These Silent Woods: A Novel(6)

Scotland bent over his backpack and opened the flap.

I put my hand on the Ruger.

He reached in and what was he grabbing—

I pulled the gun and pointed it because we had not come this far to be gunned down by a lunatic in the woods.

Crow lifted from Scotland’s shoulder and squawked, flapping his wings.

“Here,” Scotland said, turning to me. He didn’t even look at the gun, just right at me, right in my eyes, gaze steady. Not troubled by the gun pointing at him, not afraid, not even surprised. He wasn’t smiling but there was a glint in his eye that suggested maybe he was amused. “Here,” he said again, his hand outstretched.

It was a flare.

“You ever get in a pinch, set it off. I’ll see it. I got a spotting scope,” Scotland said.

Which explained how he knew how long we’d been at the cabin. I held the gun on him. Frozen. On the blanket, Finch toppled to the side and began to cry.

Scotland bent and placed the flare on Finch’s blanket. He scooped her up and bobbed her up and down gently. She looked at me, her chubby face red. “Put the gun away, Cooper,” Scotland said. “It’s not neighborly. And I think your daughter wants you.”

I held his eyes and he held mine and didn’t blink but there was a scar that traveled over his eyebrow, a thin white line on his tan, leathery skin, and it twitched. Still, he didn’t look away. I slid the Ruger back into my pocket. Finch reached for me and I took her and held her close.

“Listen, I understand the gun,” Scotland said. “After what you done, I imagine you’re feeling a little skittish.”

I turned to look at him, tried to catch his eyes again, read. He knows.

He was looking at the woods.

“But here’s the thing, neighbor. If I wanted rid of you, I could’ve done it by now. I could’ve done it the day you got here, June 29th. But that’s not what I want. I’d prefer not to have any neighbors at all, but you’re here and you’ve got your reasons, which is why I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt for now and call you Cooper. But if that’s our arrangement, I want us to be good neighbors. You understand.” He spat to the side.

Finch turned to look at Scotland and reached out her fat hand in his direction. Once more he extended his arm and grazed his knuckle under her chin. Up close, I saw it wasn’t just dirt that stained his hands. Also blood. Red streaks that laced up past his wrists. Scotland reached again into his backpack. He pulled out a small stack of newspapers. “Some reading material for you,” he said, looking at me. He turned and tugged a dead rabbit from a second compartment and pitched it to the ground, then slid his pack onto his shoulders. He clucked for Crow, who darted off ahead of him, then tipped his head, told us he’d be seeing us, and walked off and dipped down out of sight. Finch watched him the whole time.

That night, for the first time in six weeks I ate something besides canned beans and diced peaches. I never thought I’d say this, but no lie, that rabbit from Scotland was the best thing I ever ate. I skinned it and roasted it over an open fire at dusk and Finch just sat on my lap, flapping her arms and kicking her legs, watching the flames lick up and up. Gristle and fat, everything, I pulled every morsel off the bones and gave tiny pieces to Finch, too, her first meat unless you count whatever ground-up garbage was in those jars of baby food.

It was that night that I realized I was going about this all wrong, day to day, waiting for something, and what was I waiting for? A team of snipers descending on the cabin to take us, a fleet of police vehicles trundling up the dirt road. The end, that’s what I’d been waiting for, but that was no way to live, and meanwhile, we were unprepared for the here and now. Our supplies were running low and we would never make it unless I started hunting. Plus I decided I needed to figure out a way to call Jake.

That night I read The Book of North American Birds to Finch, like I’d done each night since our arrival, and she fell asleep. By then it had gotten dark, but I was looking forward to reading the newspapers Scotland had brought. The next morning, maybe, with coffee. An action that felt almost normal. I sat at the fire and watched the silhouettes of jack pines swaying in the wind, the bats that rose and plunged, bodies flitting in the dark. I listened to Finch breathing, that fast breathing of babies that has a different sort of rhythm than adults’, and for the first time since Cindy died, I felt something that was not quite peace but almost. A sense that maybe there could be something beyond the knuckle and claw of the present moment. That maybe there could be an us out here, Finch and me.

I told myself this could be a good thing to have someone close enough that if something ever went really wrong, I could get help, because how many dozens of things could happen out here? I could hurt myself. Finch could get hurt. Or sick. And what would I do? What was my exit strategy? I didn’t have one and now maybe I did, in Scotland.

But that night I dreamed of Cindy: a happy, sweet dream where she was holding Finch in a baby carrier, strapped to her chest, and I said, Let me take a picture. That part of the dream was a memory—it really happened, on the first warm day after Finch was born. Next, though, Cindy turned and took a few steps away but when I said, Okay, that’s good, she didn’t turn around, just kept walking and then there was Scotland, waiting for them, and Cindy wouldn’t look at me and for some reason I couldn’t move to get her and the three of them walked off and left me, only Scotland turned back and grinned and waved and his hand was covered in blood.