The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Fear,” says the boy, taking a step backwards. “Disappointment.”

I turn away. “I ain’t listening to this.”

“Listening, Todd?” Manchee barks. “Viola, Todd. This way.”

I lean back again against the tree. I’ve got to think. I’ve got to ruddy think.

“We can’t approach,” I say, my voice thick. “He’ll hear us coming.”

“He’ll kill her if he hears us,” says the boy.

“Ain’t talking to you.” I cough up more gunk, which makes my head spin, which makes me cough more. “Talking to my dog,” I finally choke out.

“Manchee,” Manchee says, licking my hand.

“And I can’t kill him,” I say.

“You can’t kill him,” says the boy.

“Even if I want to.”

“Even if he deserves it.”

“And so there has to be another way.”

“If she’s not too scared to see you.”

I look at him again. Still there, still book and knife and rucksack.

“You need to leave,” I say. “You need to go away from me and never come back.”

“Yer probably too late to save her.”

“Yer of no use to me at all,” I say, raising my voice.

“But I’m a killer,” he says and the knife has blood on it.

I close my eyes and grit my teeth. “You stay behind,” I say. “You stay behind.”

“Manchee?” Manchee barks.

I open my eyes. The boy isn’t there. “Not you, Manchee,” I say, reaching out and rubbing his ears.

Then I regard him, Manchee. “Not you,” I say again.

And I’m thinking. In the clouds and the swirls and the shimmers and the lights and the ache and the buzz and the shaking and the coughing, I’m thinking.

And I’m thinking.

I rub the ears of my dog, my stupid goddam ruddy great dog that I never wanted but who hung around anyway and who followed me thru the swamp and who bit Aaron when he was trying to choke me and who found Viola when she was lost and who’s licking my hand with his little pink tongue and whose eye is still mostly squinted shut from where Mr Prentiss Jr kicked him and whose tail is way way shorter from when Matthew Lyle cut it off when my dog — my dog — went after a man with a machete to save me and who’s right there when I need pulling back from the darkness I fall into and who tells me who I am whenever I forget.

“Todd,” he murmurs, rubbing his face into my hand and thumping his back leg against the ground.

“I got an idea,” I say.

“What if it don’t work?” says the boy from behind the tree.

I ignore him and I pick up the binos again. Shaking still, I find Aaron’s campsite one more time and look at the area around it. They’re near the river’s edge and there’s a forked tree just this side of them along the riverbank, bleached and leafless, like it maybe once got struck by lightning.

It’ll do.

I put down the binos and take Manchee’s head in both hands. “We’re gonna save her,” I say, right to my dog. “Both of us.”

“Save her, Todd,” he barks, wagging his little stump.

“It won’t work,” says the boy, still outta sight.

“Then you should stay behind,” I say to the air, riding thru a cough while I send pictures of Noise to my dog to tell him what he needs to do. “It’s simple, Manchee. Run and run.”

“Run and run!” he barks.

“Good boy.” I rub his ears again. “Good boy.”

I pull myself to my feet and half-walk, half-slide, half-stumble my way back down the little bluff into the burnt-out settlement. There’s a thump in my head now, like I can hear my poisoned blood pumping, and everything in the world throbs with it. If I squeeze my eyes nearly shut, the swirling lights ain’t so bad and everything sort of stays in its place.

The first thing I need is a stick. Manchee and I tear thru the burnt-out buildings, looking for one the right size. Pretty much everything is black and crumbly but that suits me fine.

“Thith one, Thawd?” Manchee says, using his mouth to pull one about half the length of himself out from under what looks like a burnt-up pile of stacked chairs. What happened in this place?

“Perfect.” I take it from him.

“This won’t work,” the boy says, hiding in a dark corner. I can see the glint of the knife in one of his hands. “You won’t save her.”

“I will.” I break off some larger splinters from the stick. Only one end is blackened charcoal but that’s exactly what I want. “Can you carry this?” I say to Manchee, holding it out.

He takes it in his mouth, tosses it a little to get it comfortable, but then it rests just fine. “Yeth!” he barks.

“Great.” I stand up straight and nearly fall over. “Now we need a fire.”

“You can’t make a fire,” the boy says, already outside waiting for us. “Her fire-making box is broken.”

“You don’t know nothing,” I say, not looking at him. “Ben taught me.”

“Ben’s dead,” says the boy.

“Early one mor-r-ning,” I sing, loud and clear, making the whirly shapes of the world go spangly and weird, but I keep on singing. “Just as the sun was ri-i-sing.”

“Yer not strong enough to make a fire.”

“I heard a maiden call from the val-l-ley below.” I find a long, flat piece of wood and use the knife to carve a little hollow in it. “Oh, don’t dece-e-ive me.” I carve a rounded end to another smaller stick. “Oh, never le-e-ave me.” “How could you use a poor maiden so?” the boy finishes.

I ignore him. I put the rounded end of the stick into the little hollow and start spinning it twixt my hands, pressing hard into the wood. The rhythm of it matches the thumping in my head and I start to see me in the woods with Ben, him and me racing to see who could get the first smoke. He always won and half the time I could never get any sorta fire at all. But those were times.

Those were times.

“C’mon,” I say to myself. I’m sweating and coughing and woozy but I’m making my hands keep on spinning. Manchee’s barking at the wood to try and help it along.

And then a little finger of smoke rises from the hollow.

“Ha!” I cry out. I protect it from the wind with my hand and blow on it to make it catch. I use some dried moss as kindling and when the first little flame shoots out it’s as near as I’ve come to joy since I don’t know when. I throw some small sticks on it, wait for them to catch, too, then some larger ones, and pretty soon there’s a real fire burning in front of me. A real one.

I leave it to burn for a minute. I’m counting on us being downwind to keep the smoke from Aaron.

And I’m counting on that wind for other reasons, too.

I lurch my way towards the riverbank, using tree trunks to keep me upright, till I make it to the dock. “C’mon, c’mon,” I say under my breath as I steady myself to walk down it. It creaks under my feet and once I nearly pitch over into the river but I do finally make it to the boat still tied there.

“It’ll sink,” says the boy, standing knee-high in the river.

I hop in the little boat and after a lot of wobbling and coughing, I stand up in it. It’s rickety and narrow and warping.

But it floats.

“You don’t know how to steer a boat.”