Theft by BK Loren

Author:BK Loren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2012-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

IN THE AFTERMATH THERE’S just silence. Zeb can’t hear anything now except his own breathing. He wants to kneel down, to beg forgiveness from Dolly, but Dolly seems a part of it all. Her eyes go wide and she looks scared, and it’s like she has absorbed some of Zeb’s guilt, his bad feeling. She is the first one to move. She bends down and holds Chet’s bleeding head. Tears come. She holds her husband’s lifeless body. “I’m sorry,” Zeb starts saying, and then he can’t stop saying it, and he realizes he’s not saying it aloud anyway. It just plays over and over in his head. Then Dolly stands up. Tears slice her plump and reddened cheeks, and she starts walking in circles, then she beelines for Zeb. “Give me the gun.”

Stunned, Zeb does what she says. She takes the gun and rubs it in the snow. She hands it to Zeb, places it right into his gloved hand. “Put it in Chet’s right hand,” she says.

“What?”

“Put the gun in Chet’s hand.” She commands him. She is suddenly stronger than all of them, and Zeb does what she says. He bends down and wraps his hand around Chet’s hand. This is the hand that beat the dog, that beat Dolly, the hand that he has killed, and it makes him want to throw up. He stays stoic and strong, but in his gut he wants to puke. He knows what Dolly is doing. He doesn’t know if she’s protecting him, or if she’s thinking about how many years she’s been beaten. It doesn’t matter. Zeb wraps his own hand around Chet’s and let’s go of the gun.

“He’s been shooting that gun all day,” Dolly says. “No one will know, Zeb. Know one will know. Now leave,” Dolly says. “Get out. Both of you.”

Zeb and his father stand motionless. Then Zeb grabs his father’s shirt sleeve. “We need to help her,” he says. “We need to help Chet.”

Dolly steps up close to him. Her entire body shakes, and she seems bigger than Zeb can remember her being. “Go. Now,” she says in a whisper that is so strong and threatening that both men move away from her, Zeb leading the way.

A few minutes later, Zeb hears footsteps. He does not have the gun and Dolly does, and he hears footsteps and he turns. She is behind him and his knees weaken. She comes at him strong and she is sobbing now. She hugs him. She squeezes his whole body tight and presses her sobbing face into his chest. Then she backs up, pushes him away, and walks back toward Chet’s body.

“Son,” Zeb hears his father say, but it’s like a dead hum that goes nowhere in him. “Son!”

Zeb keeps walking. By the time they get back to the deer, the father has quit calling to Zeb. Zeb knows he has to leave his home now. He knows this is the last time he will hunt with his father, that this

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