We went up to Wind Cave a month later, after we had calmed down, and after the weather was better. At the beginning of the hike we were a little nervous, but each step we took in the sunlight reassured us that now was now, and then was still then, and we were safe. It was a shock to look around and see how beautiful everything was, and to think that maybe everything had been beautiful that night, too, and we just hadn’t seen it.
There was a moment of panic when we found his severed feet on the trail, still lying where they had fallen. We stared at them for a moment, bile rising in our throats, but they looked so ridiculous and harmless there in the dirt that soon we were laughing again. We took a picture of them before we kicked them over the edge into the ravine, knowing that anyone who found them would think they belonged to a goat, or a calf.
At the cave, we ate and drank and chatted—a kind of exorcism, claiming the place for the daytime, and for ourselves. We took pictures of the cave, and of each other. At the end of the afternoon, we paused a moment to remember Kara and Leslie, the way they had been, before, and to hope that they were in a better place.
Then we hiked back down and drove home, and this time the sunshine came with us. Spring was here to stay
