“HOWDY, FRIENDS,” ABE said as the group stopped a few yards away from us.
The leader was a man with a short beard, small eyes, and a mouth that wore a frown as its neutral position. He grunted some kind of a response.
“Where’re you headed?” Abe asked in a nonchalant voice.
“Back,” the man said, curiosity and skepticism making his tiny eyes even beadier.
“Huh,” Abe said, as if the man’s response concerned him but he didn’t want to say why. “Mind if I ask where you’re coming from?”
“The east.”
“I can see that,” Abe said, nearly letting out a chuckle.
“The mountain in the east,” the man replied. I could tell by the tone of his voice he didn’t enjoy being laughed at. But if his first response had amused Abe, his second answer brought the seriousness back.
“The mountain?” Abe asked, now in earnest. “The far mountain?”
The man nodded, looking satisfied that he had finally said something that apparently wouldn’t be mocked.
“So, it’s there.” Miho let her words out in a quiet wave of relief. Adam leaned closer to her, and she whispered something to him before speaking to the newcomers. “How far?”
“Maybe twenty trees,” the man said. “Maybe less.”
We were so close. I could feel the weight lift from my shoulders, but almost immediately it returned. Why were these people leaving the far mountain? It was supposed to be a good destination.
Abe was thinking along the same lines. “What’s waiting for you in the west that you would go back?”
The man hesitated, seemed unsure of himself, or perhaps didn’t know if he wanted to answer. “Nothing special about the east,” he mumbled.
“Nothing special?” Abe said, not trying to hide his disbelief. “Did you even go up the mountain?”
The man shrugged. It was clear he had not. A few of the people behind him sat down on the wet ground. I was ready to do the same, wondering how long Abe and this man would keep talking.
Abe took a few steps toward the man and held out his hand. “Abe,” he said. “You?”
The man paused. “Jed.”
“Jed,” Abe echoed. “Jed. Forgive me if I keep coming back to this. I just find it hard to believe someone would walk all the way to the mountain in the east and then turn around.”
“She told us the truth,” a voice shouted from the back of the pack.
“She?” Abe asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Black-haired woman,” Jed said. “She explained what was actually waiting for us up in the mountain. Nothing better or worse than what we’ve always had. She said the old place was cleaned out and ready for anyone who wanted to return.”
“We’ve come from back there,” I blurted out. “Look at me. Does it look to you like a good place to be?”
I could feel their eyes on me, feasting on me, taking in my gaunt frame, my scabbed face. I could feel Miho look at me.
“Snow gets deeper too.” Adam shrugged, acting as if he didn’t care whether or not they believed him. “You can go if you want. Gets pretty cold over that way. You’ll need something to get through the snow. And warmer clothes than what you’ve got on.”
“And our village is burned,” Abe said. “Yours might be too.”
“What?” Jed asked, looking confused, doubting us.
“She did it,” I said. “That woman. She’s destroyed everything. And now she’s trying to get you to go back.”
We all stood there in the silence, taking each other in. Beyond them, I could see the next tree. Beyond that, on the horizon, a narrow purple strip the width of a thread. Was that an illusion? Or the eastern mountain range?
“Is that the mountain?” I asked. “Can you see it from here?”
Jed turned around, moving so that he could see through the crowd behind him. He looked at me again, and I could tell he was weighing my appearance with the promises Kathy must have made about how good it was back there.
“If you can see it from here,” he said, “you’ve got good eyes.”
I turned to the others. “You all ready? I’m not going back. Not for anything in the world.”
Miho nodded, and for the first time I felt a softening in her toward me. Adam, too, seemed inspired by my action.
“Fair enough,” Abe said. “Wait a minute.”
I had already taken a few steps forward, so now I was even with Abe, could see his face, and it emanated peace and goodwill.
“Don’t believe her,” Abe said to Jed. “Come back with us. I’ll show you the way into the mountain. Please.” He finished by nodding a kind sort of greeting, something he gave each and every person who made eye contact with him as we made our way through their midst.
“Abe?” I heard someone ask. “Did he say his name is Abe? Is that Abe from the first village?”
Soon the crowd was behind us, and still we walked on, now with a clear view of the tree. Thinking about them going back into the old mountain nearly had me in tears. The dust. The bog. The cold. I wished I could tell them. I wished they would believe me, but I knew the way Kathy’s words could whisper to you.
I tried not to look back, but after two or three minutes, I couldn’t help it. I glanced over my shoulder.
Every single one of them was following us.
They weren’t the last group we met. In between nearly every one of those final trees, we crossed paths with a group that had been persuaded, always by Kathy, to leave and go back. Sometimes the groups were large, hundreds of people. At other times they came in twos and threes.
And every single time, we were able to convince them to turn around.
So it was that we finally arrived at the last tree, in plain view of the eastern mountain, with a crowd behind us that numbered in the thousands. As we got closer to the mountain, I could sense the difference between it and the range we had left behind. There was something calming about it, welcoming. It was bathed in a purplish hue as the light faded, and the trees were of every kind. There were maples and sycamores, oaks and birches. Farther up the mountain, where the rocky outcroppings became more dominant, evergreens swept the stone with their graceful boughs. And everywhere, flowers.
At the base of the mountain, I saw a woman standing beside a fire.
When we got closer I noticed that the mountainside was teeming with people. Soon the glow of a thousand fires lit the mountainside. There were more people there than I could have counted. The fires were like stars in the night sky.
We walked up to the woman. It was Kathy.
Abe turned to those behind us. “Go ahead,” he said. “Make your way up. We’ll join you soon.”
It took a long, long time for all of them to file past. I could hear the sounds of reunifications on the mountainside, people calling out in loving surprise to returning friends or family. Names cried out with tears in their voices. Hugs. The pounding of backs. The rustling as people made more room around a fire.
It was the sound of coming home.
“You all go ahead as well,” Abe said solemnly to the three of us.
“What? No,” Miho said. “We’re with you, Abe.”
Abe looked at me when he spoke. “Thank you, Miho, but I have some unfinished business with Kathy. You all make your way up the mountain. I’ll sort it out.”
We turned to walk away, and I heard his voice again. “Dan.”
He held out his hand, the same way he would have reached for me if I was falling. “I’ll need that key to make sure everything goes back where it belongs.”
I walked over to him and dug deep in the knapsack. I pulled out the key and laid it in his palm.
He nodded.
That was it. We walked up into the trees, into the smell of a thousand fires, and I felt emotion clogging my throat.