Page 58 of Heart of the Sun

I dropped my backpack on the cleanest-looking portion of flooring and began clearing some refuse to make a big enough space to lay out our sleeping bags, when Tuck said, “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

I watched as he ducked through an opening between some missing boards in the rear wall and then headed off into the trees still wearing his gear.

“Why does he need his backpack to take a piss?” Charlie asked as he dropped his stuff and started bending his neck from side to side.

“What?” I had a moment of intense fear, like he’d leave us and never return, and for a flash, I felt as helpless as a child, but I also experienced a wave of something I could only call grief overcome me. I reached out for the wooden post next to me, the rough grain of the wood bringing me back to the moment, a splinter stabbing my skin but also serving to pierce the odd fugue state that I’d slipped into momentarily.

“Hey, you all right?” Charlie asked. “Earth to Emily.”

I looked over at Charlie, the sight of him standing there almost confusing me for a second. He seemed all out of place, like he’d breached some time barrier, and I was standing in the middle of two different universes. “Yeah. I’m just… I think all the events from earlier today are catching up to me. And I’m hungry. And exhausted.”

His eyes did a sweep of my body, and then he walked over to where I stood, bringing his hands to my waist and squeezing. “We have a few minutes while he’s gone,” he said, giving me a suggestive smile.

Seriously?

For a moment I considered punching him in the face. Instead, I mustered a smile, but then shrugged him off and turned toward the area where I’d been preparing to bed down. I wasn’t even vaguely in the mood for him to touch me, and it wasn’t only because he hadn’t even asked me if I was okay after stabbing a man in the neck. “I’m too starved and exhausted to think about anything other than food or sleep,” I said. “I can’t believe you have the energy for anything else either. This day feels like it’s lasted for a hundred hours.”

Charlie sighed. “I could’ve mustered some energy,” he muttered, but then he unhooked his sleeping bag and started laying it out.

It was probably a good idea just to go to sleep even though the sun hadn’t fully set. We’d eaten a can of tuna the Goodfellows had so generously given us earlier and would have to forgo dinner tonight and search for something tomorrow. The last couple of days had been warmer than when we’d started out, and so at least there was plenty of melting snow to fill our water bottles.

I startled when I heard the muted crack of gunfire. “What was that?”

Charlie stood straight and walked over to the break in the back wall, peering out at the woods. “Tuck has the gun with him. Maybe he came up on some trouble.”

My heart dipped then rose, giving me a momentary head rush. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

We both stood at that gap in the boards, looking out into the dwindling light like two children peeking out from under the bed, waiting for a monster to arrive. And so, when the foliage rustled and it was Tuck who stepped through the trees, the relief that overcame me was sudden and fierce. I released an exhale, my gaze going to his hand where he was carrying a dead rabbit by its ears, his other arm filled with branches. “He shot a rabbit,” I said.

“Gross,” Charlie muttered.

Tuck stopped outside the barn where he began setting up a campfire well enough away from the structure that I imagined would go up like kindling with so much as a spark.

I stepped through the boards and Tuck looked up when I approached.I bent and picked up one of the rocks he’d gathered and set it next to the others he’d already placed. We worked in silence to build the makeshift firepit, and then Tuck situated the branches in the center and went through the process of building the fire using the box of matches the Goodfellows had given us.

“I never thought I’d be sitting around another bonfire with you in this lifetime,” I said to Tuck.

He looked up and smiled at me and again, for just a moment, he looked like the Tuck I knew, and it felt like a sharp poke to a tender spot. “Make that two of us,” he said.

There were some old wooden crates off to the side that Tuck brought next to the fire and then he took a seat on one, removed the switchblade he’d stuck in his backpack, and began slicing into the rabbit. I looked away. “Ugh, how are you even doing that?”

“It’s this or eat dirt tonight. Rabbit sounded more appealing. A gun and this switchblade made it possible. I’m going to give this back to you after I clean it though. It’s yours.”

I thought of Katelyn who’d given the knife to me and knew she’d be happy that her gift had come in handy at just the right moment. I thought of Mrs. Goodfellow too and the fear in Katelyn’s eyes when she spoke of her mother and I hoped to God they’d be reunited.

I watched Tuck’s face as he focused. “Thanks for doing the dirty work. Literally.”

His gaze remained on his hands, but he gave a nod. I felt a new peace between us. We’d seemed to have made an unspoken agreement to cease the bickering after working together so well earlier that day. Even so, he didn’t have to split a small rabbit with us. He could have killed the thing, gutted it, cooked it,and then eaten it himself and Charlie and I wouldn’t be able to say a damn word. Because neither of us was willing to hunt down small animals and prepare the meat and we all knew it. But I wasn’t going to feel too guilty about it, because despite whether our relationship was good or bad or in-between, when we got back home, I’d make sure Tuck had enough to get on his feet some way or another.Happily.And he’d have something with which to start fresh.

I felt a weird emptiness in my stomach that I wrote off as hunger, even if for whatever reason, it didn’t feel like food would fill it.

“Anyway,” I said, as if he’d been following my disjointed inner dialogue, “are we planning on stopping at a house tomorrow to ask if they can spare some food?”

“Maybe. We’ll play it by ear. We’ll be heading into more populated areas over the next few days, so I’m hoping there’ll be an opportunity to purchase some necessities. I have a little bit of cash in my wallet.”

Charlie still had his wallet, but probably didn’t have a lot of cash as he always used credit. The thought of cash made me picture the baggies of drugs that had rained down on the plane when I’d discovered Tuck’s illegal activity. I supposed because cash had been the point of it.

At the memory of that moment, emptiness gaped, but so did a niggling feeling that something was off. Or maybe it was just that today, more than ever, it hadn’t only felt like we were a team, but it’d felt like he was my old friend. And though I couldn’t deny the passion that had sparked to life between us, it was probably a momentary reaction born entirely from the wild circumstances. It would be wise for me to remember that to Tuck, this was a job. I should stop thinking of him as my old friend, or even a savior who would have done what he was doing now for any reasons other than at least some amount of decency, and loyalty to my parents. That was what I found so confusing,and why I kept stumbling emotionally when it came to him. There were parts of him I still recognized, even if, otherwise, he was completely different. “Right,” I said. “Yes.”

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