The Letter Keeper

by Charles Martin

  I disassembled my Zippo and pulled out the cotton stuffing inside that held the lighter fluid. I spread it apart, allowing air to the fibers, then sparked my Zippo above it. On the third strike, it lit. I fed the shavings gently alongside and after several long seconds, a few lit. Before long, I was feeding twigs into the flames and, within a few more minutes, driftwood. Ten minutes later, I was peeling off clothes both to get to the warmth and to the wound.

  While the fire lit and warmed the cave, I stripped to my underwear and wished I had not told Gunner to stay when I went looking for my crossbow. Having peeled away the clothing, I became more aware of my condition.

  And my condition was bad.

  The bolt from the crossbow had entered my back left of my spine and just below my rib cage, although it may have nicked a rib. It then exited a little more toward the center of me, suggesting that the shooter had not been standing at six o’clock behind me but more like four. I didn’t know if the broadhead had nicked any of my organs, nor do I really know where my organs sit inside me. But judging from the green, yellow, and brown mixed in with my leaking blood, the bolt had nicked my stomach.

  I knew what I needed to do. I just didn’t want to do it.

  I imagined Bones was looking for me by now, but if he was tangled up with the same person who shot me, it could be a while. If at all. I also didn’t know how far I’d drifted from where I’d fallen in. I could be a quarter mile. I could be two. It was anybody’s guess.

  All of this told me I had no guarantee of rescue and certainly not anytime soon. And given my predicament, I couldn’t rescue myself. Any movement would only make matters worse and accelerate my departure from planet earth.

  While I’d been shot in the back before, I had little experience being shot through the stomach. If I wasn’t dead already, then chances were good the arrow had not nicked vital organs. That left two options. I could die from bleeding out, called exsanguination, or I could die from infection caused by internal bleeding. Commonly known as sepsis. Theoretically, the latter would take longer, although neither would be fun. Realistically, bleeding out would be easier. Blood would leak out, my pressure would drop, and I’d just go to sleep before infection set in. But if I wished to hang around a while longer, which I did, I had to seal up the entry and exit holes. Which gave me more time. How much time? Maybe two days. Three max.

  But a few days was a few days.

  I placed my knife in the coals developing at the base of the fire and then fed in more wood. I knew as soon as I closed both wounds I would need to limit movement, so I forced myself to scour the bank and glean any driftwood I could. Fire was keeping me alive, and I didn’t know how long I could feed it with my present supply.

  I also knew I didn’t need to put anything new in my stomach.

  The blade turned red, and I grabbed the handle with my wet shirt. Then I held my arm behind me, judged the location of the hole, and pressed the red blade to my skin. When I woke up, the sun had climbed higher. My left hand told me I’d closed the wound, which was good news. I didn’t think I had the stuff needed to do that again.

  My stomach was still oozing, so I placed the blade back in the heat and repeated the process—although this time I managed not to pass out but rather lapse out of and into consciousness the rest of the afternoon.

  With darkness falling, the fire died and cold woke me. I quickly fed wood into the coals and tried to blow the flames into life, but blowing was excruciating. So I just waited for them to light. When they did, I fed the fire again and waited for the heat to push back the cold.

  With the leaks in my hull plugged, the clock was now ticking. All I had to do was lie on my back and wait—in a cave, in a canyon fifty feet above the water line, miles from my fall, where nobody would think to look. The only hope I had was the smoke trailing out the mouth of the cave, but given the dryness of the driftwood, the smoke was negligible. Of course, while the smoke would attract my rescue, it could also signal my enemy, who might this minute be staring down on me.

  I unholstered the Sig, press-checked the chamber, and counted one spare magazine with eight rounds. Including the round in the chamber, I had a total of seventeen rounds. Enough to defend myself for a few seconds or make a lot of noise if needed.

  I slept fitfully throughout the night and fought off thirst like I’d seldom known. I wanted badly to take a drink of water, but that presented two problems: I doubted I could make it to the water, and I was certain I couldn’t make it back. Second, I could not risk putting anything in my stomach.

  I was stuck being thirsty.

  On the second day, the pain in my torso had worsened. As had the swelling. I looked like I’d spent the last year drinking beer and not running to the Eagle’s Nest. I was also starting to lose my clarity. I fought hard to clear my mind, but fatigue pressed in on me and I passed in and out of consciousness.

  The next time I woke it was dark, suggesting I’d slept through day two and into night two. The fire had again died, and while I was running low on wood, I needed the warmth while I could create it. So I fed the coals and waited. The pain and swelling told me infection had officially set in and I’d need more than antibiotics to clear this. I was probably nearing the point of no return. I tried not to move, but no matter how I lay I could not get comfortable. Sitting up was almost impossible.

  The morning of day three brought a coyote sniffing the mouth of the cave. In truth, he smelled me. I raised the Sig and leveled the sights on him, but I had no desire to kill a curious coyote just doing what coyotes did, unless of course he started gnawing on my foot. I whistled. He saw me, froze, and then bolted, never to be seen again.

  Somewhere in there I quit sweating and grew so dizzy I couldn’t sit up. While that was bad, the good news was that I was no longer thirsty. Toward late afternoon, my mind started playing tricks on me. I suppose some might call it delirium. I’m not sure.

  Fading in and out, the slideshow of my life began playing across the backs of my eyelids like Bones’s show in the Planetarium. I saw pictures of me as a kid, fishing with Marie on our island, jumping on that boat and finding the girls trapped below, meeting Bones, running track, finding Marie seven miles past the jetties in the ocean and bringing her to safety, my time at the academy, training with Bones, my first wedding, chasing Marie, the years that passed and finding her, twice, then staying drunk a year in the Keys, and Bones lifting me out of the water and putting a pad in front of me, and then that lady editor asking me, “What’re you writing?” I remembered each book and where I was when I finished them. The characters, their names, and why they did what they did. I remembered visiting bookstores after a book release wearing a hat and sunglasses and watching people stand in line waiting on my books, only to then sit on park benches and read and laugh and cry as they furiously flipped pages. I remembered the girls whose names populated my back. I remembered Angel. Gunner. Clay. Casey. Ellie. And Summer.

  When I got to Summer, the tears broke. Twice now I had been married, and neither time had I spent any of my life with my wife. I wanted to sleep breathing the air she’d breathed, bring her coffee before she woke, and watch her laugh at me and tell me that the color of my T-shirt didn’t fit in my color wheel. I wanted all that and more.

  Looking back across my memories, one constant remained. Bones. He’d lifted me when I was down and celebrated with me when I was up. Which brought me back to the sting of Marie and why he’d never told me. I wished we’d talked it through.

  Then I remembered it. Bones’s letter.

  I’d zipped it in my jacket pocket. The jacket I’d been wearing when I took my Peter Pan off the canyon rim. The same jacket spread beneath me.

  I unzipped the pocket and slid the letter from its home. I opened the envelope and unfolded the letter, and, while wet, it was legible. It took a minute or more for my eyes to focus.

  Murph,

  I know you have questions. Were I you, I would too. I owe you much in this life and an explanation may be first
on the list. I am giving you the enclosed to allow you what you need to either hate me or understand me. If understanding is possible. I’ve been wrestling with my silence a long time, and even I realize there might be no justification. If I’ve asked myself once, I’ve asked ten thousand times, how far does the protection of the confessional go? Not telling you about Marie may well be the most evil thing I’ve ever done. Then again, maybe not.

  You told me not long ago that I might wake one day to find your hands wrapped around my throat. I wouldn’t blame you. Might even thank you for putting me out of my misery. I hope it’s some consolation to you that I’ve suffered hell since the day she came back into my life. If you want to part ways and want nothing more to do with me after you’ve read this, I totally understand. Before you go, please know I’ve admired many men in my life. None more than you.

  —Bones

  I opened the second letter, and while my vision was blurry, Marie’s handwriting caught me off guard. I tried to sit up but could not.

  Dearest Bishop,

  If you’re reading this then you know Bones knew about me during the years of my stay at Sisters of Mercy. As a result, there’s probably some friction, bad blood even. You can’t understand how he never told you I was alive.

  There’s a simple reason . . .

  I asked him not to.

  When I arrived at Sisters of Mercy, I began walking the beaches. Waiting to die. If I didn’t, I’d lose my ever-loving mind first. I hated me and all I wanted to do was hold you. But after having behaved so badly on two occasions and been given a death sentence with a virus attacking my heart, I knew I couldn’t. Or at least I felt I couldn’t. I was sure you’d take me back. But that wasn’t fair to you. I’d already betrayed you. Beyond forgiveness. Appearing once again seemed only further betrayal.

  But then I spotted you. I was walking the beach. You were sitting on a rock. Writing. You did this every day. Purging your soul. Writing the love you wished you’d lived. Then you’d tend bar, sleep, and start over the next day. I used to stare through your window at night and watch you sleep. One night I even crept in your room and sat next to your bed. Breathing air you’d breathed. And when the nightmare came and you screamed my name, I kissed your lips. And you held my hand.

  You held my hand.

  I expected to die any week. Any minute. So watching you those first few days was such a sweet gift. I bought binoculars, and that’s when I saw it. Your back.

  That’s when I knew.

  That’s when I knew I could not waltz back into your life because the moment I did, two things would quit happening. You’d quit writing because you’d start to live out your love rather than write it, and you’d quit leaving the ninety-nine to find the one, because you’d found her.

  I knew if you took me back, that while I would gain and live the love I’d always wished, the world would lose. So, in the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, I gave you back to the ninety-nine.

  The offering for my sin.

  Why?

  Because their needs outweigh mine.

  You taught me that.

  I’m gone now. But you’re not. You’re still here. And I’d like to think that I have some small part in every one you find.

  After I discovered you on the beach, I tracked down Bones and asked him to hear my confession. He was so excited to see me, he lit up. He couldn’t wait to call you. So I knelt in the confessional and dumped a lifetime of stuff on him of which I’m not proud. And just before I stood up, I confessed a sin I was about to commit. I was about to ask him not to tell you about me. That he could never tell you I was alive. I told him if he really was a priest, then he’d honor my request. For the rest of his life. He shook his head, cried, and begged me not to ask that. And despite the torment I knew it caused him, I did. I demanded his silence because I needed to give you back to the world.

  David, you have a gift. You are relentless and can find anybody. Anywhere. And you never count the cost. Especially the cost to yourself. You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever known. It’s the reason you found me that night seven miles out in the ocean. You’re the one.

  I’ve known it all our lives: you have a gift and the world needs it. And as difficult as it is to say, they need you more than I do.

  I wish that wasn’t true.

  As I watched you pour your heart out on the page, I could not envision a life where I kept you to myself and ignored those whose lives depended on your finding them. I just couldn’t live that way. Knowing I’d kept you from one single person was one too many. The thought that they’d died a slow death, alone, was more than I could bear.

  So blame me.

  But before the taste turns bitter, I want you to realize something. Something you may not have considered. Every name inked across your back was etched by me. I simply used the tattooist’s hand. And every name is just one more way for me to tell you I love you. And one more reason I was right. The names etched into your skin are the record of you and me.

  Staring through my binoculars, watching you scribble those magnificent stories in your notebook, I began to ask myself, what is one name worth? Eventually the question became, is it worth you and me?

  As painful as it is, there is only one answer.

  Yes.

  How do I know? Simple. I asked myself if you would sacrifice any one of those girls for us.

  The answer didn’t take long.

  Not in ten lifetimes.

  Life is a crazy thing, and I didn’t see it turning out this way. You should know that Bones took good care of me. He treated me like a daughter, came to see me, and begged me every time not to keep my silence and not to ask it of him. Next to you, Bones is the finest man I’ve ever met. I’ll miss him. And remember, while you’re angry, he’s hurting too. Don’t be too hard on him. He’s just a man. Who kept his word. And did what I asked of him.

  I gave you back to the ninety-nine for a reason. And no matter what pain or mess you might find yourself in, or what doubt has crept in, what tiredness of soul has wrecked you, there is still one who needs you. She’s out there. Right now.

  Find her.

  I love you.

  I’m with you always,

  Marie

  I tried to start over but couldn’t. I couldn’t read through tears.

  Throughout the afternoon, I read and reread the letter. Maybe a dozen times. I understood her reasons. But hearing them didn’t make it easier.

  I couldn’t argue with what she said. She loved me and that love drove her decisions. And even if I wanted to, she was gone. Who would hear my complaining? I couldn’t be mad at Bones. He did what she’d asked him even when I knew it caused him great pain. He was just as stuck in the middle as me.

  None of this made me feel any better. The truth of me was this: I was dying alone in a cave racked with pain in both my body and my heart and, despite my skill, my experience, and my desire, there was nothing I could do about it.

  Marie was right about Bones. She’d put him in an impossible situation. One for which he’d not asked. My anger at him was just misdirected blame. In her absence, I had wanted to blame someone. To vent my anger. Yet he was only guilty of keeping his word. Of honoring her wish, even if he disagreed. If anything, he was a pawn. Like me.

  My resting heart rate had jumped to nearly twice normal, followed by a fever. I’d quit sweating yesterday. I’m no doctor, but I knew my chances of getting out of this cave were slim. Sepsis had set in, and the infection in my blood was multiplying exponentially, minute by minute. Knowing he needed to hear it and I might not get the chance to tell him, I pulled a piece of charcoal from the fire and wrote on the back of the letter, “Bones, there’s nothing to forgive.”

  I fed the fire the last of the driftwood and faded in and out of a restless sleep while holding the Sig close to my chest. If whoever shot me found me, I wanted to look like I’d put up a fight, but truth be told, I’d grown too weak to lift my hand. Much less aim and shoot.

  I ha
d been chewing on two questions I could not answer. The first was simple: Who did this? Honestly, I had no idea. The second was equally as simple: Why?

  In my work around the world, I’d encountered some sick people, but whoever had done this was different. He might even top the list. I was also pretty sure that taking the girls was a setup. They were bait, and he was fishing for me.

  A man who will stage an explosion at a fully functional hospital, during a wedding, and then bring the building down on top of the rescuers, values only one life. His own. This man was on the level with the tailor who makes the suicide vest, recruits the bomber, and sends him into a school. You can’t reason with such a man. Evil is not reasonable. If it were, it would, by definition, not be evil. Any conversation is a head fake while he cuts off your legs at the knees. A man like this is driven by one thing—domination. His power at your expense. He wants your head on a platter. There is no land for peace. No quarter. No cute “Coexist” bumper sticker.

  I was unable to answer either question, and a third surfaced: When do you leave the sheep to hunt the wolf?

  For that I had no answer.

  Somewhere after midnight, when the fire died and the twenty-degree outside air crept in, my fever spiked high enough to keep me warm while the pain kept my mind occupied. As I slipped further out of consciousness, the sun rose and another day passed, followed by a colder afternoon and falling snow. Night brought high winds that blew heavier falling snow inside the cave, dusting me in white. Soon I was shivering so hard I thought my teeth would crack. Fortunately, the shakes didn’t last long. I had grown too weak and too ravaged by infection.