Thordin took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, taking a deep swallow from his mug before he continued on.\u00a0 \u201cThey owned a ranch and that\u2019s where I grew up, playing in the pastures and never being afraid of anything I saw out there\u2014not snakes, not coyotes, nothing.\u00a0 In fact, there was one coyote I\u2019d managed to mostly tame.\u00a0 The mother who birthed me and loved me as a child, Lili, she hated that, was terrified of it.\u00a0 Sven just told me to be careful, that it was still a wild thing.\u00a0 I think he understood better than she did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was out in the field with that coyote with the too-bright eyes that afternoon.\u00a0 I\u2019d come home from school and gone out to play.\u00a0 It was what I did; I was ten years old.\u00a0 He drew me out further into the tall grass on the hill pasture, grass so tall that you could just barely see my head\u2014and only if you knew where to look.\u00a0 Mamma knew where to look for me.\u00a0 She knew better than anyone else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard her scream while I was up there on the hill and I ran back down.\u00a0 Coyote tried to stop me, tried to keep me from going down there.\u00a0 It was as if he knew what was happening down there and didn\u2019t want me to see it.\u00a0 There was no stopping me, though, not when I heard that.\u00a0 I knew that it was bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThordin, you don\u2019t\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
He shook his head slightly at Neve\u2019s whispered words.\u00a0 \u201cYou all deserve to know.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell Phelan eventually, when the time\u2019s right.\u00a0 I\u2019ve held this story too close for too long.\u00a0 The only people who know are Laura and Grayson, who raised me after Lili and Sven were gone.\u201d\u00a0 He closed his eyes for a moment.\u00a0 \u201cI remember when Grayson came into the house.\u00a0 He was wearing cowboy boots, old jeans, and a herder\u2019s jacket.\u00a0 He reminded me a little bit of my father.\u00a0 Laura was this blonde vision behind him in a deputy\u2019s uniform.\u00a0 She reminded me of you a bit, Sif, but…warmer, comforting.\u00a0 Motherly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sif flinched and Neve felt a pang of sympathy for her.\u00a0 It couldn\u2019t have been easy to hear that.<\/p>\n
Thordin sighed and shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cBut that came later.\u00a0 After I heard Mamma scream, I ran to the back door, but something made me slow down, kept me from bursting into the house like some terrorized creature.\u00a0 I crept inside through that back door and hid in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were three men in the family room, two of them stabbing my father over and over as they held him on the ground and the other was holding Mamma and making her watch.\u201d\u00a0 His voice shook a little as the words kept coming, his eyes focused on something long ago and far away.\u00a0 \u201cThen he slit her throat and one of them spotted me.\u00a0 They were coming toward me and then they just\u2026stopped.\u00a0 They stared at me for a moment, then they just left, as if I wasn\u2019t worth their time.\u201d\u00a0 He sucked in a breath and exhaled it slowly.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know how Grayson and Laura knew to come,\u201d he whispered.\u00a0 \u201cNo one told them to come.\u00a0 We lived outside of town, all alone.\u00a0 No one would have known unless we called and no one called.\u00a0 Somehow, though, they knew to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember that Laura asked me what my name was and I told her it was Thordin.\u00a0 Mamma\u2019s blood was all over my hands but I couldn\u2019t cry, not then.\u00a0 My blood was boiling.\u00a0 Those men had killed my family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt rained for five days, the worst thunderstorms folks had seen there in ten years\u2014since the day I was born.\u00a0 I did that.\u201d\u00a0 He gulped down some more coffee.\u00a0 \u201cHeaven help me, I did that.\u00a0 My pain did that.\u00a0 I thought somehow I would be able to drown the men if it rained enough, that somehow they\u2019d be trapped and Grayson and Laura would be able to catch them and then they\u2019d face justice for what they\u2019d done to my parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we never found them.\u00a0 They vanished like smoke in the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thordin took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, taking a deep swallow from his mug before he continued on.\u00a0 \u201cThey owned a ranch and that\u2019s where I grew up, playing in the pastures and never being afraid of anything … Continue reading