Broken Branch by John Mantooth

your courage. About how I wished I had the same.”
    â€œThat’s fine. Listen, I can’t speak right now.”
    â€œGoing somewhere?”
    Suddenly she didn’t trust him. She couldn’t say why. “No. I just couldn’t sleep.”
    â€œWhat’s the suitcase for?”
    She looked down at her suitcase. What could she say?
    â€œWe’re leaving tonight. I just have to wake the kids.”
    â€œDon’t bother.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œThere’s no need to wake them. You’re going to change your mind.”
    â€œNo, I’m not.”
    He stood. “I want to show you something.”
    â€œI don’t have time for this, Ben.”
    He stepped off his porch. He was fully dressed. He still had his boots on.
    â€œWhat if I told you that I wasn’t going to let you go?”
    She looked at him. He was a large man, larger than James or Otto. Only Earl was taller, but she wasn’t sure he was as broad and muscular as Ben. Trudy felt the first jolt of panic hitting her system.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œI just want you to see something, Trudy. Like I said last night. I don’t bite.” He reached out his hand for her like he wanted to help her down the steps. “I meant all those things I said about you. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
    â€œThen leave me alone. Let me leave.”
    â€œI can’t do that, Trudy. For your own good, I can’t. I think you know this.”
    It was true. She did know it.
    â€œWill you let me go after you . . . after you show me whatever it is you want to show me?”
    He seemed to consider this. “That won’t be up to me.”
    â€œWho, then? Otto?”
    Ben shrugged. “God, Trudy. Everything is up to God.”

22
    She followed him across the clearing, the ground still muddy from the previous night’s storm. He took her deep into the woods in a direction she’d never been. Now that she thought about it, there were many directions she’d never explored in these woods. Like most of the people in Broken Branch, her world consisted of the clearing, the meadow, and the creek. Everything else just seemed like endless trees, not worth navigating.
    The best she could reckon, they were heading north. She knew some of the men spoke of another highway in this direction. Otto and James hiked to it to trade sometimes and often came back with fresh fruit in the spring and summer.
    The thought of running crossed her mind more than once. But each time she got up the nerve to bolt, Ben would turn around as if checking on her.
Of course he’s checking,
Trudy thought.
And once he sees me run, he’ll pounce on me
. She could imagine the rest, so she kept walking, thinking only of Rodney and Mary, sleeping in their beds, wishing she’d left one night sooner. Or several years sooner.
    They walked for a very long time. Longer than Trudy had thought possible. Surely the woods would end soon, but they didn’t. If anything, they grew denser as the trail twisted and turned. At last, they came to a place where the trees broke, not unlike the main clearing in Broken Branch. Here, Trudy could see the sky, the large moon, peeking through the clouds, hanging full and fat directly above them, the stars frozen in place, and Trudy remembered what G.L. had said about the stars falling on the night of his birth. She wished they were falling now, flaming over the land. She would have liked to see it, and she wondered how some were blessed to see fire from heaven while others only looked upon a frozen sky.
    But the sky was not why Ben had brought her here.
    Gradually, by increments of moonshine, her eyes adjusted. She looked out upon a single, powerfully built tree, not unlike the one that dominated the center of Broken Branch. Then she changed her mind. This was no oak. It was a large willow, its drooping branches creating a natural veil over the trunk. Ben