As soon as dusk came, I waited on the porch steps. Aiden walked out a few minutes later with a hunting rifle and a backpack.

"Better safe than sorry," he said, answering my unspoken question.

A young boy no more than seven years old appeared behind Aiden in the doorway. "You going camping, Aiden? Can I come?"

"This is my brother, Ben," Aiden said. "He was a toddler when you were last here, right?"

"I'm Drew. Nice pirate hat." Extending a hand, Ben side-slapped it instead.

Aiden turned to Ben. "No, stay here, out of trouble, and we'll be back later tonight." Ben looked dejected and retreated into the house.

After picking up Billy from the barn, we trekked into the forest. Twigs snapped under our feet, and rays of sunlight filtered through the tree canopies above us. After twenty minutes of walking, Billy was getting heavy in my arms. I heard the trickle of water before I saw the stream. Wolf Creek ran through the forest, a tributary of the Missouri River. Trees and brush meandered the coursing flow of the water over soft polished rocks, creating tiny islands in the stream.

We rested in the tall grass, watching Billy frolicking around in the water, pouncing on leaves as they moved downstream.

"Can I ask you a question?" I turned to Aiden. "Do you even like hunting?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "Not in the slightest."

"Can't you just tell your dad that?"

"Hunting here is a way of life. I won't be here forever." After a brief pause, he said, "Your Grandpa told us about Danny..."

It was quiet for a long time before I nodded.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Shaking my head, my chest constricted. Grief hit different. He wouldn't understand. Describing how I felt would be like having him picture a color that only I could see.

"I don't believe you," he countered. "Try me."

"It's hard. Certain details about what I saw first, where I stood, and who did what isn't there anymore. I remember they had deemed the beach off-limits, red-flagged."

My gaze dropped to the floor, pulling on the grass; I carried on. "But we still went. I think Danny was on the bluff, and then, he just wasn't. Dad and I ran down to see him thrashing around in the water. We brought him to shore. He seemed okay. I mean, he was alive."

Aiden nodded without a word.

"When we got him home, he wouldn't stop shivering. My parents were in the kitchen when Danny bolted upright. His face was red; his mouth hung open. He made this sound... I just stood there."

A sob erupted, and in that second, with the rush of emotion, I knew what drowning felt like.

Aiden took my hand and squeezed it.

Exhaling a slow, shaky breath, I tried to continue. "We didn't know he'd taken water into his lungs. Pulmonary edema, the paramedic said, secondary drowning. I didn't know someone could drown outside of the water." Tears fell in an unbroken stream down my face. "I did nothing, and I can never take that back."

Without hesitation, Aiden threw an arm around my shoulder, and I leaned into him. "It wasn't your fault," he whispered into my ear.

We sat still for a long time. Aiden hadn't moved his arm, and I didn't want him to. I couldn't remember the last time my parents hugged me, the last time anybody had purposely touched me.

Drawing his head back, Aiden's eyes studied mine. Then Aiden did the second most surprising thing of the day. He kissed me. Not on the cheek or on the forehead, right square on my lips. Immediately, my hand hooked around the back of his neck as I sat up, never taking my mouth off his. The urgency that took over replaced my need to breathe.

My reprieve from torment lasted a few precious seconds until I was repatriated into hell once again.

"I see you've found a cub?" A voice cut through the silence of the forest. "Looks like I might make a hunter out of you yet. So, are you gonna do it, or am I?" Aiden's Dad said.

Slowly easing ourselves into a standing position, Mr. Harvey's eyes were watchful, a tightness flitted across his face, but as soon as it did, it was gone.

When Aiden didn't move, his Dad cocked his gun and aimed it at Billy.

"You're wasting time. Pick up your gun and pull the trigger," he goaded.

Aiden picked up his shotgun. With glassy eyes, his entire body shook, rattling the gun in his hand. Billy let out a small yelp and clambered around.

"Think about this, Aiden. Is this what you want?" I reasoned. "You can't; this isn't right." I caught his arm and tried to spin him around, but he shrugged me off.

"If you don't, you'll leave me no choice, son."

With one last backward glance in my direction, Aiden lifted his shotgun, and my eyes widened in horror.

He fired a warning shot into the air that reverberated around us. Birds scattered and took to the sky from neighboring trees.

A deep roar sounded behind us.

Everybody stopped.

A large black grizzly bear came and stood behind Billy.

"She's come for the cub. Let her take the cub, Dad. That's all she wants."

"She's a killer, son, and that baby of hers won't do much different once he grows."

Aiden shook his head. "Please, Dad."

"You're gonna have to shoot me first if you've got the balls; I ain't no rabbit. Without your glasses, you ain't gonna shoot shit." He raised the gun and pointed it at Billy's mom. "First the Momma and then—."

"I got contacts," Aiden interrupted, cocking his gun and aiming at his Dad.

Billy reared up on his back legs, and for a moment, I was nothing short of proud. Out of my peripheral vision, something darted behind Billy. My heart hammered into the floor. The first thing that registered was the pirate hat.

If I screamed, I didn't hear it.

I sprang forward toward Ben. The sound of two shots firing off simultaneously made me drop to the floor.

Whipping my head around, Billy and his Mom were gone. With the cub in her mouth, she ran at speed into the forest. Aiden's Dad lay on the floor. Blood oozed down his leg. Too afraid to look down at the crumpled mass underneath me, my head shook from side to side.

"Jesus Christ," Aiden's Dad shouted. "I-I didn't see him."

This couldn't be happening again.

After an eternity, Aiden's hand rested on my shoulder. "He's okay, Drew; you got him." Not believing it unless I saw it, I forced myself to look down.

Ben glared back at me, more than a little peeved, but I couldn't care less. He wasn't dead; I'd saved him, and at the same time, he kind of saved a little of me back.

[The End]

The Pirate Hat

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