Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

across the space between them and found her hand.
    Wolff cleared his throat.
    â€œSo, I have a decision to make, and the decision is this: which one of you do I have to shoot to get the other one to tell me where it is?”

30
    Sun Day, night
    A lways tell the truth.
    Never lie, for Satan uses lies against us.
    Turn the other cheek.
    Be good and peaceful and avoid the path to evil.
    Forgive your enemies and pray for them.
    These were the things Maria had taught her children, and though Sig had been too small to learn much then, it was the same message Nadya had taught them too.
    But Nadya had left them, and no one from town had come to help Anna and Sig. There was no one to turn to.
    They sat in their chairs, watching Wolff as he made up his mind, occasionally lifting the tip of the Colt first toward one of them, then the other.
    Sig’s mind was a fury, trying to see a way out of it all, searching for any tiny chink in Wolff’s armor, for some clue as to what to say to make it all stop. So many things he had learned. His mother had always taught him to
speak the truth and to believe in it as the only path to God, and yet Einar had kept the truth from them for years and landed them in this mess. Only now did they understand why Einar had chosen to live six miles from town, to isolate themselves from other human contact.
    â€œKnow everything you can know,” his father used to say, but sickeningly Sig wondered if he had ever really known his father, and if he didn’t know him, how could he love him?
    Anna was exhausted, her single thought of her father. Seeing his shape under the blanket rekindled all sorts of awful memories. She was just ten again, seeing her mother lying in a pool of her own blood.
    Her doll.
    She’d never had another toy since. As she thought about her mother, she remembered the story of Job again, and it brought tears to her eyes as she wondered how her mother could believe in it. How Job had seen his whole life destroyed, and yet had still had faith in the goodness of God.
    â€œEnough!” Wolff said abruptly. He pulled back the hammer on the Colt with his one thumb.
    Time slowed to a crawl as Sig had a brief premonition of the future, the very near future. When Wolff moved his forefinger less than a quarter of an inch, that hammer would fall and ignite the primer in the cartridge. The powder would burn, burn so fast as to be an explosion,
but all contained inside the tiny brass case of the cartridge, just as Einar had explained all those years ago. He heard his father’s voice once more, as if he were there. Telling him how the metal would expand, to press against the walls of the cylinder, releasing the lead of the bullet, which would begin its spinning journey toward him. Or Anna. Either was equally awful to think about.
    Before the bullet struck, that little brass case would have cooled enough and shrunk enough so that next time Wolff loaded the gun, it would slip lightly out of the cylinder.
    Wolff spoke slowly.
    â€œI choose you.”
    He pointed the gun at Sig.
    â€œWait!” Sig screamed. “Wait. I’ve thought of something.”
    There was just enough conviction in his voice for Wolff to hear him out.

31
    Sun Day, night
    â€œB e very careful you don’t play games with me, boy.”
    Sig spoke desperately, genuinely, hurriedly.
    â€œI’m not. We don’t know about this gold, I promise we don’t, but if you say father had it then it must be somewhere. And we don’t have it here. We’d know. It’s a tiny place. Supposing Father had put it in the bank? In cash. He had an account at the mining bank. If he had, there’d be papers. We could get them and give the money to you. Just let us go. We’ll give you the money.”
    â€œSig’s right,” Anna said. “There were papers on the sled when we found him. You said yourself he’d cleaned everything out of his office. He must have been bringing them