Jonathan stood up and brushed soot and ash from his clothes. They said he had stumbled backward, tripped over the rocks lining the firepit and fell. They said he was screaming, but he didn’t recall any sound or any voice, just that vortex of darkness taking in the trees and the mountains and the face grinning ear to ear.
Bill sat beside the firepit, staring into the Gulch. They hadn’t moved the body and could barely make out his form or the pastel colors of his plaid shirt in the light from the cabin. But it was impossible not to notice him sitting there. Somehow, he was constantly in sight, whether from the corner of your eye or in the background, just over someone’s shoulder. No matter which way you turned, where you looked, there was dead, dumb Bill sitting on a bench outside in the cold. Daryl Teague had left in his pickup truck, surprisingly distraught for a man who looked more animal than human. There was no cell phone signal to call the police; none of them knew how to get the radio to connect with any receiver beside the one at Bill’s apartment, so Daryl drove off into the night and they were left babysitting a dead man.
Jonathan grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the grocery bag and took a long drink. He slammed the bottle on the table. “Fine. I’m better now. I’ll shut up. You don’t want to listen to it, that’s fine.”
Michael was shaking his head, on the verge of belting him.
“Do you remember what it felt like that night?”
“Shut up. We all remember things differently. It is what it is, and there’s no use remembering it now.”
“Do you remember the night? Do you remember what it’s like out there at night? We’re going to be out there – far out there – with no way to get back here.”
“It’s just the woods,” Michael said.
“It’s not just the woods. It’s heavier. It’s like being at the bottom of the ocean.”
“This is bullshit.”
“There are things that live there, too,” Jonathan said.
“And that’s how you explain the boy out there?” Michael was yelling now. “What did we do, fish him up from the bottom of the ocean?”
“Maybe it wasn’t the bottom,” Jonathan said. “Maybe it was just somewhere else. Or maybe it was both. It doesn’t have to make sense to us.”
“Well, thank God because you’re not making sense to me.”
“Think about it,” Jonathan said. “What is your best explanation for what he was doing out here in the middle of the night? What is your explanation for why no one ever looked for him? If he went missing in 1985, no one would be—”
“Do you have the picture? Do you have the article so we can read it?” Michael asked. Michael stood up, looming over Jonathan now, hand reaching out, asking for Jonathan’s phone. “Can we see all this research you’ve done?”
“There’s no service here.”
“Brilliant.”
“Doesn’t answer my questions.”
“It’s fucking simple – he was a lost kid with shitty parents who didn’t care, that’s it!”
Somehow that seemed infinitely worse, and suddenly, after Michael said it, the whole cabin grew as silent and lifeless as the body of its former owner. They stood face-to-face with each other in a moment of truth they couldn’t comprehend, split between two horrifying possibilities.
The cabin lights began to dim, and they could hear the generator again, sputtering, running low on gas.
“I’ll go take care of it,” Michael said and walked outside to the shed.
“He’ll cool down,” Conner said. “You know how he is.”
Conner sat down beside Jonathan, took the whiskey bottle, unscrewed the cap and took a long pull.
“I hear what you’re saying,” Conner said. “I’ve had similar thoughts. Wondered whether there might be something else going on. It always sounds insane. It has crossed my mind, but there’s another way of looking at all this.”
“And?”
“I know that we all grew apart after your wedding.”
“It wasn’t the wedding.”
“It wasn’t. But I’m sorry that happened. It was just difficult.”
“I know. I was there.”
“I wish we had been there more for Gene.”
“So do I.”
“This incident, this accident, could devastate everyone around us, people we love,” Conner said. “It would ruin Gene’s memory, send us to jail, destroy our reputations. You know all this. It’s not worth it. As much as I feel terrible about this – and I do – it’s a matter of simple calculation. What’s done is done, and no amount of regret, guilt, punishment or embarrassment to our families is going to change that, so we might as well spare them from going through hell.” Conner took a breath from his speech and seemed to collect his thoughts. His eyes changed, no longer the salesman, no longer playing for the crowd, no longer closing a deal. He looked at Jonathan the way he had when they were young.
“It’s our job to go through hell so they don’t have to. That’s what all this is,” Conner said. “Why would it ever be easy? Why would hell make sense? We were damned before the bullet left Gene’s rifle.”
Jonathan took the bottle of whiskey back and tilted it back. He looked at Conner, sitting across from him at the table, Bill’s body floating in the heavy darkness in the background.
“That’s the only honest thing I’ve heard you say in the last ten years,” Jonathan said.
Michael came back inside and sat down, and they passed the bottle back and forth until the ambulance arrived to cart Bill’s body away.
Chapter Thirteen
Dawn, deep and cold. Even in the cabin Jonathan felt the chill. Through the windows he could see the land touched with frost. The air grew light, but the forest of Coombs’ Gulch remained in shadow. He was sore and hurt from last night. A bruise darkened the side of his face. His skin sore from being pummeled in the bar fight. They scrambled a dozen eggs and fried a pound of bacon. The greasy smoke swirled in the morning light. Conner and
