Page 51 of God’s Country

“Suit yourself.”

It was Stan who found a tarp in his tent and covered the wood. He marched me to the jack pine, tied my hands, then bound me to the tree. It wasn’t comfortable, but considering the mood Ollie was in, I figured it wouldn’t do me any good to complain. The two brothers retired to their tents, Ollie carting the food-filled BearVault inside with him.

I thought about the brothers and their half brother and the kind of family they must have come from and how that past bound them all in some violent way. Human families are like subspecies of the same animal. There are similarities, but it’s the differences that define them, that make them unique. I loved my family. I’d die before I hurt any of them. The Kennedys were from a subspecies that seemed to have no trouble ravaging its own kind.

I thought about trying to free myself, but I wasn’t finished with the two brothers. I’d fed my stomach, but there was something in me that was becoming hungry in a different way, something that lusted after blood. With their brutality and greed, these two animals had fouled a place that had always felt to me like heaven. But one man’s heaven can be another man’s hell. I decided to become the Devil, an agent of retribution, use the wilderness itself to punish them in every way possible, maybe even unto death. I breathed in the night air, took in deeply the scent of the wilderness. I was a part of that wild now. I was going to stay with the Kennedys. I was going to stay with them until my own bloodlust had been fed.

- PART II - THE HEART OF DARKNESS

There are two wolves constantly battling in the human heart. One is love, the other hate. Which one wins the battle? The one you feed. Always the one you feed.

AN INDIGENOUS SAYING

CHAPTER 29

Dawn broke with thunder. I came awake to a morning that promised rain. A good sign for the beginning of the Kennedy brothers’ first day in hell.

My body hurt from the beating Ollie had given me the day before and from a night tied to a tree. There was no feeling in my hands. My butt was sore, my legs stiff as broom straws. The sky was scabbed over with black clouds, no sun visible, so I couldn’t tell what the time might be. If I’d been on my own, I’d probably have been awake long ago, breakfast already behind me, ready to break camp. But I could hear the Kennedy brothers still snoring away in their tents. God alone knew when we’d get started.

That was okay with me. The two sleeping men thought that they were the organ grinders and I was the monkey dancing to their tune. Let them believe what they want, I thought. Soon enough the truth of their situation would become clear to them.

A great crack of thunder shook the ground, and I heard the brothers waking, Ollie swearing indistinctly. The rain began, scattered fat drops at first, then a quick transition to a downpour. The branches of the jack pine they’d tied me to gave me some protection, but if the rain continued for long, I knew I’d be soaked. Not a huge concern. I’ve been wet in the Boundary Waters before.

Stan was the first to poke his head from his tent. “Son of a bitch.”

“Rise and shine,” I called to him. “The day’s a-wasting.”

“Can’t we wait for this to pass?”

“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. You’re the ones eager to get to Canada.”

Ollie’s head appeared next. “Christ on a bike. I hate this place.”

“God’s country,” I said cheerfully. “Did you think to bring ponchos or rain gear?”

Neither of the brothers responded, which pretty much answered my question.

“Got any wool clothing?”

“Wool? That’s for winter, you moron,” Ollie said.

In the Boundary Waters, I always wear clothing that’s a wool blend at least. Even when it’s wet, wool holds in your body heat.

“Suit yourself,” I replied. “You two need to break camp.”

“Everything’s wet,” Stan pointed out.

“You want to wait around until it all dries, fine by me. I don’t care how long we take to get to Canada.”

Stan, who’d exited his tent and was standing in the rain now, looked at Ollie, whose head was still all that showed. “Get a move on. Jeanette won’t wait for us forever. And we need to be out of the country before the law closes in.”

Ollie crawled from his tent and, groaning like a sick moose, slowly drew himself as erect as he could. “Goddamn, my back hurts. I can barely move. And it’s raining.”

“Look on the bright side,” I said. “The rain’ll give you some relief from the flies and mosquitoes.”

That didn’t brighten Ollie’s mood, and he grumbled, “I’m hungry.”

“Lucky for you your brother covered the wood with a tarp last night, otherwise you’d be eating jerky and granola bar for breakfast.”