If the ice gave in, Will and Stuart would learn that still waters run deep, and there are bodies at the bottom of the lake. When the horses balked at the edge of Lake St. Clair the brothers pushed them on. They followed Indian trails this far. Now nothing pointed the way. The blizzard hit, and the snow could cover the brothers’ trail, or just bury them. Half a mile of frozen waste stretched from Michigan’s shore to Canada. The wind snatched up the sound of hooves on the ice and threw it all the way to the Upper Peninsula.
       They ought to turn around, Stuart thought.
       “I ain’t going back,” Will said. And again, louder, like he was talking to the storm itself.
       “We keep on like this and there’s no chance either of us are coming back,” Stuart said, though he knew it wasn’t a convincing argument. They could never return home after what Will did—or what people said he did.
       “You can turn around,” Will said. “They won’t lock you up.”
       Maybe he was right, Stuart thought, or maybe this was another lie his older brother made himself believe.
       “Tell them you tried to chase me down. Say you wouldn’t cross the lake,” Will said. “Put some truth in it.”
       Another story, like Will was some cowboy outlaw from a dime novel, and not just a stubborn man with a mean streak long and twisted as the Huron River. Stuart wanted to spit, but the cold axed his lips. The brothers pressed on.
       Will said he was on the other side of town when the two men were murdered. He shed tears, buckets of them, swearing he didn’t do it, and begged Stuart to believe him. How could he have killed them, he claimed, when he was such a poor shot? Stuart didn’t know what to believe, or didn’t believe he needed to know the truth. He saddled up the horses and they lit out before dawn.

*

       When they were kids, only ten and thirteen, and their father was off fighting the Confederates, they practiced shooting in the backyard. Their father didn’t want them to go to war but said they ought to know how to defend themselves in case war came looking. Will let Stuart struggle, offered no help. When it was his turn with the gun, Will shot bullseyes.
       They heard the story of The Marysville Raid, how some Confederates snuck down from Canada, robbed three banks and shot someone. Will took the gun and went searching for the raiders; said he would kill their leader and bring his scalp to the Governor, use the reward to buy all the land he could. Before sunset he was back, luckless, hungry, and tired.
       News came that the raiders escaped across the border, and Canada refused to turn them over to the Union. Will ranted and raged for a week after, saying the Canadians were cowards and traitors, and that the Union ought to remind them who was here first. Their mother reminded Will that their last name was Dubois, and their grandparents were all born in Canada. As though betrayed, Will didn’t speak to her for days.
       At school he was the first to pick a fight, coming home with cuts and scrapes and a wild smile, like he could bleed his ancestry out.

*

       A shifting veil of snow obscured the shore in every direction. If they kept straight they couldn’t miss the other side. They would wait out the storm in Windsor, then trail north, work for the lumber companies, or hunt deer or catamounts, find any way to survive the winter, then head east when it was warmer. Word was that Quebec needed hands and was a whole lot like Michigan. They could call themselves the Woods Brothers, on account of needing a new name, but not too new, since “dubois” was just French for “woods.”
       The first crack was like a gunshot. Stuart’s horse spooked and ran. The ice screamed and snapped and split. When he looked back, Will was gone. In his place only swirling white snow.
       Stuart tried to call for his brother; the wind choked him. Yanking the reins, Stuart forced his horse to retrace their steps, but he was already lost. All the ice looked unfamiliar. Snowdrifts rose and fell like beach dunes. There was no sign of Will, and Stuart couldn’t make out any fractures in the ice.   
       He imagined Will’s horse drowning, hooves rapping on the other side of the ice, pleading to be freed. Will couldn’t be under the ice—he would have heard him go down, would have heard his horse whinny. What if the Devil had reached up and pulled Will in without a sound? It was just like a story Will might tell.
       He drew his revolver and fired into the air. A moment later, he thought a shot replied, and urged his horse toward it, then fired again. Another sounded in seconds, but he found nothing. Then it dawned on him: the replies were only echoes.
       Will had the compass, leaving Stuart directionless. He wandered the lake for what felt like a season, wind whipping him. His brother would’ve been safer in jail where he probably belonged, if men like him belonged anywhere.
       The blizzard unfurled, and Stuart saw the outline of a horse ahead, but he couldn’t see a rider. He called Will’s name and drew closer—then his steed stopped, refused to move another inch. The lone horse turned to look at him. Its skull was bare of flesh and its eye sockets empty. No lips or tongue, it opened its mouth.