Regan Wolfrom - Coyote

The bridge had been destroyed. The piers demolished with charges.

“Better job than got done at Iroquois Falls,” I said.

“One less bridge to watch.”

“Yes, Matt… I know.”

He just laughed. I think he’s starting to like the way I treat him.

We were back to McCartney Lake before sunset, so a little too early for dinner.

“Let me off here,” I said as we reached the cottage.

“What about the horses?”

“You drove ’em… you can stow them.”

He stopped the cart and I climbed out.

He continued on toward the barn.

I walked in hoping to get a chance to help Fiona with dinner. It’s definitely become a thing with me.

I saw Livingston on the floor.

There was blood.

Then I saw Justin Porter, sitting on the couch with his boots on the wicker coffee table, with Livingston’s little.380 lying next to his socked feet.

Sitting on the floor were all four girls, in a semicircle around the coffee table. They looked terrified, but they were okay.

I reached for my SIG.

“Put it on the floor,” Justin said.

“How ’bout I just kill you?” I said. I pulled out the gun and pointed it at his head.

He didn’t reach for the.380. “Look under the coffee table.”

I saw one of Ant’s nail grenades. At least a hundred nails bundled together and ready to shred anything within its reach. And the fuse cord ran up to a plastic tip in Justin’s hand.

“It reminds me of that shit the rebels used in Burma,” he said. “I pull the ring wrapped around my finger and your girls won’t be looking so hot.”

“That coffee table won’t do much to shield you.”

“I have nowhere to go, Baptiste. Detour Lake wouldn’t take me without some way of paying my way in.”

“And now that you got so many of their guys killed…”

“Yeah… they’d probably just shoot me if I showed up there. Thanks in large part to Kayla’s fucking ex-boyfriend, Bren the Wonder-Shit.”

“So you’ve been hiding around here?”

“That new army of Stems isn’t very good at what they do. They didn’t even bother checking the crawlspace. But that’s not important right now, Baptiste. What’s important is that I’m going to ignite this blasting cap, and then there’s gonna be a whole lot of nails fucking up your living room.”

“So there’s no point in not shooting you?”

“My wife is dead. So are my children.”

“Yeah… I know that feel, bro.”

“You get to come home every night and you get to take your pick. You can fuck the curvy brunette, or the slutty blonde… now you even have one in redhead… and once you come up with the right occasion, you’ve even got little Fiona’s cherry to pop…”

“I’m not feeling less inclined to shoot you in the head.”

“So take your pick, Baptiste. Choose which one of your girls you’re going to cover from the blast. I know you won’t pick the redhead…”

“Take the redhead,” I said. “Take her and go.”

“You can’t let him do that,” Fiona said.

“Don’t worry, Fiona,” Justin said. “He won’t let me take her. And I don’t want her anyway. All I want to do is restore a little bit of balance in the universe. I swear… if there’s a god in this fucking reality, he’ll take this all away from you. Because you don’t deserve them, Baptiste. Yeah… I don’t, either… I get that now. But this isn’t about me.”

I could shoot him. One shot and he’d be dead. But his finger was on the pull-ring; that bullet was just as likely to start the fuse than not.

That would kill all four of them.

If I made the choice… I could shield one of my girls. If I was lucky enough…

I heard the door open.

Matt stepped inside. He was still in full gear, even his helmet.

“Sit down, Matt,” Justin said.

“Let’s just kill Baptiste,” Matt said. “We can take the girls. Two each… that’ll get us into Detour Lake…”

“Not gonna work, Matt.”

“Just pass me your gun and I’ll kill him myself.”

Matt stepped toward the coffee table.

“Back off, Matt,” I said.

He dived at the coffee table.

Justin pulled the ring and lit the fuse.

I took my shot. I sent a bullet into Justin’s forehead.

I started to move toward the coffee table. If I could reach her in time…

The nail grenade exploded under Matt’s chest; it sounded more like a pop than a boom.

I couldn’t see any nails.

“It didn’t go,” Kayla said.

I stopped to look.

“It didn’t ignite the explosives,” she said.

Matt rolled over onto his back. “What the heck just happened?” he asked.

“You didn’t get blown up,” I said.

“You could have died,” Fiona said.

“It would have been worth it,” Matt said.

I realized I was too proud of him to vomit.

I walked over to Justin.

He was dead. At long fucking last.

Sara had gone to check Livingston.

“He’s breathing,” she said.

“Then let’s get him to the couch,” Kayla said.

I grabbed Justin Porter by the feet and dragged him out through the front porch and left him lying next to the driveway.

I knew Stems would want his men to confirm it.

Sara came to my room tonight.

She didn’t say a word.

She climbed onto my bed and burrowed into my arms.

She kissed my left wrist.

I kissed her, gently, on her shoulder.

She craned her neck and kissed me on the lips.

“I love you,” I said.

She kissed me again.

I laid her down.

And I made love to her.

Today is Wednesday, January 30th.

Sara always knows when I’m homesick.

She knows a lot about me.

“You’re thinking about your family,” she’d said gently as we’d laid together, the day after Ant had died.

She turned over to face me, wrapping her arm around my side.

I kissed her lightly on the mouth and turned my head into my pillow. I was sure she could still see the tears on my cheek.

“I don’t think it’s gotten any better,” I said. “I thought it would slowly get better.”

Sara started drawing her fingers up and down my back. I could feel her breasts pressing against me. Lying beside her and feeling her softness and feeling her warmth, I knew that I shouldn’t have felt so numb.

It always comes and go, but that night the numbness clawed at my throat and made it hard for me to breathe.

“I know it’s not the same,” Sara said, “but it is starting to get better for me.”

I turned my head to look at her. “It isn’t the same.” I ran my hand along the side of her face, trying to show her that I wasn’t angry, that I was used to feeling that way. “Losing Cassy was like losing a limb. No… that’s not enough. It’s more like I lost everything else, and all that’s left is a couple of dismembered toes.”

I reached up and kissed her on her lips.

“I can’t drink a glass of water without remembering when Cassy used to fish out the ice cubes with her fingers, long after she was old enough to know better. I miss her all the fucking time, and it’s torn most of me away.”

“But there’s enough of you left to love me.” She didn’t sound unsure.

“I guess so. I do love you.”

“And I love you. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but maybe someday you’ll decide that you want to be with me all the way.”