He’d left Bo in the care of Uncle Rick, though care was a term Shelton applied loosely. What Uncle Rick did was come by the farmhouse every now and again, whenever he remembered, and set out some food in a bowl. But he did not take Old Bo out to play, or cuddle with him on the couch and watch football. He did not pet him or scratch behind his ears or tell him that he loved him.
Shelton thought Old Bo might sleep in the living room in protest upon his return from prison, or stalk around the house, punishing him with whimpers and plaintive barks. Shelton wouldn’t have blamed Bo if he was vindictive and withholding—Shelton deserved all that and worse—but instead he had come bounding off the porch the second Shelton’s tires hit the gravel drive.
Shelton gave the horn three taps, his customary greeting, and Old Bo ran headlong for the Silverado. Old Bo was so excited he ran himself in circles. He jumped and yapped, then ran more circles. He couldn’t help it, he was so happy Shelton had finally come home. Imagine that, to be loved so much you turned a friend in actual circles?
Shelton was parked out front of the house now, and for a moment he believed if he wished it hard enough Old Bo would come running through the door one more time. But, of course, Old Bo did not come running.
Shelton was alone. His heart was heavy and swollen with longing and he reached for his tank of nitrous. He did a balloon and then another. He drank some whiskey, gulped it, then reached for another balloon. He did that balloon and then another.
Oddly, the balloons had begun to bother Shelton. It was their celebratory nature, their brightness and whimsy, which he feared had become an insult to Old Bo. The balloons had begun to belie the legitimacy of his grief and finally he just mouthed the nozzle of the nitrous tank and released the valve. Sssssssssssss.
He felt the gas hit the back of his throat and explode out his ears and then the brightness opened in his brain like a just-birthed star unfolding.
When Shelton came to, Bob Seger was on the radio singing about being a ramblin’, gamblin’ man. Bob Seger was born lonely, down by the riverside, where he learned to spin fortune wheels and throw dice.
Shelton understood that he had been unconscious for only a few moments, but that time itself was not definite or linear and that each of those moments held eternities inside their soft, malleable edges and that he had fallen through them somehow and briefly touched forever. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.
He sat up slowly. Goddamn, he was cold. And where the hell was he? His head hurt, but that wasn’t all that unusual and did not concern him as much as the cold. He was sitting inside his truck and he could feel the heat pouring from the vents, yet he was frozen solid. He was shaking like a baby chick. What in the world?
He noticed he was at the farmhouse, and a moment later remembered it was where he lived. But why was it so goddamn cold in the truck?
He reached out with his hand and felt the glassless air in front of him and then recalled the buck and how he’d killed him. Then he remembered that Arrow was dead and that Jenna was gone and that Kayla was inside, hopefully unconscious. He remembered something about Wolfdog taking the baby and how gentle Bo was dead and Shelton had left his carcass in a room to rot.
All these thoughts came to Shelton in a rush and carried with them the initial shock of discovery. It turned out the nitrous had taken him all the way under. He’d uncorked the gas and followed it into some deep, dark cave at the base of his primordial brain, a cool room with stone walls where he’d felt a vast blackness and empty peace, only to come back up and reexperience the horror of each tragic event as it arose in his waking mind. The sadness stunned him and came over him in waves. And then came the regret and the guilt. And finally, the anger. On the radio, Bob Seger had come to the part where the black girls sing. They went, Ramblin’, gamblin’ man.
Shelton stepped out of the truck and his vision was blurred and the hardwoods seemed to spin around him as he walked toward the farmhouse with the shotgun. His steps were heavy and labored in the deep drifts and he could hear his heart beat inside his ears like thunderclaps. He thought maybe he should have taken it easier on the anesthesia.
He was winded by the time he came up the front steps and stopped to lean against the porch rail. His head was throbbing. He wondered if he got worse headaches on account of how big his head was. It stood to reason that he would.
He walked in through the front door and there was Clemens, standing in the kitchen. The funny thing was, Clemens had his hands in Shelton’s secret drawer. The drawer where he kept his prerolled joints and the Glock he’d just pitched into the storm. The same drawer where he stuffed his extra cash when he had the good fortune to possess some.