Odi walked out of his three room log cabin up by Hangar Lake in Bethel Alaska. He was getting some wood for the day to come. Odi was a troubled thirty year old man who had survived a brutal battle in the Congo where his whole battalion was captured and killed in front of him. Odi had escaped by blowing up the whole building and barely getting back to base camp alive. Ever since then he’d been extremely slow and hesitant. He would wake up at night and dreaming of ways to kill the men who killed his battalion; he came up with more and more ways of doing it and would wake up in puddles of sweat. Yet, Odi liked a sense of solitude and peace, he loved to be warm, to read and enter new worlds outside his own troubled one. He had yet to find this world,  but as he read about it, that world seemed closer and closer to reach.

Leya McLain, a long time friend, always came and checked on Odi in the mornings and then again in the afternoons. She knew him before he had become mentally weak and always worried about him. She showed up early that morning and was waiting on the front steps of the cabin as Odi walked up. He gave her a hug but sensed something wrong, especially with her eyes and the way she could barely speak. “Something bad has happened, Odi, it's really bad I need to talk with you.” She explained to Odi how her son Alton had been murdered two miles away with five other friends. They had all been hanging around a camp fire and this morning they were all found dead with blood splattered everywhere. Leya explained how it was done in a gruesome way like someone was proving a point.

Odi came in and fixed coffee.  Then Leya drove Odi to the grocery so he could stock up. At the grocery he came across Sherriff Dodner. Sherriff Dodner was a skinny, four eyed, suspicious freak. No one knew how of all people he become the sheriff because no one ever voted for him. Sherriff Dodner had a jealous act for Odi. Donder thought he was the hero; the one everyone was supposed to look up to, but most people looked up to Odi. He wondered why they could love some good for nothing retard when it was him protecting the people of the small town of Bethel. But the truth was people trusted Odi and not so much Dodner.

Dodner walked past Odi and glared at him.  Then he walked up to Leya and gave his deepest apologies. “Leya if there is anything I can do please tell me.” She just nodded no and kept her head staring at the ground. Odi walked up to the counter.   The lady smiled and gave Odi his usual. He smiled and said,  "thank you."  He then drove back to the cabin with Leya.

A week after the murder, two deputies showed up at Odi’s cabin with Sheriff Donder. The sheriff claimed he had proof that Odi had committed the crime.   They took Odi out in cuffs and put him in the back of the car. “Ha!" Sheriff Donder said, "Thought you were going to get away with it didn't you?   Well not this time, Odi.  I got you. Now people will see me as the hero...not you.” Odi spent a few days in jail waiting for the only judge in town to return from a long vacation down in California.   At two o’clock on the fourth day,  he finally got his chance in court. Sheriff Dodner showed all the evidence he had collected over time.  From what people could see, it was mostly all staged --from the knife that looked fairly new,  to the clothes that appeared blood stained. Everyone knew Odi didn’t have the money to buy a new knife and clothes.  He bought everything from the grocery or K-mart.  Most of the time, people gave him a 90% discount just because of all he had been through. Sheriff Dodner still had his mischievous growl on his face along with his square frames and scrawny cheeks. The jury did not even discuss the issue but instead just told Odi he was free to go.

Leya drove Odi back to his cabin.   On the way she confessed her feelings about the situation. “Odi I don’t know what to do. I have to find the killer, and when I do,  I’m killing him cold blooded right there!” After she left, Odi looked at a picture of his battalion and remembered how he had felt the day he lost his brothers. Odi went back to the clothes rack and put his coat back on to head out again. Something was weird about a shirt on the rack.  One looked snagged and even had blood on the inside. He looked it over and then took it with him as he went out into the woods toward the crime scene.

The crime scene was empty; here in the woods nothing was able to keep out in the cold and wet. The crime scene investigators had taken everything back to their labs for testing,  but Odi hoped maybe they missed something. As he walked up toward it he caught his jacket on small limb sticking out and torn it. He looked down and it was the same tear as on his other coat he had brought with him. Odi didn’t want to walk right into the scene but looked around as to what the killer might have done. He paced slowly to the right and circled around the cleared area where the bonfire had been. As he rounded the trees a second time, his body suddenly locked up and he passed out right on the crime scene. While passed out he had flash backs from when he had been captured.   This time his holders were the kids,  not the soldiers from the Congo. He saw it just like he had dreamed all those times. He saw himself attack with slitting one kid’s throat from behind, then kicking one as he looked around. He saw himself jumping on the kid stabbing him with a stick; then chasing one through the woods and breaking both legs with two stomps on the kneecaps.  The other two were still by the fire paralyzed by the events and Odi saw them with AK.  Immediately, he attacked them breaking one boy's neck and punching the other till the blood covered his hands.   Then he saw himself wipe it on the inside of his coat and walk back around and toward the cabin.

Odi was awakened by Leya who had been searching for him for hours. “Odi you look like you are freezing!  Get back to the cabin before you freeze to death!”  It was now 9 in the morning and he had been passed out in the snow all night. “I was looking for the killer but I couldn’t find a thing. Let’s just go back to my cabin.” She walked back with him to the cabin and cooked him a warm meal before leaving to go to work. Odi didn’t eat or sleep or even read his book. He staged over and over, plan through plan and came up with perfection. If he could,  he was going to get away with this, but only one person was stopping him.

Sheriff Dodner had given up all hope of being the hero. Forensics showed no evidence of anything and it was pretty much a blind case. He walked out of the office to see Odi walking by. Odi wasn’t with Leya, and Dodner knew he should be nice and offer Odi a ride. “Hey there bud I'm sorry I tried to pin it on you.   I shouldn’t have done that to you.” Then Sherriff Dodner told him he’d give him a ride back to the cabin. Odi forgave him and they drove off toward Odi’s cabin. When they got close to Hangar Lake, the left side of the car started slopping down and eventually the car came to a halt. “Dam-it Odi that would be my luck” said Sheriff Dodner, “Give me a minute, Odi.  I will be right back”. Sheriff Dodner went to the trunk to get the tire.  All of a sudden from behind, he was struck on the head and fell into the trunk. Odi turned the wheel and pushed the car into Hangar Lake. “You jerk, I’m their hero.   I saved the day; I saved my brothers.   This time you can’t take that glory from me. I saved them!” Odi watched as the car went under and then walked back to the cabin. “I killed the enemy and saved my brothers...good job Odi, good job buddy.”