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“The woods.” Walt speaks in an almost reverent tone. “They came alive. The trees whipped at me. The bushes clawed at my feet. And the night screamed. Of every wrong I’d ever done. And there were so many.
“I screamed back, that first night. I shook my fists at the moon. I howled like a goddamn animal. The mountains wanted a piece of me? I was angry and mean and I wasn’t going down without a fight. But then, every time I closed my eyes, I saw them. All the people I’d hurt. The wrongs I’d done. My boy’s bruised eyes. My woman’s shattered cheek. The woods, they showed me the darkness of my soul.”
Walt pauses, he looks at us for the first time, and his eyes are not completely sane, and yet, the pain in them feels real. I know something about the darkness of a person’s soul. Of spending long nights facing your sins.
“By the third night, I had no rage left in me. I was a broken man, destroyed by my own evil ways. I dug a hole with my bare hands. Long, deep. Tremblin’ and sweatin’ and out of my mind with the fucking pain. I prepared my grave and readied myself to die alone, with only the screaming trees for company. I deserved it. Lord, I deserved it.
“I prayed that final night. No atheists in a foxhole, right? I laid myself down in the earth, folded my arms over my chest, and out of my mind with the need for booze, I begged and cried like the fool I was. One more chance. Lord, give me one more chance.” Walt raised his gaze heavenward. “And you know what happened?”
Keith and I shake our heads.
“Nothin’. I sweat it out. The withdrawal, the pain. I lay in the earth and shook till I thought my bones would break.
“Then... I slept. When I woke up, I was thirsty. Parched down to the core. But not for beer or whiskey. For water. Good, plain, clean water. So I climbed out of my grave and I staggered my way forward till eventually, I came to a stream where I drank my fill. Then I followed that stream till it led me to a trail and I finally found my way home. I’d been gone six days, with nights that dropped below freezing conditions. But I lived.”
“You sobered up,” I say.
Walt nods, but it’s not a triumphant gesture. His shoulders are bowed and I realize now his cheeks are damp with tears. Did the mountains save him or break him? I wonder if he knows.
Walt clears his throat. He has moved toward a rack of microgreens. He strokes the velvety shoots now.
“When I got back,” he says, “my woman was gone. Boy, too. Cleared out. Maybe they thought I was dead. Maybe, they just saw a chance to escape and took it. I couldn’t blame ’em. I woulda run from me, too. Course, you can’t escape yourself. So I stayed. I dumped out the booze. Every damn drop. I cried, like a sniveling little boy. And I walked. Every night. I had to listen to the woods. I needed the trees to talk to me. I had to learn what they needed to say.
“Maybe I went a little crazy. Locals say I am. They cross the street when I come into town. The store owners take my money but they keep their distance. I’m sober now, been clean for well over four decades. But all that drinking... It’s possible I pickled my brain. I don’t know. I still hear the woods at night. I still walk among the trees, listening to the wind tell its stories.
“And sometimes, I hear screaming. There are ghosts in these mountains, and they’re not all in my head.”
“What do you hear, Walt?” I ask gently. Because whether he knows it or not, he’s crying again, silent tears running down his bristly cheeks. And there is something so mournful about him, I’m sorry I was ever scared of him, even as I wonder if this is just a different shade of crazy.
“I hear you,” he says quietly. So quietly, I’m not sure I heard correctly. He looks up. “I hear you crying in that box. I hear all my sins, all the things I can’t undo, including my biggest sin of all.”
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. Keith has moved closer to me. What Walt is saying doesn’t make sense, and yet, I already know it does.
My pervasive sense of déjà vu.
“I told him to let you go. I told him it wasn’t right.”
“Who did you tell to let her go?” Keith, his voice strong and even, which is good, because at any moment I’m going to collapse.
“I was a mean son of a bitch. The things I did to my family... But I still didn’t understand the full awfulness of what I’d done. Till he came back. Reap what you sow. I don’t want to grow that kind of anger ever again.”
I try to open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“I begged him,” Walt murmurs. “I begged him to be better. But I could tell. The booze, the drugs, they had him, too. Or maybe, blood simply runs black in this family.
“My boy, showing up as a grown man. Strutting around these woods. If the trees screamed at him, he liked it. If the wind fought, he yelled back. I thought I was something terrible, unnatural, evil. Then, I met my own son.”
I have to put out a hand. I find a metal rack, grab on for dear life. Then Keith is there, taking my arm, shoring me up.
“He took me to the cellar,” Walt whispers. “He showed me what he’d done. He was proud. So damn proud. I heard you, whimpering like a kitten. A poor broken girl who just wanted out.
“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”
I’m shaking my head. At least, I think I am. His words are too much, bringing back the unforgiving feel of the hard wood against my head, the stench of urine as I lay in my own waste, and the gleeful sound of Jacob’s voice.
“I came back for you,” Walt is saying. “I knew he’d never let you go. I couldn’t bear it. I knew it wasn’t enough for me to do no evil. I had to save you, too, or the woods would never let me sleep at night. So I waited till I knew he was away. Headed out on a delivery with his rig. I was gonna rescue you. Break apart that damn box with my own two hands if I had to.” Walt took in a deep, ragged breath. “But I was already too late. The cellar was empty. You, the box, my boy, were gone.
“I never saw him again, till one day, I heard he died in some motel raid by the feds. I didn’t cry. Not then, not now. I raised evil, my biggest sin, my deepest regret. My own son, Jacob, who I’d turned into the meanest son of a bitch of ’em all.”
