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.”
