I had decided, on the frantic trip down the coast, in agony, in a kind of despair, that I would not be taken alive. I can’t say why the thought came to me. I won’t be taken alive. This idea that I would be trapped, captured. That I would need to make that choice.

So I did have a small arsenal, including two thousand rounds of ammunition. Police-issue Glocks. AK-15s. Some of it from a gun show with lax standards and some from individuals I wouldn’t categorize as chatty. Among other things. If I could’ve found someone in the back country who had a rocket launcher for sale, I would’ve been tempted. I didn’t like guns, because Shot had taught me how to shoot. But I knew them. Didn’t fetishize them, but I didn’t mind using them.

When it came time to kill Shot, I thought about using a gun. Accident. Or maybe something more imaginative. Something that didn’t include his name. But I didn’t like that any more than drowning, which felt too on point, too clearly like an act of revenge. Beyond that, I didn’t put too much thought into it. I believed at the time that the less thought, the less evidence there would be. The less evidence written on my face. Hidden in my body. That I could answer any questions from the police more honestly. Is that true? I don’t know.

Some people get more kindly as they shed memories. Not Shot. It seemed to hone and focus the worst of him while leaving fewer landmarks for him to find his way home. So his rages lasted longer and had even less point. So his abuse became harder to predict and thus to endure. I want to say Ned’s murder accelerated his condition, but that may just be me telling a story. Me wanting the story to match up in some symbolic way. Or just me wanting Ned’s death to have made an impact.

In the end, I confronted Shot, drunk, on the path beside the barn, because it was out of sight and because I didn’t feel I had a choice in the moment. But he saw my intent and ran into the barn looking for a weapon. But I’d removed the hoe, the pitchfork, anything he might have used. So Shot climbed the ladder, and in the end, I pushed him off the roof and he cracked his skull wide open. Before he had much of a chance to cry for help.