“Let’s go.”
Leni went to her mother, placed a hand on her thin wrist, felt how she was trembling. “Come on, Mama,” Leni said evenly.
They walked to the cabin door. Leni couldn’t help stopping, turning back just for a second to stare at the cabin’s warm, cozy interior. For all the pain and heartache and fear, this was the only real home she’d ever known.
She hoped she would never see it again. How sad that her hope felt like loss.
In the truck, seated between her parents on the ragged bench seat, Leni could sense her mother’s fear; it gave off a sour smell. Leni wanted to reassure her, say it would be okay, that they’d escape and move to Anchorage and everything would be fine, but she just sat there, breathing shallowly, holding on, hoping that when the time came to run they would make their feet move.
Dad started up the truck and drove out to the gate.
There he stopped, got out, left his door open, and went to the gate, grabbing the lock. He removed the key from around his neck and fit it into the lock, giving it a hard turn.
“This is it,” Leni said to her mother. “In town, we are going to run. The ferry docks in forty minutes. We’ll find a way to be on it.”
“It won’t work. He’ll catch us.”
“Then we’ll go to Large Marge. She’ll help us.”
“You’d risk her life, too?”
The huge metal lock clanked open. Dad pushed the gate open, over the bumpy muskeg, until the main road was visible again.
“We might only get one chance,” Mama said, chewing worriedly on her lower lip. “It better be the right one or we wait.”
Leni knew it was good advice, but she didn’t know if she could wait anymore. Now that she’d allowed herself to actually think about freedom, the idea of returning to captivity seemed impossible. “We can’t wait, Mama. The leaves are falling. Winter could come early this year.”
Dad climbed into the cab and shut the door. They drove forward. When they’d passed through the gate, Leni twisted around in her seat, stared through the guns in the gun rack. Words in black had been spray-painted across the newly cut wood.
STAY OUT. NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATERS WILL BE SHOT.
She made a mental note of the fact that he hadn’t closed the gate behind them. They turned onto the main road and rumbled past the arch at the entrance to Walker land, past Marge Birdsall’s driveway.
Just past the airstrip, new gravel had been laid down, crunching beneath their tires. Up ahead was the newly painted wooden bridge, where a few people dressed in colorful rain jackets stood at the rail, staring down at the river, pointing at the bright red salmon swimming through the clear water, on their way to spawn and die.
Dad rolled down his window, yelled, “Go back to California,” as they rumbled past, spitting black smoke at them.
In town, a barricade ran down the middle of Main Street—a collection of sawhorses and white buckets and orange cones kept tourists away from the backhoe that was digging a trench in front of the diner. Behind it, running the length of the street, was a yawning scar of cut-up earth, with dirt piled alongside.
Dad stomped on the brake so hard the old truck came to a skidding stop in the tall grass on the side of the road. From here, they could see the backhoe operator: Tom Walker.
Dad wrenched the truck into park and shut off the engine. Slamming his body into the reluctant door, he jumped out of the truck and slammed the door shut behind him. Just as Leni said, “Stay with me, Mama, hold my hand,” Dad appeared at the passenger door, opened it, and grabbed Mama’s wrist and pulled her out of the truck.
Mama looked back, wild-eyed, Go, she mouthed. Dad yanked on Mama’s wrist, made her stumble forward to keep up with him.
“Shit,” Leni said.
She saw her parents making their way through the few tourists that were here on this bright late August day, her dad elbowing his way harder than he needed to, pushing people aside.
Leni couldn’t help herself; she sidled out of the truck and followed them. Maybe there was still a way to get Mama away from him. They didn’t need long, just enough time to disappear. Hell, they’d steal a boat if they had to. Maybe this was the distraction they needed.
“Walker!” Dad shouted.
Mr. Walker shut the backhoe down and pushed the trucker’s cap back from his sweaty forehead. “Ernt Allbright,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“Digging a trench.”
“Why?”
“Electricity for town. I’m putting in a generator.”
“What?”
Mr. Walker said it again, pronouncing e-lec-tricity with care, as if speaking to someone who barely understood English.
“What if we don’t want electricity in Kaneq?”
“I bought easements from every business in town, Ernt. Paid cash money,” Mr. Walker said. “From people who want lights and refrigerators and heat in the winter. Oh, and streetlamps. Won’t that be great?”
“I won’t let you.”
“What are you going to do? Spray-paint again? I wouldn’t recommend it. I won’t be so forgiving a second time.”
Leni came up behind Mama, grabbed her sleeve, tried to pull her away while Dad was fixated on something else.
“Leni!”
Matthew’s voice rang out. He was standing in front of the saloon, holding a big cardboard box.
“Help us,” she screamed.
Dad grabbed Leni by the bicep and pulled her against him. “You think you need help? What for?”
She shook her head, croaked, “Nothing. I didn’t mean it.” She glanced at Matthew, who had put down the box and was coming toward them, stepping down from the boardwalk.
“You’d better tell that boy to stop walking, or so help me God…” Dad put a hand on the knife at his waist.
“I’m fine,” she yelled to Matthew, but she could see that he didn’t believe her. He saw that she was crying. “S-stay there. Tell your dad we’re okay.”
Matthew said her name. She saw it form on his lips, but couldn’t hear it.
Dad tightened his grip on Leni’s upper arm until it felt like pliers clamping down. He guided Leni and Mama back to the truck, shoved them inside, slammed the door shut behind them.
It took less than two minutes: all of it. The arrival in town, the scene, the shouted plea to help us, and the return to the truck.
All the way home, Dad muttered under his breath. The only words she got were liar and Walker.
Mama held Leni’s hand as they bounced over the rutted road and turned onto their land. Leni tried to think of a way to calm her dad down. What had made her cry out like that? She knew better than to ask for help.
Love and fear.
The most destructive forces on earth. Fear had turned her inside out, love had made her stupid.
Dad drove through the open gate, still muttering to himself. Leni thought: When he gets out to close the gate, I’ll grab the wheel and put the truck in reverse and stomp on the gas, but he left the gate open behind him.
Open. They could run in the middle of the night …
In the clearing, he threw the gearshift into park and killed the engine, then grabbed Leni and pulled her across the grass and up the steps and across the deck. He shoved her into the cabin so hard she stumbled and fell.
Mama came up behind him, moving cautiously, her face studiously calm. How she could pull that off, Leni didn’t know. “Ernt, you’re overreacting. Please. Let’s talk about this.” She laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you think you need help, Cora?” he said in a strangely taut voice.
“She’s young. She didn’t mean anything by it.”
Leni saw the violence of his breathing, the way his fingers spasmed. He was on the balls of his feet, energy pouring out of him, anger transforming him. “You’re lying to me,” he said.
Mama shook her head. “No. I’m not. I don’t even know what you mean.”
“It’s always the Walkers,” he muttered.