Free Lions by Bonnie Nadzam

pasture. A scarf of smoke rising in the vacant blue. An abandoned kitchen range, its siding chewed to a rustwork of lace. As he checked the road ahead, the rearview, then the side mirror, shifting his gaze in a triangle of points, he’d see a shadow racing around, just ahead of his vision, like an intuition that’s there, and gone. Daylight receding beyond the ridge to the west as he sped north, and from the east a band of darkness slowly closing over him like a lid.
    â€œIt’s not just you facing this thing,” John would’ve told him. “It’s you and everyone who came before you.”
    Eventually in the years to come, after two trips north herself searching for him, or for Boggs, whomever she might find first, Leigh would come to understand it all.
    How fast the landscape changes when you pass Horses up there, then Three Bells. How the wind sings and moans like an old song you can neither place nor stand to hear. How Gordon wouldn’t have been able to get the picture of his father in a hospital bed out of his mind. How all he’d have thought about was how good life had been, and how it was supposed to have gone.
    He’d stay at the North Star that night, a motel planted in the middle of nowhere with an American flag, the whole place pinned to the dirt by a metal pole topped with a neon-green star that rocked in the wind. Inside the motel, the carpet a filthy off-white, smeared with greasy stains. Coffee burnt in its glass globe on a little brown Formica counter beside a basket of bruised, red apples. He’d call out a hello, but nobody would come. He’d ring the rusted silver bell on the desk. Still, no one would come. In truth he’d be afraid of who might respond. There’d be no other cars in the lot of sloping, cracked asphalt. All of the room keys—nine of them—would be hanging on red plastic diamonds behind the desk. He’d take number three because it was Leigh’s lucky number, and go back out and around to the room. One soft gray tennis shoe at a time, he’d decide right then to leave cash and strip the bed himself in the morning.
    Despite the strangeness and sadness of the circumstances, he’d make a civilized time of it in that motel room—Gordon was like that—arranging his things, settling in. Double bed with a heavy green blanket and two windows that looked out over a flat field of blanched dirt and pale grass whipped by the wind into matted blond whorls. The wind would be huge outside but the room warm and the bed firm and comfortable. He’d fall asleep as soon as he crawled in, and dream the dreams of stones. Morning, and everything it would entail, could wait.

“Let me make you some tea,” Georgianna said, and stood up at the table.
    â€œNo, no,” May stepped farther into the house and closed the kitchen door behind her. “Don’t move. And tell me where you keep the honey.”
    Georgianna sat back down and pointed to the cabinet beside the sink.
    â€œDid you sleep last night?”
    Georgianna rubbed her face and nodded.
    â€œLipton good?”
    â€œThat’s all there is.”
    Both women had red eyes. May brought over cups and tea bags.
    â€œWas he peaceful, Georgie?”
    Georgianna looked at May, then back to the table. “Very peaceful, yes.”
    â€œWas he aware of you?” May asked.
    â€œI crawled up in bed with him. Then he was gone.” She turned to the space beside her and touched the open air. “I had my head right there on his chest, where I’d always fall asleep. Every night since we were twenty.”
    May’s eyes filled again. She took her old friend’s hands in her own. “He went easy, then, right beside you.”
    Georgianna nodded, mouthed yes.
    â€œDo you know where Gordon is?” May asked.
    â€œYes and no.” Georgianna took a ragged tissue from her pocket and touched it beneath each nostril.
    â€œWhen he’ll be