Sarah St.Vincent - Ways to Hide in Winter

I dozed off for a time, perhaps a few minutes, perhaps an hour. When I woke, everything around me was unchanged except the sky, which had cleared slightly. Somehow, that quality of light, dusky and variable even in the middle of the day, made me feel more than ever as if we were alone in the world, trapped under a glass dome.

Finally, Amos’s pole jerked down, bobbing and dancing in his hands. With a noise of satisfaction, he pushed his chair back and turned the reel with his large, rough fingers. The line, weighted with the struggling fish, cut a path through the water. I watched it creep toward us until he leaned back and pulled the fish out of the lake, bringing it swinging into the air.

It was a rainbow trout, long and silverish, with a red streak on its side. Outraged, it bent its body convulsively at the end of the line, the dim light catching on its sides. It was young, but large enough to be worth keeping.

Amos was pleased.

“Hand me the knife,” he said.

Rousing myself, I stood, holding onto the back of the lawn chair for a moment to steady myself. The green duffel bag with his fishing gear was behind us, and I loosened the ties that held it closed. Reaching into it, I felt my way past the tackle boxes and ponchos and coils of line. My fingers found the solid, heavy pocketknife at the bottom, and I grasped it, looking up.

The fish hung in the air, its tail still twitching, its soft, greenish belly glinting in the light. Its eyes were wide and shocked, its jaws stretched open. The tip of the hook pointed toward the sky, sharp and silver.

I turned my head, and the pier stretched out before me, almost surreally long, like a mirage. At the other end of it, the truck was parked at the edge of the lot, near the sand. As I looked at it, I imagined that I saw it slide backward, down the sloping asphalt. Straightening, I blinked hard at it, and the image dissipated. The truck wasn’t moving.

But, I thought with a sudden jolt of adrenaline, it could.

I bent down over the duffel bag again and dropped the knife in, shoving it deep into the bottom.

“It’s not here,” I said.

Amos looked over his shoulder. “What?”

“The knife. It’s not here.”

He scowled. The fish twitched and gasped noiselessly. “What are you talking about? Where else would it be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe in the truck.” Retying the bag with trembling fingers, I summoned the courage to add, “I think I saw it on the dash.”

“Then why didn’t you say something? What’s wrong with you?”

I looked out over the lake and didn’t answer. It took all of my self-possession not to move, not to give myself away. I was sure he would see it, the fact that I was steeling myself, my heart racing. But he didn’t.

“Go get it,” he said disgustedly, and I closed my eyes, preparing the words that came next.

I turned to face him and waited.

“Go on!” he barked. “What’s the holdup?”

“It’s locked,” I said, fighting to keep my tone indifferent, my voice steady. “I need the keys.”

“What do you mean, it’s locked?”

“It’s locked. I locked it. I’m sorry.”

He gave me a look of disbelief and contempt. “Up here? What are you, crazy?”

I bowed my head. He couldn’t see my face, couldn’t hear the pounding in my veins as it reached a crescendo, its sound filling my ears.

Reaching into his pocket, he handed me the keys. Then he turned back to the fish, sitting down and bending over, working the hook out of its mouth.

The keys shone in my palm. For the briefest of moments, I stared at the back of his head, hesitating, just like the thirteen deer I would one day count in the darkness, frozen by their fear just as they should have fled.

Then I saw it: his neck tensed, and he lifted his head. Realizing what he had done.

I ran.

My feet pounded on the boards of the pier, each step ringing through the air like a shot, one two one two one two. I heard a crash behind me as he leaped up, stumbling over his chair and shouting as it fell into the water. I was running forward, faster than I ever thought possible, my weak legs spurred on by sheer willpower, complete and utter fright. The lakes and trees around me blurred, a smear of gray and brown, unreal. All I could see were the boards in front of me, the reeds at the shoreline, the truck. Behind me, I heard Amos’s strides slamming against the wood. I could picture his arm outstretched, grasping for me as he yelled. The shoreline approached, bobbing up and down in time with my panicked steps, and I flew, soaring off the end of the pier, landing in the sand, screaming, reaching out for the truck, my body lunging forward, my entire being stretching toward the door handle, my mind a white-hot blank, everything in me concentrated on the key, the key, the key.

My fingertips found the handle. I could see the ignition through the window.

I pulled, and the door opened. Gasping, I threw myself into the seat, holding the key to the ignition, hands shaking violently.

I dropped it.

Amos grabbed me and lifted me bodily, throwing me so hard I landed ten feet away, in the gravel, sending up a shower of dirt.

In a bound, he was at my side, standing over me. I panted, looking up at him, raising a hand to shield myself.

“You think you’re so smart?” he shouted.

It was one of the last things I would ever hear him say.

Pulling his leg back, he kicked me sharply, driving the steel toe of his boot into me as I curled on my side. Then he did it again, and again. I sank my fingers into the gravel, trying to crawl away, but he simply followed me, his boot thudding into my flesh. Insanely, I was still reaching for the truck, trying to slide toward it, but that ended soon enough. I didn’t feel the bones break, didn’t feel my ribs fracture or my hip give way. What I felt was the points of the gravel pressing into my cheek as I lay with my arm resting limply, uselessly, in front of me. I thought I would never move again.

Our ordinary monsters. What are we supposed to see when we look at them, their monstrosity or their ordinariness?

He didn’t kick me in the head, which was lucky; otherwise, I probably would have needed new eyes, a new face. When he was finished, he bent down and grabbed me under my arms, dragging me to the truck, not seeming to notice the twin ruts my heels left in the gravel. He fastened the seatbelt around me, which would seem odd in hindsight; maybe, at first, he intended to take me to the hospital, as he had done after the garage episode. I could only imagine, later, what kind of story he might have come up with this time in order to explain what had happened, but as it turned out, he managed to tell a tale that was completely convincing without even saying a word.

I must have been making some kind of noise, moaning maybe, but he sat down in the driver’s seat and shut the door without looking over. The engine started, and he drove us out of the parking lot, pulling onto the curving road.

After a few minutes of calm, he began to gather speed, taking the turns hard, whipping us first right, then left. At first, I thought we might be rushing to the doctor, but as the tires began to skid with each curve, spraying gravel over the edges of the steep drops that lined the road, I realized that that wasn’t it.

I said his name, and he glanced at me.

“There’s blood on your mouth,” he said. “You’re drooling on yourself. Wipe it off.”

Slowly, I did as I was told, lifting my hand to my face and then sliding it along the inside of the door, grasping the armrest, slumping forward in the seat, breathing through my mouth. He kept his eyes fixed on the road, his jaw set. The needle on the speedometer edged upward; the rocks and trees flew by. He wasn’t blinking, and, looking at him through the strange film that was clouding my vision, I suddenly knew what was coming. He said nothing, just stared through the windshield, a harshly determined look coming into his eyes, bouncing in his seat whenever we hit something in the road. I didn’t say anything, either, because I didn’t know the words; because it hurt to breathe; because if I couldn’t escape, I was content to die. Then, as the car went faster and faster and the engine screamed louder and louder, I thought I might say something, take the risk, even if he would be angry, even if he would strike me, and had just turned toward him when he spun the wheel and, with a flick of the wrist, steered us straight into a telephone pole at the edge of some stranger’s yard.