Page 66 of Ask for Andrea

As if on cue, we heard a distant rumbling sound that had to be tires on the dirt road, somewhere through the trees. I’d wondered how close we might be to the road we’d driven in on, but April didn’t seem to be in a hurry to find it. Not yet.

“I think he’s trying to get ahead of them,” Brecia replied. The even kilter of her voice did nothing to make the forest feel like less of a tinderbox.

We all looked at April, who clearly heard the distant sound too. The girls hadn’t noticed yet. She scanned the tangle of tree trunks and scattered clearings and then called softly to the girls. “I think the berries are a little farther that way!” She motioned to a fork in the deer path that led farther away from the road and the sound of the vehicle in the distance.

Kimmie and Emma followed her, but I knew it would be just a matter of time until they started to ask about going home for lunchtime. Before someone slipped on the carpet of pine needles or tripped over a fallen branch littering the trail, or before the three of them drifted far enough from the road that April lost her bearings of how to get back to the road at all. She kept squinting up at the sun, trying, I imagine, to stay on track. But between shepherding the girls around obstacles, tracking the ominous sound of the tires on the road, and offering one long pep talk to keep going, it couldn’t be easy.

They hadn’t even brought water with them. Or jackets. It was pleasant enough outside right now, but it wouldn’t be once nightfall fell. I remembered every detail of that first night I’d spent alone in the mountains. The glowing eyes of the coyotes. The sounds of twigs snapping in the darkness. The feeling that I was completely and utterly alone. And I’d been dead. Nothing could touch me anymore. I kept my eyes on the sun too, willing it to stay high in the sky. Willing them onward.

April’s smile was already showing the strain of stress. And we still had hours to go before there was any hope of finding our way out. That is, if he didn’t find us first.

The sound of the tires got closer, although it was impossible to know just how close with the way sound carried.

Then, suddenly, the sound stopped.

April ushered the girls along yet another branch in the scraggly trail, in the opposite direction of the road.

We weren’t making any progress toward town, but suddenly that didn’t matter. I could imagine the ugly set of his jaw and the rage in his eyes. I didn’t know what he’d thrown into the trunk with him, but I knew that he was moving toward us with single-minded, deadly intent. And he wasn’t towing two little girls along with him as he ran.

April closed her eyes and set her jaw. She let the mask fall for a moment as she stared at the little blond heads in front of her, still moving diligently—if slowly—along the path.

There wasn’t time. They needed to move faster, somehow.

“Girls,” she called to them seriously, and they stopped dead in their tracks and turned around. It was clear, even to me, that April didn’t use this voice with them.

“Mommy?” Kimmie started, and April cut her off.

April shook her head. “I need you to do something for me, and we don’t have time to be scared. Because that will slow us down.”

Both Kimmie and Emma were staring at her with wide, fearful eyes now. Brecia and Skye wore about the same expression as we tried to guess what she was about to tell them.

April took a deep breath. “There’s a bear behind us. So we need to run as quickly and as quietly as we can, okay?”

Instinctively, Skye moved beside Kimmie while Brecia stepped next to Emma. “Listen to your mama,” Brecia told her, and Skye murmured the same words.

To their credit, neither little girl stopped to cry or ask questions. They knew about bears from the songs they sometimes sang while they played with the pinecone people and the stories April told them in their beds.

So if April said run, they would run.

45. BRECIA

Cascade, Idaho

I was honestly impressed by how quickly the girls moved after that.

If I knew anything about April, she was beating herself up right now for lying to the girls. For scaring them into running. For not running before. For inventing a bear.

But I wanted to hug her. She’d done exactly the right thing.

There was no time to explain to two little girls that something far worse than a bear really was hunting them along the trails as they scrambled farther into the forest, panting and gasping but not stopping.

I looked back every few seconds, just waiting to see him behind us. Waiting for the snap of the branch that would mean the end of the chase. But little by little, the treeline became less dense and the slope of the mountain mellowed into a rolling terrain. More daylight filtered down through the treetops, and it was easier to move without fear of tripping on fallen logs.

April finally grabbed the girls’ hands and told them to stop. They had to rest. Their faces were red, and streaky wet trails cut lines through the dust on their cheeks.

“Is the bear still behind us, Mommy?” Emma asked fearfully, glancing back and forth through the trees behind them.

April squeezed her hand and took a ragged breath. “We’re outrunning him, baby. I’m so proud of you. We’re going to get help from somebody, okay?”

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