It didn’t look like the place had been too badly damaged by vandals and weather. In fact, it seemed that someone had been here in the not too distant past. Car tires had mashed down grass in places, and in some places the grass appeared to have been trimmed. The road was still in decent shape as well.
The buildings were the sorts of businesses that she would expect to see in a Wild West town in a movie. There was a general store, a blacksmith’s shop, a couple of saloons, an old schoolhouse. Small side roads bore weathered wooden signs with picturesque names: Bonanza Street, Prospector Place, Lucky Strike Avenue.
Arden peeked into a few of the buildings and found that many of them still had things inside them, furniture and old tools and antique dishes.
This place was like a time capsule. It felt magical to her. There was a sense of drowsy peace on this quiet, sunny afternoon, with no sounds except the drone of bees and the whisper of wind in the trees and somewhere not too far away, the burble of flowing water.
A sudden noise like a baby crying jolted her out of her peaceful thoughts. Panicked, all she could think about was getting caught, and she fled between two of the buildings before she realized she was being ridiculous. Half-laughing at herself, she straightened up from where she had crouched down behind an old wooden wheelbarrow.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong. There were no signs to indicate the place was off limits, and she hadn’t set up camp yet. At this point, she was just a hiker who was curious about the abandoned gold rush town in the mountains.
The sound came again, and she relaxed. That wasn’t a baby; it was some kind of animal. There might not be people here at all.
However, as she walked carefully down the street, looking around more alertly, she began to notice other things: a faint whiff of woodsmoke, a barnyard smell.
Some of the fun had gone out of her explorations. She didn’twantto get caught. If there was someone here who might tell her to leave, she would be right back to square one on finding a place to stay, with the extra problem of having to catch another ride on the highway.
Aha. She spotted a wooden structure, an old windmill behind what appeared to be a small schoolhouse. A series of ladders, handmade with thick wooden steps, went all the way to the top.Arden tested the steps with a cautious foot, then climbed part of the way up and looked around.
She was immediately able to identify the source of the noises and the farm smells. Therewasa farm nearby, separated from the town by a wide strip of trees. Arden was too far away to see it clearly, but the dots of white and brown animals in the pasture were probably sheep or goats. And beyond that, she saw a narrow little road that was mostly likely one of the driveways she had passed on her way in.
The sound she had heard before came again, and this time she recognized it for what it was, the plaintive bleating of a goat.
She hadn’t realized that the solitude was bothering her a little, but she felt relief at the idea that there were a few people around. She’d have to keep a low profile, but it also meant that if she got in trouble, she had someone to call for help.
Arden climbed down carefully and made sure to keep the old buildings between her and the farm as much as possible. She had reached the end of Main Street, which stopped at a falling-down old fence rail. Trees, possibly a pasture, blocked the way in front of her, and the mountainside was shortly after that, looming above her. With nowhere else to go in that direction, Arden turned down a side street with the charming name of Discovery Lane.
The old lane was short and narrow, just long enough for three or four ramshackle houses on each side. It ended at an overgrown meadow full of wildflowers soaking up the sunlight. Somewhere beyond the meadow, she could hear rushing water.
Most of the old houses here were in worse shape than those on the main street, with roofs caving in and windows broken out. But Arden spotted a small, solid-looking log cabin with its door standing slightly ajar. It was as if it had been left just for her.
She pushed open the door and peeked inside. The single room contained a wooden bed frame, some plank furniture, andan old potbelly stove. There was a single window above the table with small panes of glass, dirt-smudged and flyspecked, but intact and clean enough to let in some light. The place smelled a little musty, but not too bad.
Arden propped the door open with a piece of wood from a small pile beside the door and set her pack on one of the two crudely made chairs. She checked in corners for signs of vermin, found none, and stretched on tiptoe to examine the low ceiling and make sure nothing was going to fall on her. Everything looked pretty solid. She could think of worse places to spend the night.
Leaving her pack in the cabin, she walked to the end of the lane where the grass and weeds in the overgrown road blended into the long grass of the meadow. The woods were absolutely quiet, except for some bird calls, the breeze, and another distant bleat of a goat or sheep.
For a moment she had the odd feeling she was being watched. Then it faded, and she felt a kind of peace seep into her soul that she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Arden took off her sun hat. She ran her hand through her slightly sweaty hair, which was growing out from a bob—one of the first things she had done in her new life, after wearing her hair long all her life, to try to change the shape of her face and make her less likely to be recognized for who she really was. Her hair was growing in from the roots with its natural light brown color, pushing out the blonde that she had worn since she was a teenager. Clearly it didn’t help a lot, since the trucker had sort-of recognized her. But here, alone, she had no need to worry about that.
First things first, she decided. She was sweaty and messy and hadn’t had a proper shower in two days, because she had slept last night in a bus depot to try to save money. She could set up the little cabin to her liking later; she had plenty of daylightleft. First, she was going to find that stream she could hear rushing somewhere out of sight and enjoy a natural bath in the wilderness.
Then she would settle in, get unpacked, and relax into the feeling of being somewhere for more than just one night. Maybe she might even do some painting, using the limited art supplies she had with her.
She tried not to worry about what would come next. Having some time to think about things, and decide what to do with herself, was all she needed right now. She had next to no job skills, but maybe the farmer with the goats and sheep needed some work done on the farm.
And she tried not to think, also, about how lonely and dark it was going to be when night came down on the mountain. She had been more alone when she was married than she ever could be by herself, or at least she tried to remind herself of that. She was better off without Grant, she knew. Whatever lay on the other side of her disastrous marriage had to be an improvement.
But first, a bath. At least she wouldn’t be disturbed. She shook off the earlier feeling of being watched as a product of her overactive, paranoid imagination.
I am alone, but I am not lonely,she told herself, a mantra she had chanted under her breath for years: in hotels, on private cross-country jet flights, in ballrooms where she seemed to stand alone in a whirl of beautiful people, none of whom saw her.I am all I need. I am enough. I am going to be okay.
BAZ
The turnoffto the abandoned town was more overgrown than the last time Baz had seen it. In fact, even with the phone GPS, he would have overshot it if his uncle hadn’t been driving the first truck in their little convoy.
Baz slammed on his brakes, nearly getting rear-ended by the next vehicle in their convoy, a van driven by his twin cousins Declan and Maida.
