19

KICKED AWAKE BY MY FATHER, STILL DARK. HE’D FOUND my hiding place behind the fallen trunk. Get up, he said. Familiar shadow, made foreign now by my time on the road.

Exhausted and curled in my sleeping bag, I did not want to wake. Breath heavy. But he jabbed his boot in my side again and I sat up. Okay, I said.

Get over here, he said.

He walked away, backlit by a small fire, yellow outlines of him and a cavern forming above in the trees. Domed ceiling of any cathedral. The moon low on the other side of the sky now, setting, fading in firelight. No stained glass. No windows, even. Open arches.

My back in knots, but I rose and pulled on my jacket and hat and boots and followed him across shadows and deadfall, hollows and pools of black, carrying my rifle. The trees dry above, all color leached. My skin coming alive.

Tom at the griddle, a kind of Hephaestus I see now, working in darkness, without a lantern, working always with hot iron and sizzling flesh, no longer forging in metal alone. My grandfather still on his slab of marble, but I thought I saw an eye open as I passed. My father gone beyond the fire to stand before the hooks, our altar.

Dead man and buck the same color, pale yellow, horns and ankles made of the same bloodless material. Almost as lifeless as the painted plastic hanging in any church.

You can’t hang a man next to a buck, my father said.

That’s all I have left of the buck. I had to leave the rest of him in the road.

They’re not the same.

They are the same, my grandfather said from behind us. I turned and he was already up in his long johns, a mound of flesh wrapped loosely in cloth stained and yellowish in this light, his robes. As if we all had come here to be judged by him.

Don’t start, my father said.

Well what is the difference? Your son has killed a man and a buck, and you and he have hung them here. You hung the man yourself. You skewered his ankles as if he was an animal.

They’re not the same.

How are they not the same?

I’m not listening to this, Tom said. He walked over and was holding a spatula, the small fire close behind him, associated with him. Bright spots of grease along his bare forearm. We eat a buck. We bury a man. There’s the difference, you fucking monster. He was pointing at my grandfather with the spatula, as if it were some kind of knife.

There’s nothing left to eat, I said. You made me leave everything in the road.

My grandfather smiled. The best part of youth, he said. The utter lack of humor.

What does that mean? I asked.

Take that head down, my father said. I won’t have them hanging together. My father’s face creased in this light, long thin shadows down his cheeks. He was a weak figure. He could make no demands. He determined nothing, and this had always been true.

It’s my first buck. I get to hang him here.

My father’s arm a sequence too fast to follow, a kind of shadow that struck the side of my face and knocked me into the dirt. My skin burned and bones of my face throbbing. On my knees and still holding my rifle.

He’s right, my grandfather said. He gets to hang his first buck here. That’s the rule we follow. If we don’t follow that, then why not eat the man and bury the buck?

And suddenly that’s what I could see. On my knees on that ground, the blood still pumping in my face, I could see Tom carving pieces off the dead man and frying them on his grill. A different kind of church, the body of Christ more literal, no icon in wood or plastic but actual flesh and each of us feeding from it every day. Feeding from the flesh of bucks, too, and finding no difference.

You really are a monster, Tom said.

What rule says you eat the buck and not the man? my grandfather asked.

Every fucking rule in the world.

Did the rules say this boy could kill that man?

No.

Well what happens to the rules then?

Sometimes I think I invented my grandfather, that he never existed on his own. His voice is my own voice now, and I can’t find any separation. I can’t find what was him then and what is me now. His views have infected me.

You are all fucked in the head, Tom said. All three of you, and when we get back, everyone’s going to know. Enjoy your last bit of craziness. We’re leaving here today.

We’re not leaving today, my grandfather said. We’re going for a hunt today, and then taking a nap, and then going for another hunt, same as every other day. And we’re leaving tomorrow, as we planned. And that buck’s head is going to hang there until we leave.

We’re not going for a hunt, my father said. I’m burying this man. I’m going to bury him right now. This has gone on too long. You can have your fucking head hanging there all you want, but the man is not hanging beside him.

My father went to the ropes then, worked in darkness, his back against the light, and I could hear the men breathing above me, could hear the snap of the fire.

Rope tearing against bark, and the dead man fell before me, all one piece in motion, a slab, no collapse or fold but only a hard dull fall onto his shoulders and then ankles swinging down slowly until they rested a few inches above the ground. Some part of him refusing to return to earth, something always otherworldly about him. Sly grin still and head ducked, capable of anything.

So you’re ready to say this man’s death meant something? my grandfather asked.

I’m not saying anything, my father said. And I’m not talking to you.

Well what does it mean to bury him?

You don’t ask questions like that.

These are the only questions. What if we chop his head off and bury him with the buck’s head? Does that make any difference?

Tom walked over to the fire and took out a long thick stick burning at its end. Red grid of coals inside the flames. He held this up and gazed at it. Would it matter if I burned your eyes out with this stick? he asked. Would that make any difference?

I’m not the one whose eyes should be burned out, my grandfather said, and he pointed down at me. If the man’s death means something, then there has to be consequence.

Both of you, my father said. Please just kill each other now. I can’t listen to either of you ever again.

What does it mean to bury him? my grandfather asked. What will that do?

The dead man was looking all around while we were distracted. Shifty-eyed. Planning his escape. A quick leap over the stream, through trees and ferns and into that meadow. Head of a buck, body of a man, feet swiveling and flapping at the earth, arms yanking at his sides useless, but that great head with its rack and large eyes looking back, seeing all shapes. Body jerking below, but that head smooth, gliding over the earth.

My father crawled to the ankles and pulled them to ground, yanked out the hooks. The dead man free now, and I waited for him to run, but my father rose and picked up the ankles with their bloodless holes and dragged him toward the truck. The man’s arms outstretched and knuckles curled, risen off the ground, locked into that shape, reaching for everything, no neck, orangutan Jesus pale and rotting and waiting. He would not go into any grave easily. I knew that.

Well I guess it’s back to bed, my grandfather said, yawning and scratching his sides. We come close, and then we just go on. Dig your hole and try not to think about anything.

Fuck off, my father said.

Yeah, my grandfather said. He turned and picked his way carefully over the needles and cones, barefooted, unsteady, and sat down at the table. Breakfast first, then I’ll fuck off and catch a bit of shut-eye.

Tom tossed his firebrand back into the pit and returned to the griddle. Fine, he said. Aren’t you going to ask any important questions, though? Why eat an egg? What is an egg? What does the egg have to do with the bacon? Is there any rule that says we have to eat the bacon before the egg? What if the bacon is the egg? Is there any consequence to an egg?