A light drizzle began to fall. It was near midday now, oddly colder than it had been earlier. His empty stomach rumbled. There was a mucky trail and he walked along beside it, his boot prints looking huge next to a pair of small barefoot prints. There was an empty plastic milk jug hanging from a branch, bending the branch over so that the jug almost touched an oily-looking puddle. A few yards away a metal garbage can had been ransacked, probably by a bear, Ogden thought; the lid was still held down by straps hooked onto the can’s handles, but the sides had been folded up and resembled a pair of wings. He could smell the musk of some animal, maybe a bear, more likely a raccoon, certainly not a skunk. The rain fell not so much harder, but in a way that made it seem it would never go away. He would have felt it fully but for the canopy of forest. A couple of magpies landed beside a yurt and pecked at some discarded food. He stepped over a used condom, then stepped cautiously by what he knew was human waste. He approached the nearest yurt. The bold magpies merely hopped away from him,
dragging strings and flaps of food, bread, and some kind of cold cut. Ogden knocked.
A young woman opened the rickety door. She was tall and thin, unhealthy, emaciated, her arms just cords of muscle and skin stretched over bone, her clavicles making deep hollows below her neck. Her green eyes were like sea glass, that sick color of the unwell, not quite clouded. Her lips were chapped. Her sleeveless T-shirt was, however, bright white, clean, the light cotton ribbed and accentuating the length and thinness of her torso. It was her hands that Ogden studied. Her hands were twisted, gnarled, like an old woman’s, her unpainted nails showing bluish in the strange light of the overcast day. “What?” she asked. That was it, only, “What?”
“I’m looking for Conrad or Leslie Hempel.”
“I don’t know either one,” she said. She found her words deliberately, as if each and every syllable was something she was reluctant to let go.
“I was told one of them might be around here.”
“There are a lot of people around here.”
Ogden looked around. There were more yurts than he thought, twenty, twenty-two of them. “One of them might be known as Meth-mouth.”
The woman didn’t exactly freeze, but something happened to her face. Perhaps it was suspicion, perhaps fear, or perhaps, and it was likely given her state, she had just recalled a dream or some substance had kicked in.
“Meth-mouth,” Ogden repeated. “One of them has a tattoo on his arm.”
“Who doesn’t have a tattoo on his arm,” the woman laughed. When she opened her mouth Ogden could see the rotting teeth in the back and the stud piercing her tongue.
“Let’s try this a different way,” Ogden said. He was light-headed. There was a trembling inside his hand as he rested it on the rusty spring of the screen door. He stared at the woman’s feet; her shoes at least were different sizes. “Can you tell me if there are any men around here in the yurts?”
“Yes,” she said. “I can tell you.”
“And?”
“There are some men around here.”
“Are any of them white?”
“Yes.”
“Any of them have light-colored hair?”
She was silent as she thought. “Maybe.” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she almost took a step backward.
“Are you all right?” Ogden asked.
“Yes.”
“Do any of the men around here that you’ve seen have tattoos?”
“All of the men around here have tattoos.”
“Do you know where one of these men is? Any man?” Ogden looked around the quiet compound.
“Do you have any drugs?”
“No. What kind of drugs?”
“Any kind of drugs. Meth, heroin, alprazolam. Can you get me some drugs?” Her eyes changed again, from probable suspicion or fear to desperation, anxiety, or even eagerness.
“If you help me I’ll try to find you some drugs,” Ogden lied. What struck him as odd, unusual, was that he did not feel bad lying to this woman. Ogden believed he had never been able to lie about anything. “I promise.”
“I know somebody they call Meth-mouth.”
“Do you know where he is?”
The woman leaned around the door and pointed. “Over there. The light blue yurt,” she said. “The light blue one. Over there. Light blue.” She was close to Ogden. Her lean frame was like a coat rack and she smelled of body odor.
“Thank you,” Ogden said.
“My name is Mary,” she said. “You know, like in the Bible. Jesus’s mother. The light blue one.”
“Got it.”
The light blue yurt was thirty yards away. Ogden zipped up his jacket as he walked. It was colder now, raining still, making noise on his shoulders and head. The light blue yurt didn’t have a door. Someone had been pissing and shitting just yards from the side of the building and it smelled awful. Worse than decomposing flesh, Ogden thought, mainly because it was a harbinger of decomposing flesh, the living conditions of those about to die, those as good as dead.
He stepped through the doorway of the yurt and stood just inside. The weak light from the outside did not penetrate very deeply into the round structure, but the felt walls kept it from being terribly dark. There was a man sleeping in the middle and two women curled up together at the back. There might have been another person, but it could also have been a pile of clothes or blankets. The inside of the yurt stank nearly as bad as the outside. The man sleeping on the floor was not the Conrad Hempel he had met, but he walked over and kicked him in the thigh anyway. Ogden didn’t say anything, but kicked him again. “Hey,” he said. “Hey.” He glanced at the women. They were awake, but weren’t concerned or impressed enough to stand or sit up. The man slowly came around, blinked, and looked up at Ogden. His eyes were blue and red, puffy, and as he rolled completely over onto his back the blanket fell off and revealed his naked body, his ribs showing above a belly covered with bruises. “Leslie Hempel?”
“What the fuck?”
“Are you Leslie Hempel?”
“I’ve seen you before. I know you.” The man nodded.
“What’s your name?”
The man yawned and Ogden saw why he was called Meth-mouth. There was one yellow tooth in the front of his mouth and the rest were decayed nubs. His breath stank from six feet away.
“What do you want?”
“Leslie?”
“My name is Beetle,” he said.
“What?”
“They call me Beetle.” The man smiled without showing his bad teeth.
Ogden studied him, was immediately and completely irritated by him. He couldn’t tell what Beetle’s hair color really was. He had no tattoos on either arm, but a word was written in black ink across his neck. Rose or Rosa. He had probably lost weight and so the last letter had folded in on itself. “It’s like this,” Ogden said. “I’m looking for a man named Conrad Hempel.”
“You’re sure that’s his name?”
“Yes, I think that’s his name.” Ogden watched as Beetle pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a soiled light green T-shirt. He took a step back to give him some room. “Do you know him?”
“Let’s go outside.”
Ogden allowed the man to go first.
Outside Beetle pulled a pack of clove cigarettes from his sweatpants pocket and shoved one into his mouth. “Those bitches won’t let me smoke in there,” he said. He laughed and lit it with a match from a book. “I’d offer you one, but, hey, I can tell you don’t smoke. Do you want to know how I can tell?”