43

WHEN AL OPENs the door to take Bree outside, the last of the cabin’s real heat seeps away. What’s left is faint, the used-up breath of a dying fire.

Fisher presses his arms against his sides. He could have reached out to Bree as she passed him. Could have squeezed her hand, or at least looked up at her, but he wouldn’t let himself. That look. That Him, like he was something to toss away so she could slip free herself.

He shouldn’t mind. He came here to save her, didn’t he?

But he does mind. That look. The ill-will behind it. What did he do to deserve it?

He tells himself he’s being stupid. It’s all over for him but not for her, and she knows that. Besides, she’s a clever girl and gutsy with it. She’ll have a plan. Is she going to make a run for the cabin and barricade herself in? Or take off in Brian’s SUV, because she’s sure to have parked it nose out as Brian always did? But the silence outside’s getting longer, and she’s out there in the dark, trudging across the snow with Al toward the empty cabin, and if she doesn’t do something soon Al’s going to swing open the door and see the place is empty, and then what’s to stop him from killing her?

Fisher stares down at the slit in his jeans where Darlene shoved the knife into his thigh, at the weave dark and shiny with dried blood. The pain’s sunk into him as though the blade’s still stuck in his flesh.

A scrape of wood against wood, and Fisher looks up. With the lamp turned down the cabin’s dim as an old photograph. What a scene it is: Jim sprawled by the door, Grisby on the bed with his jaw askew and half his skull blown away, Lyle beside him with the shotgun barrel propped across the table. Of course. He only has one hand to hold it because the other’s useless and lying in his lap. Now he swivels it to point at Fisher’s chest and heaves a sigh.

“There’s more to you than I thought, Mikey. Bet Brian’s cussing you out right now. What d’you tell him? Sorry Brian, I’ve blown it, they’re coming for you, but get my girl out the way so she doesn’t get hurt. Huhn? Boy, I’d love to hear what he said back.” He gives a wide jack-o’-lantern smile then lets it go slack. “Well, no matter. You’re too much of a dumbfuck to know what you’re caught up in, aren’t you? You’re such a dumbfuck you’re buddies with your ex’s husband. How sick is that?” and he laughs. He ducks down and squints his good eye, lining up his shot. “Time to say goodbye, Mikey. Not much of a life, was it?”

Fisher can’t get to his feet. Part of him means to: why not rush Lyle and die trying to live? But his legs won’t work, like his brain’s already shutting down in anticipation of the bullet about to come hurtling at him. All he can do is close his eyes. In the shelter of his own darkness, there’s his trailer with the dawn turning the snow a delicate pink all around, and there beside it the raw wood of his unfinished house, and the tarp stretched over the stacked lumber that’s waited two years and now’ll never get used. He thinks, what a waste—how much did he pay for that lumber? He thinks, what a stupid thought to die with, and makes himself remember Bree when she was so small her dark hair stood up like chick feathers, and Jan was all warmth and softness, and their lives full of hope. All that’s lost, and the shot rips through the air. More distant than he imagined. Not a shotgun blast. He opens his eyes to see Lyle lurching toward the window and peering out. He drags the shotgun with him, and Fisher’s up and throwing himself through the space between them.

Of course Lyle sees him. He half-turns and tries to lift the gun, but it’s too late. Fisher’s on him and the gun clatters to the floor. Lyle cries out as the two of them fall backward over Jim’s body, onto the floor, up against sacks of beans and rice under the counter. Lyle yells, “You shit,” but his voice is all wrong. Fisher leans his weight across Lyle’s throat. A creaking sound. Of lungs straining. He presses harder, because what’s launched him across the room is the too-late realization that Bree’s out there alone with Al, and he’s not bright enough to wait until he’s seen the cabin’s empty, he’s just going to kill her, and maybe just has. Fisher wants to put it right, like a movie you can wind back through, as though it’ll come out any different the next time. He can’t think. Can’t see through the awful pinching in his head and the rush of his own breathing.