The Silencing

After a bereavement, it's not easy to feel whole again. When Rayburn Swanson lost his daughter Gwen five years ago-partly due to his own negligence-his life collapsed. His problem with alcohol turned into a constant drunken pool. He pushed his wife away with sullen cruelty. And he isolated himself in a large area of remote wooded land. In fact, this isolation was, in a sense, repentance. He bought the site and declared it a wildlife sanctuary. Gwen hated his hunting, so it seemed right to give up this side of his life and become an advocate for the animals she loved. He did it for her. And day after day, when he viewed images from cameras mounted on acres of trees, or went out hunting to drive away hunters, it reminded him of her absence. She had become a hole in his life that could never be filled. One day Ray noticed a different type of hunter in his protected forest. This man was in full camouflage made of swamp grass, with a club and something like an atlatl: an ancient weapon capable of throwing spear-shaped projectiles at a speed of more than 100 miles per hour. What was this man doing? And what could he hunt in such clothes and with such equipment? Had Ray's slightly alcohol-blurred vision played a trick on him? Then Ray saw the girl: bloodied, barefoot and running for her life. And everything empty and rotten in his own existence was quickly forgotten. All his drunken loneliness and sadness instantly evaporated and was replaced by one overwhelming thought: Help her!