Lyle pushes another bullet home. “I’m trying to cover your ass, Al.”
Al blinks. His eyelids are thick and slow-moving, and his eyes dark beneath them. “Hey—what the hell?”
“Covering it. Again. So stop fucking around and give me the knife.” He lifts the gun and tucks it under his arm. The other hand he holds out to Al.
Al holds the knife up close to his chest. He holds it so tight his skin’s stretched over his knuckles. “We were fucking sitting ducks.”
“Well you got him good. Now give me the goddamn knife.”
“Not him. Not fucking him,” and he kicks Jim in the belly.
Lyle’s still got his hand out. He says quietly, “I’m not blaming you for that, OK? What happened, happened.”
“The fuck you aren’t.”
Lyle bends his head close to Al’s and Fisher has to concentrate to hear him above the hiss of the lamp. “We used it to our advantage, didn’t we? So what’s it matter?”
Maybe Al doesn’t notice Fisher there listening in. Maybe he doesn’t care. His voice comes punching out. “Except Brian took off. So much for your fucking plan.”
There’s such fury in him that Fisher edges along the wall, and farther along, up toward where Bree’s huddled on the small stack of wood. What’s he planning? He doesn’t know. To throw himself over her if Al looks her way with that knife raised? To hold her in his arms and feel her breath against his neck, the way he used to in another life?
Lyle’s eyes flit toward Fisher but Fisher keeps moving toward Bree. Lyle says softly to Al, “Doesn’t matter. The cops are still after him and that suits us fine. By the time we’re done, he won’t be telling them anything. We just need to be careful.”
Al’s hands lift to his head and spread like a cage over his hat. “Fuck it! Fuck it!”
“I’ve got it all worked out. Just give me the knife.”
Al’s face looks like a ball of clay smoothed over, his closed eyes just slight hollows, his nose a half-formed thing. When he opens his mouth again it’s wide and dark, and from it he bellows, “This needs to be over.”
“It will be. Go on out there and bring in the other guy.” He pushes his face close to Al’s again, but Al’s not looking. His eyes are still shut and his mouth’s wet and gaping.
Fisher can’t bear the sight of him. He stares at his boots on the floorboards and makes them move one more step. Then he’s there and he crouches and rests a hand on Bree’s shoulder. She flinches and hunches into herself. She won’t even look at him, as though this is all his fault. And she’s right, isn’t she? Didn’t he lead these guys to her when she’d run away? When no one should have found her out here?
His head drops. He needs to think. Surely if he tries hard enough he’ll find a way to save them both, but the stink of blood’s filling his head and all he can think about is Jim lying dead a few feet away.
42
THE OTHER GUY Lyle wants brought in. Grisby. No wonder when Lyle saw Fisher was driving the cab he said, This is too fucking perfect. Fisher had brought Grisby out here in the back of the minivan. That slight smell: Grisby, dead, hidden in the cab’s narrow trunk.
Now it’s almost more than he can bear to see Grisby curled on the cabin’s narrow bed with his knees up to his chest. His face is stiff and grizzled with frost as though this isn’t Grisby but some nearly-finished model of him: the awful whiteness of his skin, its blue marbling, the flat eyes, a small hole in the middle of his forehead like a dead third eye. But it’s him all right. Al dragged him through the doorway while Lyle held the handgun on Fisher and Bree, as though they might rush him and run off. Where could they run to when the sub-arctic night’s as inhospitable as an alien planet? Fisher had exactly that thought as Al dragged the body across the floor. It hit him at the same time: that it was like Grisby’s thoughts leaking into his head, that it was Grisby being hauled toward the bed. His green parka. His dirty white bunny boots. His face frozen into a grimace when he was hoisted up, legs bent at wrong angles and arms crossed over his belly.
Inside his head an unearthly whistling has started up, the sound of the world pressing in with all its menace. A person—someone like Grisby, like him, like Bree—is nothing but meat and bone that a bullet could rip through. Each lungful of air feels like a miracle, the grace of a fragile system that could easily falter. How has he managed to live this long? And Bree: she’s barely begun her life and any minute now it could be crushed out. He reaches a hand to her shoulder and squeezes. She shakes it off and looks at him over the sleeve of her coat with eyes full of reproach. He opens his mouth but she’s quicker, hisses, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
His hand’s still outstretched. He folds his fingers toward his palm and settles his hand on his knee. “I love you, sweet pea,” he says softly.
Her bottom lip’s loose. It pulls to one side like it’s been snagged by a hook, then she says. “You’re as big an asshole as the rest of them.”
He stings with the shock of it. He opens his mouth but she buries her face against the sleeve of her coat, and there’s Lyle almost upon them with the gun in his hand and the skin around his swollen eye turning an odd shade of blue. “Don’t move, fuckhead, not even your lips.”
He tips his head toward Al, and Al nods. He has Jim’s shotgun open and slides in two cartridges from a box on the counter. Then he steps over Jim’s body and hoists the gun to his shoulder.
The air’s suddenly too thin. Fisher’s body is as awkward as a balloon, his head dizzyingly high above the floor. He grabs Bree and tries to hold her to him only she shoves him off, and when he looks back the shotgun’s not aimed at them but at Grisby. Lyle snorts. He says, “Aim for the head, Al.”
The force of the shot jolts what’s left of Grisby. The front of his parka’s like a corn kernel popped open, all white and fluffy except for the darkness in the middle. Fisher’s belly seizes. He can’t help himself. He bends forward and vomits between his boots, hears Lyle moan, “Oh for fuck’s sake, you missed his freaking head.”
A second shot and Fisher can’t look except at the puddle of vomit at his feet. It’s mostly water with shreds of ham and lettuce. The sandwich from the supermarket in Sumner. When he looks up, Grisby’s slid to one side like a doll. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says. “You didn’t have to kill him in the first place.”
Lyle rubs the barrel of the handgun along his jaw like a razor. “Two guys dead in a cabin. A fight—over what? Who the fucks knows? Who the fuck cares? It’s winter, that’s enough.”
The cabin’s starting to grow cold. No one’s fed the woodstove and a draft’s leaking in through the hole in the roof. A hole the size of a fist already downy with frost, and beyond it, the night sky. Fisher hunches his shoulders. “You killed him for nothing.”
Lyle shows his teeth. “So loyal. But you know what? Your friend here was so scared he sang like a fucking bird. Christ, he’d have sold out his own mother. Must’ve thought we were pissed at him for taking Brian’s stuff, like Brian had changed his mind and sent us after him. He didn’t get it.” He sniffs. “As for you, he said it was all your idea and hey, if we wanted you, all we had to do was call Bear Cabs and ask for non-smoking. Worked like a fucking charm. Pity he got out of his blindfold, because he could have been useful, but there you go. Life’s a bitch.”
“You killed him because he saw you?”
Lyle purses his lips. “Al gets worked up about things like that. But who wouldn’t? You can’t feel secure if you know some little shit might rat on you. Any friend of Brian’s, oh yeah, a rat for sure.”
Fisher wants to say, He wasn’t Brian’s friend and He couldn’t have recognized you. Some days he didn’t even recognize me, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say a thing because he feels his loyalty deflate. Grisby giving in so easily. Giving him up to these guys, and look what’s happened because of it. But there’s this too: Grisby didn’t tell th
em about Bree. Maybe he was too scared to tell them what had really happened, but either way, he didn’t make things worse for her, and that’s something.
Al’s bent over Jim. He swats at his face, at those eyes staring up at nothing, then pulls out the kitchen chair and sits down spread-legged. Lyle waves him off.
“Find a cloth or something and wipe down anything we’ve touched. Just in case.” Then he reaches up and dims the lamp so far the mantle’s a dying sun and the room’s swimming with shadows.
Behind him, Al puts his gloves back on and rubs the door handle, the gas bottle hanging from the lamp, then he looks around, looks at Fisher as though it’s just occurred to him that, if they’re being so careful, why the hell’s he still alive?
Fisher glances down. Beside him Bree’s still perched on the stacked wood. She must be uncomfortable, but she doesn’t move. She’s staring at Al, her eyes glassy and big like a night animal’s. Even in the half-dark she must know Fisher’s watching her, but she won’t look at him, and he feels it like a pain in his chest. He’s done something to make her hate him, to distrust him. Not showing up when she called? Coming too late? She’s no idea that he and Grisby cleaned the house and dumped Brian’s body, that what she did isn’t going to hang over her because, by the time Brian’s found, the trail will be too cold for the cops to follow it back to her. And even if they did, well, he’s the one who dumped Brian, isn’t he? He’s the one they’ll come after, and she’ll stay free.
Lyle’s face must be hurting because he winces. He doesn’t let go of the gun, but touches the skin around his closed-up eye with the back of his knuckles. His other eye glares out at Fisher. “You try anything, I’ll shoot you dead. Get it?” Over his shoulder he calls to Al, “You about finished?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Then it’s time.”
Al picks up Jim’s gun. He must think he’s taking it with him until Lyle scowls and beckons him over. “No way,” he says, “that thing won’t be much good to you with her in tow.”
“What the fuck? I’m not taking her.”
“Sure you are. Insurance. And reload that thing.”
“Why the fuck, if I’m not taking it with me?”
“For me, dumbass. Mikey here had a major disagreement with the dead guys—what a shame. Shot dead.”
Al slides a couple of cartridges into the shotgun and passes it to Lyle. Lyle slaps the handgun into Al’s palm, and Al holds it loosely, only it’s pointed at Bree. “How far?”
Bree’s head comes up. “Quarter mile.” The words have sharp edges, like she hates every one of these men in this cabin.
“What’s he got with him?”
“A forty-five. Couple of semi-automatics. An assault rifle. Whole bunch of ammo, some grenades and pipe bombs.”
“Night vision scope?”
She shrugs. “Dunno.”
Al lets his breath hiss out between his teeth. “Fucking great.”
“Smoke him out,” says Lyle.
“He’ll be expecting something like that.”
“So what’s he going to do? Hide outside and wait for someone to burn his place down? Not in this kinda cold. Not even he’s that hardcore.” Lyle leans back in the chair, looks at Bree. “How long you supposed to be gone?”
Bree’s twisting her fingers together. “’Til morning.”
“Fucking sick,” and Al smirks. “But I guess we knew that.”
Lyle tips himself forward a little. “So what the hell—why he send you here?”
For a few moments the silence pulls in tight around them. Then Bree turns to face him straight on. “He’s expecting trouble.”
“Someone warn him?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes slide toward Fisher and they’re bright with hatred. “Him.”
When you take a knife to a fish just pulled from the water, it’ll jerk in your hands and keep jerking even when you’ve sliced it from its throat to its tail, even when its guts are spilling out cool and slippery on your hands. It’ll stare out at the world with a flat look that can’t show panic. But it feels panic all right. It feels betrayed, because the world’s never done this to it before. So why now? It can’t make sense of it and never will because it’s already too late.
That’s what Fisher thinks when he bends his face away from his daughter. It’s the end. It’s over. The world’s never done this to him before, not this way, not so painfully, and it’s all he can do to keep breathing. He doesn’t reach out when she gets to her feet, doesn’t even look at her when she pushes past him to the door where Al’s waiting.
Lyle calls out to him, “Use her as bait. And be careful.”
“Of course I’ll be fucking careful.”
“Of her.” He sniffs. “And Al? Only shoot her if you have to. She could be useful. OK?”
“You want to do this? Huhn? Then get off my fucking back.” He zips his jacket right up to his chin and takes a flashlight from a hook by the door. He turns it on and shines its thin beam on the floor by his boots.
“Four knocks.”
“What?”
“When you get back. So I don’t shoot you by mistake.” Lyle gives a smile that shows his teeth. “Wouldn’t want to do that now, would I?”
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.
44
WHEN YOU HAVE to kill a man, don’t look into his eyes. Don’t think that his life’s as miserable as your own. Don’t look at his fingers scrabbling at your hands. Let your weight come down hard. Arch yourself up so that the whole of you is focused in your hands, and those hands are tight around his throat, and when he flails like a fish, let him. Killing him this way will take a few minutes. Long enough for pity to take root, if you let it. Instead think about what he’s done to you. How thanks to him your friend’s dead, and an innocent man, and maybe your daughter. Think how he tried to kill you too, insulted you, called you a dumbfuck when he’s nothing more than a dumbfuck himself.
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