There’s a bag filled with six packets of freeze-dried food without use-by dates. I tear one open. But the contents are no more than congealed paste and it’s too risky to eat them.
I return to the backpack and find a journal, a wallet, a set of keys. I look at the driver’s license. A red-haired guy in the big lips Rolling Stone T-shirt. Born in seventy-two. Alain Dufort.
I open the journal. Its pages mildewed and cracker stiff. Entries fill almost every page in exquisite neat penmanship. All in French. Wedged in the center pages of the journal are photographs—five. A family of four. Mom, dad, son, and daughter at an airport, suitcases at their heels. A man and a woman holding hands. A greyhound nudging a tennis ball in a park. Alain Dufort at a Bruce Springsteen Live in Ramrod concert T-shirt doing the peace sign to the camera.
I flick to the last journal entry, where he had written, in precise English letters—Snake! 28 November 1989.
*
I decide to stay and rest. A day at the most. I shake off the leaves and resurrect the tent and get inside.
My foot is in a sorry state. The wet has not helped, and when I examine my sole, it’s the color of an avocado left to go bad. I think of trench foot and the open fungal sores soldiers used to get, and how they needed amputations, and sometimes died because their bodies could not take the rot. I can do nothing but wash the lesion with water then bind it with a torn strip of Alain Dufort’s underwear, and hope that by some miracle I will make it out soon.
Next, I do an inventory of my supplies. Six potatoes. Two turnips. A quarter-full jar of mushy salmonberries. Eight long-stalked mushrooms I won’t be eating again.
Even though I have no appetite, I select a small potato and force myself to eat. It sticks between my teeth like straw.
Afterward, I lift the opening of the sleeping bag to check for critters then crawl inside. Closing my eyes, I feel myself drift. In the bottom left-hand corner my big toe nudges a forgotten balled up sock.
*
I am a child again. The sleeves on my sweater are retreating up my wrists. My mother tells me I must stop growing. My father’s study is quiet. I know I shouldn’t be in here but I have come for the Golden Gate, to trace its girders, stroke its suspension cables, smell its lubricant on my fingers.
I glance at the turned back of my father. He’s bent over his drawing board. A ribbon of smoke curls up from a ginger glass ashtray. I want to stop growing, too. I want to stay here forever, in the dimness of this study, watch my father work, touch the bridge, blink at the halo of lamplight on the ceiling.
My mother calls me. I withdraw to a corner and pull my knees to my chest.
“What are you drawing?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“Show me.”
Without turning, he says, “You’re not supposed to be here.”
But he holds up the drawing. A baby without a face, just an opening for the mouth, shaped like an o. I look down at my growing belly, feel it kick. Then he turns around and I scream. It’s not my father at all. It’s him, the other man, in my father’s chair, holding the faceless baby.
“Take it,” he says.
My eyes fly open. I am breathless and ready to run. Orange fabric swells loosely above me. The tent. I am safe in the tent. I wipe sweat from my eyes. It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself, it’s not a premonition, it’s not a sign, I don’t know for sure that I’m pregnant at all. I pause then, catching a new thought. What if I made certain I wasn’t? What if I was brave enough to take a stick or the wire in the frame of that backpack over there and make sure I wasn’t?
I feel sick at the thought. It’s too much of a risk. I could hemorrhage. My infection could become worse.
I haul my aching body to a sitting position and peel back the sleeping bag damp with my sweat. My mouth is a cotton ball. I need water so I reach for the backpack.
But the backpack’s not there. Twisting, I scan all over. It’s nowhere to be seen.
Outside, a noise. Rustling. My pulse begins to race. I reach for the only heavy object I’ve got—the flashlight—and unzip the flap.
A few feet away there’s a shadow and it takes a second to register. A wolf, my wolf, nose deep in the backpack. I stumble from the tent. Potato and turnip fragments litter the ground.
I look at him. “You lousy, greedy, thoughtless son of a bitch!”
He backs away, chewing.
I toss the useless flashlight at him. “Get the hell out of here!”
He darts into the forest.
I get to my knees and stretch for all I can salvage.
28
I wait all night for the wolf to return. I’m sorry I yelled at him. He was doing only what he is programmed to do. Even if it meant stealing from me. At daybreak I shuffle to the edge of the camp and call for him. But there’s no sign of him anywhere and after an hour I give up and return to my shelter.
*
In the afternoon, I rouse myself from a thick sleep and hobble outside to a nearby culvert and squat in the leaves. When I’m done, I limp back toward the tent and stumble and fall right on top of Alain Dufort’s head. At least that’s what I think it is. I stare at what could be a skull and a column of vertebrae. There are fragments of a T-shirt and a pair of pants, too. Using a stick, I lift away the clothes to reveal what’s left of Alain Dufort. Nothing more than a collection of bones, most of which are missing, including his arms and legs. But the butterfly of his pelvis is still there tangled in a nest of gama grass, as well as the slender bone of a finger.
Poor Alain Dufort. I wonder what befell him. The snake referred to in the journal? I think of his family who has suffered all these years not knowing where he is.
Close by is a pair of trekking boots still in good shape. I pick them up and shake out three tiny metatarsals. Would it be so wrong? I can hear my mother warning me of superstitions about walking in a dead man’s shoes. I try them on. A tight fit but better than nothing. I feel a surge of hope. Tomorrow I will wear these boots and walk myself right out of here.
*
A few hours before dark, the wolf returns. I am hot from the fever and taking in air through the tent flap when I see him. He circles the camp three times then drops into a patch of tall grass. I’m pleased he’s back. I watch him sleep. I long to touch the velour of his muzzle, feel his cool, damp nose against my palm. We are kindred spirits, with our various disabilities.
*
I wake before daybreak and lie listening to the wolf run in his sleep. A bashing fist of a headache lobs at the base of my skull. I look at the boots and push them away.
29
A thorough leaden fatigue has conquered my muscles and joints. The tiniest act is an effort. I know I should move on, that I must find food, that I need to get help, but all I can do is lie here in Alain Dufort’s sleeping bag and stare at the billowing ceiling.
Outside it’s raining. I listen to the patter and think of my little brother and older sister, and wonder what they are doing now. I think of how we once played a game of Monopoly that lasted an entire Labor Day weekend. I think of my mother’s basement and the steamer trunk filled with my childhood things, the Barbie dolls I didn’t really like, the drug store crossword magazines I devoured, the dress-up clothes three sizes too big. The collection of who I was meant to be. I wish I could go back and open the chest and see what else was inside.