Page 35 of So Far Gone

Chuck shielded the sun. “Aw, shoot, they’re gone already, huh?”

“Yes, Brother Dean said there might be one more coming. He said to tell you they were training down along the south ridge.” She pointed the opposite way they’d come in. “He said you could catch up to them down by the fence line. He has his cell if you want to call him.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that, thanks,” Chuck said. “I’ll call and tell him I’m on my way.” That’s why the gates were open. They were expecting more toy soldiers. “Did they walk or—”

“No, they took the ATVs. But they left one.” She pointed at the barn, where a red Honda four-wheeler was sitting off by itself. Then she shielded the sun from her eyes to look at Chuck’s pickup truck. “Wait, are there two of you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Chuck said. “But he can ride on the back. We’ll snuggle.”

The woman looked confused. And then, from behind her, a young face peered out of the chapel door.

The passenger door to Chuck’s pickup opened, and Kinnick jumped out. “Asher!”

The woman turned, just as the little boy stepped out of the chapel, squinted so that he could see better, and said, “Grandpa Rhys? What are you doing here?” He started moving toward Kinnick. “And where’d you get that shirt?”

The woman looked from the boy to Kinnick and back again. “Did you finish the assignment, Asher?”

“Yes,” he said, “it was very easy.” He didn’t look at his teacher as he spoke. Instead, he walked toward his grandfather, who met him in the dirt between the truck and the chapel, dropped to his knees, and took the boy in his arms. Chuck could see him bury his face in the boy’s neck.

Asher pulled back to look at Kinnick. “Is your face okay?”

“It’s fine.”

“What are Glass Animals?”

At first, Kinnick didn’t know what this meant, but then he looked down at the shirt he was wearing. “Oh, right. It’s a band, apparently,” Kinnick said. “Someone gave me the shirt. Because I didn’t smell very good.”

“Well, it’s cool,” Asher said. “I like the pineapple.”

A girl came out next. “Grandpa Rhys, your eye!” she said. “Are you okay?” She ran toward him.

“I’m fine,” Kinnick said, “I’m good,” and he hugged the girl, too.

They held this embrace, the three of them, Kinnick on his knees, the kids surrounding him, Chuck alternating between resolve and regret over his own shitty parenting as he watched this little reunion.

“We’re in the middle of Bible lessons,” the young woman in the prairie dress said to Chuck. “Leah, Asher, you need to get back inside.”

“I have a note from their mother,” Kinnick said, and reached in his back pocket. “I’m taking them home with me.”

Three other children’s faces appeared in the door of the chapel, looking out to see what the commotion was about.

“Can you kids go and get your backpacks?” Kinnick asked.

“I don’t think—” The teacher looked around nervously. “That’s not—”

But Leah and Asher walked past her, and past the other kids, into the chapel.

That’s when, from behind them, the back door to the main house opened. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

Chuck turned. He recognized the pastor he’d met when he’d served papers up here before. At the time he had expected David Gallen to be a stern figure with one of those Old Testament beards, but Gallen was a small, clean-shaven man with round glasses and hard-combed hair that looked like it had been parted with a steak knife. In fact, he looked less like a Christian Nationalist preacher than he did the sort of local insurance agent who wore short sleeves with ties and worked out of a mall.

Kinnick straightened up.

Chuck turned to face Gallen. He took two steps, carefully placing himself between the pastor and Kinnick. “Hello, Pastor,” Chuck said. “I’m Chuck Littlefield. You might recall, I was up here serving papers last year on a fence line dispute with your neighbors. Listen, you may not be aware of this, but a couple of your church members knocked my friend around yesterday and took his grandchildren. We’re taking them back to Spokane as per their mother’s wishes.”

“I see.” The pastor used his index finger to push up the bridge of his glasses. “I was made to understand, by their father, that Bethany had gone off on another drug binge.” He shook his head. “Such a shame.”

Chuck looked at Kinnick, whose face was knit with worry. “Well.” Chuck turned back to the pastor. “I can assure you, that’s not the case. Just some good, old-fashioned marital difficulty. Nothing the family can’t handle themselves.”

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