The Followed Man

by Thomas Williams

  In twenty minutes he seemed to have learned by heart each rock, tree, bush and dead fern within his view. Jake's voice kept moving, far away now. Then he heard a light tick and jump, stop, the movement of something, Jake's voice far behind, not in this hollow of vision, and a brown rabbit appeared thirty yards away, disappeared, came up over a hummock between trees, was there, hopping along, a little gray on his belly in the beginning turn to­ward his winter white, his paws white already. He was about to go out of sight for good, or for another long unpredictable circle when Luke without conscious thought of the mechanics of the gun leaned into it instantaneously and shot, an invisible cone of energy flailing across the air and the rabbit was brushed away, rolling once and then out of sight. Luke ran over, loading another shell as he ran, and the rabbit was still there, bunched soft hair, awkward legs and the brown eye still bright though it was dead.

  He waited for Jake to come along the still-live trail of this rabbit, to find what he had earned. In a few minutes Jake came in sight, casting, weaving along the still-bright scent. When he came near Luke the trail was gone, blown away by the shot, and Jake cast des­perately though still joyfully in circles until he smelled Luke, a surprised quick look, and Luke said, "Here." Jake finally saw the dead rabbit and came to it all wagging and friendly, curious, mouthed it without biting, smelled it and licked the soft fur. "Okay, Jake," Luke said, feeling good because of Jake's approba­tion, even triumphant. "Jake, here is the first tangible product of our relationship, right?" He took the rabbit, made a nick in its warm belly with Shem's knife and pulled the belly skin softly apart. He hadn't killed for a long time. Then the knife point slit the hard belly and hot blood warmed his fingers. There was the liver, fortunately clear and healthy, and he pulled it and the kid­neys firmly against their tethers out for Jake, who gobbled them delicately from his hand, then licked the blood from his fingers.

  Another happy nosing of the rabbit and Jake was ready to hunt again. "Which way?" he asked. Luke pulled the skin from the long muscular body of the rabbit. He would clean it above the dia­phragm later, at home. The entrails, on the leaves speckled with blood and their own bloodlike pigmentation, still moved in waves, but they would soon cool and stop.

  "Home, now," Luke said, but Jake went on ahead, hunting again. Luke carried their meat back through the woods to the ca­bin, the firm dark flesh of legs and backstrap speckled even dark­er by a few shots. He remembered now, from odor, texture, heat and the stoppage of death the prize that was the weight of good meat. He had been allowed to hunt with Shem one fall. His par­ents were away somewhere and left him at the farm, lonesome and a little apprehensive of the fascinating real world of slaughter and game and of his fierce uncle who knew how to do everything and do it right. But Carrie had made rabbit pie, with a light pastry crust that when crumpled by the serving spoon emitted rich steam. He would see if he could find such a recipe in one of Hel­en's cookbooks, and this evening he and Jake would divide and eat, the absolving act, the one absolving act, for this small vivid harvest.

  One day George came by hunting grouse, stopped in with some diffidence, and said that Phyllis would like to see the cabin some­time. "And Eph and Tillie," Luke said. "I had you and Eph in mind whenever I did something right, and I'm not exactly ashamed of my joinery. Anyway, you'll be tactful enough now it's done."

  So the four of them were to come, bringing food. "You know Phyllis," George said. "She's got to pay for the privilege of you in­viting her or she won't be happy about it." George was the same way, of course. "Well, don't bring any beer or booze, then," Luke said, a concession he wasn't sure they'd honor.

  The day when they were to come was cold, though bright. Octo­ber was changing toward its end, and the colors were gray, purple at a distance in certain light. The sun was only slightly warm, if the wind didn't get to the body first, the pale light seeming as diminished as a reflection as it lay briefly across the fields. When a small white cloud crossed the sun the valley grayed into winter.

  They arrived in Eph's old Buick, driven by Tillie Cole, and from the trunk brought hampers, casseroles, plates, silverware and all the equipment of caterers, Tillie and Phyllis supervising this treasure as Eph and George helped carry it in.

  Then was the time for the inspection tour of the cabin. "Looks like it'll make the winter," Eph said, "Rugged enough. You sure do like strong studding!" He laughed, referring to the logs. "Tell you the truth, Luke," he said seriously, "I kind of thought you'd give up on the logs, get somebody to put you up a frame camp and let it go at that." Eph seemed a little shaky, slower and more hesitant when he moved. He'd missed a patch of hair under his chin when he'd shaved that day. He leaned on his arm when he stood, walking slowly toward where he could get an arm down on a railing or on a log in the wall so he could lean on it. His belly sagged from his tall body like a sack beneath the wide chest. His cheeks were splotched with islands of veins, and he glistened with sweat as though he might have a slight fever.

  They all thought the cabin good, the kitchen handy, the com­posting toilet a wild idea because it was actually inside the house. They asked if it smelled. Luke explained the venting system which took care of this. With the eagerness of his comparative youth and its desire for approval he explained this, and his solar window. He demonstrated the internal shutters, and explained, perhaps over-explained or waxed enthusiastic beyond the proper taste. Of the heat absorbing column George said, "That's a lot of stone wall in a room. Don't it make you think you're living in a cave sometimes?"

  "It's a warm cave, anyway," Luke said.

  "It is comfortable in here, and no fire in the stove," Tillie said.

  "It's cozy, sort of," Phyllis said, "though different." She stood with her cane looking at Luke's books. "George, you make me some bookshelves like this, we won't be tripping over books all the time." Then she said to Luke, "George don't like bookshelves— can you figure that out? He just don't like bookshelves in a room. Says it reminds him of a library and he never wanted to live in a library."

  When it was time to get the food ready, Phyllis and Tillie took over the kitchen end of the room. George, saying he'd done it a hundred times when he was a kid, opened up the old kitchen table and put in the center leaf, and soon the feast was on.

  George and Eph would be more at ease sitting at the table than afterward, having to sit on sofa or chairs in the living room with all its clues, such as the books, to show that Luke was indeed a city type who had in a sense recreated his world in this room. Then they would make noises and gestures about leaving. But when the table was finally cleared they did sit a while. Tillie stood at the sink, having insisted upon doing the dishes, the sleeves of her cot­ton blouse rolled up her long arms above her elbows.

  George sat on the front edge of the sofa, Eph beside him, though deeper, with his long legs stretched out. Phyllis was more comfortable in a straight chair, wishing out loud that she were helping Tillie and Luke with the dishes and saying how she hated to be a shirker.

  "I read in the Manchester Union they found Lester sane, down to Concord," George said. "He'll have to stand trial."

  "They got two witnesses seen him do what he done down there in Rhode Island," Eph said. He took out, with some effort, a large blue bandanna and wiped his face and neck.

  "You got the sweats, Eph?" Phyllis said, worried. Tillie turned from the sink and looked at Eph, a steady look, then turned back to the dishes. Eph didn't want to respond to Phyllis's question, so ignored it.

  Lester Wilson was in Concord, the state capitol that was synony­mous with the hospital for the insane. George's mother had died there. Lester had come out of the woods on his own the day after Luke had seen him by the brook. Bloodhounds hadn't been used because of the heavy rain.

  "He give himself up," George said. "Was me, I'd of been in the woods till hunters come across my bones, but Lester, puh! They used to be good blood in that family but it all went bad."

  "Ayuh," Eph said, shaking his head.

  "If I
found the son-of-a-bitch in the woods I'd of saved the state time and money," George said. He had begun to tremble with anger, his gray eyes small in his head. "I just wished I come across the murdering bastard, I'd of blowed his worthless goddam head off."

  "Well, now," Phyllis said carefully, "he did give himself up."

  "And now they give him three squares a day and a dry place to sleep. Probably let him go free in a few years. The son-of-a-bitch killed his wife and two innocent kids, one a baby." George hummed with hatred, his voice as restricted and pressured as his eyes. Luke didn't want one of these older people to be irrational or unpredictable. Whatever George's personal reasons were for hating the murderer, they should long ago have been resolved. He wanted to be fairly judged by these people found good.

  "I heard from Louise," Phyllis said.

  At first Luke thought she was speaking about someone in Lest­er's family, and the name meant somebody else and didn't mean anything to him.

  "That was a shocker," George said, willing, at least for the mo­ment, to let his anger go. This began to mean to Luke that it wasn't Lester's case they were referring to. He was at that moment taking dishes from Tillie, wiping them and stacking them on the drainboard.

  Phyllis said, "She said the funeral's going to be in Wellesley. That would be tomorrow, come to think of it."

  "Wellesley?" Luke said.

  "She wrote me the time and all, but I don't remember. The let­ter's on my desk at home."

  "Whose funeral is that?" Luke said.

  "Why, Coleman's. Haven't you heard? Louise had to make all the arrangements, too. And him so young, but he would drink and drive, and now he's dead. You can imagine how it is for Louise, her only brother and all, and she having her own trou­bles."

  "Will you look at that!" Eph said in his high voice, surprised and pleased. Jake had just come through his little tunnel, and stood for a moment cautiously assessing all these people, though he was not antagonistic or afraid. "By the gods!" Eph said. "That hound's got his own private door! Now what do you think of that?"

  "But I thought Louise committed suicide," Luke said to Phyllis.

  "Oh, she tried, but you knew that, didn't you? Now she's back with her husband maybe she'll feel better about her life, though this tragedy won't help, I'm sure."

  Luke put these conceptions together very carefully, as if haste might make him lose his balance in front of these people. At first he believed no one, not even Phyllis—or at least Phyllis's informa­tion. He felt the same weakness and vertigo he'd had when he rec­ognized his own bridge while it was still in another valley.

  Jake came over to him and asked for a touch, then went to his rug in front of the cold stove and proceeded with some desultory licking of his genitals.

  George had stood up, his hands out in the air in front of him in a strangely blind, or supplicating fashion, his eyes toward some­thing in the air. A vision? Then he clapped his hands violently. "Mosquito!" he said. "Must of been the last one of the year. Come up out of the cellar, probably." He opened his hands and looked at them for evidence, which he found. "I got him all right!" He wiped the remains on his pants. "Now, that's a case, you might say, where the punishment exceeded the crime!"

  Tillie said, "Eph's getting too tired, I can tell, and I think we'd better be getting him home. Lately he's had to give up driving his machines, you know, and he gets weary."

  Eph didn't hear this. He watched Jake, or seemed to be watch­ing him. He looked morose, out of energy, and his forehead and pate, where they were pale above his cap line, were shiny with oil or moisture.

  When they had gone, with their utensils, hampers and casserole dishes, the leftovers upon their insistence transferred to his re­frigerator, Luke stood in front of the cabin. The bare trees and the brushy pasture were in the cold shadow of the mountain. Jake sat at his feet, for once not asking to hunt. Jake was five years old, according to his estimate and the vet's, which meant in a man's term of life about thirty-five, but each ensuing year would add seven to that quick metabolism. Phyllis and Tillie seemed in good shape and would last for a while longer, but upon George, and especially Eph, a shadow had fallen; he had seen it.

  It wasn't just that he disapproved of what was happening down there in the world. In the most literal way he couldn't understand it, and he seemed himself to be the carrier of a virus causing death. You murder what you touch, but I will touch you last.

  Out of the corners of his eyes something loomed, and at first it seemed the mountain grew, as if the forces that had raised it were back in motion, heaving bedrock upward. But it was the black shutter of a storm coming over from the west, the mountain, un­der it, dim and iron-gray with snow.

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