Dave Eggers - Heroes of the Frontier

“Okay,” Josie said.

“There’s a town over here,” Paul noted, pointing to a small grid that looked to be just over a ridge, only a few miles away as the crow flies. There seemed to be a trail that went over the ridge, bringing them to the town via a frontage road. They would appear from the trail like hikers, and then disappear again like hikers, and even if anyone took note of the three of them, remembering Ana’s orange tumbleweed hair, they would be able to say only that they came out of the woods, or returned to the woods.

“And look,” Paul said, pointing to a wide thread of blue. “A river, I think.”

“The Yukon,” Josie said. They were at the Yukon River, or within walking distance, and all this time they’d had no idea.

“Will we bring Follow?” Paul asked.

They discussed leaving her alone in the cabin, which seemed unwise — she’d tear the place up. They could lock her in the bathroom, but that would be cruel.

“I think we have to,” Josie said, putting their fiery faces to bed.

—

Josie sat outside, listening to the lunatic night, her bullet-hole guitar on her lap. She didn’t want to go to town. She had begun to think they could stay in the woods indefinitely. For the time being, she missed no one and nothing. She tried to conjure a decent chord and failed. She tried to pick a string, any string, to make a pleasing sound, and got nowhere. She put the guitar down, went inside, and found Follow, standing on the futon, as if waiting for her company. She lifted the dog, who weighed no more than a carrot, brought her outside and petted her until her black fur calmed and she returned to sleep. This was about the time the ringing had come before, so Josie’s back was tense. The cabin door squeaked.

“Mom?” It was Ana.

“You can’t be awake,” Josie said.

“But I am,” Ana said.

Ana came to Josie’s chair and leaned against it. She was wearing her conspiratorial face, the one she wore when she called Josie by her first name. She traced circles on Josie’s arm, her mouth moving, as if practicing something she needed to say.

“What is it?” Josie asked.

“Mom, I know Dad’s dead.” She produced an apologetic smile.

“What?” Josie said.

A flicker of doubt entered Ana’s eyes. “He is, right?”

“No.” Josie threw her arm around Ana and pulled her close. “No, sweetie,” she said into Ana’s thicket of hair, smelling of woodsmoke and sun and sweat.

Ana pulled away. “But then where is he?”

Josie put Follow gently down, lifted Ana into her lap and gathered her little legs in so she could wrap her arms around her daughter, hold every part of her. She considered how to answer Ana’s question, how to hedge or say that her father was away, or they were away, or on vacation, or people grow apart, or make some half-promise to see him soon. But Josie knew it was time to call him. She felt a sudden tenderness toward Carl, because he had helped to create this child sitting in her lap, who had begun to think that if Jeremy was gone and dead, her father, who was gone, was dead, too. In the morning, in town, she would call Carl, and call Sunny, would tell everyone where she was and why, to let them know they would return.

IT WAS ABSURD TO lock a house where they were squatting, but Josie did lock it, knowing that if they returned and saw any sign of new arrivals — for example the rightful occupants — they could probably make it to the Chateau without being detected. She debated whether or not to take the velvet sack with them, but because the cabin was their home now, she felt it was safer inside than with them. She hid it behind the household cleaners under the sink.

They took the trail up past the last of the mine’s buildings, a shack now with but one wall standing, stepped over the low fence and continued. The path rose up the hill for a quarter-mile before it turned and wound around another low peak, one they hadn’t been able to see from the cottage.

“This must be Franklin Hill,” Paul said, and Josie had the thrill of believing that this was possible: that they could set out in unknown territory, with a handmade map, and they would see actual landmarks that bore some topographical resemblance to the map in the cabin. They rounded the hill and passed through a huddle of pines and just like that, they could see the town below, very small, no more than a few hundred residents, most of the buildings standing by the bend in the river. The water was blue and brown, and traveled slowly but shimmered boldly in the midmorning sun. The rest of the walk, about a mile downhill, was giddy, the children galloping down the dusty path, with Follow ahead of them, then behind them, circling, everyone thinking they were doing something extraordinary.

Separating the trail from the town was a small RV park, a circle of vehicles surrounding a picnic area, white tables arranged in a half-moon. Josie stopped, looked at her kids, hoping they had the appearance of a family returning from a short hike in the hills. Ana was wearing simple sneakers and Paul was wearing his leather boots. Paul was carrying a school backpack and Ana was carrying a stick in the shape of a machine gun — she had assured Josie she would not fire it. They put Follow’s rope leash on her collar, and emerged from the trail. The RV park was empty but for an older couple sitting on folding chairs, staring into the sun from the opposite side of the lot. When they arrived at the town’s main street, they saw that it was not a regular day in town.

“Mom, is this a holiday?” Paul asked.

Josie had to think about it for a second. Was it Labor Day? No. Too late for that. But the streets had been blocked off for a parade. It was just ending, but Josie and Paul and Ana found a spot on the curbside and sat down just as a high-school band, small but loud, passed by, playing some seventies soul song Josie couldn’t place and which was suffering greatly. The band was followed by a group of elderly women steering riding lawn mowers. Then a convertible carrying JULIE ZLOZA, TREE FARMER, TEACHER, who was running for state representative. Then a dozen or so kids on bikes, dressed like Revolutionary soldiers. A group from the local ASPCA, hoping to entice onlookers into adopting six or seven parading dogs, two of them missing legs. The local middle school had a float, where all the school’s extracurricular activities seemed to be represented — twin girls in karate outfits, a tall boy in a basketball uniform, a small boy wearing a gold medal, likely some kind of academic decathlete? Walking behind the float was a lone boy in football gear. The final parade float carried a band, ten or twelve adults in close quarters, playing guitars and banjos and fiddles, all acoustic, sending an Americana sound into the air, to the general indifference of the dissipating crowd.

—

They followed the few hundred people in town to a park, where a sign gave notice that there would be a birthday party, starting in minutes, for Smokey the Bear.

“Who’s invited?” Ana wanted to know.

“It’s not that kind of party,” Paul said.

“Can I see the invitation?” Ana asked.

When they got to the park, at the foot of a small wooded hill, they found most of the residents of the town, some gathered around picnic tables, others lining up for the bouncy house, in the shape of a cresting wave, complete with a trio of inflated surfers.

Already there was a table set up with a large sad sheet cake saying only SMOKEY, and around the cake were various brochures about fire safety, urging celebrants to support local rangers. Ana and Paul were drawn to a fire truck, where a goateed firefighter was demonstrating the use of his ax. Next to him, a woman in khaki, with a high bouffant, was showing the assembled kids the workings of a high-pressure fire hose. Josie thought of the strange math of the firefighting business at the moment. These two were here celebrating Smokey’s birthday, all patient and nonchalant, while elsewhere in the state a platoon of inmates were trudging off into the unknown.