Page 138 of Mazywood

“It went that way, then it climbed up. It moved so fast…”

“Show me, baby,” Johnny said.

Sharise released her tight grip on him, which had crushed the rifle against his shoulder. Gingerly, he took the rifle she still clung to, although in her distraught state she no longer seemed aware of holding it. He racked the spent round from the chamber and reloaded. She had forgotten to do that. Of course she had—she was traumatized, and she’d only had one brief lesson. He dug into his pocket for a fifth round, since he wanted the gun at full capacity. Most likely, he would have to fire several times, unless it moved too fast.

Johnny’s mind was ablaze. His thoughts might never have moved so quickly, watching the terrain around them for motion while he tried to calculate a possible passage up the rocks, strategizing on how he could keep Sharise safe while he looked for signs of Imani. Rapid thinking was his only safeguard against feeling, and a spoonful of feeling would poison him.

“Show me,” he told Sharise again. This time, she nodded and took mincing steps approaching the creature’s trail in the snow toward the cliff, clinging to his elbow, shielding herself behind him. From the tracks, Johnny guessed that the creature had burst out of a hiding place behind the boulders and taken Imani to its nest, the spot they had heard from the hollow tree. The tree was distant, but still in sight, so the distance was plausible if there were underground tunnels. He had never heard of tunnels this close to his grandmother’s property.

“It stopped… here,” Sharise said, sniffling. Her shaking finger pointed to the spot where the tracks ended, just beneath a nearly flat sheath of rock. “And then it just moved up so fast. A little this way, a little that way. But it never got to the top. It just… disappeared. Daddy, the way it moved…” Her voice was a husk.

“I know,” Johnny said. “How high up did it get before you couldn’t see it?”

“Maybe… thirty feet? Almost to the top.” A long way up—and a long way down.

Johnny peered up and wasn’t surprised to see Uncle Ricky squatting on the top of the cliff. He wondered if he would always see Uncle Ricky from now on, or if it was only because he had died here. Sharise’s finger was pointing directly toward Uncle Ricky, although she might never know it.

A quick look at the sheer rock face told Johnny he couldn’t replicate the exact journey of the creature. He saw some potential footholds and handholds a little farther down the wall, so he would have to make the climb his own way.

Johnny unhooked his snowshoes, puzzling over what to do about Sharise. She now embodied her own earlier argument on Imani’s behalf; she was unfit to defend herself. The climb up wouldn’t be impossible, but they did not go rock climbing as a family. He had no idea if he had the arm strength to make the climb safely, much less Sharise.

But he couldn’t make this decision for her, he realized.

“What are you going to do?” he asked Sharise, his eyes and voice sober. “Climb up with me? Or go back to the tree?”

Sharise didn’t answer, quivering with sobs. Her eyes looked at him blankly, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Sharise,” he said sharply, and she jumped. “Thirty, forty feet’s a long fall. So… what are you going to do? You come up, or you go to the tree and wait.”

Sharise rubbed her arms, shrinking into her jacket. “I c-can’t go in there,” she whispered. She wasn’t worried about the journey; it was the destination that petrified her.

“Then go to the tree.”

She shook her head. “I’ll watch you climb up. I’ll go up if you fall.”

The man Johnny had been only ten minutes ago would have ordered her to start heading to the tree immediately (It’s not a choice, it’s not a conversation, he vaguely remembered himself saying), since the creature might be preoccupied with Imani. And him.

Johnny almost told Sharise that if she didn’t go hide in the tree, no one might ever know what had happened to their family. If no one survived to tell their story, they would just become a tragic, unexplained disappearance to feed the legends about Mount Shasta. But he knew he could never bring those terrible words to his lips, and Sharise would not want to hear them.

Sharise was an adult too this morning, and she had to choose her own way. Besides, she was right. If he fell and was even knocked unconscious, she would need the gun. She would have to try to find Imani.

Johnny hugged Sharisse and kissed the top of her helmet. His pride in her and Imani only made him feel more wretched. They deserved more than this.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “It’s not your fault. You did everything you could.”

He might have been addressing either one of them. From the way Sharise’s face wrenched in sorrow, she didn’t believe him. But he didn’t have time to minister to her guilt, or his own. If he had agreed to come here to look for Tasha the way Imani wanted to—the way he’d always known he should—he would have been able to protect Imani.

“Do you think Imani was still alive?” he whispered.

Sharise nodded. “She was yelling. Probably cussing it out.”

Johnny gave a sour chuckle. Hope almost shattered the wall damming his emotions. He nodded and squeezed Sharise’s shoulder, refusing to entertain tears. “I’ll find her,” he promised. “I’ll find both of them.”

“Be careful,” she said, a plea.

He nodded, but he had run out of words. He had waited too long already.

Johnny surveyed the cliff face and raised his foot to the first jutting rock, about three feet from the ground. His foot slipped immediately, and his shoulder bumped against the wall. Hard. Sharise gave a startled gasp. He felt a sick certainty that he had already failed.

“That’s too icy!” Uncle Ricky called down. “Move over a ways.”