separated them any longer. She saw how easily he could come forward, reach in,
and grab her. She wanted to flee, but had to force aside branches and tree limbs
just to open the door. The dome light lit up the truck, and now she could see
Boyce leaning back against the thick tree that had stopped them.
He grabbed the side of the bed and tried to climb to his feet. She searched the
ground for a broken branch— anything— to use as a club, but Boyce collapsed of
his own accord, obviously injured.
Thank God.
A peculiar noise arose from the cab, and when she turned around she saw Davy
reaching under the broken chain saw and smacking the seat on the driver's side.
She couldn't see anything and didn't understand why the boy continued to do
this. His stepfather moaned, and she looked back at him. This shift in her
attention caused Davy to pound the seat even harder, as if frustrated, and then
she heard something that stunned her.
"Guuun." He repeated this tortured syllable: "Guuun." It was the first word he'd
ever spoken to her.
She saw him pointing to the floor of the cab, where he'd pulled a handgun out
from under the seat.
She looked at the gun and glanced at Boyce. He hadn't moved. She reached in and
picked up the revolver. Blood dripped from her ear, and she became aware for the
first time that it had been cut. Her ear hurt, but nothing like the pain she'd
known earlier tonight, and even now it could not compete with the throbbing in
her knee.
She held the revolver firmly as she approached the back of the pickup. She
pushed aside branches where she could, stepped over others, and slowly limped
until she was even with the rear tire. Boyce sat with his head leaning slightly
forward. He was about four feet away.
Her whole body came alive with the prospect of killing him. A true tingling
raced up and down her spine, an almost euphoric sense that permeated her
thoughts and made her oddly joyful. She wondered if all killers experienced this
feeling. Maybe, she thought, that's why they kill.
She pointed the gun right at his head. His eyes turned away, and she followed
their path. Davy was looking back at them through the broken rear window.
She realized she was on the verge of executing Boyce right in front of his
stepson. She hesitated.
Kill him anyway. Go ahead. Do it.
The impulse was strong and sudden, as clear as the sound of the truck idling.
She smelled lead fumes rising from the exhaust pipe.
Her hands shook. The weight of the gun made insistent demands on her tired arms.
She knew that if she intended to shoot him she must do it now. He looked back at
her as if in this moment he knew his doom.
"You son of a bitch," she whispered. And then she repeated herself, louder, "You
son of a bitch."
The passenger door opened against a bush and both of them saw Davy slide out of
the other side of the truck. His stepfather spoke to him in a harsh voice.
"Get over here. Now."
"No, don't," Celia said firmly. "Get back inside."
"I mean it. Get the fuck over here."
Celia knew in the primacy of that moment, in the sound of his words, that Boyce
could have no plans but to use Davy, to take him as a shield, a hostage to her
conscience. He was banking on her not shooting him, and on the boy doing what
he'd been told. Davy was indeed moving toward the back of the truck.
"Go back," Celia begged, but she knew he would obey this man as he always had
done. When Davy's steps took him within a few feet of Boyce, she steadied the
gun, aimed right at his head, and pulled the trigger. In the horror before the
blast she heard the metallic sound that gun lovers treasure: the hammer cranking
back to the point of no return.
But there was no explosion, no smoke, and no skull splitting wide; and she
sickened when she learned the truth: the gun was not loaded.
Boyce started to crawl toward her.
It's over. It's over. Her own petrified thoughts defeated her more than Boyce.
The hand that now held the gun turned weak and shook almost uncontrollably. When
she squeezed the trigger again it was the last vestige of survival at work, the
instinct that wins out against all others, that twitches after thought gives way
to fear, and hope to its own dismissal.
The metal resounded hollowly, and he started to laugh. His amusement grew louder
and more grotesque.
She saw him drawing closer and prayed for a bullet as she squeezed again and
again.
Clack, clack, the empty chamber sounded until her finger went soft against the
trigger. A flickering silence followed, an inexplicable time lag before the
discharge. The shot was so loud— so sudden— and so unexpected that it tore
through her not with hope, but with the fear that in her despair she'd let the
gun settle on herself, on the boy, on anything but her target.
But it did not matter where Celia's gun pointed because it was the boy's weapon
that had spoken. He stood there holding it straight out with both hands, a
stance he might have borrowed from television, the movies, or even from his
stepfather. Smoke rose from the barrel, and through its quickly thinning pale
Celia saw Davy squinting.
Boyce's body collapsed to the metal bed.
"Pow-pow, you're dead," the boy whispered in the hush that followed.
64
Celia nervously placed the tips of her fingers on Boyce's neck. His skin felt
bumpy and filthy, and she pulled her hand away before checking his pulse. The
bullet had killed him. She had no doubts. His open eyes stared lifelessly at the
treetops, and a stillness blanketed his body. She did not need to touch him to
know he was dead. And this time she was right.
Davy's arm hung by his side, the pistol pointing downward. He was an elective
mute who had struggled to speak, a victim and a witness who had used a gun to
pronounce a strict and final sentence.
He'd been scared, and Celia thought he'd probably taken his cue from all the
charming killers who stalked the screen, and all the real ones who stalked the
land. She looked at him. He's just a kid. A kid with a gun. She reached across
his stepfather's body and took it from him. The handle felt warm. She laid it on
the bed of the truck and put hers aside as well. She hugged him and began to
cry, and as the tears streamed down her face she felt his arms encircle her
back, as though to comfort her.
She grieved for Davy then, for a boy who had survived the worst the world could
offer. Freed from his stepfather, yes, but all alone now. A killer too, a kid
killer. She could see the headlines— she'd seen them before— and knew the courts
would have their way with him. This shooting would become the highlight of his
record, the sum total of who he was, and always cast a doubt— no matter how
small, no matter how unfair— on the little boy in her arms. It would make the
world wary of him, and he'd be shuffled from foster home to foster home, another
lowly deuce in this wild game of chance, a throwaway kid in a throwaway culture.
Another quiet crime against humanity.
She saw the gun lying there and decided at once to reduce his odds. She would
not make him begin his new life with such a burden.
"They don't need to know this," she said.
Davy watched her pick up the gun and wipe the handle with her torn gown until no
print could have survived. She held it in both hands and pressed her fingers
against the wood and metal until her claim to the killing was clear. Then she
laid it back down.
"I shot him, not you. Okay? That's our little secret."
He didn't say anything, and he didn't nod, but he knew about secrets and could
keep one more.
Celia took his hand. She found it warm and wonderful to hold. She had been hard
enough to survive; now she wanted to be soft enough to make it worth her while.
Slowly, painfully she led him through the branches and bushes to the cab.
"Hop in."
She edged her way along the front fender to the driver's side. The engine was
still idling, and the headlights still peered at the clear-cut. As she pulled
forward the first light of day appeared, and the stumps glimmered like ghosts.
She had to back up several times to get the truck pointed toward the forest for
their return trip. Before they got underway she stepped out of the cab, found a
dead pine bough, and knocked out most of the windshield so she could see.
They bounced as they started to roll over the trampled brush, and Celia heard a
thud as Boyce's body fell from the bed. She never slowed down but she did glance
in the rearview mirror and saw his corpse lying by a stump. The sheriff could
drag his body away. Or the coyotes.
She made it all the way back to the county road before they ran out of gas. She
and Davy walked the rest of the way home. It wasn't far, and morning had come to
the ridge.
65
The county courthouse stood just three blocks from where Celia now lived but she
drove her old Honda anyway. The weather looked rainy, and her knee still ached
if she tried to walk for more than a few minutes.
"You'll be fine in time," the orthopedist at Cascade Memorial had told her,
though she doubted his glib prognosis. Maybe her knee would heal completely, but
that was the easy part. She thought matters of her heart would remain unsettled
for years, maybe forever.
Three weeks ago she had buried Jack in a cemetery that overlooked the Bentman
River. Since his death she felt as hollow and fragile as a reed. She missed her
husband and coped as well as she could. One day at a time, right? That's what
she told herself daily.
The children at the Center had been sweet, lots of handmade cards and heartfelt
condolences. Harold Matley, the schizophrenic boy, had put his arms around her
at lunch and held her much as she had once held him. What goes around comes
around, she thought at the time. Later, in the privacy of her office, she cried
when she remembered Harold's kindness. She cried easily these days.
"Jack, Jack, Jack," she said softly as she braked at a crosswalk for an elderly
woman. Celia found herself saying his name a lot. It only made her sadder and
she knew she should stop, but couldn't. She missed him terribly. They'd had
their problems, and toward the end she'd even wondered if their marriage would
work out. She still wondered, and this was the loss she felt most keenly, the
undetermined future that would never be known, the loose ends of both their
lives.
The entire staff from the Center had come to the funeral. So had the two women
who worked in Jack's agency, Helen and Ruth. Helen had been quite emotional and
awkward with Celia. Moreover, she chose that moment to press Jack's wedding band
into her hand before turning away. That had shocked Celia. The night before the
murder Jack had said he'd left it by the copier, but she and Ruth had searched
every inch of that office. She'd wanted to bury Jack with his ring on. And here
was Helen handing it over and acting as if she were the bereaved widow. Her
behavior made Celia question if something had been going on between the two of
them; and these doubts gnawed at the memories of her marriage and stained them
with suspicion.
Before they'd left the cemetery Tony had lumbered up to say he was sorry. Celia
assumed he meant about Jack's death, but then he'd gone on to say, "I just had
no idea what we were dealing—"
She had put up her hand to stop him. "Not now, please." She didn't want to think
about Boyce any more than she had to, though she knew his horrifying presence
would haunt her forever.
Tony had mumbled an apology and walked away.
Ethan had overheard this exchange and sidled up to Celia. "I guess old Sasquatch
put his foot in his mouth. God, that must have hurt, they don't call them
Bigfoot for nothing."
A silly remark, and at times past she probably would have laughed. But not here,
not now. She let him hug her, and then she left the cemetery alone.
She returned to the Center the day after the service. She could have taken time
off but didn't want Davy to feel abandoned. She'd worked with him every day,
including weekends. Tony had agreed to this readily. She'd also started seeing a
therapist in Portland to deal with her own problems.
Last week Ethan had walked her out to her car, just like old times, and told her
that he and Holly had split up.
Celia had rested her briefcase on the hood of the Honda and looked him in the
eye. "Is it for sure this time?"
He nodded solemnly, and she placed her hand on his sleeve.
"I'm sorry to hear that, I really am."
"Thanks, but I didn't bring it up to get your sympathy."
"No, I know that, but I'm going to need some time, a lot of time. I'm just not
ready to get into anything right now."
He told her she could have all the time she wanted.
*
She'd listed their house and land with a local real estate office. The agent was
a young woman who had been uneasy with her and looked away when she ventured
that a sale would not come quickly. Celia understood: the violence, the deaths,
the now unspoken forces that had driven her from the ridge would drive away
others as well.
She told the agent to do what she could. The Griswold Agency also went up on the
block. That was about the same time the shepherd burst through the door and
demanded to see Jack. Ruth positioned herself at the counter and used her
formidable presence to insist that he calm down. Then she explained that Mr.
Griswold had passed away.
"Passed away. You mean dead?"
"That's right. There was a big story in the paper about—"
"I don't get no damn paper!" He slapped the counter. "Took me a long time to