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“Against a tree. ”
“So if we find a tree that looks like it had a high-velocity date with your fender, we’re in the ballpark, right?”
“Sounds good to me. Sure, yeah. That’d be a good starting point. ”
“It’s getting dark,” Benny whined.
I nudged him with my shoulder and started keeping my eyes on the tree line. “It’s been getting dark for an hour, but it’s not dark yet. It’s just the mountain’s shadow, and the trees. It’s fine. ”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘fine,’ but it’ll do for now. Get the lights handy, though. We’re going to need them soon. Weren’t we going to split up?”
It was Benny’s turn to join my chorus. “No. ”
Mine was as ready as it was going to get, there in my back pocket; Benny took her suggestion, though, and fished his flashlight free of the bag he carried.
“Eden, is that your tree?” Dana pointed at a likely candidate a few yards ahead.
I squinted at it, and tried to picture everything as it had happened. “No, I don’t think so. It’s farther down. I was closer to the hospital than this when I hit. I remember because I was looking for—” And at that moment I realized that I’d not told Benny the whole truth, and I wasn’t sure I was interested in laying it all out now. I wrapped it up short. “It’s a long story. ”
“You wrecked out here? I know you said you went out this way, but I thought you said it was a skunk you almost hit?”
“That’s correct. Incomplete, but correct. Look, I’ll fill you in later. I didn’t want Dave and Lu to worry, so I told them it happened on the mountain. That’s the version you heard, right?”
“Right. And now I feel all left out. ”
“Don’t,” I assured him. “It was complicated and weird. I didn’t tell anyone, so don’t get pouty on me. ”
Up ahead, I spotted a more suitable candidate for the tree-victim, and I called their attention to it. “Maybe there. That looks about right; I think I see something on the ground, too. That must be it. ”
As one, we broke into a jog until we reached the spot where the tree had been violently skinned right around fender level. Benny confirmed the site by holding up a red plastic piece of my blinker light.
“Okay. Now where did you go from here?”
“I went…this way, through the trees. I didn’t have a crowbar or a tire iron or anything, so I went looking for a good stiff branch to pry the car’s wheel-well away from the tire. It was bent in sharp—I was afraid it was going to blow the tire if I tried to drive it away like that. ”
“Right. Lead the way. ” She prompted me forward, and I reluctantly led.
“I went along like this,” I narrated as I went. I didn’t want to stop talking, or the eerie, harsh atmosphere would get too good a foothold. “It was dark though, pitch dark, and my light was—no, I didn’t have a light. ” I’d left it with Malachi, so I could find my way back to him.
“Don’t you always keep that little one right there in your car?” Benny asked, and I wanted to kick him in the shin for being so observant.
“The batteries were dead. I left it. Anyway, I followed the sound of the river. Listen. You can hear the river from here, but you’ve got to be quiet. ” I quit talking then. My companions didn’t.
“Are we that close to the water? I don’t hear anything,” Benny said.
Dana frowned. “Me either. ”
I closed my eyes. “Right. Okay, no. That’s why. I’ve got it now—I didn’t hear the river. I thought I was hearing the river. But I wasn’t. It was him. ”
“He sounds like the river?”
“When he was near, I heard a funny noise. Or, I didn’t hear it, I…felt it in my ears. It’s hard to explain. Like radio static or electricity, but not quite. You’ll know it if you run into it. You may not know what it is at first, but you’ll figure it out. ”
The humidity pulled close around us, and I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. Again I felt the pull of something negative and restless. Every time I wasn’t specifically concentrating on something else, like talking, the creeping grudge closed in.
Dana didn’t comment on it, and I knew she must have been aware of it; so maybe she wanted it near. Maybe, in her grief, she enjoyed its almost fierce unhappiness.
Benny was blissfully oblivious, or if he wasn’t, he had me fooled.
