The warrant had been issued ten years before. Tuck had been hiding from the FBI for the last ten years.
I called the Colony’s number and left a message.
“Katie, it’s Luce. I need you to call me as soon as you get this. Please. It’s important.”
In my time reporting on radical environmentalists, I had heard stories of activists targeted as domestic terrorists, phones tapped by the FBI, houses full of sleeping families raided, and beloved family dogs shot. I had also heard stories of firebombs at car dealerships, sabotage on forest roads, people chaining their necks to logging trucks. I tended to give the protesters the benefit of the doubt. The government did seem quick to label the burning of SUVs in Springfield, Oregon, as terrorism, while anti-government nuts who shoot at park rangers and set tripwires on public lands are called “militiamen,” like they were good old boys. But if Tuck had been hiding out on Marrow for this long, whether he was guilty or not — what might he do if Jacob found out he was wanted? What would happen to the Colony if Tuck was discovered?
That night I tried to think about Carey, soothing my mind with fantasies of a lover. It had been so long since I had a body to attach my longing to. I wanted to feel something other than distress for Katie, for the story I couldn’t write, if it revealed what I knew about her husband.
If Jacob had become as paranoid as Katie said, he might have fled the house in panic, afraid of some imagined threat. He might be living in the woods, in one of the smaller outbuildings on the estate — the potting shed, the old kiln. There were lots of places to hide from two deputies stomping through the underbrush. He might be watching me, waiting for me to leave to come out of hiding. He could be sneaking back into the house for food, for water… It sounded far-fetched. And with so much at stake for the Colony, why hadn’t they tried harder to get help for him? Had he really deteriorated so quickly? If he had found out about Tuck, an already-paranoid person might do something drastic, knowing there was a liar in his house.
The doors were locked, my phone by my side.
Katie would call. She would call me. And if she didn’t call, I would drive to Coombs’s house at dawn and ask him to take me back to Marrow.
Twelve. THE ISLANDS
MARROW ISLAND, WASHINGTON
OCTOBER 14, 2014
THEY WERE CARRYING the body to the woods when I came over the hill. It was wrapped in a bolt of unbleached muslin, on a makeshift stretcher — two long poles of windfall spruce or cedar and a tarpaulin slung between. Six of the youngest and strongest carried it; among them I could see Elle and Tuck. Most of them didn’t see me. Those who did looked confused, probably unsure whether Katie had been in touch or whether Sister J. had invited me back. They made quick eye contact or nodded, but didn’t say anything.
I hung back, following at a distance. The entire Colony processed through the fields, through the orchard, beyond the fence, into a wooded area I hadn’t investigated before. It was overcast, several layers of cold clouds soaking up with light. I watched one colonist after another disappear into the shadows of trees ahead of me, walking on after them, over a well-worn path, marked with cairns of river stones large and small. The stones glowed in the low light, against the brown and green of the forest floor. The path let out onto a narrow dirt road lined with rhododendrons and white birch, then a wide clearing that opened onto a bluff and the sea.
Everyone gathered, leaving space between one another, some near and some far, from the place they had set the body down in the earth. As I approached, I could see a rough outline in the dirt from one edge of the clearing to the other, marking a rectangular field, and I realized that this had been the site of a house destroyed in the quake. This field was the foundation; I was standing at what was once the front door. The green expanse stretching off to the bluff, the yard; the dirt road, a dead end.
There were plots all over, hidden in the weeds, but marked by small wooden carvings and driftwood sculptures. I counted nine, in various stages of heap and sink, the soil settled over some of the plots completely. And everywhere, mushrooms. Small, black caps like umbrellas beaten in the wind, similar to the Psilocybe Tuck had shown me before. Some sprouted at the edges of the graves, others in clusters over the heart.
Sister stood at the head of the grave. I kept to the back but crept around to the other side so that I could see better. The body was still covered with the shroud. They lowered it gently into an oblong hole no more than three feet deep, on a bed of sawdust. Sister nodded, and Elle and Maggie pulled the shroud from the body. She was completely naked, the woman, gaunt and pale, skin dull like putty, eyes bulging under the lids, hands resting over her heart. Her white hair had been braided with flowers. She looked ancient, holy. We gazed at her silently for several minutes. Then, one or two at a time, people approached the grave, closed their eyes, and released bundles of flowers and shells and lichen over her. I felt my throat tighten. There were baskets of offerings. They tossed them over the body until she was covered almost completely. No one spoke, not even Sister. Only the tokens placed lovingly around her, the prayer was the act itself. Then each bowed a head to the dead woman. There was no song, no prayer. Then Elle and Tuck and the other bearers shoveled bark and soil into the grave, and after that laid branches and stones around the edges. The rest stood quietly, heads bowed or eyes closed, hands on hearts, until they had finished. Eventually, one by one, the colonists peeled off and began the walk back.
I tried to shrink into the trees, but Katie saw me. Tuck looked up and followed her gaze. He looked weary, the hollows of his eyes almost bruised; he had been crying. He kissed Katie on the temple and followed the others back. I felt a pang of remorse for imagining the things I had about him, or for knowing what I knew about him. I watched them go and approached the grave. Katie and I stood on opposite sides.
When the last person had disappeared into the trees, I spoke. “Will you talk to me here?”
“Yes,” she said.
She stared at the grave. “You should have waited for me to call.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I walked over to her, to see her face. I wanted her to see that I meant it — that I hadn’t come to intrude.
“This is Sarah?” I asked.
“She died night before last.”
“That was the night of the harvest supper,” I said.
Katie nodded.
“You’ve done this before.” I looked around at the other graves. “Others have died here?”
“You know people have died here, Luce,” she scoffed. She turned away from Sarah’s grave and wandered the plots.