* * *
Well. Bad things happen to people during war, even good people, as it did with Jake. It is no respecter of persons, war. Even if it doesn’t damage your body, it damages your soul. As it did with me. And now I’ve slipped into reliving that dreadful day yet again. Can’t ever seem to get away from it, can’t ever be free.
“Finch?” I rise from the porch, tuck the Ruger in my pocket, and head toward the backyard. It’s almost dark, and she should be back. I round the corner of the house. Pause. A sound. A motor? Not far and we never, ever hear a motor here, except when Jake comes, the main road being too far for sound to carry. The noise growing louder. Someone coming. For a second I allow myself to think it: Jake? No. “Finch!”
Tires on gravel. I scan the woods, looking for Finch, any sign of her. Nothing. My mind racing and toiling: Scotland, the girl we saw. I tuck behind the back side of the house. Headlights flicker through the almost-dark. The vehicle rounds the bend and comes into sight. A blue car, not sure the make, and inexplicably quiet. I turn around and search the woods again. No Finch and the sun is slipping behind the hill, throwing off a magnificent array of winter colors: yellow, salmon, red, pink. Within minutes, it’ll be completely dark, and now someone is here. Where is she?
The car pulls into the little flat spot in front of the cabin. Still, I have no plan except the Ruger in my pocket, but I wait and hope that something comes to me.
EIGHTEEN
The driver’s-side door opens and a woman steps out. I squint, fairly certain that nobody else is with her. She reaches high, stretching, then leans back into the car and pulls out a coat. She wears a long gray skirt and a baggy white sweater. Curly brown hair, short. No, pulled back and tied in a bun at the nape of her neck. She closes the car door and walks toward the house.
“Hello?” she calls, climbing the porch steps.
The door is unlocked, of course. She knocks, takes a few steps, I’m presuming to peer in the window, but I can’t see her. “Hello?” she calls again.
What to do. Behind me, rustling. I turn and see a small figure, skirting the edge of the woods. Finch. I whip-poor-will. She stops in her tracks, startled. In the dark, she can’t see me. I make the noise again, and this time she places me and stumbles toward me. I pull her close, press my chin to her head. Despite the cold, she’s sticky with sweat.
“You all right? Why are you out of breath?”
“I saw the car coming,” she whispers. “The headlights. I tried to hurry.”
“Is someone there?” The woman on the front porch peers around the side of the house, her voice coming closer. “Bloody hell,” she mutters into the dark. “Bloody hell!” She steps off the porch and I can barely discern her outline in the dark. “Now what?” the woman says, looking at the sky. Followed by more muttering that I can’t quite hear.
Finch turns to look at me. I can feel her head moving against me, her heart beating against my palm. I press my finger gently over her mouth.
The woman shoves her hands in her pockets and begins pacing back and forth between the blueberry bushes and the cabin. Spins on the ball of her foot and we can hear her skirt swishing. With what appears to be a sudden sense of purpose, she marches to the car.
Leaving, thank God.
No— She leans in, rustles around in there, and fishes out a headlamp, strapping it to her head, the light flickering through the trees. She tramps over to the outhouse and disappears inside. Almost like she knew right where to go.
“Who is she?” Finch whispers. “Why is she here?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m cold.”
I unzip my coat, slide out of it, and wrap it around her shoulders. Walt Whitman prances up and glides against my knees.
Around us, the dark thickens. Finch shivers. “We can’t stay out here all night, you know,” she says. “We’ll get hypothermia. We’ll die. I can hardly feel my toes. If they fall off, I won’t be able to walk. You need your toes to walk.”
“Stay put,” I tell her, then I stand up, knees and back stiff from squatting. She’s right: we can’t just hide behind the cabin all night. I walk around to the front of the house just as the woman is exiting the outhouse.
She starts when she sees me, gasps, steps back, nearly falls: she’s surprised and clumsy and she shines the headlamp right in my face.
I shield my eyes. “Can I help you?” I say. I’d planned on opening with “This is private property,” but up close I can see how scrawny she is, how pathetic and scared.