“You won’t.”

“Try me and see.”

“You ain’t that man, Jack.”

As Jack stood facing Red, he felt a tremble in the earth and heard the jolting rush of a diesel engine. Blur of metal. The vehicle struck Red from chest to knee with a crack; the world exploded into a thousand pieces. Red traveled through the air, away from the truck, turning over as he went. He landed forty feet into the intersection. The truck slid sideways and stopped. Two men stood on the sidewalk, staring. In the intersection, the black truck circled around and sped up again.

Jack shoved Matty and sent him sprawling, out of the truck’s path. He stumbled and dropped the knife. No time to find it.

The truck whooshed past.

He looked back. At the end of the street, the truck slowed. It stirred up the snow and idled in a billow of white. A Ford F-150. One figure in the cab.

The hatted man.

He pulled up Matty. “Run.”

But Matty was looking at him, blank-faced. No expression at all. Jack picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. Pain. Awful. There were more people on the sidewalk. A woman with her cell phone. He was aware of the fading rumble of the F-150 as it turned to the north and rolled away.

Silence now. Snow falling.

He lumbered, wincing, into the intersection toward Red with Matty over his shoulder—his side howling—but he had to know.

He couldn’t leave Red lying there alone unless he knew.

When he reached Red, he fell to his knees in the street and held on to Matty, who buried his face in Jack’s shoulder.

“Hold me tight,” Jack said. “Don’t look.”

Matty wrapped his legs around Jack’s waist and locked them at the ankles. The pain nearly took Jack’s breath.

Red’s head was open, and pink stuff had spilled out onto the snow. His arm and a leg were bent at terrible angles. Jack took off his hat and covered Red’s head with it, concealing the blur of matter and the blood. Jack didn’t want people to see Red that way. Red never did like his flawed side to show.

He sat there for seconds. With Red. Too many seconds and not enough.

A north wind billowed and lifted Red’s parka, blew it open. In the inside pocket, a white envelope fluttered. Bits of snow dampened the paper. Jack could read two words:

For Jack.

The silence now was complete.

Suddenly Bev bounded out of the salon, screaming.

“Red! Red! Oh no, Red! Not you—”

She ran into the street and crumpled.

Jack felt weak. He crouched and seized the envelope, the weight of Matty making blackness rush at his feet, and then he turned and staggered and started to run. Gripping Matty’s knees to keep him upright.