Page 3 of Snow Creek

The next day, despite the excitement, as she now called it, Regina went about everything as she did every single day. No deviation whatsoever. She checked the stove and added an alder log because a good one could last all day. She went into the yard, down a slight incline, to the outhouse and relieved herself. She made a pot of coffee on the woodstove. Dressed. Returned outside and fed the animals. The female goat needed milking, so she did that too.

Back inside she told Amy everything and implored her to stay put.

“I can handle this. Don’t give it a second thought. Something bad went on out there, but nothing happened to us. We’re fine. We’re good. Do not worry.”

Amy nodded.

Regina kissed Amy and went for her long walk, her heart beating harder the closer she got to the place where everything had happened. She kept her eyes peeled for her missing Croc, though it was nowhere to be found.

That’s my last pair. Maybe I can use Amy’s old pair. Purple’s good.

The forest was quiet, and the air had thickened. The change in weather had come. Early summer rains had finally given way to the warmth of high summer. Regina’s garden had a chance now. The growing season in western Washington is somewhat short and unpredictable. Last year Regina and Amy had a bumper crop of ripe tomatoes. The year before, nothing but a bounty of the fried green variety.

She stood still and listened.Nothing.Then she started to climb up to the road, her eyes searching for the spot where she’d heard the couple arguing, where she heard the car and saw the channel of smoke filtered through the trees.

Tires had cut ribbons of mud, and footprints were scattered about like fallen leaves. She rested a moment, taking it all in, before making her way to the obvious location where the crash and fire had occurred. Tracks led to the edge of the rutted road.

She stood there looking down into a ravine, and once more filled her lungs out of fear.

A body, blackened and motionless, lay splayed out in the bushes.

Oh no. Oh God, no. This is horrible. Someone will come.

It took only a moment before she went into action. Regina concocted a plan to make sure that no one could find the burned-out truck or where it left the road on its way to oblivion. It would be no easy task. Concealment is hard work. She knew that from experience. She and Amy didn’t want visitors. They just wanted to be left alone. Live their lives without the intrusion of the outside world.

How to do this? How to stay safe? Keep people away?

The slash pile left by the loggers beckoned her.

Erase.

She selected a skeleton-like fir tree branch from the slash. She surveyed the scene one more time, scanning for every telltale sign that someone had been there. Walking backwards from the furthest edge of all indicators, she began to sweep away the muddy tire tracks. Methodically. Forcefully. It took some doing, but she worked her way to the edge of the logging road where the truck had plummeted downward. Back and forth, the fir branch swished away everything. It was sandpaper. It was a cleaning cloth. A vanishing act.

She stopped and regarded her handiwork. It wasn’t perfect. Regina was fine with that. Nature isn’t perfect, after all.

Brushing her forearm against her sweaty brow, she looked one last time, before disappearing down the trail, still walking backwards and adjusting forest deadfall to vanquish her own tracks.

A hundred yards in, she turned around and started for home. Everything would be fine.

And indeed, it was.

That night Amy returned to their bed.

“I was so worried.”

“Me too.”

“Are we going to be all right, Regina?”

“Yes, love.”

“No one will take me away.”

“Never.”

“Are you sure they won’t come back?”

“No. I have a plan though. At least I think I do. I have to do something. I’ll go back for the body and get rid of it once and for all.”

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