Gone Feral: Tracking My Dad Through the Wild by Novella Carpenter Page A

ricocheting bullet sounds added to our discussion.
    My fear morphed into a red-hot rage. “Why are you blaming me for something between my mom and you?” I yelled. I wondered if Bill, sleeping in the tent, would hear our argument.
    My dad started crying. A deep shuddering cry. He leanedagainst his broom. “We just need to forgive each other,” he said.
    My hackles rose. Wait a minute, this man had abandoned me, and I should be asking for forgiveness?
    “I don’t think you have anything to forgive me for,” I yelled and stood up. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” Then I thought about Bill and our future children and blurted out, “I know that if I had a kid, I wouldn’t fucking abandon it like you did to us. And neither would Bill!” Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I believed it.
    I went into the kitchen and started throwing stuff around, grabbed our kitchen supplies, and threw them into the camping box. There were two identical cast iron pans on the stove. One was coated with egg from last night’s dinner. I grabbed the clean one.
    I walked outside with our stuff, fuming. Bill was just emerging from the tent, hair tousled. I tossed the camping box of food into the backseat of the car. “We’re leaving!” I yelled to Bill. My dad stood on the porch, watching. I stuffed my sleeping bag and grabbed the Therm-a-Rests from under Bill and carried them to the car.
    Bill slowly started to break down the tent, but he wasn’t moving fast enough for me. I bumped him out of the way. “Go start the car,” I huffed. I pulled the tent down and, not bothering to fold it, threw the whole thing into the backseat.
    The Benz roared to life with a puff of smoke, and we were backing up out of George Carpenter’s driveway.
    After a few miles of driving, Bill cleared his throat. “Things didn’t go well?”
    We were at a four-way stop, about to turn onto the main road. Back on the road, mission oh so unsuccessful.
    “My dad’s a fucking asshole,” I spit. “He’s a nut job. What the hell is wrong with him?”
    “He did seem really out there,” Bill said, trying to calm me down. He eased the car forward, and we heard a terrible clunking noise.
    The car stalled in the middle of the intersection.
    “Oh, shit,” Bill muttered.
    “What? What?” I said. Were we breaking down? I leaped out of the car and we pushed it onto the side of the road. Bill started the engine but the car couldn’t go forward. He crawled under the car to take a look and instructed me to shift the gears.
    “It’s the rear tail shaft,” he said grimly, scooting out.
    We sat in the car. He knew because he had just worked on a customer’s vehicle that needed a new tail shaft in the transmission and he recognized the sound. We could tow it into town, but the part is rare—a 1976 Mercedes Benz rear tail shaft?
    “The funny thing is,” Bill said, “I have two at our house.” He had brought a spare alternator, headlights, and an extra battery, but didn’t think we’d need a rear tail shaft.
    Then I saw a truck pull up behind us. My heart sank—Dad.
    He jumped out of his truck and went into hero mode. Without a word, he grabbed a big chain out of the back of his truck, hitched it to our car, then pulled his truck around and connected it.
    “I know a guy in town,” he said. I knew that Dad would have done this for anyone with car trouble, it wasn’t just because I was his daughter. It’s part of Idaho life: If you see someone who needs help, you help. On the day I was born, Mom was driving herself to the hospital when the rear axlefell off the Jeep. A kindly Idaho stranger stopped to save the day.
    Dad towed us fourteen miles to Village Auto, a little shop by the Clearwater River. He went in to talk to Dan, the owner of the shop. Dan agreed Bill could use his garage to fix the car for a small sum. My dad unchained the truck, then tipped his hat, Clint Eastwood style, and drove away.
    We were stuck in Orofino.

Retracing my parents’