ALLUSIVE AFTERSHOCK (26 page)

“You’re probably right,
but we didn’t know it was going to be like this and I guess he didn’t either. His
place is out there, but not inaccessible and once people learn he has food
they’ll come there. I don’t think he’ll be staying there too long. Cooper’s a
smart guy. I bet he’s packing up now. People get really weird after
catastrophes. Some become violent like those two jerk wads. Others lose their
minds like the wacked-out lady looking for her son. She has such tunnel vision
right now she probably doesn’t even realize those guys raped her.”

“They raped her?”

“I’d bet my life on it.
You heard them, the way they talked about her.”

That made sense, but
I’d been so caught up in the situation, it hadn’t registered. I shuddered.

We hiked just until
dusk, and came to a small clearing and stopped.

“Are we going to camp
here?”

Court looked around.
“No. I don’t like it. We need shelter. Coop said it might get down to thirty degrees
tonight and that was back in town. It’ll get even colder up here. We can’t stay
outside. Let’s keep walking.”

My feet were already
freezing and the boots Cooper gave me were a little snug. I could feel a
blister forming on my heel. I looked up ahead and something caught my eye, a
reflection of some sort. I squinted at the brilliant light. “Court, look.” I
pointed through the opening I was facing. “What is that?”

“I don’t know. Let’s
check it out.”

As we got closer, I
heard a tingling noise that seemed to get louder as we approached the light.

“Look, it’s a wind
chime. Maybe there’s a house somewhere beyond it.”

We ran toward it,
excited at the possibility of finding shelter. We came upon what looked like
the back wall of a house and circled around to the other side. There was no
house, at least not anymore. The earthquake destroyed everything except for the
one wall and the fireplace.

“So much for shelter,” I
said, coughing, my throat scratchy and sore.

“We’ll make do with
this.” I shrugged off the backpack, setting it down on a pile of bricks. I
walked to the wall and moved some of the debris aside with my feet.

“We’ll set up the
sleeping bag here in the corner in front of the fireplace. The wall will shield
us from the wind and we’ll build a fire to keep us warm.” I stood in front of
Adela, her face a blank stare. I knew she couldn’t get her family out of her
mind and I didn’t think we would find them until we made it to some sort of
shelter. God only knew where one was set up. I rubbed a smudge of dirt from her
cheek.

“We need to find
something to eat. You’d better come with me; I don’t want to leave you alone.
We’ll stay close to here so we won’t be walking too far.” I searched around the
debris to find some basic wire and twine. I got lucky when I found a broken
picture frame with a wire on the back for hanging. There was a roll of string
in one of the broken drawers lying on the floor of what used to be the kitchen.
The string didn’t have a real good non-slip coating on it but it would have to
work.

Adela nodded. “How long
do you think it will take?”

“I don’t know. Depends
on the animals. If we don’t find anything within thirty minutes, we’ll come go
back and eat some of that oatmeal.”

We took off into the
woods. I found a small area covered with bushes and made a couple of little
seats with two rocks. I broke a small limb off a tree, tied the string around
the middle using a slipknot and shoved the branch in the ground at an angle. I
made a small circle with the wire, tying it to the limb and positioning it
three or four inches from the ground.

“Wow, you really know
what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“I hope so and with any
luck these twigs will hold the snare open enough for a rabbit to try to go
through. Once he gets his head in there he’ll be stuck.”

I pulled out the knife
Cooper gave me and we sat in silence and waited.

I heard a rustle in the
brush and looked up, tapped Adela on the knee and pointed to a deer. Her eyes
grew wide and she smiled. I shook my head. It was too big to kill and there
would have been too much meat to carry around without a lot of it spoiling. I
was hungry, but didn’t like taking more than we needed. I held up my hand and
made an inch space between my thumb and forefinger indicating something smaller
and she nodded.

We got lucky when a
rabbit hopped out from the brush moments after the deer walked away. I didn’t
want to take any chances—the snare might not work—so I held the knife in my
hand and waited. As soon as the rabbit’s head went through the loop, I took
aim. The slick blade landed right in the rabbit’s side.

“My God, you got him!” Adela
jumped up grinning. “Wow! What good aim.”

I shrugged. “I used to
practice knife-throwing a lot when I was a kid.”

“Your dad let you play
with knives?”

I grimaced at Adela’s
shocked tone. I forgot she grew up a little differently than me. Her parents
actually cared what she did and whether or not she played with dangerous
things, like knives. “Well, you know, my dad was always busy and didn’t pay
much attention, but he did give me a really cool knife when I was around nine.
That was back in the days when we’d go hunting together before my mom died.”
Before the boozing.

We took the rabbit back
to the wall and fireplace; couldn’t really call it a house anymore but to us,
for that night, it was home.

Before I skinned the
rabbit, I cut off one of its front feet and pierced a small hole through the
top. I found some more twine amongst the debris, wound it securely around the
end of the foot and then placed it in my pocket. Later I’d need to soak the
foot in water and something like Borax or baking soda, and I was hoping to find
a box of one of those in what used to be the kitchen. I was almost finished
skinning the little guy when Adela joined me. She hadn’t wanted to watch, but
curiosity must have gotten to her.

“So I guess your dad
showed you how to do this?”

“Yeah. We’d take off
every other weekend to go hunting or fishing.”

“I’m beginning to feel
very lucky Max and I stumbled upon you the other day.”

“Just beginning?” I
shrugged, wondering when Adela would start trusting me more than she did Max. I
took the rabbit to the fire Adela built, stuck a stick through the carcass, and
placed it on two forked branches I’d found.

Adela followed me to
the fireplace and sat in front of it. “Well, no, not
just
beginning, but
now I’m realizing how handy you are outdoors and ‘thankful,’ I suppose, would
be more appropriate than ‘lucky.’”

“I’m sure Max would be
able to do the same.” I didn’t particularly want to talk about Max but I
thought if I mentioned his survival skills, something nice about the guy, I
might have a better chance of winning her heart.

“No, I don’t think Max
has ever been hunting. Maybe fishing. His dad is … um … was different from
yours or even mine for that matter. He knows wine.” She laughed. “Except for
that awful tasting stuff in the barrel.”

“That wine hadn’t aged
yet. The stuff from the bottle was good.” I wasn’t out to put Max’s dad on a
pedestal, but the man did know how to make some tasty wine.

Adela frowned and I
ignored the befuddled look on her face.

“My dad drank a lot. He
didn’t care if I drank wine with dinner sometimes. He figured it was better if I
drank at home and learned how much I could handle than be stupid with my
friends and drive around half shit-faced. He meant well, in his demented sort
of way. He had a good point, though the last couple of years he was too drunk
most of the time to realize I didn’t have any friends. He was oblivious to the
rumors kids made up about me at school. He really was a good guy and a good dad
until my mom died. He loved my mom so much. When she died, I think a part of
him died with her. So in a sense, I lost both my parents the day my mom died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. I didn’t
really mean to lay all that crap on you. You have your own grief.”

She studied her hands
and then rubbed them together over the flames of the fire.

“Cold?”

“Hmmm …” she nodded and
sneezed.

“Yeah, it’s going to
get colder. We should try and keep this fire going throughout the night if we
can.”

“What or who started
the rumors about you?”

I didn’t want to answer
that question. I wasn’t sure I should, but then I supposed Adela ought to know the
truth. I just wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it. I looked at her and smiled,
then turned my attention to the rabbit and remembered the foot. “Can you keep
an eye on the rabbit while I go look around and see what we can find to baste
this little critter with?”

She nodded and I went
to the area of the ruins that I thought had been the kitchen and scrounged
around through the debris. The counters had collapsed, the cupboards lay in
pieces and most of the contents were spread all over the place. Broken boxes,
once filled with cereal, pasta and other dry goods lay scattered around. I
smiled when I saw a little orange box. Baking soda would have to do. I picked
it up, found a small plastic bowl amongst the rubble, and stuck the rabbit’s foot
in it. I used a tiny bit of water from our supply. I knew it was wasteful, so I
was careful to only pour enough in the bowl to cover the foot, about an inch. I
sprinkled in the baking soda and stuck the bowl in a spot where Adela wouldn’t
see it and went back to search for spices.  

I spied a drawer still
fully stocked with seasonings. There was a refrigerator too. I opened it and
nearly fell back from the stench. Electricity had been off for a week and mold
had grown over everything inside.

“Now that’s just
gross,” Adela said, standing next to me with her hand over her nose and mouth
and I quickly closed the door.

“How’s the rabbit?”

“It’s fine. Cooking. I
wanted to see how it was going in here.”

“Good.” I walked over
to some remnants of what must have been the pantry and pushed some boards
aside. “Adela, we are in luck,” I said, as I held up an unopened jar of orange
marmalade. “There’s peanut butter here, too and wow, a loaf of bread.”

I opened the cellophane
encasing the bread and smelled it. “It seems okay. Woohoo! This is going to be
a fine meal.”

I took the jam to the
rabbit and spread some all over the belly and around the legs.

“That looks yummy. I’m
glad you cut off the head so it can’t stare at us with those cute little bunny
eyes.” Adela shivered at her own words and I couldn’t help but smile.

We fell silent for a
minute and watched as the marmalade bubbled around the meat.

Adela broke the
silence. “I’ve never had rabbit before. What does it taste like?”

“Well, let’s see. The
texture is similar to chicken.”

“Um … all semi-exotic
things taste like chicken.” She laughed.

“Right. Like frog
legs.” I grinned. “Except this has a unique flavor, which will vary depending
on the age and diet of the rabbit. It’s got a gamey taste and the older it is,
the more gamey it will be. But I’d say our little friend here is about a year
old, which means he should be rather tasty.”

“How can you tell how
old it is?”

“I can’t exactly. I’m
just guessing. There’s really no way to tell. But judging from the color of his
teeth and claws, I’d say he is rather young. Wait. I’ll be right back.”

I got up, retrieved the
rabbit foot from the baking soda solution it had been soaking in and rejoined
Adela by the fire, holding it in a rag. “Here, you see?” I pointed to the little
paw nails. “The claws are still pretty smooth. As a rabbit gets older, the nails
become coarse and ragged. I looked at the teeth, too and they were still fairly
white.

“I’m preparing this for
you. It’s a good luck charm. I’ll have to find a chain or something to put through
the hole at the top. But in the mean-time, the twine should work. It needs to
soak overnight to help preserve it so it won’t smell. Then you can keep it in
your pocket and when things start to get too scary or you start to lose hope,
you can rub your fingers over it and maybe think of me.” I turned away at that
last part, embarrassed I’d even said it, and poked the rabbit over the fire to
check if it was finished.

Adela placed her hand
on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. “Thank you.” Then she turned away, stroking
the wet rabbit’s foot with her finger. I smiled.

We ate. Boy, did we
eat. Court was so right about our meal being tasty. I was rather reluctant to
eat a poor little rabbit at first, but after he spread the orange stuff over
the top, it started to sizzle and smell really yummy.

The rabbit tasted so
good and we had been starving after walking all day. We didn’t say one word the
entire time we ate, only grunted and made “mmmm” sounds. After we finished
eating most of the rabbit and a couple slices of the bread, I sat back against
the wall, rubbed my sleeve over my mouth, and sighed.

Court leaned back next
to me.

“That was delicious,” I
said.

“It was pretty delectable
if I do say so myself.”

I closed my eyes, fully
sated, but quickly opened them when I remembered that Court never told me about
how the rumors about him started. There were all those stories about what a “freak”
he was, about how he could make animals do things. Of course, now I realized
those kids were really just scared of something they knew nothing about, but at
the time, I had my doubts, just like them. Some of the kids were actually
afraid of Court. The way he communicated with animals and his keen sense of people
and his surroundings was awe-inspiring. The way he handled Big Blue the day of
the first earthquake, talking to him as if he were a person, the way Blue
responded by shaking his head and with his delighted whinnies and neighs, I
could see how a rumor like that could get started. But from everything I’d ever
witnessed or known about Courtland Reese, I knew he’d never hurt anybody, unless
his or my life were at risk.