Stranger

Cassy scurried into the uncharted cabin. Rain played a heavy drumroll on the cabin’s roof as she shut the boarded door. The fence gate handle latched. She panted from the sprint and leaned against the door. She flipped open the leather messenger bag hanging off her shoulder and sighed with relief.

Thank God. She folded the flap back and brushed her wet, curly red locks away from her harsh green eyes. It was a miracle she had stumbled onto this shelter, let alone that it was unlocked. Trespassing or not, she needed shelter from the storm.

The room was made primarily out of wood: varnished wood floorboards, timber log rafters and paneled walls with one visible window. An unlit stone fireplace dominated the majority of the room while the rest was spaced with tree limb and animal pelt furniture.

No lights, no movement, no warm welcome.

Cassy took in the cold room and set her bag on the empty table. On the right wall was a cluttered workbench piled with wood scraps, hand tools and a dirty cup of pencils. Above the bench was the small cabin’s only noticeable window with a blurry view of the rain-pelted lake.

Looks like I’ll be turning in the assignment late. She meandered around the dusty room while drying her face with the ends of her jacket sleeves. Did I roll my car windows up?

Cassy’s father used to take her camping in the woods when he and her mom got into unsolvable arguments. Fifteen years later, Cassy rediscovered the dirt road in a search for sanctuary from her college burdens. Most of the trails she and her father had taken before were lost in thickets and fallen trees, but she never recalled seeing this cabin when they camped in the woods.

The floorboards creaked. Her boots left wet footprints as she lingered in the dark room.

She spotted a narrow hallway untouched by day’s light. Intrigued, she stepped into the corridor while cautiously glancing from her bag to the hall’s bend. Picture frames hung crooked off the walls. She passed a cramped bathroom to the right.

Cassy drew out her phone and thumbed the light app. The LED pushed away the shadows and illuminated the dusty glass frames.

Landscape drawings. She looked from one pencil sketch to another. Probably different parts of the woods. Her gaze lingered on one of an old man hunched over in a chair with a fishing pole in his hands and a mockingbird perched on his straw hat.

A thud shattered the silence. Cassy jolted back, hitting the other wall and knocking a frame to the floor. The glass cracked.

Dammit. She bent down and scooped up the broken ornament. Cassy whipped her head to the main room, then to the hall’s bend where the noise came from.

Her heartbeat quickened. She waited several long seconds before calling out. Her voice was no louder than a whisper. “Hello?”

The response was a faint rolling sound on the floor.

She took a deep breath, then inched towards the bend.

I shouldn’t be here.

She peeked around the corner and found a bedroom beyond an open door. A mason jar of dirt lay on the floor by a rug.

Cassy scanned the newfound room. On the far side was a dresser, a mirror and various animal heads mounted on plaques, hung on the wall. Along the right wall were bookshelves, open closet doors and a bungle of fishing rods in the corner. The space to the left was occupied by a neatly-made bed and a nightstand beside it.

She walked through the doorway, set her phone face-down on the bed and took the jar in hand. Forget-me-nots… She shook the soil inside to rebalance the stem of flowers.

Cassy glanced back to the displayed heads, subconsciously picking out creatures she had spotted before when she camped with her dad. I’ve seen countless deer… Never caught fish that big… I saw an owl once, but it was a different breed… People don’t usually mount snakes…

A wolf glared at her with greyed eyes, its teeth fossilized into a snarl. A whole pack chased a deer through our camp. He stopped taking me camping after that.

Shimmers of light shone on the floor around her. Cassy looked up.

A sea of bottles and jars hung from the bedroom ceiling, each one bearing contents of the woods— walnut shells mixed with acorn caps and berries, dirt dauber and butterfly corpses sleeping on lost spider webs, wilted autumn leaves tied to geese feathers and antler splints, birch bark peelings on beds of green moss and bird nests cradling forgotten wasp homes drizzled in sap.

She stood perplexed under the suspended glass drops as the storm breathed heavy mumbles and rolled its knuckles on the cabin shingles.  The canopy of bottles stretched into the hallway, maybe even the main room, she wasn’t sure. How Cassy hadn’t seen them until now, she wasn’t sure, but the sight kept her mesmerized for several minutes.

I have to get pictures. She set the bottle on the dresser but kept the cracked frame in her hands.

The cabin’s door turned on its hinge.

Cassy was momentarily frozen in cold terror. I shouldn’t be here…

She snatched her phone, searched for the nearest place to hide and strained to keep the floorboards from groaning underfoot.

A scuffle of shoes echoed through the cabin.

The closet! Cassy scurried into the tiny cubby and hastily pulled the door to her. She left it barely cracked to see out. Her hands trembled, and her fingers felt too fearbitten to turn off the LED, so she smothered the light against her stomach.

Her mind blurred through an array of similar scenarios to calm herself— most of which involved a homicidal writer with an axe.

Muffled sounds of a closing door came from the other room.

Cassy gripped the frame tight. The cracks in the glass threatened to cut her fingertips. Maybe he won’t notice the missing frame or the misplaced jar…

A slow but deep voiced menaced down the hall. “Who’s in here?”

Cassy held back a gasp. The bag—she had left it on the table.

The man’s clothes rustled a little more, then he slowly stomped towards the bedroom.

She felt every boot thud run up her legs.

The cabin owner chambered a bullet.

Hot tears streamed over her cheeks as she scooted further back, begging for the darkness to hide her away.

Daddy… She stared wide-eyed at the door as the steps came into the room.

“I give you one chance. I don’t want no trouble, and I’m sure you don’t either.”

The man’s words pierced her cluttered mind.

An audible whimper escaped her lips. She covered her mouth with her arm, and the light of her phone revealed herself through the door’s shutters.

He jerked the closet door open. A hunched man wearing a fisher’s hat stood in front of her, rifle loaded and pointed. His voice was raspy but stern. “What ’er you doin’ in my cabin, young lady?”

“I…” she stammered, her face pale. “I had to get out of the storm.”

He fidgeted his legs, but kept his feet shoulder-width apart. “What’s your name?”

“C-Cassy… Cassy Shaman. I’m from Grandbrook University. I’m sorry, I’ll leave, I swear.”

He gestured to the frame she held. “Tryin’ to make off with that?”

She shook her head and stumbled to reply. “I’m sorry, it fell in the hall and it cracked. I’m sorry. I swear I wasn’t taking it.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. The barrel tip stayed trained on her sternum as he drilled her with a stare. He lifted a hand and motioned for her to step out of the closet.

“How’d you know about my cabin?”

Her eyes shifted from the barrel to him. “I-I didn’t. My dad took me camping in the woods when I was younger. I came t-to take scenery pictures when the rain started.”

He checked the closet for something then lowered his rifle.

Another tear welled from her eye.

The man nodded, then removed the rifle clip and chambered round. He thumbed the bullet back into the clip and stored the rifle in the closet. “Well, whether you’re a truthful-tellin’ lady or a very lost burglar, you oughta not be out in the rain.”

The stranger led her back to the other room and hobbled to his workbench. He grabbed a few dry logs and tossed them towards the fireplace while Cassy stood by the table with the picture frame still in hand.

After gathering an arm full of small logs and chopped tree limbs, he shuffled to the fireplace and dumped the load onto the grate. “So your dad took you campin’ here?”

She didn’t respond, only nodded and stared.

He glanced to her, then scratched his head. “Forgive me; you greet almost everything with a rifle out here, man or beast.”

Cassy tried to fight off the shakes and give a response.

The man bent down and stacked more wood on the fire. “Lord knows how many times I been greeted by death.”

He had crumpled a newspaper and fetched a pack of matches from the bathroom by the time Cassy dried her eyes.

“My dad…” She lowered her gaze to the cracked picture in her hands. “We’d pitch a tent in the woods and stay the night or until mom calmed down.”

He struck the match and held it under the newspaper. “Yeah, my brother was like that. You couldn’t keep us from bringin’ trouble to the dinner table.”

The paper caught fire. The old man lifted the damper open with an iron rod and watched the flames lick at the logs.

Cassy took a step towards him but looked up at the bottle-covered ceiling. “So this is your cabin?”

“Yep, wife drew the plans, I did the work. She loved cabins, and I loved her. Got to buildin’ this place years back, and every other week I’d come out here.” He gestured to the frame in Cassy’s hands. “That’s some of her handiwork.”

“It’s very nice. I’m sorry I broke it.”

The man shook his head, swaying his second chin. “Bah, she won’t mind. Grab you a seat and get warm. I’ll see if I can get a pot brewin’.”

Cassy didn’t like it black, but she drank it anyway. He pulled up a rocking chair and whittled at a block of wood between slow slurps. She sat with the cup of bitter water in both hands, entranced by the fire’s light. Three logs later, Cassy had finished her mug, and he poured her another serving.

She frowned at her cup. “So your wife… Does she come with you to the cabin?”

He picked at the wood with the tip of his pocket knife. “She did, ‘til God called her home about nine years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It was a grace—went in her sleep the night she lost her eyesight.”

The fire dimmed to a glow as the wood crackled, and the sky thundered.

He stopped rocking for a moment. He poked at the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “I wanna tell you somethin’.”

Cassy met his gaze. His blue eyes were scarred with grey marks, and the wrinkles on his face expressed pain.

“I lied to her.”

Cassy furrowed her eyebrows.

He broke eye contact. “I lied to her. The last thing she saw before she went blind was me holdin’ her hand, puttin’ on a smile and telling her she gonna make it through. It helped her sleep better that night, but it’s torn me apart ever since.”

Cassy kept her focus on the fire, unsure how to respond to the man’s claim. She offered the most rational response she could think of. “You did the right thing.”

He nodded. “I told myself that too, then I got to thinking. It ain’t doin’ her any good. She’s gone, and here I am hurtin’ over the last thing I said to her. Out here, the dead help the living; dead trees cover your head and dead fish fill your belly. I’ve got no debts to pay, no burdens to pass. I’d take back what I said if I could, but I’ll have to suffer until God calls my name. ‘Til then, I’m sittin’ in His waiting room.” 

One of the burning logs collapsed, puffing a shower of embers up the chimney.

“I haven’t told anyone, but that lie is what’s kept me doin’ all I’ve been doin’.” He scratched the scruff on his fat chin. “I wanna take it back. I’ve stopped time tryin’. That’s why the place is a mess, why I keep comin’ back here. It’s why I hang all these bottles— put enough slices of time in a mason and I’d get a jar of time.”

Cassy tilted her head. “Why are you telling me this?”

The man gave a brief smile. “’Cause you’re a stranger.”

She shifted her eyes to him, confused.

He focused on the fireplace and prodded the glowing logs with an iron rod. “Ain’t no one better to share your secrets with than strangers.”

The redhead stared at the black, lukewarm liquid in her mug. A distorted face stared up at her, and for a while, Cassy couldn’t help but study the reflection.

The rain soaked enough shingles to spring a dripping leak in the ceiling. The old man jacked himself from the rocking chair and meandered about his workbench for a bucket or pail. “So what’s in that bag of yours, a college degree?”

Cassy gave a half-hearted laugh. “Minus the diploma.”

“So you’re an artist?”

“Photographer.”

He smacked his lips. “Yeah, I’d run for the hills too if I had somethin’ that costly in the rain.” The man dumped the kindling stashed in a metal pail, set the pail under the water drops and winked. “If I could run, that is.”

She smiled. “I’ve loved taking pictures of places and things, never people.”

He raised his eyebrows. “May I see?”

Cassy paused, then nodded. She retrieved her bag from the table, withdrew a brown envelope and opened its contents. A deck of unorganized photos fell into her hands, and she began thumbing through the photos and holding them out for the man to see.

“You’ve got some mighty fine stuff here.” He smiled at an image of a rusted staircase in a cotton field. “But you don’t take pictures of people… there a reason for that?”

She fanned another photo before presenting it to him. “I hate evil things. The world isn’t evil, only the people in it.”

The man shrugged his eyebrows. “I can respect that. Was your mom into cameras?”

She refused to look at him. “No, she worked at a hospital. Sometimes she’d take me with her if I made good grades. My dad was a writer—the best writer a six-year-old could dream of. Every weekend was an adventure of scary dungeons and heroic children. Anytime he had writer’s block, he’d take me out on a walk. Mom wanted a man who could ‘hold up his end.’”

“Where did that get her?”

She grit her teeth. “She got what she wanted—after dad confronted her about her affair, she left. We never heard from her again, and we never saw a dime of child support. He had to give up his dreams for two jobs and a loan. He insisted I go to college. Said, ‘Only one of us needs to give up our dreams.’”

The old man pulled his lips in. “That’d leave a mark.”

More than you know. Cassy stopped flipping through the photos and stared blankly at the auburn coals. A long minute passed before she spoke again.

Cassy closed her eyes. “I’m a criminal.”

“Do what?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “I’m the reason they split.”

When an expected response never came, she continued. “One year, I made a perfect score. Mom bought me a disposable Kodak and took me to work with her. I was taking pictures of the nurses with a broken flash when I looked in a storage room and saw mom with that doctor. Her arms around him, his hands… I took a picture. I showed dad the pictures of the nurses when he saw it. That weekend, dad took me camping.”

A tear fell from her chin and onto the picture. “I collected cameras and cartridges, taking pictures of things me and my dad saw on our last few walks. When I pieced together that I caused their divorce… I took pictures. Pictures of coffee shops, of alleys, of boxcars, of workstations, everything—I wanted to erase that one photo I shot.  I wanted to rewind and reshoot that picture to be of one smiling with my dad instead. If I had enough glimpses of time, I thought I could go back.”

Cassy wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

The man ruminated on her words and spoke slowly. “We’re a lot alike, aren’t we?”

The room fell very quiet.

The rain…

“Looks like the storm’s let up.” The man looked up, squinting and trying to look through the boards.

Cassy stuck the photos back into the envelope and deposited the package into her bag. “Thank you for letting me stay as much as I have, sir.”

“Leaving?” he asked.

She stood, her eyes on the bottles. “I still need to take photos for class. I’m sorry for intruding on your home.”

The man rose stiff-backed from his chair as Cassy walked for her coat and then to the door. “No harm done, ma’am. You’re welcome to take pictures of the place—somethin’ to remember an old hoot.” She shrugged the damp coat on and opened the door to leave. Cassy smiled before stepping out. “No, I needn’t remember a stranger.”

---

Wesley Hartfield is a recent graduate of Belhaven University. He is passionate about the art of storytelling and developing ideas for new table-top games.