by BK Loren
I hear only snippets of what the cop says. “We’re looking into it. . . . She’ll be all right,” and so on.
“Are we in danger?” Dad asks.
My thoughts whir. Dad thinks he’s in danger because of me and Zeb?
“No danger,” says the cop. “You could help her out a little at this time.”
The cop wants dad to help me out? Why would Dad help me out after he knows I’ve been stealing with Zeb? I stand to be punished for the rest of my life.
For years I’ve been rehearsing my confession. I want, most of all, for Mom to understand that I thought I was helping her. I’m ready to tell her now.
Dad sits at the table. He sucks in a deep breath, lets it out in a whistle. “Seems something’s happened next door,” he says.
The belts? Of all things, they caught us for stealing Chet’s belts?
I look at Zeb. He avoids making any eye contact with me. For the first time ever in my life, I see his hand shaking as he cuts his meat.
Right then a knock comes on the door again. Slower this time, Dad walks to the door, pulls it open, and smiles his fake smile. “Officer,” he says, sticking out his hand as if he just met the guy, even though it’s been less than ten minutes since they last spoke.
The cop pokes his head into the house, and we can all see his ruddy face now. He points with his clipboard to Zeb. “You had some run-ins with Mr. Thatcher in the past, didn’t you, son?”
Zeb looks at Dad, not at the cop, and Dad keeps his smile going, and he steps outside. He stands on the porch, talking to the cop for a few minutes. Then he leads the cop around to the backyard. From the window, we can see him showing off the deer that Zeb got. They stand there in the cold, fog billowing from their mouths, and I can see Zeb trying not to watch them as he eats his meal. Pretty soon Dad’s back at the table again and his jaw must ache from fake-smiling. The cop car sits in front of our house a few minutes longer. Then it pulls away.
Dad tries to eat his dinner. “Now I don’t want anything ruining our Thanksgiving dinner,” Dad says. “Who knows how many Thanksgivings we’ll have when we can all be together.” He tries to smile again, but it weakens every time. He takes a deep breath. “Seems Chet had some trouble up at the cabin,” he says. “Dolly’s fine. We need to look after her, but she’s fine. But Chet, he took his own life.”
Mom gasps, and Zeb keeps eating, doesn’t look up at all until Dad says, “The gun he used was stolen. They’re looking into that.”
Dad repeats what he said before, says we’re not going to let this ruin our Thanksgiving. He starts eating again, like nothing has changed. But everything has changed. I can see his hands shaking as he eats. I look at Zeb, and I swear I see water coming to his eyes. But he keeps eating, trying hard not to look at me. Mom sits motionless. Along with everything else, I can’t stop thinking about what she asked me to do. I am not hungry.
THAT NIGHT, MOONLIGHT TURNS the snow bright, almost like daylight. I look out my window at Zeb’s deer before I go to sleep. Blood drips from the head of the deer onto the snow, a dark outline. It looks like a map drawn in the snow by a finger I can’t see. It looks like the deer is dreaming and its dreams are spilling red out onto the snow.
My dreams are like that sometimes. They’re bigger than anything my head can hold. They spill out of me and outline a map of a place I’ve never seen, my secrets at last as visible as blood on snow.
Zeb—Thanksgiving, 1980
ON THE DAY OF the hunting trip, before light, he wakes up but keeps his eyes closed, stays perfectly still and listens to the house breathing. His bed folds around him like mountains, the way they embrace him and lock him in all at once. He wants to see what’s on the other side of them. He tries to imagine a landscape that does not hem him in. He wants his mother to get better. This morning he’s half afraid to head into the mountains and hunt, something he loves, but he fears that, this time, he may not come back. The jaws of that ragged skyline might clamp down on him once and for all, keep him there, in the woods, where he knows he belongs, away from people, away from family, away from anything he calls home.
But soon as he feels his sister’s feet kicking his back, he comes out of it. He knows he could never really live alone. His kid sister sits on the floor and kicks at him to wake him.
“Morning, Willa,” he says. He thinks, Jesus, she’s a kid. She’s such a kid, and she has no idea about anything. He lets one eye open just a little, gives her the exasperated brother look. She smiles that giddy smile, and his exasperation falls away. Before he can get out of bed, she’s got his tent out, his bags half packed for him, and she’s already prepping the eggs and stuff for breakfast. She’s such a kid.
When he meets his father in the kitchen, it strikes him how much he, himself, is not a kid. Not anymore. He feels like a man now, like this trip will be the first one where he’s in charge and his father’s not coming along to make sure he stays out of trouble, but coming along because the two of them need time together. Like maybe he is there for his dad this time, and not the other way around. His mother is dying. He and his father both know this, and his little sister will never really understand it. If she did, it would gnaw at her the same way it gnaws at him, his edges frayed with doubt constantly, when Willa is always so certain and content.
He wants to go hunting, wants it more than anything right now. But it takes all the determination he can muster to get him to walk out that door, leaving Willa and his mother alone in the house. “You take care of your mother,” he says to Willa, and she says yes, she will, and he believes her, but it does nothing to make him feel better. Only thing that takes his mind off it all is the headlights out the window, Chet’s headlights, because that asshole is heading out for the Thanksgiving weekend, too.
“Thatchers are going up to the mountains, I’ll bet,” Dad says. Zeb says “Yeah,” and he watches them pull away, and already his mind is relieved of thinking about his mom and kid sister, and his brain clicks into scheming a way to get his favorite gun back. He’s broken into Chet’s house a couple of times now looking for it, but it’s never there. He’s seen Chet target practicing with it in the field, knows Chet still has it, but that gun is never in the house when Chet is gone. Must take it with him everywhere, he thinks. Until he gets that gun back, Zeb’s mind won’t rest. He knows where Chet’s cabin is, has been there himself once, a long time ago, before his mother was sick and before the whole family knew what an asshole Chet was, when everyone was still friends with Chet and Dolly.
He’s the hunter here, not his dad. So he leads the car to a hunting place not too far from where the Thatcher cabin is. “I worry about Mom,” his father says.
“Yeah,” Zeb says, and it feels sharp in him, and he quits thinking about Chet and the gun for a little bit. But two seconds later it pisses him off that his dad brought up his dying Mom in the first place, out here in the woods, of all places. “They’ll be fine, Dad,” he says. “Willa’s a good kid. She can look after Mom.”
“You’re right,” his dad says, and he hates his dad for saying it because Willa is twelve years old and she can’t take care of his mom. No one can. He doesn’t bring it up again. He never stops thinking about his mother and his sister, and his thoughts agitate him, keep him constantly on edge. But his dad makes like he’s okay with it all. He sits back and starts asking Zeb silly questions about hunting.
“What’s it feel like, Son?”
“No way to explain it. Just something I like to do,” Zeb says.
“Beautiful animal,” his dad says.
“That’s part of it. Yeah.”
“Well, you’re very good at it,” his Dad says, finally.
Zeb thinks the word thanks to himself, but he doesn’t say it out loud to his father. Most of what he wants to say coils up tight inside of him, no reason to uncoil it. He knows his father knows he’s grateful. The words are extra. His sister talks a lot. Zeb doesn’t.
When they get to the mountains, Zeb directs his father. “Turn lef
t here. Take this dirt road. Head back into the woods.” His father follows his directions. Zeb takes them to a camping spot that is less than a mile from the cabin where Chet and Dolly will spend the Thanksgiving vacation while their dog sits in its pen in their backyard, shivering and hoping for food.
Zeb and his dad set the canvas tent up together, neither one of them saying anything more than they need to say to get the thing to a standing position. But it’s that small amount of talk that makes Zeb start to feel good. He’s camping and hunting with his father, and everything starts to feels okay.
With the tent ready, Zeb lights the Coleman stove, and he cooks dinner by the light of two lanterns. He likes the glow of the mantles that keep the light burning. They look like little fishing nets set afire, burning bright. He sets one on either side of the stove and gets water boiling for one of the newfangled meals-ina-bag he’s not too fond of. But they make it easier on his father, and that makes it easier on Zeb. He opens a can of pork-and-beans and heats that, too. Real food.
When dinner is ready, his father joins him. They sit under the stars, and their breath makes little clouds of fog as they eat the hot food. “Not bad,” his father says.
“Wait till morning,” Zeb says.
His father looks at him.
“Tastes even better in the morning,” Zeb explains. “Longer you’re out, the better the food tastes.” The stars milk the sky with light like they never do in town. There’s more light than darkness in the wilderness night sky, something Zeb longs for in the lowlands, something that eases him here, in the mountains. There are sounds in the trees behind them. Rustling leaves. Hoot owls. Zeb and his dad keep eating. “If we could stay out here for a week, like my Boy Scout troop, a can of beans would taste like a steak!” Zeb says.
His father laughs. “If we stayed out here for a week, I’d be hankering for a real steak, I’m afraid.”
“That, too,” Zeb says. Then he realizes they’ve never had a beef steak, not even once. It’s just a figment of their imaginations. It makes him laugh even harder, and his dad chuckles right along with him—no reason—and the no-reason part of it makes them both laugh even more, when laughing is not something common to either one of them.
Eventually, his father asks him if he has a plan for the next few days. Zeb nods. “I know this area. We’ll get a deer.”
“All right, then,” his father says, and they both stand up.
“You waking me up, or am I waking you?” his father asks.
“Me, you.”
The two of them crawl into the tent and sleep soundly. Zeb doesn’t think about his mother, about Willa, about stealing. He just sleeps. He wakes up in what seems the middle of the night but is morning, and he tries to remember what hooked him yesterday and made him feel so pissed off. Right now, nothing could trouble him. His father sleeps, and he crawls out of the tent and lights the lanterns. The glow of them does not diminish the thickness of the stars. By the time breakfast is ready, his father is squatting next to the campfire with him. They don’t need to talk to know what to do next. Everything falls into place naturally.
When the time is right, they both start gathering gear. Zeb carries his .30-30 in the event his shot comes to him in thick brush, and he lets his father carry his .30-06 for any deer that show up in open fields. Two guns, two different shooting circumstances. “You okay with that?” he asks his dad.
His father nods, and they take off walking into the woods.
It’s not long after sunrise when he remembers why he came to this spot for hunting. He remembers Chet’s cabin and the gun and it bothers him a little, but what he really wants right now is just to be here, in this place he loves. The anger that hums in his brain, the desire for that gun, that asshole Chet, they still bother him, but he can put them all out of his mind here. When he doesn’t want to think about them, he doesn’t have to. This morning, all he is thinking is deer. He starts following animal signs, doesn’t give a shit about Chet in his cabin. He sees deer scat followed by fresh morning tracks, and his mind clears. He bends down, points to the signs, and his father leans over to see. “There’s a resident herd here,” Zeb says. “We picked a good spot.”
His father nods and follows his son.
They walk together into the woods, their feet sinking soundlessly into beds of soft greyish-blue fir needles. Just as the sun tips over the bony backed mountains, they duck into a copse of aspen trees. In that light, the gold leaves, like sharp dots of light in the lifting fog, turn bright enough to hurt Zeb’s eyes.
Zeb sits with his back against the trunk of a tree. His father sits next to him, and this is it, Zeb thinks; this is the life. They talk now and again, neither one saying more than, “Hear that?” or “Deer are taking their time this morning.” Time passes like time should pass—rich and quiet and all their own. It’s cold, and the woods smell nutty and sweet and dusty, the way hunting-season woods always smell.
About noon, Zeb notices the fall leaves rustling in a particular way, not wind. His posture changes. His back straightens against the tree he’s been leaning against, and he lowers his eyes. He listens. His father hands him the .30-06. Seconds later, seven does and one buck spill from the aspen, into the meadow. He can feel his blood rushing through his ears like little rivers, and then the sound pours over and out of him, and the woods throb all around him, and he can’t hear a damn thing except a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh moving through him.
He offers the first shot to his father. “No. It’s all you,” his father says.
“I’ll teach you how to shoot,” Zeb says.
His father shakes his head no, and Zeb knows this is his job in the family. He is the only one who can shoot. He waits perfectly still for that magical moment when the deer stop grazing. It happens every time. They suddenly sense him, and he sees them sense him. They become as still as Zeb. Right then, Zeb smoothly raises the rifle and shoots. The deer scatter like seeds across the land, and the buck falls to his knees. Then to his neck. Then to his side.
The click of the gun cocking, the blast, the sound of the buck falling, and the crash of the rest of the herd taking off are all one sound. Time layered, no sequence.
After the deer is dead, Zeb snaps back to this world. He feels as if he’s been gone, as if where he’s been is not “better” than here, but it’s more real. His father helps him field dress the deer. They leave the entrails there, steaming on the frozen earth.
“It’s hard work pulling the deer back to camp,” Zeb says.
“We could tie its legs to a thick branch and carry it upside down,” Zeb’s father suggests.
“Dangerous,” Zeb says. “When hunters see a deer moving, some of them don’t take time to see if its right-side up or upside down.”
“No kidding?” the father says.
Zeb laughs a little under his breath. His father seems so slow-minded and innocent sometimes. That’s what he thinks to himself. He wonders if it comes with age, this slowness. He plans against it right then and there. He vows to never let himself become like his dad. He thinks about his mom now, wonders if his father were smarter and stronger, if she could be healed. It pisses him off, the thought of it, and he forces his mind back to the deer.
He considers making a travois to carry the carcass, but that would mean one man doing all the work. Instead, he cuts two thick branches from a tree, ties them to the buck’s antlers, like handles. He hands one tied branch to his father, and the two men start walking together. Their breathing turns heavy and fast within minutes, and their layered clothes smother them. They keep on, working together. “Still don’t like hunting?” he says to his father.
His father almost doesn’t answer. He looks at Zeb as if he’s silly for asking. Then he says, “It’s your sport, Zeb. Not mine.”
Zeb admires his father now. He hopes he would be like this if he ever has a son.
They’ve been pulling this deer together for a good fifteen minutes when they hear gunshots nearby. “Hey,” Zeb calls out. “Got hunter
s here, not deer!” They both let go of the deer and crouch close to the ground.
The father follows Zeb’s lead now. Zeb stays low, but tracks the sound and looks that direction. It’s not just one shot, and then silence. It’s one shot after the other, like target practice.
“Hunters target practice during hunting season?” the father asks.
“No,” Zeb says, firmly, pissed off. He calls out again, “Hey! No deer here. Stop shooting!” Both men are still breathing heavily, the adrenalin rush of pulling the deer mixed with the situation they have now.
“Let’s get out of here,” the father says. Zeb can see that his father wants to leave for good. He wants to stop hunting altogether and regrets coming with Zeb. It pisses Zeb off, how moments can be stolen like that. He can see his father thinking of Willa and his mom back home. His father says, “Who knows what this guy’s up to? Let’s just move on out, Zeb.”
“Exactly,” Zeb says. “Who knows what this jerk is up to? It’s not good hunting practice to move on without telling him.” Zeb has it figured out now. It does not come to him like a memory. It’s like an entire world drops down around him, and he is back at home suffocating with all the anger he feels there and the way he hates Chet and Johnny and the people around him who are not part of him, who do not help him or his mother or his family, when he knows they could. He remembers with his entire body why he led his father to this spot so close to Chet’s cabin, and he adds things up in his head, the arrogance of Chet, the stupidity, the handgun, and Chet’s idiotic target practice that he does in the field behind their house. He can barely hear his father’s warnings now. He forgets about the deer and starts walking toward the shots. His father walks with him until they see a cabin in a clearing and a man standing alone, in front of the cabin.
“Chet,” Zeb says.
“Look! Our neighbor!” his dad says, cheerfully. There’s a happiness in his voice that Zeb cannot stand. He thinks his father is like Howdy-Doody, a man who thinks only the best of people, even when they have never deserved it. The father waves like a real pal. “Chet!” he calls out. But Chet can’t hear him over the shots. That’s when Zeb loads his rifle and fires a shot into the air.