Burn me with fire, bury me in earth, or give me as a
sacrifice to the demons of the deep, but I beg you to
begrudge me not these prayers . . . conceal not from me what I am to endure.
   —Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

THE WIND blew in the open car door. Long minutes later, the frost on his face woke Matt. His breath had collected against his chin and his chest while he was unconscious. Now it was frozen against his chin and lips. His skin tingled with cold.

Then he noticed the man with the green scarf in the front seat of the car, shaking him roughly, a panic in his eyes. “You okay? You okay?” the man kept saying. “You okay?”

For a moment, Matt didn’t know where the man with the green scarf had come from. All that occurred to him was that he didn’t know where Kevin had gone. The man had a red ice burn across his cheek and a deepening bruise on his jaw and ear.

Then an image of the man lying in the road, the green ends of the scarf splayed around him like dead limbs, came to him, and he reached up, feeling the hand on this shoulder as hot as fever against Matt’s frigid skin.

“It’s all right,” said Matt. “I just got a headache from the accident. Let’s see if the car runs.” He put his head down against the window and rested for a moment. Then he slapped his cheeks until the frost shook off, and they burned with the fresh blush.

“We’re okay,” he said. But the man did not look reassured.

Matt reached toward the ignition key, and hit the dashboard with his arm. The car hadn’t seemed to stop spinning for him. Matt corrected his aim and took hold of the key.

The engine shuddered awake, and then the radio burst to life. “Charlie Delta Alpha four six five. Truck last spotted northbound on Highway 95,” said Phyllis. Matt reached for the microphone. He swallowed, and a throb of pain ran through his forehead and his neck.

“Is that your license?” Matt said to the man in the passenger seat. The man nodded.

Matt put the microphone back on its hook. He picked his gun up off the ground, and checked the safety. It seemed heavy in his hand now. Then he shifted the car into gear. The engine shuddered, but the car stayed together. In the background, the radio droned on.

“See?” he said. “They’re on top of it. We’ll find the kid—get your truck back.” He turned the radio down. Then he jerked the wheel to the left. The car moved unevenly across the road. Steam billowed out from the broken radiator. The car hood was a crazy landscape of snow and twisted metal, and the wheel swerved to one side whenever he shifted gears. But by forcing the wheel in the right direction, he could still drive.

He swung the car in a half circle, scraping over the broken tree and the scattered snow. Then he shifted into low gear. The engine revved, and they lurched up the highway.

Matt dropped the man at the gas station, telling him to call the police with a statement. He would drive on ahead. He had an idea where the kid could be headed.

Kev could feel the growl of the engine reverberate in his chest as the gearbox shifted into fourth gear. The leather inside was the color of coffee and cream. He couldn’t stop touching it—it was smooth and velvety brown. New leather, new tires, new engine. He’d managed to steal a brand new Dodge Ram 4x4, in bright red. It was unreal.

Drifts of fresh snow lifted off the road and flurried into the air. For a moment, the truck seemed to float in a world of blown white.

In the truck cab, his legs and arms were still shaking, a spasm of nerves running uncontrollably up and down the length of his body. He pushed down on the gas pedal, holding the wheel tightly, willing his skin to stop shivering. The melting snow left dark, discolored spots on the leather.

Kev downshifted and took the truck onto the backcountry road that led up the mountain, toward the Indian reservation. There were sirens on the distant highway.

When he turned the truck off, steam rose from the hood. As long as Matt didn’t get back on the road soon, they’d never think to follow him here. Even so, he’d just pick up what he needed and take off.

The cabin was shrouded in icicles and hoarfrost. Webs of frost slicked the brown, unpainted boards. He reached down to the ground and shoved his fingers deep into the snowy sludge. The ice balled up in his fist, and he rolled his hands together before he threw the ball at the cabin. It floated through the falling snow, free and alone as a bird.

Just as the ice ball hit, he heard the sound of the siren, closer now. A car was coming. From the edge of the cabin roof, an icicle fell with a tinkling echo. His target.

The siren gave a final distant burp and stopped. But they were closer now, on the side of the hill, engines working to get up the road. Shit, how did they get here so fast?

The key was still there, hanging on the nail under the eaves. Kev locked the door behind himself. He found the pistol in the chest under the window and unwrapped it. Then he got out his tape player and batteries. He tucked the earphones in, and flipped the switch. The exultant metal rush of guitars gave him confidence.

He could not see any cars outside yet. Maybe they’d think that he’d taken off into the woods. Especially if the cabin was impossible to get into.

Even if they stayed here, he knew what to do. At the Aryan Nations, they’d taught him. He took the axe and widened a gap by the door, making it into a peephole. Then he took the two-by-fours by the fireplace, and he began to nail them over the doorframe and across the windows. The front picture window couldn’t be covered, and it was too wide for the boards he found beside the fireplace. He covered the rest of the windows with wood.

After the entrances were barricaded, he could hear them outside, driving to the other side of the clearing. Someone opened a car door, and then there was the growl of a bullhorn, the sound barely audible through the nailed layers of lumber and the rhythm of the music in his ears.

The snow obscured the men in the clearing. Matt could make out a scattered handful of four or five deputies. There were several cars parked in a loose half circle around the cabin. Their headlights broke up in the whiteness, picking out individual flakes like flecks of silver or mercury, freezing them in the air for a moment.

The words from the bullhorn were washed away in the wind that had begun to blow over the ridge, until only a few sounds broke through: “Sheriff’s Department . . . You are surrounded . . . Come out ...hands up!”

Matt walked toward the deputies, and almost stumbled over Bill Bouse, spread-eagled and half covered by snow. He was pointing a long-range sniper rifle at the cabin.

“Put that fool thing away,” said Matt. “This is your commanding officer.”

“Hell, you sure don’t look it,” said Bouse. “He banged you up good. For once, I’d think you’d be standing with the rest of us.”

Matt glanced down at his uniform. His shirttail had pulled out, it hung haphazard all around his waist. Both of his arms were covered with a black-vinyl residue from his impact with the dashboard. His shoulder was stained with blood from the blow on his temple, and somehow his right sleeve had ripped. He had no idea where his hat was.

“Don’t shoot that kid. He’s unarmed, and we can get him to surrender.”

“Even if he surrenders, looks like the kid has the place barricaded—who’s to say we could even get him if we tried.” Bouse shrugged. “Let’s just burn the damn place down.”

“Jesus Christ!” said Matt. “You want a firefight that bad? Why don’t you go find Nancy Ferreday’s number? We need a shrink up here, not trigger-happy knuckleheads!”

The sound of the wind and the thick falling snow obscured Bouse’s reply. Matt went toward the cluster of squad cars, hearing the bullhorn bellow again. “Any offensive action will be responded to. You must come out with your hands up! Come out with—”

Matt interrupted the man with the bullhorn. It was Dustin Hartman. “Let me have that, Dusty. I think we can talk him out of there. When he agrees to come out, I want—”

“Agrees to come?” said someone incredulously.

Matt motioned toward the cabin, and turned toward the others, hoping to encourage them to close the loop. He got Mark Taylor to listen, and then Hartman. He told them about his plan to make a rush from either side, and wrestle the kid to the ground. They could take the kid without difficulty, he tried to say, no need to fire a shot, but the words seemed to wash away in the wind before anyone could hear them.

Jerry Kelberg began to move toward the cabin, awkwardly shuffling through the drifts.

Moments later, there was a muffled snapping sound, an explosive pop in the white world. Matt looked up at the trees, thinking it was a limb falling, the snapping of frost.

Anxiously, he glanced around. New cars were pulling into the clearing. Bill Bouse was out of sight. Kelberg was still moving forward, but on the other side, Hartman had lost interest. He had faded back to the cars. Quickly, Matt held up the bullhorn. “Cease fire!” he bellowed. “Cease fire!”

From far away, Matt heard another voice. “Belay that!” He turned to see Ward Louden stepping out of a squad car. Now Taylor paused too, uncertain in his direction.

“Belay that!” said Louden once more. “Keep firing, dammit! Keep that kid cornered!”

Matt ran toward him, and again Louden spoke, this time into the microphone in his car radio. “Look, guys, we’ve got the dirtbag locked in. Take him out. I’m in charge now.”

Matt lunged through the snow. “What the hell are you playing at?”

Louden glanced at the men. He spoke in a low whisper. “Matt, he assaulted an officer!” Louden closed his car door with a ferocious shove. “This is just what we need—a manhunt in the middle of winter. It’s fuckin’ winter, the snow is five feet deep. Weather is still pissing down on us. We need to take him out now! Hell, you’re the one he clocked to get out of the squad car—for once in your fucked-up life, I’d think you’d get it!”

“I don’t care about what he did.” Matt pointed across the snow. “We were going to get the kid without a shot! Jerry’s out there. What the hell are you doing about cross fire?”

“Jesus Christ.” Ward shielded his eyes from the glare and squinted across the meadow at the cabin. He stumbled through a drift, and shook his head. “You must really believe that damn kid is unarmed! Damn, Matt—you sent that rookie out there alone—”

Matt raised the bullhorn, snowflakes dotting the black barrel. “Down, down!” he shouted at Kelberg. “Goddamn it—get down!” But Kelberg kept on through the thickening drifts.

“You were really trying to rescue that bastard, weren’t you?” said Louden. In the broken cabin window, a curtain swung aside. A shape moved. Someone trying to climb out the window. Another shot came from the group of deputies. The shape disappeared inside.

“Dammit, Ward. You’re just going to allow them to fire at will? The kid is just—”

Louden leaned toward him, pushing him backward into a deep drift of snow. “You know Matty, I used to respect you, but that damn kid crossed the line in my book—and it’s your fault he’s here!” Louden grasped his shoulder and yanked Matt around in one quick motion. “I don’t know what fuckin’ strings you pulled to get car duty today, and I don’t care! And you know, I don’t really care whether you let the kid escape or whether he shot you in the gut. Andy is going to take your badge as soon as he gets here.”

Matt stared back at him, a jagged tremor running through him. “And you want to watch the kid die, don’t you? That’s what you want. You’re going to kill him outright.”

Louden’s mouth quivered as a snowflake touched it. “I don’t have to, Matty. That’s the beauty of it—the deputies saw Arlen dead, they think they got his killer cornered. So they’re doing the Lord’s good work, you see?” Ward grinned. “It’s hopeless for the kid.”

With a frantic motion, Matt threw the heavy weight of the bullhorn against Louden, pushing him into the drift. “It’s never hopeless,” he said. Then he was running forward, the sky covering him in a deluge of white, his shape swept away in the wind.

The picture window collapsed as another shot hit it. The glass fell inward in a rain of glittering ice. Kev cowered by the door and felt the cold rush in.

He thought he’d climb out the window, and he lifted his backpack, tossing it lightly out. But someone had seen the movement. When it hit the snow, there was the whining concussion of a shot breaking into the room, puncturing the far wall. And another, and another, they came in an explosive barrage.

He crouched back against the wall under the window and cranked up the volume on his tunes. For a long time, he waited at the windowsill. The chorus echoed in his head: I’ve got a fear of enclosed places, Crowded rooms and unknown faces.

He put his trembling hands in his pockets, keeping the cold away. On the floor in front of him was the empty pistol. His only bullet was in that damned backpack with those old letters now, and it was forever out of reach.

The wind from the open window cut through his jail coverall. His teeth were chattering now, his skin rigid with goose pimples.

Carefully, he edged his way across the floor to the fireplace. Even without more bullets, he could not let go of the pistol. He clutched it with one hand while he stuffed paper and wood chips under the fire irons. He glanced toward the window before he pulled the trigger on the lighter, checking that no one could silhouette him against the light of a fire.

After the paper was aflame, he piled logs on top, hoping the draft would catch soon, and stop the smoke that poured out of the firebox. He staggered backward as the choking cloud filled the small room. The pistol clattered against the chair as he waved his hands in front of his face. Belatedly, he remembered the covering they’d locked over the top of the chimney. Billows of smoke came out of the fireplace.

He pushed the logs apart, separating them, yanking the smoldering wood out of the hearth space onto the floor. Then the fire sprang up anew, the fresh air from the broken window rushing in to reinvigorate the flames. The room was suffocating him.

Frantically, he grabbed at the flat bulk of the cabin books, beating at the smoldering spots on the floor, the blazing hulks of the logs. As he lifted one of the books for another blow, he saw that the pages had caught flame. He held a massive torch in his hands. With watering eyes, he flung the cabin book toward the open window. The books collided with the remaining shim of glass and slid down the wall, the thin curtain bursting into flame.

Matt moved forward, his feet lifting rapidly in and out of the deep snow. The sound kept coming, louder now and more percussive, as if the shooters had found their range. The closer they were, the louder the sounds seem to come, a sudden low bark followed by a whine. Matt’s head still pounded from the accident, a solid pain in his temple, hurting with every step. Just ahead was the gray curve of Kelberg’s back. He reached out, but a sudden splash of darkness erupted from Jerry’s shoulder on that moment, the sound of the shot a moment later, as Jerry spun around, his mouth opening in the silent oh of surprise.

Matt drove through the air, colliding with Jerry as he fell. He rolled over and looked at Jerry. It was a shoulder wound. Jerry screamed in agony, and then the fractured syllables of an Asian language spilled out, gutteral sounds twisting into the air.

Matt’s hand moved automatically. He felt the wound, suddenly sticky and warm in Jerry’s shoulder. He held it there, pressing down against the muscle, feeling the boy writhe under him. After a moment, Matt lifted his hand. The bleeding was only on the surface.

Jerry sat up to feel the ripped jacket, the torn flesh on his shoulder. His skin lost all color, and sweat broke out like a disease across his face. A flurry of snow closed in again, covering them in a veil of white mist. Matt pushed him back down. He took his jacket off and wrapped it around Jerry’s shoulders. “Keep a hand on that wound—apply pressure. It’s just a nick, but it’s still bleeding. Stay down—we’re in a free-fire zone.”

There was a lull in the wind, and now Matt could see the cabin. In front of them, the meadow was windswept and empty: a clear killing field that led directly to the picture window. On the lee side—the side with the door—the cabin was shadowed with trees.

Matt barked instructions into Jerry’s ear. They struggled forward, aiming for the trees and the door. Behind them, Matt could see a thin red streak behind Jerry. It extended across the snow toward the cabin, growing longer with each forward lunge. Smoke was billowing out of the window-sized hole in the cabin wall. It leaked out around the door and the chimney lock, a gray sludge against the white snow, as if the cabin itself was dissolving. “C’mon, we’ve got to get inside,” said Matt. “Help me kick this door in.”

Kev scrabbled backward, his feet slipping under him, his head ducking down near the floor, where he caught a sudden breath of good air. He struggled to his feet again, breathing in the stifling smoke. He staggered backward against the barricaded door, desperately pulling the nailed wood from the frame. The music kept pounding into his ears. But the earphones were burning welts into his shaven head now. He tore them out, flinging them across the smoky room. The snarl of the fire filled the room with a roaring darkness.

With a tortured gasp, he tried to pull the locked and blazing door open. Then a bitter smell filled his nostrils, and he realized the fuzz of hair on his head was burning. He heard a crack from the window.

Something hit his chest, a shattering pain as a bullet pounded into him, and a sudden choking sensation came into his throat, taking his breath away. As he fell onto his back, he was surprised to see the door break apart, a pair of shadowy angels pushing through it as a curling mass of flame blew across the room.

Matt pulled the boy’s body over the snow. The muscles seemed to shift under his hands, smoking and sliding away from his grip like rotten meat. The arms were blackened and tortured with heat. Red flesh steamed under his hands: the skin was burned away. Quickly, Matt let go of the burned limbs. He took hold of the boy’s torso under the arms, hauling him once more toward the cars, lifting him above the knife-edged drifts.

Matt could see Kelberg dragging Kev’s feet. Every time he moved, Kelberg staggered forward, his one strong arm gripped tightly around the boy’s smoking legs. Matt thrust rearward through the heavy snow, and his head became a continuous pulse of pain. Matt was stricken with a flurry of sudden sensations. They were rowing backward across an endless white lake. He was at the side of a road again, crying as Irene screamed in pain inside the twisted car, the snow falling over him. The car was spinning as Kev took his gun. He pulled again and again, a white light filling his head, shooting through him, as if he would never stop moving, as if he could never let go.

Then he looked up to see a van with a flashing red light pull in. Matt sat down in the passenger seat of a squad car, his arms quivering with effort. Someone opened the car door, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. He watched from the car as they slid Kev onto a stretcher. Matt shivered, and saw that a book had fallen out of Kelberg’s pocket. The Daybreakers, by Louis L’Amour. The snow covered it slowly.

“I should feel sorrier for you,” said a voice next to him. It was Andy Merrill. He was standing next to the open car door. In his hand was a soot-streaked backpack. Kev’s pack.

He dropped it in the snow next to the car, a sneer marring his face. “That damn kid was dead by the time you got him out of the cabin, I guarantee it. And the boys tell me they just found a gun too. Kid was armed, looks like. So we’ve got an open-and-shut case on him. I should feel sorrier for you,” he repeated. “But you no longer work for me. You’re done. I’m informing the DA you’re under immediate investigation.”

“I’m going to fight this,” Matt muttered. “On what grounds can you suspend me?”

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Merrill’s voice rose. “I’m not putting you on suspended duty, I’m not doing a disciplinary hearing, I’m not giving you any pension.

“You’re fired! I can tell the law enforcement board a whole raft of reasons. Insubordination, concealment of evidence, violations of policy on prisoner transfer!” Merrill paused, his face flushed in the cold air. “I am tired of the corruption, of the—”

“I’ll appeal!”

“Sure, Matty, you can appeal. But you can’t spin your way out of this one. I may be losing this election to Russell, but I can still take this damn thing out of your hide.”

Merrill breathed heavily, and then leaned forward into the steam that was rising off the hood of the car. “Oh, and there’s one more thing—Will Herrick has taken an interest in your situation. I would think he wants his pound of flesh too. Apparently, he doesn’t want you to kill yourself just yet. I won’t arrest you until Monday—so you’ve got time to hang yourself after you talk to him, got it? It’s imperative you go down to Herrick’s dock tomorrow.”

Matt shook his head wearily. “Why? What would Herrick want from me now?”

But there was no answer. Other cars had come into the clearing while he was pulling the boy’s body out of range. The light on the windshield and the snow pulsed with light. The wind rose, pushing a drift of snow into the open front seat of the car. The radio crackled with sound and voices. It was all white noise to him.

Numbly, Matt reached down and took hold of the boy’s backpack. Merrill had left it behind. Then Matt closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment.

When he opened his eyes again, two deputies were helping Jerry Kelberg, his shoulder bandaged, toward the backseat of the car where Matt sat. Jerry’s face was contorted behind tear-fogged glasses. The brightness of the snow covered Matt’s vision with white. People came up to him through the falling snowflakes, but all of them were ghosts.

Matt could still smell the smoke as he took off his jacket. Tiny bits of ash fell from his shirt. The sleeves took forever: his arms ached as he raised them above his head. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began to remove his boots. The fingers were solid, but his mind was blurry. It was moving too slow. And it was dark in the room, despite the open curtains. It was still snowing, and the gray sky had turned deep green with the reflected lakeside lights. He went over and closed the curtains and finished undressing. When he sat down on the bed, lightly, so as not to disturb her, her fingers reached out. They took his hand and pulled him in toward her. He could feel the heat rising off her skin, and then she brought him in close to her, and he could feel his hand against her thighs, and then softer, touching inside her. Her fingers left him there and slipped away to stroke his back as light as a moth trying to land. She touched his skin all over, with her hands, with her lips. She pressed her face into his neck.

He could feel her below him, the length of her pressed against his body. He could not speak. She was still moving around him, pulling him in. She lifted him up by the muscles in his legs as though she was holding a glass that might break, holding his weight into her like the slightest thing might spill him, as if he himself were fragile. Then he held to her like a falling man losing his grip, thrusting into her in desperation. He went into her like a man who would be lost if he let go, holding on until sleep came over him.