“Fuck no,” he snaps, straightening his shoulders as he starts to march across the snow. I keep the beam of the flashlight just ahead of his feet, keeping pace behind him, letting him slow when the denser snow at the base of the trees makes the path more difficult.
He glances back at me a few times, but once we’re under the trees I know he can’t see a thing. All he can see is what the flashlight touches, occasionally getting glimpses of more when the moonlight peeks through.
We’ve been walking for about ten minutes when he pauses, and I shine the light into his face. Richter flinches, waving his hand at it, and I move it down to his chest so I can still see his angry expression. “Okay, Bryden, what are we doing out here?”
“Men’s work,” I answer, and he huffs.
“Bullshit.”
So. Damn. Disrespectful.
“Richter… I know you never spent time down there,” I begin, ignoring his comment as I flick off the flashlight so we’re swathed in darkness. His breath hitches, and I smile as I continue. “But the oubliette is dark like this. When the lid is shut. Night or day… doesn’t really matter. And right now, out here, you can at least smell the fresh air, the crispness. You can feel the open space around you even though you can’t see it. Down there? This time of year, it’s just cold. Bone-deep cold because the ground tries to leach the warmth out of you, and you can’t stretch out because there isn’t enough room. It’s just you and the dark and the cold.”
“He put you in there a lot?” he asks, but this time there’s no superiority, no cocky tone.
“When I disappointed him.” It’s the only answer he’s going to get. The boy thinks he was raised by Luke, but the man that raised me wouldn’t have been so soft. I doubt he even had to thank Luke on his knees for dinner. Flicking on the flashlight again, I angle it ahead of us. “Let’s keep going.”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there, but you’re just wasting time.” Looking up at the sky, I wait, showing him the power of patience once again, and eventually he mutters curses and continues on the path I light for him.
Another ten minutes pass, broken only by Richter cursing through harsher breaths, and I wonder if he’s done any manual labor at all. Did Luke never make him weed the yard on hands and knees? Haul logs across the yard? What’s he been doing alone all these years?
The thick trees finally break, and the moonlight is strong enough on the snow for Richter to see, so I turn the flashlight off to conserve the battery in the cold.
“What is this, Bryden?” he asks, and I can tell he’s nervous.
“You’re going to help us get a head start on that chicken coop Xoe wants.”
“What! How?”
“You’re going to chop down a couple of trees, cut the branches away, and separate them into more manageable logs.” Swinging the axe off my shoulder, I hold it at my side and his eyes follow it. “Do you know how to chop down a tree, Richter?”
“You realize you can just buy wood, right?”
I chuckle, rolling the axe handle in my fingers. “We don’t have the money for that, Richter. And why would I waste what I do have on that when there’s plenty of wood right here?”
“You expect me to just chop down a tree?” he asks, a slight laugh in his voice, but it stops when I nod.
“I do. You want to be treated like a man, then you need to contribute like a man. Earn it.” Pointing at the trees along one edge of the clearing, I show him where Casey and I have cleared trees in the past. “You’ll want to stick to the edges. Look for a tree that the wind may have already angled toward the clearing, makes it easier to fell it the right direction.”
“You’re kidding right?” he asks, staring at me, and I let my grin stretch again.
“Want to change your choice, Richter?”
“No,” he says quickly, turning back to the trees.
“All right then… listen up.” I walk him along the tree line, using the flashlight sparingly to show him a few options, and then I explain the cuts. “Make the first notch on the side you want it to fall on, creating a triangle with a flat side on the bottom, and a cut-out at about a forty-five-degree angle. After that, switch to the opposite side of the tree, about a foot above your first cut, and you want to mimic the same cut. Alternate with flat and downswings. Got it?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Good,” I reply with a smile. “Which tree do you want to start with?”
“I don’t know. That one?” He points at one I’d suggested, and I walk over to it, hefting the axe.
“Hold it like this, and—” I pull it back and swing, embedding the axe head in the tree with a flat cut. Then I repeat with the downswing, carving out the first chunk of tree. “Just keep going until it’s about a third of the way through on this side. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
Richter holds out his hand for the axe and I give it to him. There’s a moment when he contemplates using it on me. I can see it in the side-glance, the shift of the axe head as he tests the weight of it, but I’m not concerned. If he wants to try it, he can, but I’ll have to put him in the ground.
That will be too far even for my patience with my long-lost brother.
He lines up with the tree and swings the axe, scraping the tree when he doesn’t land it fully.
“That’s fine. Try again.”
“I’ve got it!” Richter snaps, lining up again, and this time he hits the tree, the axe just doesn’t go in very far.
I find one of the stumps, dust off the snow, and sit
