Page 36 of So Far Gone

to the back of the stage where Doug put his hand on his heart and extended it to the side pen, toward her.

Someone in the crowd apparently appreciated the song, too, because a voice called out “Bethany!” She was confused at first,

and glanced to her right, scanning the stoned and painted faces on the other side of the fence. Again: “Bethany!” A familiar

voice, but out of context.

An altercation at the right edge of the dancing throng caught her eye, someone pushing through the crowd—and what she saw

next refused to constitute itself in her mind: her father was trying to climb the six-foot chain-link fence separating the

girlfriend pen from the dancers and Hula-Hoopers. And two security guards were rushing to stop him. An older Native American

man in a trucker’s cap and an open-shirted bearded man in a homburg hat were pulling at the security guards as Rhys, perched

on the fence, yelled again, “Bethany!”

He freed himself from the guards’ grip and flopped over the chain-link, falling six feet onto his back. “Bethany! That song!”

He got up. “It was great!” He ran to the shorter steel crowd-control railing, his leg catching as he crawled over it.

She rose out of her folding chair and began moving toward him, the quavering voice that came out of her not her adult voice, but a scared ten-year-old’s: “Dad?” He looked terrible.

He was wearing a Glass An imals T-shirt.

His cheek was swollen, and he had a black eye that was beginning to turn yellow and green. “What are you doing here?”

They were only fifteen feet apart now. Her dad opened his mouth to answer, but he was knocked to the ground again, a burly

security guard hitting him with his shoulder and falling on him, slamming his already battered face into the trampled grass.

“Okay, Gramps,” the man said. “That’s enough.”

***

On the way out, Kinnick paused to look back over his shoulder. With the sun setting behind them, The Buffs were playing an

encore, and they were surprisingly... not terrible . Like an edgier, synthesized Seals and Crofts (a reference that he suspected the band would either not know or certainly

not love). One of the security guards yanked on his arm again and Rhys continued being escorted out by these angry toughs.

Bethany, Brian, and Jeff walked behind him, as they were all herded through the side-stage pen, against the flow of the swaying

dancers, through the back of the crowd, past people sitting on the hillside, and finally, to the entrance gate of the Tonatiuh

Stage. Bethany kept staring at her dad between the big security guards, as if still not convinced that it was him. Kinnick

had tried to explain to the couldn’t-care-less guards that he’d been looking for his daughter in the crowd and had gotten excited when the band pointed her out, but the

tackling one had interrupted him: “Buddy,” he reiterated. “Could not. Care less.”

The other security guard said, “Maybe just try calling your daughter next time.” Rhys thought about pointing out that they didn’t have phone service up here, but instead, he promised

that he would do just that.

It was only once they were outside the gate—“Peace!” Jeff said to the security guards—that Bethany turned to Rhys. “What are

you doing here, Dad? Where are the kids? And what happened to your face?”

“The kids are fine,” Kinnick said. And then he explained the whole ordeal, Anna showing up on his porch two days ago with the children, Rhys driving them into Spokane for Asher’s chess tournament—

“You took him to his tournament? How did he do?” Bethany gave a slight smile. “He’s not very good, you know.”

“Well, it turned out we had the day wrong. The junior tournament is next month.” Then Kinnick told her the rest—how Shane

had apparently called his AOL goons to go get the kids, and how two of them showed up at the chess club and, pointing to his

cheek and eye, “They gave me this”—

“Oh, Dad!” Bethany’s hand covered her mouth.

—and how the militia nuts drove away with the kids, and how Kinnick got help from a retired cop, a “friend of a friend,” who

helped track them down, and how they drove up to the Rampart to get the kids back—

“Wait, you went up there?”

—and how Chuck the ex-cop sent him and the kids away in his truck while he stayed back to hold off anyone who tried to go

after him, and how Chuck shot out Dean Burris’s tire and then got shot in the hip by another man—

“Oh, my God, Dad! Is he okay?”

—and yes, Chuck was going to be fine, but a county sheriff named Glen Campbell and maybe even the Spokane police were looking

for Rhys now, and how he had been informed that he didn’t have any rights as a grandparent (“I suppose I haven’t been a very

good one anyway.”), and how he needed Bethany to come back so she could explain that he had not kidnapped his own grandchildren—

“This is a fucking awesome story,” Jeff said to Brian.

“I brought a rifle,” Brian said.

“As one would!” said Jeff.

Kinnick couldn’t place the look that Bethany gave him—somewhere between I’m sorry I got you into this and I can’t believe how badly you screwed this up .

By this time, they had arrived back at her tent. She put her hand to her head, trying to keep everything straight. “And...

where are the kids now?”

“They’re at my house,” Brian said.

She turned. “And you are—”

“Oh, right,” Kinnick said. “This is my friend, Brian. He lives near me, in Ford. The kids are with his wife, Joanie.”

“Girlfriend,” Brian corrected, Jefe Jeff putting out his fist for another bump.

“It’s more of a common-law thing,” Kinnick explained.

“Right.” Then Bethany turned to Jeff. “And you—”

Jeff removed his hat and bowed. “The great and powerful Jeff, purveyor of quality hallucinogens, and guide to the furthest

reaches of one’s consciousness.”

“Sure,” Bethany said. She nodded, and stuck out her bottom lip, and said, “Okay then,” as if she’d processed everything and

now was ready to act, Kinnick impressed by her calm. She looked back at the tent. “I’ll pack up my stuff. You can tell me

the rest of it on the drive.”

“I’m sorry to make you leave early,” Kinnick said.

“It’s okay,” Bethany said. “I was ready to go.”

“Also, Beth”—Kinnick put his hand out—“I wanted to say, I’m so sorry to hear about your mom.” He started to move toward her,

to give her a hug.

But she gave a hurried nod, and said, “I’ll be right out,” and dipped inside the tent to start packing up.

Sorry to hear about your mom? Why did Kinnick have such trouble speaking around his daughter? Everything that came out of his mouth sounded so distant,

so cool to his own ear. He looked over at Brian, who shrugged, as if to say, Children, daughters, women—who knows .

“You guys look alike,” Jeff said.

“She looks more like her mother,” Kinnick said.

And that’s when Doug came running back up the trail, sweating and breathless, dodging various freaks and furries. “Oh good,”

he said. “I was afraid she was gone already.”

Kinnick couldn’t believe this doughy bald man was the same long-haired waste-case who’d swept his daughter off her sandals

in 2006, and who Rhys blamed for spinning her into a five-year drug-fueled postcollege eddy, Bethany following Doug’s band

around aimlessly before snapping out of it one morning and showing up at Celia’s house with a two-month-old and a minor coke

habit. Rhys had been relieved to hear Bethany had left Doug, but within a year, she was declaring her love for another loser,

Shane. (“Out of the frying pan,” as Kinnick used to put it, “and into a stupider frying pan.”)

Indeed, Shithead Shane had caused Kinnick to soften his opinion a bit on Sluggish Doug over the years, but he could still

hear the edge in his own voice when he greeted him. “Hello, Doug .”

Bethany must’ve heard it, too, because she emerged from the tent with a backpack, a duffel bag, and a rolled-up sleeping bag.

She pushed the duffel into her father’s hands, and, as if reading his mind, said, through gritted teeth: “This was not Doug’s fault, Dad. It was my decision to come up here.”

Kinnick accepted the duffel, and Bethany’s tone. “I’m sorry.” He craned to look around Bethany. “I liked your band, Doug.”

“You guys are great,” Brian agreed.

“Awesome set,” said Jeff.

“Thanks,” Doug said. “How have you been, Rhys?”

Kinnick glanced sideways at Bethany. “Trying,” he said. “How about you, Doug?”

“Same, I guess.” Doug smiled and turned to Bethany. “You’re leaving?”

“I am. But thank you, Doug.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t all you’d hoped.”

“It was just fine. Thank you. And I loved hearing my song. That made it all worthwhile.”

“Tell Leah I’ll try to see her this summer.” Kinnick knew that Doug had had almost no role in his daughter’s life—a combination

of his own deep slacker instincts and Bethany’s desire to start a new life twelve years ago with Shane and her infant daughter.

“I will,” Bethany said. They exchanged a long hug, and when it was over, Kinnick shook Doug’s hand, gave him a short nod,

and turned to follow Jeff the trip guide once more through the festival campsite.

They reached the Rushrooms tent and Brian pulled a slip of paper from under the windshield wiper of his Bronco. He held it

up for Jeff to see. On top was another Incan cross. Below that were two stamps: a snake and a flower.

“Parking violation,” Jeff said. “Amaru, the serpent god. Luckily, they gave you a Cantua buxifolia , too, the sacred flower. Just a warning. If that second symbol had been a lightning bolt, your car would be in a boot. Or

they’d be towing it.”

“I gotta get out of here,” Brian said.

They thanked Jeff, who urged them to come back for the much larger Shambala festival in the summer. “Or,” he said, “come up

in three weeks for the spring barter faire. I have a booth where I sell homemade soap and leather products.” He removed a

brown, leather key chain from his pocket and held it out for them to see. It had the dark impression of bird wings stamped

on it.

“That’s nice,” Brian said. “Reminds me of my old air force wings.”

“Take it.” Jeff took his keys off the chain. “It’s yours.”

Brian tried to object, but Jeff insisted, so Brian handed him a twenty-dollar bill.

Then, the three of them left, piling in the Bronco.

In the backseat, Bethany held up the rifle case. “Is this necessary?”

“Oh, you can just set that in back,” Brian said.

He drove them through the parking lot and started back down the narrow two-track dirt road.

Kinnick felt exhausted by the last few days, but relieved to have Bethany back.

He kept turning and looking at her in the backseat, as if she might disappear again. “Are you okay, Beth?”

She nodded but kept staring out her side window. She had her mother’s wide features, and thick eyebrows, and her long, black

hair was tied back the way Celia used to wear it, parted almost in the middle, the first loose grays winging out from her

scalp. Celia had gone totally gray in her forties, seeming to age faster than Kinnick in that difficult time. He shifted his

body, so that he was facing Bethany in the backseat. “I feel like there are some things I need to say to you—”

She didn’t look up at him. “I might need a minute, Dad.”

“Sure. Of course.”

And so, they stayed quiet driving out of the woods, darkness already settling around them. Brian turned off the dirt road

and onto the two-lane highway, driving them in silence another fifteen miles, when, without warning, an incessant buzzing

began. One, then another, and another. They were coming back into cell phone range. Bethany pulled her vibrating cell phone

from her backpack and began looking at the voicemails and texts. “Oh boy,” she said. “Here we go. Anna. Shane. Anna. Shane.

Pastor Gallen. Shane, Shane, Shane.”

In the driver’s seat, Brian took out his cell phone, too. Once again, Kinnick felt left out. “Uh-oh,” Brian said. He handed

over his phone.

On the screen was a text message from Joanie, Kinnick reading it with a renewed sense of dread. Brian! Where are you? Leah is gone! I can’t find her—