“We’re gonna camp here,” Max said. He laid out Pip’s sleeping bag and tucked the boy inside. “I’m gonna go find some firewood. You stay right here. Okay?”

Pip nodded his assent.

Max put Lyle’s coat on over his wet clothing and dug the military flashlight from his pack. His toes were numb and the cold had turned the skin on his legs tender, the material rubbing like sandpaper with every step. He considered changing into dry clothes, but Lyle was out there somewhere. “I’ll be right back,” Max said. “I promise.”

Max walked back to the rapids, looking for Lyle, in case he had pulled himself from the river but hadn’t found Max’s backpack. He thought about yelling Lyle’s name, but Pip would hear it and expect his grandfather to be nearby—alive. With every step, the sense of dread that squeezed Max’s chest grew tighter. He followed the river downstream, scanning the river and woods with the light.

When he was out of earshot of Pip, he started calling out Lyle’s name, softly at first, but louder the farther away he got from the boy. He was about to turn around and go back when he saw it, something smooth and shiny floating in the shallows.

“No… no.”

Max ran into water up to his knees, the object taking the form of a man’s body as Max drew closer. He recognized the shirt.

“No!”

He grabbed the shirt and turned Lyle over. His friend’s face was white in the light of the moon, a bullet hole clean through his throat. Max tried to pull Lyle toward shore, but he slipped from Max’s frozen hands. He grabbed Lyle’s shirt by the collar, but his fingers wouldn’t tighten, so finally he hooked his arms under Lyle’s armpits and pulled, heaving Lyle through the mud and grass, onto dry land.

He laid Lyle on the shore and hit him hard in the chest with his fist. “Come on, Lyle.” Max opened Lyle’s mouth and tried to breathe air into his lungs, but they were full of water. He turned Lyle onto his stomach and pushed his weight down onto Lyle’s back, flushing river water out of his chest. He turned Lyle onto his back again and gave another breath. “Breathe, you son of a bitch.

“Don’t do this to me.” Max’s eyes filled with tears as he worked the CPR. “We got Pip. He’s waiting for you.” Max gave two more breaths. Lyle’s lifeless eyes stared up at him. Max pushed on Lyle’s chest again. “You can’t do this now. It’s not right.”

Max pressed three more chest compressions but then stopped. There was a rigidity to Lyle’s body that Max recognized. He knew his friend was dead—he had known it when he pulled him from the river. Lyle had taken that bullet to the throat so that Max could make it to the tree line. He had saved Max’s life. He had saved Pip.

Wet and cold and beaten, Max put his arms around Lyle’s shoulder and hugged Lyle’s face to his chest. Max was covered in mud and river water, his hands and arms drained of strength. He looked to the sky through tear-filled eyes, half expecting Lyle’s soul to be looking down on him. The moon and stars were the only witnesses to the death of a good man.