Lessons 7.1

Trees with mixed foliage of reds, yellows, and dark brown leaves swayed in the sharp, sudden gusts of crisp air. The breeze pulled a smattering of autumn leaves from their tree moorings and scattered them till the updraft lost its strength and allowed them to gently flutter back down to earth. The ground, packed with rough dirt and jagged rocks, showed signs of life still. Beneath a sheet of gold and red, a little black nose at the end of a long narrow snout of orange and white poked its way through. Slowly navigating the leaves atop, a fox pushed its way to the surface and drug its belly along the ground. Sniffing left to right, its ears rotated like little satellites till they suddenly stopped and pointed forward. The fox rose its head and saw just beyond another pile of leaves, a little gray rabbit washing his face. The hunter got low to the ground and dug its hind paws into the dirt when suddenly a bright scarlet beam split the air between the fox and her quarry, then smashed into the trunk of a tree only a few yards away.

The fox scattered, as did the rabbit, while leaves by the dozens shook out from the branches above and fell like slow rain toward the ground. Another blast drove into the core of the tree near the first and then another. Snapping bark and cracking wood filled the air, and the smell of burning scattered any animals left around. A neighboring tree, tall with a massive knot in its trunk, was next to be shot, and its bark splintered apart like shrapnel. An old dead limb fell from one of the higher branches and crashed onto the ground, where it was too shot and rendered to ashes.

Anna held her laser pistol just like she had been taught, one hand over the other with a bent elbow to absorb the recoil. Despite the bare flesh of her hands being covered with leather gloves against the cold, they began to shake all the same. She watched the ashy remnants of the fallen branch rolled away in clumps down a shallow embankment into a nearby creek. A moment later, the dark, crumbling wood began to turn the clear water black.

She walked closer to one of the trees and ran her bare hand over the scarred bark. Pulling her fingers together into a fist, she felt the tree break apart and crumble into her palm like it was made of glass. The gun fell from her hands, and she dropped to her knees before the great tree. Her hand, covered in ash, she brought it close to her face and felt hot tears fall down her cheeks before she had a chance to stop them.

"I'm sorry." She closed her fist, pressed it against her chest, lowered her head, and closed her eyes.

"Skunk hair! You get lost?"

Anna didn't turn to acknowledge Logan's presence. She didn't even open her eyes.

"Kid!"

She heard leaves crunching behind her till they stopped just short of her left shoulder. Then she heard a shallow whisper. "Throwin' some fireballs out here or something?"

"I came out here to be alone."

"When I see you blowing up trees in my backyard, it shows me I can't be leaving you alone, now can I?"

"I didn't mean to…"

"To what?"

"I didn't…" She felt her throat tighten, "I didn't want to hurt them. I was just angry, and I… I wasn't thinking."

There was a pause, and then she heard a hand slap against the tree before her. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don't think they hold it against you. These trees, they've been here a long time. They can take a hit. Just, you know, maybe don't go showing them a chainsaw. I don't think they'd be a big fan of that."

Anna opened her eyes and looked up at him. Logan was the picture of a rugged woodsman with a thick flannel jacket and heavy-duty olive green pants tucked into massive boots. "I'm sorry I messed up your trees." She looked down at her ashen hand. "I guess I'm just like my Mom in that way. All I do is destroy."

"Is that what this is all about?" He knelt down and patted her on the shoulder. "Look at me. You got soot and dirt all over your face - alright, come on." He took her by the underarm and brought her to her feet. "You're coming with me back to the cabin and washing your face and getting warmed up. No buts about it, neither." He plucked the laser pistol from a mound of dirt, threw Anna's arm over his shoulder, and lead her out of the depths of the woods.

*

Anna learned a while ago that Logan lived in the woods near the mansion but never visited. She didn't know anyone brave enough to do it either. Mostly for fear that Logan might hack them to pieces with his claws for disturbing his peace or something. She didn't know what his living situation was like out there or what to expect when he was leading her over, but it certainly wasn't what she found.

A picturesque log cabin looked out over a small clearing recently swept of leaves and twigs. Before a great firepit made of mortar and flagstone sat a single green folding camping chair with a headrest. A little behind the chair was a matching olive green canvas tent filled with tools, benches, a few metal gizmos, and a tall stack of firewood.

After getting Anna to wash her face and hands in a water basin filled with ice-cold water in the tent, Logan sat Anna in a spare camping chair next to a steadily roaring fire in the firepit. He piled a dense and surprisingly comfortable blanket on her, and she watched as he tended a pot dangling above the fire.

It was finally then, with her mind slowed down enough, did she notice an old WWII-style jeep sat only a few yards outside of camp. The thick black tires were flat, and its beige canvas roof was covered in tears with a lucky few patched in silver duct tape.

"What's the story there?"

Logan craned his neck, and when he caught sight of the relic, he snickered. "Oh yeah, that. A scam we used to pull back in the day. You could send home mail from the front, so a few of us would send parts of a Jeep through the mail. The idea was you would eventually have a whole free government issue Jeep ready to assemble when you got home."

Anna nodded a sleepy head. "Looks like you got it to work."

"All but the door latches. Got caught when I tried to send those." He filled up a bowl, dropped a spoon inside, and eased into Anna's awaiting hands. "Eat up."

The beef and potato stew tasted like heaven, and the two ate in silence for some time, with only the clinking of spoons against bowls for company. Draining her bowl of broth after decimating its condense, Anna began to feel a little more human again. It was then she realized the absurdity of the situation. Sharing stew with Logan at his mystery camp in the woods after having a mental breakdown over a tree. All she wanted to do then was apologize and run as far away as she could before her embarrassment could catch up to her any further.

However, if Logan was angry or frustrated with her, he didn't look at it. With the day's light fading and only the campfire for illumination, the time-worn man looked almost happy.

"Um," Anna raised her bowl, "Thanks."

He nodded, and she swore he smiled. "Get enough?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"How are you feeling?"

"Like a damn fool." She snorted. "Sorry. I didn't mean to lose it on you back there."

"You're fine, kid. You've been through it." He looked into the fire. "You've been through a lot."

"It's been -" Anna caught herself, then looked down at her bowl and ran her thumb along its rim. "What happened on the mountain… it's hard to process," She felt her brow furrow. "You think you know a person. Think you'd know your own Mom, at least."

"There was no way you could have known the world your Mom was in. She was trying to protect you from it."

"Protect is a funny word for it. I guess she was done protecting me when she threw Scott and me into that fun-house from hell."

"You're right. There's not an excuse for it." Logan stared at the fire as if trying to decode a message in it. "You know you're nothing like her."

"How do you figure that? Seems all I can do is destroy like her."

A little smile scrunched Logan's cheek. "That sounds familiar." He leaned closer to the fire and rubbed his hands near the flicking red flames. "You know I was a useless cook for most of my life? I hated cooking, actually."

"So do my folks. It's why we were the number one customers of a Chinese place down the street." She glanced at Logan from over the peak of the fire. "What changed?"

"It wasn't any one thing, really. It was me who changed. Who I was, I guess. The way I saw life." He closed his eyes and took in a slow and steady breath. "I will never die. At least not of old age. I have this healing power as a part of my mutant ability that is constantly recreating my cells. At least that's how some egg-head put it to me once."

"That's… intense. So - how old are you?"

He looked at her. "You know trains? They were a pretty keen invention when I was a kid."

She blinked. "Are you serious?"

Three blades slid out from the back of his hand as if they were spring-loaded, and he looked at them in the light of the fire. "These, too, have always been around. They didn't always look like this, but they were always instruments capable of killing. And boy, have they." The claws then retracted and vanished from view without a trace back into his flesh. "So when I was young, I thought that was it. All I was good for was killing. A machine that couldn't die with built-in weapons of murder. I thought that was my fate, and I resigned myself to it for a long - long time till -" His voice trailed off while his eyes looked as if they were staring at something miles away.

"Till what?"

Logan took another breath. "It caught up with me. It weighed on my soul too much. I could always justify it before. I did what I did in the name of patriotism, or the betterment of something, or just because I was angry. Then none of those reasons seemed to work anymore. I couldn't resign myself to some self-assigned fate anymore. I didn't know what someone - something - like me could do besides kill… but I wanted to try."

"I left the country and wandered a while. I talked to people and tried to listen to what they had to say wherever I went. When I ended up in Japan, I fell in love with the place. Not so much the hustle and bustle of the cities like Tokyo or Kyoto, but the beauty of the countryside and how rich and deep the culture was. I met someone and she taught me… taught me that I was more than a machine. That I could be more than a killer. That if I had a heart, I could be anything." He paused; his eyes were getting red and misty. "We got married. We had a life together. She eventually passed away in my arms after a lifetime of happy memories and special moments. She was my greatest teacher and my greatest love."

Anna touched her chin and tried to find the words to say, but none crossed her lips.

"Ever since, I've tried to use what she taught me to put more good in the world instead of the destruction I once thought I was only capable of." He looked up at her. "You've been given a raw deal, Anna. It's not fair. Even still, those hands of yours can do more than destroy. It's up to you to decide what you do with them. Listen, learn, and do better than your Mom or anyone who tells you otherwise."

Anna felt her lips pursed, and she nodded. "I'm… gonna try."

"That's all you can do, kid."

She rested her bowl on the ground and stood. "I should… get back. It's late."

"I'll walk you." Logan stood, put his bowl in his chair, and when he turned, he was embraced in a bear hug.

"Thank you," Anna said, her eyes stinging with fresh tears. She felt a hand pat her on the back.

"You're a good kid, Anna. Remember that."