Thief River Falls

by Brian Freeman

  “Wow,” the boy said.

  “I told you, it’s scary.”

  “But I like it.”

  “I’m glad,” Lisa said.

  They were quiet again. Purdue still had his head against her shoulder. She wished, she prayed, that time would freeze like the Minnesota winters and slow down until every second ticking away lasted for days. But the white, snowbound world couldn’t stay that way forever. The clock kept going.

  “Lisa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Doesn’t it seem weird to you?” the boy said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Everything that happens in your book, it’s just like everything that’s been happening to you and me.”

  “Well, life is like that sometimes,” Lisa replied. “My mother used to scare us as kids by telling us that if we dreamed too hard, we would bring our nightmares to life. Noah and I would hold hands across the beds at night in case we had bad dreams.”

  “Is that what’s happening? Are we having a nightmare?”

  “I don’t know. The lullaby says life is but a dream.”

  The boy thought about this seriously, the way he did everything. Then he looked up at her with wide blue eyes. Danny’s eyes.

  “Lisa?” he said again.

  “Yes, Purdue.”

  “Tell me how the story ends.”

  From the Novel

  THIEF RIVER FALLS

  BY LISA POWER

  The train whistle screams in the distance, as lonely and mournful as a maiden who finds her true love turned to stone. It’s time. Madeleine gets to her feet, watched by the religious paintings and stained glass of the church, blessed by Jesus on the cross. She reaches a hand to Purdue and pulls him up, too. The weight of separation is almost too much to bear. She sinks to her knees, throws her arms around the boy, and they cling to each other. They are as close as mother and son. Two days ago, she could never have imagined a moment like this, not in her life. Soon it will be over, but she regrets nothing. Not what came before. Not what has to happen now.

  “Go,” she whispers to the boy as she wipes tears from her face. “Do it just like we talked about. Go down the steps to the back door, and then wait. One of them will be watching the back, and I need to lure him away. When you hear me shout, you count to ten. Slowly. As soon as you get to ten, go through the door and run. Run, Purdue. Make it to the train and don’t look behind you.”

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry about me. Find your way to Canada. Find your uncle. You’ll be safe. No one will be coming for you after today. I promise.”

  Purdue shakes his head. “I’m not sure I can do it.”

  “Yes, you can. I know you can. You’re strong. Now go, my sweet! There’s no time!”

  The boy is torn. The back door leads out of the church, but the back door takes him away from her. He holds Madeleine’s hands tightly, as if he cannot let go. She peels away his fingers and squeezes them. Her smile is hollow, but she fills it with love. Her eyes memorize his face.

  “Go.”

  And he does.

  She watches him fly as fast as his skinny legs can carry him, with his hair flapping like bird wings. She watches the boy until he gets to the steps and disappears, and then it’s all up to her. She must draw the men to the sound of her voice. She must keep them away from Purdue.

  Madeleine spins around. She aims the rifle in her hands at the church doors. She shouts as loud as she can so they can hear her. And so Purdue can hear her, too, and begin the countdown to his escape.

  One, two, three . . .

  “We’re coming out!” she calls. “Don’t shoot, we’re coming out!”

  But of course, she knows they will shoot her if they can. They must. They are desperate men.

  “Don’t shoot!” she cries again.

  She goes to the church door. She tears it open, and her finger closes around the trigger of the rifle. Eight, nine, ten . . .

  The train whistle screams again, louder and closer. In her head, she can see the boy bursting through the back door and sprinting through the fields. It won’t take him long to get to the tracks. She hopes he can see the train and feel its thunder. But he isn’t safe. Not yet. First, the men must die.

  Madeleine fires into the night.

  She aims at any shadow she can see. She wants to kill. She wants to destroy these four men, these animals who would bury a boy in the ground.

  There, behind the police car, is a flash of light, a burst of noise. One of them fires back at her, but the shot goes wild. She targets the spot; she fires again, and again, and again, and then she hesitates on the trigger to draw him to his feet. He stands to shoot, but she is faster. In the next instant, she fires once more, with deadly aim. Bullet tunnels through flesh, knocking the man backward. That one is dead. Clean kill. She cannot see which one, but he is in uniform.

  One of the deputies. One of the traitors.

  Madeleine moves quickly. She runs sideways through the rain, across the church lawn, toward the shoulder of the rural highway. Nearby is movement. Another man runs from her right, from behind the church; the noise and gunfire have drawn him forward and away from Purdue, just as she planned. They are close. He fires. She fires. They exchange bullets like greetings in a foreign language, but he is a nervous young man, unprepared for what it means to take a life.

  He misses her entirely, while her bullet goes into his heart.

  Another uniform. Another deputy. Two are gone, and two others remain.

  Liam, the ginger man. The hired killer and torturer.

  And Denis.

  Madeleine makes a mistake now. There is something hypnotizing about the body at her feet, the man she has killed. She cannot tear her gaze away from him, and so she waits too long in one place. She is an easy target. A shot erupts behind her, an explosion that reaches her brain only after the pain comes. She looks down at herself, sees blood mixing with the rain, a red river on her chest. A bullet has passed through her shoulder, shredding muscle, breaking bone.

  Madeleine sinks, as if falling to the ground, but it’s a ruse. Instead, swallowing down the pain, she whirls around, firing the whole time, firing firing firing. She sweeps the air in a semicircle of bullets. Liam is there, with his wet red hair. He has nowhere to hide. She hits him, hits him again, hits him again. There are at least five bullets in his chest. His face has a look of shock and surprise. His heart is pumping out its last beats, and he knows he is done.

  But not quite done.

  There is enough hatred left in him to lift his pistol. He aims at Madeleine, pulls the trigger, rips open her stomach. The bullet has the kick of a rocket. The agony is like flame in her bloodstream. She gasps, but then she swings her own rifle up once more, pulls the trigger once more.

  A red hole appears in the forehead of the red-haired man. He drops like stone.

  Her vision grows cloudy. Darkness encroaches on her. This is more than the darkness of the night. The sharp pain grows dull. She has a sensation of floating, of flying, of the solid earth becoming lava under her feet. She is dying, but she refuses to die yet.

  There is one man left. The last man. Madeleine tries to shout. She wills air into her chest, tries to croak out a name above the storm.

  “Denis!”

  Where is he?

  Where is that old man willing to trade the life of a boy for his own sins?

  “Hello, Madeleine.”

  Yes, he is right there. He is on the dirt road, leaning on his cane. He has watched the battle, watched his men die. They are gone, and he lives, but Madeleine is almost gone, too. They both know it. She grows dizzy, seeing the rain and the church turn upside down. It’s raining on the sky. Her body is heavy, like lead, a weight she cannot sustain. Her legs wither and fall beneath her. She is on her knees now.

  Denis has a gun, but he doesn’t need to use it. He simply stands on the road, with the rain sweeping across him, waiting for the inevitable, waiting for Madeleine to die. She must fight
back. She tries to bring up her own gun, right it, fire it, but it weighs at least a thousand pounds in her hand. She pulls the trigger. An explosion rocks her ears; smoke fills her nose. A bullet sears the ground, burying itself in the soft grass, the recoil knocking her sideways. Denis looks at her with a sad little smile, still saying nothing.

  The wind blows. Not a strong wind, not even a gust, just a whisper of air, but it is enough to take her by the shoulders and lower her to the ground. She is on her back now. The sky is over her head, dark and violent. She stares at it, stares into the silver streaks of rain, blinks in confusion. A breath comes in; a breath goes out. Her lungs are in an ocean, sinking under a red tide of blood.

  He is standing directly over her now. Denis. How much time did it take for him to limp down from the road through the tall grass and arrive at her feet? She was unaware of him moving at all. Time is slowing. Soon it will freeze altogether, never going forward, one second hanging in the scale without giving way to the next one.

  Denis studies her like a scientist, curious about the moment of death, unmoved by her pain. His gray hair is wet and flat, his body gnarled, his expression not even malevolent, just inexpressibly sure of itself. The elite are accustomed to winning, to getting whatever they want. But he will not win this time. He is too late. Purdue is on the train.

  She has no breath left to speak to him, but her triumph is in her eyes. The boy is gone. You’ll never get him.

  He simply smiles at her, as if he can read her thoughts. The train whistles again, like a cry of freedom behind the church, but something is wrong. Denis’s head turns the way a snake’s head swivels to watch its prey. When he looks back at her, she can see his eyes agleam.

  Madeleine doesn’t understand. Denis has lost; he should be bitter and angry. Then her head finds the strength to turn, and her heart wails when she sees him. Purdue. The boy stands in the weeds not even twenty feet away. He let the train go without him. He has come back for her.

  They will die together.

  She can’t even summon the will to scream. To voice her despair, to shout to God, to say no, don’t let this happen.

  “It will be quick when the moment comes,” Denis tells her calmly. “I promise you that. No pain.”

  He’s talking about Purdue. He is talking about shooting him, killing the boy. This devil thinks those words will be of comfort to her, that somehow he is easing the struggle of her last breaths. Instead, it has the opposite effect. He transforms her into something superhuman. He gives her new life. Endorphins surge through her blood.

  She is on her back on the wet ground, but the rifle is still right there with her. Her finger is still curled around the trigger. The heavy gun is suddenly weightless. A smile forms on her mouth, a smile that warns him of disaster, but he has nowhere to go, and he cannot move fast enough to get away. He is an old man. His mouth opens; his lips form an O of surprise, the last expression they will ever make. The barrel of the gun rises and spits flame. A single shot. A single bullet. It travels through his skull.

  Denis is dead.

  Relief floods Madeleine like a warm spring. She lets go of the gun and lets go of everything else, too. Everything in her body relaxes. The pain vanishes. Her limbs feel as if they are becoming one with the soft earth below her. She stares at the sky, seeing something bright, a brilliant star that has somehow burned through the dark clouds. That star is where she is headed. She is going home.

  We all die alone, she thinks.

  But Madeleine is not alone.

  Purdue kneels beside her, his young face pouring out tears that mix with the rain. He is holding her hand to his cheek, but she doesn’t feel the touch of his skin. She doesn’t feel anything at all.

  “Madeleine,” he begs, his voice choking up. “Please get up. Please don’t leave me. We’re safe. We can be together now.”

  Oh, my sweet.

  Oh, if only we could.

  She wants to tell him that everything will be all right. He will be fine. He will live. He will grow, he will thrive, he will love, he will marry, he will hold the hands of children of his own. She wants to tell him that life is about leaving, but that love is about memories. She wants to tell him about the bright star cascading through the night sky. There are so many things to say, so many lessons to share.

  But that is for some other world.

  This moment is for the angels.

  She gives away her last breath without words, but she is happy at the end. Her eyes gaze into his young face for one final moment before the shadows come, and then they see nothing at all.

  41

  The train whistle screamed in the distance. It was time. This was the end.

  Lisa could feel the vibration under the floor of the church, the earth trembling as tons of steel drew closer, and she knew that Purdue had to run. He had to get away, and she had to protect him as he did. She could draw their fire, the way Madeleine had. She got to her feet with the AR-15 loaded and ready in her arms. She extended a hand to Purdue, but the boy didn’t move from where he was. He sat there, staring up at her with his big blue eyes.

  “Purdue, you have to go now,” she told him. “You have to run and get on that train. This is your way out. You’ll be safe in Canada. I told you, it’s so beautiful up there. I want you to see it.”

  “I really have to go?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Like the boy in the book?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But he didn’t get on the train. He came back for Madeleine.”

  “Yes, but only to say goodbye. Then he had to leave. He went to Canada, and he was happy there. That’s the end of the story.”

  “But Madeleine died,” Purdue complained.

  “I know.”

  “That’s too sad. I don’t like that. We need to change the ending.”

  “Life doesn’t work that way, Purdue. I wish it did, but there are some things we can’t change.”

  The train whistle sounded again, so loud it made Lisa cover her ears. She held out her hands again for the boy to take them. He needed to get up. He needed to run. But he sat on the floor like a statue. His eyes were wide and curious, staring back at her.

  “Please,” she urged him. “You need to run for that train. Go. I’ll protect you. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  “By dying?” he asked.

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  The boy shook his head. “No.”

  “Purdue. You can’t worry about me. That’s not your job. I’m the one who has to rescue you. Don’t you understand? I didn’t get us this far only to lose you. I made a promise. I’m going to save you.”

  The boy smiled from the floor as he looked up at her. His smile was blinding. She felt utterly lost in the warmth of that smile and in the love that radiated from his eyes. All the cold went away. The church glowed around them.

  “But you can’t save me,” he said to her.

  “Yes. Yes, I can. I have to. That’s my job. That’s my responsibility. That’s the only reason for me to be alive. If I can’t save you, there’s no point to anything. Your life is more important than mine.”

  “You can’t save me. Don’t you see? I’m already gone.”

  Lisa’s headache throbbed behind her forehead, and she squeezed her skull with her hand as if she could force out the pain that way. “What are you talking about?” she asked the boy. “What are you saying?”

  “You know.”

  “No. I don’t. I don’t know anything at all. All I know is that you have to get on that train.”

  “That was in the book,” Purdue told her. “This isn’t the book. The book is just in your head, Lisa. This has all been in your head. You have to let go of it now. You have to let go of me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do. You know. You’ve always known.” The boy scrambled to his feet and tugged on her sleeve. “Who am I?”

  “What?”

  “Who am I? Tell me my n
ame.”

  “You’re Purdue,” Lisa said.

  “No, I’m not. I have a name.”

  “I don’t know what it is. You never told me. You kept it from me. You hid it from me. You wouldn’t tell me your name.”

  “Because you already know,” the boy said.

  “No.” Lisa sobbed. “No. I don’t.”

  “What’s my name?”

  Lisa wrenched away from the boy and backed up among the pews. She pointed to the rear of the church. “You have to go. Go now. I have to save you. We’re running out of time.”

  “Who am I?”

  “You’re Purdue.”

  “No. You know my name. You know who I am. Just say it. Please? What’s my name?”

  Lisa stared at him. She stared at this perfect boy in front of her. Ten years old. His whole life in front of him. Cities and rivers and mountains to explore. Smart as a whip, always able to make her laugh. Fascinated by everything. Jumping in the backyard while Lisa worked on her books. Playing hide-and-seek with Noah. Sitting in her lap as Lisa read to him.

  “He’s the most beautiful baby in the world,” Madeleine had said ten years ago, a grandmother holding her grandson for the first time.

  This perfect boy. The spitting image of his father.

  The father who had never met him. The father who had never even known he was going to have a son.