The Upright Man (2 page)

Now that we were closer, it became a little more prosaic. No longer a ghost. Just a body. Nobody likes to see a body, but it’s better than seeing a ghost. Bodies just make you doubt the world and the people in it. Ghosts make you doubt everything, and to doubt it in a part of the mind that has no words to answer the question, where the comforting promises you make yourself are neither believed nor even really understood.

Zandt headed around the back. He held his PDA up toward the man’s face and started taking pictures. “Look,” he said.

I circled, unconsciously keeping well clear, as if I feared the body would start moving again, resuming its progress across the plain. A metal pole, about five feet high and maybe two inches thick, had been driven into the ground behind him. He had been tied to it, his body held upright in a way that happened to make him look like he was walking. In time the body would fall and the clothes fade, and the pole would rust away.

“Christ,” I said. Zandt just nodded, apparently fresh out of other points of view. He put his hands in the man’s jacket and trousers pockets, and came up empty.

I stood back from the figure. If you waited awhile, as the mist ebbed and shifted, you could see that the positioning of the body had been carefully chosen. He was sheltered from view by the hill. You wouldn’t see him unless you were actually out here, someplace there was absolutely no reason to ever be.

Zandt looked out over what he could see of the plain.
“He said there were two.”

“Excellent. That gives us something to look forward to.”

“He didn’t say where.”

I nodded at the walking man. “I’d guess he was supposed to be going someplace.”

We walked in the direction that the man was pointed. After fifty yards we began to sense, rather than see, the lip of another canyon. Then we saw something else.

She was sitting right on the edge. She was about the same age as the walking man, but with her skin in its current condition, it wasn’t easy to be precise. Her elbows rested on her knees, and her hands were brought together to cup her face. The pose was natural, presumably achieved before the body stiffened. The only wrong note was her hair. This was wild and stood up in gray clumps. It looked as if crows had discovered her and started to do their work, and then stopped. Perhaps even they had their limits. Now she just sat and stared with hollow, sunken eyes.

She looked like . . . I don’t know what she looked like. I didn’t really have a comparison. I turned away before she could turn and see me. If she did, there would be no leaving this place.

Zandt took only two pictures, then logged the position. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”

I followed him as he walked away from the woman. I didn’t know what I was feeling, wasn’t sure what you were supposed to make of such a thing. Something, that was for sure. Why do it, otherwise?

I stopped and looked back at her. Something about the way she was positioned was niggling at me.

“Ward, let’s move out. It’s going to get dark soon.”

I ignored him and walked back to her. Squatted down as close as I felt willing, and looked where she was looking. Her head was tilted slightly forward, as if she was gazing down into the canyon.

I wanted to be back in the car as much as Zandt did. Rooney’s Lounge seemed like a good place to be at that moment. Even the Yakima mall, at a pinch.

It wasn’t easy getting into the canyon. I started to go down facing forward, but soon turned around and used my hands. I heard Zandt swear from above, and then start after me, thankfully having the sense to pick a line a good few yards to the side. The rocks he dislodged fell well clear of me.

When I got to the bottom I couldn’t see much at first. The same as up above, only rockier, with a little more vegetation and a few stubby trees. The mist was clearing now, drifting off somewhere else as the sky turned a darker blue.

Then I saw there was another inlet up ahead, the memory of a smaller stream. I walked up it for a short distance, and was surprised to find it turning into a wider, open area. I was still standing at the entrance to this when Zandt arrived, looking at a bulky shape hidden under an outcrop.

At first it was hard to make out what it was.

Then you saw that it was the corner of a small building, flush up against the side of the canyon.

We approached the building walking three yards apart. It became clear that it was very old, a functional one-room cabin, pioneer vintage. It was made from big chunks of wood that had weathered well, still brown in places among the gray. Battered planks of more recent vintage had been nailed across the windows from the inside. The door was shut, held by a padlock that didn’t look old at all. Someone had gone at the door with an ax or shovel, but not recently. Shapes that looked like letters were visible among the scars.

Holding his gun ready, Zandt used his other hand to click a few pictures onto his little machine. The windows. The walls. The door.

Then he pocketed it and looked at me. I nodded.

I walked straight ahead and kicked the door in and swung the hell back out of the way. Zandt was right behind me, gun held out straight.

I slipped in and turned full right, getting behind the door. With the windows blocked it was dark but the doorway let in more than enough light. My scalp tried to crawl backward off my head.

The cabin was full of dead people.

Three sat in a line on a bench, slumped against the back wall. One was little more than a skeleton, the other two dark and vile. One had no arms; the other’s abdomen had burst some time before. Other bodies were gathered in a small, deliberate heap on the other side, and at least two more lay along the front wall. The state of these said none had died recently. A few had scraps and tangles of skin and jerkylike flesh hanging from scaffolding bones. One skull had the upper half of a plastic doll protruding from a hole in the crown. Dust had turned the doll’s hair gray.

As my eyes got used to the gloom, I began to see more and more desiccated body parts: a small, orderly pile against the wall on the left. I moved part of it with my foot, and saw a layer of bones underneath. A thick layer, some of it little more than dust.

We dropped our arms, blinking. Nobody here could do us harm.

Zandt cleared his throat. “Did they do this?”

“The Straw Men? Could be. But some of this has been here a long, long time.”

Zandt wanted to take the cabin apart but one glance told me there was nothing for us to find. If you killed someone in this cabin you could take your time. Plus, I just didn’t want to be there. At all. The longer you stood in that place, the more it felt like the cabin was breathing, slowly, a palpable exhalation of rancid air. I wanted to be outside.

I backed out over the threshold, staring back at it. I was less surprised now that some of the wood remained brown. It was as if many, many bad things had been absorbed into the walls, keeping it moist, keeping it alive. Whatever had happened here had taken place over a long period of time. It had to be the work of more than one person, perhaps even more than one generation. Was it just a place to dump bodies, or was their silent presence, their positioning, supposed to achieve something more nebulous? I thought about the country as a whole, with all its wide, dead spaces, and wondered if this was the only one.

Zandt came out too, but then he stopped suddenly, staring at something over my shoulder.

I turned and saw what he was looking at. It was twenty feet away, on the other side of the canyon, positioned where you would see it when you came out of the cabin.

I took a few steps toward it. This body was far more recent. It had not been arranged like the couple up on the plain, however, but merely thrown on the ground, arms outstretched and one leg bent. Something brown had been nailed to its chest, in the center, where you couldn’t fail to notice. It looked like nothing I’d ever seen, but the unnatural emptiness of the man’s gaping mouth told me what it was.

“Is that the guy? Is that Joseph?”

Zandt didn’t have to answer.

IT
WAS A LONG WALK BACK TO THE CAR
. W
E DROVE
in silence, following the Columbia down toward Portland.

At the airport we got flights in different directions. We didn’t meet again for another month, by which time everything had changed.

I do believe Though I have found them not, That there may be Words which are things.
—L
ORD
B
YRON
,
C
HILDE
H
AROLD
’
S
P
ILGRIMAGE

THERE’S
NEVER A PULL
-
OFF WHEN YOU NEED ONE
. You’re belting along, forest on both sides, making light work of shallow rises and swooping dips, ranks of paper birch framing a series of flicker-lit views so snowy beautiful you can’t even see them, and you keep thinking that just around the next bend there must be a place to stop and park but for some reason there just isn’t. It’s a cloudy Tuesday afternoon in mid-January, a fact that has already seemed odd to you, a strange time to be doing what you’re doing, and you’ve got the road to yourself for probably five miles in both directions. You could just dump the car on the side of the road, but that doesn’t seem right. Though it’s only a rental and you have no attachment to it other than it being the last car you’re ever going to drive, you don’t want to just abandon it. You’re not being sentimental, you don’t think. It’s not even that you don’t want someone to see it, wonder if something untoward is taking place, and come investigating—though you don’t. It’s just a neatness thing. You want the car to be parked. To be at rest. Right at this moment this seems very important to you, but there’s never anywhere to stop. That’s the whole problem, you realize, suddenly hot-eyed: that’s life in a goddamned nutshell. There’s never anywhere to rest, not when you really need
it. Sometimes you don’t need a vista point. You just want to be able to . . .

Shit—there’s one.

Tom slammed his foot down three seconds late and far too hard. The car skidded thirty feet, back end swinging out gracefully until he came to rest straddling both lanes as if placed by a giant hand. He sat for a moment, neck tingling. Through the window came cold air and the sound of a bird cawing with maniacal persistence. Silence otherwise, thank God. Anyone else on the road and it would have gone badly, which would be ironic as all hell, but again, not something he wanted. He was unpopular enough.

He maneuvered the car so it was facing in the right direction once more and then slowly backed past the pull-off. Sarah would have been able to reverse straight in, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t confident of doing so, at least, so he didn’t try. That had always been his way. Hide your faults. Keep your secrets. Never run the risk of looking a fool even if it means you look a fool, and a cowardly one at that.

He pulled forward into the small parking area, crunching over a six-inch line of snow plowed off the road. The lot evidently belonged to the head of some lesser-known hiking trail, firmly shut for the off-season. Only when the car was stationary again did Tom realize his hands were shaking badly. He reached to the passenger seat for the bottle and took a long swallow. He looked in the rearview mirror for a while but saw only the pale skin, brown hair, baggy eyes, and incipient double chin he expected. Middle-age camouflage.

He opened the door and dropped the keys into the side pocket. No sense making it too obvious. He hauled himself out of the car, slipped immediately on a rock, and fell full-length on the ground.

When he pushed himself to his knees he saw there were small wet cuts on one of his palms, and his forehead and right cheek seemed to be dripping a little. His right ankle hurt too. Face pricked with tiny pieces of flint, stunned into a winded moment of sobriety, he knew finally that what he was doing was the right thing.

He got his backpack out of the trunk and shut it, the finality of its sturdy clunk making him realize that he felt something toward the vehicle after all. He made sure the car was locked, then stepped over the low barrier made of logs and set off between the trees, taking care to set off in the direction opposite to the trail.

The bird, or another very like it, was still making its rasping noise. Tom tried shouting at it, at first words and then mere sounds. The bird went silent, but soon started up again. Tom got the message. In here he was just another noisy animal, not in any position to issue commands.

He let the bird be, and concentrated on not falling down.

THE
GOING WAS HARD AND STEEP
. H
E SOON REALIZED
why there’d been no rest areas: this forest wasn’t restful. It wasn’t here for anyone’s benefit: there were no roped paths, rest rooms, or snack stops, none of the traditional mediators between the cooked and the raw. That was okay. His needs were few, and catered for. The backpack had almost nothing in it except alcohol, and he’d paused to repack the bottles so they didn’t clink. He had nothing inside him except alcohol either. He was already doubting vodka as a way of life. It wasn’t for the faint of heart, that was for sure. It took a high level of tolerance for feeling like shit. His wasn’t actually that high, but he was being quite brave about it.

After two hours he estimated he’d only traveled three miles, though he’d climbed enough to leave the birches and fiery dogwood behind and be alone with spruce and cedars. Up here the ground was mainly clear of snow, but it was choked with fallen branches and aggressive bushes that grabbed at his jeans and coat. The trees were tall and quiet and grew wherever the hell they liked. Occasionally he came across a stream. At first he jumped these, but as his ankle began to ache more he made detours to find places where it was easier to cross. Sometimes he muttered to himself. Mainly he kept quiet, saving his breath. The faster he went, the less he had to be aware. When he finished the
bottle he dropped it and kept on going. A hundred meters on he realized this had been brutish, and reeled back to find it. He couldn’t, which suggested he was doing his jobs well. He was becoming both profoundly drunk and very lost. He kept walking steadily, an earthbound plane arcing deeper into the forest. Time spent with Green Trails sheets had shown that even logging roads were scarce in the area, but he knew from experience—albeit in cities—that his sense of direction was pretty good. He also knew how weak he was, how impulse could come and take his hand and lead him places he didn’t want to go; then suddenly vanish, leaving him with blood on his hands. That was why being lost was crucial. Otherwise he’d change his mind. He’d cop out and prevaricate and fail, and surely there was nothing more pathetic than screwing up your own suicide.

Tom Kozelek had come to the Northwest with no plan except a desire to be somewhere other than Los Angeles. He had stood in LAX, a little drunk, and picked Seattle because he’d been on business there recently and knew a good hotel. He stayed there a single night and then drove east, into the Cascade Mountains. It’s a strange area. There are peaks and vertiginous valleys, jagged rocks in every shade of gray. There’s even a small amount of history, of an “And then they cut down a bunch more trees” variety. But there aren’t many roads, and the mountains pretty much keep themselves to themselves: unless you know where you’re going—which Tom didn’t—it would be easy to think there wasn’t any there, there. He moved vaguely between small, cold towns for two days, spent evenings sitting in motel rooms with the television off. He phoned what had been his home. The call was answered, which made it worse. The conversation with his wife and children was short and involved no shouting. Worse still. There are times when reasonableness is the worst cut of all, because if everyone’s being adult and yet the world is still broken, where do you go from there?

In the end he found a town called Sheffer and dug in. Sheffer was little more than a main drag and five cross
streets that quickly petered out into steep fir-choked foothills; but a pair of snooty bed & breakfast places and a hippy café with good oatmeal cookies and five pristinely secondhand copies of
The Bridges of Madison County
suggested people came there on purpose. There was a small railroad museum (closed) and a stretch of disused track alongside the main road, home to picturesquely rusting old hulks of rolling stock. It was out of season and the town had its feet up, locals moving forward out of the background, combing the moss out of their hair.

Four days before his walk in the woods Tom sat at the counter in Big Frank’s, the least anodyne of its three bars, staring at television coverage of a foreign sport whose rules he didn’t really understand. He felt agitatedly becalmed, way out in Injun territory. He was forty-three years old and a grown-up. He had charge cards. He had a car at his disposal. He was not limited by anybody’s expectations or prior knowledge: he could pretend his name was Lance if he had a mind to, claim to be an ex–fighter pilot turned dotcom millionaire; or a cult jazz-fusion choreographer called Bewildergob. Nobody would know otherwise, or care. He could do anything he wanted, but with this came the realization there was nothing he wanted to do. Nothing at all.

Nothing would make a difference now. He had crossed the line.

He drank until his brain was empty and cold. The idea, when it came, arrived in his head as if shot there by a distant archer. He realized there
was
a way of making things, if not better, then at least manageable. Of making the problems go away. He got another beer and took it to a table in a dark corner to consider the idea more carefully.

He’d thought of suicide before, like most people, but never seriously: an occasional glance to check that the idea remained ridiculous. This felt different. This wasn’t a gesture. It was entirely rational. His situation wasn’t yet irrevocable, after all. His marriage was over, but not all his friendships. He could get a new job, design corporate websites for somebody else. Find an apartment. Do his
laundry. Buy a microwave oven of his very own. A year from now it might all feel different. So what? He’d still be the same Tom, a procrastinating man of indifferent talents, slowly expanded by the metabolic bicycle pump of age. He’d still be the person who’d gotten himself here. Life was bad enough now—what if they found out the rest? The choices he wanted to make existed solely in the past.

So why not just have done with it? Draw the line. Swallow the loss. Hope reincarnation was true and try to make a better job of it next time.

Why not? After all—why not?

He drank until the bar shut, then tried to chat with the two young bartenders as they guided him unaffectionately toward the door. One responded with bored, the other with mild distaste. Tom realized he was probably not much younger than their fathers, most likely square-jawed mountain types who took a nip of bourbon or sour mash or whatever the fuck about once a month. The door was shut firmly behind him. As he staggered back toward his motel it occurred to him that he didn’t have to care what they thought about him anymore. His new course put him on a higher plane. He didn’t have to give a shit. He got so cross that he turned around and reeled back to the bar, intending to explain to Chip and Dale that while these were great times for boys in their twenties, men in middle age weren’t having it quite so smooth; that one day their own abs might sag and they’d forget how to love and have no clue who they were. He felt this would be a valuable insight for them. It was the only one he had, in any event, and he was willing to share it. By the time he got back to the bar it was locked and dark. He hammered on the door for a while, telling himself they might still be inside but mainly just because he wanted to hammer on something. It wasn’t more than five minutes before he was suddenly bathed in light. He turned to see a car from the sheriff’s department parked on the street behind him. A youngish guy in a uniform was leaning back on the fender, his arms folded.

“Believe it’s shut, sir,” he said.

Tom opened his mouth but realized there was too much
to say and none of it made any sense. He raised his arms, not in surrender, but in a kind of mute entreaty. Strangely, the deputy seemed to understand. He nodded, said no more, got back in his car and drove away. Tom walked home to the motel, padding slowly down the middle of the main street through the steady, meditative blink of traffic lights with no cars to direct.

Next morning he thought it through. His options were limited. There was no gun store in town, and he didn’t want to drive until he found one. Even assuming they let him have one, guns were scary. Jumping off a cliff, supposing he could find one, was also out. The idea was self-evidently counterrevolutionary. Even if his mind was determined, his body could simply overrule—in which case he’d have a long walk back to the car feeling like the world’s biggest fool. Yes, I was going to throw myself off, that’s right. No, it didn’t happen. Sorry. Nice view, though. Mind your step. Tom didn’t want to end up as something distended or smashed, something to be found, photographed, and shipped home. He didn’t want to be broken, he wanted to be
erased.

On Sunday he was picking at a huge Reuben in Henry’s, the town’s more friendly diner, when he heard something that put the final piece in place. A local old-timer was taking delight in worrying a pair of Winnebago retirees about the scope and impenetrability of the woods. Tom’s attention was drawn by the repetition of a number. Seventy-three. The local said it several times in a row. Seventy-three—how about that?

His audience was looking at each other and nodding as if quite impressed. Then the male of the pair turned to the local with the air of a man who’s spotted a flaw in another’s argument.

“Big ones, or little ones?” he asked. “The planes—what kind of size were they?”

His wife nodded. No flies on her husband. She’d always said so.

“All sizes,” the old geezer said, somewhat tetchily. “Big ones, little ones, civilian, military. Planes go down all the time—matter of fact, many
more
than that have ditched
around here. My point is that of all the planes gone down in the Pacific Northwest since the war,
seventy-three have never even been found.
”