by Tim O'Brien
He had nothing more to say. Speaking seemed out of place, almost unnatural. Stammered, implied meanings. He realized it and did not like it, but still he could think of nothing to say.
“We’ll go,” he said.
Harvey did not look up. He stood with his skis wide apart.
He could have been standing at a urinal, looking down, his face composed and unstrained and content.
“Harv. We’ll go now.”
With a slow gesture of languor, Harvey nodded and moved forward, and Perry pushed off. Almost as they started, Perry was tired. He could feel it in his thighs and calves and in the bones themselves. He wanted to stop, build a hot fire, bring out the sleeping bags and then sleep and sleep. He came close to stopping. He hesitated with his poles, relaxing his grip and feeling his arms float away from him, his knees start to cave as if cut like giant spruce to begin the long slow creaking fall to repose. He could have stopped and slept. Nothing to stop him. Easy. His body would have crumpled and his brain would have never known, and Harvey would have come beside him and they would have slept. The tiredness came just like the hunger. It simply came. As uncomplicated and elemental as water or lightning. And the trail wound into the forest in the same indifferent way. Perry pushed with his poles and kept skiing.
The day lasted summer bright, lasted and lasted, and the north was filled with white light.
Soon the trail began ascending. They moved slowly. Harvey had a hard time of it, sometimes seeming not to move at all.
At the trail’s summit they rested. Then they skied down. They moved fast, riding the downward-sloping trail, riding their skis and the downward-going forest. Perry did not need to push with his poles. He let the shining poles hang behind him. The speed blended with his tiredness. Sleep-speeding, the evergreens spilled by, then the straggly branches of birch trees, and the colors sped by in greens and silver and white light, and through an ice cocoon, a fast moving downward-going ice capsule, he slept-sped down, branches and snow glittering, and when he closed his eyes he could still see the brightness.
Harvey’s face was wet and red at the fire. Sweat dribbled from his forehead to his cheeks and into his beard, but he did not seem bothered by it. Rather, he lay against his rucksack with the air of wise content, and even when he coughed he did not move a hand to his mouth nor bend forward to ease the coughing. He sat still, letting the coughing shake him like some electrical current, not moving or changing expression. He did not wipe away the sweat, or close his eyes, or try to sleep, or talk. At times he suffered blankly, at times not at all, at times appearing to be deep into thought and at times as hardened as a glacier, neither breathing nor moving. His bad eye seemed to be the active eye. While the rest of his face was tranquil, the dead eye rolled askew, untethered by nerve or muscle to its socket, aggressive and dominant. The eye was attracted to the fire as though by magnetism. And when he coughed, the bad eye remained open while the other closed and while his body tightened in a spasm, the bad eye peering out at the fire perfectly indifferent to the sickness.
Perry melted snow and boiled water and gave it to Harvey to drink. Perry held the tin cup, watching the water wet his brother’s beard, watching his brother’s eyes, holding the cup until he saw Harvey’s throat bob.
And it was snowing. There was still some fire, and the snow was sweeping before the fire. He awoke and saw it was snowing. The sky was black and clear, the northern stars, the dippers, everything shining, and still it was snowing. He held out his hand. It was fine dry snow. Then he saw it was snowing from a pine tree. A pine tree was snowing on him, snowing on the fire. A pine tree pregnant and sagged with snow, buckled almost sideways with the weight, snowing on him.
He was looking for airplanes. Sometime while he was trying to sleep and not sleeping, he had thought that they would have airplanes looking for them. Important to keep the fire going. At night an airplane would see the fire. He got it going high, then lay back and carefully scanned the sky for airplanes. He searched the sky section to section. He searched each of the constellations, and the moon, and the huge sprawling spaces of open black. He scanned each horizon. Then he divided the sky into quadrants and did it again, systematically searching for an airplane.
He heard Harvey move.
“Sleeping?” he said softly.
Harvey moved again. His breathing was wet and deep down.
“Sleeping?”
“I’m sick.”
“Here, let me heat up some water for you.”
“I don’t think …”
“Hot water’ll cut through the crap. Hold still and rest.”
Perry heaped snow into the pot and put it on the fire.
He lay back and continued his search for airplanes. Harvey was mumbling, but Perry gazed upwards, looking for lights.
Harvey’s fluid talking was background music: “I’m sick, I guess … I guess I was right about that, wasn’t I?”
“You’ll be all right.”
“People have always told me that. Harvey, they always say, Harvey, you’ll be all right.”
“Lie still.”
The sky had no airplanes. Perry continued his search, thinking about the form and shadowed wings and red and green lights, looking from horizon to horizon.
“Anyhow,” Harvey said. “Anyhow, here we are. I didn’t force you to come. You can never say I forced you.”
“I didn’t say that. Relax. I’ll give you some water when it’s hot.”
“Anyhow. Here we are. You and me. I don’t mind it. Really, I don’t mind it at all. I’m sick but I feel all right anyway. I don’t mind it … I wish Addie was here. That’s what I wish. That Addie, she’d be teasing me and telling me I’m not sick. Really. She’d be teasing me and saying pirates don’t get sick. She calls me her pirate, did you know that? She does. Her pirate. I’m not really a pirate. She’d say pirates can’t get sick. Who ever saw a sick pirate? she’d say. Do you know … do you know this, that when I asked her to get married, I asked her polite and straightforward, but when I asked her to get married, Addie said, just like that, she said pirates don’t get married. Who ever heard of a married pirate? she said. Can you believe she’d say that? Who ever heard of a married pirate? I can’t believe that … I don’t know. I don’t like those sorts of names. The old man, he liked to call me a bull. I never said anything about it to him, though. Never told him I didn’t like being called a bull. Or anything else. You probably think I always liked being called that. People always think they know what people think and everything, but they don’t. There’s a lot you think you know you don’t know … I’m not criticizing. You know a lot, you know more than me, I guess, and you’re always sensible and there’s nothing wrong with that, so I’m not criticizing … And I’m sorry I was hollering at you back there. I get that way. I don’t know why but I sometimes get that way. You probably think I’m always thinking about going to Africa and remembering the war and doing all those strange things, but that’s not true. People always think they know what people are thinking about. Anyhow. Anyhow, I’m sorry I hollered at you, I just get that way. I been thinking about getting a job, maybe you didn’t know that. I was telling Grace about it, and I told her not to tell. Grace is nice. She is. I’m sorry about that, too. You must think … I don’t know. I remember things, too. Sometimes I got scared going out with the old man. Not later on, I wasn’t scared then, but the first times going out for a long time, when we went way deep and I was just a little kid, I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. Do you remember that? Do you remember?”
“No.”
“I was just a kid. You probably don’t remember. The old man got me a new rifle. You remember that?”
“Sort of.”
“He got it for me for Christmas. I remember it. It was behind the tree and I knew it was there all the time, for a week or something, but I never let on because I knew he wanted me to be surprised and happy on the morning when we went down and opened up the presents, so I didn’t let on I knew about it. But
I was scared of it. I remember crying upstairs, knowing in the morning I had to go down and open up the gun and look happy, and then knowing I had to go out and shoot it, scared silly. Jesus, that was funny. That was something funny. But I was scared. You don’t know that, I’ll bet. But I was scared and I never let on to him, ’cause I knew he’d think I was ungrateful or didn’t … didn’t love him or something, so I kept quiet. And in the morning, sure enough, it was a rifle. Just a measly rifle, a twenty-two. Don’t you remember that rifle?”
“No.”
“Well, it was a twenty-two. I guess you never got one, but anyhow there it was, and sure enough the old man took me outside with it and we went walking in the snow and out into the woods, Jesus, you can’t believe how scared I was of that fucking gun … This cough … and he showed me how to load it, sticking the bullets into this rod that was under the barrel, the magazine, and he shot it a couple of times to show me how to do it, putting holes in this birch tree. Then it was my turn and he gave it to me, and I just stood there smiling and smiling till I felt like crying, and the old man smiled and seemed to think I was happy, and he told me to shoot it, so I put it up and shot it. I don’t remember hitting anything, but I shot it and pretty soon got used to it so I wasn’t so scared, but all I remember about the whole thing was being scared and shooting it anyhow. Anyhow. So I told Addie about it and she started laughing and told me to buy a sword or something. Sometimes I do think she’s Indian. I can’t ever decide. What do you think? I think … I think we oughta take her into some hospital and have blood tests made, what do you think? I like her. I told her we ought to get married and she told me pirates are never married. I don’t even know if she thought I was serious. I was serious all right. Sometimes I think you never think I’m ever serious, but I am. You can’t ever know for sure what people are thinking. And sometimes, sometimes people are thinking just the opposite of what they pretend they’re thinking. When the old man died I was pretty sad, but I know you were sad, too, because you were always having run-ins with him, but you were sad. Weren’t you? Don’t have to say. You can’t tell. But that Addie … You see anything? What are you looking for there?”
“Airplanes.”
Harvey laughed and coughed again. “You’re some sensible brother, aren’t you? You are. I guess we’re really brothers, aren’t we? Don’t know what that means, except it means that some of the same things we remember. You don’t remember the rifle I got?”
“No.”
“Well … You really don’t remember it? Guess you just never noticed.”
“Do you remember the time that the old man took us to learn to swim?”
“Sure … Well, no. Sort of. No, I guess I don’t.”
“We remember different things.”
“We both remember the bomb shelter, though.”
“Yes.”
“And I guess we’ll remember this, too.”
“Want some of this hot water?”
“I better have some. I feel okay, though. I don’t mind a bit. I don’t care what.”
The trail slowly bent and they pushed around the bend. More road opened in a long snowflow. The land kept descending. The forest thinned out, and they came to a crossroad. Perry pushed the pole through the snow and it clanked sharply against the road.
“Tar,” he said.
He waited for Harvey. Then again he thrust his pole down and listened to the civilized sharp thud. “It’s tar,” he said.
They rested there, sitting on their rucksacks at the center of the crossroads. It was a real road this time, and Perry studied the map. From the sun, he judged the road to be running northwest-southeast. From the map, he guessed the tar road was one of two, both of which emptied eventually on to the shore of Superior. And he was hungry.
“All right?” he said. He put the map away.
“I’m pretty sick. Can we rest?”
“We can rest. You’re going to get sicker, though.”
“Just awhile. Not long. We’re going to die, I guess. You know that?”
“Yes,” Perry said, thinking it would be just as difficult later on. He was lightheaded himself. Cleareyed and lightheaded. The day was bright as damask steel, tough and swordlike and shining, and he rested against his pack until it was a choice between sleeping or moving on, and he got up and helped Harvey into his skis and pushed off.
Even as he started down the new road, he was hungry and very tired. He tried then not to think about it. He thought about the new tar road. He concentrated on it. The new road was not much different from the logging trail, slightly wider and straighter and more even. It seemed to have a destination. Alongside it, the trees were cut in a sharp and beveled way, as though the builders of the road had surveyed the path precisely and without thought of frills or beauty, cutting it out of the forest in the easiest and straightest and simplest fashion. He thought about it, imagining the road being bulldozed in the summer months, imagined the slow progress, the swath of cut timber, the mashing roar of yellow-painted construction machines and the quick dash of frightened deer, the hunger, he was hungry. It was not a stab any more. He was hungry but he did not feel it. He did not ache from the hunger. There was no pain. His belly felt full, even swollen. The dark place at the base of his brain was numb. He was hungry in a lethargic, purely empty way, fatigued, spent, drained, hollow, weak, ballooned, oxygen-light, emptyheaded, lightheaded, sleepy, sleepy. He tried not to think about it. It was impulsive hunger without sensation, as a baby at birth, hungry from the beginning, and he tried not to think of it. Vaguely, he recalled warnings of extreme hunger. Famine, warning from the pulpit. He tried not to think of it, concentrating on his breathing and the steps and motions of skiing. It was a bright good road. Suffocating. It was a kind of suffocation, the hunger, suffocation without pain or even knowledge, sleep-suffocation far beyond knowledge or feeling. He tried the counting game. Counting days again. The days blended with the trees, each identical to the next, and he lost count and could not remember, and he tried counting only numbers, seeing how long and how far he could go on. He was glad the sensation of hunger was gone. A bad sign, he knew, but he was glad not to have to withstand it. The dull emptiness was better for thinking. He had his wits. He could count. He counted on, the numbers flopping in his head as he counted, physical objects. Some of the numbers seemed to stick, looming in huge black numerals, and he counted the stuck numbers over and over until they snapped away to be replaced by the next numbers, and he counted to a thousand and kept going, counting on, perfectly in control, his wits intact, beginning to believe he could reach the very end of the numbers, the last number, 1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1205, 1205, 1206, 1207, 1208, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1212, 1212, 1212, 1213, some of the numbers having a symmetry that made them stick in his brain, and he counted in the growing conviction that one of the numbers would pop before him as the final number, beyond which there would be no further numbers, the red limit, the very edge of the universe beyond which the past started, and he would only have to turn backwards, flowing evenly into the past which was not any longer past, turn to begin counting in the other direction, going backwards until it became a countdown for a great red explosion to send him hurtling head over heels in numbers back towards the edge. He was glad the hunger ache was gone. He had his wits. The trail was now a road, and the road was straight and level, flat and solid as the numbers he counted, flat on the green globular forest.
He came to a minor bend in the road. On the right, a pine bluff was high. On the left, the land sloped sharply down. Partly chiseled into the bluff’s face, the road executed a slow graceful turn, and Perry followed it. Then he realized he was gazing into a black arrow that traced the curve of the road. A black arrow on a yellow sheet of metal. The arrow pointed the way. It seemed a kind of form in his head, along with the numbers, a black arrow on yellow metal that was so compatible with the numbers that he merely nodded at it, as if counting it with all the rest.
Then he stopped.
It was a ro
ad sign, a black arrow on yellow metal that showed the curve of the road, a warning posted for those who came that way.
It was hammered to a shiny silver stake.
He heard Harvey brake behind him.
Perry felt a deep spark, and he was happy and wanted to say something. “Well,” he said.
He looked at the wordless bent arrow.
“It’s a road, all right.”
The sun hovered just over the western trees. As he turned, it settled into the clutches of the topmost branches.
“What do you think?”
“Poachers,” Harvey said.
“What.”
Harvey motioned towards the snow, a few yards beyond the shiny stake. He began coughing and leaned on his poles. “There. Poachers.” It was the carcass of some dead animal. Most of it lay buried. “A deer,” Harvey said. Perry skied to it and brushed the snow off. The hindquarters were completely gone. The carcass was frozen and there was no odor or blood. Without the hindquarters the animal looked tiny, not much bigger than a house dog. The eyes of the deer were like rock.
“Poachers,” Harvey said again, repeating himself in a glazed way. He sounded like an old man. “They got the antlers, too, if there were any. Leave it be.”
Perry kicked at the carcass. He was hungry, but the animal, what was left of it, did not tempt him. He thought of the deer he’d greeted, then thought of his hunger again. “Can’t eat it, I guess.”
“If you want.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You don’t think you are. You are.”
Perry covered the carcass with fresh snow.
“Poachers,” muttered Harvey. His voice was eaten out.
“Yeah. You all right?”
“I’m sick. Poachers. They take the hindquarters for venison. And the antlers. Use a knife with a dropped point so as not to cut the gutsack while they butcher. Poachers. Then dump kerosene over everything. Keeps the wolves away, kills the scent. I’m sick. I want to take off my coat. I think I’d better take it off, brother.”