The Hunter

“Hang on,” Johnny says. He kneels down in the dirt in front of Trey. “Theresa. We’ve only a minute. Listen to me.” He takes her by the arms and gives her an urgent little shake, to make her look into his eyes. In the flickering muddle of dusk and firelight his face is ancient and shifting, unfamiliar. “I know you think I just came back to squeeze a bitta cash outa this place, but that’s not true. I wanted to come anyway. I always wanted to. Only I wanted to come in a limousine spilling over with presents for all of ye, fire a cannon fulla sweeties outa the window, diamonds for your mammy. Show ’em all. This isn’t the way I meant to come home. I don’t know how it all went like this.”

Trey, glancing over his shoulder at the smoke, says nothing. She can’t fathom why he’s telling her this, when it makes no difference to anything. It strikes her that he just wants to talk—not because he’s upset, but because that’s how he operates. Without someone to listen and praise or commiserate, he barely exists. If he doesn’t tell her, it won’t be real.

“Yeah,” Cal says. “Let’s go.”

Johnny ignores him and talks faster. “Didja ever have them dreams where you’re falling off something high, or down a hole? One minute you’re grand, the next you’re gone? My whole life, I’ve felt like I was in one of them dreams. Like I’m slipping all the time, digging my nails in but I just keep sliding, and there was never a moment when I could see how to stop.”

Cal says, “We need to move.”

Johnny takes a breath. “I never had a chance,” he says. “That’s all I’m telling you. If this fella’s giving you a chance, take it.”

He lifts his head, scanning the mountainside. The fire is spreading, but it’s mostly spreading upwards. Along the sides, there are still wide stretches of blackness; ways out.

“Here’s what happened,” he says. “Myself and Hooper, we split up when we got here: he took the path, and I cut up through the woods towards the back of the house, in case you were coming that way. When Hooper found you, it was no good him calling me, in all this noise, and the fire was too close for him to go after me. And that’s the last anyone saw of me. Have you got that?”

Trey nods. Her dad’s skill with stories is, finally, doing something worthwhile. This one is simple enough, and close enough to the truth, that it’ll hold while he slips through every noose and away. And, at last, it lets him be a hero.

Johnny is still intent on her, his fingers tight on her arms, like he wants something more from her. There’s not one grain of anything that she’s willing to give him. “I get it,” she says, and pulls her arms out of his hands.

“Here,” Cal says. He takes out his wallet and hands Johnny a fold of notes.

Johnny, straightening up, looks at them and laughs. He’s got his breath back. With his head raised and the firelight catching in his eyes, he looks younger again, and mischievous. “Well, God almighty,” he says, “this fella thinks of everything. I’d say the two of ye will do great together.”

He takes out his phone and tosses it in among the trees, a long hard throw towards the flames. “Tell your mammy I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll send ye a postcard someday, from wherever I land.”

He turns and starts running, light as a boy, up the other fork that leads towards Malachy Dwyer’s and over to the far side of the mountain. In seconds he’s disappeared, into the dusk and the trees and the thin drifts of smoke.

Somewhere far away, under the wordless roar of the fire, Trey hears a rising whine: sirens. “Let’s go,” Cal says.

Twenty-One

The smoke is thickening. Cal pulls Trey up by her armpits and practically throws her into the car.

“What the almighty fuck were you thinking,” he says, slamming his door. He feels like he might hit her if he’s not careful. “You could’ve died.”

“I didn’t,” Trey points out.

“Jesus Christ,” Cal says. “Put your seat belt on.”

He spins the car, gravel crunching, to face down the mountain. The slow drifts of smoke make the road appear to move under the headlights, shifting and heaving like water. Cal wants to floor it, but he can’t afford to hit one of the many potholes and get stuck up here. He keeps it slow and steady, and tries to ignore the fluttering roar swelling behind him. Somewhere there’s a crash, immense enough that he feels the car shake, as a tree comes down.

The siren is rising, straight ahead of them and coming fast. “Fuck—” Cal says, through his teeth. The road is too narrow for passing, there’s nowhere to pull off; the only thing he can do is reverse, straight back into the fire.

“Turn right,” Trey says, leaning forward. “Now. Go.”

With no idea what he’s doing, Cal spins the wheel hard, sees the headlights skid across tree trunks and feels the tires bump over something, and finds himself on a path: narrow and overgrown enough that he’s passed it for two years without ever suspecting its existence, but real. Behind them, on the road, the siren wails by and fades.

“Mind out,” Trey says. “ ’S twisty.”