No Quarter

by John Jantunen

  All the while he spoke, George was taking notes, and after he was done he asked Bergin about the Enfield. While Bergin had gone to fetch it, Rose appeared on the porch, carrying Deacon asleep on her shoulder, and George had gone up to her to enquire about the part she’d played in the story. She was shy around strangers and responded to his questions by lowering her eyes and twirling her fingers through her hair, a habit she’d keep for as long she knew him. Bergin came out with the Enfield, and George commented it was the same rifle his father had owned, then went on to say that he hadn’t shot one, oh, since he was a boy. Maybe he was baiting Bergin or maybe he was just stating a fact. Either way, Bergin asked if he’d like to shoot one now.

  “I wouldn’t say no,” George answered, which, in later years, Deacon would learn was how he always said yes.

  After that he’d show up three or four times a year, always unannounced. Bergin and him rarely ever shot anything beyond the breeze, and during the hours they spent tromping through the woods, or crouching within a blind, Bergin told George things that he’d never told a living soul: about his father (“As mean an old bastard as you’re likely ever to meet”); about how after he’d died, Bergin took his inheritance and fled Denmark; about building his house; and about how he’d met Rose. And though George didn’t take notes as he had when Bergin had told him about that son-of-a-bitch Pike and his dogs, he must have kept a clear record of them in his head because, some three years after they’d met, George gave him a copy of The Stray and he’d find more than a few of his divulgences recounted within its pages.

  Until then, Bergin hadn’t been much of a reader. His efforts since he’d come to Tildon rarely strayed beyond the books he kept on the shelf he’d made out of a spruce tree he’d felled at the back of their pasture, the spaces in between filled out with his prized collection of bird skulls. He’d bought the complete works of Jack London at the Owl Pen, the used bookstore on Main. He’d taught himself to read English by following along in the Danish translations he’d read as a kid, the adventures therein luring him to the new world, his possessions when he arrived confined to $24,000, the clothes on his back, and a gunny sack filled with the books he’d nicked from the library on his way out of town.

  The Farley Mowats he’d bought on the advice of the Owl Pen’s owner, who’d said he was unlikely to find a better guide to his new home than him. And while he’d enjoyed those, they didn’t hold a candle to the amazement he felt upon reading The Stray. The next time George dropped by, he asked him if he’d written anything else. George said he had and Bergin said he’d sure like to read them too. The following morning a box was sitting on his front porch. Inside it were George’s other eleven books. They must have spoken to something deep inside because as soon as he’d finished the lot by rereading The Stray, Bergin had gone back and started reading them over again.

  All of which Bergin had told his son a dozen times, leaving out only one small detail: what was written on the dedication page of the book Deacon now held in his hand. So it came as a surprise when, opening it up, he found typeset there: For Bergin & Rose. And beneath that in a crude scrawl barely more refined than Deacon’s own: Thanks for giving an old man new hope.

  Seeing his parents’ names thus inscribed had increased his anticipation and he quickly flipped forward to page one. He’d only just managed to read the opening line—Asger was in his shed chopping the winter wood when he heard his dog growling from the yard—before he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking up, he saw his mother walking back from the garden, carrying a basketful of lettuce, and Abel clutching a cucumber to his chest and hurrying to catch up behind.

  Closing the book, he ran back to the shelf, climbed onto the chair and stuck the book into the gap made by its absence. He’d just returned the chair to its place at the kitchen table when his mother came in. If she’d noticed anything odd about how her son was obviously flustered, his cheeks flushed red and his chest heaving, she made no sign as she carried the basket to the sink to wash the dirt off the greens they’d be eating for dinner.

  Ever after, when George visited, Deacon would stand staring up at The Stray nestled in the far-right corner of the bookshelf’s top row, eating his share of liquorice allsorts and thinking how it’d be a shame if his mother burnt it up in the yard before he had a chance to find out what happened next.

  8

  When he’d finally come to read beyond The Stray’s opening line, Deacon was six months shy of his thirteenth birthday, though it was hardly a cause for celebration.

  It had been a mild winter that year. The snow was gone by the first week of March and by the time he’d finished his morning lesson on the Tuesday of the same, the thermometer on their porch was already creeping towards twenty. He got it in mind that it would be a good day to go down to the creek that drained out of the swamp towards the rear of their property.

  The swamp was likely to be full with the thaw, and if he was lucky he’d catch a bass, which were known to favour the shelter of the cattails, though, just last year, he’d seen one trying to swim upstream not five feet from the swollen creek’s shore. Maybe it had been frozen in a block of ice, he’d thought, knowing that happened to some fish, though he wasn’t exactly sure that it happened to bass. When the thaw had come, he imagined that the block of ice had been swept into the creek. When the fish had finally melted free, it was miles downstream, swimming against the current and trying to get back home, not moving an inch the whole time Deacon had stood there watching it. He’d cursed himself for not bringing his fishing rod, or better yet his pocket knife, so he could have made a spear. He had run back to get them, but when he’d returned the fish was gone. He’d made the spear anyway and had kept it in his room ever since, thinking he might still find some use for it.

  So it was with a great sense of anticipation that he’d come out of the house just after ten with his rod, his spear, his knife, and a plastic grocery bag he’d scrounged from his mother’s collection under the kitchen sink in which to carry the fish back. Trigger had got the cancer in his hinds last fall and Bergin had had to put him down two weeks previous. His mat was still beside the wicker rocking chair on the porch and habit had him bending low as if the dog was still alive and he meant to give him a touch on his way past.

  And that’s when his mother called to him through the kitchen window.

  “If you’re going down to the creek,” she said, “why don’t you take Abel with you?”

  Deacon hadn’t been too keen on the idea. Half the reason he went down to the creek was to get away from his brother, and he’d called back to her, “But you said Abel ain’t allowed to go down to the creek without you or Pa.”

  “You’re twelve aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I expect you’re plenty old enough to make sure he don’t drown himself.”

  When Abel came out of the house, holding the bow George had given them and the one arrow he hadn’t lost, Deacon was waiting at the foot of the path leading past their barn. He turned, ignoring Abel’s shouts of, “Wait for me!” and followed the trail on a direct line through the pasture towards the patch of forest where their Holsteins would seek refuge from the summer heat. The ground rose on a steady incline once you breached the treeline. The creek was on the other side of the hill studded with the thirty-five or so sugar maples that they tapped every year for syrup. The pails still hung from their spiles and when he’d reached the nearest, Deacon lifted its lid, peering down at the half inch of clear liquid within.

  He was just dipping his cupped hand into it, drawing it back and slurping the sap from his palm when Abel finally caught up, out of breath from running after him in rubber boots. He punched Deacon hard on the arm to tell him what he thought of being left behind and cursed, “Cockfucker,” something he’d heard their father holler just last week when one of their cows had stepped on his foot while he was milking it.

 
“I told you to wait for me,” he spat at Deacon.

  “And I told you to hurry.”

  “Ma made me wear my rubbers. You know I can’t run when I’m wearing my rubbers.”

  “And how’s that my fault?” Deacon said, turning and starting up the slope, thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Abel drowned himself in the creek after all.

  “Wait,” Abel yelled after him. “I want to drink some sap too.”

  “Drink all the sap you want. I’ll be down at the creek.”

  He heard Abel muttering “cockfucker” again and that was followed by the squelch of his boots as he hurried to catch up.

  “What’d you bring that bow for anyhow?” Deacon asked when his brother had come astride.

  “I’m going to shoot me a fish.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  “Well, you’re gonna.”

  “You’re just going to lose that arrow.”

  “No I ain’t.”

  “If you shoot it into the creek, you sure as hell are, and I ain’t going to make you any more. I made you six last year and you lost all of them except the one. I ain’t makin’ you any more arrows if you lose that one too.”

  “I won’t. I brought some kite string to tie around the end. That way I can reel the fish in after I shoot it.”

  “It’ll just come loose.”

  “I’ll tie it tight. Double knot it.”

  “You can’t tie knots for shit.”

  “But you can.”

  “I ain’t tying no knot on the end of an arrow, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Well, then can you make me a spear?”

  “You’re nine ain’t ya?”

  “You know I am.”

  “Then I expect you’re old enough to make your own spear.”

  “I’m gonna hafta use your knife.”

  “You ain’t using my knife.”

  “But Ma took mine, you know that.”

  “It’s cause you almost cut your damn finger off.”

  “Well, how am I going to make a spear without a knife?”

  “I guess you’re just going to have to use your teeth.”

  “My teeth? I can’t use my teeth. How am I going to use my teeth? That’s just stupid.”

  They’d come to the top of the rise. There was a boulder there, half again taller than Deacon and furred green with moss. He ran his hand along its carpet until he came to the down slope on its far side.

  “Come on, let me use your knife,” Abel was pleading as Deacon let gravity carry him towards the creek.

  He hadn’t made it more than three steps when something flit up past his face. Then right after that another flit and then another. The sound of their buzz grew into a roar and Deacon gaped down at his feet, seeing a funnel almost like a tornado rising out of a hole in the ground.

  “Bees!” Abel screamed, swatting at the haze engulfing them even as Deacon dropped his fishing rod and spear and wheeled around, grabbing his brother by the hand and dragging him at a hard run back down the hill towards home.

  Sharp stabs pinged over the back of his neck and Abel was wailing, “It hurts! They’re stinging me. It hurts!”

  Deacon felt him stumble and clutched his hand tighter, keeping him on his feet and dragging him towards the slats of light straining through the hedge of cedars at the edge of the forest. Needle points raced in electric shocks up his arms and the back of his neck. He’d been stung a half a dozen times when they’d reached the field. Abel was sobbing inconsolably, his words now lost to the tyranny of his pain. The swarm had relented but there were still two or three hornets chasing after them as they charged along the path leading around the barn, Deacon swatting frantically at their winged pursuers, his brother lagging behind him with the pull of an anchor, wheezing and gasping, then buckling over as they came into sight of the house. Deacon felt another sting on his arm and slapped at it, feeling the crunch of the insect’s body against his skin as he looked to his brother, hunched over, his head between his knees, his face a plague of fire-red bumps. He’d lost one of his boots and there was a hornet crawling over the ruffle of his hair but those were the least of Deacon’s worry. Abel couldn’t catch his breath. He was gulping at the air like a drowning man and peering up at his brother with a crazed fear in his gape.

  “Ma! Pa!” Deacon screamed, turning back towards the house.

  He saw his mother’s head pop up from their garden. She’d been tilling the soil with a hoe and was holding it like a weapon as if the tenor of her son’s anguish had called to mind the memory of the dogs that had attacked him all those years ago.

  “It’s Abel!”

  Deacon felt another sting just above his elbow and the pain of it sent a shudder of rage through him. He swatted at it but the hornet was gone and he hollered after it, “Leave me alone, goddamnit! Leave me alone!” His voice breaking so that it came out just short of a whimper.

  Abel was on the ground when he turned back to him, his knees bunched at his chest. A violent spasm coursed through his body and spittle foamed at his lips, his neck swollen almost even with his chin, its skin a deep red, shading to purple.

  “It’s okay, Ma’s coming,” Deacon said, bending and taking his brother’s hand and Abel staring up at him, panic-struck. Then their mother was there beside them, kneeling at her son, fear warping her face into a hideous mask.

  “He was stung,” Deacon said, though it was clear for all to see.

  Rose was already standing by then, drawing her son into her arms and turning back towards the house, screaming, “Bergin! Bergin!”

  Deacon watched after her, his skin on fire and his legs turned to wood, refusing to move until he saw his father coming around the side of the barn, watching as his mother heaved Abel into his arms. Only when his father had turned towards the Cherokee parked at the end of the drive did Deacon find the will to chase after them. His legs picked up speed with every step so that when he’d come to the tractor his feet hardly seemed to be touching the ground.

  His mother was already in the Jeep’s passenger seat and his father was setting Abel in her lap. He was limp and he sagged between her arms like a long-dead thing. Deacon felt like he was going to be sick but pushed himself harder still, seeing his father circling to the driver’s seat, opening the door, and throwing himself in. The Jeep’s engine caught on the first try, which in itself seemed like a miracle since it hardly ever started without two or three twists of the key.

  The wheels spewed gravel as his father threw it into reverse, his head craned backwards as he spun the wheel, oblivious to Deacon hurrying after. His mother was likewise occupied, gaping in terror at the crumpled form in her lap—her son dying, it seemed, right before her eyes. Only when Deacon slammed his hands on the hood as his father was shifting into gear did she look up, tears streaking down her cheeks, aghast, as if she’d mistaken Deacon for a ghost.

  “Get in then, goddamnit!” his father yelled.

  Deacon’d barely made the back seat before his father hit the gas, spinning the steering wheel, and racing up the driveway. The door wrenched loose from Deacon’s grip, flapping open. He lunged out for it, grabbing hold of its handle just as his father swerved onto the road, the force of the hairpin turn slamming the door shut and sending Deacon sprawling over the seat. His head knocked against the far window’s crank and the shock of it momentarily numbed his agony. All of a sudden it felt like he was encased in ice, like he’d imagined the fish he’d seen last year had been. The world was but a pale reflection through its screen. Nothing could touch him and the pain was but a memory. A fleeting moment of relief before the world came hurtling back in the pinpricks seething over his skin. He could taste blood in his mouth. He’d bit his tongue and that added to his agony. He’d ended up on the floor and was wedged between the front seat and the back, listening with dread rapt to the spiralling
confusion in his father’s voice.

  “It doesn’t make any goddamn sense,” he was saying. “He’s been stung by bees plenty of times. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense.”

  Deacon thinking, it weren’t bees, it was hornets, as if that might have made a difference, and more so that Abel had never been stung by either.

  It’s me who’s been stung plenty of times.

  Four times to be exact, and after every one he’d sworn he couldn’t imagine something that could have hurt more than that. But here he was, as if his body had become a hurt factory, pumping out pain in overlapping shifts as the Jeep battered over the pothole-strewn road, bouncing him like those Mexican jumping beans his mother had put in their stockings last Christmas, Deacon and Abel laughing as they did flips on the kitchen table.

  “You think there’s really worms inside, like Pa said?” Abel had asked him at the time.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  They’d cracked one open with a hammer and sure enough there was an itty-bitty worm under the shell, though really it was a larvae, their father’d explained.

  “It’ll hatch into some sort of insect,” he told them.

  He didn’t know which, and Abel had said they could check on it at the library the next time they were in town, though by then they’d forgotten all about it.