Everybody was tense and focused. I picked up my packet of report forms from Strict, took them to a car, and sat quietly filling them out.
Trying to condense the scene at the canyon into a few sentences was eating at me. The more times I replayed the scene in my head the more it saddened me. It was an emotional rollercoaster ride that varied between tears and a sad acceptance. I’d killed somebody. So what if I had a good reason, I had still killed somebody. Strict walked up. I hadn’t intended for him to see me like this and I needed to vent. I needed a punching bag. I needed a four mile run. Anything to work off the feelings boiling inside me.
“Strict, I can’t do these runs without some warning. I have to prepare myself if there’s going to be violence. I have to. I can’t shoot someone without it leaving scars. I just can’t. You have to remember that. I can track. I can deal with things as they come up, but Strict, I killed somebody today. I’m never going to forget that. Never. I wasn’t put here to shoot people.”
I finished filling out my police report and shoved it through the open window. He read it.
“You’re good at covering your trail in the woods but you’re lousy at it on paper.”
“I told Jacobsen I’d tell the truth. I’m not going to lie.”
Strict looked worried. He jogged back to rejoin the others. I saw him pacing with the cell phone to his ear.
I got out of the car and did my own pacing. I wandered into the woods and wandered back. I found a game trail and followed it until I came to a place where deer had bed down. I sat in the spot letting my emotions wash over me. They rolled over me, beating at me, wearing me down and I lay in the bed of leaves trying to still them, trying to still myself. I pretended like I was waiting for the deer to come back, but I knew the deer wouldn’t come back if I was fretting. It would sense unease and stay away. I had to still myself for the deer to come. I tried, I really tried but it was no use. Nothing was helping. I got up and walked back to base camp. I was sorry I did. I could hear Rusty’s voice long before I could see him.
“…can’t do these things to her! She’s not a cop. She’s a tracker. And her heart is as big as the all outdoors. You can’t ask her to be a cop. Where’d she go?”
I couldn’t hear Strict’s answer.
“You called her out here on an apprehension, to fill in the gap between the bottom of a rock and the top?”
Strict’s calmer, quieter voice answered.
“It amounts to the same thing. Anybody could have climbed that rock. Even I know if the trail ends at the top of a canyon there’s bound to be a way up and there’s a trail somewhere up there.”
Another quiet response from Strict. Strict was good at self control; I’d give him that. He didn’t raise his voice to Rusty. He didn’t get defensive.
Rusty turned, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
Watching Rusty angry was like watching a big storm. I never wanted to get caught in that storm.
I moved and he caught the movement. Our eyes locked for a second and I ran. I didn’t know why I ran. I slipped into stealth mode. I just wasn’t ready to face him. I could hear him tromping around in the woods behind me.
“Cassidy?” he called.
I couldn’t answer him. Not yet. I stayed out of sight, dodging from tree to tree, silently. My emotions were so close to the surface. I could have wrestled a grizzly bear, but I couldn’t face Rusty like this. He searched and searched. I was never more than twenty feet from him but he couldn’t find me.
“Babe, please don’t do this to me.”
“I’m sorry.” He spun around and zeroed in on my voice.
“Come out and talk to me.”
A sob escaped. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“What did I do?”
“Nothing, it’s not something you did.”
“Cass, I know what happened on the search. Please come out.”
“No, I need to hit something. If I come out you’re going to stick me in the truck and take me home and I’m going to go nuts. I’m fine out here. I’ll run or clobber a tree or cry until I can’t cry anymore or maybe I’ll just wander until I need to come home.”
“You can’t beat yourself up over this. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Don’t! Don’t talk me through the logic of it. You think I haven’t done that a hundred times?”
“Okay, then come out. Let’s go to the station. You can take it out on the punching bag. You can cream it if you want to. It’s used to it. It’s had hundreds of cops in the same state you’re in beat it up.”
I was tired. I was frustrated and angry and sad. I couldn’t believe how miserable I felt. Finally, it all came crashing down on me and I couldn’t carry it by myself anymore. I sat down in the dirt and leaves and started crying. Rusty followed the sound through the trees and found me sitting at the base of the tree where I’d been hidden. He sat beside me and placed his arm around my shoulders. When my crying didn’t ease he picked me up and just placed me in his lap and held me like a child. I didn’t feel like a little child though. I felt dirty. I felt evil. I felt very guilty. But most of all I simply felt sad.
“Oh, babe, you had to do it. I know you had to. It would be worse if you hadn’t.” A long pause. “This is one of the reasons I love you so much. You have a big, kind heart. And people who have a heart get it broken a lot. It’ll mend. I promise.”
“No it won’t. It’ll never go away.”
“Shhh, but it’ll fade. You’ll do other things that’ll push it into the background and some day it’ll be almost gone. Maybe I can help put some good memories in there. Push all the bad ones away.”
The touch was helping. Having Rusty close always helped and his deep voice was relaxing. When the crying finally eased he still held me close.
“Okay, that’s better. Now, think of something more positive to talk about. If you can’t think of anything then tell me a story. I love to hear you talk about what you did as a kid.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
I thought for a minute. Nothing was coming to mind. I needed a little more calm. I waited for it, afraid the bad memory would show up first. Calm. Cass, think of a story, any silly little story. Finally, I said, “Remember the wood where I pinned down Peccati?”
“Yeah.”
“I used to track foxes in that wood. One day I tracked a fox and she led me to a den there. I came back later when the mother wasn’t there and she had three kits in the den. I was laying at the front of the den watching the kits. They would toddle up to the front and see me and fall over themselves trying to get to the back again. They were so cute, I wanted to hold one but I knew better than to try. They got scared and started a racket and the mother fox surprised me. She was afraid of me too, but in one big burst of bravery she rushed forward. I was still on my hands and
