“KILLER IN THE WILLOWS”

The text describes a woman who becomes a murderer after shooting someone dead in the willows. She disappears into the willows to wash off any blood that spattered onto her clothing, and the willows are thickly interlaced with an overpowering smell, acrid and watery. The stream flows through and among them, and she washes her hands, face, and elbows as she pushes her way through the restraining arms of willows wherever she can find a gap.

The willows end by the bank of a creek, which is swift, dark, bitter cold, and deep. She is afraid she will be seen in it, even though she doesn't know if there is anyone to see her. She wonders if there was another person besides the one she shot, as she could have heard them talking—short grunts of laughter, murmurs of discovery.

She thinks about how she hadn't brought the gun, as she couldn't have gotten as far as she had if she hadn't been saddled with trying to work the rifle barrel through these branches. She might have shot it off, shot her own foot, or shot an advertisement of her location into the night sky. But now maybe he had the rifle, and it did have one bullet in it. He would not find any stash of ammunition, because there wasn't one. The two bullets had been all. If he came after her, he would have more trouble traveling through the willows since he didn't know them and she did.

Or maybe he was a fisherman, in which case he would be perfectly familiar with willows and know how to penetrate them without becoming immovably trapped in the twist and winding of their slippery, springy fingers. Maybe he was a fisherman and a woodsman, and was right now somewhere behind her, holding the rifle high, worming it through the spaces like someone from a movie.

Then she is in the willows again herself, and the breath is so painful in her pressed lungs there was no room for another. She had to stop. It would give her a chance to listen and know for sure. She was safe here in this thicket, as safe as a deer and a fawn curled among the branches while her mother went away.

Now that she wasn't running, she had to think and remember the horror she'd felt when she first heard them walking across the gravel. She remembered the creaks on the stairs from her feet carrying her up to get the.30-30, the clucking sound as she opened the magazine and slid the two bullets in. Closing the lever covered by a sound from downstairs, a sharp “hello!” The sound of them clumping from room to room and a moving flicker from their flashlight. She thought she remembered seeing the one, all of a sudden, appearing at the top of the willows.

A woman is awoken by the sound of a man's flashlight in her bedroom. She is horrified to see the dead boy's blood seeping onto her carpet, and feels anger for her actions. She tries to escape, but she cannot do so. She tries to hide in a clump of willows, praying for help. She realizes that running away would mean she would have to keep running forever. She decides to go to the Seymours for help, but she is unsure how many miles she has run. She runs again, hoping to find help from the nearby Seymours. The hope in her heart grows as she runs, feeling a sense of victory and a sense of accomplishment.