“All right, kiddo.” His voice was steady and low, as if he were coaxing an animal into a trap. “All right. Just you hold it right there.”
I couldn’t move. My body had turned into its own knob of rock. Either that, or a spell had been cast on me, too. I opened my mouth to surrender, to cry out for mercy. But nothing came. It wasn’t until he pushed beyond me that I saw it wasn’t me he had heard.
Nate had followed us.
Our father scooped up Nate and slung him over his shoulder. He spanked him hard. From high in the air, Nate yelped in shock and confusion. He stretched his arms toward me, terrified.
I didn’t come forward, but just held my finger to my lips, signaling him to keep quiet, not to give me away. Young as he was, Nate understood. He buried his head in our father’s neck, silent and brave, refusing even to cry, which only made our father slap his bottom with that much more force.
“Don’t you ever follow me like that again, Nathaniel,” our father said at last. “Don’t you ever. You hear me? My God, what would I do if something happened to you?”
He gave Nate one last smack on the rear and swung him down on the ground. Grimly, he knelt to fasten Nate’s coat, which flapped open, as my brother hadn’t yet learned how to zip it up himself. Nate watched him, wide-eyed and solemn. For several hard moments, our father refused to meet his gaze. Finally, he lifted his head, held my brother at arm’s length and studied his face as if memorizing his features for some crucial exam soon to follow. Then he pulled him in and clutched him tight.
Carrying my brother the whole way back slowed our father down considerably, so I was able to cut through our neighbors’ property once we got to the main road and beat them home. By the time they appeared at the end of the gravel path that led up to our house, I was sitting on the porch steps as though I’d been there for hours. I stood and lifted my hand in the air. He lifted one of his in reply.
I walked down to meet him. Nate was asleep in his arms. “It’s okay,” our father said. “Our little family’s complete again.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
He rested his free hand on my head, regretful, and for several long moments, we stood there in silence. I had the impression he was working up the courage to confide something dark and unpleasant. The idea filled me with dread. I no more wanted to discuss the dangers that threatened our family than admit I had followed him into the woods. He must have sensed my alarm, because instead of saying anything further, he just smoothed the hair out of my eyes and gave me an unhappy smile. Then he turned and carried my brother back into the house.
Later that night I lay awake, listening to Nate’s whispery breaths rise and fall. Wrapped in blankets, tucked safe in our little blue-papered room, it was hard to believe that only a few hours before, my brother and I had been trailing our father through a bleak, icy forest.
No. That isn’t quite true. For while I knew we were warm and secure in our home, I felt that in some way the three of us were still outside on that desolate mountain, tramping though clumps of pokeberries, between hulking oaks and loblollies, under cold, ghostly claws reaching down from the sky. That it would always be that way, no matter where our lives took us, or who we became, or how hard we worked to convince ourselves otherwise.
A graduate of Warren Wilson College, Karen Tucker is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant for Emerging Writers. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.