Leave

The man stood on the cabin porch, tugged on the waist of his duck-cloth pants. Despite his gut that slopped over his belt and seemed to force him to leave his snowmobile parka unzipped, he possessed the assured posture of a man assessing the value of property—his property—as his eyes roamed over the front of the cabin. It was the man from earlier, the one on the ATV.

“Get out of here,” Jonah said.

“You can come outside or I can come inside. I got something you have to hear.”

“I don’t have to hear a thing from you.” Jonah started to close the door.

“Law sees different,” the man said and sniffed, ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip as if to extract a dip of tobacco.

Jonah paused, one hand on the door, one hand on his rifle behind the door.

The man tipped his grubby camo ball cap back off his brow, his skin red and indented where the hat had dug into his flesh. “The law says I got to deliver you this message in person and make sure you understand it. Make sure it sinks in.”

What was this? Law. Bullshit. Jonah glanced back at the door to the back room to make sure it was shut and the girl hidden. It was. She was. For now.

“Here’s something for you to understand,” Jonah said.

He opened the front door and stood with the rifle aimed at the man’s gut. It was work to keep the rifle level, the effort threatened to sap what meager energy he’d been able to muster to simply stand at the door.

The man sucked in a breath and stepped back. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t—”

“You forget the promise I made you or do you just think I was full of shit?”

Jonah’s thumb worked the rifle’s smooth hammer. Cocked it.

The man shoved a yellow piece of paper at Jonah.

“I don’t want that,” Jonah said.

“This ain’t your cabin. You’re on private land. A squatter.” The man’s voice quavered. “Most these trees are coming down come spring. This letter tells you that you need to get out come December one. If not, you’ll be escorted out.”

Jonah looked at the paper. The visit had nothing to do with Sally.

If he’d not been bitten by the spider, they’d have been long gone by now anyway.

“Tell your paper people I’ll be as far away from here as I can by then,” Jonah said. “Not because they say so. Because I can’t stand it here anymore. Now leave.”

The man backed away, leaving the piece of paper on the porch rail.

Jonah watched until the man disappeared in the dark trees; then he let out a breath and rested the rifle in the corner, the metal lever action slick with sweat.

He would have shot the man for certain if he had come for her.

He opened the door to the back room.

The room was empty.