In the light that spilled out of the Jeep, he saw the eighth member of the party crouched down against the right front wheel, tears streaming down his face, the long barrel of a large-caliber revolver jammed between his teeth. He wore a fleece vest and a cowboy hat, a patchy blond beard struggling to cover an acne-ruined face.
When he saw Jack, he pulled the gun out of his mouth.
“I can’t do it,” the man said. He offered Jack the gun. “Please.”
“What?”
“Kill me.”
Jack was still gasping for air, his legs burning. He reached forward, slowly, as if sudden movement might cause the young man to rethink his offer, then snatched the revolver out of his hand.
The man said, “Where are you going?” as Jack walked around the open door and looked into the Jeep.
“Oh God, baby.”
The driver seat had been reclined and his wife lay stretched back on it, unmoving, her eyes closed, blood still running out of her leg.
“Dee.”
He glanced down at her right leg, saw where the shirt he’d tied around her thigh had been severed.
He set the gun in the floorboard and reached in, taking up both ends of the bloody shirt sleeve and cinching it down even harder than before, until the blood stopped flowing.
“Dee.” He touched her face. “Dee, wake up.”
Outside, the man was crying, begging for Jack to end him.
Jack moved outside and around the door.
“Which of those trucks is yours?” he asked.
“Oh my God,” the man cried. “Oh my God. My daughter. I—”
Jack held the revolver to the man’s knee. “Look at me.”
The man looked up at him.
“My wife needs medical attention. Do you have keys to any of these trucks?”
The man pointed beyond the Jeep. “The Chevy. Here.” He dug a pair of keys out of his jeans, handed them to Jack.
“What happened?” the man said.
“What are you talking about?”
“To me.”
“I have no f**king idea.”
“You have to kill me. I can’t stand knowing what I—”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“Please—”
“But I will take your mind off it.”
Jack pulled the trigger and the man screamed, clutching his knee. Jack stood and walked around the car door. He shoved the revolver down the back of his jeans, leaned in, lifted his wife out of the pool of blood.
He was drenched in sweat, his legs trembling with exhaustion. Stumbled away from the Jeep with Dee in his arms and the young man pleading to die. It was all he could do to carry her those fifty feet to the pickup truck.
It was a pristine 1966 Chevy.
Powder blue.
He opened the passenger door and laid Dee across the vinyl, then limped around and hauled himself up into the cab.
The third key he tried started the engine.
He hit the lights, shifted into gear, floored the accelerator.
They raced across the prairie. He held her hand which was growing cold, saying her name over and over, an incantation. He had no idea if she even had a pulse, and still promising things he had no business promising—that they were almost over the border, almost to safety, where a city of tents awaited them, a refuge crawling with doctors who could fix her. She’d lost a lot of blood, but she was strong, had made it this far, she could surely hang on just a little farther, live to see the end of this and whatever new life they made, live to forget the worst of this, to see Na and Cole forget the worst of this, see her children grow up strong and happy, because they had so many more years the four of them, so many experiences to share that didn’t involve running and death and fear, and please God darling, if any part of you can hear me, don’t let this be the end.
* * * * *
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.
Revelations
* * * * *
THE team disbands as the light begins to fail. But she lingers in the pit, gently brushing the dirt from the ribcage of a skeleton she’s just uncovered in the last hour, lost in her work. The distant hum of an airplane breaks her concentration, and she looks up into the sky—easy to see the twin-engine turboprop catching sunlight on its descent.
She climbs out of the pit and walks over to the showers. Pulls the curtain. Strips out of her boots, elbow-length rubber gloves, her clothes, and stands under the heavy spray of water, letting it pound away the reek of decomp.
In fresh, clean clothes, she starts across the field.
The airplane is parked in the distance, the cabin door beginning to open.
She breaks into a run.
The old man comes down the stairs of the plane already smiling, must have seen her as they taxied up. Drops his bag as she runs into his arms, and they embrace for the first time in six months on the broken pavement of the runway.
“My angel,” he whispers. “My angel.”
When they come apart, she stares up at him, thinking, God, was his hair this white last Christmas? But he isn’t looking at her. He’s staring across the field, an intensity coalescing in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Daddy?”
He can barely speak, eyes shimmering with tears, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“This is the place.”
They cross the field, moving toward the pit.
“They pulled the trucks up to here,” he says. “A half dozen tractor trailers. There were tents set up over there,” he points, “right about where yours are. They told us there was hot food and beds waiting.” He stops. “Is that smell. . .?”
“Yeah.”
“Right about this time of day, too. Dusk. A beautiful sunset.” He continues walking, the stench growing worse with every step, until they stand at the edge of the grave.
She watches his face. He’s somewhere else—nineteen years in the past.
“They lined us up right here,” he says. “They’d already dug the grave.”
“How many people do you think?”
“Maybe two hundred of us.” He closes his eyes, and she wonders what he sees, what he hears.
“Do you remember where you stood?”
He shakes his head. “I just remember the sounds and what the sky looked like, staring up at it through the bodies that had fallen on top of me.”
“Did they use chainsaws?”
He looks down at her, startled by the question.
“Yeah. How did you—”
“We were curious about how some of the bones had been bisected.”