“Ernt, no!” Mama screamed.

Dad unbuckled his belt, pulled it loose, came at Leni.

She tried to get up, but her head was ringing and she was dizzy. Her vision was off.

The first crack of his belt buckle hit her across the cheek, breaking the skin. Leni cried out, tried to scuttle away.

He hit her again.

Mama threw herself at Dad, clawing at his face. He shoved her away and went after Leni again.

He yanked her to her feet, backhanded her across the face. She heard the cartilage crack, pop. Blood gushed from her nose. She staggered back, instinctively protecting her stomach as she fell to her knees.

A gun fired.

Leni heard the loud craaaack and smelled the shot. Glass shattered.

Dad stood there, his legs braced wide, his right hand still curled into a fist. For a second nothing happened; no one moved. Then Dad stumbled forward, toward Leni. Blood pulsed from a wound in his chest, stained his shirt. He looked confused, surprised. “Cora?”

Mama stood behind him, the gun still pointed at him. “Not Leni,” she said, her voice steady. “Not my Leni.”

She shot him again.

TWENTY-FOUR

“He’s dead,” Leni said. Not that there was much doubt. The gun Mama had chosen could kill a bull moose.

Leni realized she was kneeling in a pool of gore. Bits of bone and cartilage looked like maggots in the blood. Ice-cold air swept into the room through the broken window.

Mama dropped the weapon. She moved toward Dad, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. She scratched nervously at her throat, turned the pale skin red in streaks.

Leni climbed woodenly to her feet and walked into the kitchen. She ought to be thinking, We’re fine, he’s gone, but she felt nothing, not even relief.

Her face hurt so much it made her sick to her stomach. The taste of blood was making her gag, and with every breath her nose made a whistling sound. She got a rag wet and pressed it to her face, wiped blood away.

How had Mama endured this pain over and over?

She rinsed the rag, twisted out the pink water of her blood, and dampened it again, then returned to the living room, which smelled of gun smoke and gore and blood.

Mama knelt on the floor. She’d pulled Dad into her lap and was rocking him back and forth, crying. There was blood everywhere: on her hands, her knees. She’d smeared it across her eyes.

“Mama?” Leni leaned down, touched her mother’s shoulder.

Her mother looked up, blinking groggily. “I didn’t know how else to stop him.”

“What do we do?” Leni said.

“Get on the ham radio. Call the police,” Mama said in a lifeless voice.

The police. Finally. After all these years, they would get some help. “We will be okay, Mama. You’ll see.”

“No, we won’t, Leni.”

Leni wiped blood from her mother’s face, just as she’d done so often before. Mama didn’t even flinch. “What do you mean?”

“They’ll call it murder.”

“Murder? But he was beating us. You saved my life.”

“I shot him in the back, Leni. Twice. Juries and defense attorneys don’t like people shot in the back. It’s fine. I don’t care.” She pushed the hair out of her face, left bloody streaks. “Go tell Large Marge. She’s a lawyer, or was. She’ll handle it.” Mama sounded drugged; her speech was slow. “You’ll have your fresh start. You’ll raise your baby here in Alaska, among our friends. Tom will be like a father to you. I know it. And Large Marge adores you. Maybe college is still a possibility.” She looked at Leni. “It was worth it. I want you to know that. I’d do it again for you.”

“Wait. Are you talking about leaving me? About prison?”

“Just go get Large Marge.”

“You are not going to prison for killing a man that everyone in town knew was abusive.”

“I don’t care. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

“What if we get rid of him?”

Mama blinked. “Get rid of him?”

“We could make it so this never happened.” Leni got to her feet. Yes. This was the answer. They would devise a way to erase what they’d done. Then they could stay here, she and Mama, and live among their friends, in this place they’d grown to love. The baby would be loved by all of them, and when Matthew finally got better, Leni would be waiting.

“That’s not as easy as it sounds, Leni,” Mama said.

“This is Alaska. Nothing is easy, but we’re tough, and if you go to prison, I’ll be alone. With a baby to raise. I can’t do it without you. I need you, Mama.”

It was a moment before Mama said, “We’d need to hide the body, make sure it never gets found. The ground is too frozen to bury him.”

“Right.”

“But Leni,” she said evenly. “You’re talking about another crime.”

“Letting you be called a murderer? That would be a crime. You think I’m going to trust the law with your life? The law? You told me the law didn’t protect abused women, and you were right. He got out of jail in a few days. When did the law ever protect you from him? No. No.”

“Are you sure, Leni? It means you’ll have to live with it.”

“I can live with it. I’m sure.”

Mama took a while to consider, then extracted herself from Dad’s limp, bloody body, and stood. She went into her bedroom and came out a few moments later dressed in insulated pants and a turtleneck. She dumped her bloody clothes in a heap by Dad’s body. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t open the door to anyone except me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Step one is to dispose of the body.”

“And you think I’m going to sit here while you do it?”

“I killed him. I’ll do this.”

“And I’m helping you cover it up.”

“We don’t have time to argue.”

“Exactly.” Leni stripped out of her bloody clothes. Within moments she was in her insulated pants and parka and bunny boots, ready to go.

“Get his traps,” Mama said, and left the cabin.

Leni gathered the heavy traps from their hooks on the cabin wall and carried them outside. Mama had already hooked the big red plastic sled to the snow machine. It was the one Dad had used for hauling wood. It could hold two large coolers, a lot of chopped wood, and a moose carcass.