The Survivors

by Will Weaver

  Kneeling, breathing hard, his arms elbow deep in hot blood, Miles works by feel. The steamy scent is like one of his mother’s herbal teas, only stronger. Ranker. His stomach clenches as if he might throw up; but suddenly the jiggly sack is free inside the cavity. With both hands, he rolls it out like a big blubbery basketball.

  Be sure to save the liver, and the heart, too. They’re good eating. Cut ’em in thin slices and fry them up with onions.

  “I don’t think so,” Miles murmurs. He goes to the front of the deer and pulls it forward by its antlers, away from the mess. The gobs of blood behind are already clotting into red, quivery jelly. Taking up his knife again, he closes his eyes and feels around farther up inside the chest for the heart and lungs, which must be removed.

  The lungs are pink and foamy, the heart harder to find. Working by touch, he finally cuts it free. Lifts it out. It fits exactly in the palm of his hand. His shotgun slug has shredded the bottom lobe of the heart. A perfect shot.

  The air is colder now, and with snow he scrubs blood from his forearms and wrists and hands. He washes with handfuls of snow. It melts away pink and watery, and the real color of his skin returns. He stuffs handfuls of snow inside the deer to clean it, too. The cradle of the ribs appears, pale boned, fresh, clean. As he works, a crow drifts over and caws to another. A raven squawks not far away, and in the brush, like a ghost, the old dog appears. Miles reaches for his gun, then stops himself. He needs to stay focused on his deer and get it back to the cabin before dark.

  Removing his belt, he loops it around the little buck’s neck and drags him away from the gut pile. The deer is surprisingly light—his brown hair slides easily on the snow—but then again, Miles is full of adrenaline. With every yard he moves away from the kill site, the old brown dog eases a yard closer. Miles stops; the dog stops.

  After he has dragged the deer about a hundred feet, the old dog is ten feet from the gut pile. Suddenly he lunges forward and gulps up a chunk of fat. Miles has plenty of time to lift his gun and get rid of the dog once and for all, but he doesn’t. The old dog feels Miles’s gaze, crouches lower for a moment, then snatches the deer’s heart and runs.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SARAH

  BY NINE A.M. SHE’S COLD and totally bored—until two hunters appear on the trail heading toward her. They wear camo-pattern blaze orange and carry rifles with black telescopic sights. Both have dark, short beards. Taking a breath, she slowly stands up in her brush blind. She moves the gun into the open where the men can see it.

  The other hunters pull up; they confer briefly, then turn around and slowly disappear back into the trees. She sits down; her heart goes whumpa-whumpa in her chest.

  By midday the shooting has almost stopped, and she heads back to the cabin for lunch and to warm up. Miles does not come in with her; he has packed his lunch.

  “Did you see anything?” Nat asks.

  “Some other hunters,” Sarah says, “but they turned around when they saw me.”

  “That was Miles’s plan,” Nat says, sounding pleased.

  “More like that old man Kurz’s plan,” Sarah says. She’s cold and crabby. “How do you think Miles knows so much about the outdoors? It’s not like he learned it in Minneapolis.”

  After lunch, she heads back to the woods. The shotgun on her shoulder feels lighter now, almost as if it’s part of her body. It’s kind of cool carrying a gun, and she makes a couple of sudden moves—draws down on an imaginary bad guy. Boom. And another bad guy behind her—boom. Mackenzie’s dad—boom!

  In her blind she’s not sleepy now. At two o’clock a fat partridge glides into an aspen tree not far away—lands on a branch with a flutter of wing beats. For long moments it looks around, then starts to peck on the fine bud ends of another branch. She raises her gun and takes aim but cannot pull the trigger. And anyway, she’s shooting a slug. As the afternoon drags on, she spends a lot of it thinking about Ray. Trying to remember every detail about him. His eyes. His teeth. His laughing mouth. The drawing pencil—a special kind with wide lead—that’s always behind the raven’s wing of hair over his ear.

  Poom! A shot startles her. It comes from Miles’s direction. She swivels her head to pinpoint the location, but a second shot doesn’t come; she can’t be sure it was him. She checks her watch and settles back onto her stump.

  Thirty minutes later blaze orange appears among the trees.

  Miles waves excitedly. “I got one!” he calls.

  She gives a small wave in return. “Great.”

  He hurries up to her. “Want to see it?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “If you want to see your dog,” Miles replies.

  “Is he all right?” she asks quickly. Brush has been missing all day—she’s sure it’s because of the muffled gunshots across the countryside.

  “Yes,” Miles says. “Come on.”

  In the snow, more of which is falling, she trudges behind Miles.

  “So there I was, totally hidden in my blind,” he begins. Leading the way through the woods, he narrates the entire hunt like a documentary film in need of serious editing—including some parts she doesn’t need or want to hear, such as the blood trail and gutting the deer—but soon enough they reach the kill site.

  The little buck lies brown on the snow. Sarah squints and tries not to look at the caved-in belly, at the blood on the white hair and the spots of red on the snow.

  “I saw your dog over there,” Miles says, and points deeper into the woods. “He’s probably still lurking around.”

  At the site, Miles kicks at some chunks of fat covered in a thin layer of snow. The white vein-covered gut bag looks like a giant, deflated mushroom.

  Still holding her gun, she hunches her shoulders. “Ick.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Miles says. “I thought for a second I might puke, but I didn’t.”

  “Great,” Sarah mutters.

  “And it was amazing—the crows were here within minutes!” Miles says.

  Brush’s tracks are all around the remains; there’s a bare spot where he lay down to eat. She kneels. Puts her palms on the leaves; they are soft but cold. As Miles rattles on about the deer, she looks over her shoulder. One brown ear pokes out from behind a tree. “There he is!” she says.

  “Where?” Miles says quickly.

  “Promise you won’t shoot him?” Sarah says.

  Miles pauses. “I won’t shoot him.”

  “Over there, to the right, behind those trees.”

  Miles swivels around, but Brush’s brown head disappears.

  “He’s afraid of you,” Sarah says. She keeps her voice low, her movements slow. “Let me see if I can get closer to him.”

  “Don’t!”

  “Why not?” Sarah says. “He used to belong to somebody.”

  Miles lets out an exasperated breath. “Maybe. But he’s surviving on his own. He knows how to find food. If he didn’t, he’d be dead by now.”

  “But he’s always out in the cold. Poor Brush.”

  “Brush?”

  “That’s my name for him.”

  Miles shakes his head sideways. “This is stupid. I have to drag the deer home.”

  “Do you need some help?”

  “No. It’s not that big, and it slides on the snow. Just be careful around that dog.”

  “Don’t worry—he’s not going to bite me.”

  When Miles is out of sight behind some trees, she kicks loose a chunk of meat. Or fat. Something yucky. Holding it away from her body, she walks to the side, keeping her posture low and nonthreatening. She sits down in the snow where Brush can see her, whispers to him but keeps her eyes downward.

  Brush sits up from his crouch and watches. He cocks his square head.

  “That’s a good dog. Good Brush. Come on, you can do it. Good dog…”

  His stubby tail wags once—as if it has a brain of its own—then stiffens again. It’s as if his friendly tail is not connected to his wary brain. Gradually he eases
closer, as slowly as the minute hand on a clock. She keeps murmuring her nonsense conversation; if she looks directly at him, he will stop.

  After ten minutes he is almost within arm’s length, but flattened to the ground, ready to bolt. He knows the distance, the length of a human arm with a stick or whip. She sings a song, a baby song she hasn’t thought of in years: “Did you ever see a lassie, a lassie, a lassie? Did you ever see a lassie go this way and that?”

  For a long second Brush’s eyelids droop and his shoulders relax. Continuing to sing, very softly, she eases forward the piece of deer fat. Holds it out to him. Brush’s nose quivers, and his eyes cross as the fat comes nearer and nearer to his snout. With a lunge, he darts forward and snaps it from her hand. Sarah falls over backward—if Brush were a rattlesnake, she’d be dead.

  The following night for dinner they eat venison. Miles has hung the deer in the sawmill shack, pulled off the skin to cool the carcass, and then cut off some meat. He now stands at the woodstove tending the frying pan. Small, round loin chops, cooking in a mix of butter and wild rice. The skillet throws off a sweet, hot, earthy smell—like the odor of a strange new restaurant.

  “Most people cook wild game so they can’t taste the wild part,” Miles says. “They cover up the taste with bacon, with sauces—anything to disguise the flavor.” It’s as if he’s hosting a cooking show.

  “Where’d you learn how to cook venison?” Nat asks Miles as she sets the table.

  “Actually, I read about it at the library,” Miles says with a shrug as he tends the skillet.

  Sarah swallows, and then again, because the cabin smells so good. And soon they’re ready to eat.

  “A salute to Miles,” Artie says, hoisting an imaginary glass.

  “To Miles,” Sarah and Nat say, though not as enthusiastically.

  As the platter comes around, Nat says, with an apologetic tone, “Mainly wild rice for me, thanks.”

  “At least try one bite,” Artie says.

  “I knew someone would say that,” she mutters. Carefully she cuts off a small piece of the venison, seared brown on the outside, pale pink on the inside.

  They all watch as the fork goes into her mouth.

  “Do we have to make such a big deal about this?” Nat asks. She tries to swallow quickly, but her jaw stops. She looks at all of them, then chews. Slowly.

  “Well?” Miles asks.

  She takes her time, then swallows. Her eyes go to the platter. “I think I need another piece—just to make sure.”

  Miles pushes the platter of venison her way. “Eat up. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  They finish the whole platter except for one piece.

  “Last bite, anyone?” Miles asks.

  “No, no way,” they groan in unison.

  “I can’t either,” Miles says, leaning back from the table.

  “Let’s save it for Brush,” Sarah says.

  Even Miles the mighty hunter does not object.

  While their parents do the dishes, Miles sits by the woodstove with his feet up.

  “After all, I brought home the meat,” he reminds them.

  Sarah steps outside. The stars are rising. The air has a hard bite of coldness. “Here, Brush! Here, Brush!” she calls softly.

  There is rustling near the sawmill shack. Like a ghost, Brush comes forward. He is covered with sawdust, as if he has been burrowing in it to stay warm. She makes sure to look off to the side as she holds out her hand and the meat. This time he is not so anxious; he takes it quickly but without lunging away.

  “Good, Brush, good dog.” Still not looking directly at him, she touches the top of his head. His hair is cold but smooth. His skull is heavy and wide. She pets him twice before he pulls away. He wags his tail.

  “You go to sleep now,” she murmurs, and points to the sawdust pile by the shed.

  He cocks his head, looks at her sadly, then limps away.

  Back inside, Miles is first to ask: “Was our watchdog out there?”

  “Yes,” Sarah says quickly. “And I petted him.”

  “Be careful,” Artie says. “We don’t want any accidents.”

  “He doesn’t bite,” Sarah says defensively, with a glance to Miles. “He just eats fast.”

  “Where was he?” Miles asks.

  “Over by the shed.”

  “Figures,” Miles answers. “He smells my deer. That’s why I hung it up there—so nothing could get it.”

  “He’s guarding it,” Sarah says.

  “Yeah, right!” Miles says. He leans back and puts his hands behind his head as he watches them clean the cooking area after supper. With his long hair, fuzzy chin whiskers, and tattered plaid shirt, he looks like a character from a Jack London story about Alaska. He’s slightly louder tonight, too, as if at last—finally—he’s the boss of the family. Her parents don’t seem to notice Miles’s new attitude. The whole thing is slightly creepy.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MILES

  AFTER THE FIRST REAL SNOW—FIVE inches in one night—Miles motors up to Old But Gold on his Kawasaki. Riding in snow is not his favorite thing. The bike has knobbies, and he stays around thirty miles per hour to avoid skidding, but he leaves behind a narrow black trail on the highway. Light snow is still falling; his tracks should be covered within the hour.

  At OBG he steps inside the empty front office, which is hot, full of cigarette smoke, and cluttered floor to ceiling with junk—“collectibles,” as they are called: old woodworking tools and cabbage cutters for making sauerkraut, canners and jars. Miles would call them “use-ables,” and he could make them all work, thanks to Mr. Kurz’s stories of how he lived. He’d already learned how to can venison.

  “Howdy, Miles,” Butch says from behind him.

  “Hey,” Miles says.

  “Special on eight-track players today.”

  “Just what I need,” Miles says. Butch is not that much older than he is.

  “What’s up?” Butch asks.

  “Looking for a snowmobile.”

  Butch’s dad appears from the back room. “Got plenty of those,” he says. “What kind of sled did you have in mind?”

  Miles shrugs as if he’s in no hurry and maybe not all that serious. “Something late model. Maybe a Polaris or a Cat.” That would be Arctic Cat; he has done his research, also at the library.

  “Got just what you’re looking for,” Albert says. “Butch, take Miles in back.”

  Butch jerks his head for Miles to follow.

  The garage adjoining the office is jammed with motorcycles, lawn tractors, fishing boats, trailers, and jumbled piles of sports equipment from guns to hockey skates to snowmobiling gear, along with a whole wall stacked with televisions, old computers, and other electronic equipment.

  “Wow,” Miles says.

  “In bad times people’s toys are the first things to go,” Butch says.

  “No kidding,” Miles says.

  “My old man’s either crazy or a genius,” Butch says as he threads his way through a section of riding lawn mowers.

  “Probably a genius,” Miles says.

  “Yeah, well, we need to start selling some of this stuff pretty soon,” Butch says. “I keep telling him that, and he says, ‘Just wait. Things will turn around. I’ve been through this before.’”

  “That’s what all the old-timers say,” Miles says.

  “Let’s hope they’re right,” Butch says as they arrive at a group of dusty but newer snowmobiles.

  Miles climbs onto a lime-green F8 LXR Arctic Cat.

  “Nice unit,” Butch says.

  “Crazy color, plus I need more backseat. For my girlfriend,” Miles adds.

  Butch gets the joke and wheezes out a brief chuckle. He points to a longer, heavier Polaris. “The Trail Touring 550 has more room for a rider. It’s a 2005 model. Very few miles.”

  Miles climbs aboard. It has a sweet jump seat with a backrest—perfect for his mother or, who knows, maybe even an actual girlfriend someday. A
s the billboards for the state lottery used to read, “It Could Happen.” Miles gives the black Polaris a calculatedly casual look, then moves on. A heavy-duty tow sled—black vinyl with pointed snow nose and trailer hitch, the kind of tub made for serious ice fishing—catches his eye. He pretends that nothing really interests him.

  “Got some more sleds coming in this week,” Butch says. “Maybe.”

  “That Polaris back there run all right?” Miles asks. He looks over his shoulder.

  “Did when it came in,” Butch said. He heads over to it and after some choking to get extra gas into the carb, the Polaris engine coughs several times, then catches. Within seconds the sharp smell of exhaust fills the garage.

  Miles signals for Butch to kill the engine, then crouches to examine the track—as with tires, wear is easy to see; its hard rubber is scuffed but not worn.

  “Like I said,” Butch adds.

  “What are you asking for this one?” Miles says.

  “Have to talk to the old man,” Butch says.

  After fifteen minutes of haggling, Miles is about to peel off twelve one-hundred-dollar bills, which would be a good deal; however, before handing over the money he pauses. “Is there a title?”

  The old man’s eyes flicker toward his son.

  “Not sure,” Butch says evasively. “I’d have to dig around.”

  Miles pulls back the wad of bills and puts a pained look on his face.

  “How about $900 as is?” the old man says.

  “If you throw in a couple of suits, helmets, and that black vinyl tow sled,” Miles says.

  “Jeez, kid, you’re killing me,” Albert says with his own pained look. “How about $1,000 for the full package?”

  “Deal,” Miles says. If he was dishonest, he could tell his folks the higher number and pocket the rest—something he would have seriously considered doing back in the suburbs.

  With his motorbike resting in the bottom of the tow sled, and wearing his newish insulated zip-up suit and dark-visored helmet, Miles pulls away from OBG. He cranks the Polaris fast down the empty, snowy highway toward home.