light upriver,” I whispered, as if saying it any louder might cause it to disappear.
Tabby stopped petting the mare, and the two unicorns walked off down the bank as the raccoons had done moments before. All three of us fixed on the light.
“Whatcha think it is?” whispered Colby.
“Maybe the others,” whispered Tabby.
“We don’t know who it is,” I whispered. It could’ve been the others, which would’ve made the most sense, but then it was on the other side of the river. Not only that, but by that point not a whole lot was making sense. That safe feeling began to dissipate. Tabby stepped away from the bank, slung the gym bag over her shoulder, readying to go. The light began to move around.
My mind associated it with something that I’d seen before. At first, I thought it might’ve been a sparkler like people used on the Fourth of July. But then it wasn’t shooting off like a sparkler. I thought maybe a glow stick? But then it was small multiple lights clustered together, like a bunch of glowing grapes. I looked at the bank. A part of me wanted to stay right there for the night, wake up to that reddish sun beaming down on me in morning. Guilt washed over me then at even considering not continuing our search for the others. Like the guilt that I’d felt when I saw the fear on the faces of all those customers and employees at the banks Uncle Hanker and I had robbed. Like the guilt I still felt when I thought about them. We’d been wearing ball caps and bandanas over our faces, just like Colby had said, like two Wild West outlaws, Uncle Hanker waving around his chrome .38 Smith & Wesson, and me with brown canvas bags full of bills. All of it had been seared into me with a red-hot brand, so I would never forget what I’d done. If my heart and soul could be seen, people never would either.
Conroy and the others were still out there somewhere, frightened, hurt, and alone, without shelter. It could’ve been one of them with the light, trying to signal for help, hoping we’d spot them, but then I was certain they didn’t have anything like that with them. Or did they?
“That’s got to be at least a mile off,” I said.
“Just making plain old circles,” said Colby.
Tabby and Colby came over to my side and together we watched. There was definitely a pattern. A high circle, then a low one. Over and over again.
“We got to check. We got to make sure, right?” said Tabby.
“Yes, we do,” I said.
“I don’t like it, something don’t feel right,” said Colby.
“We’ll sneak up and find out what it is,” I said. “If it’s not them, we’ll vamoose.”
“They ain’t got nothing makes that kind of light,” said Colby. “Anna’s lighter don’t do that.”
“Lighter?” I said.
“She always slinking off to smoke,” he said. “You don’t know?”
“She smokes?” I said.
“Lots you don’t know ’bout her, man,” said Colby. “Betcha lots none of us knows ’bout her.”
“Yeah, betcha there’s a lot we don’t know about you,” said Tabby.
I thought of the text messages on the iPhone, figured maybe Colby was right, for once. I wondered if Tabby knew her sister was pregnant. “Well, let’s check this out,” I said.
“We fine right here for now. We keep going farther we might end up lost,” said Colby, trace of fear in his voice.
Tabby and I looked at each other. Colby stared at us hoping he’d get us to change our minds.
“We need to,” I said. “Just to be sure.”
“Okay, shot caller, then lead the way,” said Colby.