To The Bank By The Wood

It was dark by that time. I wanted to shake the feeling that I should head straight home. A quick switchback down, and I’d be back at the meadow at the edge of my property.

My back was acting up, but my hesitation was more on the idea of being out in the woods after dark. The wild animals that hunt large prey at night were killed off to accommodate human settlements here long ago. This acreage is state-owned and rarely traveled, save for tourists stopping by the Civil War cemetery at a faraway trailhead. So it was only my imagination or accident that posed any real threat to me taking the long way home, down to the creek from the ridge. 

Still.

The headlamp illuminated the twisted path ahead, a shining orb bobbing, making plain the twisted tree-root path littered with large stones. I was out shooting, the camera bag holding my Nikon D3500 strapped solidly across chest. I had been on assignment today — rutting deer, for a hunting magazine.  

I wanted to go down to the creek to see if I could spot anything for the wildlife photo contest: a fox from a den nearby, a bobcat getting a nighttime drink, or maybe a great horned owl lying in wait, high up in the trees. 

The leaves had fallen off the trees, their naked limbs scratching up at the black-velvet sky. There was no moon, but there were clouds, so it felt especially dark. The stars, normally a show of glittering sand through the tangle of bare treetops, were cloaked and silent.

In addition to my favorite zoom lens, I’d brought the 12mm, best to use when your subject feels like standing still and maybe not in the dark of night in the woods with no moon. But I had my portable LED and was counting on staying low and hidden with its light on in the hopes something came to the creek to investigate.

It was another mile down to the creek bed, at which point I would be three miles from the house, and another several from civilization. I thought of the warm rooms of the log house, the outside light ablaze, easily spotted from a mile away. Meerkat the tabby would be waiting at the window by now for his dinner. He’d be all right.

The dull ache behind my left shoulder blade as I hiked reminded me I had been haphazard lately about doing my exercises. Scoliosis, diagnosed when I was 14.

My mother sat beside me then on a stiff plastic chair in the doctor’s office. She was wide-eyed as I struggled to put my shirt back on and the doctor explained to her the options: a back brace or surgery.

“But surgery—“ she interrupted herself, a slight waver in her voice. “Isn’t that risky?” She dabbed at her eyes with her yellow kerchief.

“There’s always a risk with surgery, but it’s more like riding in a car than going to war,” the doctor said, patting her briefly on the arm. “Let’s try the brace and see how it goes.”

The brace went fine, at least for my mother. I hated it, but as it turned out, I only had to wear it for 14 months. The doctor said that my spine would never be completely straight, but regular physical therapy would keep me sound. That or the pills, I later discovered.

I arrived at the creek. Nothing was there right now save the breeze. I turned my head from side to side. The lamp’s shine revealed the slip of the chocolate-milk creek through its banks.

I knew there was something living in the den across the water, probably fox, by the scat I’d found on my prior daytime visits. The den was nothing more than a dark hole wedged in the bank under a sandstone outcropping. The den’s aperture was too small for bear.

No eyes flashed back at me as my headlamp settled on the dark opening.

I set my gear up with the camera and tripod pointing at a 45-degree angle from the den. I pulled out my portable LED and aimed it a 45-degree angle in the opposite direction.

I switched off my headlamp and lay down. I arranged some leaves around my legs as a kind of disguise from any animal that might fancy a nighttime drink. As I settled onto my stomach on the cool slab of clay, I watched the creek burble and turn in a muted grayscale through the camera’s digital viewfinder. I couldn’t help but peer into the murky dark beyond the glow of the LED. I strained my ears for the soft hooting sound of owls or the bright yippee-kay-aye of coyotes. 

Nothing but light wind.

I checked my light meter and waited. I had left before dawn to pursue the deer. It was still dark when I poured the hot coffee into my 8-hour thermos and dropped a couple of hard-boiled eggs into my lunchbox. Meerkat was wound around my feet, begging for his breakfast. 

I would rest for just a moment. I put my head down on the ground, my toboggan serving as a thin pillow.

The clay was smooth and the leaves were damp under my cheek. The smell of the earth and the woodland grasses in the nighttime dew mingled with the scent of the water. Drifting in on the breeze was an occasional musky smell, and I could see the shapes of recurring dream pulling together in my mind: My face on the ground, turned sideways as it was now, but the smell of the clay stronger now, more pungent. The scent became overwhelming, like mud, as it mixed with the strong odor of horse manure. And there was some smell more foreboding, familiar: what was it? The shouts of men, some barking orders and others calling out, the unrelenting sound of horses’ hooves, hundreds of them galloping. Gunfire. The ground underneath me trembled. Somewhere in the distance, a horn sounded. 

I jerked awake. I was still laying by the creek, covered in leaves. I pulled at my sleeve to look at my watch. Relief swept through me — less than 15 minutes had passed. The LED had ceased giving a steady light and was flashing as if it was a strobe. I heard the coyotes now, their singsong voices well-amplified by the hills and valleys. Time to go. No creatures were coming to drink with the pack out and about.

I stood and stretched, using my head as ballast against the tightened muscles on my left side. I held my left arm out and felt the warm, tingling stretch behind my shoulder blade. My neck popped and I took a minute to massage it using my right hand. I’d need to go for the pill bottle tonight.

I switched on my headlamp just as the LED gave one last flicker and died. I’d recharge it when I got home. I gathered up the tripod and stuffed it, along with the dead LED, into my camera bag. The night felt close with only the headlamp for light. I hesitated putting my camera away. Maybe I’d see something to shoot on my way back. I arranged the strap around my neck and shoulder, picked up my bag and headed for the trail.

I’d gone about three-quarters of a mile when the song of the coyotes quieted and I heard leaves stirring off the uphill path. I waited a beat to see whether the sound continued. After a few seconds, the leaves stopped rustling. More rutting deer, I figured.

I climbed up the narrow path, using a tree for balance as I rounded the bend to the top of the ridge. 

A man stood in the light of my headlamp, not 20 feet away.

He was dressed in what looked like a shabby red plaid button-down shirt. His hair and beard were unkempt. He was carrying something on his back.

I froze.

Was he someone who was homeless? Or was I hallucinating? Briefly, I thought of a ghost. We were two and a quarter miles from my property border, and even more miles from town or anywhere else. He looked real, at least I thought. He appeared in full color.

“Hello!” I called in a loud, false, hailing tone, raising my arm. The man stared at me. I put my arm down.

I considered running back down to the creek, to do what? Persuade whatever was in that den to let me in? Get lost in a part of the woods I’d never been in? Hide out cold and hungry and dark until morning? What if — this thought was unwelcome — what if I tried to hide and the man followed me into the underbrush? I thought of Meerkat at the window.

He spoke. His voice sounded young and not at all gravelly.

“What’s that? Is that a revolver you’ve got there? Don’t shoot!” he said, not waiting for an answer. He laughed, somehow without smiling. “Oh, it’s one of them fancy new cameras. You’ll want to take my picture.”

He twirled around, my headlamp creating a bizarre spotlight for his red plaid shirt and dirt-stained knuckles. He wasn’t wearing a hat or coat, but had on a worn pair of black boots. He was carrying on his back a green drawstring sack that he’d fashioned into a pack of some kind. It appeared to be full.

“Are you… are you out here in the dark?” I asked. I couldn’t form a sensical thought. He didn’t have a light. My headlamp made for tunnel vision.

“I’m just out here,” he said, not gesturing. “I don’t sleep much since the wreck. ‘Railway spine,’ doc says.” He grimaced as he stretched his head sideways. The pack drooped on his shoulders and I heard cracking sounds.

I didn’t move.

“Well, go ahead,” he said, standing straight, perpendicular to the trail in profile. “I’ll stand, you make that photograph and we’ll be on our way.”

I waited, my mind blank. I wanted to go home.

“The light…” I faltered dimly. “I’m not sure there’s enough light.” My heart was hammering. I willed myself to breathe all the way in.

“You got that bright light on your head.” He smiled now, wide and unfriendly, using all of his teeth.

Do it and go, I thought. 

“Good point,” I said, and lifted the Nikon, still fitted with the low-light lens. I removed the lens cap and started fidgeting with the dials, my fingers shaking. 

No, I thought. Take the photo. If something happens to you and they find the body, the police at least will have evidence. This thought was enough to kindle my resolve as I lifted the camera. I didn’t dwell on the facts that cameras are easily disposed of and besides, no one but the cat knew I’d gone out that day.

I centered his red flannel shirt and baggy cotton pants in the viewfinder and depressed the shutter. Three shots fired off in rapid succession: Clickclickclick.

“There you go,” I said, dropping the camera and replacing the lens cap. “I’ve got what I need.”

What was I saying?

He nodded once, curtly, and turned off the path, as if he knew a secret passage through the woods. I could hear the dry leaves crunching underneath his feet. As soon as he was out of sight, I sprung up the path, hoping he wouldn’t notice I was taking the light. I made my movements big, taking the largest steps I could. Running seemed unwise. I listened as the harsh noise of the crunching leaves under his boots faded and did not return.

My eyes stayed over my shoulder the entire hike home.

*****

A dense fog had rolled in by the time I reached the first clearing on my property, obscuring my outdoor lights. Would my house still be there? I wondered wildly. Had it disappeared?

I made my way across the meadow and to the back pasture. The fog became a smooth white glow, the light over my back door a smothered beacon in the unwavering fog. I kept my pace extended until I reached the house.

The warmth indoors and the thump of Meerkat jumping down from his perch to greet me brought my thinking in line. Whoever the man in the woods was, he hadn’t followed me home. He must have been four or more miles away on foot by now. I put the deadbolt on behind me and took off my hat and jacket. I set the camera and camera bag on the table, dug out the LED and plugged it in to charge.

I didn’t pick up the camera.

After filling the insistent Meerkat’s dish, I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer and a leftover sandwich, then threw a couple of logs on the wood stove. I sat by the fire and waited for my nerves to settle while I drank the beer. I finished the sandwich, downed a couple of pain pills and stripped for bed. The camera went back into its padded bag, and I hung the bag in its usual place. I’d process the photos tomorrow, in the light of day.

I was exhausted from the day and the effects of the pills and had no trouble sleeping. I had a series of dreams, some of which I’d had before, but I only remembered snippets this time: Sitting in a dusty pole tent while pulling on my clothes and watching black boots pound by outside. Rows and rows of tanned deer hide. A girl of about 18, in a long yellow dress, waving. A train whistle, long and loud. 

I woke to my lit bedroom and a wren calling outside the window like a rooster. The morning was impossibly sunny compared to the impenetrable fog from the night before. I gingerly stretched my back, my head against the pillow. My neck and shoulder felt fine. My immediate thought was of the man on the trail, and I wondered where he had gone. I wanted to see what he looked like. I got out of bed, grabbed my camera bag, and without getting dressed, extracted the memory card from the camera and popped the card into my computer’s reader. I brewed coffee and waited for the photos to transfer.

The software counted the image import. Ninety images… 134 images… 248 images, 326 images…. It was getting close to finishing now. Import complete, 339 images.

I sat down and scrolled quickly through the collection.

There, at the end of the import, after hundreds of photos of white-tailed deer in various compromising positions, were three images of a figure standing illuminated in the middle of a nighttime trail. The timestamp was November 9, 9:48 p.m. I felt chills run up my arms. I suddenly didn’t want to look at the photos, even with the sun streaming through the windows and Meerkat pacing along the keyboard.

I noticed something. The figure in the tiny preview image on my computer screen wasn’t wearing a red shirt. They were wearing what looked like a dark jacket of some kind, and a hat. I shook my head and clicked the thumbnail to enlarge the image. 

I blinked. The chills spread from my arms like a bolt down through my back. Pictured standing in a path of a circle of light, was me. I was standing sideways to the camera and not smiling. I was dressed in the same clothes I had worn last night. I was holding a green drawstring bag.

I shook my head. This made no sense. I closed the pictures and opened them again. The figure in the photos was unmistakably me. Maybe there was a problem with the computer software, I thought. Maybe someone had broken in last night and Photoshopped the images as a prank, while I was asleep. I shook my head again, my conflict building to panic. I couldn’t make it fit.

How could I have taken those photos of myself at eye level, even if I’d forgotten I took them? My tripod was short, a gripper. I was out there alone. 

Had I been alone?

My heart raced. My eyes drifted out the kitchen window and I searched the raveled, green-and-brown acreage for any signs of life. Only birds. 

Before I could entertain a new theory, I heard tires on the gravel driveway. I rose from the table, closed my laptop and pulled on my robe as I went to the front door. Gary, the mailman, was making his way up from his truck, his boots heavy on the porch.

“Mornin’!” he cried as I opened the door. “Slept late, eh?” He grinned, his name tag glinting against his light blue shirt. In my mind it flashed like a cannon. I wondered what my hair looked like. “Long day with the deer yesterday,” I managed. 

“Yeah, Mike and I have plans to go up this weekend and see if we can nab a buck. I heard they’ve had good luck there up near the preserve.”

“Here’s these for ya.” 

Gary never waited for a response. He was turning to go back to his truck before I’d taken the envelope and box from his grasp.

“Oh, and I brought your bag up,” he said. He paused and without looking, waved his hand toward an object he’d slung onto the rocking chair beside the door. It was an empty, green drawstring sack that appeared as if it’d been left outside for several days in inclement weather. “You left it hangin’ out there on the fence post.”

Gary’s boots sounded on the wooden steps. I smelled horses and gunpowder in the morning air. The remembrance turned to the odor of exhaust mingling with gravel dust as the mail truck lumbered away, down the drive.