Caretakers (Tyler Cunningham) (8 page)

“Lighten up
, Francis. None of that stuff. I was talking about the planning and maps and racing around the Park and beating them at their own game, that stuff. I wanna help, Tyler, and I hope that none of the other things are on the agenda this time around.”

“None of them were planned the first time around, Dot … they just happened. Things don’t go according to plan when you’re dealing with crazy people or criminals; they don’t follow any logical patterns of behavior, and things get messy. If I thought this might be like last September with George, I’d pack up Hope (
my dog
) for a vacation in Iceland.”

“Right, right, I get it. You know what I mean, Tyler. I want to help you with this; Kitty is a nice old lady, and a good friend of the shelter. I can’t imagine how that must feel for her, not knowing for so long. Besides, it’ll mostly be research, you said.” She sounded like she understood what I meant, but I could still see the fun in her eyes, and worried about … trouble.

“Probably,” I admitted, “but there’s no way to know for sure until something goes wrong, and I’m not comfortable with that, with you, … I was just talking with ….” I had been about to say Barry, and clacked my jaws shut quickly, hoping she hadn’t guessed where I was going. I had told her after the first time I had seen Barry’s ghost, before he ever spoke to me, and it freaked her out. She had asked a number of times since then if I’d seen him again, and I’d been evasive.

“Let’s get back, okay? I need to release the hound for a pee, and make some plans for my research. I promise to bring you in as much as I can, once I know it’s safe.” She put the car in gear and drove us back to the parking lot behind the building that houses SmartPig, but she was quiet, and looked at me suspiciously the whole time, and gave me an intense stare when I walked her over to her car. She knew that I hadn’t spoken to anyone about what had actually happened with Cynthia and George and Barry and Justin and Hope and I last September; I had related a PG-13 version of the events to Mickey Schwarz in February, when he came up for the tail-end of the Winter Carnival in Saranac Lake. (
I had helped to bail him out of some trouble in January, and as a consequence, he needed to be told something about what it is that I do
). Dorothy and I made a dinner date for Wednesday at the better of the two Chinese places in town (
with the caveat that I might miss it if things got busy that quickly
), and went our separate ways, me to Hope, and she to Lisa, her wife.

I went upstairs to fetch Hope for a brief walk, and then put together an abbreviated camping kit for an overnight with Hope. I wanted a night outside to think about what I had learned and guessed during the course of the day, along with what gaps there were, and how I planned to fill them in the coming days and weeks. The very end of Floodwood Road has some nice wooded campsites for car-camping, and is civilized enough for the 993, without having many people head out that way (
most stop at the put in for the paddle trips on either Floodwood or Long Ponds, so Hope and I would likely have the peace and quiet we both enjoyed
). I brought my hammock and sleeping bag, choosing not to bring a tarp (
it looked to be rain-free for the next few days
), and a fleece blanket in case Hope chose to sleep on the ground (
she normally likes to sleep on top of me in the hammock, which I like too, since I worry less about her wandering off or being dragged off by coyotes when she’s up with me
). A 2.5 gallon jug of water from Kinney’s meant that I could skip lugging and filtering water from a nearby pond, and I brought along some no-cook food for both of us (
‘Taste of the Wild’ kibble for Hope, and what Dot called ‘Tyler Kibble’ for me: my proprietary mix of almonds, tiny hunks of venison jerky, dark chocolate M&Ms, dried blueberries and mango pieces
); I bought a vacuum-sealer this spring, and had a ready supply of 1-cup servings of both kinds of kibble, so I threw three of each into a duffel. My Kobo e-reader (
it was new and light and cheap, and I was trying it out, comparing it to the Kindle Fire
), and a small stuffsack filled with other essentials (
TP, lighter, knife, headlamp, SPOT beacon, tiny first-aid kit, and a fews lengths of paracord and amsteel
) rounded out the kit.

I didn’t know how Mike Crocker would feel about me taking his Porsche camping with my shelter-dog as co-pilot, but I assumed, as always, that it is better to ask forgiveness than for permission (
although in point of fact, I planned to do neither
).

The base of Floodwood Mountain, 7/15/2013, 12:49 a.m.

Hope loved our new car. Something about the sound or smell or being closer to the road invigorated her, and she kept her head on a swivel throughout the whole drive. I stopped at Donnelly’s for a pair of cones (
Chocolate/Vanilla twist, which people insist will do horrible things to my dog, but I trust Hope’s judgment and we ignore those people
). The car felt sleek and light after years of driving the Honda Element, which, to be fair, is like a toaster on wheels, and I made the drive out to the gate at the publicly accessible end of Floodwood Road in one third less time than it normally takes. The Porsche felt low and wide and nimble; four-wheel drive and grabby tires and Adirondack roads topped with pea-gravel instead of smooth blacktop made for a noisy ride, but the trade-off was that it felt as though the 993 was rolling along a set of invisible rails designed by my mind and hands moment by moment. We pulled off the side of the road eventually, up near Floodwood Mountain. I grabbed the overnight kit (
I bought Hope a dog pack last year, after she came to live with me, but she refused to walk when I put it on, so I carry her camping gear as well as my own
), and headed in a mostly southerly direction towards the mountain.

Hope was happy to get out of SmartPig and Saranac Lake, and spent the first ten minutes of the walk ranging far ahead and behind and to both sides in search of squirrels/birds/monsters/food, coming back to check on me every minute or two before running off again … tongue hanging out, tail wagging, eyes bright. I was glad to see her so happy and … doggy; the winter had been tough and long for her. She didn’t like camping in the cold (
as I do
), and her joints all bothered her, so she spent most of the winter on the couch, on a heated dog-bed that I bought for her, going for sleepovers with Dorothy whenever I went out for more than one night. She deserved to be happy, after having endured a tough life before we met.

I’d spent the spring and early part of the summer exploring new sections of the Adirondack Park with Hope, modifying my trip parameters/goals to fit an aging beagle mix. There are a huge number of places to get lost for a while with a dog who hates people and leashes and steep rocky trails, and this chunk of perfection at the end of the Floodwood road was one of them. I was happy to be walking with Hope and a backpack and not to feel/hear/smell another human within miles. This might be an indoor kind of project, and I wanted to enjoy the time with Hope in the woods, since it might be a week or two before we could do it again.

We set up camp literally in the shadow of Floodwood Mountain, next to a babbling brook that would provide more background noise than water for us. Hope loves to camp, but feels that it is her duty to investigate and report every sound in the nighttime forest (
which is a lot of sounds
); the brook, in combination with her failing ears, would allow both of us to get some sleep. I hung my hammock, laid out her blanket underneath it, got out our bags of kibble and my Kobo, and settled down on the ground, leaning against a tree, to read for a few hours. Hope explored the area, drank from the brook, found a perfect stick, and spun the proper number of times before laying down, snugged next to my right thigh.

I had been re-reading my way through some of my favorite authors’ early works; enjoying the beginnings of Travis McGee, Matt Scudder, Lucas Davenport, Parker, Nero Wolfe, Jack Reacher, along with some others. I remembered the books from having read them earlier, of course, but the pictures the authors painted of the characters and storylines were wonderful and comforting to sink into. The patterns of words/actions/interactions provided a suitable framework for my forebrain while I let the less conscious bits in the back of my head po
re over the events of, and information gleaned during the day, in the hope that by morning I would find/see the way to advance with my research and investigation. I could feel the beginnings of thoughts about how I would proceed, the shapes, but not specific details, which was good enough for a start, so I went to bed at 8:32. Hope jumped up to join me seven minutes later, and we were both asleep by a quarter to nine.

“It’s nothing, Tyler. A branch broke off a tree about 100 yards up the hill from us, and crashed into stuff on its way down,” Ghost-Barry said, from a spot about 30 feet to my left. Although it was pitch black, my recall of the area, and a triangulation of his voice placed him sitting on the big boulder by the little creek.

Hope was growling at the woods from the safety of my sleeping bag; she had pulled the bag open and climbed down into it when the evening cooled off a bit beyond her comfort zone. She was invisible, except as an odd lump in my bag that had settled into/onto my lap/groin/stomach. I reached a hand into the bag, and rubbed her ears for a minute, until she went back to sleep.

The wind must have picked up after we went to bed, because I could hear it racing through the treetops, banging branches together. After a minute of feeling the trees and branches above Hope and me, I unzipped my bag all the way, slipped out from beneath her, and found my pack at the foot of the tree the head-end of my hammock was fixed to. I got out the amsteel, basically a strong and lightweight synthetic cordage that I used as a ridgeline when hanging a tarp or hammock sock while camping, and strung it a few feet over the hammock that we had been sleeping in. The amsteel would likely be strong enough to catch and hold a falling branch, if one happened to fall straight down towards us (
not a foolproof plan, but better than nothing
). Hope was in full-on boneless mode when I tried to shift her to climb back into the hammock, so I decided to read for a bit before trying to sleep until morning.

Barry was sitting there, in the dark, watching me read. He wasn’t, really, but I believed that he was, and since I only had my sensorium to go on, I had to move forward as if he was. I don’t fully understand why my brain is inserting the ghost of Barry into my life, but I have some idea that it is a witch’s brew of PTSD from the series of traumatic events last September and my subconscious’ inability to play nicely with emotions such as fear and anger. His pattern is to appear during, or just after, periods of noise, surprise, stress, and physical contact. After the first time, I chose to assume that his presence served me (
and my brain
) some useful purpose; the alternative was that I was simply crazy and/or that he really was/is a ghost (
which is, oddly perhaps, a less appealing possibility to me
). Since I had the time (
and Hope was asleep and wouldn’t be freaked out by my talking to a person that she couldn’t see or smell
), I decided to try speaking with Barry for a few minutes.

“Barry, you know that you’re not really here, don’t you?”

“It feels like I’m here, Tyler.”

“Do you remember me killing you?”

“Yah, with Justin down near Newcomb. Lights and noise and a long fall down that cold hole in the woods.” I shivered a bit here, remembering the long wait I had had, lying on the stone floor of the mine near Tahawus.

“Why are you here, Barry?” I asked, not really hopeful that I’d get a different answer this time (
Einstein had once suggested that this was the definition of insanity, which was not heartening
).

“There must be a reason, but I don’t know it, Tyler. If I have to be a ghost, why do I have to haunt you, and not some hottie or a person who lives in a cool place like Hawaii or Disney, instead of a mostly-homeless geek who lives in the woods near where I grew up. How about when we’re done doing whatever we’re doing, I could go haunt a hottie living in Hawaii?”

“Sounds good to me, Barry, when do you go?” His last response had actually been a bit different from previous ones, but still close enough that I wasn’t too/more nervous.

“I dunno, when we’re done, I guess.” This response seemed promising, but we’d been here before; he didn’t know what we needed to finish. He (
or really I, I suppose
) just knew that we had ‘stuff’ to do before he could/would go. At this point I decided to take off on a new, and hopefully useful, tack.

“I have some ideas about how to proceed with the Crocker investigation … what do you think?”

“The old Tyler standby of research in the library and online won’t help yet. You need the door open a crack first. Remember the ‘Informal excoriation’ that you talked with the old lady about? You should try some of that?”

“Informational Echolocation?” I find it slightly off-putting that my brain chooses for Barry to occasionally stumble on big words (
as the original/actual Barry did
).

“Yah, t
hat. It worked well with George, almost too well. You got in touch, and his reaction (
over-reaction, really
) let you know that you were right about him. You could try the same thing here.”

“What you’re suggesting is that I make some waves/noise/fuss about finding Dee Crocker, or finding out about her disappearance, and that if people get back in touch, regardless of what they have for me, it could help direct my further research.”

“I guess. How would you do it?” Since he lived inside my head when I wasn’t hallucinating him in the real world, and he didn’t know, I must not know, so I thought about it for a bit.

“There is an Upper Saranac Lake Association (USLA); I could get in touch with them online and otherwise, and ask for pictures or for interviews with people who were around during the summer season of 1958. It would probably be better not to mention Dee Crocker at first, unless I have to, to improve the quality of signal return.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind, Barry. While that’s cooking though, I need to do something else, something more … got it. The Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake (
I say it this way these days to avoid people confusing it with the Wild Center, another museum in the Adirondacks, but a natural history museum, and as such less likely to be useful with research into a girl missing for 54.85 years
). I got an email 13 months ago talking about their new program to digitize their massive collection of photos.”

“I remember going down there with my dad when I was a kid, and looking at those conveyor-belts of black and white pictu
res and postcards, it was like looking back in time; like a time machine.” Sometimes, the Barry construct surprised me, especially when its use of language or figurative language differed from mine. My assumption is that, based on our few conversations, my brain took a snapshot of his speech-patterns, and tried to mimic them for me … it seemed like a lot of effort for my PTSD to go to, but who knows.

“I’l
l need a picture of Dee Crocker; I can’t believe that I left without one yesterday.”

“You couldn’t wait to beat feet with that old guy’s sweet ride,” Barry pointed out.

I was starting to feel tired again, so climbed back up into the hammock, lifting Hope up and out and then back into the bag, on top of me; she pretended not to wake up, but snaked a tongue out with unerring accuracy when my nose went by hers. I was satisfied with the progress that we (
me really, but from two slightly different perspectives
) had made. I had things to do tomorrow, and once they were in motion, I anticipated some returns from the noise that I was making.

“Remember,” Barry said, from deeper in the woods, as I settled down into the warm bag, “it was when things started moving last year that you almost died, and ended up having to kill me; so by all means push, Tyler, but be ready for when someone pushes back.” Lots of people might have had trouble getting to sleep after a ghost told them that in the dark woods … but I’m not lots of people.