Forrest Trilogy

Joanna Reese

I

The Roamer stopped at a gas station outside Yumni. Inserting the pump, he felt something wet on his elbow. He looked down. A fawn.

There wasn’t even a forest near. No one was around to marvel at the sniffing fawn, the wild animal with no fear of the Roamer. He clapped but it stayed. After stepping inside the RV’s cargo area, he closed the door. The Roamer drank a beer and waited. When he opened the door, the fawn was curled below, where he would step.

He drove to the next state. The fawn peeked behind a vending machine at a rest stop. In Nevada, the fawn grazed on dying grass as the Roamer peed behind a rock. He sped toward his home state, where his daughter lived. The Roamer didn’t care anymore about the judge’s mandate that visits be scheduled and supervised.

Just before the last exit, the fawn waited for him in the middle of the highway. He swerved into a ditch.

When the Roamer, arms in casts and guts in stitches, finally saw his daughter, she showed him a class picture. “I can’t believe the fawn stood still long enough for a picture,” his daughter said. There sat the fawn, surrounded by students, looking straight at the camera.

The Roamer wondered where else he could run.

II

If you find her bones, according to legend, they might sing to you. But the bones have to be fashioned into an instrument first. Some parents teach their children how to whittle, just in case.

The citizens spend late nights in the pub discussing how the bones would be carved. A harp from a rib-bone. A flute from a femur. Flute was a favorite choice; it would give the clearest sound, some said, for the song. And then you’d find out what happened to her.

She disappeared so long ago that they couldn’t remember whether her name was Erica or Emily or Ella. Now she is just the girl. She was so pretty, they said, with her auburn hair and blushing lips. But no matter. Now she is just bones.

The girl is the town’s most popular Halloween costume. Little girls wear a green and black letterman’s jacket, a matching cheerleader uniform underneath.

I’m sneaking through the woods to meet my boyfriend, mother, they’d sing, in the melody reserved for the lost child. I’ll never get there and I’ll never return.

Have fun, the mothers would say. Don’t eat too much candy.

Hunt night is always November first, the day she might have vanished. Squealing little cheerleaders and brave-faced footballers run into the words, recorders in hand, playing her song. They have a signal, a long G, in case of recovery, so that everyone can gather for the bone whittling. No one expects the signal. The fun is running without light, seeking her last breath. Knowing she was killed in the woods and is waiting for them.

Some say they’ve seen her ghost, pointing at mossy mounds. Please, right here. It’s always just a tree, voiced by wind and leaves.

III

He’d lost them. They dispersed; he couldn’t decide. The hunter had a sure shot, too, before the pronghorns were disrupted by a pack of teenagers. Kids sneak on to the game ranch all the time to poke nature or each other or whatever they liked to do. He didn’t even have time to yell at them before running after the pronghorns, chasing them into a thicket of junipers.

The flashlight illuminated how lost he was. There was a rocky hill ahead, covered with vegetation except for a small cave opening, and from inside: a light hoof step.

The hunter could have just flashed the light inside and shot, but that wouldn’t have been as fun. The hill wasn’t that tall. He grabbed a rock, climbed to the top and reloaded, thinking about the pronghorn’s tuft of fur by the tail. His favorite part was caressing the tuft after the life was gone.

Holding on to the cave’s moss and vines, he threw the rock inside the cave, spooking the animal into a run. What a dim pronghorn, he thought. How deserving.

The hunter’s gun was aimed at the cave’s exit. As he sensed the rush of movement, he fired. The kill fell with a satisfying thump. It was too dark to tell the size, or anything, really. Only that it was dead.

His hand found the tuft first, and then the blood. Shot right on the behind! The tail was awfully long, though, and curly—he clicked on the flashlight. Two seconds later, it was dark again. He stepped away. Maybe his eyes were just playing tricks. Yes, tricks. The light returned.

The hunter hadn’t hit a deer on its behind.

She was young. Fifteen, maybe. The wound obscured her face. Why was he focusing on her age? She wasn’t moving.

The hunter backed away. He should go and tell someone. Should he bring her? He couldn’t just leave the body. A coyote could find her. They probably already smelled the blood.

The hunter’s back hit juniper and he slid to the ground, embracing the bark’s harshness. He wanted to curse, to expel, but couldn’t do that in the presence of little ears. She was pretty—skin not yet acne-marked, a red glint in her brown ringlets. He knew this shouldn’t have made it worse, but it did.

It wasn’t his fault. The kids were trespassing. His fence was barb-wired, even electric at some points, and displayed warning signs every twenty feet. It’s like she wanted to get shot. Stupid little girl! Stupid, stupid, he thought, as he clawed at his own face, thinking maybe he could scratch himself a new identity and run away.

The hunter had little girls. Two of them. He hadn’t seen them for a while, though. Their mother thought he was an unfit parent, with all the drinking, and the judge agreed. Girl-hunting wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind.

But she was already dead, right? The hunter’s girls were still alive. He could see them again. He would see them again.

The clouds were clearing now, and a little moonlight shined through the junipers. Right when he didn’t want to see.

“Would you be able to forgive me?”

She didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t even look at him. Except for the head wound, with the blood slowly pooling into her curls, she could asleep.

Hooved steps. Or person steps; he couldn’t afford any more assumptions. More kids, looking for her? They couldn’t see him like this, with the dead girl. He held his breath, glad that the moonlight had retreated. Why couldn’t she just have been a pronghorn?

Maybe she could be, he thought. That would solve everything. She was a pronghorn.

The hunter held the flashlight between his teeth and grabbed the pronghorn’s feet. “I’m going to make you a bed,” he said, through clenched light, dragging his kill into the cave. It was too small for standing. He dug close to the cave’s rocky wall. How deep? Six feet? No, that was for a person. This was a pronghorn.

The grave was covered with rocks—any searcher would just see an extension of the wall. They would assume the girl had met some coyotes, or even a mountain lion. He could say he saw one of those earlier. If only he hadn’t missed that shot, he would say, then maybe she would still be here. But it didn’t even matter, because he’d shot a pronghorn.

The hunter froze at the mouth of the cave—the pack of somethings was there, still and frightened. He raised his flashlight at the glinting eyes.

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