*

After three days, Glen was walking around again spritely, eager. He got in line for breakfast and ate a full bowl of porridge. He helped clean up even though it wasn’t his job. And then he scouted for micro trash even though they weren’t packing up. He wore the oddest smile, Agnes thought. He looked serene. The rest, it seemed, had done wonders for him. Agnes noticed her mother watching him over the previous days, happy. As though admiring her accomplishment.

After breakfast, Carl called a meeting around the fire.

“We’ve had our rest and it seems time to get moving. The lucky thing is Adam couldn’t have gotten far with the Cast Iron. But he could have changed course. I want to send a couple groups out in different directions to track. We’ll meet back here just after the sun crests. Then we can still get in some walking for the day. Linda, Juan, and Helen, follow the arc of the sunset. Patty’s mom, Dr. Harold, and Jake, head toward the sunrise. And Frank, me, and Glen will head up the mountain. Everyone else will stay back with Val and Bea.”

“Wait,” Bea said, confused. “Glen should stay back. I can go instead.”

“Bea, I want to go,” Glen said with that odd smile. “I’m the reason we lost Adam’s trail. I want to help get us back on track.”

Bea narrowed her eyes at him. “No. It’s not a good idea. You should stay here.”

Everyone stared.

“No, Bea, I’ve got to pull my weight. Carl’s right.”

Her mother’s eyes flared at Carl. “What do you mean, Carl is right? What has Carl said?” Her face was a full-on panicked sneer, while Carl looked calm and bored.

“I can’t just succumb. That’s not why I’m here.”

“You’re here because our daughter’s life depended on it, remember? And because you like pretending to be a caveman.”

Glen winced. “That’s not nice, Bea.”

“I don’t care. You’re not going tracking. I’ll go.”

Carl said, “I don’t want you to go, Bea. We need leadership here. We can’t just leave the kids alone with Val, no offense, and Glen, who you’re saying is too weak to walk. We don’t know who is out there. Plus, he’s going to be walking for days, so he might as well start now.”

“Bea,” Glen said, “I need to do this.”

“Maybe you should try listening to Glen for a change,” said Carl. “He understands that we have to keep agile. We have to be flexible. Or else we’ll never survive.”

Bea stared hard at Carl, then at Glen. She looked like she might cry. But she laughed her haughty laugh instead. “Well, then, if Glen wants to go, who am I to stop him?”

Glen put his cheek to Agnes’s cheek. “Bye, honey.” He squeezed her mother’s hand and seemed reluctant to let go, his odd morning smile giving way to a glumness at the corners of his mouth.

Agnes watched her mother process all the information coming her way, trying to sort out what was real and what wasn’t. Carl and Glen both peered at Bea holding Glen’s hand, fighting to remain neutral. Agnes saw a deep distrust in her eyes. A blatant worry. It made Agnes’s heart skip a beat. She realized this was the first time she’d seen them interact publicly since her mother had returned. Even when they’d all slept by the fire together, they hadn’t spoken. Upon waking, her mother had silently walked away, and Agnes took her place keeping Glen warm, keeping him company.

Glen was the first to let go, but he had to pry his hand from her mother’s, her grip was so desperate.

*

Everyone else had returned by the time Carl and Frank came back alone. Carl carried a fox around his neck, its tongue limp and pink. He stopped in front of Bea. “It was an accident, I promise,” he said, his face flat, his eyes averted. “I tried to bring him back, but he insisted I leave him.” He jerked his head in the direction he’d come. “About two miles up.”

Carl knelt, drew his skinning knife, and went to work on the fox, its eyes so dead they looked like Xs.

Without a word Bea moved briskly in the direction Carl had come. Agnes followed several paces behind, quietly, unsure if her mother even knew she was there. She had trouble keeping up. She didn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother move so quickly. Agnes stopped. No, she remembered.

She watched her mother running up the mountain, with her beeline, her singular purpose, and saw her running for that truck, crawling over that driver and disappearing. But there was no one for her mother to run away with this time. There was nowhere for her to go. Agnes repeated this to herself, a bird call in her head. She sprinted to catch up, to follow her mother from a safe distance, as she so often did.

In the forest Bea called for Glen, and after a while Agnes heard him reply, “Oh, hi,” with an ambivalent shrug in his voice. He repeated “Hi” so Bea could find him. And when she reached him and was standing over him, her hands to her face, he smiled and his voice turned affectionate and forlorn. “Oh, hi,” he said, smiling sadly up at her.

Bea burst into tears.

Agnes froze.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Bea fell to her knees. “What have you done?” she said, cupping his face.

“I fell down,” he said.

His leg was twisted at the hip. The knee almost pointing behind. There was a gash on the side of his head that was the pink of inside flesh. Agnes crept closer until she was next to them. She saw blood pooling in his ear.

“You must be in so much pain,” said Bea.

“An excruciating amount.”

“But you’re so calm,” said Agnes.

“I’m happy to see you two.” He smiled and then Agnes noticed the tear trails through his dirty face. Dry now. His eyes vibrated at her. He was in shock.

“Carl said it was an accident,” Bea said. “Was it an accident?”

Glen shrugged. “Yeah.” He smiled at Bea and then up at Agnes, his eyes pooling. “It was an accident.”

None of them mentioned trying to get him back to camp. There was nothing to be done. They all knew it.

Glen sighed. “I guess we should have gone to the Private Lands after all,” he said, looking up at Bea.

Bea laid her head on his chest. “Oh, Glen,” she said, her voice breaking.

Glen licked his finger and rubbed Bea’s cheek.

“You look ridiculous,” he said.

Bea laughed through tears.

But Glen said, “No, I’m serious. You look silly. This is silly. This whole thing. Go home,” he said. It was as though he’d just woken up from a dream clear-eyed and certain.

Bea sat up. “What do you mean, go home?”

“I mean go home. This is all stupid. The goal has been achieved. Agnes is healthy. You don’t really need to be living like this anymore, do you? So go home.”

Bea stood up. She crossed her arms in front of her deerskin clothes as though embarrassed of them. For a moment she seemed not to know what to do. Then she kicked dirt at him.

He chuckled and reached for her ankle. He gripped it, massaging behind her anklebone with his thumb. “There you go, getting mad at something perfectly reasonable. My mad Bea.”

“No,” she said.

“Always so mad,” he continued, moving his hand up to her calf. “That’s the first thing I liked about you. You got things done. You did. I mean look at her.” He pointed to Agnes. “Now go home.”

“There is no home,” she said, her voice cracking again.

“See, there you go again. Of course there’s a home.”

She kicked him for real, and he winced. “I had plans for us and they were working.”

Agnes stepped toward them, on instinct, to protect, but Glen didn’t seem affected.

“I’m sorry I ruined them,” he said, running his hand up her calf, over its ropy muscle, dusted and grimy. “I love you, Mad Bea. Please take Agnes home.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bea said.

“It’s over.”

“You don’t know what it’s like in the City.”

“I know it’s bad. It was always bad and we did all right. Go home. Think about what’s next. You were right, this was always a stupid thing to have done.”

“I never said that.”

“Of course you did. You said it all the time. And you were right.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Do it for Agnes. She’s strong now. She doesn’t need you to protect her in this way anymore.”

“Don’t tell me about my daughter.”

His smile drooped at the corners. He released her leg, dusted it with his hand. The muscle quivered. He rolled moaning onto his side and into as much of a ball as he could. His dead leg dragged behind.