I didn’t want to lose the kid, of course, I just wanted him out of here. If I’d been one of those Vegas magicians, I’d have covered him with a black satin sheet that came all the way to his feet, yelled, “Abracadabra!” and made him go poof. Out of Cole’s sight, just like magic. I just wanted him far away when spring came and the dark thoughts started popping up again like poisonous mushrooms.
I didn’t know how to explain it to him. How do you tell a child that he’s prey? I was weak, I just wanted to run away. After all, that’s what I knew how to do best. I hid two bags with our belongings under the pickup truck seat and grabbed the keys from Benedict’s jacket. I thought the kid and I could leave in the middle of this blizzard and that, for once in my life, I’d manage to do one thing right.
But the kid wasn’t stupid. He knew something was off. Grown-ups can make you believe all sorts of things, but, even for a kid, going out in weather like this didn’t add up. He ended up letting go of my hand. I could feel his fingers slipping away, I groped around to catch them, but all that was left was his glove. He was gone, but not the way I’d figured on him being. He was just swallowed up by the snow instead.
Even if I could still make out the shaky light over the shed, there was no going back for me. I felt like a failure. I couldn’t protect a kid, I couldn’t tell his father why his brother had left without a word.
I could have stayed put, stuck in the snow like a telegraph pole, but my old instincts got the better of me. I’d spent so many years just doing one thing, moving, running away from grief, so I decided to keep moving one last time, even if it was straight into the blizzard, into this storm that just felt like a picture of my very own heart.
I reckoned I wouldn’t see any of them again—not the kid, not Benedict, not old Freeman with his eyes always holding you in place so you didn’t know whether to be scared or thank the Lord for putting him there.
Now that bastard Cole’s behind me, with a gun in his hand. I’d been looking for trouble and it had to be Cole who finished things off for everyone else. He stepped out of the house and steered me straight to the crevasses. Of course he wasn’t walking me home. Any fool could see that.
My time’s running out and I have to try to soak up everything around me: the resiny smell of the trees, the sun’s weak rays, even the wetness of my shoes and the sharp pain shooting through my ankle. At least I won’t die in the dark, in the middle of a storm that’s decided our fates. The sky’s still heavy with thick clouds, but I can see gashes here and there, streaks of blue so bright I could almost cry, a blue so pure it must have just been born. Everything seems so clear, so straightforward around me, the outlines of every single thing looks like they’d been drawn carefully. I hadn’t realized just how nice the view is, just how nature here outdoes anything I’d ever known.
I can hear Cole swearing behind me, muffled sounds, a “This is for your own good,” which I didn’t understand. All I know was that I damn well won’t be shot like an animal. If I have to die, I want to look death in the face, without blinking, the way Benedict would have.