The Hunter

“This gonna be wide enough for the car?”

“Yeah. Widens out in a bit.”

Even with the windows rolled up, smoke has seeped into the car, thickening the air and catching at the back of Cal’s throat. He forces himself to keep his foot off the accelerator, peering through the windshield for the faint track that weaves erratically between trees, so close that branches scrape the sides of the car. “Where’s this go?”

“Down to the foot of the mountain. Comes out a bit farther from the village. Up by the main road.”

Things dart out of the darkness across the headlight beams, small leaping animals, frantic birds. Cal, his heart jackhammering, slams on the brake every time. Trey hangs on tight against the jolts and the bumpy track. “Left,” she says, when the headlights come up against what looks like a dead-end cluster of trees, and Cal pulls left. He has no idea where he is, or which way he’s facing. “Left,” Trey says again.

Gradually the trees thin and give way to weeds and gorse. The track widens and becomes defined. They’ve left the thick of the smoke behind; the small steadfast lights of windows shine out clearly from the fields below, and the western horizon still has the last faint flush of turquoise. The world is still there. Cal starts to get his bearings back.

“Lena brought me into town today,” Trey says, out of nowhere. “To your man Nealon. I told him I saw no one that night. Just my dad going out.”

“OK,” Cal says, after a second. He manages to find enough spare brain cells to unravel a few of the things that means. “Did he?”

Trey shrugs.

Cal doesn’t have the resources left to put things carefully. “How come you changed your mind?”

“Just wanted to,” Trey says. She stops, like the words took her by surprise. “I wanted to,” she says again.

“Just like that,” Cal says. “Gee, I shoulda guessed. After putting the whole place through all this shit, you woke up this morning and went, ‘Fuck it, I’m bored, I guess I’ll head into town and change my story—’ ”

Trey asks, “You pissed off with me?”

Cal can’t imagine how to even begin answering that. For a minute he thinks he might start laughing like a loon. “God, kid,” he says. “I have no idea.”

Trey gives him a look like he might be losing it. Cal takes a breath and manages to pull himself back together a little bit. “Mostly,” he says, “I’m just glad this whole shitstorm looks like it’s on its way to over and done with. And that you managed not to get yourself fucking killed up there. Everything else is low on my priority list.”

Trey nods like that makes sense. “You reckon my dad made it out?” she asks.

“Yeah. It’s spreading fast, but the way he headed, nothing’s gonna be cut off for a while. He’ll be fine. Guys like him always are.” Cal is done with being nice about Johnny Reddy. He feels he’s gone above and beyond by resisting the temptation to shove the little shit right into the heart of the fire.

They’ve reached the bottom of the mountain. Cal turns onto the road towards the village and tries to breathe deeply. His hands have started shaking so hard he can barely hold the steering wheel. He slows down before he sends them into a ditch.

Trey says, “Where we going?”

“Miss Lena’s,” Cal says. “Your mama and the kids are there already.”

Trey is silent for a second. Then she says, “Can I go to yours?”

Out of nowhere, Cal feels tears prickle his eyes. “Sure,” he says, blinking so he can see the road. “Why not.”

Trey lets out a long sigh. She slouches deeper into her seat, getting comfortable, and turns herself sideways to watch the fire, with the still gaze of a kid on a road trip watching scenery stream by.

—

Lena makes up the spare bed for Sheila and the little ones, and puts bedding on the sofa for Maeve. She helps Sheila bring in all the bags from the car boot, and dig through them for nightclothes and toothbrushes. She finds milk and mugs and biscuits so everyone can have a snack before bed. She doesn’t ring Cal. As soon as he can, he’ll ring her. She keeps her phone in her jeans pocket, where she’ll feel it vibrate no matter how many people are talking. It must be the only phone in Ardnakelty, apart from Sheila’s, that’s not ringing. Once she feels it vibrate and drops everything to grab for it, but it’s Noreen. Lena lets it go to voicemail.

It’s night, but above the mountain, the cloud has a fractious, pulsing orange glow. All the way down here, the air is thick with the insistent smell of burning gorse. Sirens go past, out on the road, and Lena and Sheila pretend not to hear. Lena knows Trey well enough to be certain there must have been a plan. She also knows, from Sheila’s thickening silence as time goes on and Trey doesn’t come, that this wasn’t in it.