Songs for Dark Seasons

by Lisa Hannett

  In this today, what Tina-Marie Dalton gots most of all is a history of greatness and a future what can’t and won’t never compare. Even so, she can’t stop comparing ’em. Comparing is all she gots. Comparing is what she does.

  * * *

  Combing and tearing, plucking and scoring, I sort Tina-Marie out better than any city shrink can. Leather Jenny only untethers what holds folk down and not a strap more. Too much greatness is a diamond-crusted suit, I reckon, too big and heavy for any old body to bear, much less this scrawny rack of mine. So I remove only the fetters. The sense of entitlement Tina’s carried from cradle to grave and back again. The soul-deep belief that she’s been ripped off. The injustice of being born a have-not.

  The longing for real happiness.

  One last pale wisp whistles through my grasp--No scarier than getting your ears pierced, she says--but I let that one fall right where it is, alongside a thick ponytail of protected thoughts. Recollections of her upbringing here in Chippewa, her kin-ties to folk in neighbouring counties, her job at the chip wagon, her choir songs, her young’uns, even her lout of a man. These all stay where the gods put ’em first. These stay right where they belong. Ain’t my place to uproot the gal completely, after all. Only to nip out the blighted parts so’s she can grow.

  * * *

  Tina rouses just as I’m putting a crock of beef stew on for dinner. The pot ain’t mine--a loan from someone or another who’ll make themselves known once I’ve gobbled the gift inside it--and it’s heavier than I expect. Sprightly as my new strappings have got me feeling, it’s hard to lift the thing onto the woodstove without a wakesome clang. Behind me, Tina’s sock feet thump sleepily to the floor.

  “Must of dozed off,” she says, squashing a yawn with her fist. “Seems I ain’t gots much of a head for brandy.”

  “Hope I didn’t disturb you,” I says quietly. In the stove’s iron belly, coals clunk against the grate. On the rooftop, a nightingale trills. Slow-stirring garlic into the slop, I sneak a glimpse over my shoulder. The window’s a rectangle of blue twilight, the hearth burnished copper, the couch almost pretty in the warm glow. Tina’s frumped on the middle cushion, lacing up her shoes. Mascara smudged and hair haystacked, dress so creased it’s practically smocked, the girl ain’t never looked so composed. So calm.

  “Sweet dreams?”

  “Not a one,” Tina says, smiling wide. “Slept like a log. With five kids, that’s dream enough. Gots to give thanks for the little things, I reckon.”

  “Amen,” I says, clanging the spoon against the pot’s rim. “Hungry? There’s more food here than I can chew through in a lifetime. Shame to see it spoil.”

  “Gots to scoot,” Tina says, shaking her tousled head. “Promised the bubs mac ’n’ cheese tonight. Y’all going to be alright out here on yer lonesome?”

  “Hunky dory,” I says. “Just grand.”

  “Grand,” Tina says, snorting. “When’d you start talking so fancy? Putting on airs with me now ’cos I flaked on supper?”

  Feels so good to laugh, I keep at it a while without even wheezing. Getting hold of myself at last, I nod her toward the door. “Take care of yourself, princess.”

  Tina-Marie flushes. “You too, Miss Jenny.”

  Leaning over the stove I take a deep, rich breath. Steam hides my grin. “Always do,” I says, waving as she leaves.

  For what it’s worth, I ain’t touched none of Tina-Marie’s savvy, nor her gift for learning--won’t hurt if she’s a history buff, now will it? Won’t hurt if she retains enough facts to win big on Jeopardy--but I did take her firsthand know-how of all those beautiful pasts, the taste and smell and feel of all her wondrous back-thens. So there won’t be no more highfalutin talk out of Miss Tina-Marie Dalton. No more diplomatic concerns. No more being pen-pals with French philosophers. No more scratching her name on balustrades in famous temples. No more sailing nor sword-fighting nor conquering. No more champagne. No more gold.

  Let someone else play Catherine the Great for a spell, I reckon.

  Let someone else raise Genghis Khan.

  Let someone else hope for the better.

  Four Facts About the Ursines

  They are always hungry.

  No matter what y’all are told, now or later, this is the fact to remember. Got it?

  Of course they don’t eat day in, day out. Ursines can go weeks, months--decades, even--between feeds. How quick they digest depends on how much they gorged, which in turn determines how long they’ll doze. In other words, the biggest gluttons is the heaviest sleepers. A couple of babies might knock out a grown buck ’til morning. A busload of you kids might set a few Ursines to dreaming for a month, maybe two if they’re still cubs. Teams of young men caught pick-axing in the mountains might keep a full clan snoring in its den for a year, give or take, so long as the Ursines in question are small to mid-size.

  Our vitals make for powerful soporifics, I reckon, more potent by the swallow than a full copper vat of moonshine.

  But once the beasts start a-tossing under twig-and-moss blankets, once they start a-turning over the marrowless bones littering their cave floors, y’all can expect their drowsy arses to roll right out of bed. Roll right back down the slopes to our valley, our camp. Right ready for their next meal.

  Now, y’all are probably thinking (as most fools round here will, and do) that surely Ursine bellies is only so big. Surely they must get full up sometimes. Or food-poisoned. Or simply bored of the same-old, same-old snacks. Gold-miners, rodeo-riders, leather-workers, log-drivers: ain’t the gluttons sick of gobbling these four courses and nothing else, year after year after year? Surely the lot of us must taste like scraps of rawhide, thrown horseshoes, hot-rusted steel? Surely one of us is bound to twist their guts, sooner or later. Surely they can’t chew through every last tender body without some wizened chunk finally sticking in their craws? Some rotten specimen choking them off?

  Enough with the giggling, little skeptics.

  I know what the lot of y’all are thinking; it’s writ clear in them dimples you’re grinning, and the roll of them sweet, oh-so-innocent eyes. Ain’t no Ursines in Big Kalhoun, silly Nanny. Yer making this up. Hmmm? Next you’ll swear the world ends at the tree line, that it stops dead where the mountains’ blue peaks blend in with the summer sky. Don’t scowl so, little darlins. I don’t mean to tease. We’re all of us born with that same Columbus complex--nothing and no-one exists beyond our realm of knowings, not ’til we discover them for ourselves. Believe you me: we’ve all of us been the very first explorers of our age. We’ve all of us unearthed brand new mysteries other folks already dug up countless times before. Sooner or later, everyone in these here ranges finds it’s second nature to dig. Can’t blame no-one for doing what comes natural. Doing whatever they can to survive. To thrive.

  As I was saying.

  The Ursines is a god-awful, ravenous lot.

  After all this time--more than four dozen years by my reckoning--they’re stirring in their hollows again. Shucking coverlets, rubbing yellow crust from snouts and lashes, turning bleary gazes to the Big Kalhoun-shaped pantry we’ve been so busy replenishing for ’em. Took ’em that long to sleep off their last feast, and exhale all the treasure their kind produces in slumber. No doubt their lairs is hell-shiny with it; the rough stone walls closing in, grown thick with the gold of Ursine’s petrified breaths. By now, I bet they’re feeling awful cramped in there. I bet they’re aching for a good stretch.

  Yes, smart-mouth: even more cramped than in this here burrow of mine.

  No, sirree. Y’all can’t go a-roaming yourselves today.

  Believe you me, soon the Ursines will break loose of their rich covers and come roaring down to our valley once more. Breaths cold and empty as their stomachs. Toting sickles, scythes, hessian sacks. Hankering for breakfast.

  Think this is nawt but a tale I’m spinning? Some trick to coop the wretched lot of y’all inside, forcing you to keep old Nanny company?

  Hmmph.

&n
bsp; Your folks ain’t done you no favours, keeping y’all ignorant. They’re doing you no favours at all. Trust me.

  So tell me, little experts. Indulge me. You think I’m that lonely? You think my noggin’s gone soft as warm suet? Maybe it’s crammed with fogged memories, nonsense stories, and old lady fears? Well, I may not recall my own Mama, but I sure as hell didn’t pop from her nethers hunched and shrivelled like this, I can tell you that much. My hairs weren’t always like milkweed fluff, my skin weren’t always thin as birch bark. I didn’t always have this limp, this crutch.

  Once upon a time, I was pink and fresh and just as delicious as you.

  The Ursines couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into kids like me.

  Like y’all.

  And folks is ever keen to let them.

  * * *

  Hard to say who came first to these mountains: us or them. Could well be they were already tucked in their dens, hibernating, oozing ore, long before giant Nathaniel Kalhoun ever piled picks, prospecting kits, pegs and pans into that famous mule-drawn cart of his, long before he drove it overland from the prairies. Could well be there was all this prime territory here for that digger’s kin to claim because any and all other would-be settlers was even then lining Ursine bellies. Then again, it could just as well be the steady influx of pioneers strapped into covered wagons--old-fashioned meals on wheels, they were--that drew the beasts out from whatever dark womb spawned ’em, and lured ’em straight to these ranges.

  Either way, the fact is, Ursines ain’t known to share.

  They reckon this land is theirs. Far as they’re concerned, there ain’t no negotiations, no bargains, no stake on this turf sharper than their soul-crunching teeth. And that’s one damned compelling argument, if you ask me.

  But that’s the trouble, ain’t it? No-one really has. Asked, that is. Even though I once escaped the foulest of Ursine dens--the very kitchen, where the worst eating happens--not merely one of them abandoned nests your folks sneak into nowadays. Armed with chisels and axes, your parents hack chunks of hardened breath-gold into barrows, then slink away with wheels squealing under the weight of that theft. Not that they see it as such, of course. Stealing.

  Season after season, they just keep tramping upslope, taking what the Ursines won’t willingly give. Again and again, no questions asked. Never getting caught. Never punished. Never learning what it means to lose more than ever they gained.

  They don’t really know what it means to survive, your folks. They ain’t never wriggled out from under Ursine paws. Never felt that rank, oh-so-precious, honey and pork-scented breath on their cheeks. Never heard claws gouging swift trails to our camp, never seen them deep dirt-grooves scummed up with human gravy. They don’t know what it means to really fear.

  Listen.

  Quit your fidgeting--there’s room enough on this bunk for everyone. C’mon, snuggle in close, little poppets. No, we can’t light a fire. Last night I clambered up the grassy face of this here lonely burrow, and clogged the smoke-hole with rubble and scree. Took some doing, that did, what with this gnawed leg of mine twisting every which way it shouldn’t, this crutch better at tamping down chimney-junk than holding an old woman upright. Then I nailed shut the only window, welded its hinges flush into the schist. Rigged the passage door so’s it only unlocks from the inside. And all that after I’d already trekked round to the beast-riddled side of the mountain, after setting and sparking a couple well-placed fuses, after hobbling back home with pebble and mortar blast still rattling my skull.

  (I could of been a decent engineer, you know. I’m none too shabby at planning ahead, predicting outcomes, figuring and calculating. Shrewd, folk called me, after I eluded the Ursines that time. Cunning, they said.)

  Plus, we’ve run out of logs and I sure as stone ain’t going out to chop more. No, children, neither are you. Few things ring louder than axe-echoes in this valley, and it’s best we don’t hook the beasts’ ears right about now. Grab another quilt from the blanket box if you’re cold. Jam your hands under your rumps. Make do.

  Of course, ain’t nowhere warmer than inside Ursine guts. If y’all don’t behave, I could roll you in syrup, leash you outside as a tantalizer ... That’s what your folks’ folks use to do, you know, when the growlers kept a-coming. Thick and fast and hungry.

  At first, it was the tunnel-dogs what went missing, snatched straight off the chains pegged outside prospecting tents. Then horses. Then the burliest miners we had, my own gruff Pops included. The Ursines tore through our outlying camps, randomly munched their way inward. Raiding harsh and unpredictable. By the time they reached Big Kalhoun proper, there weren’t much in the way of large meals left. Orphans well and truly outnumbered their elders, clever widows outnumbered the men who’d dragged ’em here. You’d of thought, wouldn’t you, that those Mamas would of fought back--flint and flame women they were, like your old Nan. You’d of thought they’d wield stakes and steel--whatever they had near to hand--to lay waste to immediate threats, to lay claim on a safer future. You’d of thought they’d sacrifice anything to survive.

  And in a way, I suppose, they did.

  * * *

  When I was a young’un--yep, just like y’all, except my folks was already both scorching in the afterlife--I sure ain’t had a cozy room like this one, nor a soft bunk to cower in. Stray children like me were lucky to snag a bit of mattress in some widow’s hallway; more often than not, bed was nawt but a thin towel spread out on her cold storage floor. Where I was boarded--near the crick, at Mrs Masterson’s place--there was just two other orphans, twins too young yet even for talking. For a short while, the three of us shared a threadbare sleeping bag laid on a scrap of foam.

  Next door, Widow Ross were stuck minding a bunch of Big Kalhoun’s tykes. Nine, I reckon, which weren’t so many, since she started off with none of her own. Even so: Ursines can’t snatch ye if yer harnessed to the porch, I once heard her say to the girls she’d taken in, little Junebug and her sister Thelma-Rose. They ain’t got the thumbs to undo buckles and knots.

  Of course, Widow Ross had it nowhere near as hard as Widow Jameson further on down the road. Already she’d birthed seven bubs herself, but got saddled with four more on account of her cabin having a good-sized living room. A burden, she often mumbled into her brandy. That’s what us kids was to them. Heavy reminders of what they’d lost.

  Not a one of them ladies had it in her to care for young’uns what weren’t her own. Not really. Not like your old Nan.

  Hush, you. Make believe y’all are those baby boys I shared a bed-roll with--quietest things I ever did meet, those two. Didn’t grizzle one bit when Mrs Masterson wrapped ’em in her floral apron, plunked ’em out on the stoop, and strapped ’em to the railing with a set of reins she didn’t need no more.

  Ursines don’t care for the taste of leather, she’d said, when she caught me spying through the fly screen. She whistled for her loyal guards--sleek, muscular mutts with vicious snarls--and clipped their collars to chains nearby. There, she’d conveyed with a smirk and a lazy wave. Don’t say I ain’t never helped.

  Bullpucky, I’d shouted (ever the bold creature), right before she hauled me out by the ear, tethered me next to the droolers. Just beyond reach of the hounds.

  We’ll see, she said, then went inside, pretending she couldn’t see nothing at all.

  That night, the twins made punctured kick-ball sounds in the pitch darkness: two sharp squeaks, a whispering whine, and that was it. They were gone. Gulped down. Leather and all.

  To be honest, my own clobbering wasn’t that much noisier. I would of shrieked my throat raw, if only I’d sensed the bastards coming. My hearing’s as good now as it was then, but still nowhere near sharp as theirs. If only I’d seen ’em creeping out the forest, across the grass yard, lurking up to the house ... But when they grabbed me, the moon was worthless as a silver dollar in a wishing well. Black clouds rippled in a soot sky, heavy and low, as good a blindfold as you’re ever like to get. Mountains me
rged with the woods round Mrs Masterson’s cabin, each one dark as the other. On the porch where I was hog-tied, sometimes numb, sometimes aching, there came them two squeaks, double whines, then a sudden dim absence where the twins should of been. Silence where there should of been dogs.

  Now, I ain’t going to lie to y’all the way Mrs M did me. Ursines ain’t got no problems with harnesses. They love the taste of leather and denim just as much as cotton bibs and aprons and flannelette. Porch rails ain’t no goddamn barrier. Neither is darkness.

  Ursines don’t eat with their peepers, after all.

  Whimpering or wailing--whatever the volume--calls them quick as any dinner bell. Yeah, they must of listened out our location, the twins’ and mine, traced the frantic flutter of our breaths. And in the split-second before that foul skin and bone--hand? paw? long-fingered something--clamped over my face, before it smothered me from jaw to brow? I must of hollered.

  Lord, I still hope it set their ears to bleeding.

  I hope it hurt.

  Y’all have got to understand: ain’t nothing more fearful than being snatched. To be suddenly vanished from your old life without warning. Without a word. Without a why. And there ain’t no reasoning with the Ursines--we can’t talk our way out from their jaws, not now, not then--especially not if you’re little and helpless like I was, like all of y’all are. Ain’t no escape whatsoever but to close your damned eyes. Hide in plain sight. Play dead while they feast on the living.

  But y’all don’t have to worry about that now. Every last one of you is safe, aren’t you just. Tucked warm inside, truly safer than houses. Ain’t no other way y’all could stomach stories of these beasts, ain’t no other reason y’all would be begging to hear ’em. Tell me I’m wrong.

  To you, the Ursines are only ideas. Fodder for harmless nightmares. You ain’t never been carried up to their warrens. Ain’t never had their greasy digits rubbing, prodding, insinuating. Ain’t never felt the rasp of their honey-snot tongues on your neck. Ain’t never been tossed on a wet, cold pile of chopped twigs and logs--make that boulders and bricks and shards of stone--no, make that ribcages. Gnawed torsos. Thighs, elbows, chins, knees. (Over there was Junebug, always and still in gingham, Thelma-Rose in her dungarees.) Y’all ain’t never crawled under the decaying shells of your hollow-skulled playmates. (White leather booties for the twins, who’d never learned to walk.) Y’all ain’t never worn dead bodies for cover.