Free This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel by Wiley Cash

they weren’t his. The hands were white, and they had hair on the backs of them and little tufts of it above the knuckles. I knew the minute I saw them that they were man’s hands, and I was too surprised and scared to do anything except watch as they helped whoever it was climb up through the window and into our bedroom. I looked over at Ruby and saw that she was awake and sitting up in bed. She had the covers pulled up around her, and she sat there and stared at those hands too.
    But then the light coming in the window showed white paint on the man’s hands, and when he put his shoulders through I saw the old blue Braves cap, and by the time he’d pulled his legs through I saw the old paint-flecked blue jeans and the same green T-shirt he’d had on at the baseball field a couple weeks ago. I clicked on the light on our bedside table just as he stood up straight.
    “Wade!” I said. “You ain’t supposed to be here!”
    “Shhhhhh!” he said.
    Ruby kicked the covers off her and jumped out of the bed like it was Christmas morning. “Daddy,” she said.
    “No!” I said. I jumped out of my bed too and tried to stop her from going to him, but she was too fast. Wade picked her up and hugged her to him.
    “Hey, baby,” he whispered. He squeezed her tight.
    “Put her down,” I said. “You’re going to be in big trouble for this.” I moved like I was walking toward the bedroom door. When he didn’t sit Ruby down, I put my hand on the knob like I was going to open it. “You need to leave,” I said, “or I’m going to holler for Miss Crawford, and she’ll call the—” But he didn’t let me finish.
    “Y’all have to come with me,” he said. He stood there holding Ruby and staring down at me. “I’m serious,” he said. “You ain’t even got time to pack nothing. We’ve got to go.”
    “Yeah, right,” I said. I gave the knob half a turn.
    “I’m serious,” he said. “This ain’t no joke. You can stay here alone if you’re hardheaded, but I’m taking your sister.”
    Ruby still had her arms around Wade’s neck, and I knew her well enough to know it was going to take some real convincing to get her to turn him loose.
    “We ain’t going to let them send us to Alaska, Wade,” I said.
    “This ain’t about Alaska,” he said.
    “Then what’s it about?” I asked. I let go of the doorknob and put my hands on my hips to let him know I meant business.
    “I’ll tell you in the car,” he said. “But we need to go; I’m serious. It’s not safe here.”
    When he said that, I pictured the man I’d seen standing off in the woods that afternoon: the smile he’d given me, his closed eye, the way his skin looked all saggy on his face. Then I looked all around our bedroom, at all the nice, new things we’d been given after we moved into the home. But then my eyes stopped on the open window Wade had just crawled through, and I pictured something else: snow piled up high enough to pour inside onto the carpet; voices I didn’t know that belonged to people I’d never met coming from rooms down the hall in a house I hadn’t seen before; the daytime gone as black as night outside our window.
    I looked up at Wade where he held Ruby in his arms, and I don’t know why, but at the time, leaving with him seemed like the best answer. At the time, it seemed like the only safe thing to do.
    I jumped to the ground, and then I turned around and waited for Wade to lower Ruby down from the window. When he held her out to me, I could see that his shirt was wet with sweat around the armpits. Ruby and I were both still in our nightgowns; all he’d let us do was put on some socks and shoes. We stood back from the house and watched Wade climb out of the window and jump to the ground. Three houses down, there was a car parked on the street, and Wade took our hands and led us to it.
    “Come on, come on, come on,” he whispered. He walked fast, and I could tell he wanted to get as far away from that window as we