Nothing Short of Dying by Erik Storey Page A

loop through the mountains, let this thing die down a little, get Katy on a bus, and then head to the place you were telling me about.”
    Allie nodded and eased us back into the work traffic of heavy trucks and white pickups. As the Jeep began eating up the miles, Allie looked over at Katy. “So you got to meet the famous Clyde Barr, huh?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    A nd so it began. Their conversation became more friendly and intimate with each passing minute, and soon it sounded like they’d known each other their whole lives. Allie traded in her tough-girl persona for that of a protective older sister. It was a side I hadn’t seen, but it looked good on her.
    We continued north on the narrow two-lane state highway.
    I tried to pay attention to the road and the surrounding scenery as the young ladies carried on, sisters now due to shared calamity. Though the subjects were varied, the conversations revolved around a central theme: men.
    It was apparently an inexhaustible topic: problems with men, men they were trying to get away from, the stupidity of men, the horror and brutality of men. Sitting in the backseat, I felt like a human sacrifice, burnt on the pyres of gender. Although I resisted their blanket condemnation, a part of me had to concede their point: men tend to make a mess of things.
    As the ladies’ diatribe continued, the Jeep worked hard to pull us up the incline that would summit at Rio Blanco Hill. In front of us in every direction was rough, wild, andempty country—my favorite kind. The mountains outside the window, the Hogback and the Roan, brought me back to my early teens. At thirteen I’d started driving around Junction’s surrounding mountains and deserts to put meat on the table. Mom worked as a waitress, but between deadbeat boyfriends and her kids, the money didn’t go very far. So I supplemented by hunting. It was illegal, of course—both my driving and the constant poaching—but we needed to eat. It was the beginning of my professional hunting career.
    It was rough in the beginning: being alone in the mountains, figuring out the art of wilderness survival all by myself. Lightning, rock slides, poor driving, and a fledgling sense of direction had all come close to ending it for me.
    Looking back on it now, I had to admit that those years in the hills were about more than obtaining food; they were also a way to escape. I was a big reader even then and my heroes were mountain men like Hugh Glass, Jim Baker, Liver-eating Johnson, and John Colter. They belonged to a different age. I guess I did too.
    I broke away from my reminiscing in time to hear Allie and Katy conversing about the basics of vehicular locomotion. Allie was saying what she’d do if she were to fix the hundreds of problems with the Jeep. Katy was taking it all in and telling Allie that she was planning on becoming a chef when she grew up.
    I stretched out in the back, trying to sleep, but ended up thinking about Jen.
    WHEN I TURNED TEN, DAD met a seventeen-year-old lot lizard while he was driving his Peterbilt to Nevada, and called Mom to tell her he wouldn’t be coming home. Mom started datingrandom drunks, then Ski. Deb and Angie were both gone, one marrying rich and the other getting her accounting degree. After the Ski debacle, there was what Jen and I called “The Year of Paxton”—the worst year of our lives.
    Jimmy Paxton was a concrete contractor who ran a crew of ten illegals. They poured and formed foundations for the new subdivisions in town. When Paxton was working, he made decent money and was usually reasonable. He was working when Mom met him at the breakfast place where she slung plates. A month after they met, the housing market crashed and he was unemployed. He became a different person then—an absolute psychopath, bent on control and violence.
    Mom wasn’t allowed to work. Paxton had a little savings and thought he’d be back to work soon, so