SIX BULLETS. I keep recounting them.

It isn’t much, but it isn’t all I have, either. I have secrecy and surprise. I know more about Raph than he knows about me. But I need to know more.

I bring all the gear up from the lake, along with as much water as I have containers to carry. As I walk I think about how to open the crate.

The knives are out—I need those intact, and it would be too easy to slip and cut myself. There are a few saws, a couple of hammers, and a chisel I think could probably work if I whack hard enough and get the right angle. It’s not until I’m actually in the shed that I spot the holy grail, though: bolt cutters.

I prop the crate between my legs and set the bolt cutters against the padlock. I squeeze with all my might. The blades chop into the padlock and start to bite, but I have to let go before they’re even halfway through. I shake my hands out, shift foot to foot, then try again.

It takes me four rounds before I finally clip through the metal. I toss the bolt cutters aside and kneel. This is it. Whatever my dad died for is in this box.

I twist the padlock off and lift the crate lid.

A duffel is stuffed inside, crammed next to a cardboard box. I unzip the duffel first and blink. Money. Lots of money. Canadian and US dollars in neat, bound stacks. If they had all this money, why were they angry with my dad for not having different money?

I guess it wasn’t that they needed it. Just that he’d taken it.

It doesn’t do me a damn bit of good out here. I toss the duffel aside, not caring that some of the money spills out onto the ground. Maybe I can burn it later. The duffel will be useful, at least; I can finally replace the ripped one.

With the duffel gone, two round shapes are revealed in the bottom of the box. I blink at them a moment before I recognize them.

Grenades.

I almost throw myself backward, but I stop myself. They’re just sitting there. I can see the pins in them—you have to pull those to make them explode, right?

They sit there so casually. Like they were tossed in as an afterthought.

I pick one up, hands shaking. I turn it over. I can’t believe that it’s safe, not really. I’m half-expecting it to go off in my hands and kill me.

I take the other one out, too, and walk slowly into the trees, to a white rock the height of my knee. Easy to spot. I settle them next to the rock and back away. I’ll deal with them later. Right now I don’t want them anywhere near me.

I pull the lid off the cardboard box next. A row of files stand on end, and a fat manila envelope has been wedged in with them. I pull the envelope out, and a bunch of little booklets slide onto the ground. Passports. I pick one up. Canadian, but it’s blank. No name, no photo. The others are blank, too—and from all over. US, Germany, the UK. Mostly US.

However these guys started out, they weren’t just hunting buddies anymore.

I go through the files one by one. They’re a jumble of information. Old police files, including an autopsy report with photos of a dead man, shot three times in the chest. The file says he died in Alaska. It happened the year my dad came for Christmas. The year he disappeared for good.

There are pictures like surveillance photos. Names and dates I don’t recognize. Some of them are just men talking to one another on the street. One set is a man in a business suit meeting a woman in a motel—and then losing the business suit over the course of ten or twelve photos. I don’t need to be an expert in crime to recognize blackmail material.

At the end of the box is a slender book filled with names and numbers. I don’t know if it’s code or accounting. Either way, I don’t understand it. I flip through—and stop.

Green, C.

My father’s name and a string of numbers next to it. Money? Dates?

I flip through, desperate to find more details, but it’s the only mention of him I can find. I don’t recognize any of the other names. There are plenty of Rs and Ds that could be Raph and Daniel, but I can’t be sure. Some of the names are crossed out.

Would they cross out my dad’s name next time they came looking for these files?

One of the other folders holds a bunch of bank statements. In another I discover a folded-up map and plans for a building. And there’s a fat stack of paper in the back of the box with a binder clip and a rubber band on it. The first page is marked AGAINST TYRANNY.

The rest looks like a typewriter vomited onto the page—every line of text nestled up against the ones above and below it, to fit as many words as possible onto every page. Eerily like the way I wrote in my journal.

It gives the impression of an intense, manic mind—and one that really, really doesn’t like the government. This must be their manifesto.

I think of Albert, wonder if he wrote it. Or if he’s a follower of the man who did. I wonder how much of this my dad agreed with. How much he just went along with. Because he didn’t stand up to them, didn’t refuse to help them, didn’t turn them in.

Not even when they put me in danger.

I lay the files and the slim book and the manifesto in front of me. I wait for meaning to come, for information to turn into understanding. I know what they are, these men. A militia. Criminals. Terrorists, even. And this is evidence. They needed to hide it; they hid it here.

I know all of that, but it holds no real meaning. Whatever this group wants, whatever they’re doing back in civilization, it doesn’t matter. It’s too distant from me, from this place, for me to care. What matters is Raph. The man who killed my father.

Their plan was a good one. Hide this evidence where no one would think to look for it. Out here, you could be certain no one would disturb it. That it would be exactly where you left it.

Except it won’t be, will it? These men, these dangerous men, will be so confused.

I pack everything back into the box. Everything but the grenades. I’m terrified to touch them, but they’re the most lethal weaponry I have, and I might need them.

I drag the crate into the woods. I don’t bother to bury it again, just cover it up with branches. It’s as good as buried. There’s so much forest, they’ll never know where to look for it.

When they look for it, when they look for me, I’ll have to be smart. I’ll have to hide, and move quickly. I’ll have to go after the pilot first. He’ll be alone. And with him dead, they’ll be stuck.

Then I have to get Raph alone.

When they come, I’ll be ready.