by Tim O'Brien
He had a hard time finishing the drink. Two sips filled him.
At first the brew had no taste at all, merely a kind of nutritious warmth, but as he forced himself to drink more of it the taste became intriguing. He had tasted or smelled it before. It was not a coffee taste, nor a corn taste. He couldn’t place it. But it was warm and it filled him.
Inside, he brewed two more cups. He used the last of the cornmeal. He woke Harvey and fed him.
Then he chose one of the old newspapers and sat at the table.
He drank the hot coffee and read the old news and felt the morning sun rise. The old news was about a 1928 St. Paul fire. It was about a new water tower being built. It was about people being born who were now dead.
So he sat at the table, drank the brew, read the paper and felt the sun rising. Everything, including the old news, seemed quite fresh.
In the morning he took Harvey’s knife and went out to find food.
It was a powdered fine morning and he had hot coffee in his belly.
Following instinct or whim, he set out without second thoughts into the forest behind the shed. He wasn’t sure what he was hunting, but he was hunting, and he was certain that when he saw it he would know it and kill it on the spot.
It was a new feeling. He was walking now rather than going by ski, lifting his knees high and using new muscles.
He held the knife before him, blade down, remembering the deer he’d greeted, hoping to meet it again so as to kill and eat it. He would greet it with another wave, then he would kill it with Harvey’s knife.
He walked straight into the forest.
The snow came to his knees and sometimes higher. The top snow was fresh and light, but below it became hard and packed. He tried to walk with stealth.
He considered the kind of thing he would kill.
There were deer. Deer would be good. He’d been stupid not to eat the frozen carcass. There were deer, but a deer would be hard to kill with the knife, harder yet to catch to kill.
And there were a few wolves. He had never seen a wolf, not even a dead one, but he had heard his father and Harvey talking about the day they saw a whole pack of them trapped in the deep snow behind Pliney’s Pond. If he came on a wolf, he decided, he would try to kill it. A pack of wolves he would leave alone. He was feeling brave.
There were no animals and the only noise was his own breathing. He thought some more about wolves and begun to hope he would not meet one. In a contest between himself and a wolf, the wolf would be better at killing and probably the hungrier. But he was feeling brave, holding the knife before him with the blade inclined towards the ground and pointed slightly forward, walking with high steps, stopping now and then to see what could be seen. He hoped he would not meet a wolf. He could not think of many other animals—squirrels, birds. There were bear and moose and elk, but he’d never seen one alive and could not imagine trying to kill one.
The feeling of hunger was back. The coffee and cornmeal brew had revived it.
The knife felt solid. It had a long straight blade and a wooden handle that fit neatly in his hand. It looked built for a purpose. It was heavy and solid. It belonged to Harvey and Perry imagined that before that it had belonged to the old man. It did not matter.
He walked until he was far enough from the road to be in animal country. Then he began searching for a place to kill from.
He was not sure how it was done. The woods were friendly and still. He imagined himself in hiding, waiting, perhaps setting some sort of lure and then killing whatever came to feed. He wished he’d saved some of the cornmeal.
He walked until he was tired.
He found a clump of small and closely grown pines, pushed them aside and went into hiding. The branches closed around him.
At first he was able to stand and practise hunter’s silence. Holding the knife at his waist, he peered through the needles and watched the forest before him. The snow crested in a small clearing. Everything was bright and friendly and composed, and it was hard to imagine trying to kill in the friendly looking clearing.
He practiced quiet, turning the knife in his hands, holding it slightly cocked, trying to think of it as an extension of his wrist, testing the feel and weight.
He was tired. Hunching his shoulders, he backed into one of the trees, letting the tiny needles run over his shoulders and spray out in front of him, and he rested against the pine’s trunk, nestled in a bough. Hidden and braced, he concentrated on the act of hunting. He remembered his father explaining to Harvey that the chief element of hunting was neither surprise nor stealth nor good fortune, but instead the capacity to cast oneself completely and without motive in the role of the hunter. It was typical, the circular and almost mystical logic: you are a hunter if you are a hunter. He burrowed deep into the pine tree and concentrated, but soon he grew tired again, and he moved away from the tree and knelt in the snow to rest.
Crouching down, he began to think about the hailed deer. He tried to imagine it coming into the small snow clearing before him, imagined it stopping with its neck arched and eyes wide and straight, the huge ears perked, then slowly turning to feed on the bark of one of the spruce, then its eyes fastening on his own eyes, watching one another, the deer feeding and watching him, and he imagined creeping close to the deer, imagined waving to the beast in another friendly greeting, hailing, beckoning, meeting as strangers on the street and knowing they’d met once before, imagined the other hand behind his back with the knife, creeping on the deer closer and closer until finally … He was cold. He was cold and hungry. He had not been hungry for a long while—not in the same way, not with the sensation of hunger—and he wondered whether a hunter became a better hunter when he was hungry, and while he was wondering the hunger grew worse. The hunger was a kind of stream that ran from the base of his brain down to his belly, reversed course and ran back again. He thought about it, deciding it would have been better not to have eaten the cornmeal and coffee.
A hunter was a hunter. He concentrated again, squinting his eyes in concentration, concentrating on the sound a hunter would make while hunting.
The forest was snowy and brilliant and still. He moved back into the branches and breathed softly. He wanted to kill something. He had the desire to do it. He had the desire to kill an animal and then eat what he had killed. He had neither desire separately. He did not want merely to kill, nor to eat merely to eat. He had a great and world-wide appetite, realizing it as he felt it, knowing as he crouched in the pine trees that he had the appetite and that his father knew it all along, darkhaired and stealing quietly into the brush behind Pliney’s Pond, preaching about the way it should and would be done, and how it would taste afterwards, once killed and cooked, and how Perry would at last huddle with the old man and eat with him and hold him and warm him beside the waxing fire, hold the old man and tell him, tell him … Hold him and warm him and not speak, knowing without language the way the old man knew everything without language and spoke without language. He had the great appetite. The knife was cold. Through his mittens he could feel it. There was frost on the blade. He wiped it on his parka.
“Slowly, slowly,” he said aloud, moving once again out of the pines, finding a new position from which to make a kill. The woods were brilliant white and still. He shifted the knife to his left hand. Crouching to a squat, he peered into the woods from under the bough of a new tree. He was poised and ready to use the knife, but nothing came. Thinking about killing and eating, he thought about being hungry, then he felt the hunger even stronger and it made him forget his concentration, making him instead afraid. He held the knife with both hands and squeezed it until the hunger was gone. “This is a bad spot,” he said then, suddenly, deciding as he spoke that it was a bad spot to kill from, and he moved out of the clump of pines and into the clearing.
He waded to an exposed fallen tree. He sat on it and told himself to think of a plan. The important thing, he decided, was first to find an animal to kill. Once the animal was found he
could begin figuring ways to kill it. He put the knife in his pocket. Then he got up and waded deeper into the forest, again focusing his thoughts on the act of hunting, casting himself as a hunter and thinking only that he would find an animal and then kill it with the blue-bladed knife and then eat it.
“Easy, easy,” he said aloud.
The forest sloped upwards, turning much thicker. He was careful to keep close to the trees, now and then stopping to listen and look, watching the snow for tracks.
He wished he had a better weapon. Harvey’s rifle would have been better, he thought, the rifle he could not remember but now wished he had. The knife was heavy in his pocket. With a rifle he would have a chance. But he couldn’t remember it and he did not have it and there was nothing in the sterile forest to shoot with it.
He walked up the incline and stopped at the top of a bluff.
He turned and looked back.
Smoke from the shanty stove was climbing over the trees and coming towards him.
He thought of Harvey sleeping. He would be sleeping while the fire burned and made the smoke, sleeping on the bottom bunk near the stove, covered with the sleeping bag, still warm and full from the hot brew. Old Harvey, he grinned. “Slow and easy,” he grinned, moving along the bluff and looking west. He felt silly. He took out the knife and held it again.
Coming to the edge of the bluff, he looked down and saw the road below.
He held the knife and felt foolish.
Turning quickly, he maneuvered back along the bluff and followed his tracks downwards through the thick part of the forest, down to the flat country. He was blushing. He felt a fool and he hurried to get back to the shed. Embarrassed and blushing, he hurried along his tracks, almost running. “Jesus, Jesus,” he moaned, and he was grinning and blushing as though caught by the old man acting the part. Playacting and practising. He hurried back through his tracks in the snow.
He came to the fallen tree, then to the clump of pines where he’d crouched in silent hunt, fondling the blue-bladed knife. He felt silly and stupid and embarrassed, and he hurried to get back to the road. The knife was still in his hands. He was holding it by the handle, both hands squeezing. The blade was pointed upwards. He pocketed it and continued towards the road.
Gradually he slowed down.
He came upon a gorge, followed his hunting tracks down the slope and up again.
He was breathing slow, still feeling silly, when he saw straight ahead of him the head and quick movement of a brown animal.
He stopped even as his next step was starting, poising like a motion-picture reel gone dead. He stopped with his knees flexed, his back heel partly lifted. He saw it and then was not sure he saw it at all. If it hadn’t moved he would have never seen it.
But he saw it, and he stood still. For a long while the animal did not move and Perry did not move. The animal was buried deep in the snow, and Perry watched it, thinking it might have been the branch of dead pine, anything but what it was.
He took a breath, deciding to move as he moved, and he stepped forward, finishing the step he’d started and watching the clump of brown fur. He had no plan but to get close enough to kill it. The image of a rabbit was in his head but he knew it was not a rabbit. He took another step and slowly took out the knife and held it at his side.
He was able to take a dozen more steps before the animal moved. When it moved, Perry saw the eyes. They were the rat’s eyes, only it was not a rat but a woodchuck, and its eyes were glittering and the snout was close to the ground. It was deep in the snow, nestled in one of Perry’s hunting steps, the body buried and only the head and eyes and tail showing.
He had done it before. The woodchuck did not move, only the eyes which followed him in. The eyes were deep black. He knew what to do. He held the knife.
He did not want to kill it with the knife. Backing away and still watching the animal, he retreated to the gorge and picked up a thick bough nearly twice his own height and walked back to the animal. He pocketed the knife and grasped the bough in both hands and lifted it and smashed down, hitting the animal’s hindquarters with a lush thump, again raising the bough and striking, hitting the animal’s thick back, watching as he again raised the long bough and again struck down. The animal squirmed and its mouth opened and showed him its fangs, but Perry cracked the bough down and the mouth came shut. Perry stopped and watched the animal. There was no blood. He moved closer, bending over the body. It did not move but he doubted it was dead. The eyes were open. He stood back and raised the bough high and brought it down on the animal’s skull and then there was blood. The animal came part way out of the snow with its mouth wide open and fangs chomping, the eyes glittering in a way Perry had never seen before, except for the junkyard rat, but he had closed his eyes as he missed killing the rat, and this time his eyes were open and he raised the bough and crashed it down solidly, hitting the animal square on the head, feeling the impact through his arms to his spine.
He waited awhile. Then he prodded the corpse with the bough to be sure.
Then he took up the dead woodchuck by the tail. It was dead and heavy. It surprised him. It was thick and heavy and entirely dead.
He laid it out on the snow and rested. When he was ready, he covered the blood with some snow and took the animal by the tail and walked to the shed.
Harvey was still sleeping.
Perry added wood to the fire, then laid the animal on the floor, then used the knife to slit it down the middle. He tried not to think about what he was doing.
Mechanically, he cleaned out the guts and scooped them up and carried them outside. Then he went to work on the hide, slipping the knife under the fur and pressing down and pulling with his other hand, stripping the hide upwards as though pulling off a nightshirt, the animal going naked and the eyes wide open and glaring. The flesh underneath was red. There was not much of it. When he had the skin over the animal’s front haunches, he closed his eyes and sawed off the head. Harvey woke up and asked what the awful smell was. Perry told him he’d killed the woodchuck, his eyes still tightly shut, grasping the knife with both hands as he sawed off the head. When it was done, he scooped the hide and head on to a newspaper, wrapped it up and buried it in the snow.
“A woodchuck?” Harvey said.
“I killed it.”
“A woodchuck?”
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
Harvey laughed.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re going to eat it?”
Perry shrugged. He cleaned the knife on newspaper and cut the meat into quarters. The animal’s blood had already seeped into the floorboards. The meat was warm. There was not much of it.
“You’re going to eat it?”
“I guess I am.” Perry looked up and grinned.
Harvey laughed and coughed. “Do you … do you know a woodchuck is a fucking big rat, that’s all? Did you know that? Just a rodent.”
Perry grinned. “No. I didn’t know that. You better be still. How’s the fever?”
“Better. I think it’s better. How the devil did you do it?”
“I went hunting,” Perry said.
“What?”
“I went hunting and killed a woodchuck.”
“You went hunting for woodchucks?”
“For anything.”
Harvey rolled up and laughed until the cough started, and then he coughed and the bunk creaked. Perry gave him water to drink.
“Well, how did you do it? How did you … kill it?”
“It was just there. I was on the way back and there it was in the snow. Guess it was tired or something. It was pretty deep in the snow and it couldn’t move, I guess. I just clubbed it.”
Harvey laughed into another fit of coughing. “You killed a bloody woodchuck! Some gourmet hunter. Personally, personally I hate woodchuck. Don’t touch the stuff.”
“I guess you’ll eat some though.”
“Thought woodchucks hibernated or something.”
“Not thi
s one.”
Perry got the fire high, then let it draw down to a tight flame, then he put the meat on. He made coffee and watched the meat fry. He was content. He wanted a cigarette and some music. He whistled one of his favorite pop tunes, watching the meat fry, feeling good. Mostly luck, he thought. Purely lucky to find it. Then he thought awhile longer and decided it was part luck and part something else. He wasn’t sure what. Something else. He’d gone out to hunt. He’d gone out and had some luck and the meat was frying. When the animal was brown, he pulled the pan out and washed off their tin plates. He was content and whistling, and the room smelled of roast chicken. He woke Harvey and helped him to the table and they ate the meat and drank the coffee and afterwards Harvey went to sleep while Perry cleaned the dishes and had more coffee and sat the rest of the day in the dusty sunlight. He was exhilarated, proud, content and warm. He sat and watched the sunlight fade through the open door.
Later as he lay in the bunk above Harvey, he tasted the meat for the first time. It was a strong and wild aftertaste, making him hungry all over again, and he lay in the dark remembering the woodchuck, wondering how much wood … how much wood would a woodchuck chuck … how much would the woodchuck chuck if the woodchuck could chuck wood, or how much wood would the woodchuck chuck if the woodchuck could chuck wood, then saying it aloud as a kind of game, over and over, tumbling the rhyme out fast and without a stutter. “How much?”
He was up with dawn, boiling water and making coffee and seeing after Harvey. He spent the day inside, going out only once to gather wood and urinate and fill the two kettles with snow. That evening he heated water and washed himself. He stood naked before the stove. Sloshing water over his face, he scrubbed hard. He washed his beard and hair and then the rest of him, taking a lot of time and enjoying it. He did not like the white look of his skin, but all the old fat was gone and he was proud of himself, pleased at the idea of being positively skinny for the first time he could remember. He washed his legs and feet, then brought the kettle up and let his genitals float free in the warm water. Then he let the fire dry him.