Cassidy

 

My first, and strongest, instinct, upon watching Brynn separate from her group and start climbing alone, is to follow her.

Follow her. Follow her. Follow her.

It is a chant in my head. A mantra. And it takes only a few seconds for it to chill me to the bone.

Is this what it had been like for my father?

Would he see a beautiful girl and think to himself:

Follow her. 

Talk to her.

And then, suddenly, and maybe without any warning:

Touch her.

Rape her.

Kill her.

Could it really be that simple? The escalation from admiration and interest to evil and destruction?

And if I follow her, will I be walking in his footsteps?

Inhaling sharply with the horror of it, I sit back down on the boulder, close my eyes, and count slowly and carefully to one thousand, seeing the numbers in my mind and acknowledging every single one before moving on to the next. I have no idea how long it takes me—over fifteen minutes, I assume—but when I am finished, I’m thoroughly soaked. I open my eyes, and the trail before me is empty.

Brynn is gone.

And something inside feels suddenly hollow.

Empty and longing. Aching, almost to the point of pain.

Slicing through my fog of yearning, my mind presents a simple question:

Why?

Why do I feel so empty?

Because I am a normal twenty-seven-year-old man who saw a pretty girl and wished to know her?

Or because somewhere deep, dark, and murky inside—somewhere I can’t feel and almost can’t fathom—I don’t just want to know her—I want to hurt her?

What is it that would bring me satisfaction? That would fill the emptiness?

Knowing her?

Or hurting her?

To my shame and fear, I don’t know. I’m not certain. I can’t answer these simple questions of meaning and intent, which makes me growl softly in frustration and despair.

Pushing off from the boulder, I survey my surroundings. Rain still falls in sheets, pelting and angry, and even from where I stand under a thick canopy of trees away from the trail, I am getting drenched.

I had set forth this morning with two goals in mind: the first, to reach the summit and admire the vast beauty of my world; the second, to feel like a part of humanity for a few harmless hours, to listen to the voices of other people, see their faces, watch them communicate with their words and bodies.

No issues with the first goal. But I grimace, rubbing the scruff on my chin with my thumb and forefinger, as I review the second. Is it bad that I’d wanted to be around people? To feel human—like a part of the human race, the collective community of man—for a few precious hours? Or was it breaking my word to Gramp and Mama?

I see two men walking quickly down from the summit, heads down, clearly on a mission to get back to their car below.

Hmm. So it’s still passable, despite the rain.

I want to see the summit today—even as rainy and cloudy as I know it will likely be. I may have failed or bungled my second goal, but I can still meet my first.

No doubt Brynn is far ahead of me by now, I think, the idea comforting and sad at once.

But even if she isn’t, I could use seeing her as a test. Even if I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, I won’t allow my gaze to linger. No matter how drawn to her I feel, no matter how lovely her face and sad her eyes, I can fight against the temptation. I can force myself to look away, to stay away, to keep her safe from me, and then I’ll know that I am stronger than my father—that, given the opportunity, I won’t yield to weakness or temptation, that I won’t indulge even my longing to look.

A test. Yes.

And so I start loosely following the trail through the woods, not on it, but nearby, climbing through brambles and over rotting logs as the rain beats down on my bare head, bathing me in heaven’s tears.

Up and up. My breath is steady because I am accustomed to such exertion, my long legs carry me surely over the uneven forest floor, and I guess it’ll take another hour or so to reach the cloudy top. But I will make it. I will—

That’s when I hear it break through the thrumming of my heart, the crunching of my boots, over the roar of the wind and the rain . . .

A scream.

I stop in my tracks from the singular awfulness of it, frozen in place, waiting to hear it again.

A hawk, I try to convince myself, hoping against hope that it wasn’t a human sound. But rationally, I know that no bird of prey would be out in this rain. They’re waiting out the rain in their nests, beaks tucked under feathers.

Again I hear it.

And now I’m certain it wasn’t an animal screech; it was definitely a human scream. Piercing, tormented, and high-pitched over the wind, it is the sound of intense distress.

My feet move suddenly, racing toward the sound. They are stealthy over the brush, running fast. My calloused hands reach for thin tree trunks, and I use them to propel myself forward like slingshots. The rain bites at my face, but I run in spite of it, everything within me rising up against the genesis or provocation of this sound.

Again the piercing scream, closer now, but weaker, and I do something I’ve never done before: I leave the woods and allow my feet to touch down on the path. With my eyes closed and body still, I freeze on the path, waiting for the sound again, willing for it to find me and guide me.

Heeeeeeeelp!

Through the whipping wind, through the angry rain, I hear it, and my whole body jerks to the right as if obeying its command. Crossing back over the path, I run as fast as I can toward one of the brown-painted Appalachian Trail lean-tos set along the path.

I race to it, shocked by what I find.

A man squats in the left corner of the lean-to, hovering over something on the floor. Unaware of my presence, he lifts his arm, a bloody, dripping knife suspended over his head for a moment before he brings it down with the whole force of his body, the sound of a slice followed by the squish of blood as the knife is withdrawn and raised again. Dark red drops drip down onto the man’s head as he adjusts his grip and plans to lower the blade again.

Noooooooooo!

I am in motion, my body surging forward, up and onto the platform, my hands landing under his raised arms and yanking him back. His body, the first human form I’ve touched in the decade since Gramp’s passing, is easy to lift because I have surprised him. I throw him across the small space with all my might, into the wall to my left, his legs knocking into a bench as he flies through the air. I watch his head slam into the wall with a sickening thud. He falls to the floor, and I stand over his body, waiting for him to stir, but he is still, knocked unconscious.

Turning back to the corner, I recognize her hair and jacket immediately.

“No!” I cry, fisting my hands helplessly by my sides as I shake my head. “No, no, no!”

It’s Brynn—small, brave Brynn—curled up in fetal position, her face battered, her jacket ripped and bloody.

The instant, and almost blinding, mix of panic and rage should paralyze me, but it doesn’t. I reach down and scoop her small body into my arms without thinking, moving her away from the corner and onto my lap. Gingerly pushing up her jacket and shirt, I can see several stab wounds concentrated on her waist and hip. None are gushing blood, so it appears—by the grace of God—that her attacker didn’t hit a major artery.

She whimpers as I hold her, turning her head into my chest, and a slight scent of sweetness rises up between us. Vanilla. The beautiful, injured woman on my lap smells like sugar cookies, which makes me sob for no good reason, except that this shouldn’t have happened to her, and I am furious that it has.

Her injuries bleed slowly, in pools of crimson that slide in garish red streaks over her creamy skin and drip onto the floor. I need to stop the bleeding as best I can, so I reach for her backpack and open it. Inside, I find a T-shirt and a couple of pairs of thick, cotton socks, dry inside a Ziploc bag, and a first aid kit. I use her dry T-shirt to wipe at the stab wounds, counting six. Because they are close together, I am able to cover all of them with her clean socks, and then I use an Ace bandage from the first aid kit to affix them, wrapping the tan, stretchy bandage around her waist and hips and securing it with a double pin.

I can’t be sure that the wounds aren’t immediately life-threatening, but based on what I learned in the paramedic correspondence course that Gramp forced me to take,  I don’t believe they are. Still, they need to be cleaned, sewed, and dressed as soon as possible.

I pull her shredded, bloody shirt and jacket back over the improvised dressings and gaze down at her face, gently pushing wet strings of hair from her forehead and trying to figure out what to do now.

Not that I am intimately familiar with the smell of alcohol, but Gramp indulged in bourbon now and then, and I can smell it strongly around me. Glancing around, I pause my eyes on the man’s still-unconscious body. Hmm. If he’d had enough liquor to make the whole lean-to smell, he’d probably be out for a while. 

Perhaps I should leave her here, scramble down the mountain to a public telephone, and call the Chimney Pond ranger station to come and collect her?

I look over at her attacker again, feeling a storm of fury rise up, swirling within me. No. You can’t leave her with him. What if he wakes up and tries to finish the job he started?

You could tie him up, my brain reasons. But I rebel against this notion stubbornly. If he woke up before her, he could have a couple of hours to free himself and hurt her again before I am able to find a phone and make a call.

Besides, what if I am wrong about the severity of Brynn’s wounds? What if one of the stab wounds is fatal?

I can feel the weight of her body on my lap, and I know she doesn’t weigh much. I could easily carry her to the ranger’s station.

But . . .

Once there, I will have to give my name. They might even suspect that I am the one who hurt her. What if, in the time it took for me to take her to safety, her actual attacker woke up and ran away? I’m the son of a convicted serial killer. No way they’d believe I was innocent in all of this.

She mewls softly, and I scramble to come up with another plan.

I could . . . well, I could carry her a little ways down the trail, closer to Chimney Pond, and then prop her against a tree, hoping someone would find her. 

But I glance out the open front of the lean-to at the dark sky, sheeting rain, and empty trail. She could end up sitting against that tree all afternoon and into the night. And if an animal didn’t get her, drawn to the smell of her blood, what if someone else—like the human animal lying to my right—tried to hurt her again?

My arms tense at the thought of her being hurt anymore, and I hold her closer, wincing at her faint moan as I shift her hip. She is in pain. Even unconscious, she is in pain.

I can’t leave her. I have to take her with me and get her to safety.

The incisions will need to be sewn shut once I get her home, but there I have antibiotic ointment and pills, plus a full stock of first aid items to tend to her. It’s still raining like hell, but I am young and strong, and she needs me. I can do this.

“I’m gonna get you down from here,” I say, looking around the lean-to as I figure out how to carry her.

I’ll have to leave her backpack here. She probably weighs a little over a hundred pounds, and it will already be slow going through the woods.

At least we’re going down, not up, I think, shifting her carefully to the floor.

She whimpers softly and murmurs, “Help me,” so quietly, I almost could have dreamed it.

I kneel down beside her, leaning my head close enough to smell sugar cookies again. I savor the sweetness of the smell as I whisper, “I’ll help you, Brynn.” I add, more out of hope than certainty, “You’re safe with me. You’re safe now. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

Her furrowed brows relax, and I hear her sigh softly, which tugs at my thrumming heart. Though I would happily stare at her forever, I force myself into action. I have work to do.

Reaching back into her pack, I find a ten-foot rope and double it, tying a secure knot at the end to create a large double loop. I hoist her on my back, one loop of the rope holding her against my back, and the other acting as a sling for her butt. I reach for her legs, putting my arms under her knees to carry her piggyback-style.

With one last look at the piece of human excrement who hurt her, I turn from the lean-to, into the pouring rain, and start back down Katahdin.

I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.

I hope to God, praying with every heavy step I take, that any evil that lived within my father doesn’t live within me . . . but there is no way to be certain.

The only thing I know with any certainty is that I couldn’t leave her.

So I carry her.

Seven miles on my back.

All evening and into the night. Rain pelts me from every direction. Wind whips my hair into my face and debris into my eyes. More than once I lose my footing and stumble, my sheer desperation to bring Brynn to safety the only thing that rights our bodies before a dozen disastrous falls.

My back feels, at times, like it will break.

My legs ache. My arms burn. 

And still I carry her.

All the way home.