Page 46 of So Far Gone

With the shot still ringing in the air, he swung the scope to the second man, who looked properly, pants-shittingly, terrified,

and who immediately fell to the ground and began crawling under the truck. Brian swung the scope back to the bald man, writhing

on the ground in front of Kinnick. His friend’s face was plump and bloodied, but he held the handgun steadily, pointing it

from the scared man under the truck to the one Brian had just shot.

Oh God , Brian realized, I just shot someone.

“Brian?” Joanie said from inside the Bronco. “Is he—”

“It’s okay, Joan,” Brian said. “I got him.”

Only then did he realize how badly he was shaking.

***

Joanie took the Bronco back up the road until she got a phone signal.

She made the first frantic call, and within fifteen minutes, sirens could be heard roaring up the highway in the valley below.

They came in waves: paramedics and ambulances from Chewelah and Spokane, Stevens County sheriff’s deputies from Colville, assisting deputies from Spokane, the town marshal from Springdale, a random volunteer fire truck, a tribal cop from Wellpinit, a forensics team from Spokane, and a wildlife agent who just happened to be in the area; even a couple of FBI agents would eventually drive up the dirt road to Rhys Kinnick’s little house in the woods.

Dean Burris had gone into shock, and thankfully passed out; his tortured cries had been almost as unbearable to Kinnick as

poor Bethany’s weeping. She’d let go of Shane’s body, finally, wanting to go check on the kids, but Kinnick had stopped her

and pointed to her chest. “Beth, wait—” His broken-mouthed voice sounding raspy and mushy in his own ears.

She looked down at her sweater, covered in Shane’s blood, and began weeping again. Thankfully, Joanie was back, with a jacket

she’d had in her car, and she put her arms around Bethany, and covered the bloody sweater with her jacket, zipping it up so

that Bethany could go inside and check on the kids.

David Jr. had risen to the moment, it turned out, keeping Asher and Leah huddled in Kinnick’s bedroom upstairs, and telling

them to stay calm and stay put, even after the gunfire started. Davy had been the one to find the pellet gun, though Bethany

had taken it from him.

Pale, unconscious Dean Burris was loaded into the back of the first ambulance, a deputy accompanying him for the forty-mile

ride to Colville, to Providence Mount Carmel hospital, and eventually, to the Stevens County Jail. They didn’t handcuff him,

Kinnick noted, either because he was in shock or because there wasn’t enough left of that right arm to cuff. They did put

bracelets on Bobby, however, who eventually crawled out from under the truck. “I’m sorry,” he said to Kinnick, “I didn’t—”

But he wasn’t able to finish his apology before his head was pushed into the backseat of one of the sheriff’s cars, which

followed Burris’s ambulance off the property.

After twice giving his version of events to a sympathetic sheriff’s detective, Kinnick was put on a gurney and loaded into the other ambulance, where he was given ice packs for his face and some pills for the pain.

Out the back door of the ambulance, he could still see poor Shane, his body on the dirt driveway.

“Can I talk to my daughter before we go?” Kinnick asked.

Bethany had come back out of the house, eyes dusted and teary. Joanie’s jacket was zipped up to her neck.

She stood at the open back door of the ambulance. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” he said. “You?”

She nodded, tears spilling over her lower eyelids.

“And the kids?”

“They’re okay. Scared.” She cleared her throat. “I haven’t told them yet.”

Kinnick said, “It can wait.” Then: “I am so sorry, Beth.”

She nodded, and looked back over her shoulder, at Shane’s body, surrounded now by sheriff’s deputies. She covered her mouth

and began crying again, in little gasps, Kinnick wanting to reach for her, but unable to move because he was strapped to the

gurney.

One of the medics climbed in and said he had to shut the door of Kinnick’s ambulance now, Rhys muttering, “I love you,” as

the door closed on his daughter’s tear-streaked face.

At the other end of the driveway, Brian was explaining himself over and over to various law enforcement officials—more out

of their curiosity and respect for his shot than out of any suspicion that he’d done something wrong—he pointed, gestured,

reenacted, telling them how he’d been worried for his friend (“He’s a real hapless son of a bitch”) and that’s why he and

Joanie had driven up here from Ford, but as they approached, they’d heard a gunshot, so he’d had Joanie unzip his hunting

rifle from its case and hand it to him. And, as he’d turned up the driveway, he saw Dean Burris bent over, and Kinnick running

at him with what looked like a toy rifle, so he’d slammed the car into park, opened the door, stepped out with his rifle,

rested it on the car door, and when he saw Burris rise a second time with the handgun, he’d taken aim, and fired.

“Hell of a shot,” the deputies said over and over.

“Thanks,” Brian said, keeping to himself that he’d been aiming for the man’s back, and had somehow hit his shooting arm instead.

He felt sick every time he thought about it. The randomness of it all.

They told him they’d likely need to keep the gun for a while, to do forensics tests.

“All yours,” Brian said. “Long as I get it back before elk season.”

Kinnick’s ambulance was easing past them just then, and Brian gestured toward it. “Okay if I—”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” The deputy waved to the ambulance driver, who stopped. The deputy double-tapped the hood, then went around

back and opened the door.

When he’d first seen his friend, after Brian ran up the driveway to check on poor Shane and make sure everyone else was okay,

Kinnick had been too choked up to thank him. The enormity of it all. How close they’d come to dying. Like poor Shane, who

had tried, at the end, to protect Bethany.

God, if anything had happened to her or to the kids—

Now, seeing his friend through the open door of the ambulance, the same feelings of what might have happened rushed through Kinnick, and his head fell forward, and he cried silently and helplessly, head bobbing back and forth. Brian

leaned into the ambulance and squeezed Kinnick’s foot, the only part of his friend he could reach.

“ X?est sx?l?x?al?t ,” Brian said. He wished he knew a better phrase than Good day , but he had only begun taking classes at the Salish School, and, for now, it would have to do.