“Did you see Henry?” she asks, her voice slightly hysterical. “He was like a monk immolating himself in the street. He did that to save me.”

“He did. And to stop Brody. He did it for everyone he couldn’t save before tonight.”

She shakes her head with violent intensity. “I feel sick. I don’t know how to process that.”

“That’s who Henry was. He probably would have been useless in a combat platoon, until someone threw a hand grenade into a foxhole. Henry was the guy who’d jump on a grenade to save his buddies.”

Caitlin stops and turns back toward the lake house. Flames have reached the first floor, and smoke is gathering under the eaves. “What happened tonight? What am I supposed to write tomorrow? Everybody’s dead. I mean … what was the point?”

For a long moment I remain silent. “I don’t know, but I think maybe I finally understand why my father couldn’t tell me about the war.”

Caitlin gingerly touches the puckered burn on her face. “I wanted this story so bad. Now I’m in it. We are the story. And I have no idea what to say about it.”

“The things Brody and the Knoxes did … that pain echoes through a lot of years. Generations. That’s what kept Henry going, and what brought Sleepy Johnston back here. This is the end of Brody’s thread, that’s all. Albert’s and Pooky’s, too. It’s justice of a kind, I guess.”

“No one will understand this. I don’t, and I was here.”

“Because it’s not over. Forrest and the Double Eagles are still out there. And Henry’s work is truly yours now. Just write the story up to this point. That’s all you can do. The meaning comes later, if at all.”

The sound of sirens grows to a wail, and a convoy of spinning red lights comes flying up the lake road.

“How much do we tell?” she asks. “To the police, I mean.”

Brody Royal’s last accusation against my father echoes in my mind. “Is it worth lying at this point?”

She turns to me, her survivor’s will burning through the shock and exhaustion in her eyes. “I hate to say it, but we may have to. We’d better decide fast.”

Dreading contact with the larger world, we walk back to wait beside the body of Sleepy Johnston. A low thump makes the ground shudder, and then a tower of flame rises from the burning lake house.

“The flamethrower?” Caitlin asks.

“Probably.”