The squirrel jumped onto a neighboring tree, way up high.
Victor continued on his way.
FOURTEEN
Mercy’s legs started to cramp less than an hour into the trek. Dad wanted to push on, even though he was panting.
“We’ll find a good spot to rest soon.”
There were plenty of spots to rest, plenty of trees against which to lean.
But she trudged on. The wide path began to narrow and the slope got steeper. The trees remained straight, of course, which was funny even though it made perfect sense. Trees didn’t emerge off a mountain like quills on a porcupine; they grew toward the sun. Each tree fought for its little spot of light.
Mercy had taken an environmental science lecture course to satisfy the general education requirement and the professor had been this young, skinny guy who gave twenty-minute diatribes about pollution and the mystical power of mother nature. He had once discussed how violent trees were, how plant life was constantly at war with the environment. The battles were too slow for us to notice. And plants never surrendered. Ever. It you cut down a tree, it would immediately start re-growing. The only way to kill it was to rip it from the roots. Trees had endured for millions of years. They were nature’s true fighting survivors.
The trail finally got too steep for them to continue without a breather. Mercy leaned against a tree and hoped her legs would stop shaking. Dad unhooked the canteen from his bag and gulped down some water. Mercy spilled a lot of the water across her cheeks and down the front of her sweatshirt, but she swallowed enough to make her feel better.
“We’ve got plenty of water,” Dad said. “Drink up.”
From this spot, the diner was a tiny building set a far distance off. It looked like a plastic model or child’s toy. Beyond the diner was a lot of nothing, some farmland and an occasional house or two. Far off, though it really wasn’t, was the town of Stone Creek. When you were in town, it felt like the mountain was right on top of you. Up here, the town was far off. She couldn’t even see her home.
“Not so bad, right?” Dad asked.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Your mother would have loved it up here. Not that she ever would have agreed to the hike. We once took a helicopter ride over the town, right over this mountain. This was before you were born and the town was having its centennial celebration. Big fair. Carnival rides. Lots of parades. Went on for a few days that summer. For twenty bucks a person, you could get a half-hour helicopter flight over Stone Creek. Even took us into Pennsylvania.”
Dad was no longer looking out of the mountain at the view. He was staring back inside his memory. She wanted to hug him, tell him Mom loved him so much.
“We went up at sunset. The view was spectacular. The sky rippled in waves of red and orange and yellow. Like being inside a fire. Your mother was stunned silent. And you know she was never at a loss for something to say. It would have been a great moment to propose if we weren’t already married. God, that was so long ago but I see it perfectly. I can even feel the sensation of flying, that sense that you’re floating.”
Mercy wiped at her eyes. “You’re making me cry, Dad.”
He smiled at her and apologized. She held him extra tight when they hugged.
“Let’s keep going,” he said. “The map said there’s a clearing not too far ahead.”
Mercy glanced back at the panoramic view for a moment before following her father up the mountain.
FIFTEEN
Victor discovered the connection between the two trails when he was chasing a deer years ago. He had never killed anything larger than a cat and he needed to develop the survivalist mentality. He would need it when the world slid into the dark times and he was really called upon to cleanse.
He had no gun. They scared him. That was stupid but it was the truth. People were always shooting themselves. Eventually, he got the shotgun but he never carried it with him. And the thought of one hadn’t even been a blip on the radar of his mind back then.
The deer had been grazing and Victor had nearly stumbled into it. He was only twenty feet from it. The deer stared at him, frozen. Victor flung his knife at it and landed a blow in the animal’s back thigh. The deer took off.
The knife dropped off at some point but Victor kept pursuing. This had been in the summer when the trees were full and even the underbrush was lush with plant life. A thin trail of blood led the way.
Victor kept after it and thought he might actually get to it until his foot caught on a branch and he toppled forward. He almost smashed his face on a rock.
The deer was gone but a man was watching him. He stood in the middle of a wide, well-worn path. The guy wore a large bag on his back, the kind with metal tubes outlining the frame.
Victor backtracked toward the trail but didn’t find his knife. That was okay. He had found something much better.
That place was still a little ways ahead, but Victor knew exactly where. He had marked the spot. In time, he hoped to discover similar paths or create them himself. He wanted to know every section of this mountain. When the dark time finally came, this mountain would be his refuge and his home.
His time in the woods always helped calm Victor’s mind. He didn’t need to stop or appreciate the scenery or mediate. Sometimes at night sleeping with only a military-issue blanket he had bought, he would scroll through pictures of the woman on his phone, however, and release his negative energy. During the day, he needed only to keep moving up the mountain and his mind found clarity.
His plan had changed considerably. He gone to the diner to confirm that the woman and her father were really heading up the mountain today. He had let his urges drive him inside the place, let it put him directly in front of her. A stupid move, yet it was working out. He had only to trust the universe as it conspired to give him what he needed.
Even when he entered the diner well aware of the risk, he knew it was the right move. Everything happened for a reason, people loved to say, and Victor could take that further: everything happened according to plan. Hugo Herrera had killed five people in that diner. He had marked the mirror and subsequently marked the place. A holy place. An outpost for cleansers along the trail to enlightenment. Victor was one of the first. He was destined for a special place.
And it started with the girl.
Instead of tracking her up the mountain and waiting for an opportunity to strike, he was now honing a new plan, something that seemed highly irrational and risky but was, so long as he trusted the universe, exactly what he was supposed to do.
The girl had waved to him. She’d watched him punch the teenager and then she waved.
Victor marked a tree with a quick slice of his knife. For the first time in what felt like forever, Victor was smiling with his whole face.
SIXTEEN
Mercy and her father stopped at a little clearing that opened out on the valley. A few twisted cans of Bud sat in a small pile of faded ash.
Mercy took off her bag and dropped it. She was immediately so much lighter she thought she could run off the side of the mountain and glide through the air back home. Then her thighs gave out and she collapsed on her butt. Her father laughed.
“Guess we should have trained for this,” he said.
She tried to speak but couldn’t catch enough breath to not sound like an emphysema patient, so she gave Dad the thumbs-up. Several gulps of water later, her body began to level out. Sweat had gathered between her breasts and she wanted to take off her sweatshirt but then she’d probably get cold and that would make her more miserable.
