The Slow Moon by Elizabeth Cox

and not enough evidence to mess up your story about what happened.”
    “It’s not a story,” muttered Crow. “What I said is the truth.” He dropped the ball and scurried to retrieve it. “I wish I could talk to Sophie. It feels bad not to be able to talk to her.”
    “Not much chance of that though. Right?”
    “Right.” Crow threw the ball and heard it smack into Johnny’s palm.
    “How was survival camp?” Crow asked. “You haven’t said anything about it.”
    “It was okay. I was the best one with the bow and arrow. I was better than anybody. Dad should’ve seen me.”
    “God,” said Crow. “You shouldn’t do all that just so Dad will like it.”
    “It’s okay.”
    The ball kept slapping into their hands.
    “Somebody made a 9-1-1 call Saturday night,” Johnny said. “Called to say that Sophie was hurt and where she was. Was that you?”
    “No.”
    “They have a recording.”
    “It wasn’t me. I ran off. I saw the police coming.”
    “Maybe that will be a good thing for you,” Johnny said, hopefully. “That somebody else called. Maybe they’ll find out who it was. I heard Dad talking on the phone last night about those construction workers of Mr. Canady’s—they have an alibi?”
    “Yeah,” said Crow, grinding his teeth. “Butler told me they were getting drunk at a bar in Chattanooga. Ten witnesses can back them up.”
    “Still,” said Johnny. “It’s not a strong case, right? They still can’t get Sophie to accuse you.”
    “I wish I could talk to her,” Crow said. He had tried to call Sophie several times, then hung up when her mother answered. And he had seen Sophie once, coming out of the drugstore, almost not recognizable, her hair greasy and pulled back tight. Actually, she saw him first and stopped. He thought she almost waved to him before hurrying off in another direction. He thought she almost spoke.
    “Will she be at the trial?” Johnny asked.
    “Butler thinks she’ll be there with her mother, but she probably won’t testify.” Crow sucked his teeth, feigned indifference. “I’ll probably have to testify though.”
    Johnny looked at his brother as if seeing a future he didn’t want to see. “It won’t be so bad to testify,” Johnny said. “Just tell the truth.”
    “That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” For Crow, to stake his life on that moment of running away, to admit to leaving Sophie alone and vulnerable, was not consoling. He knew this trial would be the end of youth, if not life—the end of that marvelous way of looking at possibility and days to come. Whatever had been steadfast or good in Crow’s life had changed color, had grown dark in his hands.
    The wind blew in off the river near the house, a common thing. But today the breeze sent a chill into Crow’s body. “Let’s go in.”
    “And stop having all this fun?” Johnny said, smiling, trying to lighten their mood.
    As they walked toward the house, both boys felt a damp, wild foolishness; for Crow, even the stones in the yard seemed to be saying goodbye, the trees losing the flavor of earlier times.
    Crow was afraid of the trial, and for the next month he would tremble from dreams every night in bed—but on this day, when he had heard the charges read in court, he tried to imagine his whole life. He tried to picture what would come.
    That night when spring rain came in a downpour, as if from huge barrels over the door, he had a tremendous thought—imagining his life as a secret train. If this part of his journey was a reaction to that strange time of running away, if the cowardice he knew about now was just his own darkness rising up, then whatever happened would go hurrying down the track on which he was solidly lodged. And even if everything failed, even if he were found guilty, he would persist—but not by running away, not ever again by running.
    The threat before Crow enlarged his capacity to wait. Even the light of the day looked to him like waiting—the sun waiting to