“You know,” she says, “most missing persons are never found. Especially children.”

He’s not listening, reading his paper like he does.

“I’m just saying that people give up.”

He grunts and turns the page.

“They really leave it up to law enforcement, but the cops don’t have the patience. That’s why so many true crime podcasts.”

He folds his paper and sets it on the table, takes off his glasses. “Your point?”

“Well, you know how when we went to Mount Angel on the backroads that time? We saw that white van in the bushes?”

“Again with a white van?”

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T’akshlish cowers in the crotch of the Mother Tree as the winds roar through the valley.

She is terrified.

The branches of the tallest trees break and fly through the air, the lightning and thunder and wind making an unbearable noise that batters her body until she seems to disappear into it.

The Mother Tree groans and shakes and T’akshlish hugs it with all her might, her own trembling and the tree’s together.

And then it is over.

She  pushes away branches covering her refuge and emerges in a new world of shattered stumps and slanting beams of sunlight.

 

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You see him in town and you think he was just another goddamned bum.

Torn camo pants, heel-down boots, a grimy backpack, hair stuffed into a watch-cap.

But step out of the city and you’d learn different.

Once he hits forest he just disappears, moving across the country with all the noise of an owl gliding between tree trunks.

We were in his camp, so well-hidden you might walk through it without knowing.

I was trying unsuccessfully to get him to take a cellphone.

“It’s just for emergencies,” I said.

“What emergencies?”

“If something happens.”

He smiled. “Everything always happens.”

 

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I met Colette at a coffee bar on the Main, a Greek place where it’s easy to pick up girls.

She spoke very little English but tried hard anyway.

Thick Canuck accent like a cartoon.

I could tell she was from the sticks because her teeth were crooked.

Still, she was a looker.

Raven hair and pale skin.

We got on good at first, but then my alarms started going off.

She was needy.

I told her I had to go but that we should meet at Gibeau’s later.

“I’ll be waiting for you around back,” I said.

She smiled.

 

Bitch deserved to get her car jacked .

That’s all I’m sayin’.

Left her car running while she dashed into the dry-cleaners.

I mean, who does that?

Sweet ride, too.

BMW.

I never snag the new ones since the computers render most ways of jacking obsolete.

Damn things won’t move unless the key is inside, you know?

I heard that you can unlock them with computers now, but if I was rich enough to own a computer I have to be stealin’ no cars.

I was going around ninety when the dog ran out.

Woulda got away but for that damned airbag.

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