Boy in the Box

its paw caught in a spring trap. The use of spring traps was illegal but the coyotes had been running rampant throughout the area and some people just hated them. The animal was thin, shaking, its fur falling off in spots from mange, and it raised such a terrible, high-pitched noise in the early-morning darkness that Conner recalled old Irish tales of banshees floating through the trees wailing their death-cries. He saw it there, pulling and pulling against the trap and then, leaning its sharp, thin head down and gnawing at the joint of its trapped paw. It was bloody and worn through and the coyote bit down harder, chewing through the bone. He watched it there for a while, the creature’s head pulling back and forth at its own front leg. Conner finally took out his handgun, aimed from a short distance and put a bullet in its head.

Conner thought about that coyote now. Man was an animal, he figured, so that strength to survive coursed through his veins as well.

And now there was the business of Coombs’ Gulch. An accident for which there was no insurance, something that couldn’t be guarded against with money or an algorithm or a plan. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. The final quarter reports would be coming due soon and they were all bad. This trip – trying to keep the lid on something that would ruin him, ruin his family and everything he knew – was smack dab in the middle of his executive downturn. But there was no choice in the matter. History had a way of holding on with long tentacles. Gene’s death had garnered him a little sympathy from the bosses and, more importantly, an excuse for them to make their way up into the mountains and finally put an end to this thing hanging over their heads. He was sure of his plan. That lake, deep in the mountains, would keep the secret forever. He knew it would be a tough hike, possibly even dangerous, but it was worth it. He wasn’t going to give up. He would push himself beyond his limits to see it through.

The plan, in itself, was an insurance policy, insurance that he would never have to admit to his wife and children and the world what they had done, how he had been so callous and uncaring as to put a dead innocent in the ground and hide the fact. He had long ago worked past the guilt of what happened. The fact that no one ever came forward looking for a lost boy made it easier, made it seem more like a bad dream than anything else, and he pushed it to the back of his subconscious. The others had not been as willing or able to bury it deep enough or rationalize it enough to get on with their lives. Everyone asked why Gene did it. Why he took his own life when he seemed like such a great guy, full of life, and all that other shit people said when mourning a premature death. Conner remembered the night he and Michael sat down with Gene and told him the plan. The look that came over that giant oaf’s eyes, as if he were staring into an abyss. Conner should have known right then that Gene wouldn’t make it. Two days later came news of his death, but, really, he had died the night he was confronted with returning to Coombs’ Gulch. Gene had opted for jumping into that abyss rather than returning to the Gulch.

Conner, Michael and Jonathan understood the necessity of dealing with the issue, of moving the box, of following Conner’s insurance plan. Michael was strong. Michael dealt strictly with the problems facing him at the time. A past decision, even a wrong one, was quickly put out of his mind. He was not one to doubt himself or to look much further than the small malfunctioning parts of the vast machine before him. He didn’t deal with the guilt and sadness and regret; he dealt with the functionality of it. It was what made him a good engineer.

Jonathan, on the other hand, was a mess. Conner wondered how long it would take before he took Gene’s way out. Mary called Madison some nights, crying into the phone, wondering what was wrong with him, why he’d taken to drinking so much and cutting himself off from the rest of the world. Jonathan was down a dark hole. Conner felt bad to an extent, but at some point you have to get a hold of yourself, no use wallowing in the past, particularly wallowing in Coombs’ Gulch. There was also the possibility Jonathan would do something stupid and tell someone else what happened. Conner had always worried most about Gene, but as far as he knew, that fat mess had kept a lid on things. Jonathan’s downward spiral somehow seemed more pure in its depression and sadness. He had known Jonathan all his life. They all felt what’d happened that night, but it seemed to weigh on Jonathan worst of all.

Walking back into that place would make it real again. Conner had been mentally preparing himself for that, but he was worried about Jonathan losing his mind out there. Conner and Michael were strong, bound by the chain of their brotherhood. He knew Michael better than Michael knew himself. But Jonathan was different. There was always a distance between them, but now it was amplified. Jonathan was burying himself with that boy out there in Coombs’ Gulch. He couldn’t keep it together and was on the verge of losing his family. The guy just looked pathetic when Conner saw him at the Halloween parade; he looked sick, his skin sallow, eyes dark and sunken into his skull. For all intents and purposes, he looked like one of those former heroin addicts whose bodies never recover, who appear on the verge of death permanently. He wondered if