CRACK.

The axe passed through the wood as though it were doing an old friend a favor—effortlessly, and without need of a sense of recompense.

Sweat and corded muscle stood out on the back of the man wielding the blade, his grimy tan making him somewhat difficult to distinguish from the earth itself as he bent down to place another log on the chopping block.  His faded jeans and work boots looked older than the rocks on the ground.  There was only one thing he wore that I was too far away to see yet, but I knew it would be there—a small golden band on a thin chain around his neck.  A large black dog kept vigil beside his master, too old to care about chasing small animals and too familiar with me to bark.

The man’s hands spread apart as he gripped the handle and raised the axe again in a motion that would seem haphazard to the untrained eye, then brought it down swiftly into the heart of the thick cut of wood.

CRACK.  Another perfect strike that would soon be lost amidst its thousands of brethren.

The birds and other woodland creatures carried on chirping, chattering and foraging for food, treating the man in the clearing and the noise he was making the same as they treated the old oak tree that had been struck by lightning.  Both always there, never changing, perhaps a bit worn but with the ability to cling to vitality still intact.

It had been years since I had visited this place, yet time had made no advance upon it.  The same trees stood guard, the same smell (a mixture of freshly plowed dirt, wild grass, and a crisp wind from the north) hung in the air, and the same old dirt road served as the only way in or out.  The dust from my arrival would likely still be there when I left if the meeting went the way I expected it would.

I felt the ring in my pocket, a ready if painful sense of comfort that helped me prepare for what lay ahead.

As I approached the dog gave a low grunt and got to his feet, his tail waving lazily back and forth as he plodded toward me.

“Hey Badge,” I said softly as I kneeled to pat him.  My nickname for him made his tail wag harder for a few seconds before slipping back into a more ponderous sway.

Knowing the man had already heard my car, I made no attempt to gain his attention without startling him, and instead walked up to within a few paces behind him, looking at the large pile of firewood and the equally large pile of roughly hewn limbs, logs, and pieces of trunk awaiting their turn.

“Badger, come.”

I had always been struck by how well the voice fit the man—deep and rumbling with a tone that made it clear respect would be given when and if it was earned.

Badger walked back to his master’s side and sat, his eyes remaining on me as if fearing I would leave and be gone again for years.

CRACK.  “What do you want?”

I guess there could be worse greetings, I thought.  Badger whined, clearly aware of the charged atmosphere and unhappy about it.

“It’s been a while.,” I said.  “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“It’s not been long enough, and you wouldn’t come this far just to check on me,” he said, ending the sentence with a grunt of exertion as he swung again.

“Maybe I would if I felt more welcome,” I countered.

“Maybe you’d be more welcome if I had anything to say to you,” he said, once again twisting my own words around to make it clear he didn’t want to see me.

“Has so much changed since you would have shaken my hand and began talking to me about how the weather’s been?”

He paused before setting up another log.  “You actually have the nerve to ask me that?”

“It’s not nerve when the person asking is innocent of his perceived crime.”

I expected him to face me, but he instead brought the axe down as if I were only another tree slightly out of line from the rest of the forest.  I would have thought he hadn’t heard me at all if a few muffled words hadn’t barely made it to my ears.  The only one I could clearly make out was “self-delusional.”

This was a far cry from what I had hoped would transpire, so I tried to change tactics.  “The crops look good.”

He said nothing.

“Are you going to plant any tomatoes next year?  If you are, I’d—

“How much longer are you going to pretend this is just a social visit?” he interrupted with another chop.

The wind that had been barely stirring the tops of the trees died suddenly, making the silence even heavier.  There was no avoiding it, but I had hoped to soften the blows coming by at least melting some of the ice that had formed between us.  I steeled myself and spoke firmly.  “She left you something.”

His blade found its mark again, the irrepressible rhythm driving ever forward.  “I don’t want it.”  He said it as though he had been expecting this moment and had the words prepared, but I could still hear the pain underneath them.

“She made it quite clear you were to have it anyway.”

“I don’t want it.”

One deep breath did little to ease my own discomfort, so I took two.  “It’s your mother’s wedding band.”

For a moment he seemed to falter, but it must have been a trick of the light because an instant later another log split apart, straight down the middle.

“Why did she leave it to me?”

“Why wouldn’t she leave it to you?  Do you really think she hated you?”

“If she didn’t she did a good job pretending.”

My uneasiness began turning to anger.  “That was as much your fault as it was hers.”

“I was only trying to protect her.  You were the one who was too afraid to tell her no.”

“Charlie, I’m not having this conversation again,” I ground out, straining to keep my voice civil.  “You know exactly how she was.”

He finally turned to face me, his good eye glaring at me with inhuman sharpness, the other closed forever by a stray piece of shrapnel.  The front of his jeans bore several patches from where the same axe he held now had slashed through the fabric and into his flesh as he had adjusted to the lack of depth perception after the war.  His left leg supported the bulk of his weight, the right too injured to hold him since one mistake had nearly cost him everything from the shin down.  “Of course I know how she was!” he thundered as he pointed the axe at me.  “Do you?  Are you the one who took care of her after our parents died?  Who raised her?  Who protected her for eighteen years and then gave her to a man in trust that he would do the same?!”

“No,” I said.  “I’m the man who decided she should live life rather than watch it go by from the shadows.”

He took a step toward me.  “Is that what you call it?  ‘Letting her live?’  Odd choice of words for the one responsible for her death.”

“No one is responsible.  You and I both know she didn’t have long to begin with.  She wanted to experience all she could before the end.”

“The end could have been five or maybe even ten years away for all we knew.  You hastened it by letting her go there, and she said she wanted to go because you made her feel guilty.”

“What?!” I exploded.  “I told her that nothing should hold her back, and that anything she wanted to do in this wide world I would help her!”

“A clear indication you thought she wasn’t doing enough!”

I bit my tongue as my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands and stared at him.  “Are you accusing me of killing my own wife?”  I could only imagine what he would think if he knew the whole story.

“No.  I’m accusing you of killing my sister.  No man would be so careless with his wife.”

I could not believe what I was hearing.  I had known he resented me, but to know he blamed he directly…even though I knew I had been right guilt still pressed down on me.

Did he already know what I had hidden from him on some level?  Was it because I had taken so long to come see him, or had he been keeping a closer eye on her than I had suspected?

It doesn’t matter, I thought.  This has to be the last time.  Everything has to be said now, before I lose my nerve and so that we can both have complete closure.

“In a way you’re right,” I said slowly, exhaling.  “You just don’t know why you’re right.”

He didn’t move for a moment, then turned back to his work.  “Anyone could see that I was right.  Anyone except you.”

CRACK.

I continued as he got back into his rhythm, knowing he would listen to every word.  “I wasn’t careful enough.  Carol—

“Don’t say her name,” he snarled.

“She had a doctor’s appointment a week before we left for the mountains.  He asked what we would be doing, and she told him it was a ski resort, but that we would only be walking a few trails and taking in the air.”  I hesitated.  “He warned her not to try anything overly physical because the disease had weakened her body to the point where a sharp impact could fracture multiple bones.”

The axe came down at a shallow angle, clipped the standing log and drove into Charlie’s right leg, a few inches below the old scar.  The scream that tore loose from his throat was honed by the sudden pain, but the ferocity was meant for me.

He wheeled so fast that the twice-injured leg collapsed underneath him, and he caught himself on his hands, one still clenching the axe so hard I could hear his knuckles popping.  Badger leaped to his side and barked, confused and scared by the sudden outburst and smell of blood.  Charlie pushed him away and looked up at me.

“You,” he gasped, “son…of…”

I cut him off.  “I shouldn’t have let her.  But knowing that she shouldn’t ever do anything besides sit still was killing her as much as the sickness itself.  It would have been a long, painful death compared to what happened.”

“You don’t know that!” he yelled slamming his fists into the ground.

“We both do!  It was time to stop protecting her and to start helping her!  Do you honestly think it didn’t hurt me?” I asked, the sudden stab of pain in my chest making my voice break.

“I hope it did,” he spat at me.  “And I hope it eats you alive, knowing that you as good as murdered her.”

All the air in my lungs left me as my body went numb.  I was only dimly aware of Charlie struggling to his feet, still holding the crimson-tipped axe.  Whether he meant for my blood to be on it next or to go back and lose himself in the monotony of chopping made no difference to me.

I drew a golden band out of my pocket; a smaller, thinner version of the one that hung just below his collarbone.  Holding it up where he could clearly see it, I set it down on top of the stack of firewood, gave Badger one last scratch behind the ears, then turned away.                   

The walk back to my car seemed infinitely longer than the one that had taken me to the confrontation—a feat I wouldn’t have believed possible just moments ago.  There were no birds calling, no squirrels barking.  Only the wind continued to blow steadily, rattling the dry leaves in a way that made me think of gossipers whispering as the self-righteous town troublemaker makes his way through the square.

“Don’t come back!”  The words rang out clear and hard, leaving nothing to the imagination of what would happen if I did ever find myself in this small clearing again.

I got into my car and sat there, letting the ‘what if’ scenarios run freely through my mind once again.  What if I hadn’t let her insist on learning?  What if we had gone down a different path?  What if that rock hadn’t been there?  What if I hadn’t listened to her when she told me to let go of her hand?

CRACK!  Though I was further away from the cutting block now, the extra force behind the blow made me jerk as it sent my mind reeling back.  Though I knew another log had just been prepared for the fire, in my mind all I could see was the flash of two overturned skis in the cold sunlight, and the finger of judgment pointing at me underneath the icy gray eye of a man I once called brother.