Unbound (6 page)

I grabbed a glass of water, cut the music off, and vegged out in front of the TV. I flipped through the channels, watching snippets of syndicated reruns like
How I Met Your Mother
and
The Big Bang Theory.
I ended up stopping on one of those gossip shows that seemed to forever be on those channels near the end of my subscribed channels—the ones usually spouting off the latest exploits of Lindsay Lohan or the Kardashians.

I wasn’t one of those women… I could care less about the lives of spoiled and entitled celebrities. But every now and then, as bad as it sounds, I’d check out these sorts of shows just to make myself feel better. If these famous glitzy people could make train wrecks of their lives, then certainly there was hope for me. I’d been busy at the store and with the novel, so it had been a while since I’d indulged in this guilty pleasure.

I watched through the usual ass-smooching stories about how a mediocre actress was supposedly the next big thing. I also watched an interview with a kid that the media was billing to be the next Justin Bieber. And then they got into the good stuff: a celebrity marriage that ended in divorce in less than six days, an actor getting arrested for cocaine possession, and an a-list actor that had seemingly just disappeared.

The last story seemed interesting. The way the show painted it made it seem like the story was something that should have been on
Unsolved Mysteries.
They showed a few cheesy slow motion shots of a smiling Devlin Stone during interviews and press junkets. He was one of those men that looked like he fell out of his mother’s womb absolutely perfect right down to his drool-worthy six-pack.

I knew his story well enough and absolutely loathed him because of it: he was a war hero and was plastered on every newspaper and magazine cover for months.  When he came back from Afghanistan, America fawned over him and he let it go to his head. He sold his heroic soul to Hollywood and became nothing more than fodder for these shows. I had seen a few of his movies. He was a decent actor and rather good looking, but that’s where it stopped. He had quickly become typecast in the same roles the movies had kept getting worse and worse.

That’s just my opinion, anyway. I was more of a Chris Evans kind of girl. Not that he’s necessarily the best actor in the world either, but that’s beside the point.

The show was telling the story of how Devlin Stone had been missing for roughly six weeks. He’d last been seen at the red carpet premiere of
Killing Floor
and had then simply disappeared. Aubrey Henning, an actress that was a few decent roles away from becoming a Hollywood mainstay, was the last person to have seen him. As the show played a clip of the two of them kissing on the red carpet, there was a voice over from the actress where she sounded both irritated and sad.

The reporter wrapped up and I was rather disgusted that I found myself intrigued by the story. “With his agent and closest friends unable to contact him, it's looking like this won't conclude with a happy ending,” the reporter said. “His accountant is keeping an eye on his finances, hoping that activity might clue someone in as to where Devlin Stone could be. And we are certainly hoping for the best.  More on this fascinating story as it develops.”

Rolling my eyes, I shut off the TV.
Probably a publicity stunt,
I thought. Of course, I wasn’t being fair to Devlin Stone. I was holding him to the standards of other military men I had known: my grandfather, my father, and my brother.

My brother had died in combat. It was one of the reasons my divorce has been so brutal. I lot my brother
and
my husband within eleven months of one another. Granted, I often wished it had been my ex-husband that would have caught the bullet in the chest instead of my brother, but they were just as equally gone to me.

Angry, I toyed with the idea of getting another glass of wine before I went to bed. I decided against it, though. I sat in bed for a while, reading a book about the history of Iceland (it was research for my novel) until my eyes started to burn.

I shut off my lamp and lay in bed listening to the lack of sound in my empty house. I thought of my brother, as I usually did whenever I was sad or upset about anything. He’d been four years younger than me and the last time I had seen him before he died, we’d had an argument.

I thought of him, all smiles and that one little dimple in his left cheek. I missed him terribly. That, coupled with the empty side of the bed next to me, made me feel miserable. It made me want to just sink down into the sheets and drown. You’d think four years would be enough to get used to an empty bed and that nearly five years would be enough to get over a dead brother, but it wasn't.  I don't think there was enough time to get over my brother… ever.

Somethings were beyond getting used to. More than anything, I think I needed a friend – someone I could confide in, even a shoulder to cry on.  Living in one of the most remote corners of the country didn't help matters, but I would never leave Sitka. Alaska had defined me, as had the horrid events of the last five years.

I reflected on my life and the turns it had taken.  The only thing that kept me from submitting to total misery and depression was the idea that I was not yet finished being defined.

That thought clicked in my head as I drifted off to sleep and, for some reason, pulled up an image of Mr. Tanner’s blue float plane. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

6—Devlin

Six-thirty in the morning.  Cool, crisp air filled my lungs as I crested the top of a long, straight stretch of  trail and came to the top of a hill in the forest. The sunrise looked like something out of one of the romantic films I’d been in two years ago, bathing everything in yellow and gold tones, from the snowy tops of the fjords to the gentle crests on the ocean. I stopped, taking a moment to appreciate the sheer magnitude of the morning. I stood motionless, soaking in the light and the fact that although there might be other hikers on this particular trail, I felt like I was the only person around within miles.  It was one of those breath-taking moments that make you truly feel lucky to be alive.

Reality was that my cabin and all of the other cabins on Moose Hill were less than two miles behind me. I had set out at five o’clock with a large backpack and the map of hiking trails I had gotten from The Pine Way the day before. I had spent the previous night pouring over the maps and thought I had a decent route selected. My plan was to reach a place called Catchman’s Overlook by six o’ clock and set up a small tent. I would sleep there tonight and then walk back to Moose Hill.

It would be a nice little two day excursion. My cabin offered solitude, sure, but there was nothing like being out in the wilderness by myself. I had
some
experience with it, having gone on a few camping trips with some friends in college. And of course, there had a few nights of roughing it in some less than desirable locales while I had served in the army. Compared to the rugged Afghanistan landscape, the Alaskan wilderness was a piece of cake.

I wasn’t exactly sure what it was about solitude that so appealed to me. I was certain that I did my best thinking while alone; in fact, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works with most people. I always heard about people going somewhere isolated to get in touch with themselves. I’d always found the idea cheesy but, deep down, thought there might be something to it. Figuring it was worth a shot, I thought I might as well see what sort of inner insights I could come to while alone in the Alaskan woods.

A couple of years ago, I read that some famous poet had gone into the forest and simply sat down, unmoving for twelve hours, taking it all in. While I didn’t quite plan on going to such extremes, I
did
find the task admirable.

Within an hour of starting my trek, I found it both cool and eerie that there were so many hiking trails in these woods. Many of them skirted with the edges of several cliffs that looked out into the sea. Other wove deep into the heart of the forest where they meandered into several other trails. While I hadn’t taken the time to count each and every one of the map, I would bet that here were more than forty in all.

It took a while, but I finally cleared my mind. I wasn’t thinking about agents or opening nights or cute actresses. I also wasn’t thinking about the lure and lights that Hollywood had snared me with when that first movie studio had come calling two months after my first television interview about my so-called heroics in Afghanistan.

I guess to someone on the outside looking in, what I did probably
did
seem heroic. But I had a hard time thinking of it that way. If it truly had been heroic, I would have done more, even give my life, so that at least one of my team could have escaped that hell on earth.

Flashbacks still haunted me about that day—about that hellish forty minutes of my life—over and over again. Aubrey knew a little bit about it, but I hadn’t gone into great detail. All she knew was what she had seen on the news; she had seen the same story that the rest of the American public had seen.

The gist of it, according to the pretty little American network news spin, went like this: a covert Army operation was set in motion to rescue a dozen children from a school that partially collapsed due to the ongoing war in the region. In getting to the area where the school was located, a roadside bomb had obliterated one of the three trucks carrying the soldiers, knocking the original twenty-one troops down to a scant twelve. Those men swept into the school to rescue the children. All twenty-four school children had been rescued but, in the process, all but one of the American soldiers had died.

That lone soldier had been Devlin Stone, me, an unremarkable young man from Maine that barely made it out of high school with no intent of going to college. To me, the story seemed unremarkable up to that point.  How many other soldiers had died simply doing their jobs?  It was when I went back into the smoldering rubble to sweep for survivors from my team that made the headlines.

That
was the detail the media had harped on. It hadn’t been the twenty-four kids being rescued—the heroism, they claim was when I went back into the line of fire (catching a bullet in my shoulder and one below my collar bone as a result) to look for survivors. I found one of my teammates almost completely covered in debris but he was so badly wounded that he died before receiving proper medical attention.

The haze of that mission swept through my head like a strong wind in the desert. So much for having my mind cleared to enjoy the scenery.

It was good, though. I needed to get it all out. It was sort of like sweating during a workout. You get a good rhythm going, get your exercise in, and then break a sweat to release all the nasty toxins in your body. Perhaps this was my version of therapy. Only, rather than toxins and sweat, I was trying to rid myself of the memories and decisions that haunted me.

I stopped along the edge of one of the trails by seaside cliffs and had a lunch that consisted of graham crackers, two GoBars, and water. When I unwrapped the GoBars, I remembered the cute woman at The Pine Way—Mac, her name had been.

That’s got to be short for something, right?
I wondered.
Maybe I need to make a point to ask her.

It was a nice thought, for sure. Not knowing anything about a woman made it much easier to assume things about her. As I munched on the GoBars, I wondered what sort of date Mac would like. What sort of music did she like? What were her hobbies?

It might be nice to have a conversation with a woman that didn’t have all of the American public, not to mention reporters and the paparazzi, eating out of her hand. I couldn't remember the last time I had a conversation with a woman that was caught up in the glitz and glamor of Tinsel Town. Dating had been out of the question when I was snared by Hollywood. The tabloid magazines annoyed me enough already.  I had no desire to wind up on the cover of that crap simply because I went to have Thai food with a woman I was sort of interested in.  No thanks.

Aubrey had been the closest I had come to dating. At first, I’d started seeing her because, quite honestly, it stroked my ego.  It was nice to know that I could still manage to land a woman ten years younger than me. I
kept
seeing her, unofficially, because she was hot. She graced the cover of
Maxim
earlier in the year and it had sold more copies than any other edition of the magazine in the last ten years. She was gorgeous and, when the cameras weren’t flashing, actually very smart.

But she did her best to play to those clichéd Hollywood stereotypes. Hollywood didn’t want to see a smart and strong woman that looked like Aubrey did. She knew this and it didn't bother her to play the part. She loved the fame and attention. And that was why, in the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to date her.

With Aubrey in my mind, I cleared my little picnic, put the trash in my backpack, and started back down the trails. It was one o’clock and I was well on my way to making it to Catchman’s Overlook by six.

I continued on, taking in the trees and the wide expanse of sky overhead. I breathed in the crisp Alaskan air, doing everything I could to clear my mind. It was much harder than I expected. In one corner of my head I had the rotary blades of helicopters and the pinging noises of gunfire from a schoolroom walls; in the other corner, there were the flashbulbs and perfectly sculpted bodies of Hollywood.

Still, there were bright spots during my walk. There were singing birds and the tune of a swiftly-flowing creek. The scent of pine and soil were borderline overwhelming and totally refreshing. And finally, as the evening wound down and I found myself walking in the four o’ clock shadows of the forest, I managed disconnect from everything.

It was just me and the forest… and I took in ever single bit.

****

Catchman’s Overlook was really nothing special—or so I thought at first. I reached it at just before six o’ clock. My legs were tired and my back was getting sore from carrying the backpack, so I was glad to finally see it. A small sign had been posted on a tree, the name of the overlook chiseled into it.

I set my tent up twenty feet away from the edge, off of the path and in a small grove between a group of firs and alders. There was no need for a fire just yet; the temperature hadn’t yet dropped enough and I had at least another forty-five minutes of daylight. Still, I gathered some scant firewood, liking the simplicity of the task and that I was doing it by myself.

When the time came to build the fire, I looked at the map one last time, wondering if there was some shorter way back home. The walk today had been great and refreshing, but if I could shave an hour or so off of tomorrow’s hike, I’d be a happy man. The map made me think of Mac once again.  She was quite beautiful, even in her every-day sort of clothes.  Cute face, glossy black hair… and her body.  I especially loved the way her jeans hugged her legs and ass.  I tried to remember the last time I'd been with a woman and found myself drawing a blank.  It might have been a waitress from a film location... maybe.  I sighed. 

“Way too damned long,” I muttered to myself.  It was time to make a change.  I decided to visit The Pine Way again as soon as I could. I wasn’t sure if I’d ask her out (hell, I didn’t even know if she was married, dating, or what), but there was only one way to find out if any avenues were available.

I folded the map back up and when I slid it back into the backpack, I saw for the first time why Catchman’s Overlook had gotten its own little listing on the trail map.

As the sun set, it looked like it was literally melting into the ocean. There was a perfect gradient of colors, from red to orange, to yellow, that looked like it had been painted specifically for this part of the world. It danced and shimmered over the ocean in a way that made it hard to see where that portion of the horizon ended and the sea began. It was like a living painting, and it was hard as hell to look away from it.

I watched the surreal scene in front of me until the last rays of the sun were overtaken by dusk, the water becoming a murky sort of purple as the night came in. Realizing that I had wasted fifteen minutes by simply staring at the sunset, I put together a small, amateur campfire. Once I had the fire going, I encircled it with stones I found nearby to keep any stray flames from getting away, and then sat down for dinner.

Dinner was a bit more extravagant than the lunch I’d had. I ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I made at the cabin before leaving, as well as a banana and a few grapes. I washed it down with a bottle of water and then pulled out the flask of Jameson.

The flask, like the clothes and camping gear, had all been purchased after the move to Sitka. The night I left New York, I had taken nothing with me except the clothes on my back. A week after getting into the cabin on Moose Hill, I’d called my apartment manager in LA and told him to have my clothes shipped to a random address (which I had not yet visited to pick up my packages)and to feel free to sell the furniture and put the apartment up for lease.

I’d dipped pretty heavily into my personal savings to get my life in Sitka started. It didn’t bother me much anymore, though.  As I sat under the moonlight in the forests, sipping from my flask, I started to care less and less that someone—be it Adam or Aubrey—might eventually find me here in Alaska. Still, I didn’t necessarily want to invite that sort of headache, either. I was pretty sure I knew how I could get to the money in my primary account… the one with more than eight million dollars in it.

I was going to take a chance and give it a try. I think it was the damned blue plane that helped me muster up the motivation. I was excited to once again use the pilot’s license I’d acquired during some down time during my basic training. Looking out to the forest cloaked in darkness, I thought it would be a pretty lucrative business to be able to fly adventurers and weekend warriors out into the Alaskan wilds. After a while, once I became more familiar with the place, maybe I could also act as a tour guide of sorts.

Suddenly excited about the future, I crawled into my tent shortly after nine o’ clock. I listened to the sounds of the woods—the sighing branches, a hooting owl somewhere in the distance, and a wind that barely brushed the side of my tent.