Let Him Go: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

Margaret Blackledge stares down into that valley so steadily her tremor seems to subside.
    If he were not beside but behind her, George might be able to align his vision with hers, like sighting a rifle, and determine exactly the target of her gaze. The possibilities seem to be few. Give the mind the opportunity to work its memory magic, however, and absences can be as evocative as presences. And this man and woman have reached the age at which they are as likely to see what’s not there as what is . . . the circle where the horse tank once was, the grass blades still furled after decades of being matted down. The indentation in the earth where the homestead’s original sod house stood, but there the grass grows two shades greener for once having had the concentration of lives lived within its rectangle. The bare space beyond the back door where the lilacs grew and gave the twins shade for their play and Margaret her smell of spring when she needed it most.
    George once woke in the night and stood at the kitchen window, water glass in hand, and looking out saw a face, someone standing among the lilacs and watching the house.
    Without turning on a light, grabbing a weapon or a robe, or putting something on his feet, George burst from the house and ran like a man heedless of danger and certain of the identity of the person hiding in the shrubbery.
    Well short of the confrontation he appeared eager for, George stopped.
    Margaret had given the children a few old dishes, andunder the bower of the lilacs they would dig holes and fill the cracked, chipped cups, bowls, and plates with what they scooped from the earth. But there must have been something besides digging to the children’s make-believe because they had balanced plates in the lilacs’ branches. It was one of those that had caught enough moonlight to look like a face, pale and yearning and turned toward the Blackledge home.
    The night was cold and his bed was waiting, but George remained in place, staring into the mesh of interlaced bare branches, the season for blossom and fragrance long past. And when the ranch’s sale was final and the Blackledges were moving out, it was Margaret who insisted the lilacs be chopped down. We can’t do that, George argued. They’d bought those as sure as the house and the barn and the land they were built on. And burn the branches, was her answer.
    Now no sign, no scorch or char, marks the place where George built the fire. Remarkable, earth’s strength to restore itself and erase human effort. But memory, stronger still, can send flames as high as the roof, and shift the wind and choke George and sting his eyes with smoke, lilac smoke, as though it could be differentiated from any other.
    Margaret too is looking down less on a place than on a time . . . when everything—house, barn, corral, lilacs, good grass, and winding creek—was in its place yet none were visible.
    The first landmark to vanish was the hill they sit on now, as the snowstorm rolled down the eastern slopes of the Rockies, picked up speed as it crossed Montana, and everywhere in its wake left a featureless landscape, bothdistance and contours of earth erased. The windows of the Blackledges’ house hummed and rattled in their frames, snow hissed against the outer walls, and wind whistled down the chimney. Her house was blizzard-besieged, but Margaret had her hands full with the people inside. Some kind of bug had bitten George and the twins, and all of them were sick, going off like Roman candles at both ends, vomiting in kitchen pots and scurrying to the toilet with diarrhea. George bore his illness with nothing but groans, but James and Janie called for Margaret with every cramp and convulsion. Between times when she was holding someone over the toilet or changing bedding, Margaret would glance out at the storm. And be glad. Their illnesses had come on during the night, and they all woke that morning unable to climb out of bed except to scramble to the