Anouk had crawled to the front seat and was raised up on her knees, trying to peer over the hood.

‘We can’t stay here, Red.’

Red, still kneeling in the snow, was looking down the road, listening for something. The sound the buck made seemed to come not from the buck but from somewhere older and collective and indescribable.

‘Red?’

‘Just please shut up for a second.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

A layer of snow had accumulated on his hat and shoulders, and on the buck. It looked as if they’d been there together in the road for hours, Red at the animal’s head, and the buck, its blood freezing blooms in the snow, the buck steaming and twisted out of shape.

‘Red.’

‘I wouldn’t, Nora. You need to not talk right now.’

So much life in the dying buck, still. Nora thought if she listened hard enough, she would be able to hear its doomed heart beating against its ribcage. If only it would die, they could rip it loose and carry on.

‘Get me the bag, please,’ he said. ‘The big backpack.’

‘Why?’

‘Nora.’

She went around to the back of the truck and opened the canopy flap. The backpack was wedged underneath everything else, and she could not think of one good reason he might want this bag, and she looked behind her, up the road; it was unbearable to be so hated.

She brought the bag back around to him and he positioned it under the buck’s neck, at the base of its head for support. Blood dripped black on to the canvas of the bag. Nora went to the side of the truck and motioned to Anouk to roll the window down.

‘You okay?’ Nora asked.

‘We hit a deer? Is it dead?’ Anouk’s voice bubbled, congested.

‘Yes, but it’s not dead.’

‘Can I get out?’

‘No way.’

‘Will it die?’

‘His legs are broken. He seems to be in a lot of pain. It would be better if he died.’

Anouk considered this.

‘Are you hungry? Are you warm enough?’

‘I’m scratchy.’

‘We’ll get out of here as soon as we can.’ Nora put her hand on Anouk’s forehead, down her neck, clammy.

Anouk pulled away. ‘Your hands are cold.’

‘It’s cold out here.’

‘Dad’s mad at you.’

‘Well. I crashed his truck into a deer.’

Nothing about the tableau at the grille had changed when Nora came back, except that now the buck seemed to have accepted Red’s hand on its shoulder.

‘He must have turned his head just as we hit him,’ Red said. He stroked its fur. ‘And we weren’t even going that fast.’

‘I’m sorry, Red.’

His eyes flashed and then he looked away again. ‘Yep.’

It was cold and deeply quiet. Snow quiet. No wind and the snow fell straight as rope. Still, heat rose from the animal. Its winter-thin ribcage expanded and relaxed with each laboured breath and its haunch shivered and twitched.

‘Red. You’re not doing anything. We have to do something. Anouk’s getting worse.’