You Only Get Letters from Jail by Jodi Angel

told me that water wasn’t free up here, what we had had to last us, and she made me heat water a little at a time, wash everything first, rinse fast, and then she told me that the dishes weren’t clean enough and maybe I could do a better job tomorrow. She reached for a bag of marshmallows and a box of graham crackers and began stepping down out of the camper.
    â€œWhatever,” I said low and under my breath—it seemed like it was the way she and I communicated—and she turned fast and grabbed my arm up high, dug her bony fingers between the bicep and bone.
    â€œWhat did you say to me?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œYou know, I am no dummy. I know how teenage boys are—lazy, mouthy, dumb. Nick has a big heart and when the phone rang, he couldn’t say no. Me, I said why in the hell do you need to rescue your sister’s boy when she couldn’t take care of her own? And she sure as hell couldn’t, could she? But Nick thought he could do something for you. Make things better. I told him that he couldn’t. So watch it. I have a lot of leverage around here and all I have to do is tell Nick three words— I am done .”
    I didn’t sleep that night. I tried, but the makeshift table bed was too short and unless I kept my knees slightly bent or slept with my legs at an angle so they hung over the side, I couldn’t fit. I felt claustrophobic and smothered. I could hear Uncle Nick breathing, falling in and out of snoring like a lawn mower that’s sputtering on fumes, and I could hear Shirley, her sounds of sleep quieter but sharp, and the air in the camper was too hot and there was not enough oxygen to go around. I stared out the little window and watched the oval piece of sky where the stars were bright white and there were too many to count and wondered if this was my life. When I was sitting in the hospital after they wheeled my mom away, the county people came and asked questions, made the call to Uncle Nick. They asked how long my mother had been dead and I had to explain to them that I really didn’t know for sure. I turned over on the too-short bed and tried to remember how my old house looked when I used to walk in the front door. I was forgetting things. When the alarm went off I was relieved because my eyes were already open and I had been waiting for a long time.
    Shirley made coffee in the percolator on the tiny stove, and I stepped outside to dress. It was cold and the cold was an edge against my skin whenever a section was exposed. I dressed fast, dressed in layers, the way that Uncle Nick had said I should. We filled canteens from the water jugs, put a few granola bars and sandwiches in a small pack that Shirley carried, and then the three of us slipped on bright orange vests and took our oiled rifles, one by one, from the rack in the truck—Shirley’s Browning A-Bolt and two Remington 700s, one for me and one for Uncle Nick—his a brand-new one he bought so he could pass me down his old. I looked out at the forest around us and tried to adjust my vision, but there was no hint of morning in the sky and we struck out in a darkness like full night.
    â€œKeep your muzzle down,” Uncle Nick said, and we formed a line behind him, Shirley in the middle and me in the rear, and the cold in my fingers crept up my arm and I was a little bit sorry that my pride was too big to let me stay in camp, where I could be warm, try to sleep, be alone.
    We walked in silence, Uncle Nick holding a short Coleman flashlight to spot the ground, the only noises the snap of sticks under our boots and the sound of fabric rubbing. I was wide awake for a while, breathing through my nose, and my eyes feeling too big for my head, and then I started sleeping on my feet and followed along while time passed without much notice. Uncle Nick had found an area of thick scrub that he wanted to get to when the sun came up so we could be waiting if a herd came down to nose at