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Before
I WROTE BEFORE, but that isn’t right, not really. There’s no more before after that moment; that’s when the world split in two. It took less than a second. The time for a bullet to leave the chamber and travel a few feet.
My life has become a list of things that almost killed me. Ways I almost died. If the truck that hit us had been going just a little bit faster, I would have died. If I hadn’t gotten up that morning on the shore, I would have died. If I hadn’t gotten the fire started the day of the storm, I would have died.
If I had screamed when the back of my father’s head burst open in a spray of blood and bone and brain, I would have died.
I tried to scream. The sound stuck in my throat, and I made a strangled, wounded noise. Raph’s head jerked up. He looked toward where I was crouching. I held still, held my breath.
“I hate the woods,” he muttered, and turned away.
I struggled to breathe. I fought a clutching sob that wanted to break free, and I stuffed my fist against my mouth to hold it in. My dad was dead. He was lying on the ground and the dirt was turning so dark with blood. He was dead. There was no moment of hope, of thinking maybe he would get up. That maybe I’d seen wrong.
“Jesus,” Daniel said. He’d yanked his gun from its holster when Raph fired. Now he jammed it back in. “What’d you shoot him for? You think he was lying about the money?”
“He stole from us,” Raph said. “You can’t let something like that go. Now get him in the hole. Then we’ll check the cabin. Could be he was lying, and the money’s still here. If we find it, good. If not, fine. Either way we burn it all down. Make sure there’s no reason for anyone to come here.”
Daniel nodded. He dragged Dad’s body by the shoulders, leaving a streak of blood across the ground. I closed my eyes as the body dropped into the hole. It hit the crate with a horrible thud.
Raph swore. “Make sure it’s all in there,” Raph said, and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. Tears still managed to leak out, running down my cheeks as hot as blood. “And turn over the dirt where it’s bloody, too. Don’t want an animal digging him up or something.”
I heard the patter of dirt, imagined it hitting dad’s coat and his face and his open eyes. I felt paralyzed. I stared at Bo. The dog hadn’t moved, but his lips were peeled back from his teeth. I wanted him to jump out and tear their throats out. But they’d kill him. They’d kill me. I couldn’t even hit a tree consistently. How was I supposed to stop them? Three men with guns. One girl and a dog. There was no contest.
You probably already know that I couldn’t have done anything, but I have to say it again and again because I still don’t believe it. I still lie awake thinking of how I could have killed them before they killed my dad. Or how I could have stopped them after. Gotten to their plane somehow. Gotten rid of the pilot. Killed him. And then the plane—
I could have taken the plane. I could have flown it. It had a radio. I could call for help and help would come. The pilot was asleep. Maybe. I could have taken him. Maybe.
Except I would have had to get down to the water without anyone seeing me. I would have to get out to the plane and I would have to get the door open and then I would have to shoot him or stab him or whatever it was that I could possibly do to a man with a gun, a man whose friends had shot my father as he reached out his hand to shake.
Instead I just sat there and cried silently, hidden behind the tree. And then I remembered. The cabin. They’d said they were going to burn the cabin down.
They were going to burn the cabin down and then they were going to leave and then I was going to be alone out here, alone with no one and Griff wasn’t coming back and my father was dead. Without the cabin I didn’t have fifty pounds of flour and ten pounds of sugar and twenty-five pounds of rice and the sourdough starter and the smoked venison and the spices and the fishing rods and the rifles and the blankets and the nets and the snow shoes and the firewood and the tent and the salt—the salt, if I had the salt now I could keep the meat for more than two days. I could keep it from rotting, and instead the only time I have caught a rabbit I had to eat it all, stuff it in my mouth until my belly bulged and I was so full that I was almost sick into the dirt, because otherwise it would go bad in the summer heat—all of the things that had kept my dad alive were in the cabin.
Sorry.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just so hard to think about, so hard to remember.
And screw Will and his stupid trigger because I’m not moping, I’m pissed and I’m terrified and I’m going to die, so leave me alone.
The cabin. They were going to burn down the cabin, but first they were going to search it, and that was worse. Because on the bed in the cabin was a backpack that could only belong to a girl. There were clothes that could only belong to a girl, and a photo of that girl, and they would know that I was here and they would come for me.
I sat there, terrified, knowing that soon they would be done filling in the hole. I couldn’t move through the fear. I breathed through my teeth. I knew I had to go to the cabin, but I couldn’t make myself get up.
Bo saved me. He slunk over to my side and pressed his nose against my hand, looking up at me. I moved my hand first. I could manage that. I moved my hand over his nose and his eyes and found his big knobby head, and I sank my fingers into his fur. He was warm. He huffed a little breath. The fur on his shoulders and his neck stood straight up. He wanted to kill the men that had killed his master, but for some reason he stayed with me instead.
They would kill him, too, I thought. I had to save him.
I don’t know if they really would have killed him. Maybe he would have run away. But that was the thought that I clung to in that moment. I couldn’t move for me, but I moved for him. At first all I could do was lean, shift my weight until I fell forward onto my hands. I pulled myself along more than walking, low to the ground. I got maybe fifty feet like that, and then Bo put his nose under my arm and shoved upward hard. I used him for leverage, pushing myself upright. I swayed a moment. The men were faster than me. I couldn’t waste what little lead I had.
I ran. I heaved my bad foot with every step. It was a lopsided, ungainly run, and I grabbed at trees as I passed to launch myself forward faster and keep myself upright. Bo ran at my side. I could see the cabin through the trees. I could see the shining lake past that, and a flash of red. The plane. I was almost there.
I lurched forward another step. My foot caught against something. I pitched forward. My arms pinwheeled, but it was too late to catch my balance. I crashed to the ground. I got my arms in front of me just in time to catch myself with my forearms.
My breath went out of me instantly, and pain gnashed at my back. It felt like something tore, leaving hot agony in its wake. I did scream then, muffling it with my sleeve. Then Bo was there. Sticking his nose under my arm again, nudging me. I wrapped an arm around his neck and hauled myself upright that way. When I was on my knees I sank my fingers into the rough bark of a tree and pulled myself, shaking, to my feet.
I ached all over. I’d probably damaged something permanently, re-injured myself. But I couldn’t afford to give in to the pain. I had to keep moving.
They’ll hurt Bo, I kept thinking. A silly thought. Such a ridiculous thing, but it was what I kept repeating over and over as I dragged my way to the cabin. Every step sent pain through me like the glass was going into my side all over again. And then I was at the back of the outhouse. From there I stumbled to the shed, and then to the cabin, keeping the buildings between me and the pilot. I clung to the wall, working my way around it, praying that the pilot was still asleep and wouldn’t see me.
