“Good for him,” Conner said, returning to his friendly, winning self. “We figured we’d get one last trip in while it was still here.”
“You know there hasn’t been much wildlife out there for a while, right?”
“It’s more for posterity’s sake,” Conner said. “Old times we had there.”
Daryl nodded and grunted. “I couldn’t help but notice you fellas had tents and hiking gear in there. Just a friendly warning, you gotta be real careful up in Coombs’ Gulch when you’re hiking. Bill usually tells people not to wander too far from the cabin. People get turned around up there, suddenly don’t know where they are, and next thing you know we’re calling out search and rescue to find some weekend warriors lost in the woods.”
“The bartender said a couple guys got lost up there a few years back?”
“Yup. That’s the case. Two of them died of exposure. They was here later in the season than you guys. Snow was tough that year and they were stuck in it. Still, it was a rough scene when they were finally found.”
“How so?”
“Whelp. There was four of them at first. Hunters, like yourselves, but they kept pushing farther out because they weren’t finding any deer. So they pushed farther and got turned around. You know the general layout of the Gulch, right?” Daryl said, and they all grunted in approval. “Looks simple enough, right? North to south, ridged with mountains to the east and west. Seems like it should be easy to navigate, right? Well, one thing the rescuers found when they were out looking for those boys is because of the way the two mountain ridges look from the valley; they’re practically mirror images of each other. Makes east look like west, north like south. People get all turned around and that’s what happened to those guys.”
“Jesus,” Jonathan said beneath his breath.
“Nah, he ain’t out there,” Daryl said with a smile, “at least not for these guys.” But Jonathan was more concerned about their trip sending them into uncharted territory.
“Anyway,” Daryl continued, “when they found those guys, the ones who were alive were damn near starved to death and frozen. The other two had nothing to worry about anymore. But the two fellas that were alive – ain’t never seen nothing like it. They were barely able to speak, just kept mumbling about the mountains. We traced their tracks through the snow back to the other two. They were stone cold dead, sitting upright. The look on their faces – I tell you something – looked like they died of fright. Mouths wide open, eyes wide open, blue with frost. That was the last time anybody went wandering around Coombs’ Gulch. When the state and those developers came in looking to buy it up, Bill saw the opportunity, milked them for as much as he could. That’s Bill for ya, though. Never met a deal he couldn’t milk for something better.”
They listened to Daryl Teague drone on and on. He wasn’t the strong, silent type. The black trees blurred as they traveled; Conner and Jonathan bounced in the back seat over the potholes with spine-jarring shocks as they turned onto the dirt road toward the cabin.
“You guys know the history of Coombs’ Gulch, right? How it got its name?”
“Christ, there’s more?” Conner said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to spin some Indian legend?”
Daryl eyed Conner and smiled from the corner of his mouth. “Nah. No Indian legends up here. They avoided the place except for wars between tribes. Nah. The Gulch got its name from Charles Coombs III – a very peculiar fella.”
A soft glow appeared out of the trees ahead. The outdoor lights of the cabin cast an electric glow in the darkness, the trees like ghosts, the ground beneath bare and lifeless dirt. The inside of the cabin was lit as well, the windows like yellow eyes. Parked in front of the cabin was an old rusting pickup.
“See? What did I tell ya? Bill’s up here. He’s just a forgetful old drunk, is all. Probably mixed everything up and thought you were coming out tomorrow.”
“I thought Bill had a memory like a steel trap,” Michael said.
Daryl glanced over at Michael. “Eh, some memories chew their legs off to get out of that trap.”
Jonathan didn’t care, though; he was just happy to finally be at the cabin, to unload their gear, bed down for the night and get this journey over with. Already, he dreaded the long battle ahead. The hike would be difficult enough, but having to dig up that box and haul it the miles and miles over wilderness terrain was something he felt physically unprepared for. He was tired, but he feared going to sleep because he knew in the morning they would have to begin.
Daryl banged on the door to the cabin with his massive fist, yelling for Bill to wake up. “He’s got a spare key hidden around here,” Daryl said, and he walked around the side of the cabin. In the darkness, they could hear the drone of the gas generator in the shed behind the house – the same shed where they’d hung their deer ten years ago and stripped them of skin, the same shed where they retrieved the pickaxe and shovels to bury the boy in that box. The faint cracking of the generator was better than the pure silence and darkness that awaited.
Then Daryl was standing in the open doorway of the cabin, having entered from the back door. “Don’t know where he is. Don’t see him anywhere in here.” He took a flashlight and said he was going to look for Bill.
Jonathan didn’t much care, none of them did, and they began to haul their gear inside. Michael stacked some of the boxes and grocery bags on the kitchen table. Jonathan fell down into the old couch, relieved after a full day
