Wednesday, May 9, 2012

An Understanding


In the yard, he was out there, out in the dusk. The sun was so low I couldn't see him, just his silhouette. Up this mountain, I wouldn't expect visitors. When I saw him, hunched over and rocking, the shape of his body, like a child, an adolescent kid and the sly little laugh, a giggle he let loose when I opened the screen door with my thirty aught-six and cocked it.

I could see the shape of his head: pointy. His ears were pointy, too, and he stood and a little tail, quick as a snake darted out from behind his and swished. His eyes were bright yellow.

I didn't know what to say. I said “Get the fuck out of here!”

He said, in this little whisper voice: “You can't escape.” And then he jumped through the underbrush, laughing louder.

I went inside. I was cooking an elk steak. I looked at the shelf with my ammo, with my water skins and leather. I knew what he meant. I had heard the voices at night. A deer had come through that morning, through the yard and growled. At me, a doe. Lowered its head and growled like a bobcat or something. I had run inside.

I went outside with a cigarette and up to the sky I yelled “Okay!” and an oak tree fell over and crushed my cabin. I ran down the path, down the side of the mountain. The earth began to crack and shudder. In the gathering dark, I heard bodies all around me, rushing through the grass, drawing closer, crying out, braying. I got to clearing, a draw that went down pretty steep. The animals came forward, pushing me back toward where the draw tipped down. The sun went down. I saw the animals come toward me, closer. Gathering. He was there covered in yellow ivy and they all broke out in blue fire.

I said to him “We had a deal.”

He said “We never had a deal.”