Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

A rock shifted as I took a step, and James turned toward the sound. When he saw me, he left Bear and slowly crossed into the circle of green light. James put his bound hands out in front of him.

“You said you’d be dragging me.”

Bear whimpered at his feet, staring up at me. I seized the ropes and flung James out onto the path ahead of me. He stumbled, nearly pitching into the dirt before righting himself and continuing on without a word. Bear shied back with a growl.

“What? You want to stay?”

Bear barked once, an angry yap, but then I took his collar and hurried him along too. As we climbed, the deep blue sky shaded to black. By the time we were topside, the stars were out, circling a full moon. The land was quiet and flat, vastly dark. Bear dashed out into the night to explore. I found the Big Dipper and traced a line from it to the North Star.

Beside me, James began to pray.

It was like a knot tightening inside me. I remembered the nights I stood in the dark by his bunk trying to quiet him as he sobbed. We’d just been taken by the Path and he’d gone days without food, surviving on nothing but the few drops of water I was able to force into him. How many of those nights had I lain below him in the bunk, sleepless, terrified that I’d wake to find my brother dead of grief?

Listening to him pray, some dark part of me wished I had. I felt sick even as I thought it, but at that moment, even his absence seemed more welcome than standing beside this stranger.

“We should go if we’re going,” James said when he finished his prayer.

I slipped my knife out of its sheath and cut his bonds with a single slash. James looked up at me, confused, as the ropes fell to the ground. I shoved his pack into his chest.

“Go home.”

James was motionless for a few seconds and then he drew the pack toward him.

“Maybe we don’t have to go back to Cormorant,” he said, tempering the edge in his voice. “Beacon Quan told me about this place in Oklahoma called Foley. It’s a real Path town, way behind the lines. Just a few farms and a small Lighthouse. Maybe we could—”

“The highway we came in on is that way. Leave now and you’ll be in your bunk before morning.”

James started to protest, but whatever fight he had in him seemed to evaporate. “What do you want me to tell Monroe?”

“Tell him whatever you want,” I snapped. And then, “Tell him… tell him I had a gun and I tried to force you to come with me but you managed to escape. Say I’m heading west to California.”

James nodded. I dug through my own pack and held out the asthma inhalers.

“Here.”

“I don’t need them.”

“Don’t be—”

“I don’t have asthma.”

“Then what was that last night?”

James kicked the sand at his feet and then looked up at me. His eyes were gray in the moonlight. “A lack of faith.”

“James…”

“I should go.”

Bear trotted out of the dark, tail wagging. He ran to James, who dropped down beside him and gave him a scratch under his chin.

“Take care of him,” he said.

James slipped his backpack on and started away. Bear followed for a few steps and then stopped to look back at me, confused. He barked toward James, but my brother had already begun to melt into the darkness.

I wanted to call out to him, stop him, but I knew it was useless. Even if I found the right thing to say, even if he walked by my side for the next thousand miles, the truth was I lost my brother years ago. I stood there until the dark overtook him, and the whisper of his footsteps faded away to nothing.

“Come on, Bear,” I said, and then I put my back to all of it and headed north.

Bear and I walked until we fell from exhaustion.

We were at the edge of a cliff. The moonlit desert spread out below us, huge and blank. Bear went to work on his paws, licking at the pads and digging out small stones and grit. I put an MRE down in front of him, then tore open one of my own. It tasted as bland as sawdust, but I forced down every bite. As I reached for our canteen, something rustled behind me. I whipped around, thinking I’d see James coming out of the dark, but there was nothing but desert brush blowing in the wind.

I imagined him back at Cormorant, safe in his bunk, but then all the things that could have gone wrong struck me. He could have gotten lost, or hurt or—

I slammed the door on the thought. James got what he wanted. There was no reason to dwell on it. I poured Bear some water, then dug through my pack, searching for something to fight the chill that numbed my fingers and toes. I found two sweaters and slipped one on over my T-shirt and tucked the other tight around Bear. I thrust my bare hand into my pocket and lay out alongside Bear to share warmth.

I closed my eyes, desperate for sleep, but nothing inside of me would go still. James haunted me no matter how hard I tried to push him away.

I remembered one Sunday night when Dad set up our “bunk beds” — what he called two hammocks hung in the backyard garden, one above and one below. That night it was a reward for me and James behaving when we took Grandma Betty to church. Or James behaving, really. I was simply half asleep, observing the homily through half-closed eyes. James sat up tall in the pew, listening with his whole body. Even then I thought he was simply playing an expert-level game of “Good Son.”

That night I lay in the top bunk mashing buttons on my PlayStation, with James below me. Mom and Dad and Grandma Betty were inside the house, just visible through the living room window. Dad was playing a new song for them. His voice mixed effortlessly with the jangle of his guitar and the tinkling of Mom’s and Grandma’s wineglasses.

Eventually they went to bed and shut out the lights, leaving me and James alone in the dark. The creaking sway of the hammocks’ ropes against the maple tree made me think of the rigging of a sailing ship. I closed my eyes and imagined us as sailors at sea, crashing through the waves.

“Why doesn’t it all just fall apart?”

I had thought James was asleep until his voice rose up from the bottom bunk.

“Why doesn’t what fall apart?”

There was a long pause and I leaned over the bunk. James seemed to be staring past me and the tree branches and the wisps of clouds to the stars.

“Everything,” he said.

I sat up in the desert, clamping my arms around my middle and leaning over my knees. It felt like there was an immense weight pressing down on me from all sides. Something touched my jacket, and I turned with a start.

Bear had his front paws perched on my shoulder. He was very still, examining me closely, his tan-dotted brows drawn together. He let out a breathy woof and I pulled him to my chest, inhaling the warm smell of him. My breath quaked in my throat as it went down. I let Bear go and he fell into my lap, drawing his legs beneath him. I tucked the sweater back over him and sat there with my palm on his side.

I looked up at the stars. Among them, the moon was full and white. A ghostly snatch of music swirled around me.

“Moonlight road,” I sang, hearing the chords in my head. “Why don’t you lead me on home?”

Bear twitched and shuffled. I ran my hand over the gloss of his coat and pulled him in tight. I looked over my shoulder again, out at the miles of darkness stretching to the south.

He’s where he belongs , I thought, and heard a door fall closed in my mind. I turned back to Bear and sang to him until he fell asleep.