Free Double Exposure by Michael Lister Page B

are flat?
    The thoughts of these men even touching his father’s vehicles make him angry and sad. Since Cole’s death, Remington had become both sentimental and protective over every one of his meager possessions—even those Cole cared nothing about and had discarded.
    Dirty old hunting boots had become priceless, notes scratched on scraps of paper sacred texts, discount-store shirts Remington would be embarrassed to wear around the house invaluable because his dad’s scent still clung to them.
    A father’s funeral.
    World watching.
    Veiled mother.
    Tiny fingers form a young son’s salute.
    The heartbreaking photograph of JFK, Jr. stepping forward and saluting as his father’s flag-draped casket is carried out of St. Matthew’s Cathedral.
    Personal.
    National.
    Individual.
    Universal.
    His father’s funeral procession took place on John junior’s third birthday.
    F rost covered fronds.
    Frigid wind whipping, whistling, biting.
    Fog retreating.
    Tiny ice shards like slivers of glass. Frozen dew drops sprinkled on limbs and leaves, grass and ground.
    Shaking. Violently. Uncontrollably.
    Too cold to think.
    B ody.
    Dead.
    Blink. Disbelief. Shock.
    Beneath the base of a fallen oak, arm outstretched unnaturally, the gray-grizzled man he encountered when he first entered the deep woods lies dead.
    Blood.
    Tracks.
    More blood.
    Most of the man’s blood appears to be spilt on the cold, hard ground—splayed out along the path his body made while being drug toward the fallen tree.
    Eerie.
    Seeing a dead body out here, alone, on this cold, dark night disturbs him deeply. Frightening him far more than he wants to admit—even to himself.
    Ghastly.
    Ghostly.
    Gray.
    The man’s blood-drained body is even more pale than before, the pallor of his face advertising a vacancy, the departure of the ghost, the emptiness of the shell.
    Holes.
    Mortal wounds.
    The man has been shot—more than once, though how many times, Remington can’t tell. Had he been with them? Is this whole thing about drugs? Poaching? More likely whatever he was up to out here was unrelated. He stumbled onto some men far worse than—
    The man grabs Remington’s ankle, turning his twisted neck, opening his mostly dead eyes.
    Remington startles, yanks his leg back, trips, falls, comes up with his rifle.
    —Why’d y’all shoot me?
    —What?
    —I ain’t done nothin’ to nobody.
    —Who shot you?
    —Were it ‘cause of the bear? Y’all kilt me over a goddam old bear?
    —Who—
    Remington stops. Feels for a pulse. The man is dead. Fully and completely dead this time.
    So he did kill the bear, but he wasn’t with Gauge and the others—and they certainly didn’t kill him for killing the bear. This is their way of silencing witnesses. A man like Gauge doesn’t tie up loose ends, he cuts them off.
    — G oddam.
    The sudden blast of voice on the radio makes Remington jump.
    —What?
    —It’s cold as fuck out here.
    For the second time tonight, Remington leaves the dead where they lay and begins moving again, holding the radio to his ear to hear what’s being said.
    —Coldest night of the year so far.
    —Hey, killer, you okay? Didn’t look like you had on a very warm jacket.
    —Can you believe this is fuckin’ Florida?
    —It’s thirteen degrees out here. Colder with the wind chill. This is the kind of hard freeze we have only once every so often that wipes out citrus crops.
    —Do us all a favor and blow your brains out.
    Those final words uncoil an image from his subconscious, causing it to spring to the fore of his mind.
    Eddie Adam’s “Execution in Saigon.” Another from his list of the greatest photographs ever taken. Perhaps the most memorable of all wartime photography, the picture captures the moment just before death. February 1, 1968. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s chief of police, shooting a handcuffed man in the head with a handgun at point-blank range on a Saigon street.
    Facing the camera, the eye closest to the barrel of the