“You could’ve done a poem,” Finch says, squinting in the bright light. She puts her hand up to shield her eyes and look at me. “A poem would be a better way to say goodbye.”
I reach out and tousle her hair. “I’m gonna split wood now.”
She holds her hand out. “Knife, please,” she says, and I slide it out of my back pocket. “I’m gonna start on a cross.”
TWO
Eight years out here and aside from a few snoopers, the only real trouble we’ve had is Scotland. Our neighbor downriver, so he says, though truth be told, my only confirmation is a line of smoke lifting from the treetops on cold days. Shortly after we got here, he came drifting into the yard, quiet as a ghost. Just appeared. It was August, and the leaves were thick on the trees so if I set Finch on her blanket in just the right spot she could be in the shade, and then I’d move her when the sun shifted west across the sky. She was a baby, then, just learning to sit on her own.
“You’re not Jake,” he said, and he was there, ten feet behind me. I’m telling you: I never saw him coming, never heard a rustle of leaves, a stick breaking, nothing.
Well. I decided right then and there I couldn’t be Kenny Morrison anymore. Not sure how I had the presence of mind to realize this, me not having seen another human being besides Finch for over a month and him showing up and startling me so bad I could barely think, but I did. We were living in the tent because at that point Jake still didn’t know we were here, and I felt funny about just moving into the cabin without asking. The only books I had were Aunt Lincoln’s Bible and her The Book of North American Birds and I guess that’s what made me think of birds. Birds on the mind. I went with Cooper after the Cooper’s hawk. If you know anything at all about birds, you will recall that the Cooper’s hawk is a stealthy creature: sometimes it will fly low to the ground and then soar up and over an obstruction to surprise its prey. Anyhow, that’s who I’ve been ever since, to Finch, too. She’s never called me anything else.
“This is private property,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s not your private property, is it?”
The way he said it, cool and sharp. Just looked at me. And when he looked, it was like he could see beyond the outside and into the inside, like he knew about the things that were there that I wished were gone.
“Who the hell are you?”
He spat to the side and tobacco clung to his chin. He wiped his face with his dirty sleeve and said, “Don’t appreciate the foul language or the tone. Uncalled for. I’m Scotland, your neighbor. I live that way.” He nodded his head in the direction of a cliff south of here, where the river began to bend. When he turned I could see he had an AK-47 strapped across his back. An AK-47!
“You hunting?” I asked him, nodding to the weapon. I figured, I’ll play dumb, like I don’t recognize what kind of weapon it is, make him think I’m just a stupid camper out here in the woods. But what I was really thinking is, what does he need an automatic weapon for? And why is he here? And what would I do if things turned ugly and the answer, I realized, was anything. I had no limitations, no lines I wouldn’t cross because hadn’t I already crossed all the lines I could think of? Thing is, once you’ve crossed, once you’ve done almost everything you ever said you wouldn’t do, you also lose your sense of assurance that you won’t do those things again.
He laughed at my question, a growly, throaty laugh, like he was thinking I’m an idiot, and that’s exactly what I wanted. “Yeah,” he said, his teeth ugly and gray. “Hunting. Bunnies.”
I told him I was Cooper and then I pointed to Grace Elizabeth and said, “That’s Finch.” When I said the word, “Finch,” she looked at me, like it really was her name, like she recognized it and it was right. And even though Cindy was the one who’d named her, who’d leafed through a fat book with ten thousand names looking for the right one, I felt Finch was a suitable replacement, given the circumstances.
He gave a little nod. “Cooper’s all right, but I think I like American Prodigal.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You heard me, neighbor.” He began to laugh.
There was something about him. Something shifty and scrappy and what? The word that came to mind was “otherworldly,” something not quite real. Well, the possibility that he wasn’t real did cross my mind, because though it hadn’t happened since right after I came back from overseas, it had happened, me seeing people who weren’t really there. But otherworldly wasn’t quite right. Strange. Unnerving.