The Great Alone

She could leave them. She could break free and go her own way. It would be frightening, but it couldn’t be worse than staying, watching this toxic dance of theirs, letting their world become her world until there was nothing left of her at all, until she was as small as a comma.

EIGHTEEN

At ten P.M., the night of Mad Earl’s funeral, the sky above Walker Cove was a layer of deep blue, fading to lavender at the edges. The evening’s bonfire had burned down; logs turned to ash and crumbled into one another.

An extreme low tide had pulled back the sea, revealing a wide swath of mud, a mirror of slick gray that reflected the color of the sky and the snow-covered mountains that rose up on the opposite shore. Clumps of shiny black mussels clung to exposed pilings; the aluminum drift boat lay angled in the mud, its line tied to the buoy.

For hours there had been talk. Stories about Mad Earl, told in halting voices. Some had made them laugh. Most had made them all fall silent and remember. Mad Earl hadn’t always been the crotchety, angry man he’d become in old age. Grief over the loss of his son had twisted him. Once, he’d been Grandad Eckhart’s best friend. Alaska was tough on people, especially once they got old.

Now, quiet. There was only the occasional popping of the fire, the thunk of a falling bit of burnt wood, the lapping of the outgoing tide.

Matthew sat in one of their old beach chairs, his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, watching a young eagle picking at a salmon carcass on the beach. A pair of seagulls flew close, waiting for scraps.

There were only three of them left now. Dad and Large Marge and Matthew.

“Are we going to talk about it, Tom?” Large Marge said after so long a silence that Matthew was sure they’d kicked out the fire and climbed the beach stairs. “Thelma pretty much as banished Ernt from their place.”

“Yeah,” Dad said.

Matthew didn’t like the way his father looked at Large Marge. The worry in his eyes.

“What are you two talking about?” Matthew asked.

Dad said, “Ernt Allbright is an angry man. We all know he vandalized the saloon. Thelma said tonight that he’s been trying to get the Harlans to plant trip wires and explosives to ‘protect’ them in case of war.”

“Yeah. He’s crazy like Mad Earl, but—”

“Mad Earl was harmless,” Large Marge said. “Ernt will not take this banishment well. It will piss him off. When he gets mad he gets mean, and when he gets mean, he hurts people.”

“People?” Matthew said, feeling a chill go through him. “You mean Leni? He’ll hurt Leni?”

Matthew didn’t wait for them to answer. He ran up the stairs to the yard, where he snagged his bicycle and climbed aboard. Pedaling hard on the wet, spongy ground, he reached the main road in less than ten minutes.

At the Allbright driveway, he skidded to a stop so fast his bike almost slipped out from underneath him. Two skinned logs barricaded the scrawny necklike entrance to the land. They were the color of salmon meat, freshly cut, a fleshy pink, studded here and there with bits of bark.

What the hell?

Matthew looked around, saw no movement, heard nothing. He pedaled around the logs and kept going, more slowly now, his heart thumping in his chest, worry expanding.

At the end of the driveway, he dismounted, laid his bike on its side. A cautious examination of the Allbright land showed no sign of trouble. Ernt’s truck was parked in front of the cabin.

Matthew crept forward slowly, wincing every time a twig snapped beneath his foot or he stepped on something—a beer can, a comb someone had dropped—he couldn’t see in the shadows. The goats bleated. Chickens squawked in alarm.

He was about to take a step when he heard a sound.

The cabin door opening.

He threw himself into the tall grass, lay still.

Footsteps on the deck. Creaking.

Scared to move and more scared not to, he lifted his head, looked out above the grass.

Leni stood at the edge of the porch, with a wool blanket wrapped around her in a cape of red and white and yellow stripes. She was holding a roll of toilet paper; moonlight set it aglow.

“Leni,” he said.

She looked over, saw him. Worriedly, she glanced back at the cabin, then ran for him.