We slalomed through the darkness of the álagablettur.
As always, it was more forgiving as we retreated.
I sat with Sandoval in the back of the truck. The hatchet jutted from his shoulder like some crazy juxtaposition: like a wolf with running shoes on, or a hat made of smoke. That was Sandoval. The wind whipped my eyes, brought tears. The moon broke through a ragged patchwork of clouds. Every time we hit a curve, Shane’s toolbox scraped from one side of the bed to the other. Sandoval was loosing these quick little breaths that puffed out his cheeks. We could hear Shane cursing in the cab, loud enough to be heard through the glass, over the machine-shop snarl of Decimated Rectum, or whatever it was.
“You okay?” I asked.
Sandoval huffed. “What, apart from the ax-inside-me part?” We hit a spot in the road and he pulled his teeth back and gasped. I ducked as branches raked the top of the truck. “I’m stellar. Where the hell are we going?”
“We’re not going to the base,” I said. “Thank God.”
“Yeah, forget that.” He turned to look at the hatchet, the rubber handle nearly touching his chin. “Holy lord. That is a trip.”
I rapped my knuckles on the window and Shane waved his hand at me, shooing me away. “I think we must be going to the hospital,” I said.
Sandoval’s hand locked around my wrist. “I have to tell you something,” he said. These big punched-in gray hollows beneath his eyes. “It’s important.”
“Hold on,” I said, and rapped on the window again.
Shane leaned back and opened the window without taking his eyes from the road. “What?” he barked.
“Where are we going?” I said. “The hospital in Kjálkabein? There is a hospital there, right?”
“Sit your ass down, Brian. We’re not going to the hospital, you kidding? ‘How’d your pal get a hatchet in his arm? Oh, three men in the woods, you say? Ah, wearing masks? Oh, okay. Well, let’s call the cops and get this straightened out.’”
Hours of interrogation. Coupled with the whole “finding a severed arm on the farm” thing? We’d probably be arrested. Definitely questioned. Indefinitely, maybe. Clearly the last thing that our new friends the Balaclava Fun Time Trio wanted. Or whoever had told them to go out there and meet us.
“Where are we going, then?”
“Just sit down, man,” Shane said. “We’re going to Karla’s house.”
“Well, I mean, is that really a good idea?”
Shane shut the window.
The woods thinned once more, giving way to the buttes and low-slung ditches that braced the road. Finally the Hauksdóttir house shone spectral and washed-out in Shane’s headlights. Beside Karla’s truck there was a silver car in the driveway—I had a flash of dread that it might be Keller’s BMW—and gravel pinged the undercarriage when we screeched to a stop behind it.
Shane stepped out, put his hands on the side panel of the truck, and peered at Sandoval.
“You know what,” he said quietly. “I’m gonna clean this wound, then stitch him up. And then you and the circus act here need to get to the airport.”
I pointed at Sandoval. “That’s a hatchet. Like, in him. In his body. You want us to fly from here to Iceland to the States with him like that?”
“I have some stuff in my bag that’ll relax him.”
“That’s not really what I’m talking about,” I said.
“Dude, they told you to go.” He drummed his fingers on the panel of the truck. “You just gotta go. This has gotten too big. I’ll stitch him up while you pack. Deal?”
“What do they do on that base? What in the hell have we stepped in here, Shane?”
And I’d have had to be a fool to miss the cloud that walked across his face at that. Everyone here was weighted with some secret.
•
The children were crying in the living room. They and their mother formed a frieze on the couch, Karla framed by her son and daughter, a half-dozen eyes reddened and puffy. When they took in Sandoval’s pale face and then the hatchet jutting out of his shoulder, they shrieked and the children started weeping again, louder.
“My God,” Karla said, standing up.
“It’s a mess,” Shane agreed.
Gunnar yelled, “We didn’t want you to leave!” He rose from the couch and reached for me and stopped; my proximity too close to Sandoval and his wound. His hands fell to little fists at his side. “We wanted you to stay! We were having fun! And then we were going to do the band! I’m sorry!” He turned and ran to Karla, pressing his head against her waist and sobbing.
“We’ve got to get this taken care of,” Shane said wearily, gesturing at Sandoval. It was a stark difference between the frenzy and panic that had surrounded me and my run-in with the tree. It felt safe to say we’d worn out our welcome in Hvíldarland.
Karla ran to a closet in the hall, came back with towels. “The kitchen?”
“No, let him lie down,” Shane said. “I’ll go get my kit from the truck.”
“The children found an arm,” Karla said and Shane froze at the front door, his hand on the jamb.
“Um. Okay,” he said.
And then Brooke walked into the living room.
She took in the scene—me, Shane, gray-faced Sandoval sitting on the couch with a hatchet stuck in his shoulder.
“Brian,” she said. “Do you have any idea—I mean any clue at all—the kind of trouble you’re in?”