Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

A dog, apparently, is not man's best friend. I say this because my dog, Maggs, was not with me this morning as I strode on the path through the forest, enjoying the beauty of nature. She was with Rose, a woman who had been gracious enough to give me a place to sleep in the apartments above her shop two weeks ago, aggressive enough to have seduced the hell out of me on the second day, and conniving enough to have corrupted my dog. Maggs hadn't been limping when we'd gone downstairs. It was only when I headed for the door that she looked at Rose and suddenly put on the act.

Did I mention Rose stole my wallet three times, twice on my first day in town?

I could see why Maggs liked her. Rosalie Malone was a sweetheart—big dark eyes, curly dark hair, soft smiling mouth—so when I first saw her, I thought, Middle-aged girl-next-door. Then she picked my pocket, fed me lasagna, and screwed my brains out. That was not what I expected but considering that the girl next door to Rose was Coral, the former honey pot assassin turned café owner, and the boy next door to Rose was Sid Quill, pharmacist and weirdo with a secret lab in his basement, Rose was pretty normal.

No, that's not true. Rose was extraordinary, the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me. And I was going to leave her to finish the last stretch of the Appalachian Trail. I had to finish that last part after investing months of my life into the hike. I always finish my mission. There are things we are hardwired for.

It was chilly and I could see the last of the dawn fog rising out of the rushing river ahead. I couldn't blame Maggs for preferring the warm bed I'd slipped out of thirty minutes ago or the warm house I'd walked out of. She'd jumped up on the bed as soon I was out of it, and Rose had woken and laughed and hugged her and then started to get up to feed me breakfast. I'd told her I'd have an energy bar on the trail. I needed to get out the door. It was getting harder and harder to get out of that bed and out that door, so if I delayed for hot food and a warm Rose, my chances of escape dimmed considerably.

Rose had dressed as fast as I had and said she was going to work, but I was sure she would take Maggs next door to her friend Coral's coffee shop, Ecstasy , where they would partake of treats and gossip. It was a routine she'd followed for the past week, just as I'd followed my routine of a brisk walk in the forest to get my fifty-two-year-old body back in shape for the Appalachian Trail.

The real question was whether Maggs would come with me tomorrow morning when I headed off to complete the last leg of the Trail.

Today I was doing the same loop I'd discovered several days ago, starting out by hitting the two-lane road that meandered by the eastern edge of town toward the forest and crossed the steel-truss, one-lane, wood-planked bridge over the Little Melvin, a fast-moving, rocky river that marked the southern boundary of the town. I was carrying my rucksack, which weighed about forty pounds and was what we would have called a "nerf ruck" on a deployment since it didn't have ammunition, explosives, radio batteries, night vision goggles, or other assorted heavy, lethal stuff in it. Just camping gear and a spare set of clothes. The river was running fast and high since we'd had a heavy rain in the mountains two days ago. Another reason to get on the Trail before the next precipitation became the first heavy snow.

Crossing the bridge put me on a road heading into the Cherokee National Forest. The road swung past Betty Baumgarten's little white cottage with the blue shutters and white picket fence with a trench behind it. There was a llama inside the fence and trench, which had startled me the first time I saw her, but then Rose had explained that Fernanda was Mrs. Baumgarten's support animal, and while that was weird, this was Rocky Start, where the weird had to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Fernanda's worst crime was escaping over the trench that Mrs. Baumgarten had hired the Weed Brothers to dig to keep her in, but once free, she usually did nothing more than crop vegetation unless annoyed, and eventually Betty would track her down with her harness and long lead and bring her back. For Rocky Start, Fernanda was a model citizen.

I left the llama behind to pass another turnoff, this one leading southwest to Pike Bernard's marijuana field and, beyond that, his large, isolated cabin. Yes, Pike, foster father to the Weed Brothers, is the local law, but he says his crop is for medicinal purposes for locals only. Given the size of his crop, there must be a lot of medicated people in Rocky Start. I knew for certain there was a lot of PTSD amongst those who had been "players" in the past.

Ahead was another, shorter single-lane bridge spanning a creek, leading deeper into the National Forest. I went thataway.

I was thinking about the best way to tell Rose and Poppy I was leaving tomorrow. "So this has been fun" didn't seem like the way to go; it had been a lot more than fun. "I'm just getting in your way now" would be a lie; nothing got in Rose's way. I'd just about decided on "I'm not the kind of guy you'd want around forever" when I realized there was no best way. It was going to be unpleasant and hurtful. I didn't want to hurt Rose or her daughter, but they were safe now, and I had to be moving on to finish what I'd started half a year ago. I always finish what I start, and this time it was more important than usual. My future was the Appalachian Trail.

By the time the road had looped around and reached the Little Melvin again, I still had no clue how to tell Rose goodbye, but I had worked up a nice sweat and was pleasantly warm. I turned off the road and followed an abandoned railroad grade along the riverbank, past Betty's cottage. The ground to my right, away from the river, rose up about ten feet. The rail line had been where the rail and lumber men from a century ago had carved their way into the mountains to harvest timber. The tracks were long gone and now there was just a narrow animal track that I had slowly been expanding by passing through, surrounded by high grass.

I reached a stone bench by a set of stone steps cut into the embankment, just across the river from Rocky Start. I could just see the green of the narrow park across the river there and the back of the State Street shops and the town full of former players and citizens where Rose wielded her Cheery Boost smile to keep everyone at a distance. The peace on this side of the river was encompassing, and when I'd found the bench last week, I'd taken out my knife and ripped off the vines that had hidden it, cutting back the grass around it just so Maggs and I could sit and look at the river and think in the quiet.

Today, though, I went up the stone steps beside the bench. Hidden from view until I got to the top was the little cottage I'd also found. It was set back in the woods, not in ruins yet, but still in pretty bad shape, made of old gray stone with a dark slate roof that angled over the second story, simple in its tall, narrow, boxy form broken only by a sharp gable on each side, small but imposing in the wilderness. It had seemed wrong that nature had encroached and blurred its lines. So I'd started to free the little house a bit each day, finally borrowing shears from Pike to clear a perimeter, leaving just the fruit trees within ten feet of the house. I didn't have plans for the cottage—I needed to get back on the Trail—but it felt good to set it free, felt good to do physical work again, to see clear progress every day. It was the kind of place that somebody should take care of, strong on its own but surrounded by an encroaching threat that was trying to take it over.

I stared at it, knowing this was the last day I would be here. There was no point in clearing any more; I'd gotten the building free and that was all I could do. Then the weeds and the vines would come back and it would be like I'd never been here.

It would be that way with Rose, too. In a year, I'd just be a vague memory, no loss to her at all. But I was pretty sure that at the end of that year, she'd be a sharp memory for me, laughing and hot in my arms. Rosalie Malone was unforgettable.

And it was time I got back to her to tell her I was leaving her.

I went back down the steps and pushed on along the riverbank trail a short way to where a three-rope bridge crossed the river back to town. One to walk on and two guides at hip height. The ropes were taut. The bridge reminded me of river crossings decades ago in Ranger School, and perhaps that was the allure.

On this side the bottom rope was secured around an old concrete post that had been a marker for the railroad. The two hip-height ones on a tree on the bank. On the far side, the ropes were wrapped around a stout oak tree. I'd taken this route the past week, getting used to the balancing act. It was a little more difficult with the rucksack making me top-heavy. But it was a challenge, and I'd lived my life hitting one after another. Also, Coral's bakery and Rose were on the other side, one street over, and this was a shortcut. Something to cross a rope bridge for.

I stepped onto the bottom rope, a hand on the guide rope on either side. I edged my way across, feet angled so the lower rope was caught against the heel of each boot as I slid them forward. There was some sway but not much. Whoever had put this in had done a good job.

Just as I thought that, the entity that controls the simulation that is my life decided that pride goeth before the fall, literally. I was focused on my feet but caught a flicker of movement and the glint of steel on the far bank. Before I could shift my gaze to get a better look, the rope under my feet gave way and I plunged a good ten feet into the deep, rocky, fast-moving, freezing river.