He’s started to say something when Amy shoots. She squeezes the pistol until it pops, and then again, hitting him twice in the chest. He still talks, even as he tries to pool blood in his fingers. Invoking the train, trying to sell her. The words end as a sort of gulping. He staggers out of the shed and falls into the dirt.
It’s ten minutes or more before Amy is certain he’s dead. The gasps of his body twitter out into nothing. Slowly she works to her feet, the burn pulsing from the knife in her back, and then she escapes the shed, the pistol poised in front of her, just in case. She has to step over him, to look down at his pale face still smirking, one eye open and one closed. Amy doesn’t falter when she sees his chest bloat. She knows he’s dead. It’s just the mechanics of his lungs working.
She doesn’t cry yet because there’s the knife in her back, her clothes wet with blood, and she’s walking toward what looks like a farmhouse on the horizon.
Amy fires three shots in the air before she collapses, too weak to continue, using the last of the bullets to attract the attention of the farmer and her husband in the house that’s less than a mile away. They’re the ones who find her.
Acknowledgements
My sincerest thanks those who made this book possible.
Foremost, to Nicole, for acting in ardent good faith to ensure that there’s room for writing and literature in this life we’ve built together; to my daughters, for putting up with a pensive father with aplomb; to my mom for passing on a love for books and never talking me out of fixations; to Karen, for making sure I had time to write most every day, even when there was a baby in the house; and to my family and friends for their support.
I’m grateful for my crew of mentors, advocates, and compatriots: Bill Sedlak, Amber Mulholland, Drew Justice, Ryan Borchers, Stephanie Delman, Jonis Agee, Susan Aizenberg, Bob Churchill, Cleo Croson, Natalie Danford, Nabina Das, Miles Frieden, Amina Gautier, Anne Greene, Jordan Hartt, Arlo Haskell, Nicola Mason, Kassandra Montag, Dave Mullins, Emily Nemens, Amy O’Reilly, Jessica Rogen, Lucas Schwaller, Sam Slaughter, Brent Spencer, Mary Helen Stefaniak, Travis Thieszen, Felicity White, and Mark Wisniewski. A special thanks to Richard Burgin.
Thanks to Queen’s Ferry Press, Bradley Cole, Brian Mihok, and Kelsey Hall, for helping get this book to press, and to Erin McKnight for her tireless enthusiasm and guidance.
Finally, this book couldn’t have been written without the support of the following organizations: Akademie Schloss Solitude, Key West Literary Seminar, Port Townsend Writers Conference, Wesleyan Writers Conference, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Creighton University, Prairie Schooner, University of Nebraska, 1877 Society and Omaha Public Library.
About the Author
Theodore Wheeleris a reporter who covers civil law and politics in Omaha, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. His fiction has been widely featured in national anthologies and magazines, includingBest New American Voices,New Stories from the Midwest,The Southern Review,The Kenyon Review,Boulevard, andFive Chapters. He’s been a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, a resident of the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and has won the Marianne Russo Award from the Key West Literary Seminar. He is also the author of a fiction chapbook andKings of Broken Things, a novel that’s forthcoming in the spring of 2017.