by Tim O'Brien
He rinsed out a cloth and mopped Harvey’s face. The fever was steady. Perry unbuttoned his brother’s shirt and got it off. It had a wet foul smell.
He clucked, washing his neck and chest. “This feel a little better now?”
“Hello.”
“Hi. You feeling any better?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s it. Sit up and I’ll wash down your back.”
Harvey got up on his elbows and rolled over. “Why aren’t we dead, brother?”
“There. There, how’s that feel now?”
“Why aren’t we dead?”
“I don’t know, Harv. I really don’t know.”
Harvey coughed and laughed. “We’re heroes! We’re heroes, that’s why!”
“There. You’ll be all right now.”
“What time is it?”
“Night. You’ve been sleeping and sleeping. You’ll be better now.”
“I’m sick. I guess I’m pretty sick.”
“Well, we’ll get you washed up and you’ll feel better. You want to sit by the fire awhile?”
Harvey nodded. Perry gave him a hand, got him into a chair and covered him with a sleeping bag. “How’s that now? Isn’t that better?” He pulled off Harvey’s socks and threw them into a corner. “You really stink, you know that? Phew. Here, now put your feet in this water. Kind of hot so be careful.”
Sitting by the fire with Harvey, he had the bloated feeling of contentment again. The shanty seemed familiar, a personal shelter that he’d found and made his own. Except for Harvey’s fluid breathing the only sound was the fire.
After a time, he helped Harvey back into his bunk, then spent the rest of the evening in a chair, his feet propped on the stove, resting, reading some of the old newspapers. It seemed much like home and he fell asleep in the chair. Then he dreamed. He dreamed first about Addie. It was a vague, strange dream without motion or sound. She was drowning. Far out in the lake, she was drowning and grinning at him while he stood ashore unable to move. Later he dreamed about a blackbird. The bird’s wings were spread and splatting the air, attacking with a jagged beak, screeching and attacking, and again he was unable to move.
Then he dreamed of a wailing sound, a wailing screeching sucking sound.
He woke up. The fire was dead and the wailing sound continued. It came to him slowly. It drifted from the dream and into the dark shed and surrounded him, then he was fully awake and listening. He was weak. The shed was dark and the sucking sound persisted. “Harvey?” As if in answer, the sound stopped, leaving a tinny echo. “Harvey?” Then there was silence, a long silence in which he tried to get up. It came again: the wailing and sucking, deep in one of the dreams, gasping sounds, then suddenly he was awake, recognizing it as the sound of drowning.
He sat up. The shed was dark. It was full of the wailing sound, the sound of drowning from his dream.
He yelled Harvey’s name and the room seemed to tumble around him. Yelling, he moved out of the chair, stumbled and scratched himself—a nail or hook or splinter. He yelled Harvey’s name again. He thrust out his hands, groped towards the bunk, feeling his way. Everything was black. The drowning, sucking wailing sound swelled up and the room floundered. “Harvey!” he bellowed. His hands touched the stove. He grabbed the hot iron and held on until it burned him. “Harvey!” he yelled, and the sucking drowning sound came like a flood, and he pushed away from the stove, disorientated, plunging towards the source of the sound. “Harvey, for God’s sake!” He reached out, suddenly realized his eyes were closed, squeezed shut. The sucking sound went even higher. He shivered. He found the bunk. The sucking sound was everywhere, close and far and deafening. He had his arms on Harvey’s shoulders, pulled him up, shook him, and the wailing sound crescendoed.
Still blind, he dug Harvey out of the bag, hauled him off the bunk and laid him on the floor. “Harvey!” he was still yelling, his face down low. Harvey was partly entangled in the bag. Perry ripped it open and reached in. He leaned close and searched his brother’s face. Everything was black and tumbling and the wailing drowning sound was a reverse wind that pulled everything far away. Harvey’s chest sloped in like a valley. “Harvey!” He tried to think. The thinking stopped. He grabbed Harvey’s arms, yanked him towards the stove. “For Jesus sake!” he was yelling, yanking his brother across the floor, pulling him like a rope and getting him to the stove. “Jesus, think,” he was hollering, trying to think. He stopped, dropped Harvey dead on the floor. He found the stove. Still hearing himself bellow, he opened the stove door, reached in with his hands and wrists and arms to stir the ashes for light. Then abruptly he stopped. He dropped to the floor. He learned over his brother like a lover and put his ear to Harvey’s mouth and listened.
“Harvey?” he said, not yelling, a question.
He tried to compose himself. His brain was tumbling. “Harvey?” he said again, still leaning close and listening.
A light froth boiled to Harvey’s lips. His eyes were open. The bad eye glistened; the iris had dissolved in the fluid of the white tissue.
“Harvey?”
The good eye was rolled away and completely gone.
“Harvey, Harvey,” he chanted.
The sucking sound was gone, and the wind was gone.
“Harvey! Jesus sake, Harvey.”
He touched his brother’s chest. It was sunken and shaped like a bowl. It was hard and stiff. He touched Harvey’s throat and it was like steel pipe.
“Harvey! You bull. Jesus sake, Harvey.”
He stopped, peered into his brother’s dead eye.
Then he bellowed again, shuddering and losing sense. He hauled Harvey upright, dragged him by the arms, got him to his feet and held him in a great bear hug. Then he squeezed. He closed his eyes and squeezed, locking his wrists together and squeezing and squeezing and turning dizzy and pressing his brother in a great bear hug, holding him upright and squeezing. He squeezed himself dizzy.
Distantly, disgusted, he heard himself moan. Then he lost strength and Harvey slipped from his arms and fell heavily. “Jesus sake,” he moaned. “Jesus sake, Harvey.” Such a fool, he was thinking, such a foolish fool. Everything was too dark and quiet. “Harvey, Harvey,” he was moaning, grasping his brother’s shoulders and partly lifting him, then losing strength again like a leaking tire, feeling Harvey slip away, “Harvey, Jesus sake,” hearing the sound as Harvey hit the floor. He was dizzy. He crouched down: “Dear God,” he was saying or thinking, “help me now, help me now.”
He found the mouth and reached in, frightened at what he would touch.
He pulled Harvey’s tongue up and out. Contracting, sliding away like a morning dream, the tongue was wet and slippery and elusive, going away, a piece of wet flesh, but he grabbed it hard and pulled and held it out.
Bacon, he was thinking, almost grinning. Bull’s bacon. He pinched the nostrils and put his mouth to Harvey’s mouth and blew and listened to the wail, a two-note tune that went
He blew and listened to the wail, a two-note tune that went high and higher. He was dizzy. He blew and listened. Huff and puff, he was thinking, you Bull, you poor poor poor bull, breathe Bull. He was sick. He wanted to vomit and sleep, but he covered Harvey’s mouth and blew deep. He did not care. It did not matter. He blew and listened, blew and listened, rising and falling in a dizzy sick rhythm. Harvey’s chest seemed to quiver, and he blew again.
The breast rose up, and he blew again, and Harvey’s chest snapped like a bone breaking.
Perry stopped, rested, waited for the chest to sink again, then he descended and blew hard. He was sick.
“Harvey?” he murmured.
He waited as the breast ballooned up and quivered and slowly sank.
“Harvey. Harvey?” He waited again and the chest did not move, and he leaned down and blew again, forcing respiration and suddenly feeling strong and gaining something from the exchange. Such a bull, he thought, poor thing. Too bad. Harvey’s chest twitched and snapped again. A bubbling sound came
from Harvey’s lungs, a breathing sound, erratic and dumb and startling as misfiring machinery. “Harvey?” he whispered, listening as the sound smoothed and the breathing became languid as through a drunken sleep.
“Harvey?”
Perry lay with an arm around his brother. His face was buried in Harvey’s flannel shirt. He was warm. He had urges to sleep and to vomit, the sleepiness making him sick and the sickness pressing him down towards sleep. He snuggled around Harvey’s warm body. He lay still. The wind was outside. He lay still and listened and cuddled around his brother and listened to the outside wind and Harvey’s breathing and his own breathing, a respiring postlude in three high pitches like a lullaby. He was warm and sick and sleepy. “Harvey, Harvey,” he murmured.
He might have slept. He lay still a long while. But at last he got up and rebuilt the fire and boiled water. Smoothing his brother’s hair, clucking, he washed the red face and beard, got him into the bunk, laid a warm cloth on his brow.
With the last of the coffee grounds, he brewed coffee and held Harvey’s head and helped him drink. “Harvey, Harvey,” he murmured. “Love you, Harvey. I do. You know?” He wiped brown spittle from his brother’s mouth. “You bull, I do love you, you know. There, there.”
Later he drank his own coffee and went outdoors and looked at the sky.
The wind was gentle. Not such a bad night.
He would have to leave soon.
He would have to make Harvey comfortable and then set off on his own, and he thought about it, feeling neither guilt nor pride.
He looked at the sky and knew it as a fact. They would die separately or together, or one would die and the other would live, or they would both survive. The possibilities seemed infinite. In the morning he would leave.
He went inside and put a fresh cloth on Harvey’s brow. Then he spread his sleeping bag on the floor and spent the night in nervous brilliant sleep, hearing his own blood rush with dreams and half-awakenings, and in the morning he remembered only the sound of drowning.
He bathed Harvey’s face and chest. Then, avoiding talk, he went outside and gathered a large store of wood. He had no idea how long he would be gone, though it seemed likely he would be gone forever, and he spent the entire white morning bringing in the wood, stacking it behind the stove. He felt Harvey’s gaze but he kept working. He heaped snow into the two kettles, boiled it down to water, then poured the water into jars and pots. Harvey lay quietly in the bunk with a cloth on his brow. There was nothing they could say. Harvey’s face was blood red and raw, and the dead eye was glazed as though it had already given up, and behind Harvey’s beard there was no expression, just the glazed and lazy eye that followed him as he stoked up the fire, grabbed the bunk and moved it wholesale nearer the fire.
“You’re going,” Harvey finally said.
“Have to.”
Harvey nodded, either settling it or accepting it, then closing his eyes.
“Otherwise …”
“I know,” Harvey said. “Bum deal. Sorry.”
Perry ignored the acid building behind his eyes. He turned and sat on the floor and waxed his skis. When he was ready, he took the skis outside and stacked them against the shanty. His eyes were stinging.
He went inside and shook Harvey gently. “All right,” he said in his cheerful stinging voice. “Harvey, are you awake? Listen. While I’m gone you’re going to have to do some things. Are you listening?” He waited for Harvey to nod. “All right then. Listen up. First, I want you to keep that fire going. You know? No matter what, you’ve got to keep that fire going. Okay? There’s plenty of wood there and all you’ve got to do is put some on now and then. All right? Okay. Listen. I’ve got to go. After last night, you know what’s going to happen if I don’t go. Sooner or later, right? Okay. Now I want you to promise to keep that fire going and to always keep the water heating. You hear me? Okay then. When you think you’re having trouble, when you can’t breathe or start coughing bad, you just get to that hot water, and start breathing the steam. It’ll cut through all that crap. Just keep the fire going, keep the water hot. There’s plenty of water here. All right?” He gently shook Harvey. “You got me? The fire and the water, those two things.”
“I guess you’re going.”
Perry nodded. “You got it. Don’t worry. I’m going to go until I find some people or the highway or something, so don’t worry. Now listen. The other thing is this. You’ve got to stay awake more. You know? All the time, you’ve got to think about staying awake. The cough comes worst while you’re sleeping. You know? Okay. And you can’t keep the fire going if you’re asleep. All right then. Try to read, walk around if you can manage. If you keep awake and keep the fire going and keep the water hot, then you’re all right, we’re both all right. You’re not going to give it up. You hear? Just do those things.”
Harvey smiled and Perry smiled.
“I guess. I guess maybe you think I’m pretty stupid,” Harvey said.
“You’re improving.”
“Sure. I hear you.”
“You’re going to do what I tell you.”
“Cross my heart. I’m not all that stupid.”
“I know it.”
“This is the best way,” Harvey said. He smiled again.
“Just keep that fire going. Keep the water hot. Don’t let it all boil away, just keep it hot.”
“You’re a good fellow. You are. You don’t remember that rifle, do you? That’s strange but it’s good. I always thought you remembered it but you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
Perry put his mittens on the stove to warm. He pottered about, wondering what to do. He rigged a string to the door so Harvey could open or close from his bunk.
“Okay. Okay now?”
“It wasn’t supposed to snow,” Harvey said loudly.
“I know. I know it.”
“It wasn’t supposed to. Those things just happen sometimes in winter.”
“Okay. Take it easy. I believe you.”
“It wasn’t planned to snow.”
“Just rest.”
Perry got the fire high and put fresh water on. He put on his parka, and shook Harvey’s hand, and they hugged and separated, and they laughed. Harvey’s beard was full and soft as baby fuzz. “Remember everything. Stay awake.” He closed the door. He carried his skis to the road and snapped them on. He pushed off and skied fast up the road, turning out of the sun, slowing down when the shed was far behind him.
The road was flat. There were birds in the sky and in the trees along the road, sparrows and blackbirds mostly.
He skied stiffly, adjusting again to the feel of the skis and poles and motions.
The day was as flat as the road. It was a day so like all the other days that for a time Perry believed it was one of the others—Harvey behind him, the certain feeling of there being more than one person in the forest, the feeling he could stop and turn and talk if the urge came.
His arms gave out fast. It worried him. He let gravity carry him. Somehow, his knees would not flex properly. Each bump in the road jarred to the base of the brain, but he held on and let the road and gravity and skis carry him down.
He let the road carry him down and tried counting the days. More than a week for sure. Ten, eleven. More than that. Fifteen, at least. More than that. Twenty seemed closer. Three weeks. He couldn’t be sure.
The road pulled him down and gradually he fell into the proper balance and motions, bending for the turns, using the ski edges to slow the steep descent, leaning forward and crouching to absorb the bumps.
Sometimes the road leveled off but it never climbed. He moved fast. Around midday the sun came out and the snow got mushy. The trees were full of blackbirds and sparrows.
He skied and did not worry about the map or sun. He had a road and that was enough to think about, and the road kept descending. Towards the middle of the afternoon the road dipped and rounded a bluff and he was able to look off far over the forest. The road twisted along the fa
ce of the bluff, turning fast down, and he leaned hard left and felt the skis bite, and for a moment he was parallel to the road, hanging free, then he straightened and the skis touched again and he was descending. The road was down and down. He thought about Harvey, imagining him in the shanty alone. It was not a good thing to think about. He concentrated on the skiing. The road dropped before him into a funnel of trees. White pines grew to the edge of the road, arching over it in a great canopy, and he skied down, raising his arms as though flying. He leaned far forward. The road swept him down, into the pine funnel, a dizzy circus chute. The speed snapped at his ears. Then the road dropped from under him. He could see the speed. Something seemed to fling him downward, and for a moment he was terrified, then his skis touched down and the road snatched the left pole from him, tugging it up, and it was gone, glittering for an instant over his shoulder, then it was gone far behind him and the road swept downward. He heard the lost pole splatter in the snow behind him, a tinkling sound, and the road swerved, still falling, and he leaned hard to his right, and let the right pole drag for support.
The road dipped and straightened and still descended. Below was a vast gorge of pine. He held on, dragging the right pole for balance, and in an instant he was in the gorge and still flying downward and downward. The road at last dipped and ascended, and he took the small hill without effort, carried up by simple momentum. He stopped there. He removed the skis and fell back in the snow. He spread his arms and closed his eyes. The sun was tropical.
He was on his back. Basking. Some warm salted ocean.
He slept for a time. It might have been a long time. It was long enough so that when he awoke the sunlight had turned hard gray.
He was tired. He sat up and looked back the way he’d come, down the small hill, into the pine depression, then up the steep hill towards the place he had lost the pole. He was tired. Pushing up and brushing away the caked snow, he buckled on his skis, stood still a moment, then removed them. He was angry at himself. Angry for losing the pole, angry for almost killing himself, breaking a leg, ending it for himself and for Harvey. He considered going back for the lost pole, but the fatigue was too much, and at last he walked into the woods and after a long search found a branch the right size. Breaking off its twigs, he tested it and decided it would work as a substitute. The branch was much heavier than his pole, but it was the right length and it seemed strong enough.