When I woke up, my head was hanging over the edge of the bed. I opened my eyes and stared at the wooden floor. My mind was perfectly empty for a long moment. Then it all came back to me.

I bolted out of the bed and into the bathroom, still wearing the same clothes from the night before. The eyes that stared back at me were red at the rims, and there was a nice little bruise over my left eye where Prudell’s keys had hit me. Despite the November chill in the air, I was sweating. I looked at myself in the mirror, letting the anger build. When there was just enough of it, I went outside.

There was a pile of white oak outside the cabin. I grabbed the ax and attacked. I split each log in half, and then each half into quarters, aiming the ax with my left hand alone and then bringing it all the way back with both hands, slowly and carefully, letting the weight of the ax head build its own momentum as I brought it all the way up over my head and then down, all the way through the log. Not even aiming at the log, but at the center of the chopping block. I swung right through each log and right through the pain that was building in my shoulder where they had taken out the second and third bullets.

I needed to feel the rhythm of it, just like batting practice once felt. For those few minutes every day when nothing existed but a steady stream of baseballs, fed right down the middle to you so you could hit them deep, off the wall or into the seats, again and again.

When I finished the pile, I backed the truck up, my hands still tingling. I could still feel it in my body, the aftereffects of the fear. There was a soreness in my muscles as though I had run a marathon.