Kyle noticed the smell on Ron when he leaned in close to unlock the padlock. It was a musky smell, almost metallic.
When they went back inside, Tiffany would be in her bed covered by blankets. Sometimes she was still. Other times she was trembling.
The days after Ron was with Tiffany, Kyle noticed the abrasions on her face, elbows, and knees. The previous time after Ron had been with her she wouldn’t open her mouth until he was gone from the cabin. When she spoke Kyle could see she’d lost a front tooth.
“He’s getting tired of me,” Tiffany said morosely to Amanda. “Yesterday, he couldn’t be satisfied. I tried everything I could think of. You don’t know what it’s like to try and keep that man happy.”
Amanda looked away and said, “No, honey, I don’t know.”
“I ain’t long for this world,” Tiffany moaned.
*
AFTER LUNCH, RON NODDED at Kyle across the table and said, “Come outside with me.”
Kyle felt a chill shoot up his spine and the hair raised on his arms and on the back of his neck.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ron said, fingering the transmitter with the green dot.
Kyle looked away. Reluctantly, he pushed his chair back.
*
RON OPENED THE FRONT door and stepped aside so Kyle could go out first. As Kyle passed Ron in the threshold he glanced at the .380 beneath Ron’s jacket in the shoulder holster as well as the transmitter with the green dot hung around his neck by a lanyard.
When Kyle looked over his shoulder Amanda had her head in her hands. Tiffany wouldn’t make eye contact.
It wasn’t lost on him that in Ron’s world, this world or the cabin in a forest, Kyle had no purpose. Amanda was there to cook and clean. Tiffany was there to provide Ron pleasure. Kyle was there … for what?
Before Ron sent Raheem off from the pickup, he’d said, “I was wondering what I was going to do with you anyway.” Kyle expected to hear the same words at any moment.
Maybe, thought Kyle, Ron wouldn’t make him run. Maybe he’d close in behind him and put a bullet in his brain. Kyle preferred a bullet to the exploding collar.
They walked out through the cleared front yard and into the timber. Ron stayed just behind Kyle’s shoulder but gave him directions.
“Bear left.”
“Cut around that tree.”
Kyle liked the way it smelled in the forest. The tall pines were fragrant and the mulch of orange pine needles on the floor of the timber gave out a ripe, musty odor when he stepped on them. Ferns he didn’t recognize poked up through the bed of needles. Squirrels chattered to each other down the line as if saying, “Here they come!”
“Climb the hill and be careful of loose rocks,” Ron said.
Kyle had to get down on his hands and knees to propel himself up the rocky slope. He could hear Ron struggling behind him and breathing hard.
“Slow down,” Ron said.
Kyle suddenly had a thought: what if he could get far enough ahead of Ron to break over the top and run away? He could dislodge some of the rocks under his feet to slow Ron down further and leave the wheezing old man behind him.
Then he remembered the collar.
*
THE TREES CLEARED near the top of the ridge and Kyle climbed out of them. It was colder than below and if anything the air was even thinner. A cold breeze wafted through his hair.
There was a bald knob on the top of the rim that was rough with granite outcroppings. Kyle stood between two thigh-high boulders and looked out.
He’d never seen a vista like it before. Beyond a tremendous ocean of trees—it looked like an undulating ocean of green had been frozen in place—blue snowcapped mountains jutted into the pale sky.
Kyle had never seen mountains like this before. The closest thing to them were the badlands terrain of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where Grandma Lottie had taken him. But those dryland buttes and spires weren’t even close to what there was out there on the horizon.
The mountains were so high that there were clouds below them, stringy clouds pushing through valleys as if they were bony fingers fitting into a glove. And not a single structure, wire, or road anywhere.
What looked like steam wafted above the trees to the south. Kyle smelled something acrid.
“You know what that is, right?” Ron asked between gasps for air. “That smell?”
Kyle shook his head.
“It’s sulfur. Kind of smells like rotten eggs, doesn’t it?”
When Kyle didn’t respond, Ron said, “If you’re familiar with that smell you can guess where we are.”
Hell, Kyle thought.
“Any ideas?” Ron asked. He stood slightly bent forward with his hands on his hips until he could recover his breath.
Kyle shook his head.
“My guess is you haven’t seen much of this country, have you?”
Kyle indicated he hadn’t.
“I’ve seen it all,” Ron said. “Coast to coast. North and south. This country is bigger than hell. Parts of it are beautiful, like this. Most of the other parts are nothing more than a human cesspool.”
He spat out the last few words. Then: “Day after day I’d wonder why I was spending all my time and labor providing goods to those people out there. Every appliance—every big-screen TV, food, furniture—just about everything they have came to them in my truck and trailer or one just like it. But do you think they ever once said thank you?
“Not a chance. They’d cut me off on the highway. They’d flip me off when my rig was laboring up a hill and they had to pass. At rest stops they’d see me coming and look away like I was human trash.
“But look at me now,” Ron said. “I’m on the top of the fucking world.”
*
AFTER A FEW MOMENTS of silence except for the breeze, Ron said, “You don’t miss much, do you?”
Kyle looked up to him for more clarification.
Ron said, “You watch everything. You take it all in—all the shit life throws at you—but you don’t say anything. You remind me of what I was like when I was a boy.”
Kyle hugged himself to try and keep warm. It was exhilarating to see so much wide-open mountain terrain. But it was cold up there and the wind was harsh. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he was ready to go back down the mountain to the warmth of the cabin.
And he wanted Ron to shut up. The man seemed to think he was imparting some kind of special insight or wisdom, Kyle thought. But for the first time since they’d left the cabin, Kyle thought that perhaps he’d make it back there alive.
“We know what it’s like to be different, don’t we?” Ron asked. “I thought about it the first time I saw you when you came off that river. When I saw you I thought to myself, ‘He’s an other,’ just like me. You and me, we know what it’s like to look out at the world from a dark place. And when people see us coming they see something damaged. They see something inferior to them. Right, Kyle?”
He wished Ron would stop talking.