A single drop of sweat
had fallen off of Davey's chin and landed on Alan's nose, and then
another, and finally he'd been able to open his eyes and wake himself,
angry and scared. The spring rains had begun, and the condensation was
thick on the cave walls, dripping onto his face and arms and legs as he
slept, leaving behind chalky lime residue as it evaporated.
"He didn't kill her," Greg said.
Albert hadn't told the younger brothers about the body buried in Craig,
which meant that Brad had been talking to them, had told them what he'd
seen. Alan felt an irrational streak of anger at Brad -- he'd been
blabbing Alan's secrets. He'd been exposing the young ones to things
they didn't need to know. To the nightmares.
"He didn't stop her from being killed," Alan said. He had the knife in
his hand and hunted through his pile of belongings for the whetstone to
hone its edge.
Greg looked at the knife, and Andy followed his gaze to his own white
knuckles on the hilt. Greg took a frightened step back, and Alan, who
had often worried that the smallest brother was too delicate for the
real world, felt ashamed of himself.
He set the knife down and stood, stretching his limbs and leaving the
cave for the first time in weeks.
#
Brad found him standing on the slopes of the gentle, soggy hump of
Charlie's slope, a few feet closer to the seaway than it had been that
winter when Alan had dug up and reburied Marci's body there.
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