Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

Footsteps thudded above us. Bear growled and the short hairs at his back and neck raised. I slipped the sharp bit of metal under my leg and waited. The door creaked open. I expected to see Wade, shotgun in hand, but instead it was the girl.

She stood in the doorway, barefoot in pink-and-gray pajamas. She lingered there, her hand on the doorknob, looking down at us. Bear whined, but I stilled him with a hand on his back and drew him toward me. She took the lantern and closed the door just enough so that only a sliver of light escaped.

“I heard your dog barking,” she said. “My name’s Ellie.” She descended another stair and stopped. “Can I… ?”

Bear made a breathy sound of anticipation as her foot hit the dirt floor. He stretched forward onto his belly, ears at attention, back end shaking. I kept my eye on the door as she approached, that infinitesimal streak of black. Freedom.

My hand dropped down by my leg, my fingertips resting on the jagged piece of metal. Ellie knelt in front of Bear, just out of my reach.

“Is he friendly?”

I drew my finger along the metal lip of the can. “Yes.”

Ellie edged forward, but Bear was faster. He belly-crawled over to her and buried his head in her lap, sniffing at her until she giggled and fell back onto the bottom stair, delighted. Ellie rubbed at his head and his ears and scratched his muzzle when he forced it into her hand. Bear flipped over onto his back and kicked at the air, with his tongue hanging out. As I watched them play, something sank inside me. My hand fell from the can’s lid. This girl wouldn’t be my ticket out.

“What’s his name?”

“Bear,” I said.

“Does he do tricks?”

I took a cracker out of a nearby package and held it over Bear’s head. He popped up onto his back legs and pawed at the air. Ellie laughed and clapped and I dropped the cracker into Bear’s mouth. When he was done, he shoved his face into Ellie’s lap, searching for more.

“He can catch a stick if you throw it to him.”

Ellie looked up. “Really?”

I frowned, studying the walls of the dank basement. “Course there’s not really enough room in here to show you. If—”

“I can’t unlock you,” she said. “Sorry.”

Ellie went back to wrestling with Bear, and whatever strength I had left me. Every pointless mile Bear and I had walked stung.

“Why does he have you locked up anyway?” she asked. “Are you running from the soldiers too?”

I nodded slowly.

“I’m supposed to hide down here when they come,” she said casually as she petted Bear. “So they don’t see me.”

“Why doesn’t your dad want the soldiers to see you?”

Bear huffed as Ellie stroked his side. “Wade’s not my dad,” she said.

“No? Who is?”

Ellie looked back to the door, suddenly wary. “Maybe I should—”

“Do you want to give Bear a cracker?”

I held the box out toward her. Ellie’s eyes locked on it but she hesitated. It wasn’t until Bear yipped and clawed at the box that she grabbed it out of my hand. I inched closer as she fed a cracker to Bear in pieces, a look of intense concentration on her face.

“How about your mom?” I asked, trying a different tack. “Where is she?”

“Mom got sick when I was little,” she said.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“I only remember her a little bit.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my mom too.”

Ellie glanced over at me as Bear ate out of her hand. I checked the door and moved a little closer. Ellie finished feeding Bear. He lay at her feet, staring up at her as she stroked his head. Bits and pieces clicked together in my head. I decided to take a leap.

“I was taken away from my mom and dad by the soldiers when I was around your age,” I said. “I was trying to get home again, but Wade is going to give me back to them. To the soldiers.”

“I told you. I can’t—”

“I know,” I said. “I just thought that, after they take me, they’ll probably bring me to a base nearby, right? Maybe I can try to find your dad for you.”

Her hand went still on Bear’s side.

“Your real dad’s a soldier,” I said. “Isn’t he?”

Ellie said nothing.

“What’s his name?” I asked. “Do you know?”

She nodded, eyes still locked on Bear. “Wade doesn’t think I do. But I heard my mom say it once.”

“Maybe if you tell me, then I can find him for you. He’d probably like to know you’re doing okay. ”

“I’m not supposed to talk about him.”

“Why not?”

Ellie took one of Bear’s front paws, but he snapped it away and then they wrestled back and forth for it. They played for a while, until Bear’s lids went heavy and he fell asleep sprawled out in front of her.

She stroked him as he slept and slowly began to talk.

The basement door opened again early the next morning.

This time Wade was there, towering in the door frame with a rising sun behind him and the shotgun by his side. Bear growled as Wade came heavily down the stairs, but I held him back. Wade took a seat on the bottom step, the shotgun across his knees. His eyes were dark and lidded, like he hadn’t slept.

“Anything you want before they come?” he asked. “Any message you want me to get to your folks or anything?”

I shook my head, and Wade started to go.

“What are you doing this for?” I asked. “Money?”

Wade stopped where he was, his back half to me. He looked up into the house and shook his head.

“Then what?”

“Goodwill,” he said. There was gravel in his voice along with a hint of what sounded like real regret. “These days you need just about all you can get. I don’t mean you any… Things just are what they are. Like I said, I’ll vouch for you as best I can. Tell ’em you were repentant. Whatever. I just thought, I don’t know, maybe we could get some kind of story together before they come. Ease your way a bit.”

“Will they take me to Salt Lake City?”

“I suspect they will. Yeah.”

“Camp Eagle?”

Wade raised an eyebrow. “Why? You know folks there? Could help if you do.”

“Don’t know anyone,” I said. “But there’s someone I’m looking forward to meeting.”

“Who?”

“Jeff Sinclair.” Wade didn’t move an inch. The old walls of the house settled around us, ticking like a clock.

“He’s a colonel there,” I said. “Or was. Maybe he’s higher up now.”

“Don’t know the man.”

“Really? I’d think you would, since you’ve been hiding his daughter from him for the last five years.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Ellie’s mom was a woman named Larissa Kenning,” I said, sick of playing games. “She was a companion at Camp Eagle. From what Ellie said, I’m guessing Colonel Sinclair took a liking to her. Want to hear what else I’m guessing?”

Wade said nothing.

“I’m guessing she got pregnant, which isn’t exactly something that can happen to a companion of the Path, especially if it’s by an officer. If Sinclair found out about it, he would have had the problem taken care of, so I’m guesing that Larissa ran. Eventually she found her way here to you, but she died not long after — Ellie didn’t really know how, just said she was sick.”

“Cancer,” Wade said in that raw voice. “Hit her when Ellie was five.”

“And you’ve been taking care of her since then,” I said. “That’s why you have to turn in people like me, isn’t it? Got to look like the perfect citizen.”

Wade had gone dead pale, his hand limp on the stair rail.

“Sinclair even know she exists?”

Wade shook his head. I stood up in the middle of the basement.