Then came the things we did that I prefer to keep hidden, buried in the depths of my memory, far from reach and consciousness. That’s understandable, I think. The way I see it, survival’s often a shameful act, maybe necessarily so, but I guess the point is that at least you’re around to feel bad about it.
It turned out Archie had beaten the Preacher’s brother senseless, but he was alive and we didn’t take any chances. Avery worked to unthread the belt from the man’s pants and the laces from his shoes, and we tied his hands together, his feet, too, before using the clothesline to hog-tie his limp body to a nearby tree, securing him as tight as we could.
Then we set about the terrible job of wrapping Mr. Howe and Dunc in one of those blankets Maggie had sat on by the stream the day prior. No one wanted to linger on this, on the tragedy that had been made of their bodies, but we didn’t want to forget them, either, and we couldn’t just leave them on the ground. They were a part of us, and there were people who loved them. It was up to us to remember that. To contain what was left in any way possible. Shelby started to cry at this point. Archie did, as well—these big drunk-heaving-sniveling-type sobs that got me worried he might really be lost to us. But he held it together. Enough.
Next we had to deal with the Preacher’s body. My assumption was that Archie would be foaming at the mouth to impale his head on a stake, but to my surprise, he said nothing, just nodded grimly and waved me off when I suggested dragging both the Preacher and his dead girlfriend into the woods and leaving them in a spot where others could find them.
When I bent to pick up the Preacher by his shoulders, however, I noticed something strange. My understanding was he’d been shot with his own rifle while fighting with Archie. Only from what I could tell, the bullet had entered through the back of the Preacher’s skull. I showed this to Clay, tried to explain why that didn’t make sense, but his face went white and he ended up walking away. After a moment, I saw him puking in the bushes and Shelby rubbing his back, so I called Archie over and showed him.
“Well, who the hell shot him?” he asked.
“I thought you shot him.”
“Nope. He was alive when I left him to beat the shit out of that other guy.”
“You mean his brother.”
“Whatever.” Archie leaned closer, inspecting the bullet hole. “So then who did it?”
“I don’t know.” I whirled around, remembering the moment when I’d seen Maggie bolting for the woods. It was possible she’d done it: shot the Preacher in cold blood.
Then fled.
Together we dragged the Preacher’s and Fleur’s bodies deep into the forest, far from the campsite. Archie retrieved his own handgun from the waistband of the Preacher’s jeans, which I hadn’t known was in there. Then, without ceremony, we rolled them down a gully in a dry pile of leaves and tree litter and left them there. And maybe I should’ve felt a twinge of sadness at more lives lost or the knowledge that they’d been lovers and he’d grieved her death. But no, there was no sentiment in me for those two. Only anger. A red, red rage.
By the time we returned, it was close to sunrise and the pain set in. Not just Rose’s suffering—her grace was quickly eroding—but all of ours. Everyone except Archie gathered around the fire and we all held hands. Avery recited the Lord’s Prayer—for Dunc, for Mr. Howe, for all of us. There were tears on her face as she whispered the words in Spanish first. Then she said them a second time in English, and Clay lost it when she got to “deliver us from evil.” Soon everyone was crying, except me, of course, and even though I held their hands and stood by their sides, I longed for them to know how deeply I cared and how wounded I felt, too, even if I couldn’t show it.
Avery’s soft words stirred up such crushing sorrow, laying bare both the truth of loss and the inevitable pain of living, that even the wind responded in kind, gusting through the trees with a brutal snap and roar. I tipped back my head to gaze at the night sky, to search for a sign, or at least the two planets Mr. Howe had said would be visible. Venus and Jupiter, in all their late-summer glow. I searched and searched. I had to see them, to know the world he’d loved was still out there. To know that everything hadn’t changed and that ultimately we weren’t alone in this.
But I couldn’t find them, those planets among the stars.
At least, not that I could tell.
29.
NIGHT INCHED TOWARD dawn. Archie brooded far from the rest of us with the Preacher’s rifle laid across his lap. His own gun, he’d returned to his backpack, which sat at his feet. Driven to know where all weapons were at all times, I went and found the second rifle, the Preacher’s brother’s, which lay in the dirt where I’d left it by the woodpile. Dropping to one knee, I held the barrel skyward while I ejected the magazine and emptied the loaded round from the chamber. Then I secured the whole thing high off the ground, in the branches of a tree, and that was the only thing I’d ever been grateful to Marcus for: teaching me my way around a gun.
Clay and Avery set about righting the card table and the camping chairs, then worked to stoke the fire, sending flames leaping, while Shelby boiled water. The heat was welcome; her earlier adrenaline gone, Rose’s face had turned pale and shiny, her eyes glassy, and she shivered when I stroked her cheek. Then shivered when I didn’t.
Our roles were slipping back to what they usually were—me, the backdrop to her tender light—and it killed me to know she was in pain, real pain, that I’d failed in taking her bullet. She began to whimper, an anguished keening, and I prayed she wouldn’t ask for her brother, since for all I knew, he was lying at the bottom of a cliff or had gotten himself mauled by a bear. I tried calculating how long it would take me to get up the mountain and back so that I could retrieve the first aid kit that held my painkillers. Then I remembered Maggie’s Percocet. She’d had a whole bottle of it.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered to Rose, sliding my arms out from under her. I found my headlamp and switched it on, heading for the threadbare tent that sat downwind from the smoke.