never a question of their not having wanted him but rather of their having been forced to make the supreme sacrifice.
When he looked back now it seemed to Cole he had played this game for years, and he writhed to recall those scenarios in which his long-lost mom and dad whisked him off to their private island or rodeo ranch or traveling circus or spaceship.
And he remembered how, when he was still in the hospital, he had convinced himself that once he was well Dr. Hassan was going to adopt him—a fantasy that had not conjured up his parents’ scandalized faces. On the contrary, Cole was sure his parents would have approved of his being adopted by someone like Dr. Hassan.
But if dead was dead—if they were truly nowhere and nothing now—how could his parents be horrified at anything? How could they approve or disapprove of any decision he made? How could he hurt their feelings?
This was why he avoided thinking about adoption. It was too hard, too painful and bewildering. Sometimes it made him want to scream or break something; other times it just made him cry.
Up in the dark, and even though she wasn’t coming along Tracy was up with them, fixing peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches and filling the cooler with iced tea while Cole and PW loaded the minivan with their gear.
Now that the day was finally here, all Cole’s excitement had bubbled up again, and in that hushed hour before sunrise it was as if something epic was about to unfold. Once again, as on that day years ago when his parents came to pick him up from summer camp, he was overwhelmed by the terrible power of happiness, how it threatened to crush you, or to suck all the air out of your lungs, and his hands shook as he helped PW pile firewood into the van.
It was spring, but all that week had been hot as July and even at dawn the air felt like something sprayed on your skin.
“Now, don’t you all get eat by a bear,” Tracy warned.
PW said black bear—the only kind of bear to be found where they were going—didn’t eat people. And as long as you didn’t rile them they wouldn’t attack. Even so, Tracy said, she’d sleep better knowing PW had his gun.
The gun had taken Cole by surprise. Not one of the hunting rifles from the gun cabinet in the den but a 9 millimeter Cole had never seen before, and which he figured was kept somewhere in PW and Tracy’s bedroom. But how close would the bear have to be—
“It’s not for bear, son.”
“It’s not?”
“No. Now, don’t you worry, I’m just playing it safe. I wish it were otherwise, but the truth is, the scariest thing out there goes on two legs, not four.”
The rifles in the den hadn’t been used in years. It was one of Cole’s favorite stories. PW and some buddies had been out tracking a whitetail when one of them was accidentally hit by another hunter. PW had been standing close by when it happened.
“Saw his cheek explode, got splashed with his blood, even thought for a couple heartbeats I’d been hit myself. Well, poor Carter survived, but I wasn’t much of a happy hunter for a while after that. ’Course it didn’t help seeing him all the time with his face so messed up. He had a bunch of operations, but I never did see much improvement. He still made Mason look like a beauty queen. I don’t like to say, but his wife up and left him. After that he stopped going to church and started talking crazy. He was going to finish the job. Anyone could tell he meant business. That’s when I promised the Lord I’d give up hunting for good if he’d do a work in Carter’s heart.”
“And that’s what happened?”
“Carter met a girl—much prettier than his wife, I don’t mind saying. He married this girl, Shane, had three kids with her, worked his tail off making a nice life for them all. Then the flu got him. And where he is now it don’t matter what his face looks like. His life is one pure joy.”
Hunting was second only to church in Salvation City. (“There’s a reason the Indians thought of heaven as the Happy Hunting Ground,” said Boots.) All the boys and more than half the girls Cole knew did some kind of hunting, and there were kids his age who’d been doing