My Family Abandoned Me in the Woods novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Closure Gate

A ranger finds Callie walking out in the snow, and the radio says her family reported her as an unstable hiker who ran off.

The engine in the trees belonged to a green pickup with a light bar on the roof.

It rolled out from behind the notice board and stopped ten feet from me.

The man who stepped down wore a ranger's jacket and a dark beard cut close.

He looked at the empty lot, then at me, then at the ring sitting on the ledge of the board.

"You're the Thanksgiving walk-in," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your sister's tagged this trailhead in a livestream since noon. Five buses, a surprise house." He shut the truck door. "I've been parked back there for an hour, hoping someone would come tell me it was a joke."

"It was a joke," I said. "I wasn't invited to laugh."

His mouth did something small.

"I'm Nolan Orrick. I run the cabin at Sable Creek." He glanced at the sky. "The gate closes at dusk and the road's gone before dark tonight. Snow's early."

"I'll walk."

"Eleven miles to Leland."

"Then I'll walk fast."

"In those shoes?"

I looked down at my work clogs.

I had taken the first bus in them and never thought about it again.

My feet had been numb since the minivan.

"My wallet's in a bag that just left with my fiance," I said. "I have nine percent on my phone, and I'm not asking you for a favor."

"Then don't ask. I'm offering a ride."

"Why?"

"Because I wrote the closure notice on that gate myself, and I'd like not to find you in April."

I should have said no.

I knew better than to get in a stranger's truck at dusk.

But I also knew exactly how far I had walked today, and how many buses were left, which was none.

"Show me your badge," I said.

He held up a laminated card with a state seal.

Then he lifted my ring off the ledge of the notice board and put it in my hand.

"Don't leave it for the snow," he said.

He opened the passenger door and moved a thermos off the seat.

The heater inside the cab was running hot enough to make my hands ache.

He drove down the gravel with the wipers on, and the first flakes hit the glass the size of coins.

"Where do you want to go?" he said.

"A bus station. A motel with a card reader. I don't care."

"The motel in Leland doesn't take walk-ins on Thanksgiving. The station's closed till Friday."

"Then somewhere with a phone charger."

"The cabin has one."

I turned my head and looked at him.

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Eight miles in, the other direction," he said. "I'd call the sheriff and have a deputy take you into town, but I can't reach dispatch from the lot. I can from the cabin."

It was the first thing he'd said that sounded like a reason.

I let it stand.

The truck climbed.

Trees pressed in on both sides, black and dripping, and snow gathered on the high branches.

My phone buzzed against my leg.

It was my mother.

"Don't be dramatic, Callie. Brooke has two million people watching. Call her and say it was funny. We'll pick you up Saturday."

I read it twice.

Then I turned the phone face down on my thigh.

Nolan's radio crackled on the dash.

He reached for it and turned it up with one finger.

"...Leland dispatch to all units. Welfare report, Sable Creek area. Female, twenty-eight, brown hair, work clogs. Reporting party is the family. Subject became agitated at a family gathering and ran into the woods. Family states she is not taking medication. Use caution."

The speaker clicked off.

I did not breathe for a moment.

"Not taking medication," I said.

"Who's the reporting party?"

"My mother."

"Do you take any?"

"I take vitamin D. I live in Spokane."

He pulled the truck onto a wider shoulder and put it in park.

The engine idled.

The snow began to cover the road in front of us.

"A welfare report puts a deputy on your tail," he said. "Whoever finds you gets to decide what 'agitated' means."

"They'll hold me."

"For a night, maybe longer, if your family shows up with the right story and a camera."

I thought of Brooke, in her white jacket, saying cry a little.

"She's trying to make me the bit," I said.

"Looks like."

I put my hands under my arms to stop their shaking.

"If you take me to the cabin," I said slowly, "can you not call anyone yet?"

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he turned the radio down and picked up the handset, and held it in his lap without pressing it.

"Give me one reason not to," he said.

I took out my phone, and my hand was steady when I opened the app.

I had been recording since the second bus.

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