Nothing Gold Can Stay

EIGHTEEN

Wood River Mountains, September 6

She was so cold.

She couldn’t feel her hands anymore. Her feet had been numb since the night before.

She knew a storm was coming the previous afternoon when the low, dark clouds took over the sky and the wind began to bite into her flesh, but she’d never been outside in a storm before and she had had no idea how cold it would be.

She’d found rudimentary shelter in a hollow against the side of the uprooted cottonwood. What little wit she had left had murmured that something else might regard that hollow as its own, but she was too tired and too hungry and too cold to care. She found a long branch and propped it against the trunk over the hollow. She found other branches and leaned them against the first. She scraped together a covering of pine needles and fallen leaves and more branches, and then she crawled beneath it and curled into a sodden ball, shoving her hands between her thighs. If he found her, he found her. She had to rest. And she could go no further in the dark. She had fallen the night before and hurt her leg. She could still walk, but for a few paralyzing moments she had thought that it was broken, that she would be unable to move, to run, to flee, to fight if need be.

If he had come on her then, he would have had her.

Somehow, she had managed to pull herself to her feet and stagger on. She knew he wasn’t far behind her. She could feel him coming, feel his rage, feel his hands on her, his penis thrusting into her, and she simply could not bear to endure that again. Better to die out here in the wilderness. Mark was dead-no, no, don’t think of Mark, bleeding his life away while she went like a lamb to his slaughterer-she might as well be, too. All she wanted now was to die in peace, and not to be buried next to all the other Elaines in that sun-dappled dell of death.

In some part of her mind, the part that was still able to wonder, to think, she was amazed that she had made it this far. She couldn’t believe that she had escaped in the first place. Squirting the Windex into his eyes had been pure instinct; she hadn’t even known she had still been carrying it.

She wondered what was in it, in Windex. Alcohol, maybe, that was why it evaporated so fast. And why it stung the eyes so much. Who made it? Johnson and Johnson? Procter and Gamble? She would write their president a letter of appreciation, whoever they were and whomever he was. She would give a testimonial. She would clean her windows with Windex for the rest of her life. She’d order it by the case, by the pallet, by the truckload-

Her stomach growled. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. I know you’re hungry. So am I. We don’t have any food, so just shut up.

She’d found some highbush cranberries that morning and gobbled them down, equally oblivious to the piles of bear scat with cranberry seeds in them and the seeds themselves, which took up most of the fruit. They were so tart as to be nearly sour, but they gave her a spurt of energy that finally got her out of the valley.

She was on the downside of a set of rolling foothills now. Before her spread an immense flat marsh with a wide river snaking across it. She knew the sun came up in the east, and she also knew that this was Alaska, that it was September and the sunrise was moving steadily south. Bristol Bay lay to the southeast. Newenham was in the southeast. They had changed planes in Newenham. There were houses in Newenham, warm houses, and stores, stores with food on the shelves, and running water, hot water, and telephones and television and maybe even a bead store.

From something Mark had said once-no, no, don’t think of Mark, facedown in the icy water-she knew enough to follow the rill downstream to a creek, the creek downstream to a river, the river downstream to the sea and civilization. And she knew that he knew it, too, and would be hard on her heels.

Her stomach growled again. Shut up shut up shut up. She found a stand of fireweed, and she remembered from the herb book that Natives ate the pith. She’d paused precious moments in her flight to strip the leaves and crack the stems, only to find the marrow woody. She ate it anyway, and dug up the roots because the book had said those were edible, too. The taste of the dirt was cool and metallic. Later she stumbled into a patch of wild celery, something her friend at work had called pushki, and she picked some and peeled it and ate it. It, too, was wooden and tasteless. Blisters were already forming where one of the leaves had brushed her arm. Because she was trying not to follow the creeks downhill too closely, she had no water to wash until it was too late.

And then there was the blood.

It wasn’t all hers.

The bear had come out of nowhere, rising up out of the dense thicket of alders like a colossus, spreading his arms wide, claws extended, roaring out his rage and fear at her trespass. He’d been eating a snowshoe hare. He swiped at her with one taloned paw and sent her tumbling head over heels, until she crashed into the trunk of a birch tree. She was dizzy and disoriented, too stunned to move. She could feel the wound on her shoulder and back, but it was more of a dull ache than a biting pain.

The bear growled and snarled and tore up a couple of alders. She heard him, but could not be stirred to move.

After a while his grumblings faded into the distance.

She’d been lying there waiting for him to come over and finish her off. She was even glad her flight was over. No one would ever know now what had happened to her, but she was too tired and too cold and too hungry to care.

When the bear left, it took her a while to believe it. Why hadn’t he finished off his kill? Had the smell of human startled and surprised him so violently that he was actually afraid of her; weak, starving, freezing, defenseless Rebecca Hanover? So afraid that he’d run off and left his meal behind?

She raised her head. The rabbit was still there, its body torn almost in two, red flesh gleaming between stained brown fur only beginning to turn winter white. She could smell its blood.

Her stomach growled.

Raw meat was harder to chew than cooked.

If you’re going to be lost in the Bush, Rebecca, she thought now, be lost in the early summer. Chances of finding food are better then, if you’re too squeamish to shoot anything. Mark had said that with a smile when they’d first-no, no, don’t think about Mark, or Mark’s smile, or the way he-

The wind roared overhead and there was a loud crash. She went totally still, not blinking, not breathing, straining to hear over the wind and the moan of the trees. It could have been a branch falling. That was it, a branch, breaking off and falling to the ground. She willed herself to relax, and discovered that her hands had thawed enough to feel the pushki blisters on her right arm. The thorns stung, too, the thorns she’d picked up when she stumbled into a patch of devil’s club. Tiny thorns, on the stems and the undersides of the leaves, so little she hadn’t noticed them, so little she could barely see them after they were embedded in her skin, so little they ought not to hurt as much as they did.

She burrowed down again, in search of some particle of warmth left over from the morning sun.

She should have taken her gun down to the creek that morning. What morning was that, exactly? There had been no clocks at the little cabin in the canyon, and no calendar. Days had passed, but maybe weeks. She didn’t know anymore.

One thing she did know. The man who had killed her husband and kidnapped and raped her repeatedly was still after her. Her escape had been an affront to his pride, and if she had any doubt of his determination to keep her forever, it had been banished by the sight of those wooden markers.

All Elaines. He had called her Elaine. All those Elaines. Twelve. My god, twelve of them. Twelve women before her. Had he kidnapped them all? Raped them all? Buried them all? Fashioned markers for them all? Why had no one noticed? Why had no one cared? There were mothers there, she was sure of it, daughters, nieces, aunts. Why had no one come looking for them? Where were their fathers, their mothers, their sisters and brothers? Where were their friends? Where were the police, and the state troopers, and the FBI? Where wasAmerica’s Most Wanted? Where wasCops? Where was60 goddamnMinutes?

She knew one more thing. Wounded, cold, hungry, huddled beneath a few branches and leaves, hundreds of miles from help, her own death one degree in temperature away, she knew she was luckier than anyone buried beneath those perfect wooden markers at the head of that perfect little canyon, a quick walk from the front door of that perfect little house.

Something rumbled in the pit of her belly. At first she thought it was a reaction to the rabbit. It took a moment to recognize it as anger, an emotion she had last felt aimed at Mark. She shied away from the memory at first, but it was such a tiny presence, barely a spark. She wrapped her arms around her middle and curled around it, creating a protective shield. The spark caught and grew, warming her.

If he doesn’t catch me.

If I don’t starve to death.

If I don’t die of exposure.

If I make it out of here.

If all those things, it will be because of you, Elaine.

The words ran through her mind again and again and at some point the “if” changed, faded, disappeared.

I won’t let him catch me.

I won’t starve to death.

I won’t die of exposure.

I will make it out of here.

I will beat him, Elaine.

I will beat him for you.

Here it was in the middle of the first fall storm, and his Elaine was right out in the middle of it. She wasn’t strong enough to brave the wind and the rain, and if his weather sense was not mistaken-and it hardly ever was-it would snow before morning. He bent his head against the storm and plodded patiently on.

She had to have water, and it had to be running water, so she had to stay close to the drainage system. Really, it was simply a matter of following her downhill, and she left enough tumbled rocks, broken branches and trampled grass to make that easy enough. He was worried, though; she had no jacket, no gloves, no sleeping bag. The highbush cranberry patch hadn’t been that big, and cranberries would not sustain her for long. She was probably hungry. His heart ached for her. Poor little girl.

Yes, of course, she had been naughty, and she had to be punished. She had broken a rule and she would have to pay for it. She always did.

Still, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. He’d seen three bears and at least a dozen moose. She had been lucky enough so far, but it was only a matter of time before she ran into something she couldn’t handle. He would be there for her.

Kind but firm, that was the best way. She would be nervous, perhaps even a little rebellious at first, but that was only natural. Deep down, she knew how things were.

And if she had forgotten, he would have to teach her.

Again.

He smiled into the upturned collar of his jacket, and plodded on.