A Life for a Life by Lynda McDaniel (win 10 ebook reader .txt) 📕

last sensation she’d felt. Just below her left hand lay an empty syringe. I thought about drug overdose or possible suicide. I’d seen both before.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the sun slipped behind the mountains and took the day’s warmth with it. We needed help, soon. I held out little hope that Madras Man would call Gregg. And yet, for some reason, I didn’t want to leave the young woman alone.  

For the first time in what felt like hours, I thought about the store, which really wasn’t that far away, as the crow flies. And Abit, who was usually around, even on a day the store was closed. I looked at Jake and recalled how he somehow knew the command, “Go home.” I had no idea how he’d learned it, but he’d built an impressive reputation on it. Not long after we moved to Laurel Falls, Vester ordered Jake off his porch. (Leave it to Jake to find the sunniest spot to lie in.) He told him, “Go home, Jake.” And he did. He stood up, combed his hair (that all-over body shaking dogs do), and trotted down to the store, scratching on the door for me to let him in. The men hanging out on the benches started laughing and calling him Rin Tin Tin, admiring his smarts. 

I searched through my pack for something to write on, but it offered only keys, wallet, and remnants of lunch. I looked at the woman’s backpack. No, I couldn’t, I told myself. But as long shadows blanketed the mountains, I opened a side compartment and rifled through it. I found a small, blank notebook with an attached pen, tore out a sheet, and wrote a note describing the location, best I could. I wiped my prints off the pen and notebook, and put them back in the pack. The note went inside the bread bag I’d stashed in my pocket after lunch; I tied it to Jake’s collar.

“Go home, Jake. Go home!” It was a longshot, but worth a try. His brown eyes looked sad, but then they always did. “Go home, Jake. Be a good boy.”

The third time I said it, he turned and ran, though not down the path we’d taken. God, I hope he knows where he’s going, I thought, as he raced up the creek bank. And I prayed Mildred hadn’t called Abit inside.

I watched Jake climb the steep trail and head over the ridge. When the last of his golden fur disappeared below the horizon, I laid back against the red oak, avoiding the stare of the dead woman. It would be at least an hour before anyone could get there.

I tried to rest, but when my eyes closed, unwelcomed memories rushed to mind. I reopened them. That’s when I saw the dead woman turn her head toward me. I screamed, but quickly felt foolish. It was just the wind blowing her long hair.

I knew not to touch anything. I’d been involved in several police investigations in D.C. and watched enough television shows to know the drill. But eventually, curiosity won out. I crawled over to her, pulled my sleeve over my hand to avoid fingerprints, and began carefully rummaging through the backpack again, trying to find out who she was and where she’d come from.

Her wallet contained twenty-six dollars and a few coins, but all the slots normally bulging with credit cards and driver’s license were empty. I also found a syringe case, the kind diabetics carry with them. Otherwise, the pack held only an apple and a scarf. No keys or identifiers of any kind.

I was getting stiff, so I stood, stretched, and started pacing. From a different angle, I noticed a corner of white barely sticking out of the left pocket of her flannel shirt. I pulled down my sleeve again and removed the note. I clumsily opened the handwritten note with my makeshift gloved hand.

I’m tired of so much sorrow. My life or death doesn’t matter.  L.

I struggled to refold the note and slip it back into the pocket. I knew I didn’t have any connection to this death, unlike a tragedy I witnessed in D.C., but my nerves felt raw. I kept walking. I started to shiver from the cold, but wouldn’t allow myself to borrow anything from her stash. I found another smooth beech tree surrounded by brush that sheltered me from the wind, scrunched down, and waited. 

My thoughts drifted back to my home and office near Dupont Circle, where I wrote for a variety of magazines and newspapers. I had a nickname among colleagues—Ghoulfriend—because I somehow kept getting assignments for sad and even violent stories. I was good at it, maybe because I took the time to understand both the backstory and the current story. I covered unimaginable situations, except by those who’d suffered them. Men who passed as loving fathers during the workday but turned into monsters in the basements of their family homes. Women who grew up with abuse and perpetuated that pattern on to another generation. Men so troubled by wars that it seemed only natural to kill—including themselves, either intentionally or through the slow death of drugs and alcohol. I recalled the relief I always felt when I’d hear about their passing, and how I still grappled with that. It seemed wrong to be glad someone died, but when their suffering never stopped, it was hard not to be thankful they’d finally been released from so much pain.

I stood again and paced around the natural enclosure. I noticed some British soldiers, the green matchstick lichen with bright red “hats,” standing at attention atop a huge fallen trunk, its center hollowed out by rain and time and animals seeking shelter. The birds were singing again—or was I just hearing them again? Two nuthatches flittered through a nearby stand of white pines. A cluster of spring beauty eased my mind, until I saw they were growing inside the skull of an opossum. I kept moving.

As I paced, I noticed that her youthful face was pretty in the way that most young people are. I couldn’t imagine why her life had to end that way. I knew features were superficial, that the urge to kill yourself garnered energy from dark places deep within, but she didn’t look tired or drained like the other victims I’d seen. No telltale lines that broadcast an unbearable hurt. But who really knew?

I shivered in my light jacket and waited. Finally, I heard Jake’s bark over the grinding gears of a four-wheel drive. 

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