Tent City (17 page)

I wake him gently and his eyes flash in recognition and he starts to sit.

“Brody, what happened?” I ask.

“I just wanted to get really far away since I know you’re so fast and you were sure to catch me if I didn’t get far. I crossed the water because it really wasn’t all that deep and it wasn’t all that cold.” He snuggles in closer.

As I start to pick him up in an attempt to leave, he stops me.

“Dani, no!”

“What is it Brody?” Surely he can’t want to stay here.

“Don’t you know what they are?” he asks, bewildered as he touches his fingertips delicately to the orange flower tops.

“What?” I am truly perplexed.

“These are Mom’s flowers. Remember? She said they were orange Randy lions. Like the yellow ones we have at home, but orange. That’s why I came here. I was going to climb the tree, but I liked it better down here in the flowers. These are her favorite. They’re ware remember?”

“You mean rare?” He nods his head yes.

“Yes, I do, Brody, and they are dandelions, silly.” I sit back down and tell him the story about when Mom first saw orange dandelions.

“We were on vacation and out for a family hike when she stumbled upon them. She was so taken by them that she asked Dad to stop so she could just stare at them. She said they reminded her of the sunrise she and Dad would watch every morning on their honeymoon.”

He lays his head down on my lap and gets comfortable for more.

“They would both wake up early just to see every single sunrise in the Bahamas, because surely neither had seen an orange so intense.

“Dad had wanted to pick them for her right then and there so she could take them with her. She adamantly said no, and said nature should be left in its place.”

Brody is drawing circles on my leg the same way he does to Mom when she tells bedtime stories. I play with his curls, matching the memory.

“She didn’t find out until we got home from vacation that he had taken the flowers and had pressed them into a book for her. There must have been 50 of them. She tried to act mad that he had taken them from the forest, but secretly we all knew she was pleased.”

Brody sits captivated as I unfold the love story. His face is a mixture of sadness and longing and my heart weeps a little at the sight. I find myself wondering again why we have been put into this situation.

And actually I’m just downright angry at the outlandishness of it. Brody should be home with his mother, in her lap, while she tells him the sweet stories of his parents. When is this ever going to be over?

“Tell it again,” he smiles, baring all of his tiny white teeth and begs with those big brown eyes.

“You, mister, are going to have to wait!” I start tickling and lift him up in one swoop.

I am tempted to let him go so I can chase him down, but I can’t bear to let him go just yet. I hoist him up on top of my shoulders and head back.

It’s still a wonder to me that just based on intuition I was able to find him. Even though I know it’s ridiculous, I whisper quietly to myself, “I’ve got him, Mom.”

I’ve just finished maps with Bentley and now I’m looking for Grant for combat training, even though I’m not really in the mood for it today. He has been asking more than just a few questions about Kit and I’m not sure I like where he’s headed with that.

She mentioned him the other night before bed, so I suppose they’re dating in some way. On the bright side, he doesn’t seem so irritated with me. I suppose he figures he has to butter me up to get in good with her. If I know Kit, he won’t last long anyway.

Everyone is doing chores around camp and I feel a little lost. I try to decide if I should go help Callie in the kitchen or try and find Brody when I stumble upon Jack doing something very disturbing with what looks to be a beaver. There is blood all over the tree stump he’s using as a table and he looks to be threading a needle.

“I hate to say it, doc, but I think the patient’s gone,” I say with a slight smirk.

“Yes, it would appear that way, which is good for me cuz I need the practice.”

“Practice for what?”

He doesn’t miss a beat and he’s got the needle threaded within seconds. He has a scalpel beside the beaver. I assume he used it to open the beaver up. It must not have been dead long because it doesn’t have that stiff, rotting look to it.

“Well, you never know when this might come in handy. I’ve done it a few times, but I can always get better.”

“Done what a few times?” I ask, as I slide another tree trunk stump closer so I can have a chair to sit and watch.

I’m inches from it now and I can’t help but notice how clean the cuts look. It looks as if he has taken out all the organs for closer examination and then put them back.

“Stitches…You okay with this?” he asks with one eyebrow lifted.

“Okay with what?” I ask, as I inch even closer to get a better look. The organs are so tiny, and still fresh and pliable.

“Look at you,” he says smiling. “Most people might walk away a little green in the face. How do you keep surprising me?” he asks rhetorically, looking slightly impressed.

“Can you teach me?” I ask.

Maybe this is the break I have been waiting for. I might not need to know necessarily how to stitch anyone up, but if he could pass on anything helpful for me to learn, I’m more than willing. There was nothing worse than Brody being sick and not knowing what to do for him.

We don’t have the benefit of having a hospital around here with nurses or doctors, well besides Jack, and I need to know as much as I can. Who knows how long he’s going to stick around.

We work side by side for the next hour while he teaches me the organs, what they are and what function they have in the body. He reminds me of that guy I first met who was witty and confident. He seems different here in Tent City, guarded.

As he works on the beaver though, he’s carefree and what I would call happy, if I wasn’t talking about Jack. He has even let me try a few of the stitches and they aren’t half bad, even if I have to say so myself, which of course, I did.  

Just then Bentley walks into camp, but before he can walk into his and Callie’s cabin, he darts Jack and me a death glare, followed by a prompt slam of the door.

“What’s his problem with you, anyway?” I ask.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he says as he gets up. He carts off the beaver before I can even get a chance to thank him for the lesson.

“So what’s going on with you and Grant, anyway?” I ask Kit, as we meet to have lunch in my cabin. This has become a new ritual for us since she started staying in our tent again. It’s our hour to catch up on everything.

“What do you mean?” she asks back as she busily prepares our plates and drinks at the table, getting Brody set up first.

“Here you go Buddy. Why don’t you eat the bread first? The stew’s kind of hot.”

Or maybe not eat it at all, I think to myself. It looks like it could be that beaver Jack was slicing up earlier. Just the thought of it makes me decide that I’ll be taking a pass on lunch today. There’s something about surgically repairing an animal that makes it less appetizing. Kit will be delighted at the extra portion.

“Well, I’m waiting.”

She blushes.

“Since when don’t we tell each other everything?” I persist, as I take bits of the bread and pop it into my mouth. Anything to prolong eating the bread. I’m not touching that stew.

“Well, nothing yet. I just kinda like him I guess.”
She says.

“Hmmmm….” I consider.

“What are you hmmmmming about?”

She’s not really eating either. I can tell she’s waiting for my opinion, but I’m not sure I want to give it to her. It would probably just start a fight.

“It’s just that,” I start slowly, hoping the right words come out, “it’s just that, you could have any guy here, why Grant?”

“Aww…gee, thanks.” She’s faking modesty, but she’s smiling now and I’m relieved it hasn’t turned to a fight yet.

“Thing is, I thought he was kind of a meathead at first, but he’s actually really sweet. At night, he always makes sure I get back to our tent safely and he doesn’t like me going out for walks alone. He always asks if I’m getting enough to eat…”

“Stalker.”

“He’s not a stalker. He’s just really sweet. And the things he talks about, you wouldn’t think he would. He’s had a lot of crappy stuff happen to him.” She trails off and I'm happy she hasn’t used her other description for stuff. Must be because Brody’s here.

“When did all this start?”

“When you went missing actually… I was such a mess. I thought for sure you were dead and then Brody got sick…I just couldn’t handle any of it. He didn’t have to care, but Dani, it’s like it really mattered to him whether we found you or not. I can’t say that about everyone here.”

I don’t even want to think about my time in the woods, let alone talk about it.  

“He’s been asking a lot of questions about you.”

“He has?” She brightens. “Like what?”

Oh no, what have I started? I’m not sure I should have opened this can of worms, but we’ve had trouble finding things to talk about lately.

All she seems to care about is her “mother duties” and her new friends and I can tell she gets bored with my “training”, except for the parts where Grant is concerned. She has no interest in the Bentley mystery, or the Jack mystery for that matter. She thinks I’m making it all up in my head.

Just as I’m about to deflect any more “Grant questions”, we hear a high-pitched scream outside. The kind I remember hearing from actors who worked in haunted houses Drake and I went to as kids. The scream itself isn’t the scary part. It’s the volume of it that seems frightening. I can’t imagine after a night working in a haunted house, the actors had any voices at all.

When I open the cabin door, I see a lot of commotion outside, but I can’t tell what’s going on. I tell Brody to stay inside. Kit and I go out to see what the ruckus is about.

Then I see the culprit. It’s a raccoon, but what’s really bizarre about this one is that it seems to have no fear of all the people parting to clear a path for it.

It walks brazenly though people who are scattering, who can’t seem to get away fast enough. Most of the kids are running to their tents or cabins.

I can’t seem to figure out why it’s got them so spooked. And that’s when I really see it.

It appears to be a tame raccoon, only not regular cute and playful tame. There’s something definitely off about it. The girls are acting dramatic and scared, typical.

The guys are standing around acting brave, but slightly nervous. I see a few of them approaching the raccoon and it seems harmless, but I feel a quick prick of panic in the pit of my stomach.

Before anyone can say anything in warning, the one girl who didn’t run away, whose name is Beth I think, starts cooing to the raccoon and approaching it.

“Don’t get too close to that thing.” I hear someone shout.  

“Don’t be silly. He can’t be much more than a baby. Maybe he’s lost his mother. Maybe he’s hungry,” she says as she moves in closer. The raccoon sort of sniffs the air and surprisingly doesn’t back away from her.

“There, there,” she continues, as she bends down with her palms turned upwards.