The Kept by James Scott Page B

apart. Caleb stood on unsteady feet and returned his pack to his shoulders, where the skin burned, rubbed raw. Jesse’s boots dug into the snow for traction. “One more.”
    A strap went. “Hold on, Mama.” He kicked his toes into the powdery snow and strained to keep the tarp from sliding backward. “Hold on.” Caleb took the last few steps at a run, and collapsed at the top of the hill. The other strap gave way with a small sigh and a pop and he spun and caught the twine as it tried to slither away. The coarse fibers peeled his skin until he wrapped it around his wrists, stopping the cocoon’s descent and bringing it next to him. He lurched onto his stomach. His dwindling heat melted the snow, and sleep started to hug him. Even in his exhaustion, Caleb knew if he closed his eyes whoever lived in the house would find him lying there next to a small, clean spot of yellowed grass where his breath had left him and—next to him—his dead mother swathed in a tarred canvas tarp. He pushed himself onto one knee, then one foot. He grasped the Ithaca and dragged it out of the cocoon by its barrel. The gun had never felt so heavy. He worried he wouldn’t be able to lift it to fire. The house rose ahead, and as he advanced into its cold shadow he saw how massive it was: at least three stories, with a long porch that extended the entire length of the first floor. Chains for swings rattled from the ceiling. The windows were as tall as a man and had each pane intact, but none glowed with lamps. No smoke billowed from the chimney. Caleb took a look back at his mother. Her parched lips didn’t move; no breath clouded in the crisp air.
    A shot cracked the sky and Caleb dropped to the ground, pointing the Ithaca at the house as he did. Stinging life rushed back into his limbs. Silence as the report echoed down through the valley.
    “Who’s there?” a man’s voice called.
    Caleb didn’t dare move.
    “I think I got him,” the man said.
    Caleb heard the creaking of a door and aimed the Ithaca at the front porch. An old man, cradling a shotgun half as big as his body, let the screen slam behind him. Caleb had never seen someone elderly, nothing more than drawings in books that depicted the ravages of age as soft and giving. This man shuffled at an angle, as if he ducked under a low branch, and most of his scalp shone through thin strands of white hair. Every movement brought a new sound—a sigh or a sniff. On his feet he wore bundles of rags. His clothes were layers of burlap, some torn and filled with holes so that the ones beneath poked through. Caleb didn’t know how the recoil hadn’t knocked him clean off his feet.
    “Are you dead?” the old man called.
    Caleb had him in his sights. “No,” he replied, his voice louder and stronger than he could have hoped.
    “Did I hit you?”
    “No.”
    “You alone?”
    Caleb relaxed and the gun barrel dipped into the snow. “My mother’s with me.”
    “Where is she?”
    “Did he say ‘Mother’?” said a woman’s voice from inside the darkness of the house.
    The old man turned slightly. “Hush, Margaret,” he said. “I said, where is she?”
    “She’s here,” Caleb said. He didn’t think the old man had seen him yet but could track him by the sound of his voice. The snow was deep enough to conceal most of him, and the afternoon shadows did the rest. Caleb thought the man was going to step out farther into the snow. Instead, he set his rifle against the railing of the porch and sat down on the top step. He placed his chin in his hands. “I’m an old man,” he said after a while. “I can wait.”
    “Wait for what?” Caleb asked.
    “Yes, wait for what?” the voice from inside said, more clearly this time, as if it had moved closer to the door. He’d called her Margaret. This made Caleb feel safe.
    “For you to show yourself, and show you mean us no harm.” He pointed to the rifle at his side. “I showed you I mean none.”
    “You shot at me,” Caleb