"Hello?"
"Beth, it's Andy. I wanted to make sure you're leaving."
"I'm packing now."
"Good girl. I'll call you soon." I hung up the phone and stood up. My hands shook, still holding the knife. As I walked towards the door, something on the dresser facing the bed caught my eye. An unmarked envelope, which hadn't been there before, lay on a stack of New Yorkers. Opening it, I expected to find a sheet of paper with that horrible black ink. But I only withdrew an airline ticket. Under the illumination of a stained-glass lamp standing on the dresser, I examined the ticket: November 21st, 8:00 a.m., Billings, Montana. Two weeks away.
Setting the knife on the dresser, I closed my eyes for a moment. I was tired of this. Tired of the fear. When I opened my eyes again, I looked into the circular mirror above the dresser and gasped. In black magic marker, there was something written on the glass, and I couldn't imagine how I'd missed it:
RENT A CAR AND DRIVE TO THE C.M. RUSSELL
WILDLIFE REFUGE FIRST THING 11/22
WAIT FOR ME WHERE 19 CROSSES THE MISSOURI R.
I collapsed onto the bed. For a long time, I stared up at the bumpy ceiling, my eyes traversing the tiny clumps of paint that looked like a vast, snow-covered range of mountains.
# # #
Fifty miles north of Billings, Montana, in the midst of an empty, nothing land, I pulled off the road to piss. I left the car running on the flat shoulder and stepped out into swaying grass. It was bitter cold, and dry, sterile grassland extended in every direction, as far as I could see. The crystal sky had clouded, now a uniform gray, and a biting wind blew incessantly across the plain.
I climbed back into the warm rental, a red, four-door Buick, and continued north on 87. This time, I carried no gun. I’d packed only a small suitcase with provisions for several days. In a way, I was calmly putting my head to the chopping block, leaving my life in Orson's hands. He’d won. Invulnerable, he'd already set in motion the events that were destroying my world. Walking out of my lake house yesterday morning, I listened in the doorway as Detective Prosser left a message on my answering machine, all but ordering me to come to Winston that afternoon for more questioning. They suspected me, and it was only a matter of time before they indicted me. Then what? How hard would they have to look to find that I'd been to Vermont with Walter, now missing? It didn't surprise me that at my weakest hour, Orson had wanted to meet.
I entered the C.M. Russell Wildlife Refuge on highway 19 after five o'clock. The sun had nearly set, and on the horizon, above a distant range of mountains, it managed to peek through the clouds and set the prairie on fire. Yellow grasses turned gold, and miles ahead, I saw glittering radiance like sunbeams dancing on moving water. I hadn’t passed another car in the last hour, and I was beginning to understand why Orson had chosen this place. The vacancy was overwhelming. A distant migraine pounded in my head, and I knew it'd torture me in the coming hours. Only fear would overshadow it, and I felt it, too, deep in my gut. The river was close.
The prairie became a network of bare, rolling hills. There were gentle slopes and ridges now along which the highway ran and below, the valleys, cut by streams. Thickets of pines followed the water which meandered towards the Missouri, the first trees I'd seen since Billings.
As I crested the rounded peak of a low foothill, the Missouri opened up before me, like a river of crimson gold beneath the brilliance of the falling sun. More than a quarter mile wide in places, it flowed quickly eastward, out of the breaks, towards the flatlands of North Dakota. I wondered what remote mountain spring gave birth to such a mighty body of water.
The highway descended to the river, and approaching the water, I saw the bridge, barely noticeable in this oversized country. It crossed the Missouri in a narrow spot, traversing only fifty yards of water before ascending another treeless foothill on the other side and disappearing over a yellow ridge.
When the road straightened and widened as it prepared to cross the water, the sky turned purple and gray. The sun slipped behind the mountains, and the red and orange escaped from the clouds, leaving a dreary darkness upon the plain. I slowed down and veered off the road, into the tall grass. The ground felt soft beneath the tires, like after days of steady rain. I turned off the car and took my brown leather jacket from the passenger seat. A raw wind whipped my face as I slipped into the jacket, stepped outside, and slammed the door. With the loss of the sun it was much colder, and I dug my hands deep into my pockets. From where I stood, the hillside sloped down a hundred feet to the river. Pines and shrubs grew along the sandy bank. I looked into the trees but saw no movement, only branches swaying in the wind.
I reached the bridge. Thirty feet above the water, a stone wall, three feet high, served as a guardrail. Traversing the double yellow lines, I watched my feet, trying not to think about how cold I was as the fierce wind pressed into me head on. Walking became difficult, and I'd just thought to myself, "Fuck this," when I looked up and saw him.
Even in the blue dusk, I wasn't sure how I'd missed him before. On the left side of the road, near the end of the bridge, he sat on the stone wall. I squinted through the poor light. The dull throbbing of my heart pushed up into my throat, and I shuddered at his silhouette.
My first instinct was to run back to the car. I kept thinking, "He's gonna kill you. You've come out here to let him kill you." Twenty yards away, I knew for certain it was Orson. On the stone railing, facing west, his legs dangled over the river. I know he heard my footsteps, but he never turned his head. He just stared straight ahead at the magenta clouds in the sun's wake.
Cautiously, I climbed onto the wall. We sat four feet apart, and I let my legs hang out over the water, too. I eyed my brother, warily, for he had yet to acknowledge my presence. He wore dark jeans, a white fleece pullover, and worn hiking boots. His brown hair had grown out and was messy from the wind. I glanced down at the swift, silent current as it glided beneath the bridge, then spit and counted how long it took to reach the water.
"Where's your car?" I asked.
"Hitched a ride with a transfer truck this morning."
"You were pretty confident I was coming. You been out here all day?"
"Since noon."
We were quiet for some time. There was a somberness about him I'd rarely seen. He seemed deflated, like after a kill, when his victim could no longer suffer and the reality of his useless existence came crashing down on him.
"How are things back at the homestead?" he asked, smirking through his words.
"They think I murdered Mom," I said. "Beth Lancing wants to know where her husband is. That's the guy you killed in Vermont."
"Well, I'm glad you came, Andy. It was the right thing to do. There's been a bunch of shit between us."
"That surprises you after Mom?"
"It surprises me after last summer. I thought you knew me better. I tried to make you understand." He turned, and we locked eyes. "Did you come after me because of Mom?"
I gritted my teeth and nodded. The stinging of wind on my cheeks had vanished.
"Would you like to know about Vermont?" he asked. "Like who you murdered? Why you were so blindly convinced he was me?" He smiled, but I said nothing. I was used to his baiting. "You like it out here?" he asked.
"It's all right."
He laughed. "It's fucking better than all right. You ever seen a sky this big? I come out here all the time," he said. "You can lose yourself in that sky. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? You like hiding in the trees where no one can see you. You like the claustrophobic forests in the East. These wide open spaces scare the shit out…"