Page 8 of Adam's Rising

Adam sniffed and looked out his window at the quiet street. Maybe Peter was the smart one. Afterall, it’d taken Jeff spelling it out before Adam accepted the truth of his brother’s death.

Peter slumped against the passenger window again. “I don’t wanna sit here for a couple of hours. Why don’t we just go to that ranch you mentioned? I remember the lady was nice — she gave me hard candy.”

Adam didn’t answer right away. The memory was warm, safe… like the flapjacks or the drive-in. But that was years ago. Back when they still had parents. Back when Thomas still had hope.

This time, they weren’t picking up a stray wild horse for Dad to train, or selling the woman something she needed.

This time, they were the strays — scarred but still wild where it counted. And Adam wasn’t about to let either of them be broken.

3

As Adam drove away from Main Street, the breathtaking natural landscape stood in stark contrast to the makeshift shelters scattered throughout the land — each one a clue to the people who’d come to Alaska to disappear.

Unlike the cabin his father had chosen to build, living off-the-grid here meant lean-tos draped in army-green tarps and held together with straps, stakes, or even duct tape. A step up from the crude lean-tos were the old cars and ragged tents that claimed stretches of the lush undeveloped land. The richest of the campsites were those who’d had the good fortune to happen across or spend their last dollar on a Volkswagen van or an actual camper.

As he passed the quiet camps, he was reminded of the reason many chose to live without a secure roof over their head. His father had told him that the land and wild animals weren’t the most dangerous things to encounter in Alaska. People, unfortunately, often fled to Alaska from the Lower 48 because they were running from something or someone. Those individuals who hadn’t chosen to stake out land via the homesteading act because they weren’t able to put their name on official property, might do anything it took to keep their identity a secret.

Peter was sound asleep when Adam arrived at the ranch he hoped belonged to Clara Mae. It looked vaguely familiar, then again, it’d been a few years since he’d accompanied his father.

Adam quietly turned off the ignition and parked the truck on the edge of the dirt road — not too close to the berm — just outside a chained gate.

He definitely didn’t want to drive off the road. Sizable mounds of brown slush — orsnirt, as his father called the filthy combination of dirt and snow — lined the shoulder where a snowplow had clearly pushed it aside. The piles gave off a rancid scent, probably from garbage — or maybe even animals struck by vehicles and buried in the gray muck.

The road itself was bare, but those grimy banks loomed like frozen traps. He imagined driving into one would feel like dunking your body in fish-fry batter and stepping into a walk-in freezer. The wet snow would mold into every crevice of a vehicle, freeze solid, and seal the doors shut.

The sun still hadn’t crested the white-capped peaks, but what looked like sunlit whitecaps above a purple sea hovered near the mountaintops, revealing a spectacular view of the Matsu Valley — as far as the eye could see.

Instead of exiting the truck, Adam stared at the weathered split-rail fence, stretching for hundreds of acres in either direction, then trailing north to the river that bordered the ranch.

Like Adam’s property — well, hopefully his property again someday — areas of the fence had collapsed, probably under the weight of wild animals. Definitely not wolves — the gray wolves in the area were more graceful and tended to keep their distance. He doubted brown bears, but black bears were a strong possibility. Feasibly, horses could have done the damage, but most horses knew where their food came from. Most gentled horses — his father had taught his sons that he gentled horses, rather than broke them — wouldn’t consider jumping a fence — unless it was to return to the stable where they had shelter from the elements and predators, and troughs of hay and water.

Adam could relate, the reason he’d pondered just asking Thomas to send them to the state. The idea of food, shelter, and no concern of machine-gun-slinging drug dealers was definitely appealing. Still, he worried for Peter. He wasn’t sure why, but his baby brother had a quick-to-ignite temper, nothing like himself or even Thomas. Peter also had a strong sense of right and wrong. If Peter encountered a bully or something he deemed unfair, he would end up in a fight, then he’d be shipped to another foster home, or God forbid, an institution for troubled teens.

The truck door squealed open, and Adam jumped, nearly hitting the roof. Peter not only jumped but screamed, his fingers fumbling with the door handle.

Adam spotted a woman in his peripheral vision, wielding a double-barreled shotgun with two-foot-long barrels — if they were an inch — and quickly raised his hands to the steering wheel.

Peter gave up on the door and reached for the sack on the floorboard.

“Don’t, Peter,” Adam cautioned as both barrels gleamed when she stepped closer. Keeping one hand raised, Adam clutched the back of Peter’s jeans and lifted him off the seat, away from the gun he wanted. “It’s all right, Ma’am. You know me —”

“Can’t say that I do, boy!” The woman’s voice was gravelly but strong. “Better keep ’em han’s where I can see ’em.”

“My brother’s okay. Just scared. Please allow me to deal with him. I’ll keep my hands where you can see them.”

Adam shoved Peter against the door, offered him a stern look, then nearly growled the words their father had spoken repeatedly, “Don’t you ever reach for a gun unless you tend to use it, you hear me?”

Peter drilled Adam with his dark-brown gaze, but then he must have seen something in his eyes that Adam didn’t even know he possessed because he lifted his hands in compliance.

“Ma’am…” Adam spoke softly as if he were talking to a wild horse. “I’m gonna move this bag out of reach. You can see it’s not open.”

“Slowly!” demanded the woman.

Adam threaded just his fingers through the straps and dragged rather than lifted the small backpack to his side of the floor. He then turned to the woman, waiting on her next order.

“What y’all want at this early hour? We don’t got no school here.”

Adam glanced at Peter, winked to remind him of their purpose here, then returned his gaze to the woman, who wasn’t near the age he thought she would be. Maybe late thirties or forty-something, like his mother would have been. The woman’s long, slightly-graying-at-the-roots dark hair was braided, the tail resting on her left shoulder. She wore nothing but a red-and-black checkered flannel shirt, dark corduroys, and rubber boots — no coat.

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