IN THE DAYLIGHT, he might not have found it. If it weren’t for the smoke which hung like a nighttime shadow in the trees, he would have limped right past. But he stopped and turned slowly to the right and slightly in back of him. There was a cut in the hillside on the other side of the little stream where another tiny spring creek fed into the flow. The cut went fifty yards back into the slope and doglegged to the right. The smoke came from where the dogleg ended.
Joe winced and nearly blacked out as he crossed the stream from rock to rock, unable to use his crutch to keep his weight off his injured legs. He paused on the other side and heard moaning and realized it was his own. He closed his eyes tightly and was entertained by fireworks on the inside of his eyelids. When he opened them, there was a cabin ahead. A faint yellow square of light seeped through a small curtained window from an inside lantern.
The cabin, he knew, shouldn’t exist. There was no private land within this part of the Medicine Bow National Forest, just like there were no roads. He thought,
The curtain on the single small window quivered as he made a fist to knock on the rough pine door. Whoever was inside knew he was there. And if they were armed?
Then a wild thought: What if the Grims lived here?
He collapsed as the door opened and fell inside. A woman said, “Oh my God, no . . .”
Then: “Who
WHEN JOE AWOKE, HE WAS ON HIS BACK ON THE FLOOR OF the cabin in a nest of thick quilts. He reached up and rubbed the right side of his face, which was warm from the heat of an iron woodstove. A curl of steam rose from the snout of a kettle on the surface of the stove, and inside a small fire crackled.
He could remember things: vivid nightmares reliving the attack, throwing off the quilts as he fought off demons, awaking with a fever and drinking water and broth, rolling to his side to urinate into a plastic jar, the touch of her fingers on his bare thigh as she bandaged it, her frequent prognostications of doom.
The cabin was small, old, and close. He guessed it had been built in the 1950s or 1960s, to judge from the gray color of the logs and the age cracks in the pine plank ceiling. Although it was only one room inside and was packed with possessions in the corners and on the shelves, it seemed clean and organized. Red curtains were drawn over small framed windows on each wall.
She was sitting at a small table wearing thick trousers, heavy shoes, a too-large man’s shirt, and a fleece vest. It was hard to tell her age. Her long brown hair fell to her shoulders and her forehead was hidden behind thick bangs. Her clothes were so large and loose he couldn’t discern her shape or weight. He couldn’t even see the rise of her breasts. Her eyes were blue and cool and fixed on him. Her mouth was pursed with anticipation and concern.
“How long have I been out?” he asked.
“Eighteen hours,” she said. “More or less.”
He let that sink in. “So it’s Friday night?”
Her face was blank. She shrugged, “I think that would be correct. I don’t think in terms of days of the week anymore.”
He nodded as if he understood and tried not to stare at her and unnerve her more than she already was. There was something pensive and off-putting about her, as if she would melt away if he asked too many questions.
Joe folded the quilt back. His pants were off, but she hadn’t removed his boxers. He looked at the bandage on his right leg. It was tightly wrapped and neat. There were two small spots of dried blood, looking like the eyes of an owl, where the holes in his thigh were. His other leg was purple and green with bruises.
“Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.”
She nodded quickly. “I know.” She said it with a hint of regret. “I really don’t want you here one minute past when you can leave. Do you understand me?”
Joe nodded. “Do you have a phone here? Any way I can make a call?”
“No, I don’t have a phone.”
“A radio?”
“No.”
“Any way to communicate with the outside world?”
“This is my world,” she said, twirling a finger to indicate the inside of her cabin. “What you see is my world. It’s very small, and that’s the way I like it. It’s the way I want to keep it.”
He took in the contents of the cabin but tried not to let his eyes linger too long on any one item. There were burlap sacks in one corner: beans, coffee, flour, sugar. Canned goods were stacked near the sacks. A five-gallon plastic container was elevated on a stout shelf with a gravity-feed water filter tube dripping pure water into a galvanized bucket. The drops of water from the tube into the bucket had punctuated his dreams.
Dented but clean pots and pans hung from hooks above the stove. Several dozen worn hardback books stood like soldiers on a shelf above a single bed covered with homemade quilts. Another shelf had small framed photos, but he couldn’t see who was in the photographs. There was a heavy trunk under the bed and a battered armoire with brass closures next to the bed, which made up the north wall.
The kitchen counter, as such, was a four-poster butcher block near the corner of the stove. From his angle on the floor, he could see knife handles lined up neatly on the side of it.
