He Told Me To Leave My Own Mountain Home Until Strangers Arrived To A Lesson They Never Forgot

in the valley below him like something sleeping, and he would think, with a kind of quiet disbelief that never fully wore off: this is mine, and nobody wants anything from me today.

The evenings smelled like cedar smoke and rainwater and whatever was simmering on the stove. He had gotten decent at soup. He had a chair by the fire and a radio that only continue reading …