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May 1971—Greenfield, Massachusetts
Remi had bought a little .22 caliber rifle and some bullets to hunt rabbits. So far, he’d only killed a couple of squirrels with the rifle, but they were edible in a stew that Marie made. He’d found a metal pipe sticking out of the mountain on the road toward Turner’s Falls, and out of it gushed fresh spring water. Every day or two, Marie or Angela would go to the pipe and fill some milk jugs with water. They were doing okay camping, but the bugs were horrible.
While at the camp taking a break from hunting, he said, “We’re running out of money, and it’s too hard living like this. We’re going to have to move. I’ll need to get a job, and we can get a house. We’ll need new names so the police don’t come after us, so I think we should be the Forest family since we live in the woods. I’ll be Luke. What do you want to be called?
“Can I be Angel?” Angela asked.
“That’s good,” Remi said. “Angel’s good.”
“I’ll be Willow,” said Marie.
“Willow, okay. What about Julian?”
“Jules,” Marie said. “We’ll just call him Jules like we always have.”
Remi nodded. “We can just call Theo ‘Theo’ since nobody even knows about him.”
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During the next couple of weeks, “Luke” searched around town for a decent job, without much luck. Since Luke Forest didn’t have a Social Security number, he’d have to work for cash. He hitchhiked over the river to Turner’s Falls, but he still didn’t find anything good enough. The communes were his best bet. The hippies told Luke they didn’t get paid more than a little spending money, though they received room and meals. Luke thought that sounded kind of risky—he wanted anonymity—but perhaps he and the kids could just go there for a little while and leave if they needed to.
Back at the camp, Luke said, “Start packing up while I finish hunting. We’re going to leave tomorrow.” He hunted close to the riverbank where he’d shot a rabbit several days before. He shot two more squirrels, dressed them, and headed back up to camp. Luke was worried about getting used to their new names, including his own.
As he trudged up the hill, he thought he saw some movement beyond the camp. He stood still, spotting someone watching Willow from above. Luke put down the squirrels and shot twice just below the rise where the watcher had concealed himself. The watcher jumped up and started scrambling up the hill. Luke yelled to the girls, “Someone’s spying on us! Get your stuff and head down the Indian path to the bridge. I’ll chase him off.”
“We can’t carry the kids and all this stuff!” Marie—Willow—said.
“I’ll take care of Jules. GO!”
He darted up the hill and shot a few more times near the feet of the intruder. The watcher looked like a teenage boy. The boy fell down hard onto his face and stopped moving. Luke panicked. Had he shot him? Luke approached cautiously, then nudged the boy with his foot. He didn’t move. Hopefully he was just knocked out or playing dead. Luke kicked him onto his back and winced. The boy’s face was covered in blood that streamed from a gash on his head. He hadn’t been shot, but he was definitely out cold. Luke was relieved, but then another thought hit him. What if the boy wasn’t alone? The others would have heard the gunshots.
Luke ran back down to the campsite and grabbed his stuff together and looked around for anything else he should take. He heard Jules screeching outside, so he went out to grab him. Jules was up the hill, climbing onto the head of the boy. Luke screamed in panic,“Jules, get off! Get off! As Luke ran up to get him, the boy woke up, screaming and flailing. Jules was thrown against a tree. The boy got up and stumbled up the hill, probably blinded by the blood in his eyes.
Jules was hurt! Luke picked him up, and Jules twitched in his arms. Then he went still. His neck was broken. Luke let out a primal scream and started sobbing. His son was dead, and someone would definitely be coming for him. He ran to the cave, desperately dug a shallow grave using a stick and his hands, and buried Jules. He carefully tamped the soil back down so nobody would see it. It was all he could do. He grabbed his stuff and took off down the road after tossing his rifle into a thicket.