“This terrain? Seven hours probably.”
“That would put us at the cabin by five,” Jonathan said. “It’ll be nearly dark by then. We need to get back before it’s dark, before it starts to snow again. We need to get there so we can get help, okay?”
Michael’s eyes lost the shine in them and suddenly seemed more familiar, as if he were coming out of a drunken haze, sobering up and recognizing the world around him.
“Just look straight ahead,” Jonathan said. “Let’s get to the field. There’s cell service there, and it will be mostly downhill once we get over the ridgeline.”
From the corner of his eye, at the farthest reaches of the trees, a lone branch bounced back and forth as if it had just caught on a piece of clothing, pulled, and let go.
They climbed again. Jonathan led Michael up the mountain. The steep incline leveled off as they approached the meadow. He could see it through breaks in the trees – a seemingly endless expanse of white with brittle and frozen brown straws reaching through the snow, bending in the open wind. The dense trees faded away, the land flattened. Jonathan pushed through the last hundred yards until he stood at the edge of the field and stared up to the top where the snow-covered meadow touched the gray sky, the way an ocean touches the horizon. For a moment he was disheartened. It looked so much farther than he remembered. He fought the urge to just lie down in the snow and let the cold overtake him quietly, silently. The field was an endless expanse of nothingness. Jonathan walked farther into the field until he was completely clear of the trees and stood for a time, listening to Michael’s footsteps behind him. The wind fell from the tops of the mountains, pushed cold against his face. The tip of his nose felt numb. The cold set deep into his bones.
He turned to look back. Michael stood among the trees staring at him, his rifle once again leveled at Jonathan’s heart.
Michael’s voice sounded dead and desperate. “You go on,” he said. “Don’t follow me.”
“No,” Jonathan said.
“I see him out there.”
Jonathan started to speak. A crack, a sudden explosion, filled the air and rung his ears. Dirt and snow jumped into the air beside Jonathan’s feet and smoke rose from the tip of Michael’s rifle. Jonathan didn’t move. “You go on,” Michael said. “You get help. Don’t follow me. He’s out there and I have to go find him. I don’t have a choice. I have to. You don’t understand.”
“I do,” Jonathan said. “But please don’t.”
“He needs me,” Michael said. Then he turned and ran back into the trees, and Jonathan was completely alone in the snow-gray field. The wind came down from the mountain again, and the stalks of straw bowed their heads.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Michael felt he had finally returned to his right mind. Conner was out there. He knew this because he saw him. They had looked at each other across a distance of trees and snow. Jonathan was the one who had lost it. He had always been the weakest among them, with a strange mind easily given over to fantasy. This was quite simple, really. Conner had fallen in the water, come ashore but was confused and lost due to nearly drowning. There was clearly something wrong. Michael had seen Conner – glimpses of him, really – as he and Jonathan hiked the mountain toward the pass. At first Michael couldn’t be sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but then, just as they reached the clearing of the meadow, Michael looked and saw his brother clear as day. He stood somewhat crooked, as if bones were broken, among the trees at the farthest range of vision. Conner stood there staring at him, mouth open like he was trying to say something, but couldn’t get the words to rise up.
Jonathan was already hiking into that desolate field, trudging his way toward the cabin, trying to ignore the truth so he could continue hiding behind lies and fantasy. Jonathan was spinning out of control – his crazed ideas about the boy they had buried, about Coombs’ Gulch and something stalking them in the forest. Things had been tragic and strange, but there was no reason to assign it some kind of supernatural quality. Michael had seen someone who looked like Gene through his scope yesterday, but that was all it was. Someone – probably another hunter – who happened to look like Gene. Gene was dead and gone. Conner was not. Conner was up and walking around, hurt and confused, and Michael had to find him.
Jonathan had grown more paranoid and insane, so the easiest thing to do was force him away, fire a shot so he knew Michael was serious, and let him go. Best case scenario: he makes it to the cabin and gets help. Worst case: he slips further into his own delusional fantasy and ends up lost or dead. Jonathan had been a friend, but Conner was Michael’s brother, and there was no real choice in the matter. Blood is thicker.
Michael looked out into the trees. Conner had been there a second ago. He was sure Conner was saying something to him, but he couldn’t make it out. A creeping sensation rolled up his spine, as if his body was revolted by this place. But it did not matter. What mattered was moving as quickly as possible, finding Conner’s tracks through the snow and getting his brother back.
Michael couldn’t help but flash back to the moment he saw Conner fall into the water and sink. At that moment it seemed everything inside him suddenly vacated his body; he was suddenly hollow and numb. That terrifying time Michael spent under the water, in the black, unsure if he would drown in the paralyzing cold, haunted him. He had reached his hand down into the deep – his lungs
