Double Exposure (8 page)

—He’s dead.

—Get his guns, radio, and supplies, then hide the body. We’ll get it later.

—Jesus, we can’t leave him. It’s Jackson.

—We’ll come back for him. Right now I need you to figure out which way he went. We’ve got to find him. Get this over with. Then we’ll take care of Jackson.

—Oh God, his kids. His wife and kids. What will we tell them?

—We’ll figure that out later. I’ll take care of it. Just find the fucker that did it.

H
e had killed a man.

A man with a wife and children.

His life would forever be divided by the before and after line of ending someone else’s.

He’d never even killed an animal like his dad had wanted, not in all his years of walking through these woods with a shotgun, but he had just taken the life of another human being. Just like that.

Killer.

—
I
f you don’t put that camera away and start carrying your rifle, you’ll never get anything, son.

—I know.

—You know?

—Yes, sir.

—You know, you just don’t care? his dad says, a hint of hurt in his voice.

—It’s not that I don’t care.

—You here to hunt or take pictures?

Nearly fifteen, Remington had been taking pictures for almost a year. A lot of pictures, especially on hunting trips with his dad.

—Honestly?

—’Course.

—I’d rather shoot pictures than animals.

—Really?

—I thought you knew.

—It’s because you’ve never gotten anything. If you ever downed a big deer …

—I don’t think so.

—But how do you know?

—It’s just … I don’t even want to.

—At all? You got no desire at all?

—None.

If the admission hurt or angered Cole, he didn’t show it. But, of course, it had to. At a minimum it had to be a disappointment. His dad loved hunting far too much for it not to be.

—Okay. Okay … well, I appreciate you coming out here with me.

—I love it. I really do. Being with you. Being out here. Taking pictures.

—Good.

They are quiet for a few moments.

—Sorry I don’t like to hunt.

—It’s okay.

—I know I’ve got to be a disappointment as a son. His dad stops.

—I hope you don’t really think that.

—Well …

—I don’t care about hunting compared to you. You’re a great son. The best. I’m sorry I don’t understand more about taking pictures.

—
H
is radio’s missing.

—And his rifle.

—You think that bastard’s listening to us right now?

—Hell yeah.

—You got a name? Gauge asks.

—Just call him Dead Man.

—It’s gonna be a long, cold, lonely night. You should talk to us. Remington is tempted to say something, but remains silent.

—Suit yourself. We’ll be seeing you face to face soon enough.

—Tell him who he killed. Gauge doesn’t say anything.

—You killed a cop.

—Jackson was a deputy—with a family. You might as well put that rifle in your mouth right now and blow the back of your goddam head onto a tree trunk. That’s best case scenario for you.

I
killed a cop.

Don’t even think about it. Just survive. Concentrate on surviving. Deal with the ramifications later.

He continues walking south, staying in the hardwood hammock in case Arlington has already set up in the flats.

Soon, it would end, and he’d have no choice but to enter the flats.

Where do they think I’ll go? How can I do something unexpected? Go in a direction they’d never guess?

You could walk toward them.

No, I couldn’t.

It’d take … what?

Something I don’t have.

You could go west, toward the four-wheeler.

Probably somebody watching it.

You hid it. You always do. Just like Cole taught you.

They could’ve followed the tracks.

Maybe. You could kill them.

The thought makes his stomach lurch.

How many rounds are in the rifle?

Four to begin with. Jackson fired one. I ejected one. I fired one. One left. But I’m not going to shoot anyone else. I can’t do that again.

Don’t say what you won’t do. Think about Mom. Heather.

Or maybe there’re two left. If he had one in the chamber and four in the magazine.

He stops and checks the rifle. Pulling back the bolt, he ejects the round in the chamber. As he does, another one takes its place. Ejecting the second round empties the gun.

Bending to pick the two rounds from the ground, he stands, blows them off, and reloads the weapon.

As he nears the end of the hardwood forest, he veers right, heading in the direction of the four-wheeler without making a conscious decision to do so.

Get to the ATV, then to the truck, then to town. Then what? Who do I go to? Who can I trust?

P
ain.

Exhaustion.

Cold.

Fear.

Thirst.

Hunger.

Body cut, scratched, and bruised by the forest, every throbbing step bringing more discomfort.

Unsteady.

Moving slowly now, his shaking and shivering making him stagger and stumble.

Mouth dry, the taste of vomit lingering, he tries to swallow, to quench his thirst, but can’t.

The frigid air causes his throat to feel like he’s breathing fire, his ears so red-cold they feel raw and razor burned, his head so frozen it feels feverish.

Famished.

He’s so hungry, his abdomen so empty, he feels as if his body is starting to consume itself, cannibalizing the lining of his stomach. Opening his phone, he searches for signal. None.

S
and art.

Faded.

Green. Burgundy. Straw. Streaks sprinkled across a black backdrop.

A tiny white-blue dot.

To cope, to try to distract his mind from the cold and his circumstances, he begins to think of the greatest pictures ever taken—photos he’s studied, contemplated, worshipped.

The first to come to mind is “A Pale Blue Dot,” an image of the solar system captured by Voyager 1. In it, earth is a speck of dust in a straw-colored streak of sand art.

Inspired by the way the photo inspired Carl Sagan, Remington had committed to memory his words about it. Teeth chattering, mouth dry, vocal chords frozen, he quotes them now, words not his own coming from a voice he no longer recognizes, visible breaths bathed in moonlight:

You see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

A
ntique Christmas lights. Snowfall on a black night.

The Voyager image and Sagan’s words trigger thoughts of another cosmic image.

The deepest view of the visible universe so far looks like old-fashioned Christmas lights seen through a snowstorm. The image resembles two scenes from the film
It’s A Wonderful Life
—the beginning when conversing angels are depicted by stars blinking and, near the end, thick snow falling on George Bailey as he stands on the bridge.

The photo is composed of two separate images taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, and the Near Infrared and Multi-Object Spectrometer. It shows not only over ten thousand galaxies, but the first of them to emerge from the big bang some four to eight hundred million years ago, burning stars reheating the cold, dark universe.

P
assionate.

Taking.

Swooning.

Elegant Arc.

Sculpturesque.

Planting one on her.

1945.

V-J Day.

Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph for Life Magazine of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day is perhaps the second most iconic of World War II.

The people.

The contrast of his navy blue sailor suit and her white nurse’s uniform.

The place.

The heart of America’s city.

The time.

The day of Japan’s surrender.

The onlookers.

The excitement of the crowd, the white dots of litter on the blacktop. The way she leans into him, the arch of her back, the bend of her right leg, the hint of the tops of her stockings peeking out beneath the bottom of her skirt. The grip of his right hand on her waist, the crook of his left cradling her head.

The intensity.

The boldness.

The commitment.

The surrender.

“The Kiss.”

G
ray cloud and smoke.

Six figures atop a craggy heap of war-torn debris.

Lifting.

Hoisting.

Planting.

Staking.

Marines.

Mount Suribachi.

The only image from World War II more iconic than “The Kiss” is “Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima,” the Pulitzer prize-winning photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945.

The slanting angle of the pole, the stop-action of the men, the windswept unfurling of the American flag.

—
Y
ou out there, killer?

Gauge’s voice is so calm, so flat and even, it chills Remington far more than the cold.

—I’m here if you need to talk.

Remington doesn’t respond.

—You ever killed before? Not very pleasant, is it? But you had to do it, didn’t you? See, there are times when you just don’t have any other options. And when it’s you or them, well, it’s got to be them, right? Hey, I understand. I’ve been there. Earlier today, in fact.

Jerking the radio to his mouth, depressing the button, speaking—no thought, no filter, no way to stop himself now.

—Who was she and why’d you have to kill her?

He hadn’t planned to. It just came out, as if independent of him, a rogue bypassing his decision-making process.

—Not knowing really bothers you, doesn’t it?

—She wasn’t trying to kill you.

—There’s more than one way to die. And some shit’s worse than death. A lot worse.

—Such as?

—Things that kill a man’s soul.

—Such as?

—Well, I’m sure there’re lots of things. Ruinin’ a man’s reputation comes to mind. Destroying his family. Taking away everything he’s worked for. I suspect prison would damn well do it, too. But I’m just speculatin’. Who’s to say what would kill a man—or cause him to kill?

—Bullshit justification.

—Don’t be too harsh on me now, killer. You and I obviously have more in common than you’d like to think.

—We’re nothing alike.

—We’ve both taken a life today.

—I killed a man, yes, but you … you murdered a woman. Self-defense is nothing like premeditated, unprovoked, cold-blooded murder.

Gauge doesn’t respond.

Remington realizes he’s said too much. He should’ve never started talking to him in the first place.

—Anybody hear anything? Gauge asks. Get a lock on him?

—No.

—Me neither.

—Nothing here.

—Keep looking.

—It’s time to call Spider, the big man says. Get the dogs out here and finish this.

—I think we’re closer to him than you think, Gauge says. Let’s give it a few more minutes. That okay with you, killer?

Remington doesn’t respond, and scolds himself for being stupid enough to do it before.

A
llison Krause.

Jeff Miller.

Sandy Scheuer.

Bill Schroeder.

Protest.

Students.

National Guard.

Guns.

“Kent State Killings.”

Four unarmed students murdered, shot from hundreds of feet away, at least one in the back.

The photograph, a Pulitzer Prize-winning shot by John Filo, shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels before slain student Jeffrey Miller, an utterly perplexed look of disbelief on her tear-streaked and contorted face, mouth open, arms extended, hands upturned as if everything in existence is now in question.

L
ost.

Again.

This tract of land that belong to him now is so much larger than he realized before. Of course, he may not even be on his property any longer. Depending on where he is exactly, he could have wandered onto paper company land or state protected property or … who owns the piece on the other side? A hunting club?

Occasionally, the cold wind carries on its currents the smell of smoke, causing images of the burning girl to flicker in his mind.

He wonders if his pursuers have built a campfire to huddle around or if in the distance a raging forest fire is ravishing the drought-dry tinderbox of timbers.

Certain he should’ve reached the pine flats by now, he enters instead the edge of a titi swamp. Do the flats border the far side? All he can do is keep walking, shuffling his feet along the forest floor, scattering leaves, divoting the dirt.

He has no idea of the time, and though it feels like the middle of the night, he knows that even with all that’s happened since he’s been out here, not much time has elapsed.

It’s probably between nine and ten.

—What time is it? he asks into the radio.

The question is addressed to no one in particular, but it’s Gauge’s languorous voice that rises from the small speaker of the walkie-talkie.

—You got somewhere to be?

—Just curious.

—We wouldn’t want to keep you from anything. Remington doesn’t respond.

—It’s 10:39.

—Thanks.

Is Mom okay? Is she lying on the floor after falling while trying to get her supper or medicine? Hopefully she’s sleeping. Oblivious to how late I am.

Wonder what Heather’s doing right now.