by Beth Lewis
My tears dried up. All the snow cooled down that heat and she nodded to me, slowly, reading all them thoughts right off my face.
Right then all I wanted was to get the hell away. Shame ran all through me like the whole Yukon river was rushing in my veins. I stood up, stumbled off the porch and into the snow, messed up all that perfect white, just like I’d messed up everything else.
“Elka.” Penelope stood up too but I couldn’t look at her, not now, not ever never again, no sir. “Elka it’s OK,” she kept saying, but it weren’t. ’Course it weren’t. She’d figured it. All this time at Tin River thinking I’d got free of it, that I could live a real proper true life after all that I done. It was all horse shit and I was a goddamn fool for thinking otherwise. Penelope knew what Kreagar done to the doctor’s boy, shit, everyone did. She put all the twos together and got four and got me. She’d snuck in them doors a’ mine when I wasn’t watching and part a’ me, that dark part, wanted to slap her clean ’cross that pretty cheek for the betraying of it. That’s what it was, after all, betraying. Knowing something ’bout me that I didn’t even proper know myself. Damn her, she knew. Anger and rage gritted up my teeth, seized up all my muscles, made everything in me hard and jagged and stabbing. I shook all over, hot was back in my eyes.
I tried to hold it all in, keep all the heat from spilling over and melting the world. I dug my teeth into my lip so hard I tasted blood. Made my stomach tighten up.
I spat on the snow. Great smear a’ red almost sizzling. That was it. I seen it right there in that tiny little picture and everything came clear and calm. Blood on snow was my mark on the world. It was a horror at first, made people look and question and for a time worry ’bout how it got there. It’d never be more than a freak thing to stare at and quick shuffle away. But then, come spring, it’d be gone, melted, everyone would forget it was ever there, no matter how bad it was, no matter how shocking.
“I’m goin’ huntin’,” I said, and pushed past her into the cabin. Couldn’t look at her. I grabbed my knife and hat and stormed back outside. She tried grabbing me but I shook her off. She tried talking to me but I ignored her. I was hurting right down deep, worse’n Kreagar ever hurt me. There was once pureness ’tween me and Penelope what me and Kreagar never had. We’d both come out a’ them crates with new lives but now she rubbed blood and shit in that. Weren’t her fault, ’course it weren’t, but it felt like it in my raging head. She should a’ damn well said something. She knew the rotten core a’ me and my shame and that was too much. Hell, I couldn’t make peace with what I done, I sure as shit couldn’t make peace with someone I cared for knowing ’bout it too. Why didn’t it matter to her? Why didn’t she go running from me, screaming? Why was she still here?
Then I figured it and it was the one thing what kept me from throwing my fist to her face. She ain’t been in all the doors in my head. There was still that one there, locked up with padlocks and chains and bolts slammed home. If she’d opened that one, if she knew what was in there, she’d be out that cabin quicker’n you could spit, calling out for Lyon and her iron bars.
Penelope shouted my name, shouted it loud and raw till she was all but screaming. Shocked birds out their nests, sent critters fleeing. Heard tears in her voice, heard confusion and anger and all kinds a’ things what I couldn’t, didn’t want to, make sense of. Broke my black heart to hear it. When I got to the trees, I paused brief, there weren’t no going back after this, after I left this place what we’d made into some kind a’ home. Penelope seen me stop, figured she knew why. I turned ’round, looked at her, standing there wrapped up to a bundle in coats and a blanket, holding something up over her head. She shouted and her voice carried crisp right to my ear.
I’d forgot the rifle; how was I going to shoot moose without a rifle? Felt my knife on my belt, stroked my thumb over that worn-down nub on the handle and turned away, started out into the trees.
I didn’t need no rifle no more, did I?
I weren’t hunting moose.
I circled wide ’round the claim so’s Penelope wouldn’t figure on where I went and made my way through the trees. Snow was tough going and soaked my boots and trouser legs with chill. I liked winter for the quiet, the feeling a’ curling up next to the fire, knowing you got chores but thinking, Hell, I can’t go hunting in six foot a’ snow, then curling up all the tighter. Hated winter for the wet, water goddamn everywhere, getting in all the things it shouldn’t. But you got to take the good with the rotten.
Heard a noise somewhere behind me. A crunch a’ hard snow. Either it was a fat pinecone falling or someone walking in step with me made a mistake.
I stayed still. Listened. Scanned them trees for puffs a’ breath.
Nothing. Not a whisper.
Pinecone, I thought. Or a squirrel what froze in the night and couldn’t hold on no more. I put it down to nature and carried on.
I got to Tucket near noon. Stuck to the tree line, out a’ sight a’ any folks what might be out in the snow. Josie’s lumberyard was running and smoke and steam came out the top a’ the barn. I quick stopped into the jailhouse, where Lyon said she’d be, and left a message with some freckled lad in a hand-me-down uniform. Be ready, I said, bring guns. Turns out I was expected and that set my heart going rough and ragged.
“She left you this,” the lad said, and took out something from ’neath the counter, wrapped in brown cloth. A red tube ’bout a foot long with a plastic cap.
“What is it?”
He looked at me bored and dull in the face, like he’d just woke up. “Flare. She said pull the cap when, you know, you’re ready or whatever.”
“What’s it do?” I said, turning it over, sniffing it.
He yawned and shrugged and I was sick a’ him quick. Left without another word and put the flare in my pocket. Made me a mite nervous. Lyon weren’t here, but she was prepared. I weren’t. Not one bit. Made it all real and that set my belly churning up. Hands shook and I said to ’em to calm down, it was just the cold. Told myself to put on a merry face and dredge up the friendlies.
The kid had to believe me.
Kreagar was close, I could feel him in the hairs on my neck and smell his stink on the wind. I knew him better’n I knew myself, that’s for sure. Kreagar didn’t have no secrets from me no more, he’d laid all his bloody cards on the table while I still had a king lost in my coats. He’d be in these trees, waiting like one a’ them fish what’s a rock till a guppy comes along then snap. Laughing in the trees would be his ripples in the water. Clumsy footsteps in the snow would be his ridges in the sand. He would follow them, no question.
I got close to the Thompsons’. Saw Josie come out the house and head to the barn, wiping her face like she’d just got her fill a’ Jethro’s cooking. Could see Jethro through the window at the back a’ the house, cleaning up in the kitchen. Spotted Mark in the barn, in a string vest despite the cold, hauling logs onto the cutting table. Gentle and strong and a good father he was and I almost ran back to Lyon and told her No, ma’am, I can’t give you Kreagar.
Almost.
’Stead I went through the trees, ’round the barn and house, till I was on the far side. Then I saw the boy. Playing in the snow, making angels and throwing handfuls at the boards a’ the house. I didn’t see no kid then. I saw that curly black hair as a pelt. Saw them pudgy arms as bait. I told myself I’d keep the boy safe, no doubt, he was just there for play, just long enough for Kreagar to show himself.
I’d gone to that house with a single thought in my head, one path I could walk down, but that path went twisting and forked and broken and I lost my way quick. I didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did. That I got to tell you right now, though it won’t make much difference no more. What’s that saying ’bout the road to hell and good intentions? I was running down that damn road, barefoot and full a’ regret. But shit, I couldn’t hate what I was ’bout to do too much, figured it’d lead Lyon right to Kreagar and stop God knows how many more killings. That ain’t a bad thing, is
it? Them thoughts were what damned me to the pit without no hope a’ salvation. Right then, in the real, deep, primal part a’ me, I didn’t think I was doing nothing wrong.
After all, I thought in them moments afore I said my hellos to the boy and all them moments afore when I was making up this plan a’ mine—this awful, horrible, terrible plan—that sometimes you got to tie up a kicking rabbit to lure in a wolf. The human in me figured the rabbit would wriggle free in them last seconds or I’d shoot the wolf afore it sunk its teeth. Wild part a’ me knew it was easier to catch a wolf what had a full belly.
Then I stopped dead, full a’ shock and disbelieving.
That was Kreagar thinking. They was Kreagar words in my head. They weren’t mine, weren’t me. Not no more.
Knowing that, feeling that black poison in me, like oil swimming on water, my legs went from ’neath me and my knees hit the snow. I wanted to slap myself, kick myself, rip my goddamn brain out a’ my head for even coming up with the idea, rip my heart out for believing it was right. My guts wanted to heave up them thoughts and spill ’em, hot and steaming, on the snow. I wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. No sir. Whatever I was, however bad I was, I weren’t Kreagar. No sir. I weren’t him. His rules a’ living weren’t mine and I wouldn’t look at human life like he did, as nothing more’n meat. That boy weren’t bait. That boy weren’t a deer or a rabbit or a thing to hunt. He was snow-pure and sweet as his uncle’s apple pie.
Soon as I’d figured that, a weight came off my back and the world—the trees, the snow, the boy—they were clear and bright and I was too. I was going to catch Kreagar but I weren’t ’bout to use a boy to do it. That’d make me no better’n him. I’d track him myself and find him myself and I’d sure as shit kill him myself. That’d make it all the sweeter. Catching him using all them smarts Trapper taught me would be the sting in the tail that bastard deserved. He’d know it too, that his own stupid self, using me for arms and legs, damned him.
I smiled, my face aching with the cold, and felt a surging a’ triumph and freedom what I ain’t never felt afore. Kreagar was going to pay for what he done and I was here to collect.
Felt me a strong urging to go say goodbye to the boy. Then I’d go into the woods and I wouldn’t come out without Kreagar’s head in a sack or Lyon’s hand patting me on the shoulder. That boy was grace and good and all them things what I weren’t. I caught him in a snare all them months back and I weren’t ’bout to put him in another trap.
I came out the trees at the back a’ the house, out a’ view a’ the barn and the kitchen windows. The boy didn’t run from me, he weren’t afraid or quiet like he was ’round his daddy. I thought he might’ve, like he’d a’ known what was in my head a few minutes ago, but he smiled when he saw me, waved, and said, “Make a snowman, Elka.” That set my heart in my throat and I felt like I was choking. Made parting all the worse. Figured I could have a few moments. Few little memories I could take with me.
I dug my hands into the snow and piled it high up with him, patted it down into something like a ball. He threw a lump a’ snow at me, what hit square in my chest. Shock a’ the cold in my collar made me gasp and I looked at him like thunder.
But he just laughed. Giggled. Threw another.
I ain’t never played in the snow afore. Snow was a toil to get through, it weren’t for fun or frolic. I laughed with him, giggling like a damn idiot. I threw a snowball at him and it hit him square in his chest, not hard-like, but it was a fine hit. He cried out all loud and flopped down in the snow, saying I’d killed him. Then he went still and all my muscles froze up, like I was seeing a picture a’ what might a’ been.
Then. “Elka?”
I spun ’round, saw Penelope done up all in heavy coats, sprinkling a’ snow in her hair, and my heart near stopped.
The boy saw her a second later, pure joy lit up his face. He sprang up, shouted out, “Penny!” and ran to her, hugged her ’round the legs.
Penelope hugged him back and looked at me like I ain’t never seen her look at me. I don’t even know what it was in her eyes. Confusion? Disappointment? Horror? I couldn’t speak to ask. My last words to her were ’bout hunting and then she finds me here, boy lying still, playing dead at my feet. Felt sick for it.
She went to say something but then a hearty voice interrupted. Mark, coming ’round the corner a’ the house. Saying hello to me and what you doing here and Josh is having a great time.
Suddenly they was a family. The boy was telling his dad ’bout the snowman what was in truth just a lopsided lump. Here’s his eyes. Here’s his shoulders. Here’s his legs.
“I was on a walk,” I said, all but jibbering, though no one was paying me no attention, save Penelope.
“Elka,” she said, sharp and cold, “don’t you have to get on? Moose won’t hunt themselves after all.”
Tears pricked hot in my eyes and I nodded. Mark looked at me, smiling and happy that I’d kept his boy busy for a spell. I said sure, yeah, ’course I did.
“See you later, at the cabin,” Penelope said, snow reflecting white in her eyes, turning ’em into mirrors and making her look like she got a barrier up where there ain’t never been one afore.
I nodded, felt like I’d been slapped right in the face, stunned out a’ myself. I looked at the boy and smiled.
“Bye, Josh,” I said, then I knelt down ’side him and whispered close, “You ain’t gotta be afraid a’ the man no more. I’m gonna get him and you gonna be sleeping safe tonight.”
I looked up at Penelope and that frown in her eyes. She didn’t know what I said, but when the boy hugged me, wrapped his short, skinny arms ’round my neck, her frown softened up.
I walked away without another word. I felt Penelope’s eyes heavy on my back while I was going. Wondered what she was thinking, but in truth, I already knew it. That bridge we’d built ’tween us, that one what was wobbling already, I’d just gone and dug out the foundations. I’d set the whole damn thing on quicksand and it weren’t going to be long afore it swallowed up us both.
I got to the tree line, only looked back once to see the boy with his snowman and Penelope and Mark talking close by but not paying all that much attention ’cept to each other.
That’s when I heard another a’ them crunches. Saw a shadow shift out the corner of my eye. My head muddled. Guilt throbbed through me like venom from a snakebite and I didn’t pay no mind to another fallen pinecone. Another dead squirrel.
I stalked off into the forest, direction Penelope said them fellas seen Kreagar. I had to start somewhere. Snow fell off the branches and slumped on the ground, covering up all my tracks, making the world like it was afore I messed it up.
Felt the flare in my pocket. Wondered brief if I could go back to Lyon, open up that locked door in my head, and let her do whatever she wanted with me.
But that wouldn’t rid this world a’ murdering, kid-killing Kreagar Hallet.
The fog in me cleared up so’s I could just see ’cross to the other side a’ all this.
I was the only one who stood a chance a’ bringing punishment down on Kreagar, stopping him from taking more lives. Hour ago I’d a’ baited that trap with a boy, what I knew would bring him running like a starving man to a cookout. But I stopped myself afore I did the bad and that was what mattered. The look in Penelope’s eyes was all that bad reflected back at me and it showed me what could a’ been if I’d turned to the dark ’stead a’ the light. I thanked her for it, in my head. I’d never say it to her out loud, that’d be admitting all my wrongs and that’d kill us both.
I’d figure another way a’ getting Kreagar. I’d have to, and quick, afore the winter sent him sleeping.
After all this time and heartache, trudging through the snow ’round the outside a’ Tucket, I didn’t count on Kreagar making it so damn easy for me.
I’d been in the forest, moving slow and steady, for I didn’t know how long, thinking on my sins, shivering, when I heard a shout. Sharp yelp it was, back toward the T
hompson house. My shivering stopped and afore I could tell my feet, they was running. Didn’t take me long to get back to their land when I seen a shadow dart ’tween trees ahead of me. Shadow carrying something heavy. I knew what that bundle was even at that distance. I knew what the yelp was. I knew it all.
Kreagar had the boy. I’d told him I’d keep him safe. Anger rose up in me like a belch, burning up my insides.
It was Kreagar’s legs I saw in the reverend’s basement. It was him all them months ago by the poison lake, that demon what I cut, though I couldn’t be sure at the time. I’d gone a year without laying certain eye on him. But now, my head was clear, the sun was bright on snow and there he was, Kreagar goddamn Hallet, wearing my daddy’s face. Couldn’t right tell if he’d seen me too but he might a’ heard me running. I wrapped my fingers ’round my knife and pulled it free. My heart thudded so hard in my chest I thought it would shake the snow off all the trees.
They weren’t pinecones falling, I thought, they was his footsteps, his shadow, following me right from Tin River. Right to the Thompsons’ back door.
I followed his tracks and caught sight a’ him again. Too far to catch. Too far to throw my knife for fear a’ hitting the boy. Josh was flung over one shoulder, not moving, but smoky breath came out his mouth. Still alive. I still had time. My heart was thundering worse’n any storm, worse’n the sound them Damn Stupid bombs must a’ made. My heartbeat must a’ shook the world ’cause right then, heavy snow started falling, covering up all them tracks.
Kreagar’s arms filled out the shirt he was in, and it was just a shirt, untucked, flapping over jeans soaked to the knee. No coat. No hat. He looked like he’d stepped right out a’ summer and got caught by the weather. He slowed up to climb over a fallen log, icy with snow, and I saw them tattoos. Them black marks I took for dirt when I first saw him all them years ago. Stripes and swirls going out from his eyes and mouth, fanglike marks going down his chin, same both sides a’ his face like he had a mirror along his nose. Them patterns no doubt meant something to him but what, shit he’d never tell me, no matter how many times I nagged. Them tattoos went all down his chest and most way down his arms, mixing in with the wiry black hair. I always thought a’ him, when I was just a babe, as covered head to heel in spiders.