Knuckles burning and head beaten, all for this. Hundreds of loud miles under sun, and rain, and snow amongst the winds—where now they grew quiet. We felt the wood watching, felt the space between the trees full. Four directions. Each one held a menacing turn: a decision of change. We could take one and lose the others. Take one and lose something of ourselves. We stood there a time, turning North then South, looking at one another for an answer. The woods about remained still, their eyes holding us in a portrait of time not to be seen. A panic fell to my heart, and you saw it in my eyes. No amount of pacing would give the answer. To move forward was to lose. To remain was to die. You held my eyes and you smiled.
The lines in his shoulders and his chest showed only when he ran. Puffs of exhaled air pulsed into the sunset as he charged. He was fearsome. Powerful. They watched in awe but cowered when he grew close. He was as the bear when free. He was the pinnacle of nature and of life against it. All in one the reason for the stars.
The bar was warm and the barkeep was unassuming. He had no scars, and he seemed glad for it, and glad too to speak with his cheery crowd of patrons, who ate and gossiped and drank around him. Outside, it rained in the dark.
Leroy Brown stepped in and shook the drops from his hat. The room halted. The barkeep gulped, and a plate broke in the back. Leroy brushed the shoulders of his jacket with the back of his hand and broke the silence,
“One Stout and a whiskey, please.”
The barkeep fumbled about as Leroy settled in at the bar. Hanging light fell across three scars carved deep in Leroy’s face. The barkeep saw himself shake in Leroy’s glass eye.
“T-t-ten-”
Leroy tossed a bill on the bar and finished the Stout in three heavy gulps. Foam escaped down his jaw as rain rushed in with the heavy steps of three men well dressed and grim. Leroy’s ears caught their boots’ march halt a few feet from the bar. Leroy Brown stared down at his whiskey.
One of the men wore a heavy brown coat and a dark mustache. He spoke, “You all better clear out. It’s gon’ get bloody in here.”
Every soul in the bar gazed longingly for the door, and then at Leroy, who held one hand up. No one dared move. Leroy turned his head only slightly to the left, to a woman with big eyes and soft skin that sat across the room. He smiled and inclined his head before looking down and muttering to himself.
"Brown."
Then Leroy stood.
He turned about slowly, eyes far off on some far away horizon, until he came face to face with the three men.
"You're coming with us. Or, you can die here tonight."
Leroy looked to be sleeping. His eyelid was drooping, and he was muttering to himself about a woman he knew, or wanted to know, somewhere far back.
"You hear me you son of a bitch?"
The man with the mustache struck with his last word. His heavy fist caught Leroy hard in the temple and knocked out his glass eye. The other two moved in for the kill when Leroy awoke in a flash. Pacing left, then right, he struck with brutal accuracy, a blade's shine between his knuckles. It was over in moments.
Three wide streaks of blood followed Leroy out. Full plates went untouched at the sight of the blood and the glass eye on the floor. The barkeep sat stunned, and the cooks whispered in the back. Rain pattered on a tin overhang somewhere outside. The door opened. Leroy Brown marched back in, hands bloody, and finished his whiskey.
The ice was taking his toes. The first hill was not the hardest, but it was all he could think about. He remembered the rough bark of the tree he had reached out and touched. He remembered the golden leaves above and the last summer breeze upon his arms. He thought that it must have been warm. Two of his friends were buried just beyond the withering tent flap. The wind wailed outside. He remembered that his parents hadn’t come out, and that he was satisfied just to see the light in the living room from the hill. He remembered watching until the Sun set before he turned to go. The ice took his toes. Crystals formed about his eyebrows. Two of his friends were buried beside him. He had no time to remember the last hill, his new home. He fell asleep dreaming of the first one, of the golden leaves and the green hills. He wondered if his parents ever thought of him.